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Nov. 8, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:49:33

1505 Sunday Show Nov 8 2009

Returning to your family, sexual harrassment, and the futility of tax protesting.

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	Alright. Hello, perpetrators of philosophy.
	It is Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio, and I hope you're having an absolutely wonderful week.
	So, thank you so much for joining us.
	This is the Blog Talk Live Sunday philosophy show from Free Domain Radio.
	My name is Stefan Molyneux. With me is the redoubtable Jimmy Von Coxville, who is producing and co-hosting, or at least shepherding, The fine callers to and fro to chat about whatever is on there slash your mind.
	Relationships, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, atheism, religiosity, whatever is cooking around your brain.
	I just released a video on the passage of the health care bill, which has just, I guess, cleared Congress and is on its way to spread its brain fecal matter over the Senate.
	And so I hope that you will check that out.
	I also had a very interesting chat with the director of the, I think, BioPharma from the Fraser Institute about his recent book on the Canadian healthcare crisis.
	We don't have any better answers up here than you do down there as far as government control goes.
	And why? Because there are no better answers when it comes to government control.
	The number to call in, this is your show, the number to call in is 347-633-9688.
	And I am all ears.
	If you want to talk about anything, politics, economics, philosophy, whatever is on your brain, we can have, I believe, a very good, productive, pleasant, and challenging chat about it.
	And I look forward to your calls.
	James, you'll just give me a holler when we get somebody hanging off the line.
	I'm going to do that right now. Looks like we already have a caller from a 703 area code.
	Beautiful. If you could also mute when you're not talking just because I'm getting some background noise from you, that would be cool.
	Okay. Thanks. Hello, you are on the air, so to speak.
	On the wire. Hello, are you there?
	Caller from area code 703, you are on the air, go ahead.
	Hello, testing 123.
	Oh dear, I believe we have an OSHA. A come and go.
	Alright, well we'll wait for that to get sorted out.
	I had a thought today, as I am on occasion want to do.
	That's a scary thing. I know.
	And my thought was this.
	Tell me if you think it makes sense.
	When doing some of the research for the video on the health care, the passage of the health care bill in the US, I kept sort of tripping over some emotional stuff that I thought was interesting.
	Which was, if somebody, let's say, decides not to take out health insurance for, I don't know, multiple sclerosis, they save themselves 50 cents a month or whatever by not checking that box off.
	And then, heaven forbid, they end up getting multiple sclerosis.
	Well, that's a terrible thing. And that's an expensive thing.
	And that is, I'm reminded of a movie, The Bucket List, with Jack Nicholson, who's going through cancer treatments.
	And he's sort of gasping and, you know, going through chemo.
	He's all pale and He's looking in the mirror saying basically some lucky bastard somewhere is just having a heart attack right now and checking out.
	But there's some illnesses that really do stretch out the dollar and quality of life issues significantly.
	And some people, doubtless in a free society, would say, I'm going to roll the dice.
	The odds of me getting it are so small.
	And, you know, we all make those decisions when it comes to certain kinds of insurance.
	And it struck me that in a free society, this is sort of what I would envision.
	If someone didn't get that, and then they didn't want to get insurance for a particular rare illness, and then they ended up getting up some particular rare illness.
	I think what would happen is, or the way that I think an honorable solution to that would be, I mean, we've all made mistakes like that.
	I think we can all recognize the challenge of balancing risk and reward.
	Otherwise, we'd all live, you know, like Bubble Boy in Seinfeld.
	We'd all live in some sterile environment, never get sick.
	Or at least have a lower likelihood of getting sick.
	We'd never drive.
	So things will happen and maybe we won't be insured.
	Now, if someone came to me and said, my friend, I have royally cocked up.
	I did not check off the 50 cents a month or a buck a month to protect myself against this illness.
	And lo and behold, I've gotten it.
	And boy, do I feel like an idiot now.
	So I would really like some help.
	And I think I would certainly empathize with someone like that.
	I really would. I mean, none of us is so above a perfect balancing of risk and reward that we would shame someone who got hit while trying to save a few bucks, got hit with a really unexpected thing.
	I would have a great deal of sympathy for someone like that.
	And I would want to help someone like that.
	I really would. Like somebody who came honestly with humility and said, man, I can't believe it.
	I didn't check that thing off. I've got it.
	And now I'm on the hook for a lot of money.
	I would have a lot of sympathy for someone like that.
	On the other hand, on the other hand, if someone comes up to me who did not get a particular kind of insurance and has an illness, comes up to me and says, You better give me this money.
	I'm showing up with some government goons and you better give me this money or I'm going to have them hold a gun to your head and throw you in jail because it's my right to have your time and your money because I'm sick.
	Well, I must say, no matter how nicely they phrased it, and Lord knows politicians can phrase it quite nicely, I would not feel a massive stirring of sympathy for someone who got in my face with a demand for my charity and my help if they faced an unfortunate situation.
	Somebody who's very young, you know, like 20, 25 or whatever, and says, you know, I got no history of anything.
	I mean, you know, I don't drive.
	I'm careful. I'm not a bike courier.
	They may get struck down with some illness with no health insurance whatsoever because they're saying, well, I'm going to save, you know, a couple of hun a year by not getting health insurance.
	And then they get hit by a bike courier, ironically enough, or something happens or they get ill.
	And someone like that would be like, you know, they would have to really come with humility.
	And if you've ever asked for someone's help when it's not particularly just, like if you've asked for an extension on a paper or I remember asking to have an exam reviewed because I thought the question was ambiguous and I was marked down for answering some.
	And the exam was reviewed and I ended up getting a better mark, which I thought was fair.
	Of course, everyone who gets a better mark thinks it's fair, I'm sure.
	But you don't go and you say, you better fix my exam or I'm going to have my thugs kneecap you in the parking lot.
	I think we want to go when we need something with humility and with, you know, lesson learned.
	I'm not going to do this again, but I really need people's help.
	I think people will be very generous around that.
	I know I would. People would be very generous.
	I just don't think that when you get into people's faces with political thug weaponry, the political thug weaponry of the state, I don't think that people feel that good about that.
	We're not given a chance to be generous.
	We're just cornered and have shotguns held to us and told to give up our time and money.
	Of course, I reject the idea that anybody has the right to my time and money.
	I am very happy to provide generously when I am not forced.
	And yet when I am forced, I find my charitable impulses drying up.
	Extremely and extraordinarily quickly.
	And the other thing that I've sort of noticed, we don't have a caller yet.
	Is that right, James? You're still muted.
	Just carry on again. Let me just check.
	Another thing that I've noticed is that I've never noticed, say, Bill Gates or Warren Buffett saying, I have a right to your time and money.
	It seems to be almost inevitable, though not universal, that the people who claim or demand that we give them, oh, they have a right to our time and money, are almost those with the least to offer in society.
	I don't see people who volunteer at soup kitchens demanding that they be subsidized at the point of a gun, because people who are generous understand that generosity is part of the human psyche, that Care, compassion, and concern for those who are suffering through no fault of their own or, in a way, more so through fault of their own.
	I mean, if your health insurance company doesn't offer coverage for certain illness and you get that illness, then you're going to feel bad.
	But in a way, you almost feel worse if you could have got it and didn't because you get the kick yourself factor, right?
	Somebody like Andy Kaufman gets lung cancer, doesn't even smoke.
	That's a bummer. But if you smoke and get lung cancer, there's the kick yourself.
	Man! Were the cigarettes really that good that I want to face this?
	So, if you are generous as a human being, then you understand that generosity is part of how human society operates, and it's a core part of human society.
	But it's the people who aren't generous who always are the most belligerent, in my experience, when it comes to demanding resources of others.
	Because they're not generous themselves, they, in a sense, don't have that UPB capacity to ask for generosity from other people.
	And I've talked about this when I gave my speech in Philadelphia.
	Like if somebody says, how will the poor be helped in a free society?
	Then you can say to them, well, how are you helping the poor right now?
	And if they say, I'm doing X, Y, and Z, then you can say, well, you're helping them.
	I'm helping them by releasing podcasts about every topic under the sun for free, which I think are fairly well informed and educational.
	So I'm helping the poor get a good education by giving away at least the content of my study education and knowledge for free.
	So I'm doing it. You're doing it.
	Therefore, you know, that's a pretty common thing.
	We got two out of two. We're batting a thousand right now.
	But it's the people who aren't generous.
	It's the people who are on the taking side of the equation who don't want to help out other people.
	What they do is they say, well, I don't want to help people.
	Therefore, nobody wants to help people.
	Therefore, human beings are generally stingy.
	Therefore, we need a government to force charity.
	But that's just...
	I mean, to use a psychological term from an amateur standpoint, that's just something called projection.
	I'm this way, therefore everyone's this way, therefore we need to solve that problem using coercion.
	It's like, no, I'm generous.
	Most of the people that I know are generous and help people out.
	You're the one who's not generous.
	And the fact that you're not generous does not give you the right to force, quote, generosity out of me at the point of a gun.
	I think that's an important thing to understand because very often we will get dragged down into A kind of nitty-gritty technical discussion of things like charity, but I think it always comes back to the personal.
	And that doesn't mean it's always about the personal, but I always recommend start with the personal, right?
	Like if somebody advocates a government program, say, so you support the use of violence against me to solve this social problem you want solved.
	That's personal, right?
	If somebody says, well, the poor have a right to healthcare, it's like, well, why don't you become a doctor and then work for free?
	Or work for minimum wage, right?
	Why don't you give money to doctors to treat the poor?
	What are you doing? Are you giving to hospitals?
	And if they say no, it's like, well, then it's not a value for you, right?
	So don't talk to me about state programs for something that you're not particularly interested in.
	And if they are giving to help the poor medically, then say, well, then we don't need the government because the government is just going to muck it up as it does with everything that it puts its hands on or rather puts its guns too.
	Those are just some things that I thought because the debate is going to continue.
	I mean, the voting for the bill fell almost completely along party lines.
	I think one Republican defected.
	But there is going to be a very strong debate about this that is going to continue, right?
	It's still working its way through the Senate, this healthcare bill.
	From the U.S., and when it comes to that, there's no way to stop it, right?
	It's not going to be stoppable, this particular snowball or avalanche towards socialized medicine.
	You know, this is only going to accelerate the process.
	It's not going to forestall it.
	It's not a detour.
	It's not a bypass. It is only going to accelerate the movement towards socialized medicine because the vestiges of the free market are going to be even more eviscerated than before.
	And of course, freedom is going to get blamed, not government regulation and coercion.
	And so there's going to be the health care is going to get worse.
	The profits from particularly pharmaceutical companies is going to get higher.
	And then the government is going to cry Price gouging!
	And is going to make sure that it ends up nationalizing the whole thing.
	It's going to be a couple of generations until this thing can be turned around.
	It won't be you or I who do it, but you know, the earlier that you're right, I think the greater the glory, right?
	I take my cue from Socrates in that area.
	The Socratic method of questioning was right 2,500 years ago, and he gets credit for being right early, even though he didn't live to see a rational society.
	Or even a more rational society.
	And I think the same thing is true of people who speak about reason and evidence these days.
	The number again to call in.
	347-633-9636.
	For heaven's sakes, don't let me talk for two hours.
	I get enough of that every week with my solo cast.
	So please, I am all ears if you want to talk about whatever is on your mind.
	Whatever outrage, joy, shame, guilt, ecstasy you wish to bring to the conversation, I am happy to hear.
	We do have a caller, but I do want to ask you a question, something that's been an argument that's been going on on my Facebook wall all morning between myself and a Randist.
	I said that basically the government now is trying to impose and has imposed taxation on me, theft.
	They've stolen from me and that money because government by its very own nature is forced and steals the fruit of our labor.
	And uses that against us to make us obey and uses force against us to make us comply.
	And I said that it's time to protest now.
	It's time to take to the streets and we need to make these people realize that we're not going to take this anymore.
	And by taking to the streets and blocking the streets that this would be a fairly good peaceful protest.
	And what he's saying is that basically But you take it to the streets and altering commerce, that has effect on me, so therefore, you are using force on me, and by you using force on me, then that gives me the right now to use force on you.
	Your thoughts on that before I bring the call on the air?
	Wow. Well, so he's saying that if you block a public street in protest of the healthcare bill, And he needs to get through to that public street to do X, Y, and Z, that you are, in a sense, trespassing upon the public property that he's paid to use and therefore he can use force against you.
	Is that right? He's saying that I'm using force because basically I'm stopping commerce from happening.
	I'm stopping trucks getting by.
	To, you know, get to their destination and stopping people getting to work, you know, and putting a stranglehold on the economy.
	My argument with him was because he's, you know, an objectivist.
	He's, you know, truly into Rand.
	My argument was with him, I said, well, I see a flaw in your argument because isn't that what John Galt did?
	Isn't that what he did?
	He stopped the motor of the world and basically turned the producers of the world against, you know, the very people that worked for them.
	And, you know, just threw the world into dismay.
	And he's, like, totally ignoring that and saying that, you know, basically, no, if you're affecting my life – and I said, well, if you are not with me on this because the government is taking away my freedoms by forcing me to have something, then if you are not with me, then you're against me.
	So by your own recognition of this, you are using force against me.
	Well, sorry, just to clarify the Atlas Shrugged reference, John Galt did not stop the motor of the world, as he put it, by blocking traffic in the streets, right?
	He did it through rational arguments around self-interested producers and saying, it is you who make the system possible by funding it.
	So you're not talking about convincing people to drop their participation in the system.
	You're talking about a protest in the streets that blocks traffic and prevents, as he says, prevents commerce and so on, right?
	Correct, correct. Yeah, I mean, I think that the problem with public space is that nobody knows who has the quote right to do anything, right?
	I mean, you obviously have paid for the roads and he has paid for the roads and you feel that it is your self-interest to block the roads and he would like to use the roads to pass through.
	Well, it's a state of nature.
	Everything that is publicly owned is a state of nature.
	So I don't think he has the right to use force because it's not his road.
	I don't know whether you have the right, so to speak, to block the traffic because it's not your road, because it's kind of essentially unknown.
	It's in a state of nature, but it's a well-defended state of nature.
	I think that we are only going to win through passionate and committed arguments with reason and evidence.
	I don't think that we're going to win by blocking traffic.
	And I'll tell you why I think that will happen is that Most people don't have any idea what to think about anything because they have no idea how to think.
	They have no idea how to reason from first principles.
	What they do is they rely on emotionality, guilt, manipulation, and they rely on the usually non-verbal or sometimes verbal cues from other people that in particular they rely upon the media.
	And so I can guarantee you what will happen in the current climate is if you block streets, some ambulance carrying a patient is not going to be able to get through And somebody in that ambulance is going to die.
	And the media is going to fasten on that like a jackal on the neck of a chicken and is going to say, aha!
	These crazy libertarians, you see?
	This is the kind of healthcare they want.
	People dying in the streets because they can't get to a hospital.
	Is this the protest they want?
	Is this the healthcare they want?
	Is this the care that they want in society?
	People will play this for weeks.
	It will be a massive besmirch upon the intellectual content I think it's actually worse than useless.
	I think it's actually counterproductive because the world can't receive the commitment to ideology that is behind such an action.
	They will simply look at a funeral-wrapped body being carried out of an ambulance or Some little old lady carried out on a stretcher because the fire trucks couldn't get to some fire.
	And people will say, well, that's what libertarianism is.
	It's people, they just care about their ideology.
	This guy, in order to save a few bucks on his taxes, has condemned people to death.
	And, you know, that's how it's going to be played out.
	And people won't have any idea what the actual arguments are.
	I mean, I was just reading this thing this week, because there's a lot in the media about Ayn Rand.
	A couple of books about her have come out.
	And it's so fracking ridiculous.
	I mean, but so completely predictable.
	And with Ayn Rand, I mean, the woman was an amazing genius and a fantastic writer.
	I wouldn't say necessarily metaphorically, but her plots are great and the ideas are fantastic.
	And she had some really amazing and fantastic things to say about metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, to some degree politics and religion and so on.
	And no one who ever writes about her in the mainstream media Or even the alternate media can ever write an article without saying, ooh, she had an affair.
	I mean, that's so ridiculous.
	Yeah, okay, the affair was, I guess, pretty unwise and so on.
	But, I mean, people will pick any excuse to not process the content of what it is that's being said.
	They will do anything to avoid any principle.
	They will focus on anything.
	The entire media is a freaking tabloid disaster area where it's just emotional manipulation, emptiness, sophistry.
	And so they just use, well, Ayn Rand was bitter and she was angry and she had an affair and she this.
	It's like, well, what about what she actually thought?
	What about her actual arguments?
	Well, people don't want to talk about the actual arguments because that takes a little bit of work and that might...
	Actually, force people to think.
	I mean, can you imagine handing in a paper in a philosophy class saying, you know, Plato buggered young men.
	Can you believe it?
	He had sex with young men.
	I mean, that's just wow.
	I mean, at some point your philosophy professor is going to say, well, do you have any actual arguments about what Plato said?
	Have you actually thought about what Plato said?
	And of course, no. All it is is this salacious, empty-headed gossip about things.
	Ooh, she had an affair!
	I mean, Bill Clinton's inserting things into his interns that would make a proctologist faint.
	And, you know, he's talked about with nobility in the media.
	But Ayn Rand has one consensual affair.
	What, 40 years ago?
	30 or 40, 50 years ago?
	Has one consensual affair where she's open and he's open with their wives.
	And that's all that anybody can ever talk about.
	I mean, John F. Kennedy has sex with anything that has a pulse and sometimes things with a fading pulse.
	And that's all that all the people can talk about is Camelot and, you know, what a great president he was.
	And I think it's because she was a woman and people have a different standard.
	You know, the fact that she took control and went for what she wanted sexually and got Nat Brandon in The Sackaroo.
	That is something which we can never forgive her for.
	And that is something that people must focus on forever more because actually talking about the ideas is challenging.
	And that's Ayn Rand with some amazing successful books.
	You block traffic.
	It's just got to be a media feeding frenzy the moment anybody gets hurt as a result.
	So I just don't think it's a good idea, but that's my argument.
	Well, the switchboard is buzzing and thank you for your thoughts on that.
	And the number to call in is 347-633-9636.
	You've got like three callers here, so we'll try and be as brief as possible with each one so we don't drop them.
	Okay. He says, and the first one is from area code 815.
	You are on the air.
	Go ahead. Hey, Steph.
	Hi. I don't know if you remember me.
	About two years ago, you and I spoke a couple times on Mark Stevens' radio show.
	My call-in name was Damage Inc.
	Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. How's it going?
	Going good. Going good.
	Going real good, as a matter of fact.
	Excellent. I had a setback about three weeks ago.
	I haven't spoke to most of my family, each one individually, probably about four or five years now.
	And I get a phone call out of the blue from my youngest brother, and he tells me that my oldest brother passed away.
	Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Sorry, just before you continue, can you tell me what it was that has caused you to not speak with your family?
	Basically... Now, you don't have to tell me.
	Was it political differences?
	Was it something different?
	Don't give me any content if you don't want to, and you don't have to tell me anything.
	I'm totally open with this.
	This is fine. Just to give you a quick idea, they are born-again Baptists, raised Catholic until 11, and then we converted to Baptists.
	And over the years, Just, they're insane.
	And sorry, you're saying that when you were 11, your family converted, your parents converted to baptism?
	Yeah. So it's not really a we, right?
	Because you can't really make that decision at 11, what kind of religion you want, right?
	You're just going to have to go with wherever the ship of family is sailing, right?
	Pretty much. Pretty much.
	So over the years, I mean, it's just, we've grown so apart.
	My I'm a truth seeker, and I got into philosophy thanks to you.
	It really changed my life, gave me a phenomenal understanding of myself, who I am, and realized what my family was like.
	And basically, to give you a quick scenario, I am a means to an end, not an end within itself.
	I was constantly being used by Every one of my family members.
	And me, wanting to help anybody and everybody, I would, at the drop of a hat, if they called, needed help, money, whatever, I was there.
	And I realized that I was just being taken.
	They were using me up.
	And I had to walk away.
	I had to walk away from all of them.
	I'm so sorry to hear that.
	And it's not the first time I've heard that with regards to people who come from a very religious Family who begin to think for themselves and question these principles very often and you know it's very common and I say this not to make you feel cheap but so that you understand that this happens quite a bit at least in my experience that Religion hollows out something in people where they simply can't think and negotiate in a rational way.
	And that is the greatest tragedy.
	The greatest tragedy is the harm that religion does to relationships because it creates such an intolerant kind of bigotry and such a hostility towards the reason and evidence.
	We can only meet in reality and religion is such a fantasy that it's like everyone's in their own opium dream and can't reach out and connect with each other.
	So I just really, really wanted to express My sincere sorrow and sympathy for those challenges.
	I appreciate that.
	You understand what it's like.
	I mean, I've listened to hundreds of your podcasts.
	I've tried to reach out to these people and get them to realize, you know, what's really going on and they just deny and ignore and You know, I tried to reach out, I tried to reach these people, and there's just no getting through to them.
	So I had to break off, because it was destroying me.
	In order for me to survive, and not just survive, but to be happy, I had to walk away from these people.
	And I made the mistake of going to the funeral, and actually reconnecting with my family members.
	Amazingly, there was no questions of why did you stop talking to us.
	It was like they were right back.
	Like nothing happened, right?
	Yeah, yeah. Like they were just trying to use me again.
	And I've gotten several phone calls since the funeral and it's all, can you do this?
	Can you do that? You know, there's some legal issues going on with my brother.
	He had a wife.
	That left him 21 years ago.
	And she was a piece of work, which I think he deserved her.
	And while he never divorced her, because, of course, in the Bible it says it is sin to divorce your wife.
	And this was his philosophy or his, you know, messed up belief.
	And over the years I had talked to him about that because, of course, creditors were coming after him.
	And I said, listen, you've got to cut this bitch loose because she is going to, you know, she's going to destroy you.
	And he just procrastinated.
	Kept putting it off.
	I don't know if maybe in the back of his mind he kept thinking someday she was going to come back.
	So now the situation, this woman's been gone 21 years and now she wants a piece of his estate.
	She wants it all, basically.
	And so my family, given that I have a background in just self-taught in the legal system and I've done a lot of fighting and that, With Mark Stevens' help.
	And so, you know, my oldest, my second oldest brother comes to me and he's like, listen, you got to fight this in court and you got to, you know, help out.
	And I'm like, you know, the whole cause and effect.
	People are trying to, like, I was just listening to one of your podcasts the other night and you talk about people are trying to divert or stop the effect instead of realizing the cause of the problem.
	And I basically called him back and told him I had to think about it.
	I had to reason this out and conform to the UPB. And I ended up calling him back.
	And the thing that enraged me was just...
	I don't know.
	Well, I do know. It's just the audacity that these people have.
	It's just unreal. For him to ask me to do that and shell out money and take off time and work, I mean, I would have to drive from...
	I live in about 45 minutes south of Chicago, and my brother lived up central Wisconsin, so I would have to take a day off, at least one, if not two days off work every week.
	And I said, look, this is going to cost me a ton of money just to go up there and show up in court and try to defend my brother's estate from his estranged wife.
	And... I don't think it's going to be...
	Personally, I didn't think it was ethical for me to do this.
	This is not my problem, one.
	Two, he never divorced her.
	His inaction was in fact an action.
	So this is the result.
	She should get it. You know, my brother's trying to use guilt trips and everything else.
	He's like, look, your brother had a $60,000 401k and I want your mother to have it.
	Well, My mom did also get a $29,000 life insurance policy from my brother, and not the day after the funeral, my second oldest brother, who was asking me to go and fight this in court, went to her begging for money, and she ended up giving him like four grand.
	We're talking about a grown man who's got a wife and kids, works, doesn't know how to manage his money, blows everything, doesn't have a pot to piss in, And he's blaming it on his wife and begging for money off my mom, who's 74 years old, living on Social Security.
	I mean, there's no end to my family's...
	It's sick.
	It is sick. Does your brother have any kids?
	Serious. My brother?
	Yeah. One of them, he's got six kids, actually.
	His three oldest, he's got three still at home.
	His three oldest are, one's a Navy SEAL and has a serious, serious issue with wanting to kill.
	Now, understand the mindset.
	My brother was a deacon in a Baptist church, brutalized his kids and his wife, clammed this fucked up religion down their heads.
	I mean, it's bad.
	The worst scenario you could think of Bad.
	And I'm in contact with Ryan is his name.
	He's stationed out in San Diego.
	Sorry, just if you can avoid the details, that would be good.
	It's not sufficient to talk about people, so go ahead.
	Okay, okay. So he calls me every now and then, and I just, little bits and pieces, you know, I tell him that the initiation of violence is wrong, and that really struck home with him.
	And he was over in Iraq for a while, told me some of the things that went on, and it's just, it's sad.
	I don't want to see this child who was raised and brutalized by my brother turn out to be a vicious killer.
	I don't. And, you know, he calls me.
	I don't call him. I'm not chasing him down saying, listen, listen, listen, you know, this isn't right.
	He comes to me.
	And he's open. And he just called me the other day.
	He's got a little girl. And he's like, I'm having a hard time.
	She's two years old. She's, you know, like most two-year-old girls are.
	You know, I tried to tell him, I said, listen, do you remember how your dad brutalized you as a child?
	I said, you've got to remember that little girl of yours is helpless.
	She needs you.
	You cannot raise a hand at her.
	You cannot hit this child.
	You have to love her.
	You know, have patience.
	I don't think he's hit her.
	I don't think he's beating his daughter.
	I think he called me because these are the feelings that he's having.
	Damage control. I can't think I'm going to stop.
	Sorry, and I hate to, I really hate to cut you off because I really, I mean, what you're going through is very intense and I really do sympathize with it.
	But we do have a lot of callers coming, so if you could boil it down to a question, and I really do apologize because I know this is really important stuff.
	Maybe we can talk offline about it, but if you could boil it down to a question, I could give you some feedback.
	I would like to be able to talk to you offline if we can get a chance to.
	Sure. Okay, well, why don't you email me then and we can set that up if you'd like to.
	I would, I would.
	Okay, okay. Okay, so my question, you said, I was listening to one of your podcasts, I can't remember which one.
	There's so many of them, and I love them.
	You had a podcast where you spoke with another individual who also made the mistake of going back to the family for a specific reason, and it ended up sending you back like months in your personal therapy to get away from these people.
	I really feel I made a mistake going back.
	And because I think this is the thing that really, really bothered me was that when I showed up and everybody was there hugging and kissing and telling me they loved me and I'm like, you know, deep down I know this is just all bullshit.
	They're lying to me.
	They don't love me for a second because I am just a means to an end.
	But it's like it justifies.
	When I see them, it justifies the brutality that they've initiated against me all through my life growing up.
	And I think that's the thing that made me the most disturbed, you know, especially my mother.
	This woman was a violent psychopath, beat mentally, you know, and it just...
	She came up to me and she's like, oh, I love you, Tommy.
	You know that, don't you? And that was the one thing they would always say is, you know I love you, don't you?
	And I'm like, no.
	Unreal. So I suppose my question would be, would it be better for me, from your experience, to just not show up to funerals?
	Because I know I'm going to have more family members dropping off Over the course of the years, should I not?
	I'm not asking your permission, just advice.
	It would be better for me not to show up to these family issues like a funeral.
	Right. Well, I mean, just a caveat, of course.
	I mean, no one can tell you what to do, obviously.
	I can only give you a few of my thoughts.
	And, you know, again, I would really, really recommend talking this over with a therapist, but I can give you a few philosophical or ethical perspectives from an amateur standpoint, and hopefully that will help.
	Fire away. Sentimentality, Jung observed, is the flip side of brutality.
	And I think there's a lot of truth in that.
	And what that means is that people who are vicious or brutal will very often have a great deal of manipulative sentimentality.
	Oh, but she's your mother.
	Oh, but we're family.
	Oh, family is everything.
	Oh, my precious child. Oh, we love you so much.
	Like, it's not true, but it's used because it has power.
	Over others, right? It has a way of affecting other people's reactions.
	If you say the words, I love you, that's a lot easier than actually...
	Like I can say, I'm a millionaire.
	It doesn't give me any more money in my bank account.
	I can say, I love you.
	That does not necessarily mean that I know and understand and we share values and I treasure who you are and I respect who you are and you respect who I am and all of that kind of good.
	We both act virtuously and courageously in the world to bring good to people's lives.
	Right? So... What I'm trying to say is that if the behavior has not changed, then that is the fundamental thing that you need to focus on.
	Look, anyone can go back to their family at any time.
	Anyone can do anything that they want, right?
	I mean, of course, you're free, I'm free, we can do whatever we want.
	But if the behavior that has driven you away from your family has not changed, if that behavior has not changed, then I think it's tougher to justify going back.
	People do not gain value because they die.
	People do not gain value because they're sick.
	Waiting to get things from people, waiting until you're sick is like Applying for health insurance when you're already sick, right?
	It's kind of too late. You want to build up that goodwill in people beforehand.
	You want to spend years loving people, doing your best by them, giving them good feedback, supporting them, and being wonderful to them so that when you need stuff, you don't have to ask.
	You don't have to beg. You don't have to bully.
	You don't have to manipulate because you already have deposited huge amounts of goodwill and caring into the sort of bank account, so to speak.
	Right. You felt exploited, and if that behavior has not changed, right?
	This is what I would do if I were you, and I've done this before, and I found it very helpful.
	I would write down what was not good beforehand, right?
	I felt exploited, or I had to do this, that, and the other.
	It was always one-sided. They don't know who I am.
	They reject my values. They reject philosophy.
	They reject honor and truth, and they do this.
	They're superstitious.
	They're manipulative. Whatever it is, write down, you know, I'm not saying any of this is true, but your experience, right?
	Oh, yeah. And then say, well, what changed when I went to the funeral?
	Is my life better or worse since I went to the funeral?
	What changed? Did any behavior change on the part of my family or anyone when I went back, right?
	If you divorce a guy, sorry, if you divorce a woman because she's falling down drunk, and then you go for lunch with her two years down the road, and she gets falling down drunk at lunch, you don't think, hey, let's get remarried, right?
	Because the behavior has changed, right?
	If that makes any sense. Correct.
	So that would be my suggestion.
	But, you know, again, I would spend a couple of bucks, if you're not already, I would spend a couple of bucks on a therapist.
	Even if you just go for a couple of weeks or a month or two, I would say that would be hugely important because I don't think you want to wrestle with this kind of very difficult decision.
	Because you hope, you believe you can do some good within the family environment, I'm sure.
	But the question is, can you?
	And I can't decide that. And a therapist can't either, but I think a therapist could really help you with the questions that might help you to make that determination.
	I believe that I already know the answer.
	I just wanted to get some insight from you because it's always very eye-opening.
	If the behavior within your family is acceptable and valuable and positive and loving-worthy for you now, then you were wrong in leaving before, I believe, and you owe them an apology.
	If their behavior is not acceptable To you now, then you were right in leaving, but then I would say that you're not right in going back.
	If the behavior remains the same and was unacceptable before, it doesn't suddenly change a year or two down the road, those fundamentals.
	Right. Sorry, James is right.
	We don't want to move on to new callers, but shoot me an email if there's anything I can do.
	But really, talk to a therapist first, and then if there's anything I can add from a philosophical standpoint, I'd be happy to help.
	Fabulous. Thank you, Stefan.
	Yeah, and listen, my deepest, deepest sympathies, it's a terrible burden to bear to have this kind of history and this kind of family situation.
	So my heart goes out to you, and I wish you the very, very best.
	Thank you. I appreciate that.
	Welcome. You take care. You too.
	Okay, we do have another caller from area code 714.
	You are on the air.
	Go ahead. Hey, how's it going, guys?
	Oh, good. I thought this might be Jennifer calling in.
	Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Please, go ahead.
	Yes. That's great.
	I'm sorry, please forgive me for the microphone thing.
	I have no clue how to block it or pause it, so just change ahead and mute me after I'm done talking.
	I was just going to ask you, from a sociological point of view, what would you say that are the main and most negative effects, I would say?
	That religion has on society right now and on the family, you know, from your perspective, but looking at it from some sociological point of view.
	That's my question. Right.
	Well, I can only really look at it from a philosophical point of view.
	So I will...
	Oh, James, can we mute that guy? All right.
	Sorry, you need to turn your speakers off or down while I'm talking.
	Okay, okay, I'll try, but I don't know how to pause it.
	Okay, well, I'll tell you what, since you've asked your question, James, can we disconnect him and I will do an answer without the echo?
	Yep, I've muted him.
	All right, thanks. Okay, so this is amateur philosophical thoughts about the negative effects that religiosity has within the family.
	Well, I think it's absolutely crippling.
	To my way of thinking...
	The degree of aggressiveness that is required to raise children is directly proportional to the irrationality of the parent's position.
	Let me say that again because it's a mouthful, as I'm sure our previous caller would have mentioned as well.
	The degree of aggression that is required to raise children is directly proportional To the degree of irrationality of the parent's position, right?
	So if the parent is a scientist, let's say, or just somebody who believes that the world is round, and the kid comes up and says, Daddy, what shape is the world?
	And he says, round. And he says, well, how do you know?
	And he said, here's all the reasons, and here's the picture of the world from space, and this and that and the other, right?
	Well, that's, I think, fairly understanding.
	We can understand that there's not a lot of aggression because the parent doesn't have to aggress against the child because reality, logic and evidence backs up what the parent is saying.
	However, if the child comes to the parent and says, Daddy, what shape is the earth?
	And Daddy says, the earth is shaped like a pentagram.
	Then the kids can be a little startled, a little surprised.
	It's like, well, we have this globe upstairs which is round.
	Ah, that's a conspiracy. Well, we have these pictures of the Earth from space.
	Ah, they're all faked.
	It's like, well, we have these atlases and these maps and I go online and I see these experiments and I see these things and...
	You know, the planes couldn't fly from London to Paris, let alone London to New York, if they didn't understand the world was round, and ships couldn't navigate, and how could it possibly be?
	And I look at the moon is round, and the sun is round, and you know, we're a planet, and so on, right?
	Well, at some point, because the parent has an irrational position, i.e.
	the world is shaped like a pentagram, which I believe is Baptist ideology, the parent is going to have to get It is going to end up getting angry at the child quite quickly because the child's insatiable curiosity is going to lead the child to ask a whole series of questions.
	And as the child runs up against the irrationality of the parent's position, the parent either has to withdraw in disapproval or attack the child in some way or mock the child in order to get the child to stop asking the questions that will reveal the irrationality of the parent's position.
	And so To have peaceful and benevolent child raising, we need to have parents who have rational and empirical positions so that they don't need to bully the children to accept things that aren't true.
	They don't need to lie to the children.
	They don't need to intimidate the children.
	They don't need to threaten the children.
	They don't need to stop the children from asking the essential questions that children are all designed to ask.
	What we need to do is get parents to become as rational as humanly possible so that They don't need to intimidate their children.
	Religion does quite the opposite.
	Religion does quite the opposite.
	When a parent instructs a child on religion, they almost always instruct the child that, you know, Jesus died for your sins, Jesus is the Son of God, there's a Holy Trinity, the world was created in six days.
	They tell it like it's all true, not like it's an allegory, not like a fairy tale.
	When the kid gets older and finds out that there's a lot of skepticism in many people about all of this fairy tale nonsense, that there are other religions Where people believe crazy things that are not the crazy things that...
	What happens to the parents when the child keeps asking, right?
	So it says, well, why are we here?
	Well, God made us. Well, who made God?
	Well, that's the next logical question every child was going to ask, right?
	If something exists because anything that exists must have been created, well, God exists, therefore God must have been created.
	Well, the parent is going to immediately have to say, no, nothing created God.
	Well, how come, right?
	You understand, all of these, how do we know this is true, is something that children are always going to ask.
	So I think it is very destructive to children.
	In fact, it is religion's assault upon the rationality and security and self-esteem and love and trust of children that I believe is its most devastating effect and why I fight it so hard.
	Hey, if some 50-year-old guy wants to start smoking, you know, more power to you.
	Light up, right? I mean, it's your choice.
	But you don't get to inflict smoking on your children.
	You don't get to force them to smoke because it's their lungs.
	It's their minds. You are only a custodian of your children's minds.
	You do not own them. You do not get to take a long, slow, religious dump Into your children's frontal lobes.
	They're not your minds, right?
	It is the child's mind, in the same way that it is the child's lungs.
	And you do not have the right, you do not have the right to inflict your irrationality on your child.
	I don't have the right to inflict my beliefs on my child, even though I hope that my beliefs are a little bit more rational.
	I only can teach my child how to think.
	I cannot, I cannot tell my child what to think, because that is the opposite of thinking.
	And so the effects are long and disastrous and I think are foundational as to why people end up believing in crazy irrational authorities like the state and why people end up so angry in life and depressed in life and unable to connect with each other in life.
	I think a lot of it has to do with, well it all has to do with irrationality, but religiosity is a lot to do with that.
	And some people say if they're not in the United States or say The Muslim world, they say, well, but religiosity is fading and this and that.
	And it certainly is true in some countries.
	But, you know, it happens to Betsy, it's making quite a comeback in a lot of countries around the world.
	And it is going through quite a resurgence in the US, even within England, with the growth of the Muslim populations.
	It is really on the move.
	And I think that we do need to do what we can to push back the tide of some of the superstitious and medieval darkness.
	Now, hold on just one sec. If you can, I just need to throw a little bit more light in here.
	I feel like I'm in a submarine heading down into the Stygian depths.
	One sec. And just to let you know, we do have callers waiting.
	Sorry about that. I think we're getting a storm.
	I'm relying on some natural light here.
	But, sorry, we have enough caller?
	Yeah, we have callers.
	Maybe Donner. Let's see.
	Caller from area code 714.
	You are on the air.
	Go ahead. Hello, Steph.
	Hello. Hello.
	Hi. Can you hear me? I sure can.
	What's on your mind? Hi.
	Well, I'm pretty nervous, so if I get the shakes, let me know.
	But I've been doing this thing where I live on a farm, and I work about six hours a day, and I get room and board.
	So I've been living in this farm...
	It's just sort of a temporary thing, I guess, just because I've been unable to find a job in the area.
	Not for any real reason to want to get away in particular.
	But I have some really great friends in the area that I'm visiting them about every weekend.
	And they are really into FDR and it's really cool and I've been really thankful to have them in my life.
	But I fear that they're...
	It's hard to describe, but I'll just describe what I felt the last few days.
	The last time I visited, which was this weekend, I just felt, one, a lot dumber for some reason.
	I feel, for some reason, just like I'm unable to articulate what I feel.
	I just feel dumber.
	And I also just get a strange feeling from my friends.
	And I don't know if it's something that they're doing, something that I'm doing.
	And I'm just really looking for maybe some good questions to ask because they're really into RTR. Some ideas to see maybe why...
	I'm just feeling so uncomfortable around them.
	Right. Well, that's very interesting.
	Let's talk about it.
	Was there a particular moment or interaction wherein you began to feel dumber, or was it something that you can't quite identify when it happened, but you know that it did?
	I can't quite identify it.
	I just feel like, wow, I can't think of anything clever to say.
	Not so much like that.
	No, no. Let's go with what you said, because I think that there's truth.
	I'm not laughing at you. You understand.
	I hope you understand that. I sympathize.
	What is it that you feel is required to participate in this group of philosophy-loving yokels?
	Just... To be honest, just like bringing up good ideas that are thought-provoking.
	We talk a lot about our childhoods, which is great.
	I love it. I love it.
	And just being honest with each other and trying to discover more about each other and more about...
	Sorry, just to interrupt you.
	Those two things are quite contradictory.
	First, you said, you know, coming up with clever things to say or clever ideas.
	And the second thing you said was speaking honestly about sort of my life and my experiences.
	Uh-huh. Because the first is kind of like a show in a way, right?
	And the second is more sort of honest and...
	Sorry, go ahead. I think I misstated the first time around.
	I would definitely say it has been so far based on a lot of honesty.
	Like a lot, a huge amount of honesty.
	Not as much as I feel with anybody else in my life.
	Now, you know that you can't be dumb if you're being honest, right?
	Absolutely, yeah, yeah, that's true.
	So, if you're feeling like you're not being smart enough, maybe another way, I have no idea, right, but maybe a way of looking at it is, am I not being honest enough, right?
	Because RTR would have something to do with saying, "I don't feel as smart around this and I don't know why.
	Have you guys ever experienced that or what's your perception?" You'd sort of do that mutual exploration thing where you avoid conclusions and keep talking about the questions, right?
	Absolutely, yeah.
	And if you say, "I don't feel as smart as I used to around this group and that makes me feel anxious or nervous or frustrated or cautious or whatever," that's not...
	You can't be dumb if you're being honest, right?
	You can only be dumb when you're trying to manipulate someone and it doesn't work, right?
	Then we're all kind of dumb in those situations.
	But if you're being honest about what you're actually experiencing in the moment, it's impossible to be dumb.
	Because I think our feelings are very rich and very intelligent aspects of ourselves.
	So as long as you're being really honest, and as long as you're not jumping to conclusions or trying to create an impression by, you know, being seeming smarter, as long as you're not trying to create an impression or trying to manipulate other people's perceptions of you...
	But speaking honestly and openly about what is actually occurring for you, I think it's impossible to be dumb.
	And I think it's also impossible to finally feel dumb.
	The best way to overcome feeling dumb is to say, I'm feeling dumb, because that disintegrates all glamour.
	It throws out all of the false self-manipulations that might be occurring if you're trying to seem like you want to have value in the group by coming up with intelligent insights or interesting things to say.
	But I would hope or I would imagine or I would think that a group that's into that kind of self-expression is going to find value in your honesty, not in your conceptual fireworks, so to speak.
	Yeah, and I definitely feel that they would want me to be honest about it.
	I really don't know why I haven't said that.
	Well, and the good thing about talking about that is it probably won't take you very long To figure out why you had that resistance.
	And I'm sure it has something to do with your history, but that would be my, you know, my guess.
	That maybe there was a time in your life where you had to come up with smart things or you felt that honesty was, you know, we all have this problem in life when we're in relationships.
	When honesty is not valued, it's like, well, what the hell did we come up with instead?
	You know, it's like, okay, so if I'm honest about what I think and feel in this relationship, and it could be familial or fraternal or whatever, it could be any relationship.
	But if honesty is not a value, if being honest gets us into trouble, if saying what we actually think and feel gets us into trouble, we have this huge monstrous mess of like, well, what the frack am I going to talk about for the next 10 years in this situation?
	If I can't talk about what I think and feel, I'm going to have to come up with all this other stuff to talk about.
	And you're not alone in this.
	This is hugely common in society.
	I mean, why do you think there's such a thing as fashion?
	And sports. You know, watching sports.
	And politics.
	I mean, the reason politics is still around is because people don't have anything to talk about each other with.
	Because we all train each other so often out of talking honestly and openly.
	Because we get in trouble for talking honestly and openly.
	Then we have to invent all of this other mess and nonsense and baffle gab and blah, blah, blah.
	Because we can't speak honestly, right?
	And that becomes a strain.
	That becomes work. What am I going to talk about?
	What am I going to come up with?
	And I would guess that you are probably coming up against some aspect of interaction which is further to honesty than you've been before and, in a sense, you're kind of withdrawing to an old habit called, I'll dazzle them, right?
	If I can't connect with honesty, I'll dazzle with bullshit, you know?
	So to speak, that maybe.
	Maybe. I'm just theorizing, but it's a possibility.
	Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah.
	The only thing is that I've known these guys for a long time and And I wonder why it's happening right now.
	But I guess that's something I should work on.
	Well, yeah, I would talk about it with them, right?
	Yeah, so you definitely talk about it with them.
	I don't know if you can hear now, whether you're here in the podcast or video.
	But yeah, I would talk about it with them.
	And it is a very tough thing.
	You know, there's this constant undertow in our lives, at least for most investigations.
	Just for me, there's this undertow of I'd rather be entertaining than honest, right?
	And I've noticed this, you know, sometimes when I go overboard on the metaphors or whatever, like I'd rather be entertaining than just plain straight honest about what I'm thinking and feeling.
	So it is something that we do need to keep an eye on.
	So it's always better to sort of relax back straight into that, you know, honest connection because honesty is the first virtue philosophically and relationally.
	Okay, Jimmy, Jamesy, Bob, do we have anybody else?
	Yes, we do have more questions. Hi.
	I wanted to call in because the last pranks that came through, they kind of reminded me of something that I saw at a friend's house unexpectedly, and I'm kind of startled by it, and I wanted to find out if there was any pointers you wanted to give to just confronting somebody with something that you didn't really expect from them.
	I was at a friend's house and I was on their computer using Gmail and I saw some YouTube videos that were up on the tabs.
	And I was really, I was grossed out and surprised that there were like really obscene things.
	I'm sorry, you just cut out there for a second.
	Did you say they were really obscene things?
	Right. Okay, go on.
	Right. Hello?
	Yes, go on. What's your question about these upscene videos?
	I want to confront him.
	I want to get people out of my life who objectify other people and put them through suffering and find humor in other people suffering.
	There were things about this person that I thought were pretty interesting and Right.
	And now, just to clarify, when you were talking about obscene videos on the computer, am I right in assuming that it's not just depictions of, let's say, Regular old sexuality, for want of a better way of putting it, but it's something, you know, darker or kinkier, like sadomasochism or bestiality or something like that?
	Not that at all.
	Well, actually, one of them was like a cartoon about bestiality.
	It was supposed to be a funny viral video or something.
	Involving bestiality and a really stupid song.
	And then there was one about sexual harassment in the workplace, like jokes about it.
	And I've been a victim of sexual harassment in the same workplace as this person.
	Right. It's appalling to me.
	I thought they were of a different caliber.
	Right. Right.
	Do you know if this person has somebody else who might be using his or her computer?
	No. So it's most likely that it was this person who was looking at this material, right?
	Right. It was part of a subculture they told me they used to belong to, but they actually are obviously engaged in it still.
	I'm still trying to put...
	The parameters around this.
	When you say a subculture, I don't know if there's a subculture of people who look at sexual harassment comedy videos.
	And again, I'm not saying it's funny, but I guess the assumption is that...
	What kind of subculture do you mean?
	Like... Like shock...
	Like, you know how there's shock jock radio and there's the shocking viral YouTube videos you'll see of like...
	Like, odd things happening in society, like children getting hurt.
	Like, I saw one thing on the tabs, too, of a child sweating down a snowy bank and, like, landing on his face.
	And there were just, you know, jokes around that on the comments, around the video on my website that he was on, and I was just...
	I felt horrible about it, and I just don't feel good about my interactions with this person.
	That could take place from there on.
	And is that like a reflection of me and my judgmental?
	I mean, people do find that funny, but I think that's kind of sick, personally.
	Well, first of all, sorry, go ahead.
	No, go ahead. The subculture also involves Like, slasher movie fans and horror movie fans and B-movie fans especially and just tasteful things.
	You know what I mean? Right.
	I mean, I knew some people like this when I was younger.
	There's a kind of harsh, darkly comic and cynical kind of worldview that they have.
	Like, they'd rather go see a bad B-movie than a good quality domestic or foreign film, right?
	Because then they can laugh at it and they can...
	You mock it and so on.
	Exactly. The funny thing is, and the confusing thing is, is that I've experienced the tasteful side of film with him, and I've been aware of his appreciation for film in general.
	So it was just like, oh, he's been into these films and horror films before, but...
	I never really suspected it was still such an interest.
	What do you know about this person's personal history?
	What I know is the father, the parents, his family was supported by government employment.
	He's a divorcee.
	He hasn't had many relationships, but it does seem that he spends a lot of time watching movies.
	We talked a little bit about escapism today, and he shows interest in some FDR podcasts, but at times I feel like he's not really listening.
	Yeah, sorry, I think I have enough here.
	I mean, I don't think that working for the...
	I don't think that necessarily state employment would be the origin of these kinds of things.
	Again, it's amateur opinion hour.
	Sexuality is such a core part of human life.
	I mean, it is why we are alive, right?
	I mean, so to speak. And it is a very powerful aspect of our lives.
	In my experience, when sexuality goes wrong...
	It is indicative of something that is deeply wrong.
	It's really, really right down at the base.
	And again, I don't know anything about this person other than what you said, but that may be what you're picking up on, that sexual dysfunction or anything that indicates hilarity from suffering or humor from suffering.
	Taking pleasure from suffering is Kind of sadistic, right?
	I mean, it doesn't mean that the person is a sadist.
	What do I know, right? But it kind of has a sadistic side to it.
	And that to me would come from some dysfunction pretty early in life.
	So I would trust my instincts on this one.
	You say, well, what if I'm just being judgmental?
	But in a sense, you're being judgmental about your own instincts.
	And I would trust my instincts on this one.
	I would sit and sort of thought how I felt.
	I would think about my interactions with this person.
	I would think about what I knew about this person.
	And I would not confront because I would really want to know what I thought and felt and whether I had any history of blindness to this kind of behavior in my own history.
	You know, if you're in therapy, you can talk to a therapist about it.
	I would spend quite some time looking at my own thoughts and feelings in this matter rather than trying to figure out whether it's good or bad or right or wrong.
	This other person, I would really I work to accept my own feelings and what my own feelings were trying to tell me because I think that we know everything that there is to know about people very very very quickly after we meet them and I think that you should trust your instincts in this matter and that doesn't mean that you don't self-explore or talk with people or talk with the therapist about why you might be feeling what you are feeling what has accumulated within you that gives this feeling why you may have thought that this person was more evolved than he or she may be but The first thing to do is to look at your own feelings,
	to accept them, that they're there to help, that they're there to inform you about important things and not push them aside and also not say, what should I do?
	Because whenever we get into these complex situations, our first impulse is so often to say, what should I do?
	But I think that's quite the wrong thing.
	You know, if you're lost, your first impulse should not be to say, where do I go?
	Well, you don't know because you're lost, right?
	The first impulse is to sit down, pull out the map, get your GPS, get your compass, you know, try and figure out where you are.
	Spend some time doing that so when you do move, you're moving in a direction that makes sense.
	Right. Okay.
	That's great advice. I appreciate the input.
	Thanks so much. You are very, very welcome.
	And thank you for not talking about anything horrible.
	Yeah. Appreciate that.
	I cannot believe that stuff.
	Well, you know what this means.
	It means we're hitting the big time, baby.
	We're getting prank violence.
	Oh, yeah. So this means that we're spreading like a virus, baby.
	If we're important enough to prank call, it's a compliment in a very strange way.
	That's all I can say. Well, awesome.
	I'm glad you're getting the, I guess, recognition you deserve.
	All right. Have a great day.
	Thanks. Thanks. And let us know how it goes if you can.
	And do we have anybody else hanging on the line, JimboCakes?
	Yes, we do. And you love those prank calls.
	So anyway, area code 416.
	You're on the air. The number to call is 347-633-9636.
	That's number again, 347-633-9636.
	Caller from area code 416.
	You are on the air with Stefan.
	Go ahead. Hi, Stefan.
	Nice to talk to you.
	Nice to talk to you, too. One of the serious guys, like the previous guys, I think this is a nice way for the system to work you out, sort of to speak.
	So first I would like to congratulate you for the way you live your life and for how you understand to reach what I believe is true happiness.
	Thank you. So what I was wondering, I have two questions for you.
	First of all, I was wondering if you can dedicate some more of your work in your future action plan, I mean, in order for you to give people answers.
	What I think you are doing right now, you are doing a great work in letting people know about the cause and the effect and what's wrong with the society right now.
	And I think, as you said earlier, most of the people cannot think for themselves, and lots of them are waiting for answers, right?
	So, if, for example, someone is coming and is watching a YouTube video of yours, you are, like, talking for 25 minutes about some stuff, and I'm telling you, most of the guys, after two or three minutes, they are like, wow, this guy is so right!
	This is so wonderful.
	What should I do, you know?
	And we are waiting for another 20 minutes for an answer, because they cannot get an answer by themselves.
	And you're not suggesting anything in the end, you know?
	It's just like an action plan for them to do, but not to tell them, like, you are too stupid to think for yourself, so you should do this.
	You can say something like, if I would be a U.S. citizen, I would take this approach and so on.
	Most of the things that happened in the past that lead to changes were like this.
	For example, the Communist Manifesto.
	They were like, okay, all the people should be equal and there should be some leaders that are showing you the light at the end of the tunnel.
	After this beginning, what they did, they told the people, they actually wrote down how should they achieve this, how are they going to achieve this, right?
	So, in case of anarchy and liberty and for people to leave this kind of perfect society, you are thinking about, I think, not that you are responsible, but As a great philosopher, you can let people know how to act.
	Do you get anything from what I said, I mean?
	No, I really, really do.
	And first of all, thank you for your very kind words.
	I appreciate that. I think you're right.
	I think that people do need a bit more of a sort of concrete action plan.
	And that has been something, believe it or not, I've been working on For about a year, maybe not quite a year, 10 months or so.
	I have tried a variety of approaches.
	I've written a book. I've tried a series of podcasts.
	I'm working on another approach at the moment.
	I think that you're right. I think that...
	I'm sorry to stop you.
	I'm not referring to the books.
	I'm referring to your box office kind of type of work, you know?
	Like video-edited movies or podcasts that are renting on YouTube.
	You are out there, and I think a lot of people are watching you, and most of them don't actually need to watch you, because they are smart enough.
	But you cannot reach those masses.
	I mean, over 50% of the people that are actually ruling the world, because most of them probably are not smart in taking their own decisions.
	I'm saying like, I mean, you made in the past, I saw some great video edited movies, and a lot of people need to have it like in five minutes, you know, ten minutes, like, man, this is totally wrong.
	If you cannot see it, you are stupid.
	Probably this is the best way for us to follow, you know?
	Yeah, no, I agree with you.
	Certainly the videos that have had the most exposure have been tended to be shorter with quicker edits and live footage of something other than my pink giant thumb head talking.
	So I think you're absolutely right.
	There does need to be at least some thoughts put forward on how we can go around achieving a freer society.
	Because, of course, I reject politics.
	I reject mere education, particularly from academics as solutions.
	And, of course, I do have a number of solutions.
	They're all buried here and there in the podcast.
	So I quite agree with you.
	I think that something needs to be focused and engaging and visual that can help people to at least hear my thoughts about it, whether they agree with it or not.
	It could be a good place to start discussing these kinds of issues about how we go about achieving a free society.
	So if that's what you're saying, I completely agree with you.
	And it is high on the list of priorities.
	It's just, it's taking time because I need to find a way to do it that is compelling and it's different from the kind of books that I've written before.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And yeah, thank you a lot for your answer.
	I have one more question.
	I mean, I don't think it's a question actually.
	So regarding violence, so the violence is the only step I can see between no government and the low government, right?
	And I understand your pacifist view on life.
	Not really flower power, but anyway close to that, I think.
	And what I think is that violence was very important in the human race evolution.
	And obviously, the more violent you are in the past, the more chances for you to have kids and so on.
	I think that people like Michael Bernardic, which you had a debate with, and I enjoy a lot watching it, and Errol Russo and so on, a lot of libertarians, they are trying to take this into account way more than you do.
	I kind of understand why you have that.
	I'm living in Canada, in Toronto, And I moved here from an Eastern European country, you know?
	So, I can understand the differences.
	For example, I was riding today a bike in a park with my wife, so we stopped for an ice cream, right?
	So, a fat guy with a big, beautiful woman, they came across, we were having the ice cream, we were having a dog, and the dog jumped to my ice cream, right?
	So, back in my country, I was having no problem.
	Fixing that guy right there, you know, because actually he was supposed to keep his dog in leash and so on, you know.
	But here, all the people are like, it's a normal accident.
	The guy didn't even apologize and so on.
	So what I'm saying is that in this advanced society, this is true violence.
	It is not well-spreaded.
	But in most countries, Let's say in Africa, in Asia, in Eastern Europe, in Russia, and so on, violence is a very important thing in human race and human race evolution.
	So, this is what I'm saying.
	I mean, what I do, not what I do, what I think is that you have a very pacifist view about this.
	And this is the main point where I I not really agree totally with you, but otherwise you do a great job and you are obviously a very smart and one intended man.
	Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
	And my argument would be that there is nothing inherently violent about people who grew up in these cultures.
	The culture teaches them violence, right?
	And in Russia there is a machismo around drinking, around physical combat or fighting.
	There is a sort of the grand Yeltsin, red-faced, burly, yelling Russian guy that's kind of like a myth.
	Masculinity is defined by, you know, Putin and his black belt and his riding topless on horseback.
	There's a kind of empty-headed, almost caveman-like machismo in a lot of the Eastern European countries.
	That's not innate.
	If you had been taken from that culture and raised by some, you know, pacifist people in San Diego, you would not have the impulse to, as you put it, fix some guy whose dog jumps on your ice cream.
	And yeah, he should have apologized.
	But, you know, rudeness is not something that we can punch people for.
	Not that I'm suggesting you were saying that.
	But the question that you should ask yourself, in my opinion, is, you know, was I raised in an environment or in a culture where violence was enacted against children or approved of against children?
	Was I spanked?
	Was I given the indication that violence is a good means for solving problems?
	I would argue that it's very likely, you don't have to tell me, but I would argue that it's very likely that you did grow up in such an environment where either your caregivers used violence or aggression against you as a child, or your teachers did, or your priests did, or someone did.
	And that's how these cultures grow up.
	To have more violence within them.
	It's not innate to any kind of human nature.
	It's not innate to any particular person.
	It's not even innate to any particular kind of culture.
	It's specifically around how children are treated that results in how violent the culture is.
	And so that's why I focus so much on the family and on parenting.
	You simply cannot achieve a peaceful world without treating children with dignity and respect, without treating them with even greater respect than you would treat any random adult.
	Right.
	I mean, it's so crazy.
	Right.
	I mean, people, people who are afraid to yell at waiters for bringing them cold soup will yell at their children for dropping a plate.
	And that's crazy.
	I mean, the waiter is not going to be there when you get older and the waiter is not dependent upon you and so on.
	So I would strongly suggest that it's not utopianism because I'm not expecting for human beings to magically spring forward from the womb of their mothers in the future with no desire for or capacity for violence.
	What my argument is, and it's not just my argument, you understand it.
	People can get mad at me about this, but it's not just my argument.
	It's a very common argument among people who have some knowledge of these areas, that peaceful parenting breeds a peaceful world.
	Peaceful parenting breeds a peaceful world.
	And the degree of violence within a culture is, in my view, almost directly proportional to the degree of aggression with which children are raised.
	Not always by their parents, but by others as well.
	And that's why I think it's very important to focus on changing parenting in order to change the world.
	We change parenting, we change the world.
	And that is my fundamental approach.
	And I'm not doing as much about that as I'd like to at the moment because I'm quite consumed by actually parenting.
	But I think it's utopianism to say the angels of our better natures are going to suddenly flower and sprout wings within our hearts and lift us to a higher place.
	I think we do have to do the hard work of just confronting our own demons...
	our own histories, becoming better parents to our children than how we were raised, That's how the world gets better.
	That is my approach.
	And that's why, earlier in the show, I just didn't take into the streets and barricading.
	I mean, to me, it's very much dealing with a symptom and not a cause.
	The cause is how children are treated, particularly when they're very young.
	Yes, Bob. Yeah, you're right.
	But you cannot change the entire human race over the night, and you cannot change the genes.
	And in creating such a perfect society, you have to have, let's say, a transition, right?
	Of course, yeah. Once you are, let's say, achieving it, probably never, but once you are achieving it, you are not allowed to do any mistakes, right?
	If you think everyone will be like this and just one person is different, that one person will end ruling the world.
	No, no, no, no, that's not true.
	I'm sorry to interrupt you, that's just not true.
	The idea that people who are raised peacefully have no protection against evil is entirely false.
	If what you're saying is true, then in cultures where Children are raised with violence and aggression, they should have the greatest resistance to evil.
	And cultures where children are raised peacefully, they should be the greatest dictatorships.
	But you actually find that quite the opposite is true.
	That cultures where children are raised aggressively have the most dominant hierarchical and brutal social structures, right?
	And you can think of some of the Eastern European countries, some of the Islamic countries where there's brutal theocracies and so on.
	Or some of the African countries where violence and neglect is the hallmark of the children being raised.
	It is the children who are raised brutally who have the greatest susceptibility to both being ruled by or becoming evil.
	It is the children who are raised peacefully and benevolently and positively who have the greatest capacity to both see, resist and minimize the effects of evil in the world.
	So it's not true that if we raise children peacefully, the first evil guy will come along.
	Raising children peacefully and rationally and positively and lovingly does not turn them into sheep.
	It turns them into lions.
	It is when you raise a child brutally that you turn the child either into a sheep or a wolf.
	It is not the case that people who are raised beautifully or raised happily or raised lovingly are then susceptible to evil.
	They spot evil because it's so far outside their experience.
	They see it right away, they minimize it, they understand its danger and its difficulty, and they manage it right out of existence.
	That's, I think, what shows up in the world.
	Well, less than 5% from the Americans are spotting evil right now, as most of them are voting with the Sorry, are you saying that American children are raised in a non-violent environment?
	No, not in a non-violent environment, but in one of the best methods right now.
	Well, no. Look, I think there are still 28 states in the United States that allow teachers to beat children in school.
	Rates of child abuse in America are quite high, particularly because America has particular communities where children tend to be more abused.
	Christian communities, certain kinds of minority communities and other groups America has those communities in spades, and in those communities, children tend to get raised aggressively, if not violently.
	And this, of course, is where you get...
	In the South, it's more so than in the North, and where you get concentrations of this aggression, you get people who tend to be very happy to join the military, which is really tragic.
	I don't think it's true.
	Certainly it's true that American children are raised better now than they were 100 years ago or 200 years ago, and America is more peaceful thereby, right, in that, you know, women have rights, children have some rights, slavery's been abolished, there has been some progress, but there still is an enormous amount of progress to go.
	Yeah, so, yeah, you are, like, taking specific cases, but in this case, I would ask you what is the perfect, no, what is the There are some countries that have made real progress.
	So, for instance, Canada has abolished all beating of children in public schools, and this happened about 20 or 30 years ago, and we declined to go to Iraq, right, as a nation.
	We've unfortunately become embroiled I think it's Scandinavia or Norway.
	I think it's Scandinavia where hitting children has become illegal and the military has almost collapsed because nobody wants to join the military.
	Why? Because children are beaten less.
	That doesn't solve all the problems in the world.
	There's still a philosophical understanding of violence and statism that we need.
	If you go to psychohistory.com or nosebank.net, you can find more resources on this.
	And I would strongly urge you to do so.
	And I really do applaud your desire to try and figure out how we can best move the world forward to a peaceful and happy environment.
	That is a great thing to do.
	And I really do applaud you for doing that.
	But I think that if you do a little bit more looking into these websites, you can find some information that might support my case.
	case.
	And if you find information that doesn't, please feel free to send it to me and I will adjust my opinions accordingly.
	But that would be my suggestion.
	Now, I want to make sure that we get to our other callers because I've spent a lot of time on this.
	So if you don't mind, have a look at those things and let me know what you think.
	No, no, no.
	Okay, thank you. Thank you so much.
	Thank you so much for your interest in the show and your interest in how to make a better world.
	It is the greatest thing we can do for the future.
	All right. Jimmy Jambo, Jimmy Bob, do we have any other Yelps?
	Yes, it looks like there is another call here, but they don't have the hand up.
	Let's try them to see if they're just listening.
	If it's just a finger, we might want to bypass it.
	Okay. Caller from area code 427, are you listening, or do you have something to say to Stefan?
	Yes, yes. I too would like to pay my compliments to you, Stefan.
	Oh, your face! They're back!
	Oh gosh. It's another hymn to our growing fame and prestige.
	427-623-8298.
	427-623-8298.
	That's the guy's number.
	And I can't believe he waited all that time.
	They must really love you.
	It's a compliment. It's a practically misdirected compliment.
	These sad sorry people.
	You're a sad sorry little man.
	Drugs are not fun. Alright, do we have anybody else?
	Nobody else is just yet, but the number to call is 347-633-9636.
	That number again is 347-633-9636.
	So you don't think that protesting is a very good way, you know, like stopping traffic and, you know, you don't think it's a good way of getting your point across?
	Wow.
	I think it's a very bad way of getting your point across.
	It doesn't get your point across.
	It's not a philosophical argument.
	It's not an argument from principles.
	It's just, you know, I'm going to inconvenience you until you get...
	It's a temper tantrum, in my opinion.
	I don't think it is an argument, right, at all.
	And I remember up here in Canada, I try not to use any tactics that are used by, you know, idiots.
	And up here in Canada, whenever the farmers want an increase...
	In their farm subsidies, they just take their tractors and they drive along at five miles an hour along the Canadian highways and they get what they want, right?
	And I'm not saying that that's always the case, but I'm generally quite suspicious of tactics used by people who prey upon me to think that I can use those same tactics to get them to not prey on me.
	I just think is not the first place that I would look.
	Well, do you remember in 2000 when Great Britain had a problem They raised the gasoline prices and they took to the streets and within, I think it was like two, two and a half weeks, the government had to call the people in.
	Because if you think about this, when people don't spend money, you are actually cutting the food off that feeds the very beast that is causing, you know, aggression and force against you.
	Sorry, I don't, sorry to interrupt you.
	I'm not sure how I see that's the case.
	So if 10% of people stop paying their taxes, all they'll do is borrow money.
	We're not talking about paying taxes.
	We're talking about people were holding on to their money because in England...
	Do you remember? It was in 2000, right about September in 2000.
	Sorry, do you mean the people boycotted a private company?
	Well, here's what happened, right?
	The government raised gasoline prices, right?
	So the people took to the streets in their car.
	Sorry, do you mean gasoline taxes?
	No. Well, they raised the price on gas.
	The government did. Does that mean the price is set by the government and not by the free market?
	Or any part of the free market?
	Well, absolutely it is.
	I mean, they choose whatever price they want to make the price.
	Because like 84, I think it's like 84 pence on every, 84% on what they pay in England on gasoline goes to the government.
	So it is a gas tax that they raise?
	Yes. Okay, got it. All right.
	All right. So what happened was the gas went up.
	And people became outraged, so they took to their vehicles and traveled down every major highway at half the speed limit.
	And what happened was this obviously caused goods to be at the stores and food, and people went out and they mass panicked.
	They were buying food, filling shopping carts, getting as much gas as they could, and there was no gas at the gas station for days.
	You could not get gas.
	And people then were very reluctant to spend any money because they did not know what was going to happen.
	And as you know, when you go out and purchase something and it has taxes on, the government get those taxes.
	They get billions of dollars, I'm quite sure, here every day from the general public in sales taxes.
	So you are in essence, by doing something like that, you are actually cutting off the money that the government needs to fund itself.
	No, you're not.
	Thank you.
	No, because the government will just borrow the money or print more money, right?
	They have the printing presses.
	They do, but they still want the money.
	So anyway, they called these people in, and they got their way.
	They lowered their taxes.
	And you've only got to look at the French.
	Wait, wait. Sorry to interrupt.
	They lowered taxes on a specific product.
	Does that mean that they cut their spending overall?
	The people got their way.
	That's what I'm saying. All they did was shift the tax burden to someone else, right?
	Because if total government spending did not come down to the proportion of the tax cut, then it just means that they raised taxes somewhere else, on someone else, some group that was not organized, or they printed more money, or they borrowed more money, which is raising taxes on the unborn.
	If the total government spending did not come down, then it simply means that they shifted that particular tax burden to some other group or some other person, whether it's now or in the future.
	Well, what happened, like I said, was that they put the gas price back to where it was originally.
	So the people got their way by protesting.
	That's what I'm saying. Well, what did they get?
	They got the price of gas back to where it was before the protest, before the government raised it.
	I don't think you're hearing what I'm saying.
	Let me try it again. Did the government spending as a whole decrease?
	Like if the government then lost 100 million pounds in taxes, did total government spending come down by 100 million pounds or did the government continue to grow in size despite the loss of tax revenue on a particular item?
	I can't answer that question.
	I didn't look into that.
	I can answer that question. I can guarantee you that the government continued to grow and the government spending did not.
	I mean, the government never says, oh dear, we've lost some revenue, so let's cut our spending.
	I mean, look what's happening in the United States.
	They've lost a huge amount of revenue.
	I mean, American citizens have lost $14 trillion in wealth over the past two years just on financial evaporations.
	They don't sit there and say, well, we have this huge amount of outlay for the Iraq war, so let's cut spending somewhere else.
	Whenever a government has some loss of income or some increase in expenditures, they just print more money or borrow more money until the system collapses.
	They don't cut spending because they've lost revenue in some particular area.
	You could look into it, and if I'm wrong, let me know, and I'll certainly correct myself publicly.
	I can't imagine the government says, well, we've lost 50 million pounds by having to reduce the price of these taxes.
	So let's sit around and figure out where in the government we can cut 50 million pounds.
	It just never happens that way.
	They just either raise taxes on some other group or they print money or they borrow money or they sell off some government assets or whatever.
	But mostly they just raise taxes elsewhere, print money or borrow money.
	They don't actually lower their spending as a whole.
	So you're just shifting the burden.
	You're not actually reducing the size of government.
	It's just cutting off one hydra, one head of the hydra while two more grow in the back.
	Well, another thing it caused as well, it caused a problem with production because people were showing up for work late or even not showing up at all because they didn't have the gas in their vehicle.
	Oh, sure, yeah, and that's definitely inconvenient.
	And for sure, politicians will take that pressure and say, well, this is causing more hassle than it's worth.
	We're getting lots of complaints. Politicians are sensitive, of course, to being re-elected.
	And if they're remembered as the guy who screwed up the economy because he raised a few bucks on taxes on gasoline, then for sure they'll reverse that.
	But that doesn't have anything to do with government power as a whole.
	It's just like, well, it's like the hitman goes down one alley and says, oh, well, this alley doesn't lead to my victim.
	He doesn't then just give up and go home.
	He just takes another alley because that one happens to be inconvenient.
	Well, we do have another caller.
	Let's hope it's not a prank caller.
	They don't have the hand up, so they may be just listening.
	Caller from area code 632.
	You're on the air. I'd like to just address these imbecile crank callers.
	You know, they need to get it live and find something positive to do because y'all interrupting a great podcast here.
	And you know, Stephan, you can send them over to me and I'll take care of them real good for you.
	Yeah, I'll jack them off real good.
	So painful, man.
	Well, there must have been some, I mean, it's funny.
	I mean, all we'll do is cut it out of the podcast.
	It's sort of pointless. But they must have had some group which says, hey, let's go and swarm this particular podcast.
	You know, it is a tragic fact of life that whenever you try to do something positive in the world, there's, you know, every jacket apes on the planet sort of sits there and The first impulse is to come along and do something that is negative or unproductive.
	Everyone who tries to make the world a better place constantly swims uphill against cluster ass clowns who want to do this kind of stuff.
	I think it's a shame. It's just a very primitive, as some people would say, it's a very primitive psycho class from a much earlier time in history who sort of managed to hang on to the social body like an appendix hangs on to the physical body.
	But it's no particular harm done.
	I mean, if that's what they feel they can contribute, it's no particular skin off our nose.
	Alright, there's nobody else on the board right now.
	So if anybody wants to call, 347-633-9636.
	That number again, 347-633-9636.
	We're taking calls. Yeah, and if nobody else is calling in, I don't have any other particular topic, so we can end a few minutes early.
	That's not a huge catastrophe.
	And I certainly do want to thank the callers who came in with excellent and honest and open questions and objections and comments.
	I must say, I am just continually, enormously, massively, and thrillfully...
	I'm impressed with the intelligence that's out there.
	I mean, people are so freaking smart.
	All I'm trying to do really is keep up with my listeners because it's really quite a challenge.
	You all are just so smart and so bright and ask such excellent questions and bring such great challenges to the philosophical conversation that it is, I guess, I've said it before and I'll say it again, it is just a real honor to be part of this conversation and this conversation.
	Evolution, if not revolution, in thinking.
	I'm just constantly amazed and impressed.
	I can't ever think of a dumb call of anyone who really wants to communicate.
	I can't think of a dumb call that's ever come through.
	I've had a few debates which were slightly less than scintillating, but as far as the callers go, you people are all just stone magnificent and should take an immense bow.
	If you've ever called into the show, this is my absolute massive props out to you for contributing so fantastically to this conversation because it is an amazing thing to be on the receiving end of these just great, challenging, deep, honest, open, rich, vulnerable, amazing Questions and comments.
	It is an immense pleasure.
	And I feel very honored that people do call in and share of their thoughts and feelings in this way.
	So I just wanted to thank everybody.
	I wanted to thank everybody.
	We have one more caller here.
	Let's roll the dice, baby.
	Let's see what we get. Caller from area code 608.
	You are on the air. Hey.
	I am one...
	I'm like, you got me into libertarianism, but I'm wondering, I've kind of moved, like I've gotten into some of the Austrian school thinkers like Mises and Rothbard and Thomas Woods and Thomas DiLorenzo, Walter Block, people like that.
	I think there's a lot of brilliant people in the libertarian movement, and I was wondering what you think about the libertarian movement in general, like, you know, like the I think you're one of the big thinkers, but I was wondering, who are some other thinkers you like?
	What are some different movements within the libertarian movement that you like?
	Well, thank you. That's a great question.
	Strangely, because I was expecting something different, I do feel the urge to say the word cock, but I think I'll try and restrain myself in terms of a male hen.
	But no, those are great questions.
	I'm a huge fan of many libertarian thinkers.
	I mean, I'm often asked, are you an Austrian?
	And the answer is no, but I look fantastic in Lederhosen.
	But the...
	The Austrian School, I mean, I'm no economist.
	I'm not competent to judge, you know, the technicalities behind it, but I'm a huge fan of the Austrian School, massive fan of Murray Rothbard and his economic analysis.
	I think that the Austrian business cycle theory is just fantastic, the degree to which the overprinting of money causes an overproduction on the capital markets, which then translates to consumer markets.
	It seems to conform with the data that's quoted.
	It's an elegant and beautiful theory.
	I think that Mises' critique Of socialism is fantastic.
	His examination of the problems of price is fantastic.
	I just read his autobiography, which I thought he was just an academic.
	I think I've said a few things before about, you know, I was just an academic and I apologize for that.
	Having read his autobiography, his intellectual autobiography, he spent a lot of time trying to Make the Austrian economy work a little bit better by resisting the overprinting of money and it all failed but he did do more than sit in a classroom and to that I don't know whether it was good or bad but it certainly was definitely definitely more than what I thought so more props to him for that I think those guys are fantastic to read I really do I think that they they provide a clarity and a brilliance to the world and I think they're well worth reading I don't think they're going to make you free.
	I don't think those arguments are going to free the world.
	Because as I said earlier, I think it comes back fundamentally to how children are treated.
	And I'm trying to get a guest on this week who's got great arguments for that, right?
	So that people can understand that if I'm wrong, I'm wrong with good company.
	So I think that it's great to read that stuff.
	I mean, I came in through Rand.
	Didn't read many other libertarians for many years, but I guess once I got into FDR, I started reading Rothbard, Tom DeLorenzo.
	I've read a couple of books of his, and he's a good writer as well as, I think, a very smart economist or analyzer of economic issues.
	The Mises podcast, I don't listen to them anymore, but I did for quite some time.
	I'm a little bit more on the equine talk side of things because I like to get more alternate perspectives.
	I think they're just great.
	I think that if you want to read some great literature, I mean, read Murray Rathbard on KidLib.
	Tyler Cowen has some great books.
	Alex Tabarrok has some great work out there.
	Marginal Revolution is a great economics blog to look at.
	The EconTalk podcasts are just excellent.
	I mean, they're very smart people and very challenging topics at times, but there's one on Walmart that's fantastic and one on the recent economic crisis that's also very good.
	So I think there's lots of great stuff that's out there.
	I would really strongly recommend to understand the world.
	It's really good. I don't think it's how we're going to get to freedom because this classical liberal arguments for the free market have been going on for 300 years.
	And, you know, they've had some success, but it has not done anything to overturn the foundation of statism, which rests on another edifice I call the family.
	But I think that they're really, really great to read.
	I think that libertarianism is a little bit Tragically limited to economics and politics.
	I think that it does not go out enough into the realms of philosophy.
	I think it's just kind of bounded in by those kinds of things.
	So, I mean, for economic analysis, I don't know that you can do a whole lot better than Mises and Rothbard and to some degree Lorenzo.
	But they don't go into other areas that I think they should go into.
	And I don't think that they don't go into philosophy too much.
	They do go to some degree into history, but it's almost all US history.
	And it's not a lot of great stuff when it comes to other kinds of world history or ancient history, which is something that I'm more interested in.
	So I think it's really great as far as economics go, but I don't think that they've tackled the ghost in the room.
	I don't think that libertarian thinkers do much to tackle religion because...
	Religion is the foundation for a lot of economic, a lot of libertarian think tanks get a significant amount of funding from religion, and so they, you know, follow the money.
	They don't tend to take on religion, which I think discredits libertarians in a larger sense in an increasingly secular and liberal world.
	But I think that they're great to read, and I will forever be grateful, particularly for the free materials that mises.org Always worth a visit.
	That Mises.org puts online, forever be grateful for those, for access to those materials.
	And I recommend at least 20 times a week for people to go to that website or to other websites that are similar.
	And of course, I got my start on ludrockwell.com, forever grateful for that, you know, leg up.
	But to me, there are some limitations based on the fact that they'll work in the economic sphere from first principles, but they don't tend to take those same first principles and move into the sphere of...
	areas, right, particularly religion, right?
	They're very much against the indoctrination of children by status public schools, but they don't seem to have any particular problem with the indoctrination of children by the schools of superstition called Christianity or other kinds of Judaism or whatever.
	So I think that there's, you know, it's fantastic stuff, but it's kind of the shallow end of the pool in some ways for real social change, in my opinion.
	Yeah, so like, right war but wrong battleground, you would say?
	I'm sorry, say that again?
	So like, right war but wrong battleground, you'd say?
	I've debated a lot with a lot of people on economics, but I don't think, you know, however many facts I manage to accumulate on economics, I don't really seem to make any headway.
	I would agree that economics is kind of the wrong battleground to fight on.
	Yeah. No, I agree with you.
	I think it's really important to know.
	And I think it's not bad to argue from time to time, but it's not...
	I mean, I try to be, and I'm not saying I always succeed, but I always try to come back.
	My compass is empiricism.
	Empiricism, empiricism, empiricism.
	There's no way I'm going to come up with better economic arguments than the greats.
	I mean, I'm not even an economist.
	It would be crazy, right?
	I mean, there's just no way that I'm going to come up with a better work on socialism than von Mises.
	So I completely surrender to our, you know, the Austrian crusty bastard master.
	You know, he's the guy, right?
	And there's no way I'm going to come up with a better analysis of the business cycle than the Austrian school.
	Given that I can't do that, and that Mises' critiques of socialism go back, it's close to 20 years now.
	Sorry, it's close to 100 years now.
	It's over 90 years, I think. It was early 20s.
	It's almost 90 years.
	Let's say it's close enough to a century to call it a century.
	For a century, these incredible arguments against Marxism, against socialism, for the problems of price in a socialist, when there's no price in a socialist aspect of the economy, goods cannot be allocated in any intelligent way.
	I'm never going to do any better than those guys.
	It's ridiculous to even say that, but I'm going to say it because it would be silly to even think I could.
	So given that they've done amazing work for the last hundred years, and you can go back to Ricardo, you can go back to Mill, you can go back to Adam Smith, you can go back to all of these, say, you can go back to all of these amazing economists, and Mark Skousen's History of Economics is a good read in this area.
	Though he's a Mormon. But there's no way that I'm going to do any better.
	Maybe you can, but I'm not going to roll the dice and say that you can.
	I don't think anyone can.
	So if for the past hundred years, these amazing guys have been doing this amazing work and the government has been growing bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, then I'm going to assume that one more great book on this topic is not going to make the difference.
	So it has to be something else.
	Because this This approach of economics has not worked.
	It has not worked.
	So it must be something else.
	The approach of politics hasn't worked.
	The approach of economics hasn't worked.
	The approach of free market education hasn't worked.
	It has to be something else.
	And really the last couple of years has been me sort of beating around the bushes.
	I give that phrase as a lead into the next crank call, but it's been me beating around the bushes trying to find out what else it might be.
	If none of this stuff has worked, if this is the only thing we've got, then we're completely screwed.
	We're never going to achieve a free society if we only have the arsenal that we've already got.
	It has to be something else, and that's really what I've been looking for in order to maintain my optimism and maintain my belief that we can achieve a free world.
	And I know that we can, and that's what sort of led me away from these sorts of topics, more into people's personal lives, History, childhood, family, and I think those things are how we will free the world.
	And maybe I'll be completely wrong and people will laugh at me in 100 years, or maybe I'll be completely right.
	That really has been my particular focus.
	So we're winding down the show.
	It is 6 p.m.
	on the 8th of November, 2009.
	Thank you once again to the donators and to the subscribers and to the people who are just very generous, enormously, immensely generous.
	Thank you for another week of being able to communicate and talk about philosophy.
	We are very close to 2 million video views.
	I haven't done the podcast numbers in a while because that takes some time and time has been short.
	But thank you, thank you, thank you once more to everyone who subscribes and donates for giving me another week of being able to talk about philosophy with the world, with you, and facilitating through the message board and other mediums You talking with each other about philosophy.
	It is a magnificent, beautiful, wonderful, amazing, fantastic crew of people on fire with the joy of thought.
	And thank you so much for your support and your continued consideration and enthusiasm for philosophy at Free Domain Radio.

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