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Oct. 4, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:40:14

1474 Freedomain Radio Sunday Show October 4 2009

Taking a job with the state, 'rights' as a religion, and an excellent argument for statism!

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	Alright. Well, sorry about that.
	We are live, baby, live.
	Some technical excitement, as usual.
	So, this is the Sunday call-in show.
	If you would like to toss out the number, Mr.
	J., that would be much appreciated.
	That number is 347-633-9636.
	The number, again, is 347-633-9636.
	And, of course, you can use the Click2Talk on blogtalkradio.com.
	Just sign up for a free account.
	But as I said before, make sure that you do not have an open microphone with speakers, otherwise Steph will zap you.
	Yes, using the brainpower of logic coming down the wire.
	So yeah, feel free to call in and talk about anything that is on your mind that is philosophically related.
	I will start off with a brief intro, but James, we don't have anyone yet, right?
	We do, we do, we do. Oh, well, let's turn the show over to the listeners, much smarter than me, so please go ahead.
	Caller from an area code 508.
	You are on the air. Hi.
	Hi. Can you hear me?
	I sure can. How you doing?
	Hi. I'm good.
	How are you? I'm just great.
	Thank you. Good.
	So I have a question about the morality of using government services.
	And just to give you a little bit of background, what happened to me is I went to grad school and I wasn't really interested in philosophy at the time, as I am now,
	so I hadn't really thought about it a lot, but I ended up getting a scholarship where I basically have to, they paid for me to go to grad school, and afterwards I have to work for them for two years in order to sort of pay off that scholarship.
	I'm sorry, who was them? The government, the federal government.
	I live in the U.S. My question is, I've heard you say in some of your podcasts that you feel that, given the choice, working for the government is immoral because it takes jobs away from the private sector, that kind of thing.
	Hopefully, I'm stating that correctly.
	No. And if I have said that, then I have stated it incorrectly.
	So let me just very briefly give you my two seconds of it, and then we can fit you into some continuum.
	My perspective is that unless you want to go and live in the woods, which, you know, you obviously haven't because we're having this conversation.
	Unless you want to go and live in the woods, you're going to have to find some way to participate to some degree in statist I mean, you can't get away from it.
	You have to drive on the roads.
	The water here is delivered by the government in Canada.
	If I want to see a doctor, I mean, I have no choice, right?
	I have to participate in a state of society to some degree.
	Unless, again, I want to go and live in the woods.
	And I don't think living in the woods is a viable option for helping the world.
	I mean, if all the people beforehand had not tried to improve the societies that they lived in, but rather had fled to go and live in the woods, we'd still be living in the woods as a species.
	So I think there's great honor.
	And there's great courage and there's great dignity and there's great nobility in staying in a society when you have better ideas about that society to improve it.
	I think that's a good thing to do.
	And to do that, we have to participate to some degree in statist activities.
	So I don't consider it immoral to participate in statist activities, to take Statist money because it's going to be taxed from you anyway, right?
	You're going to spend the rest of your life working.
	Even if you work for the government, they still take a good portion of your income in terms of taxes.
	So to me, it's kind of like a state of nature.
	Would you steal back something from a thief if it's the only way you could get your property back?
	Well, of course you would, right, if it was safe.
	And so to me, it's a state of nature when it comes to the property.
	That having been said, I think there are several criteria which are important to remember when you're looking at the degree of involvement that you have In statism.
	So, for me, working for the defense department is a long way away from working in the software field and maybe taking a government contract once in a while.
	You know, like if you're a software company or whatever, or you're a consultant or something.
	You know, those things to me, they're two very, very different situations.
	I don't consider it immoral to get involved in government activities at all because we didn't build the system.
	We don't have any choice about it.
	And the only way to be pure in that situation is to live in the woods.
	And even then, you're only living in the woods because of the government.
	So it's still dictating where you live, so to speak.
	And I just don't think we should surrender more freedoms to the government than we should.
	I couldn't go to university or college in Canada Without taking state subsidies, because tuition is heavily subsidized here.
	And that's just the reality of the situation.
	I certainly have paid more in taxes than I ever will receive back in government services, because I don't get sick, I don't take unemployment insurance, I'm not on welfare, that kind of stuff, right?
	So, no, I don't consider it immoral at all to get involved in state activities.
	I do think if you want to live a happy life, you should try and stay away from direct government employment for long periods of time, just because To me, in my admittedly brief experience in working with the government, it's a pretty toxic and destructive and dysfunctional environment because it's so far away from the market.
	Things tend to get very weird, very personal and very political in the government.
	So that's my sort of two cents worth of advice, but I certainly would never say to anyone, you must or you must not or you should or you should not have varying degrees of involvement in state activities because there is no clear line.
	I think there are extremes which we would both recognize as very different, like pure entrepreneur only deals with free market as much as possible versus It does.
	For my particular situation, I'm having a hard time drawing my line, though.
	Working for the Department of Defense It's something that definitely, if I continue to go with this plan of working for them two years to pay off the scholarship, working for the Department of Defense is something that definitely could happen for my particular field.
	That's just where a lot of the government jobs are.
	I'm sorry, but would you have some choice about where you went to work?
	Yes, I definitely have some choice, except for the fact that there's a lot of jobs available in certain departments and not a lot of jobs available in other departments.
	Look, I mean, I couldn't go and work for the department.
	I'd rather work in a donut shop than work for the Department of Defense.
	And again, I wouldn't say that that's a fundamentally moral decision, like good and evil, right and wrong, that other people should make.
	I just couldn't...
	I couldn't live with it myself.
	And this is not to say...
	I could be entirely hypersensitive that way, so this is not to say that that's the right decision and, you know, everybody who works for the government is bad conscience or whatever, Department of Defense.
	I couldn't do it. I couldn't look in my daughter's eyes and say to her, this is what I do.
	I could not wake up, go to work, knowing that I was contributing to organized violence that was getting people killed.
	I couldn't do it any more than I would take a job with the mafia.
	Now, that having been said, if you've got kids to feed and this is the only job that you can conceivably get, then you can make the best of a bad situation.
	But if there's any choice whatsoever, I would just strongly urge to stay away from that stuff.
	I think that getting involved in that kind of butchery, even at a peripheral or bureaucratic level, leaves a stain on you that's really, really tough to get out.
	And I think it is also really then tough to be convincing towards others of the need for sacrifices to achieve a free society.
	So that's just, again, I'm not...
	Please understand, I'm in no way competent to tell other people what to do in these kinds of situations.
	I'm not a central planner, right?
	And I'm very humble. When it comes to these kinds of things, I just wanted to share my perspective.
	Like, I think it's a tough thing to live with because your unconscious will know, your conscience will know that you're participating in a system that does get people killed.
	And if you wouldn't take a job at the Mafia, you know, I would say the Mafia is much less harmful than the Department of Defense.
	Right. So my sort of He gave me his two cents on it, and this is probably my last comment.
	I just want to get your thoughts on what he said.
	So what he said was that, you know, basically, my kind of situation is where they're trying to, let's say, they're trying to fill five jobs at the Department of Defense, and so they're definitely going to fill those five jobs.
	They're not going to create another position for me if I decide to apply for, you know, buying for, and five people are going to end up in those roles.
	And so in his opinion, if I applied for that job and got it, it would not be necessarily clear to him that I am sort of 100% supporting the The designs of the Department of Defense.
	In a way, he said it would be good to fill that position with someone who has opinions about morality, has proper ethics, and can sort of put as much of a positive spin on that effort as possible.
	And do you think that he would say that, I don't know what your profession is, but let's just make it up.
	If you were an accountant and you had to go and work for the mafia for a couple of years, would he make the same argument that you would be able to bring virtue to the mafia because of your moral position?
	I mean, I don't see how the mafia is fundamentally any different.
	So, yeah, I guess he would say that given the sort of the choice between putting a really evil person in the position and a really good person, the position that the good person would have a net positive effect as compared to the really evil person.
	So is it his opinion?
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, which is to say nothing about, you know, whether it's going to have a stain on the soul of the good person.
	Ah I would never tell a good person to go and work for the mafia.
	I would just never do it.
	I would never tell a good person that the place to go to achieve some sort of goodness and virtue is to go and work for the mafia or to go and work for the Department of Defense.
	I would just never tell someone to do that.
	Now, it certainly is true that if you don't take the job, someone else will do it.
	And it certainly is true that it's not like if you don't take the job, the Department of Defense is going to be crippled and war will end.
	I mean, those are all arguments from effect.
	Those are all arguments from consequences, right?
	You know, you can do some good in a corrupt system is a lie that I've never believed, because I've never seen it actually happen.
	I've never seen it. I mean, I've never seen it actually happen.
	I mean, look at Ron Paul that's been working in this corrupt system, which he himself claims is evil and corrupt, for decades, decades and decades.
	And he still is handing out all the federal cash to his local constituents, just like every other politician.
	He has not been able to do anything to manage or control the size and power of the state.
	What he has done is he's drawn a lot of people into believing that getting involved in libertarian politics and getting involved in the Ron Paul campaign is going to be a great way to achieve liberty.
	I believe enormously strongly and powerfully that the way that we're going to free the world is through the positive examples, through living the values that we have in our own lives, in our own personal lives.
	There is no doubt whatsoever that when we move towards a free society at whatever speed, and it's going to happen, it's inevitable, it's going to happen, but at whatever speed we do it, we're going to move towards a free society.
	And some people are going to get royally hosed.
	Quite a lot of people are going to get royally hosed.
	I mean, just think of everything. Like all the farmers who are getting subsidies are going to lose a lot of money.
	All the union people are going to lose a lot of money.
	All the teachers are going to lose their summer vacations and their 9 to 3 work days.
	Because it's completely inconvenient for parents to have two months of what do I do with my kids during the summer when the parents have to work, right?
	So things are going to actually have to adapt Sorry, I'm not yelling at you, right?
	People are actually going to have to adapt to customers.
	Things that are going to actually have to adapt to customers and not be run for the benefit of those in power and those who are sucking on to the teats of those power.
	So, when we move towards a free society, there are going to be personal sacrifices.
	And how is it that we're going to have the right, so to speak, to say to people, you must sacrifice for the sake of a better world.
	Everybody has to sacrifice for the sake of a better world.
	It's just a reality. You cannot gain improvements in society without sacrifice.
	And to take a silly example, right?
	I mean, if you look at the end of slavery, well, there was a huge economy around slave ownership and slave selling and catching slaves and branding slaves and having manacles for slaves and manufacturing whips to beat slaves with and so on.
	And everyone who was involved in that evil economy lost out when slavery was no longer enforced by the state.
	And so whenever we say to people we need a free society...
	We are also saying to them that large numbers of them, and quite probably the person we're talking to, are going to face enormous negative repercussions.
	Think of all the people taking history degrees, right?
	I know, right?
	Are they really going to be able to take history degrees in a free society?
	Well, if they're rich, yes, but it seems less likely that they would.
	It would have to be more of a hobby. And so, if we're going to ask for sacrifices, I think the first thing that we should do is live those sacrifices ourselves.
	And I've certainly, you know, not to pat myself on the back too much, but I've certainly taken this stab myself, right?
	Leaving this pretty lucrative career to do this crazy internet philosophy stuff, right?
	So, I can say to people, yes, you should make the sacrifice, because you know what?
	It isn't really a sacrifice.
	You will end up poorer, but happier.
	And who knows what will happen in the long run.
	So I think if you're going to say or you have a philosophy which asks other people to make sacrifices to have a better world, I don't think that it's reasonable for you to not live that value yourself and make sacrifices if you have to.
	You have to spend a year looking for a job.
	You have to spend a year living low rent.
	You have to do whatever it is you have to do.
	Maybe you have to take a pay cut.
	Maybe you have to work part time. Whatever it is to avoid working for some place like the Department of Defense, If you're not willing to make that sacrifice, I don't think you have any right to say subsidies to farmers should be eliminated, or whatever, welfare should be changed, public schools should be privatized, whatever it is that you're saying that is going to involve sacrifice on behalf of others.
	I think the best way to gain credibility, not with other people, but with yourself, is to make those sacrifices yourself, realize that they aren't really sacrifices, that they actually make you a lot happier.
	And it gives you the emotional energy and credibility with yourself to really be able to Have a strong effect on other people's thinking because you've lived the values.
	You've found that they're not really sacrifices.
	So you can say to farmers, yes, you should get rid of these subsidies.
	Yes, you should have no subsidies.
	And it's going to suck for about a year, maybe six months, but it's going to be great afterwards.
	You'll be so happy. You'll look back and say, I can't believe I was ever addicted to that green crack.
	All right. I feel like I'm having in some problems, and maybe these are just intractable problems, having a problem sort of weighing immediate benefits to my life versus sort of the moral value of things.
	So just to use my current example, you know, it's going to cost me a whole bunch of money to try and get out of working for the scholarship and trying to weigh that versus, you know, living my ethics and stuff like that.
	And I feel like I haven't really found any authors who were able to give me some way of sort of comparing those two currencies and trying to formulate some kind of conversion between the two.
	Do you know what I mean? I completely know what you mean.
	At least I think I do. And a lot of people have not written about this stuff.
	And for the obvious reason, That a lot of people who were working in the freedom movement have not made the kind of sacrifices that they so blithely command others to make, right?
	So to take an example I've used before, we have free market economists, right, who say that the free market should run everything and people should move to the free market and they should stop taking subsidies because subsidies and protectionism is bad, right?
	And yet these people live in state protected unions and they get Sabbaticals and they get three or four months off in the summer and you have to teach 10 or 15 hours a week and blah blah blah blah, right?
	So these free market economists are staying as far as humanly possible away from the free market while demanding that everybody else go and test their luck in the free market.
	And of course, I think that I've proven that you can actually have some kind of income educating people in the free market and you can set it up for very little money and all you have to do is find a way as best you can to engage people in the joys and challenges and terrors and excitements of thinking and individuating and being who you are.
	I've proven that it can be done.
	I've broken the ice as far as that goes.
	And so, of course, looking back, I can't see any free market economist saying, hey, finally, I can live the values of the free market.
	I can get out of this status protectionist racket that I'm telling everybody else to get out of.
	And I can finally make my way on the free market.
	And I can finally connect with students and teach people and get widely accepted and speak my mind and not be bound into this controlling environment of academia.
	And of course, they're not doing that, right?
	And I can sort of understand that in the 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s and maybe even to the 90s.
	But now there's real different opportunities that people could take.
	And the fact is that they're not taking it.
	And of course, you see also in the libertarian movement, there are a lot of people who say, well, I'm an atheist, but I'm very down with religion.
	I'm fine with religion.
	Religion is good. I just happen to be an atheist.
	And why do they say that? Well, because there's a lot of money that comes into libertarianism through Christianity, through religious groups.
	And so they won't stand up for what they actually believe in because they're following the money.
	So I don't think you're going to get a lot of good advice on how to balance these things.
	Again, I'm just trying to give you some of my own thoughts.
	It seems like a sacrifice upfront to give up Money, stability, prestige, power, a commute, whatever you want to call it, right?
	It seems like it's a sacrifice up front, but it's really not.
	It's really not. The degree of happiness that is on the other side of living by your values rather than following the conformity dollar.
	Again, I'm not willing to starve to death for my values, but I sure as hell was willing to take a 75% pay cut for my values and I can't I can't imagine now.
	Now it's easier because I know it's kind of working, but I can't imagine going back and making a different choice in the past.
	So I think it's worth taking the sacrifice.
	I think it's worth taking the debt.
	I think it's worth taking the bullet so that you can look in the mirror and say, these are my values, and I did not compromise my values for the sake of immediate financial convenience.
	Because if you do... Do that, right?
	If you say, well, I'm going to compromise all of my values for the sake of immediate financial convenience, that to me is fine.
	I don't have any huge problems with that whatsoever.
	But then you just have to stop telling other people to do that, right?
	You have to stop telling other people that they need to make sacrifices in their immediate financial gains in order to live with integrity and live with virtue.
	If you're not going to do it, then for heaven's sake...
	Just don't tell anybody else to do it and get out of this whole freedom movement.
	That would be my suggestion. But if you kind of do both, like if you take the greenbacks rather than the integrity now and you tell other people that we need a free society and people should take that sacrifice in order to build a free world, then you're just doing the freedom movement more harm than good.
	So as long as you're conscious of the choice, I'm always comfortable with whatever choices people make as long as they don't lie to themselves about it.
	And I'm not saying you are, but that's just what I'm putting out there.
	Okay, that gives me a lot to think about.
	Thank you very much. You're absolutely welcome, and do get a chance, if you can, to drop past the Free Domain Radio board and let us know how it goes.
	And, you know, don't starve to death, for heaven's sakes, but it's worth taking a few sacrifices for the sake of integrity.
	Because you're a young man, right?
	And you've got a long life to live, and if you crack your integrity early on, it's not pretty.
	You know, when you get into your 40s like I do, you get to see what people's lives are like when they've cracked their integrity egg very early on.
	And it's a pretty fetid omelet as you get older.
	So from this side of the hill, I just wanted to point that out.
	Sure, sure. All right.
	Well, thank you very much. An excellent, excellent question.
	And again, I almost wish I could give some sort of absolute answer, but it certainly is not possible that I can think of in any way that it can be objectively spelled out in some sort of mathematical way.
	James, do we have anybody else hanging on the line?
	There are no more callers yet, but I will give out the number just in case people are listening.
	I did send out some tweets to possibly about 4,000 people, so hopefully we have some new listeners right now.
	The number to call in, if you wish to discuss or debate or talk or If anything that is on your mind, it's 347-633-9636.
	That number again is 347-633-9636.
	I think we need to get some Skype thing going here too.
	I don't know if...
	I guess that's for another show.
	You could also use the Click2Talk on blogtalk.com.
	But again, please make sure if you are calling and using that, you don't have an open microphone with speakers Make sure you have either a headset with a mic or a pair of headphones and a microphone so we don't get any feedback.
	All right. Well, just as we're waiting for people to punch up their dial-o-matics, I want to put a question out to people because, you know, people are always asking me questions and it feels so darn one-sided.
	But I have to throw out a question to people.
	There was a, on Saturday Night Live, this, it's worth watching if you can watch just the intro somewhere on the web.
	It's worth watching the intro because it's a list of everything that President Obama said that he was going to get done.
	And how long has he been in office now?
	Something like, what, 10 months, 8 months?
	Something like, he's been in office for a long time with a majority, a Democratic majority wherever he needs it.
	And so they had a list of everything that he was going to get done.
	You know, like he was going to fix health care, he was going to You know, fix Afghanistan.
	He was going to get the troops out of Iraq.
	He was going to deal with the problem of gays in the military.
	He was going to blah, blah, blah, blah, all these things that he was going to get done.
	So I have a question for everyone out there, and I really don't know the answer to this.
	It's not a rhetorical question. I genuinely don't know the answer to it.
	You know, when I was in, the last job that I had was in the manufacturing sector, in IT, I mean, in IT, providing software services to The manufacturing sector.
	So I'd go on sort of meetings with people and these would be senior people in manufacturing companies.
	They'd be like 20 years or 30 years experience.
	And I always felt pretty embarrassed going in because I'd been like six months in this particular area.
	And so it just seemed ridiculous for me to go in and say, you know, I can make your operations so much more efficient and I can make them better because it's like you've been doing it for 20 or 30 years.
	I would never claim to be innovative or even remotely intelligent enough to waltz in with no particular knowledge of this person's company after only a couple of months in the field and say, This is how it should be done.
	I know how it should be done and you all should change to do it my way.
	It would be embarrassing to me to do that.
	And I felt that very strongly that I just needed to listen and take notes for quite some time before offering anything of use or asking any questions.
	When you think of someone like Barack Obama, the amazing thing, it's jaw-dropping.
	And in the future, they just simply won't believe that we believe this about anyone.
	That this guy, you know, a former community organizer, and I guess he taught some constitutional law and he was a junior senator and blah, blah, blah.
	You know, not ever been in the military, has not studied military history to any of my knowledge, doesn't know anything really about Afghanistan, doesn't know the language, doesn't know the history, hasn't read, you know, because it takes a long time to become an expert in anything.
	I'm with Malcolm Gladwell on this one.
	In the book, Outliers, you know, he makes the argument, it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at anything, anything.
	And that is a hell of a long time.
	So, I was reading in the media the other day that Barack Obama was going to go and ask some tough questions of the field commanders out in Afghanistan.
	And to me, it's like, how could he conceivably know what to ask?
	How could he conceivably know if he was being told the truth?
	How could he conceivably know how to fix anything in Afghanistan or whether...
	How things should work, how things should be fixed.
	It would take so long to even one thing on his list of to-dos.
	It would take so long to become an expert in how the military was doing things there, the history of Afghanistan, the history of its people, the history of its conquest, understanding their culture, understanding their perspective.
	I mean, you could go on and on.
	It would take you years to develop the expertise to be able to contribute anything.
	Again, I mean, if you had to stay and you had to sort of figure out how to fix it, to contribute anything of use to people who've been in the military 20 or 30 years or whatever.
	And that's just one of the things that's on its list.
	What about healthcare? I mean, he's never been a doctor.
	He's never run a hospital.
	He's never dealt with patients.
	He's never been an administrator in the medical healthcare field.
	But he's going to go in and fix healthcare.
	I mean, the list goes on and on.
	How is it conceivably possible?
	If you met someone at a party, just think of this.
	You meet someone at a party, and he comes up to you, and he's like, he's all kinds of pompous, right?
	And he comes up to you and he says, you know, I have a gold medal in every Olympic sport.
	Wouldn't you just look at this guy and say, get the fuck out of here.
	You've got to be kidding me.
	I mean, you couldn't take someone like that seriously, you know?
	I speak every language in the world, past and present, with perfect fluency.
	Test me. Come on. I mean, it would be funny for somebody to make these absurd claims of near omniscience in every conceivable subject.
	I have a PhD in every human discipline past and present.
	I mean, it would be madness.
	And yet, we put these people up there who say that they can do all of these amazing, wonderful, magical things in fields that take years, if not decades, to become experts in.
	And we just go, okay, I guess they will.
	I mean, how does that work?
	How is it possible that somebody can say, I'm going to fix race relations, engage in the military, get the troops out of Iraq, fix the invasion of Afghanistan, fix healthcare, fix welfare, fix, you know, all of these things.
	How can somebody say that with a straight face?
	And how can we listen to it without falling down laughing at the insane narcissistic grandiosity of it all?
	That's my question. I'm going to put it out there because I don't know the answer to it.
	But it is just astounding.
	They look in the future and say, What were you people smoking that this was even remotely something that you could believe in, that people could do all of this incredible stuff in every field, you know, with guns?
	I mean, just amazing to me that this is believable.
	So if you haven't called in for something else and you have some ideas or can give me some feedback or even ask some good questions on that, I'd be really happy to hear it because it is a great, great, great mystery as to how we can believe that one man or even a group of men and women can The switchboard is bare right now.
	I do want to raise a point about this guy that's running America right now.
	What has he done?
	He's done practically nothing.
	He's been a community organizer and that's basically it.
	You can obviously see by the people that he has in his cabinet That he has no idea of what he's doing.
	These are all Bill Clinton's cronies from a previous, you know, government.
	And he's brought those in for that particular reason.
	I mean, here you had him on stage with, you know, Hillary Clinton.
	And, you know, they were, you know, going backs and forwards at one another.
	And it just shows.
	And if people can't see this...
	When, you know, she made the statement, shame on you, Barack Obama, shame on you, that this is just a play.
	It's just a play for people to see, you know, oh, this is the man that we need to vote in because look at the way that Hillary's, you know, reacting.
	Do you really want her as a, you know, president and yada yada yada.
	And the fact that he has all these people now in his, you know, government, to me, Yeah, and he claims to be able to do things like fix health, the most complicated mixture of public and private, free market and fascistic, and the most complicated healthcare with the most lawyers and doctors and complicated procedures ever in the world.
	He claims to be able to To fix this, but he can't even seem to appoint people who don't have some sort of filthy scandal trailing behind them, like failure to pay taxes to their illegal immigrant groundskeepers and all this sort of nonsense, right?
	I mean, if he can't even appoint people, if he can't even go through the due diligence to appoint people who actually have not done something illegal, it just seems to be amazing that people think he's going to be able to summon the magical power to unravel the Gordian Knot of the American healthcare system.
	But we believe it.
	We believe it. So many people believe it.
	And despite the fact that he's done nothing since he's gotten in there, the first thing he was going to do was close Gitmo.
	Gitmo is still open, right?
	It is just amazing.
	And of course, I did a video before Obama was elected, just saying that nothing was going to change.
	You know, that this is from Bush to Obama is about the biggest change in terms of culture and race and history and education that you could imagine.
	And I said, but nothing is going to change.
	All the policies are going to continue.
	Because all you're doing is changing the headlights on a car.
	You're not changing the engine, you're not changing the driver, you're not changing the steering wheel or the direction or anything like that.
	And of course, you know, lots of people wrote to me and said, no, no, no, this is going to be, you know...
	He's Mr. Hopi-Changey-Fairy, right?
	So everything's going to change.
	Lots of big changes and blah, blah, blah.
	And, you know, it is inevitable, and I don't claim to be any kind of genius this way, but it's just inevitable when you apply philosophical principles to the state, you're just going to be writing your predictions just about every time, because it follows the same laws of physics and ethics that everybody else, everybody and everything else that is human-made does.
	Right. And, of course, the government keeps, and he keeps ranting on, About this healthcare, this socialized medicine that he's trying to put in power that of course the state wants to run everybody's healthcare.
	And we know that that doesn't work efficiently because anything that the government puts his hands on doesn't.
	And I posted on peacefreedomprosperity.com a rant.
	It's called Division and Uprising.
	It's by a lady called Vicky.
	I think she lives in Virginia.
	She lives around the beltway there in Washington DC and she's saying why are we going on all the time about health care when we're struggling right now to keep a roof over our heads and put food on our tables?
	Right and close to 90% of Americans report that they're very satisfied with their health care so this health care crisis is largely And of course, most of the people who don't have healthcare have either been driven out of the market by government regulations that force young people to pay the same premiums as old people, or they're just young people who are going to roll the dice.
	Because when you're young, what kind of healthcare do you need, right?
	So it is a largely inflated and manufactured crisis, and these kinds of crises are constantly occurring, right?
	And I think the main reason why I think it's occurring is the government needs a new power grab.
	Every single administration always wants to create a new power grab because they need to gain more power in order to pay off their friends and to punish their enemies.
	And they can't expand anymore militarily because that's stretched to the breaking point.
	People won't support expansions of the welfare state because nobody believes in the welfare state anymore except maybe three people at Stanford.
	And there's lots of other areas.
	They can't expand the war on drugs because you just have to look south of the border to see what happens in Mexico when you start expanding the war on drugs, which is people regularly get beheaded.
	And so they constantly need to get fresh meat to feed them more of the Leviathan, and healthcare is just the next one that they want to grab.
	And after that, they'll go for the computer industry or something else.
	I mean, until people get that this cancer can't be controlled, it's just going to keep growing and expanding.
	All right. We do have a call.
	It's a BlogTalk caller, Leigh Winder.
	He seems to be a popular call-in person now.
	I'm just going to give the number out, though, before I bring him on.
	The number is 347-633-9636.
	That number again. For anybody to call in and talk to Steph or anything that's on your mind is 347-633-9636.
	And, of course, you can use the Click to Talk feature on BlogTalk Radio.
	But please, make sure you have a closed microphone.
	No speakers and open mic because it does cause a lot of interference.
	So, Leywinder, you are on the air.
	Hello. Leywinder, you're on the air.
	Going once.
	Leywinder, you're on the air. Twice.
	Three times.
	Nope, he's not there.
	They come, they go. Well, it's alright.
	We'll give people another few minutes, otherwise we'll pick it up again next week if everybody's out enjoying the last beautiful days of summer.
	Here it's like 17 degrees and sunny, so if I am forced to go outside, I think I can live with it.
	I wanted to pick up something with you about individual rights.
	Sure. Don't mind.
	I wanted to ask you the question, what are your – basically, what are your thoughts on rights?
	I mean are you of the philosophy of the Rand stable that there is only one fundamental right and that's the right to life and then from – That right, all other rights, including the rights to liberty, the right to property, and the right to pursue one's own happiness derived.
	Are you of that thought? And I'm certainly of that thought.
	Being an atheist, I don't get these rights from any government.
	I don't get these rights from any god or any mystical being out there.
	These rights are mine.
	As an individual, as a human being.
	And I just wanted your thoughts on that and to, you know, for you to tell the listeners and viewers out there, Steph.
	Sure, I mean, I guess I would ask by...
	I'm never quite sure what people mean when they say rights, so perhaps you could tell me what a right is?
	Well, I have a right to life.
	I know, that's an example, but what is a right?
	What is a right? Well, they're moral principles.
	Sanctioning, you know, my freedom of action in a social context.
	So basically... Sorry, a right can't sanction.
	A human being can sanction. But a right is just a concept, right?
	Okay, so I sanction the right.
	These rights that I've given myself and individuals that, you know, everybody has these rights.
	Sorry, so everybody possesses these rights?
	Well, would you agree that nobody has the right to come and take your life?
	Sorry, we're jumping the gun because I'm still not sure what you mean by the word right.
	By the word right, okay.
	Sorry to be annoyingly precise, but that's what we annoying people do, right?
	I mean, it's a word that's used.
	People say, well, I have a right to life.
	The right to life is more important than the right to property, so I can steal from people if I'm hungry, because I shouldn't die.
	I mean, and I'm not saying that's your argument, but people say, you know, people have a right to health care, people have a right to a roof over their head.
	It's just a word that's used quite a lot, and I just want to make sure I understand how you're using it.
	By saying that I say that I have a right, it means that, basically, I don't have to ask For permission from anybody to live my life, you know, morally and ethically, where I'm not harming anybody else.
	So if I wanted to inject myself with drugs and get high, I can do that.
	Nobody should be able to stop.
	Sorry, just to make sure I understand.
	So you're saying a right is what is possible for a human being to do?
	Yes. But it's possible for a human being to stab another human being, but I don't think you would say that he has the right to do that.
	So it's not what's possible, it's something else.
	It's... Well, I'm talking about, you know, moral rights, not something...
	He might think that he has a right to stab somebody, and it could be a right in his mind, but it's not ethical and not moral.
	Okay, so a right is that which is moral?
	I guess what I'm trying to say, it's a freedom of action.
	So if you require these rights that are necessary, these are actions necessary to support your own life, and like I was explaining,
	the most fundamental right being the right to life… And from all other rights, including the right to liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, derive that if you cannot have these rights, then you must be a slave.
	If you're not free to act on what you want to do, then you are a slave.
	Would you agree with that? Well, I mean, I'm not sure I would agree with that, because, again, I'm still trying to figure out what you mean by rights.
	I know I'm sounding a lot like our good friend Jan, but I'm just really trying to...
	I don't think that we disagree.
	He's out after you, by the way.
	No, I just want to understand, because it seems to me that you're saying that a right is that which allows you freedom of action.
	These are, I guess, your own laws, your own...
	Way of your own principles of living your life and my thoughts on this is nobody should control me.
	I won't allow anybody to control me because that is not right.
	Wait, now you're using the word in two ways, right?
	Right like morally right and right like a human right?
	Well, do you agree that contradictions do exist, right?
	Sorry, do I agree that contradictions do exist?
	Yeah. I don't believe that contradictions exist, no.
	Okay. All right.
	What I'm trying to say is that you have to have a set of principles, your own principles, and these rights are...
	I'm sorry, sorry, again, just so I understand, you're saying I have to have a set of my own principles or everybody has to have a set of their own principles?
	It's up to you. I mean, I can't make you have principles.
	That's up to you whether you want to be part of the collective or you want to be an individual.
	And I see this as a part where society has gone wrong because some people can't think for themselves.
	And they think that, oh, I have a right to, you know, because this friend of mine now is doing good in business, I have a right for him, for me to steal off him, you know?
	I have a right for him to support me.
	You know, it's not going to be missed.
	But what is a right? It's a freedom of action.
	Well, but it's not just a freedom of action because, again, I'm not, according to the formulation you're putting forward, I'm not free to stab someone, right?
	So I don't have that freedom of action if I understand what you're saying correctly.
	So I'm still not sure what a right is.
	Okay. Well, let's go with a bit of elimination.
	A right is not a thing, right?
	It's not like a kidney or a hat or something that you can hand to someone like a switchblade or something.
	It's not a thing. We know that, right?
	It's not a contract, right?
	Because I think you would assume that it is implicit.
	Right? So, it's not a contract.
	It's not a thing. It's not just a word like flippity-jibbit, which means nothing because you believe that it has a very strong sense of meaning.
	It's not a law of nature, like gravity, because obviously people break rights, as you say, all the time, right?
	It's not charity, like we don't beg people to give us our rights because you believe that they're sort of inherent, implicit in human nature, but they're certainly not implicit in human nature in the way that being a mammal is implicit in humanity, because there are lots of people who violate rights all the time, right? That's why I don't know what it is.
	Maybe I could say then it's what is morally just.
	It's what morally is just with fact, reason, truth.
	It would be a standard.
	A standard of acting morally.
	So it's like a lore for yourself.
	Doing the correct thing, like a right solution.
	Judgment, opinion, or action.
	I think that's casting the net a little bit wide.
	What you mean then is the word right means correct.
	If I hand in a mathematical solution to a problem and I get the answer correct, then I have a right answer.
	It's a logically consistent correct answer.
	If I put forward a scientific theory, which is then backed up by Internal reason and also external empirical evidence than it is a, tentatively at least, a correct theory.
	So is a right something which conforms with logical and empirical moral rules?
	Yes. Okay.
	Okay. So I don't think...
	I think what we want to say then is moral, not right.
	And the reason that I think it's important is that The word right has really been hijacked by everybody else, but the people who think correctly, right?
	So I would say that the word right does a lot more harm than good.
	Because if by right, like I have a right, well, you don't have a right, because there is no such thing in the world, right?
	It's just a concept and an idea.
	And it's a very particular kind of idea.
	It's a moral theory which conforms with reason and evidence.
	And since we already have things like, well, I would say, of course, my own theory of ethics, UPB, I would say that we already have valid and correct and moral and ethical, which we can use.
	But the word right, as soon as we use it, it translates into something very different in other people's minds.
	You know, a right to healthcare, a right to food and shelter, and so on.
	Well, you don't have a right to healthcare.
	Just like if you had money.
	I agree, but there's no such thing as a right anyway.
	When you say you don't have a right, it says...
	That there's something that I don't have, like I don't have hair, you know, or I don't have two kidneys if I've had a kidney out or something.
	But people, you could say the theory that somebody is obliged to give somebody else or must give someone else healthcare is logically incorrect.
	It's invalid. It's an invalid theory because it violates UPB and so on, right?
	That would be the way that I would approach it.
	But as soon as we use the word right, we're sort of creating something to me like a phantasm or a fairy or something that doesn't actually exist in the world.
	And because it doesn't exist in the world, it can be hijacked by people because it's imaginary.
	Right, to me, is like the word God.
	Because everybody says, God is on my side.
	God told me, like all the religious people said, well, I prayed to Jesus and he said to invade Iraq and kill all those Iraqis.
	So, to me, the word right is exactly the same as it's the modern secular deity for people who are having trouble formulating a secular theory of ethics.
	I'm not sure that you're in this category.
	I'm just saying this is my own thought about it.
	The word right is so ambiguous and so subjective that it can be used in any way.
	The word rational is The word empirical, the word logical, the word consistent is not something that is subjective in the way that the word right is.
	I can't say 2 plus 2 equals 5.
	That is logical. That is consistent.
	That is accurate. That is true.
	I just can't say that. But anyone can use the word right as a kind of deity mouthpiece to justify anything that they want.
	You know, children have a right to fresh water or whatever it is that they come up with.
	The future generations have a right to a completely clean planet.
	You know, people can make up that word like the way that every religious person says, God is on my side.
	And so I think that the word right, because it is not defined, that it's not objective, and it doesn't have a standard that is universal like truth and empiricism and logic and so on, I think it's too subjective to be of value, and I think that's why it gets hijacked by everybody else.
	What about just conduct then?
	But the word just, it's been hijacked as well.
	And again, I'm not saying we can't hijack it back.
	It's just a tough thing to do, right?
	But social justice is a phrase that is used.
	Social justice means that the poor should get some pound of flesh from the rich or whatever.
	Justice, again, is one of these words that in the future, I believe, the word justice will be a lot more rigorous and a lot more defined and a lot more rational.
	But right now, I think we need to stick with the basic words, right?
	So if somebody says, a child has a right to fresh water, it's like, well, so you're saying that Force should be used to have one person provide another person goods, you know, and that very quickly falls apart logically.
	So I think we can say, the theory that you're proposing is self-contradictory and therefore invalid.
	It is inconsistent with facts and evidence and therefore it's invalid, which is what scientists and mathematicians and engineers do.
	I think we as the engineers of society, so to speak, as philosophers, should have the same standard and not say, Your argument 2 plus 2 is 5 doesn't have a right.
	Its rights are invalid.
	That wouldn't make any sense in the scientific world or in the mathematical world or in the world of engineering.
	We would say it's an invalid theory.
	And so when people propose these theories, I don't like to say, well, you don't have that right.
	Because I'm just making up something and then taking it away from someone.
	It's just a word then that you have a problem with, right?
	Because it's been used...
	In different ways, and people use it now saying that they have a right to healthcare and things like that.
	It's just the actual...
	Well, the problem I have, I mean, just to take this conversation, you know, with all due respect to your very strong intelligence, is that you are having a great deal of trouble defining the word, right?
	And I think that it's very...
	I think the word right...
	I don't think it's I'm having trouble with the word.
	I'm trying to define it where you don't have a...
	When I bring up how I feel about me having an individual right, you bring up an argument against it.
	So therefore, I'm thinking, well, he doesn't understand.
	Well, maybe you do understand, but you just want to have an argument against my meaning of it.
	So now I'm trying to find another way to bring reason to the conversation where It makes it where you can understand where I'm coming from, if that makes sense.
	Well, yeah, but I still think you were.
	I mean, I think that you were having some trouble with the word right.
	And I'm not saying that, I mean, look, I think you did a great job.
	It is a very, very difficult word to try and pin down.
	It is like nailing jello to a wall because it is really hard to figure out exactly what you mean by this thing which doesn't exist, which you can give and take to other people depending on, you know, and I would say reason and evidence.
	I'm very much a slave to science and I'm very much a slave to empiricism.
	And therefore, to me, I'll always look first for that which works in science and mathematics and logic and engineering.
	I would look for those things. And there's no one...
	If you come up with a design for a suspension bridge that's, you know, a mile wide that's built on balsa wood, nobody would say, your bridge doesn't have a right to stand.
	They would just say, your bridge will not stand.
	Because Balsam would kind of support itself across that distance, let alone trucks, right?
	But they wouldn't say, your bridge doesn't have a right to stand.
	You don't have a right to submit that.
	It's just, the theory won't hold.
	It doesn't work. It is not consistent with facts and reality and logic.
	And I think that's where we need to go to.
	I think that the talk of rights is really confusing and separates philosophy or politics and the humanities from all of the other disciplines that really work.
	Like science and engineering and mathematics and so on.
	And I think we just want to go back to valid, invalid, logical, illogical, consistent with the evidence, not consistent with the evidence.
	And I think that the word right, since it's so singular to this particular aspect of the conversation, since it's so subjective and can be used in just about any context by anyone, I think it's better to not use the word because I think we just want to go with logical and valid and consistent with evidence.
	Okay, so... If somebody knocked on my door and said to me, hey, give me your money now, I'm robbing you, and pulled a gun, and I pulled a gun and shot him dead, to me that was just because I had a right to protect my life.
	What would you say it would be?
	Well, I would say that the theory of self-defense is logically consistent.
	It is universalizable.
	It is consistent with the evidence of history that we have.
	It is consistent with With reason and evidence and history.
	And therefore, it is not immoral for you to act in self-defense, because self-defense is a logically consistent theory.
	Okay. Okay.
	Because when you bring in logically consistent, rather than using the word right, which is a shorthand for...
	I like to protect my property, in my opinion, right?
	When you bring in, well, the theory of self-defense is rational and empirical, then what you do is you put out innately the requirement for logic and empiricism for anybody who's making universal claims about morality or whatever, right?
	And I think that's where we want to go.
	I think we want to put out that the word rights has no implicit There is no implicit standard to the word right whatsoever.
	There is an implicit standard to rational and empirical, which is rational and empirical, right?
	It has an implicit standard.
	The word right has no implicit standard, which is why it can be used like a god to back up any particular claim.
	And people say, I don't know, I want farmers to be happy so they have a right to Subsidies or whatever.
	They just make up this word.
	Whereas if we say, no, no, no, the theory of forcible transfer of wealth is neither logical nor internally consistent nor, you know, consistent with the evidence of history as a valid course of action.
	So I think we want to dump the word rights and we want to just keep talking about logic and empiricism because that puts the requirement out that the theory be, that conform to those standards.
	So you would soon use logically correct?
	Yeah, logically consistent with reason and evidence is the way that I would approach it.
	That's what works really well in science.
	And that's what works really well in business, right?
	And that's what works really well in engineering and mathematics.
	And I just think we should put philosophy and social thinking into the same categories as those other human disciplines which have proven the most successful human disciplines of all, right?
	The free market, science, engineering.
	Medicine as a subset of science, mathematics.
	These are incredibly successful human enterprises.
	Anything which has the word rights in it seems to have been enormously unsuccessful, and I would say because rights has no implicit standard and therefore can be hijacked by anyone.
	Okay. Well, it looks like that Lewin is back.
	He did log off and log back on, so maybe he was having a problem.
	I want to give out the number.
	It's 347-633-9636.
	347-633-9636 and...
	Lewinder, you are on the air.
	Go ahead. Okay, guys.
	Can you hear me now? You're on, baby.
	Can you hear me? Yes, I can.
	All right. Talking about rights.
	Okay. Now, I'm just going to go with the American experiment here.
	These men came together, decided, you know, morally or whatever, that these were our fundamental rights.
	Basic human rights, whatever.
	And I think it was a pretty good thing, really.
	Of course, we've gotten very far away from that now.
	Now everybody thinks they have a right to do whatever they want.
	But I believe that you need to have that moral compass.
	And if you want to call it a conscience...
	Whether you believe in God or not, I think there's something bigger than ourselves out there.
	And that little voice in your head that says, you know, that might not be too good of an idea, I think you ought to listen to that more and more.
	I'm not sure if I really proved that rights exist, but when you get a group of people together and you can all agree on...
	A moral way of living and what you can and cannot do, that's not a bad thing.
	I disagree with just about everything that you've said, which doesn't mean that you're wrong or anything like that.
	I was just trying to find something that I could hang my hat on that says, hey, I agree with you here.
	I like the fact that you're using English.
	I think that is most helpful, and I'm with you on that one, that we should both use a language that we understand.
	Well, can you tell me what a right is then?
	Well, the word itself is just not conducive.
	It's more of what are we expected to do or allowed to do?
	Is that what you consider a right?
	I'm asking what you consider a right, because you're using the word.
	What I consider a right...
	Well, being an American, I have to go back to the Bill of Rights.
	Probably not a good analogy, but where these people back 250 years ago said, listen, we can do things better this way.
	You can have freedom of speech, freedom of religion.
	And all of them are good ideals.
	However, we've gotten to the point now where every group is, well, I have a right to this and that, and I should have a right to abort my baby.
	Not that I'm against abortion or anything, but You know what I mean?
	It's just gotten to the point now where all, everything, well, that's my right.
	I'm an American. You know, everybody, every American just thinks, well, I have this right, you know?
	But what is a right? That's what I'm asking.
	I think you're doing an excellent job of not giving me the answer, but if you could, I would really appreciate it.
	I mean, don't get me wrong.
	I've taken on a bandwagon.
	I agree with you. I agree with you.
	And you're right. It's very hard to give a description of what a right is.
	I mean, you have to almost be bestowed a right if it's what I'm thinking it is.
	In my opinion, I'd like to interject.
	Let's look at a right from what the dictionary says it is.
	I just looked on dictionary.com and it says, Write in accordance with what is good, proper, or just.
	Right conduct.
	In conformity with fact, reason, truth, or some standard or principle.
	Correct. The right solution, the right answer.
	Correct in judgment, opinion, or action.
	Fitting with appropriate, suitable, to say the right thing at the right time.
	Most convenient, desirable or favorable.
	Omaha is the right location for a meat packing firm.
	Of pertaining to or located on the near side of a person or thing that is turned towards the east when the subject is facing north, opposed to left.
	Meaning left and right, you know, in a satisfactory state, in good order, to put things right, sound, sane, or normal, to be in one's right mind, she wasn't right in her head.
	None of those are the definitions we're having any problems with.
	Could you maybe just skip to the one about political rights?
	I mean, let's get to what we're actually disagreeing with.
	Not that I would enjoy you reading the entire dictionary, but maybe we could zero in on where the disagreement is.
	But hey, you're doing a hell of a job.
	I don't think that I 100% agree with you, Steph, because...
	No, no, no, wait, wait. Go back to the dictionary.
	What does the dictionary say? It's the definition of right from a political standpoint or a human rights standpoint.
	For a political standpoint?
	They probably don't have a...
	Oh, they must. A just claim or title, whether legal, prescribed or moral, you have a right to say what you please.
	Sometimes rights that, which is due to anyone, by just claim, legal guarantees, moral principles, etc.
	Women's rights, freedom of speech is a right of all Americans.
	Oh, so what they're saying is that it's a legal claim, so...
	If you violate my...
	Well, I think he said illegal is in there, right?
	Right. It said you have a right to say what you please.
	Sometimes rights that which is due to anyone by just claimed legally...
	Yeah, legal guarantees.
	Right, right. So if I have...
	If you interfere with my speech and I can...
	If I get the law against you, then you have violated my right because you have broken the law.
	One of the definitions is that which is legally guaranteed to a person.
	Right?
	If freedom of religion, if you say you can't be a Rastafarian or a Buddhist and I can get the law coming down on you like a ton of bricks, then you have violated my right, which is that which is either prescribed or enforced by law.
	Well, I mean, I think none of us would agree with that as a definition, right?
	Because that is to say that whatever the law says is just, right?
	So if I have a legal claim upon you for welfare or social security or whatever, then you would be wrong in denying me the money for that, right?
	If the government has a legal right to tax you, then you are wrong because the government has the right of taxation, right?
	So again, this is the word.
	It has a sort of It's not a natural law, it's a positive law word, which means that whatever is in the law is that which is just and right.
	And none of us, I think, would agree with that because there's so many unjust laws.
	Right. What if we use just claim?
	Well, there's no contract though, right?
	I don't really think so. I think a just claim is valid, like if I send you 200 bucks and you don't send me the iPod, then I have The right, in a sense, to the iPod, right?
	I mean, but that's a voluntary personal contract.
	I don't think you can use that in the same way in a universal geographical sense like a country to say that, you know, we can get a bunch of people to pass a law which imposes some sort of claim on everyone whether they've signed into it or not.
	And look, we don't have to solve the problem right now.
	I mean, it's a big problem.
	I've solved it by just running away because I'm that kind of brave guy.
	And just saying I don't use that word if I can avoid it.
	But I think it's important to understand that it is a challenge, right?
	I think it's really important to know as much as humanly possible the exact precise definition of the word.
	And I think I couldn't come up with a definition of the word that was ever satisfying to me.
	And so I just said, well, forget it.
	I'll just go with logical and empirical and forget about this rights thing.
	And I use the word occasionally.
	So, you know, you used the word right five podcasts ago or whatever, right?
	You used property rights because otherwise the rights, sorry, the theory of property ownership, which is logical, consistent, is just a little bit awkward.
	But I just think it's worth examining the word and say, well, when I use this word, what do I mean?
	And can I create a definition of the word that does not allow it to be hijacked by bad people?
	Because if you can't, Given that bad people are very good at hijacking words, I would say to try and avoid using the word and just go with logical and consistent.
	Yeah, but now, can you believe in property rights?
	Oh, I absolutely do.
	I can. Yeah, for sure, because property ownership, just or valid property ownership, all results from self-ownership.
	I never have to have very long debates with people about property rights because What are property rights?
	Well, this is a shorthand for saying theories of ownership which are logical and consistent, logical and empirical.
	You've just argued that we don't have rights.
	So how can we have property rights?
	You know, this is why I said I use the word as a shorthand, if you remember me saying that, not 45 seconds.
	But, you know, it just triggered in my brain that, you know, one minute you're saying, well, what is a right?
	No, no, no. One minute I'm saying I use the word as a shorthand and I will use the word occasionally, right?
	So that people don't jump on me every time I use the word, and then not 45 seconds later, what do you jump on me for using the word?
	There's no jumping on here.
	We're just having a reasonable conversation.
	This is not a Jan Helfeld scenario here.
	No, I mean, when people say to me, you know, there's no such thing as property rights, then I ask them, does that mean that you don't own yourself, right?
	And if they say, I do not own myself, then I say, well, who the hell is making this argument with me, right?
	Because if it's not you, then someone's got their hand jammed so far up your ass that they could be wiggling your eyebrows, right?
	Right. Your body.
	And if you have made the argument, then you own the effects of your body, which is the sounds coming out of your mouth or the typing you've put in an email or a blog or the handwriting or whatever.
	And so if you own your own body and you own the effects of your own body, which is the argument or whatever, then clearly you've established property rights already.
	And so it's a very, very quick argument to say that you can't have a consistent theory of property ownership That does not automatically require self-ownership to try to disagree with it.
	So every single person who argues against ownership of any kind is exercising ownership and saying that they own the effects of their body in the form of the argument and therefore they have already accepted and proven a universal property ownership in making any kind of argument.
	So it's a very, very short argument to have.
	But yeah, people will always try and wriggle out of it, but they can't because they have to exercise control over themselves and they have to accept that they own the effects of their body in the form of the argument in order for any argument to happen.
	It's like somebody yelling in your ear that sound does not exist.
	Well, if you can hear it, they've disproven themselves.
	This is a great conversation and we do have some more callers.
	So I'm going to take Leywinder off the air and I'm going to bring in a caller from 703 Area Code.
	You are on the air, 703?
	Yeah, this is me. It's Chan Helfeld.
	How are you? I'm glad I called in just in time to catch the adhanomum about my discussions.
	Also, I was listening to your discussion on rights.
	I give my two cents.
	Some words have more than one meaning, and rights is one of them.
	It has at least three meanings.
	One of them means that you should do it.
	That means it's ethical. It's the right thing to do.
	Second one is a moral principle.
	When you say individual rights, you're talking about a moral principle, which is supposed to guide your actions.
	That's what we call a natural right.
	And the third meaning is the legal meaning, the meaning that you can Through the law, obtain a result under a particular legal system.
	So when you're using the word, you can clarify which of the three meanings you're talking about, and you'll have clarity in your speech.
	But I called because in the debate that I had with Stefan, time ran out.
	And I was only able to ask seven questions and Stefan asked 13 questions.
	And so I had suggested that we continue the debate.
	And Stefan said he was going to think about it.
	And since I haven't heard from Stefan, I was thinking maybe he would like to continue with the debate.
	Well, sometimes not hearing from someone is in fact the kind of answer, if that makes any sense.
	Not necessarily.
	Oh, did you consider it and decide that you would prefer not to?
	Yes, that's correct. I would prefer not to.
	Okay. Well, here's a plan B. Would you be willing to answer some questions about your position on my show?
	No, thank you. Okay.
	Maybe one of your listeners would like to answer questions about the anarchist position on my show, so they can call the same number and they can...
	Yeah, you're on at 6 p.m., right?
	You're on in about half an hour, is that right?
	Right. Oh, absolutely, yeah.
	It's the same number, so if you want to call into Jan's show, it's not 6 p.m.
	Eastern Standard Time. Every Sunday you do it, right?
	Right, every Sunday.
	Right, so you can call in and chat with him.
	Well, okay. And I am amenable to answering questions on limited government.
	So if people want to ask me questions, I'm available.
	Excellent. Well, thank you very much for calling in.
	I do appreciate that. And just to remind people that they want to talk to you.
	One last thing I'd like to know, Stefan, can I ask you one more question?
	Sure. Before we did this debate, you know, I said that I really didn't want to do it unless it wasn't going to affect our, let's call it friendship or acquaintance or friendly disposition toward each other.
	I have the feeling That it has affected, and so I feel like, you know, I probably shouldn't have had to debate with you because I thought I was exceeding to a petition by your listeners and, you know, being friendly and cooperative, and it seems like it didn't turn out too well.
	So I'm somewhat disappointed.
	It's sort of disappointing to I invest a lot of mental energy into trying to explain and defend a position and explain it and answer the questions that the adversaries have.
	After all, I went into the arena of the adversary.
	I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I am trying to run a show here and I don't want to necessarily get into an aftermath of our particular debate, if that's right with you, just because I want to make sure that I sort of keep going with the show that I sort of had planned, if that's right with you.
	So this is just a reminder, James, if you could bring on the next caller, this is just a reminder that if you do want to ask Jan Helfeld questions about limited government, he's on after this show at 6 p.m.
	Eastern Standard Time, and it's the same number.
	James, do we have other callers?
	We do. There's another caller here from a 908 area code, and you are on the air.
	Hello, Scott. Hi.
	Hi, how are you? I'm great.
	How are you doing? I'm doing pretty good.
	I have a couple of questions.
	I was watching a couple of your videos on YouTube and something came to mind.
	I was watching one of your videos where you say that if you put individuals together in a group and that doesn't change their properties, right?
	That doesn't give them additional properties.
	Like, for instance, we're talking about trees and forests, right?
	And then, also, I was watching the video on free will, and that was a couple of months ago, so I don't remember exactly, so I might be wrong, but I believe you were saying something like, or your definition for free will was that, or one of your statements was that We, like, the sum of our parts make free will possible.
	Like, not an individual, like, not your toe or not your hand, it has free will by itself.
	But the sum of our parts make free will.
	And that kind of sounds collectivist.
	It's a great question. I'm not sure, you know?
	No, listen, I think...
	Sorry, let me just make sure I understand what you're saying, because I think it's a...
	Genius question. So let me just make sure I understand it.
	So on the one hand, I say that if you aggregate things together, you don't change their individual properties.
	But on the other hand, I say that if you aggregate enough human cells together, you get free will.
	And wouldn't that seem to change the individual properties?
	That's a great question. Would you want me to answer that?
	Can I do that now? Sure.
	And when I say answer it, I don't mean definitively.
	I mean, just take a run at it and you can let me know if that makes any sense.
	Just for those who don't know this thing, if you get a bunch of blue balls and you put them in a bucket, they don't suddenly turn red.
	They don't turn into geese. They don't develop the ability to resist gravity or become flame retardant or whatever.
	So when you aggregate a bunch of balls together, each ball doesn't have suddenly some new property.
	So that's on the one side and I will stick by that.
	The forest and the trees thing has become a point of contention, which I really do understand.
	I think it's nitpicky, but I understand.
	Because people say, well, a forest is a collection of trees, but a tree is a collection of cells and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blended this and that.
	And so there's some interesting debates about how do you know the difference between the two.
	And I think that's interesting, but I think we all kind of get that if I sold you a forest and said, if you were a logging company and I sold you a forest and I said, I'm going to sell you this forest, but you can't touch any material thing in this forest.
	You would understand that I was not selling you anything, in fact, right?
	That there would be nothing there, right?
	So you can't take a picture of a family without anybody in the picture, right?
	The family is just a concept.
	So that's sort of on the one side, but on the other side, I do make the argument that says...
	Our individual cells do not have free will.
	A hand that you cut off from someone, even if you keep it alive somehow, does not have free will.
	But there is some property that aggregates.
	When you have enough of a particular set of items together, you get effects which are greater than the sum of Of their parts, right?
	So, for instance, none of the atoms in an amoeba is alive.
	Because whether the atom is in the amoeba or in the surrounding liquid doesn't matter.
	It's still not alive or dead.
	But if you get enough atoms that combine into cells or DNA and into cells and into an amoeba, then you have something that is alive.
	And so, when you aggregate some things together, you can get effects greater than the sum of their cores.
	However, however, One more example came.
	There's this famous article called iPencil.
	I can't remember who it's by. Maybe somebody in the chat room can remember.
	No individual human being knows how to create a pencil.
	Because you've got to mine the graphite, you've got to cut down the trees, you've got to make the wood, compress it and paint it and put the eraser and get the rubber from the rubber tree or a rubber plant or whatever.
	And so no individual human being knows how to make a pencil.
	Yet pencils exist because when you aggregate enough people with specialties together in the free market, you can produce stuff that no individual could produce.
	So this is sort of another example.
	But there's still a very strong caveat in that.
	In that, let's, I mean, we have carbon atoms in us, right?
	And we have water in us, right?
	Water molecules in us. The carbon atoms that you and I have in our body as carbon-based life forms They don't ever have free will.
	It doesn't matter how many you assemble in whatever kind of way, each individual carbon atom does not possess free will, just as each individual carbon atom does not possess life.
	It is true that if you aggregate enough of these Atoms and DNA and cells together in a particular kind of way.
	You do get a human being who is alive, who I believe has free will, can reason and so on.
	But those properties in aggregation do not accrue back down to any individual atom or cell within the body.
	And the reason why this is important, the reason why this debate is so important, is that there is this belief that if you aggregate enough people in society...
	You can create a class of people who have rights that are, to use that word, properties or rights or legal abilities or whatever you want to call it, that are completely the opposite of everyone else.
	So you and I can't tax our neighbors, but the government, people in the government can.
	And so the reason why I think that this argument holds is that when you aggregate enough atoms together, you get a human being who has particular properties and free will and is alive and so on.
	But that change does not...
	Accrue, that collective effect does not accrue back down to each individual atom.
	No, each individual atom becomes alive and has free will.
	In the same way, when you get enough human beings together, you can create amazing things like computers and pencils and movies and all this kind of stuff.
	But getting all of these human beings together does not mean that each individual human being has...
	Any greater or fewer properties than when that human being was separate.
	Like if you get enough red balls together and you create a giant planet of red balls, then you create a gravity well that each individual ball only has a tiny fraction thereof, right?
	But it doesn't change the individual gravity property of each individual ball.
	Just aggregating them together does create a mass effect, but it doesn't change the individual part.
	So, I mean, I think it's an excellent, excellent distinction and point that you're bringing up.
	And it may seem like a contradiction, but it only would be a contradiction if I said that when a human being develops life, that each individual atom then is suddenly transformed into a living atom.
	But I'm not saying that. The individual components of the thing don't change, but when you aggregate them together, like a human being or a planet or a free market, you can get things that are impossible to the individual.
	But that does not change the properties of any of the individuals who compose that collective.
	If that makes any sense. I see.
	But the property is created, but then who owns the property?
	If the property of free will is created by aggregating these atoms in such a way that creates a human, then who is the owner?
	I guess you're saying that there is no individual atom that Yeah, I mean, we all understand that no carbon atom can think.
	Yet, if you put enough carbon and other atoms together into consciousness, you can get something that can think.
	Right. Right.
	Okay. And I'd love to know exactly how that happens.
	Nobody, I think, knows, and we may never know, right?
	But it would be fantastic to know how that happens.
	I don't think anybody even knows how atoms possess the ability of self-motion, which is one of the defining characteristics of life, or ingestion and excretion and reproduction or whatever.
	But it is fascinating, but it is an observable fact.
	Isn't, for instance, okay, let's say free will, right?
	And you have these atoms and then the collection of these atoms create free will.
	But then when the free will is acted via the actual atoms, you have to actually use your hands or your body basically to exercise your free will.
	So it's the actual individual atoms who Exercise the free will that was created by the combination, right?
	So, isn't that kind of what a collective group of people do?
	I mean, I don't want to say government because I really don't...
	I'm not a statist, and I am not a determinist either, but it's just something that I caught when I was watching these videos.
	No, and it's great, but sorry, we know that the property of a human being is mammal, right?
	That's one of the descriptors that is biologically accurate of a human being is mammal, right?
	He's warm-blooded and suckles their young and doesn't give birth through eggs and stuff like that, right?
	So one of the defining characteristics of a human being is a mammal.
	We understand that if we get a million human beings together and we put them in a room, they all remain mammals, right?
	None of them become lizards or animals.
	Phoenixes or hippogriffs or books, right?
	They retain the property called mammal, right?
	Yes. Right, so now they can all make a much louder sound than an individual human being can, right?
	They could just be a lot louder and they have a much greater gravity mass than an individual.
	So they have an effect that is greater than each individual's.
	Which could be thought of as life or free will or whatever, but that does not change the property of each individual human being.
	They're exactly the same fundamentally as they were, maybe just a bit more crowded and sweaty, but they're fundamentally the same as they were before they got into the room with a million other people, right?
	And so this is sort of what I'm saying.
	If we say that a mammal is a descriptor of all human beings, and if we say the non-aggression principle is universally preferable for all human beings, Then getting together a bunch of human beings in a country or a town or a city or whatever,
	since it does not change the property of any individual human beings, it cannot be logically correct that a small group of those human beings can elevate themselves above the herd of everyone else and suddenly gain the moral right to initiate the use of force to achieve their ends when that's completely immoral for everyone else.
	Because the aggregation does not produce something that is different.
	To me that makes complete sense.
	That makes sense to me.
	But then it follows that we have to apply that same logic when it comes to...
	I'm not saying that we don't have free will.
	I'm saying that maybe this specific argument for free will is invalid.
	You know what I'm saying? I've just given you a bunch of arguments as to why it's valid.
	No individual human being can produce a pencil, but when you get enough human beings whose properties don't change in a free market, you can get a pencil.
	I think that's analogous to no individual atom has free will, but when you get enough atoms together, it doesn't change the property of any individual atoms, but together you get something like a human being that has free will.
	That would be an analogous argument, and the balls and the planet and the million people in a room, if you can tell me where the argument is flawed, that would be helpful.
	And it may be, but I can't see where.
	Okay, let me see.
	I mean, I just thought of this today, so I don't have all this.
	Oh yeah, listen, you can mull it over and call it.
	Yeah, first of all, your objection is fantastic.
	You don't have to get the whole answer today, right?
	I've been doing this for 25 years, so you don't have to nail it right now.
	I think your question and your objection is genius.
	I think it's just brilliant. So you can take your time.
	You can go and think about it. You can call in next week, whatever you like.
	I mean, I want to give you the space to come up with a great rebuttal because I think that the objection that you're posing is just fantastic.
	What I would just say quickly is that there are two...
	I mean, from what you're saying, I can see two things.
	You have the individual and then you have the results of all these individuals working together, right?
	So you're saying that a group of people can Come together and create something like an automobile or like a pencil, you know, something, right?
	Now, that result is not necessarily changing the individual property, right?
	If fast people create an automobile, that doesn't mean that just by myself I can create it.
	And I agree with that.
	And sorry, let me just also say, That the fact that I have free will does not change any of the properties of any of the atoms in my body.
	Right. Okay.
	Right. They remain atoms without free will.
	Exactly. And nobody knows how it is produced, but, you know, that's the case that I'm making.
	Right. Right.
	The free will property, however, it's contradictory to what we observe at the individual level, though.
	Like you just said, no individual atom has free will.
	Right. And no individual atom is alive, yet life exists.
	Right. So then, you know, because At the same time, if you group a bunch of people together, they don't magically gain the right to initiate force against other people.
	We're saying that that is illogical, right?
	That's irrational, basically.
	Right. That would be like saying that if I get enough atoms together, then a few of those atoms get free will.
	Right. Right.
	Well, yes.
	However, I mean, a human being is just a collection of some atoms.
	A human being is not all the atoms in the universe, right?
	Right, and a human being is just material.
	There's no soul, there's no magic, there's no unicorns.
	It is just matter.
	A human being is just a collection of matter and energy.
	Yeah, I completely agree with you there.
	So then, if we say that You know, individual people or individual persons don't have, cannot initiate force, and then we also say by logic that, you know, a group of them, you know, some small group of them,
	not all, but some group of them, claiming that they have the right to initiate force, that is illogical, then by the same logic we can say that just because we group a bunch of atoms together in one way, They produce free will.
	I just want to interject.
	We do have another... Oh, he dropped off.
	It's okay. Oh, yeah, no.
	These are really fantastic objections.
	Can you just repeat that, make sure I understand it?
	Yes. On one side, we say we have an individual, and the individual doesn't have the right to initiate force.
	Logically, using reason, we come to the conclusion that a group of individuals cannot claim to have the right to initiate force.
	If we apply that to the atoms coming together, we will say an individual atom does not have free will.
	So then Just a group of them, just because they are organized in such a way that it looks like a human, they gain the free will property.
	Not individually, but the collection of them.
	Yes. Right, and sorry, just to bolster your argument further, because I think I see what you mean.
	To bolster your argument further, what that means is that we say that only some of the atoms in the human body contribute to free will.
	The toenail does not, right?
	The lungs do not.
	But we would say only certain aspects of the brain, only certain parts of the brain would contribute to free will.
	So if I understand it correctly, what you're then saying is that when we aggregate enough things together, certain aspects of it do seem to gain properties that are different or in a sense the opposite of everything else.
	And so that would be analogous to a government which has opposite moral rules to everything else.
	Thank you.
	Yes. So, I've got that correctly, is that right?
	Yes, that's correct.
	Alright. Well then, what we would need to do is we would need to see the following.
	Because the people who are...
	Sorry, the atoms or the cells, let's just say, in the brain that are contributing to free will...
	No individual neuron has free will, but the aggregate of them together seems to have free will, or whatever, life, whatever, if you don't like the free will thing, it's life, or whatever.
	Now, the difference is, though, is that when that is an observable empirical objective, Difference, right?
	We can measure that. Let's just say life, because I know a lot of people get freaked out by the free will thing.
	Let's just say life. We can measure the existence of life.
	And I know that there's certain kinds of viruses.
	We don't know if they're alive or not or whatever.
	But in general, we have a pretty good understanding of what is meant by life.
	The atoms or the cells in the brain that are contributing to free will do not themselves make the claim and then enforce it upon the other cells within the brain, right?
	They don't carve themselves off and they're not ringed by guns saying, we have this right, right?
	It is simply a passively observable phenomenon that just accrues, right?
	We understand that, right?
	The brain doesn't sort of carve itself off, write a constitution, propagandize all the other cells.
	It is something that just happens without the intervention of choice.
	It just happens biologically, right?
	It's like puberty, right?
	Your balls don't just say, I'm going to get big and hairy, and if anyone has a problem with that, I'm going to throw them in jail, right?
	I mean, they just do it, right? They just grow that way, right?
	We can all understand that, if not directly, at least visually and perhaps quite unpleasantly.
	So it is something that occurs naturally.
	It is not something that is created and imposed.
	It is just something that occurs biologically and naturally.
	Is that fair to say?
	Right. But the difference is when it comes to the state is that the state is something which is coerced and imposed and propagandized and bullied and people are threatened and so it is not a naturally occurring phenomenon the way that you know some people are darker skinned some people are taller some people are fortunately bald or whatever it is that that's going on those are all naturally occurring phenomenon but the state is the result of a very conscious and deliberate choice To force other people by claiming moral rights,
	it is a very willed and substantive process.
	It does not occur naturally because otherwise we wouldn't need all this propaganda, we wouldn't need all these laws, we wouldn't need these guns, we wouldn't need the cops or the prisons or the courts or anything like that.
	It would just occur like puberty, right?
	Nobody has to serve you with papers so that puberty starts with you.
	It's like, oh shit, I'd really like to start puberty but I haven't got served with my puberty papers yet, right?
	So there is a difference between that which is passively occurring biologically and is an objectively observable phenomenon that occurs without conscious and directed and violent interference, and that which, like, the state is a group of individuals who claim completely opposite moral rights, that is enforced at a point of a gun, that is a very willed and chosen thing, if that makes any sense.
	So I think that there is a difference between the two.
	Like, it's not like...
	Well, this lizard was classified as a reptile until we changed its categorization and now it's switched over to become a mammal.
	And no biologist would ever be able to do that.
	But the difference is that the human beings who make this right are claiming themselves to have this right on paper.
	They're enforcing it to other people.
	That's sort of one thing.
	The other thing that I would say is that we don't...
	We couldn't take, this is going to sound all kinds of weird, right?
	We could not cut off our little toe, insert it in our brain, and have it be a functional part of our mind, right?
	But in government...
	Sorry, let me just finish the metaphor, and then I'll give you the closing statement.
	And again, thank you so much. These are just fantastic objections.
	When we cut off our toe and put it in our brain, it does not integrate into our brain as a whole and become, you know, so you can't move pieces of matter in and out of your brain and have it function.
	But with the government, we're moving people in and out all the time, right?
	So somebody gets voted into power, they're not different than the day before they were voted into power, except now they have this magical ability to initiate the use of force.
	And then, they get voted out or something, and now they've lost this magical ability, which is like taking a toe, putting it in your brain, and having it work as a perfectly functional part of your free will center, and then putting it back on your toe and having it revert right back to being a toe.
	That's impossible. And so the same thing would occur when people go into and out of the government.
	They don't change their individual properties, because there's no such thing as a permanent government.
	Even in a dictatorship, people come and go, they rise, they fall, they live, they die.
	And so the fact that people move in and out of this power, When themselves, just in the continuance of a single lifespan, they gain and lose this power, sometimes many times, that doesn't make any sense relative to the biological metaphor, if that makes any sense.
	What you're saying basically is that in the case of the atoms, their alms Under which it occurs, you actually have evidence.
	It's basically a matter that you actually can measure and observe, right?
	Yeah, it's not willed, it just occurs.
	Right. So in the case of the government, it's basically all concepts, right?
	It's all a matter of mind constructs, basically.
	Yeah, it's willed and it's enforced.
	It's inflicted and it's enforced and it's willed on other people.
	I see. I see.
	Okay. Well, and you can't graft things in and out of your brain, but people move in and out of the government.
	Even the same person can gain and lose this power many times while not changing at all fundamentally in terms of being a carbon-based mammal with rational consciousness.
	Now listen, I'm not saying that I've clinched it.
	I mean, obviously you've raised some fantastic objections and I haven't thought of them.
	I think they're just brilliant. So, you know, chew it over during the week and if you come up with ways in which my responses are full of ass vapor, then please do call back in and we'll go at it again.
	Or if people are completely bored by it, we can do it privately.
	But I really do want to stay on this topic because I think you've raised a very substantive and important objection.
	This is the first time I hear you say that you want to say a determinism topic.
	I don't consider this a determinism topic.
	Otherwise, I wouldn't. But I just wanted to point out that I think that...
	No, to me, this is more around a biological analogy for statism.
	And since I've brought biological analogies into the question, it's important for me to defend or alter my opinion.
	So I really do want to think about it during the week.
	Mulder, listen to this again.
	If I don't get a chance to call, I'll just post it on the board.
	I just became an idea member maybe a couple of weeks ago, a week ago.
	Okay, just try not to use the word determinism too much, otherwise it will be not a productive debate.
	I am not myself a determinist, but it's just something that I just thought about when I was watching the video, you know?
	No, and there's also another video...
	I do have a good argument for free will, but this specific one just came to mind, you know?
	Yeah, no, it's a great objection.
	I view it more as a significant objection on the state as an emergent property of society in the way that consciousness is an emergent property of human life.
	So I think it's a property which contradicts each individual component in the same way that the rights of those in the state contradict the rights of those in the body, I think.
	And it actually is very similar to the old conception of human society, right?
	So there used to be this conception in the sort of middle to late middle This conception of human society was a body, right?
	The priests with the heart and the kings with the brains and the soldiers with the fists and the peasants with the legs and the arms and all this kind of stuff.
	There was this idea that the society was a body and some people got to be the brain, some people got to be the soul.
	I think it's a really interesting objection that you've brought up.
	I think I've given some pretty good swings at answers.
	I'm not going to say that it's conclusive.
	And I will certainly mull it over more this week, but it's a really, really good objection and I really do appreciate you bringing that up because it is important to be Well, we have 60 seconds left, so I'm going to cram three and a half hours worth of podcasts into one high-pitched squeal.
	Please do try to slow this down later, but not so slow that it starts to sound like Chewbacca, just a little bit faster so it sounds a little bit Like a fax, or if you're over 30, a modem connecting.
	Actually, over 35 probably would be now.
	So I just wanted to thank you everybody so much for your support and generosity and kindness in donating and supporting to this conversation.
	I think that we're just having a crackerjack time.
	We are now approaching 3 terabytes, my friends, of downloads from the Free Domain radio server every single month.
	It is quite an exciting amount of bandwidth.
	This doesn't count any of the video sites that are going on.
	I think we're coming up to 2 million video hits on YouTube.
	So we are just going gangbusters.
	Anything that you can do at hand-hand.
	Drop by freedomainradio.com.
	Thank you so much for listening, my friends.
	Thank you to the callers, and I will speak to you all in approximately 6.9 days.

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