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June 24, 2010 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:05:05
1688 Porcupine Freedom Festival - Opening Speaker - Stefan Molyneux, Freedomain Radio

June 26 2010, 6pm, 'Language as the Ultimate Government Program'

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So, my beer is empty, so I have to get off the stage, but I want to introduce a woman that I absolutely come to love over the past couple years.
She puts on this event, she's organized this event last year and this year.
So please give a big round of applause to the queen of the quills, Carla!
Thank you Chris.
Actually I'm also gonna say, welcome to ParkFest!
All right, the first thing I want to know is who here is here for the first time?
Oh, my God.
Woo-hoo! Keep coming back and better yet, just stay.
And, of course, it takes a village, right?
Which sounds sort of communistic when you think about it, but I believe in voluntary association where we choose to be together and to help each other.
So, the last thing I'm going to say, because I'm sure everyone here is as eager as I am to hear Stefan talk, and we will have Lauren Canario, activist extraordinaire, to come up and introduce him.
I just want to say I am so, so very thrilled that you're all here.
I hope I can talk to each and every one of you this weekend.
reach out, the thing that we're doing here is based on community.
So let's keep that strong. - Hi, I'm usually not a speaker, I'm usually not a speaker, I'm usually the non-speaker.
But just for today, I'm going to make a short speech because I'm a big fan of our first opening speaker here at Porkfest.
And maybe you haven't heard of him, but I bet you've heard of a lot of his phrases that he's injected into our society, like, everyone's a genius and everyone's a philosopher.
And he's also said, I think he originated the phrase, the gun in the room, and also the against me argument, which is really cool.
And maybe you've heard of a guy who podcasts while he's driving to work in the morning, and at night, he'd like two podcasts a day, and by now he's got like 1,600 podcasts, and it's...
It's amazing that he's got enough content to put into 1600 podcasts.
But I think the best part about our next speaker is that he lives what he advocates.
Like he says, philosophy is important.
So what does he do? He quits his high-paying software management job and he becomes a full-time philosopher just living off of donations from the internet.
That's cool. And he's been...
He said that intellectual property is not in line with the free market, he says.
So what does he do? He puts his books for free on the internet.
And also he says that child rearing is the way that we're going to get to a more liberated society.
And so every Sunday he has a call-in program where everyone listens to him talking about how he's raising his daughter, Isabella.
And so I think that is really great.
I mean, it's okay to be talkative and it's okay to have a lot to say and a lot of advice for everybody.
But when you actually live it, I think when you live your principles, that is really special.
I think everyone should listen to Stefan Molyneux. - Hi everybody, thank you so much. thank you so much.
Thank you. Thank you, Lauren, for that very kind introduction, and thank you so much for the invitation to come and speak with you.
This is the future, and I'm very, very excited to be standing here and looking out at it.
So I'm going to put forward an argument tonight, and shockingly, you haven't heard it before, even if you've listened to a lot of my shows.
Before I came up, we were just talking about how long I should go, and for those who know the number of podcasts I've done...
What we've arranged is that there's a guy with a blow dart at the back.
So what's going to happen?
You'll hear a little... And then I'll just start to slow down.
And I'll fight it. No!
So, I wanted to talk about an idea that I've been working on.
I've been doing this sort of stuff for about 25 years.
And probably like most of you, for the first...
20 of those years, I really, really thought that people disagreed with me about freedom.
I thought that they were pro-government.
I thought they were pro-taxation.
I thought they were pro-regulation, pro-jail.
Hi, darling. Yeah, you're upside down.
Good girl. I can't believe I'm upstaged by my own daughter.
Sorry. Good girl.
Yeah, get used to it.
No kidding. And so I thought that people really disagreed with me because whenever I would talk about freedom and voluntarism and non-violent solutions to social problems, people would really violently disagree with me.
But I changed my mind shortly before I started Freedom Made Radio and it was one of the reasons that I began doing the podcast was I changed my mind and I realized that people really do agree with us in a very powerful way and I want to outline that tonight and then with your participation and some Q&A we'll see if we can hammer this out and see whether it's a good idea or the other kind.
You know, when you're comfortable with something morally, you don't use weird weasel words for it, right?
So, let's take an example.
Like, you're out here in the woods and some very enterprising and dexterous bear comes at you with a chainsaw.
I'm from the city. I think this happens.
And let's say that, like most people here, you're heavily armed.
Well, what you do is you'd shoot the bear, right?
And hopefully you'd shoot it so you just wounded it or so it could still make a nice rug or something, but you would shoot the bear.
And if somebody said, well, what did you do later?
You'd say, well, a bear came at me with a chainsaw, so I shot it.
You wouldn't say, I nationalized it, I arrested it.
I mean, you'd say, I shot it.
Why? Because you'd be comfortable.
With the ethics of what you were doing, self-defense.
Similarly, if somebody stole your bike and you saw it and they weren't around, you would take it back, right?
And somebody said, well, what did you do?
Well, I stole the bike back. I took the bike back, right?
You wouldn't say, well, I redistributed the bike back to the more needy or something like that.
You would say, I took the bike back.
Because you'd be comfortable with the restoration of your property.
So when we're comfortable with something morally, we call it by its proper name.
And I think that's really, really important.
Because whenever you hear about the government, all you hear are these weird, weaselly, foggy, nonsense terms that...
Don't describe anything real.
I asked some of the listeners to my show, and I'll ask you now too, what are your favorite government euphemisms?
My favorite so far is when you print a lot of, well, you print more fiat currency.
They call it quantitative easing, which to my mind sounds exactly like a laxative and not even one that you take orally, I think.
So what are your favorite government euphemisms?
And I'll tell you why I'm bringing this up in just a sec.
Quantitative easing is mine.
I like No Child Left Behind, because if you argue against that, people think that you want to just throw children out of your car or something like that.
Leave them behind. You know, they're slow.
They're needy. So what are your favorite government euphemisms out there?
What do we got? National security, as if there's a nation and as if it can be made secure through the initiation of force.
What else have we got? What?
What? Public education.
What is that? Forced indoctrination would be the real term.
There's a public education. What else have we got?
Internal revenue service.
That's right. That's right. Because it's a service which you...
which you tip.
Thank you. I love my creme brulee.
Here's half my income.
What else? What?
Military intelligence.
We weren't looking for oxymorons, we were looking for euphemisms, but thank you for trying.
What else? What else? Sorry?
Operation Iraqi Freedom, right.
You are free from plumbing.
And your limbs.
What else? Sorry?
The Drug Enforcement Agency.
That sounds like a lot more fun.
You're gonna take these drugs, right?
And not orally.
Sorry, I'm gonna use that joke more.
I'm sorry? Engage the target.
Will you die? Good point, good point.
What else? Oh yeah, the soldiers have fallen.
Oops! No, no, no, no, they were killed.
I mean, we can't even call that.
Sorry? Collateral damage.
Yeah, that's a nice one too.
You sunk my battleship.
What else? Post-traumatic stress disorder.
Yeah, because, you know, I watch people get killed and I'm not happy.
What else? To serve and protect.
Now, actually, I think that's not a euphemism because I think the police are there to serve and protect.
Just not us.
You know, the guys out front of the mafia hangout are there to serve and protect as well, just not the shopkeepers they're shaking down.
What else? One more.
Who's got another doozy?
Sorry? We.
We the people? We the game?
Last one? Executive privilege.
Yeah, that's a nice one too. Yeah, I got a whole list of these here.
Now, I think the reason, I think it's really important to understand why these terms are used.
Why do people say military intelligence?
Why do they say national defense rather than what it really is?
Well, I would say that it's because they're really not very comfortable.
With what they're describing.
Because when we are comfortable with what we're describing, we call it by its proper name.
So, when it comes to Helping people to escape the matrix of government language because I think it's really important to understand that language is just another government program that is inflicted upon children through state schools that is created by the government in its description of its own activities, right? So Social Security Can you really be against social security?
Are you against society or security?
Do you use your birthday as every single one of your passwords?
Do you hate the term, the concept?
It doesn't make any sense. So the government owns the language that is used to describe the government's activities.
That's a real challenge. But the reason that people are drawn to that language is because they don't like what the government is doing, and so they need...
To cover it up with a whole bunch of nonsense syllables so that they can avoid looking at the thing itself.
You know, it's like how the body falls and they cover it with a sheet.
Well, the body is our freedom and the sheet is the language.
If you understand that language, the language particularly of politics, is just another government program that does exactly the same as every other government program does, which is the opposite of its intended claim, right?
The purpose of language is supposed to be to clarify, to communicate, to synthesize.
And of course, government language simply befogs and paralyzes and confuses and bewilders.
And so, to take an example, right?
So let's say that you're arguing about Social Security.
I try as much as I can to avoid using the phrase Social Security.
Because what do people think when they hear Social Security?
But they think, well, that means food, shelter and healthcare for old people.
Who could be against that? What sane human being would say, no, that's no good.
Let's pull an Eskimo and leave him on an ice floe.
That would make no sense.
So you can't argue against Social Security because the language is owned by the government.
Just like you can't argue against the Patriot Act because it means you're either against patriotism or action or something, but you're certainly not against what it actually is.
So when I'm having conversations with people about something like social security and they say, well, are you for or against social security?
I say, well, I don't know because I don't really know what the term means.
And what I mean by that is I don't know what the term means for the other person.
I don't know if it means helping the old or if it means the initiation of force with the intent of solving social problems.
So ask them what it means.
Now, you usually get two answers back.
So somebody says, I'm for Social Security because I am for helping the old and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And you have to say, well, look, that's not Social Security.
Social Security is a specific set of laws and regulations and tax code enforcements from the government.
So it's not helping the old because anybody can help the old who wants to.
So Social Security is not helping the old.
So you have to scrub that.
If it's synonymous with helping the old, you'll never win the argument because no sane person would argue against helping people.
So somebody who maybe has a little bit more knowledge will say, well, Social Security is when the government takes some of your income while you're working, puts it in a nice, tidy little safe, and then when you're old, it gives it back to you.
Now, somebody like that, they're lost in language.
So if somebody's for that, then they're not for Social Security, because that's not what Social Security is, as we all know.
Social Security is, they take money from you, 20% or so, while you're working.
They spend it on hookers and blow.
Which is actually the safest thing.
You know, people got mad at Spitzer for doing that.
It's like, but at least he's not regulating people.
It's the least of all himself.
But, you know, corruption is the least harm the government could do because at least something or someone is getting done.
So, if they're for, well, I'll take the money and give it back to you when you're old, then they're not for Social Security.
And so, it's really important to boil down What is actually happening, not the words that are used to describe it, that are invented by the government, and which will only serve to confuse the argument.
So, what I like to do is say to people, who gets the gun in your system?
In the system that you propose, who gets the gun?
Should have showered. So, and you can try this with props, if you like.
Little chess pieces or salt and pepper shakers or whatever it is, right?
And if you have a little prop that looks like a gun but isn't really a gun because you need to cross the border, then you can do that, right?
So, Social Security, who gets the gun?
So, in Social Security, as we all know, The government takes money at gunpoint, spends it, leaves a whole bunch of dusty IOUs in a safe that gets opened up by the next generation as they're getting brutally taxed to pay for the people who had their money stolen from them who are now old.
So this, of course, is called a Ponzi scheme, as we all know.
This is exactly what Bernie Madoff is serving time for these days.
It's when you have a whole bunch of money That is flowing upwards in an organization that's supposedly made by profit, but is in fact just made from new people joining who are being bamboozled into paying, but in this case of course it is being forced into paying.
That's called the Ponzi scheme.
And so you want to break it down to what is actually happening, not social security or helping the aged or whatever nonsense people are talking about, but break it down to the actual components.
Who gets the gun in this scenario?
So in this scenario called social security, Who gets the gun?
The government gets the gun, gets to take money at gunpoint, spends it on whatever it wants, and then takes another gun to the younger generation to pay for what is now the richest generation that has ever lived.
The youngest generation is paying more for the elder generation despite the fact I was going to say we, but given my demographic, I'll probably say you to be a little bit more accurate.
Given the fact that you younger people have the highest taxes, the highest property taxes, the highest income taxes, the greatest deficits in debt, and the highest cost of real estate, although I guess it's gotten a little better now.
So... If you are stuck in this world of language, particularly the language that is defined by the government, I really strongly, strongly urge you to not use the language of the government when talking about government programs, but rather to break the language down, to break it apart.
Because language is supposed to describe something that is, something that is real.
Propagandistic language is all airy-fairy nonsense, but to break it down to something that is real, So if you fell out of a plane into a desert in Africa and you saw a tree and some bushman came up to you and said, Ongawa, right? You'd know that he was referring to a tree, right?
And so language is ephemeral, language comes and goes, but it's supposed to be describing something that actually is, something that is real, that is tangible.
And what is real and tangible about what happens with the government is the fact that there's always a gun in the room.
There's always somebody pointing a gun at someone.
That is draped over with language and patriotism and propaganda and all other kinds of nonsense.
But until you can sort of blow that away, sometimes it's a really aggressive operation like sandblasting and sometimes it's like that, you know, you see these archaeologists in the documentaries and they see something and they're blowing it and they're brushing it gently.
But you have to get all of that tertiary nonsense that crap, the language has got to come out of what it is that you're talking so that you reveal the bones of coercion.
That is underneath.
So I thought we could try this, just because watching me talk is not that thrilling, but I thought we could try this if somebody wanted to come up with a common problematic argument or government program that we could try taking this approach to and see if it's a good approach.
I've had pretty good success with it, but let's try it with something that you come up with.
So is there someone here who's got a really nasty argument that they continue to...
Yes? For the children, yes.
Well, let's all be against the children, shall we?
Because that's going to work.
No, that's an excellent one.
So, just before we start that, there was one, I've got my second favorite euphemism.
In Canada, the great socialist paradise just north of you that you all escape to when your system collapses, you're welcome.
LAUGHTER We have good donuts.
It's socialized healthcare, but good donuts, so it balances out, if that makes sense.
But yeah, there was a tax...
The conservative government came in because the conservative governments, as you know from Bush, are very, very pro-free market and anti-tax.
Can you believe it? It's amazing to me that nobody's just referring to...
Like, it's just gone. It's into the dustbin of history, down the memory hole, that whole mess, you know?
George Bush and even Ronald Reagan, right?
The federal government grew by two-thirds under Reagan, but he's still called, you know, Mr.
Small Government. So the conservative government came in in Canada, and they said, no new taxes.
And then they introduced a tax, because that's what you know, is the reverse of whatever is said, right?
They introduced a tax, and they called it the fair share health levy.
Levy. It's not a tax.
So what are you against? Are you against paying your fair share?
Are you against health?
Are you against a levy? What, you don't like Don McLean songs?
I don't even know what a levy is.
Oh, look at that. The older people are like, ha, ha, ha.
The younger people are like, didn't Madonna do that song?
I was about to break into it, but I won't.
So, okay, again, healthcare, so it's for the children, right?
Well, the first thing that I would do is say, for the children is not specific.
To this legislation.
Because there are lots of things in the world that are for the children that aren't this legislation.
So you have to do that philosophical slice and dice.
If you're going to use a word to describe something, it has to be something specific.
Otherwise, it's like saying, this is a thing.
What is it? Well, you have to be a little bit more specific than thing.
So if somebody says, it's for the children, you say, well, that includes a lot of things.
Like pediatricians, I believe, are for children.
A lot of parents are for children.
So that's not specific.
I would say, well, what is specific about This legislation that we can debate about, right?
Because for the children is...
You can't debate that, right?
So what do you think somebody would say to that?
For poor children whose parents can't afford health care.
Well, nobody could be against the helping of poor children to get medical care.
Nobody could be against that.
But that is not specific to the legislation either.
Because lots of people help poor children get healthcare.
Doctors do free clinic work.
Charities and churches and other institutions will help.
So it's not specific, right?
So when people use these big blanket terms, you know, for poor children to get...
That's not specific to the legislation.
And what you're trying to do through this process is you're trying to break through this matrix of government program language to get to what is actually happening.
So what would somebody say if I said, well, that's not specific because lots of people help poor children.
What would they then say? Yes?
Enough isn't being done.
All right? And again, I would say, well, what does that mean?
Enough isn't being done. Let's do more!
Of what? Right? I mean, what does that mean?
I don't know, right? So I'd say, well, what is it that needs to be done?
And they would then circle around and say, well, we need to help the poor, and we need to do this, and we need to do that, right?
And then I would say, well, what you're talking about are all generalities.
Of course it's nice to help the poor.
Of course, theoretically, we should do more about X, Y, and Z. But the question is, what is being done?
When you're debating with somebody about the government, One really important thing to understand or to ask them or to try and figure out is, do they actually know what the government is?
If the government is this big general kind of, let's do nice things for people, then you can't argue against that.
Because not only is it unarguable to do nice things, but it has nothing to do with what the government is.
So again, it's really about just peeling back these layers.
So what is it that is actually happening?
Well, of course, as we all know, what is actually happening Is something like pre-existing conditions are being eliminated.
This actually happened in New York relatively, I think a decade or two ago, that they eliminated pre-existing conditions.
You could not be disqualified for healthcare if you had a pre-existing condition.
Does anybody know what the inevitable next step was for every single customer of the insurance industry who was interested in healthcare?
Sorry? Yeah, yeah, you stop, right?
It's like saying, I will only take the life insurance after I'm dead, if that's alright with you, because otherwise it's kind of expensive, right?
So you're right, everybody stopped, right?
What happens when people stop and wait until they get sick before taking healthcare?
Everything's more expensive, because you don't have the people paying in as a preventative measure, right?
So everything becomes more expensive.
And what does that mean?
How many of the poor people can afford additional health care insurance, which I think is running at about six grand a year for a 25-year-old male?
I don't even think you have to do crack while parachuting to qualify for that rate.
You just have to be breathing. So they can't afford it, right?
So they can't afford it. And so then you need more government, as we all know, right?
It's dominoes, dominoes, dominoes.
You need more and more government to solve the problems that have been created by the previous government programs.
So when you're continuing to ask people about these kinds of programs, I think it's really important.
Don't accept the language that the government has defined that you should use.
That is a very, very bad idea.
Because you can't win against abstract, nonsensical sentimentality.
No child left behind.
You can't argue against that, but you have to ask people, do you know what the term actually means?
Do you know what is actually happening in the real world when that happens?
So no pre-existing conditions.
People think, well, that's great, because people who didn't get health insurance who get sick can now get treated.
And, of course, if you are someone who didn't take health care and you get sick, of course you want free treatment or heavily subsidized treatment.
Of course you do, right? People aren't going to abstract themselves into the grave that way, right?
If you can grab it, you'll grab it, right?
It's like the... The man dying of thirst in the desert does not care about the property rights of the guy with the lemonade stand, right?
In an emergency, people will.
That's why the government continually wants to create these emergencies so that people will vault over their own ethics.
We can only usually be ethical when we're relative calm.
In an emergency, it's usually a free-for-all, which is why the government loves creating emergencies.
So, let's try one more.
I think we have time, right?
Let's try one more. What's another oogie, nasty...
Sobriety checkpoints.
You sound quite intense about this.
Do you have something you'd like to share?
Hi, my name is...
And I'm a libertarian.
Sobriety checkpoints. Okay, so give me the argument for sobriety checkpoints and let's see if we can break down the language.
Drunk drivers are dangerous.
Right. Who wants to argue the counter position?
I love them. They're exciting.
It's like pinball. Okay.
Drunk drivers are dangerous, and that is nothing to do with sobriety checkpoints.
We all understand that. Drunk drivers are dangerous, exactly, which is why there are punishments, and I'm sure there would be in a free society punishments for driving drunk.
But drunk drivers are dangerous doesn't have anything to do with the law.
Because the law doesn't say drunk drivers are dangerous.
Thank you very much. The law says a whole bunch of other things around stopping people without cause.
And if I understand it rightly, and I'm not an expert on this by any means, but can't they ding you for other stuff?
Like if they find a joint in your...
Yes?
Actually, this is just an intervention tonight.
We're trying to draw everybody out who has substance abuse problems.
That's why we're going to get to the laxative people.
You're all sitting there in a ring on your own.
Yeah, they can ding you for other stuff, right?
Like no matter your tail lights out or anything, right?
You don't have your papers.
I always want to do that with a German accent, right?
Game on, right? Right. Yeah, that's right.
And then the other thing too, and I know that there are, I think there are some vets here, but this is another thing just by the by.
Somebody wrote me an email about this, which I think is worth sharing, that he pointed out that, you know, a lot of the people who are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan are going into law enforcement.
Oops. See, it's really hard to use.
They're going into citizen intimidation.
It's really hard to avoid this language.
You have to really remind yourself.
And so these guys, you know, some of them aren't doing very well.
They've seen a lot of bad stuff.
They've done a lot of bad stuff.
And, yeah, they're going to pull you over.
And, I mean, I'm very much for, like, yes, sir, there's three bags full, sir, whatever you like, right?
I'm not so, I have two of the colonies, and I don't like the way you're treating me, young man.
With my monocle, you know.
I've just arrived from your Monopoly board, sir.
So, yeah, so sobriety checkpoints, it's like, well, what is it?
It's a violation of habeas corpus, right?
Because it's search and detain without reasonable cause.
Because, I mean, they can pull you over if you're, right, driving like you're yelling at your kids in the back, right?
That's okay, right? But they can pull you over with this with no cause whatsoever, right?
So it's a violation of habeas corpus.
So it's the initiation of force because they're pulling you over, and if you don't pull over, they'll, I don't know, do something like ram you, shoot out your tires, Lord knows what, right?
Pull an OJ on you, so...
So you break it down to one guy in a blue suit gets to stop another guy not in a blue suit or blue costume, and if that guy doesn't stop, he gets to open fire.
It's not about drunk drivers are bad, it's about what is actually happening in the real world.
This takes people to very difficult places for them emotionally.
When I started, I was saying that people already agree with us.
If you accept that, this is my theory and it's working, but take it for a test run yourself, of course.
If it's true that people already agree with us, then it's a really different mindset to change someone's mind.
So let's say you have a friend and he's married and his wife, you know, is stepping out on him, is having an affair.
If you tell him Then, if he doesn't know, he's going to be like, Z-O-M-G or something.
I don't know, right? He's going to be like, oh my god, that's bad, and he's going to do something, right?
However, if you know that your friend's wife is having an affair, and you also know that he knows that she's having an affair, just telling him isn't going to do that much, because he already knows.
And he's rejected that knowledge for whatever emotional or psychological reason.
It's the same thing with talking about liberty.
If people are using these euphemisms, all of this nonsense cover-up language, because they're fundamentally horrified by the society that they live in, and they're avoiding it, then they're already Rejecting the information that you're bringing to them.
You have to find another way, another way to get that information across.
If people are already emotionally defended against what you're bringing to them, just bringing it to them won't do any good.
Because they already have rejected that knowledge.
You have to find some other way to do it.
And the only way that I've found that has been consistently powerful and helpful is to break out the language to what is actually happening.
Right, there's the argument like...
Democracy, you ever get this argument like it's consensual because we get to vote and...
Can I get three people?
Can you guys just stand up here for a sec?
Just, yeah, just stand up here for a sec.
You can come right up on the stage if you don't mind.
Thank you. All right, the tall guy with the thing that shoots is going to be the government.
Camera jokes. Can you ever get enough?
Okay, so you get this argument, right?
Like, you're the citizen and you're the majority, right?
So you're an individual and you're the majority, and so you guys get to do whatever you want to the minority because it's a democracy, right?
And that's the weird thing because in this argument, and you can, again, the reason I'm using people is you've got to break it down to things in the real world.
Salt shakers, whatever you've got.
Pieces of paper, thumbs, you know, whatever you've got.
Because here we have a system, right?
So if you're, just take a step here if you don't mind.
So if you're here and you two want to do something and you vote, then this person has to obey, right, according to our system.
Oh, wait, there's the Constitution.
Okay, so if you step over here...
Just step over here for a sec.
Suddenly, the ethics have completely changed, and now these two people get to tell this person what to do.
So you see, this is an argument that virtue is proximity.
What was she doing there? So this is, like, the argument from democracy is the argument that proximity is ethics.
Right? Like, if we're closer together, it's good.
One step apart, it's bad.
Wait. Good. Bad.
Good? Bad? Like, everybody understands that that's insane, right?
I mean, you don't put three lizards together and they're reptiles, but if you put a fourth lizard together, they suddenly become mammals, right?
We all understand that that's not how biology works.
That's not how ethics works, either.
Just aggregating people together does not change their moral natures.
You two, by voting, don't suddenly learn how to fly and digest sand and things like that.
Right? It just doesn't change the nature if you take one step to a majority or one step toward a minority.
It does not change the nature of who you are.
It does not change the reality of ethics.
And you can do, again, do this with people or have them sit closer and further together.
Because when people are talking about democracy and the social contract and the rule of law and the constitution and the bill, it's all abstract language that does not translate into what is actually happening in the world.
Thanks so much. I appreciate that.
And I'm sorry that it's, you know...
But it's really important to get it.
Because it's really important to get people to understand that the state is having people do stuff with weapons to other people.
And as long as you're embedded in government language, You can't make that clear to people because they're in that matrix, right?
There's that red pill, which some of us, again, take orally and others not so much, right?
But there's that red pill that gets us out of that.
And what happens is you take language from the abstract to things occurring in the real world, right?
With people with guns, with people with prisons, with truncheons and beatings.
Extraordinary rendition, right?
We don't call it hiring torturers, right?
Because that doesn't sound good.
We call it extraordinary rendition.
It's like rendition, but extraordinary.
That's how much people are horrified by the actual system that we live in.
We don't call it selling the young.
We call it national debt.
And so if you understand that people use these euphemisms because they fear, loathe, and hate the system that they live in, I think you can understand that simply reminding them that the system is negative doesn't help because they know it.
Because if they didn't know it, they wouldn't use all of this alternative language.
So I'd really, really invite you, don't use the terms defined by the government.
Don't say I'm against the Patriot Act because people just think that you're against patriotism, you're against the country, you're against solidarity.
I'm against Medicare.
Right? Because I don't think people should get medical care.
They're not dumb.
The people who come up with this language, they're not dumb.
They know that by defining the language, they're defining the debate.
Reject the language. Reject the language.
Use whatever physical props you can that is in the room.
To line things up and say, who gets the gun in your plan?
Who gets the gun in your plan?
Because, of course, in the true libertarian word, nobody gets the gun.
Or rather, everybody gets the gun.
You know, depending on where you live, right?
And what you want to do.
So, the answer in the truly free society is nobody gets the gun.
The answer in all status societies is someone has to get the gun.
Now, the last thing I'll say before we go to questions is...
I think the next, once you get people to say, who gets the gun in your plan?
Who gets the gun in your plan?
Oh, you're for the welfare state.
Okay, so some people go and take money for other people that keep 80% for themselves, and then they invest the rest of the 20% in rotting housing projects and really crappy schools to create a permanent underclass that then gets plowed under when the system collapses.
Great plan, right?
When people finally get, okay, someone gets the gun in my plan, I'm a status, someone gets the gun in my plan, the next logical question is to ask, why does only that person get the gun?
Why does only that person get the gun?
It's a big question.
So, I mean, status are into the redistribution of wealth through coercive taxation.
So, someone gets a gun, and it's a group or whatever, but some people get the gun, and they point the gun at everyone else.
So the next logical question is, why did only those people get the gun?
What's so different about them?
What's so separate? And then you have to avoid the big merry-go-round, which is, it's voluntary, it's not voluntary.
It's voluntary, it's not voluntary.
It's a social contract, it has to be enforced.
It's a social contract, you know, we'll get around that over and over.
It's getting stuck in a revolving door until you just want to shoot yourself, right?
Because people will say, well, we need taxation because people have to be forced into it, into doing whatever the government wants, right?
And then you say, well, that's the initiation of force.
And people say, no, it's not, because it's a social contract and you get to vote.
Besides, you can leave if you don't like it.
Anybody ever heard that?
I've tried that with my neighbor.
I said, you need to give me half your income, and if you don't like it, you can move.
Strangely enough, the social contract did not support my social contract.
It's a paradox.
But yeah, so ask who gets the gun.
Reject the language. Ask who gets the gun in your plan, and why do only they get the gun?
Because if everyone gets the gun, or nobody gets the gun, then you're in a free society.
If only one person gets the gun, the person has to explain why.
And that puts the status on the defensive.
We all know how hard it is, how hard it is to put the status quo on the defensive, right?
Don't you always feel like you're like the guys in the Star Wars movies, you know, like six million droids shooting stuff at you, and you've got to wield these lightsabers all over the place?
Anybody? I'm an only geek here.
Come on. Come on.
Don't tell me that. Okay, that's it.
Dungeons and Dragons metaphor time.
You roll your dice, see?
Because you can't get any dates.
Anyway. Sorry, we'll get to my teenage years later.
But, yeah, so I think that's a suggestion that I would make that's really, really a powerful tool.
You have to get other people on the defensive, and if you let them define the language, if you let them define what is virtuous, you will always be on the defensive, and you will always be fighting a losing battle.
And I would submit to you, my friends, that it is far too late in the game for us to be fighting a losing battle.
The time is very short.
That we have to turn this thing around, as we all know.
The amount of deficit, the amount of war, the amount of social unrest that is coming.
I mean, fiscally, California is about to break off and go into the sea like the first Superman movie.
Yay! Look, we're all here.
Excellent. Excellent.
So, yeah, the time is short, and I think it's very important for us to go on the offensive.
And I always say, go on the offensive, don't be offensive.
But put people on the defensive, which means don't use the language.
I'll just say it one more time, and then I'll break for questions, if anybody has any.
Don't use the language. Don't use their language at all.
Break it down to its component parts.
Use props. Help people to understand that they don't understand the society that they live in.
And recognize, please my friends, that people already agree with us.
That the society that we live in, not just here, not just in Canada, but all over the world, wherever there are governments, the society that we live in is violent and wretched and self-destructive and hanging by a thread.
And once people can see that in the real world, not in the matrix of government controlled and inspired language, that is an illumination that I think will be like a rocket that will take off our movement further and further.
And in the absence of that we simply will drown in all the nonsense syllables that get pounded into us in public education.
Thank you.
I think you're free to leave.
I'd also like to apologize for the glare.
They were supposed to hand out welding goggles to the front rows.
Sorry about that. We had family photos taken and I looked like a space, like I looked like the little sun coming around the moon.
It's like it's that bright. You can't see anybody else in the picture.
I think we have some questions?
I will go first with a question.
So, Stefan, you will be here through Sunday, right?
That's correct. So, we have this opening for a slot as a judge for Soapbox Idol.
Sorry, did you say slut? I'm in.
Sorry. A slot.
And I'm pretty sure you would be an awesome judge and it would mean we would have three white, bold males.
Well, if I'm going to be a judge of a talent contest and I have a British accent, I'm going to need a tighter t-shirt and a wig.
I think that's...
Done. When is that?
That's on Saturday night.
Oh, Friday night. I'm having a debate as well.
Are you? Yes. With me?
No, with Johnson Rice?
That's his name, right? Is he here at Johnson?
Johnson! Johnson!
Oh, the God thing.
Yeah, the God thing. We're doing the God thing.
So this will be an example of breaking down the language, but in a slightly different environment.
So we're going to debate religion, agnosticism, and atheism.
And it's going to go out over Free Talk Live, if I remember rightly.
So I hope you'll come.
It should be a lot of fun.
I really, really enjoy debating, so I look forward to it, and I think it'll be a lot of fun.
Hi. Hi. Is that for me?
I don't know. I'm just kidding. Go on. It's a little too high.
There we go. I just wanted to know your thoughts on census takers coming to the house, because that's an indirect gun to the head on answering questions and revealing information about yourself.
So I know you're not having to deal with it in Canada at this time, but your thoughts on that?
Well, I mean, that's...
Look, there's two approaches to this kind of stuff.
I don't think either one of those is not black and white.
So to me, there's the argument from principle, which is that I'm just not going to participate in anything the state does.
That's very tough. I mean, again, even if you go live in the woods, you're still avoiding the cities because the government is there, so your decision is still being made by the fact that there's a state of society.
To apply that principle as a whole means, you know, you can't walk on the roads, you can't use the internet, because that was developed originally by the Department of Defense.
I think that that's a slope that's going to make you insane at some point.
Like, if you try to live, like, do no harm, and then you sneeze, you've just killed a bunch of cells, right?
So I think that...
The cost benefit is really important to figure out for some of these things, right?
I don't think you should necessarily go become a prison guard or something unless you're starving, right?
But I think that filling out those 10 questions versus the negative repercussions which only take you out of the game as far as going out and communicating effectively with people about freedom That takes you 10 minutes, and who really cares in the bigger scheme of things, but if you go to fight it, that's going to consume a lot of time, possibly a lot of money, and that's going to take you out of the game.
And the way, you know, rightly or wrongly, You know, in all seriousness, I view our situation as kind of extreme.
Like, you know, when you're in a war and you're a doctor, you do triage, right?
Like, this guy's going to make it, this guy's not going to make it, right?
And just sometimes right and you're sometimes wrong, but you have to keep moving because there are so many injured people in a war or in a plague that you just have to keep moving.
And I think we're in that situation.
This is why I strongly suggest you have to debate with people.
If they can't think or they won't think or they're too defended or they're too lost in the matrix, To heck with them, to put it nicely, and keep moving, keep moving, keep moving.
So I think that it would be irresponsible, though I can understand why people would do it, and I wouldn't argue against it from a moral standpoint.
I think it's irresponsible to say, for this principle, which is relatively small in the bigger scheme of things, I'm going to take myself potentially out of the game.
Of talking about freedom for the sake of a couple of questions that who cares about, right?
Answer the question, send it off, and go and talk to people about freedom.
That would be my argument. I think if it was earlier, we could take a stand on that kind of thing, but I think it's so late in the game that to hell with that, you know, go out and talk to people about freedom and give them their ten questions.
If that's all the government takes from you this year, you're doing damn well, that's all I'm saying.
That's my argument. Again, I can understand people who do it on principle, but that wouldn't be my approach, so...
Hey, Stefan Pericles from Drexel University, Student Liberty Front.
I just saw your debate with Jan Helfield online.
Oh, yes. Actually, that would be more fun.
I didn't think it was that bad, but I wasn't doing it.
Just for those who don't know, he's a guy who interviews a lot of politicians about using the Socratic method, and his approach was to drive the anarchists into the sea with tanks.
I think this was his approach to the social contract.
Peacefully. Peacefully with tanks, but peacefully.
Well, so, and that was, it boils down to what you mentioned before about, let's say, you know, you're having a discussion with your neighbor, if you don't like it, leave comes up.
And so he, that's kind of where he went with that in a, in a more tactical manner.
He said, well, we could somehow move them to a different area with, voluntarily move them.
How do you address, how would you break down the, if you don't like it, leave assertion?
To what it really is.
To use this method that you showed us to tell people that what they're advocating is that they have somehow the ability to force us to move.
No, that's a good question.
We all heard that if you don't like it, leave thing.
And the only reason I think people believe such a silly argument is they must have at some point had their dad say, you know, you live in this house, young man.
If you don't like it, get a job.
But... The fundamental question is property ownership, right?
So if you live in some house and you bought it or you're in the process of paying for it, even if you rent it, you have property rights to that house, right?
So if you have property rights to your house, who the hell am I to tell you to leave?
So again, you get your thing, right?
So this is my house, because I'm very small.
So this is my house, and I own it, right?
So who is it who now also owns it that can tell me to leave?
Who? The guy with the gun, right?
So that's true, but he doesn't own it.
He's just telling you to leave with a gun.
That's not ownership, right?
Otherwise, lovemaking and rape are the same damn thing, right?
If you're using force, it's not ownership.
It's just driving people out at gunpoint.
And so it comes around, so can two people own the same house?
If two people can own the same house, why only two people?
Why can't 30 million people own the same house and all wait in line for the bathroom, right?
I mean, it comes down to who owns what.
If one person owns the house...
Then no one can tell that person to leave.
If more than one person can own the house, then property rights don't exist, nothing is real, and nobody has any precedence over anybody else.
In which case, they can't tell you to leave.
You can all sit around and argue, but as soon as someone has precedence, then they have that ownership, and everybody else's ownership vanishes.
So to me, I would just go right down to the question of who owns that house.
Because the argument of love it or leave it is the government owns everything.
The government owns everything, and they can tell you to leave.
All you do is rent from the government.
And if the government owns everything, then I say, well, how did the government establish that?
Some guy in Washington owns everything?
I mean, how is that even possible, and how is that different from medievalism?
Anyway, does that help?
Yeah, that's good.
Thank you.
Okay, first off, great presentation.
I do, however, see one weak point in...
Only one? Yay!
Personal best! This would be the major one that I saw.
Oh, okay, major. All right.
So when you had everyone come up and demonstrated the absurdity of political community by showing that, you know, oh, we have four people, but now one person is slightly separated, and that amalgamation does not get you to something qualitatively different, But I agree that that's true, but an objection that I would see would be that in some cases amalgamation actually does get you to something qualitatively different in language.
So, for instance, you know, we could refer to a human body as this many cells or this many atoms, but clearly that's sort of absurd.
It's much easier to refer to it as something...
That incorporates all of that.
And so what a liberal or basically anyone that's not an anarchist would say is that, oh, well, we all come together as this sort of political community, blah, blah, blah.
So how would you handle that objection?
No, that's a very, very good objection.
Next question? LAUGHTER Quick!
Quick! No, that's great.
Just for those who may have missed some of the finer points of that, the argument is, it's sort of like the free will argument, which we can get into another time, perhaps.
But the idea is that no atom is alive, right?
And yet, if you get enough atoms together in a human being, then a human being is alive, and the atoms have life, or they're part of something that has life.
So the idea is that if you aggregate enough things together, then you get a difference in properties.
And that's very true. But, first of all, human beings don't aggregate together in that way, right?
I mean, I guess we could all build a human pyramid, but can I be on top?
No, but the fact is that human beings don't aggregate together in that way.
Like if you get a crowd of people, they don't suddenly all get to fly or whatever, right?
In a different way that a bunch of carbon atoms don't get to be alive until they're in a human being.
So that would be the first thing that I would say.
The second thing that I would say is that while it's true that a bunch of human cells getting together can produce a human being, it doesn't change the property of any individual cell.
Do you see what I mean? And so it doesn't change the moral properties of any individual human being to aggregate, because then they would have to argue that a cell in your body, when it becomes part of your body, becomes something other than a cell, which it doesn't.
It's just a cell in your body.
So it's true that the aggregation, even if it did occur, would be different than each individual part, but it doesn't change the nature of each individual part.
So I think those two arguments would be how I would counter it.
And again, I would use, you know, stuff.
I put these two salt shakers on top of each other.
Does it become pepper? No, of course.
They're just two salt shakers, so the individual components don't change with the aggregation.
Make sense? Great response.
Ah, thank you. Once in a while.
Okay. Oh wait, do you have a degree?
You look cleverer. Next. I like your gun in the room approach.
I've used it many times.
Wait, what I'm thinking is you're saying, I like your other presentation, not this one.
Sorry, go ahead. No, I was going to say that I like the argument from how land is justly claimed.
That's usually what I focus on.
So I ask people, how is land justly claimed?
And they usually don't have a good answer because they really believe that the state can claim land arbitrarily without homesteading, occupancy and use, cogent bargaining.
All that goes out the window.
How often do you use that argument?
Do you find it as effective as I do?
Sorry, which argument? How is land justly claimed?
They never really have a good answer for you except might makes right.
It's essentially what it comes down to.
There's a state, they claim land with guns, and that's acceptable.
Why can't I do that? Right, right.
No, I think it's a very, very important question.
I've got a podcast on this, so I'll just touch on it very briefly.
Nobody cares about land.
The reality is nobody cares about land.
They care about crops. Right?
They care about a place to live.
It's not land. Like if I said, you know, hey, I'm going to give you a square of Amazonian rainforest.
I'm not going to tell you where it is.
How much are you going to pay me for it?
Right? Come on, how much? So you wouldn't give me a penny for it, right?
Because you wouldn't be able to use it for anything.
So just having ownership of land means nothing.
Oh, I own that mountain, but I'm never allowed to travel there.
It's like, so the ownership means nothing.
Right? What matters is what you can do with the land, what you can pull off the land.
Can you live on it? Can you build a house on it?
Can you take crops off it?
Can you let your sheep graze on it or whatever, right?
You can just say property. How is property just...
Yeah, it's not land in particular, right?
It's property as a whole.
Well... Property fundamentally is not owned, it is created.
So when you fence in a whole bunch of land, you obviously haven't created the land, but it's when you do something with it.
So let's say you plant a whole bunch of barley.
So you have created the barley.
That's what you actually own.
The land, who really cares about it?
Because it's just there until you do something with it.
It's like if I own a lake but never fish in it, Who cares, right?
Or never go there. But when I go and fish and I pull some fish out, I own the fish from the ocean.
I own the fish from the lake. It's what the property produces that matters.
Because if the property doesn't produce anything, it has no value if you can't do anything with it, really.
I guess you could look at it or something like that.
So I would focus on property as a whole, and property is really best defined as that which you create, not which you just homestead.
So people don't homestead anything unless they can actually use it for something, and it's what they use it for that is the real property that's in question, and that's really what I would focus on.
Okay, thank you. Thanks.
What's up, Steph? Hi.
How's it going? So listen, I have a question that I'm sure you might have answered it before.
I've never heard the answer, and I think I'm probably asking this on behalf of most people here.
Like, you get to see Porkfest right now, you get to see the Free State Project, you get to see all of these people here, and the community that it is, and how close-knit it is.
What the fuck do we have to do to, like, bribe you to come here, bro?
No, hold on a second.
Like, listen, you know, I want to see more doers here, and when I introduce you to my friends that don't understand the liberty movement, I always introduce you as the philosopher of our time.
I would love to have you come here.
I'd love to have you come to Manchester, more importantly, but are you thinking about it?
Are you really giving it consideration?
Is this something that you think you might do in your lifetime or in the next couple of years?
You may move to New Hampshire? And what do we have to do to get you to come here if you're not thinking about it?
Well, first of all, a little slow music and a bump and grind, really.
You can leave your hat on.
I don't see nothing wrong.
You all might want to leave and give us a moment.
Look, first of all, thank you.
That's a beautiful, beautiful sentiment, and I really, really do appreciate it.
Yeah, look, I really appreciate it.
There should be a law.
Oh! I don't have a good answer for that, so I'm not going to pretend, but I will think about it, and I will do a show on it once I've figured something out.
Thank you. We're not going to force you, dude.
That's all we can ask, you know?
Well, you are some of the nicest people I've ever met, although I will say I feel fundamentally under-tattooed.
I will tell you that. Under-tattooed significantly.
And I really feel like my hair is too short because I'm not tripping on it.
Is that it for questions? Anybody else?
I think we have time for half a more.
The bad answer is that my wife tells me where I can go.
Are you not married?
Do you not know how this works?
Hi. I have a question.
I just read an article in Reason Magazine a few months ago about asset forfeiture laws.
Is it time to water the tree of liberty?
Because they arrest your materials, they arrest your cash and let you go with no charges and you can't have a hearing to get it back.
Is it time to shoot the police for that?
Yeah, well that's a good question.
Look, it's a hell of a question and I will give you my thoughts about it and I will try not to use euphemisms.
At a moral level, if somebody is being aggressed against by a man in a blue costume, it's self-defense.
I hate it because it's a volatile thing to say, but I have to bow to reason and evidence, otherwise I'm just another guy with an opinion, and hopefully I've tried to be a little more than that.
I'm not going to say that that's immoral.
I can certainly understand why someone would do that.
It's pure suicide. That, I think, is also important to recognize.
If you go up against the state, I mean, this isn't the French Revolution.
The French Revolution was muskets against muskets.
The American Revolution was muskets against guys with crosshairs on them who had muskets, right?
What's that old Bill Cosby joke?
Do you remember this old Bill Cosby routine where they used to have this...
I won't try and do the routine, but...
They have a coin flip at the beginning of games where they say who gets to kick off.
And they said, imagine these coin flips in history.
You know, like the coin flips for Custer.
Oh, you lost. You've got to sit at the bottom of the hill while all the Indians in the world ride down on you.
It's the same thing for the American revolutionaries.
Okay, you guys don't have to wear costumes with big red X's on them.
You can go through the trees and you can do whatever you want.
And... So it's not the way that it used to be.
You could have revolutions in the past when the firepower was more evenly distributed between the state and the civilians.
This was true in the Russian Revolution as well.
But that's not the case anymore.
The state has nuclear weapons, it has helicopters, it has lasers, it has satellites, it has aircraft carriers, it has bombers.
There is no...
It is pure suicide.
And I think that...
Yes.
I'm completely with you there.
The revolution is in thought.
The revolution is in reason.
The revolution is in philosophy.
The revolution is not in weaponry.
The revolution is not in weaponry.
The revolution is in language.
The revolution is in the mind. The revolution is in communication.
You cannot frighten people out of fantasy.
You cannot frighten people out of their fantasies, because they're only in those fantasies because they're frightened already.
And it's my argument from the beginning that they're frightened of the society they live in, so they create all these words to pretend that it's not what it is.
And so if you aggress against people, you drive them further into fear and further into fantasy, and that actually makes things worse.
It is reason...
Now, I'm a big fan of getting angry.
I mean, where appropriate.
I think anger is a very... I'm not a Buddhist that way.
I'm very much around...
I think anger is a very healthy emotion, so I think anger and passion is very important.
But I don't think that...
In the First World War, as we all know, there's this trench warfare, right?
And people just ran into machine guns, and they all died, right?
I mean, that's exactly what would happen for people who take up arms against the current state.
There's no possibility of victory in that.
There is only martyrdom, and the martyrdom is only worthwhile if it's understood.
Right? Like Joe Stack, right?
The guy who flew his plane into the IRS building.
Guy had some good arguments.
You couldn't fault him for some of his arguments.
But 99.9% of people think that he's just some crazy lunatic who has embarrassed the cause.
So his martyrdom drove people further into the arms of the state because it's like, oh, now we need to be protected against these guys too, right?
So let's get more protection. When people are this marred in fantasy, you have to keep turning the lights on, keep turning the lights on, keep reasoning, keep arguing, keep bringing evidence, keep undoing the fantasies.
Keep taking back the media. I'm only here because of the internet.
I mean, how many of us are here because of the internet, right?
But we're not the only people using it.
People think the internet is going to do its wonders, but we're not the only people using it.
The bad guys are using it too, right?
So that's why I think we just have to work harder.
We have to have more evidence, more courage, more commitment, more passion, more reason, more evidence.
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't think there's time.
You can't take on the state that way.
All you'll do is discredit the cause and die.
And then there'll be one less person manning the real barricades, which is reason and evidence, not guns and ammo.
Hi, Steph. Hi. I was wondering if you had any advice for activists with children who may be putting themselves in danger of being arrested or aggressed against, maybe...
Yeah, well, I don't know if you all know my stance on parenting, but I think that your responsibility is to your children.
I think that your responsibility is to your children.
My argument, and I've done a whole video series on this on YouTube called The Bomb and the Brain.
My argument is that society improves when parenting improves, most fundamentally.
Most fundamentally. If you get to see my daughter this weekend, she's been raised.
She's never had a voice raised against her.
Never. She never will.
Never been sworn at. My wife and I don't raise her voices in her house.
We've never hit her.
So she's growing up in a non-hierarchical environment.
She's growing up without any aggression at all.
So when she grows up, the idea is...
It's not like a plan or anything, but when she grows up, she won't speak the language of hierarchy.
She won't speak the language of coercion.
She won't speak the language of control.
And so when she goes out into society and people say, well, you have to be controlled and you have to submit and you have to do this.
It'd be like they're just speaking to her in Mandarin.
She won't understand what they're saying at a very deep and emotional level.
You see, we don't out-fight the state, we outgrow the state.
We raise people, we educate people so that a hierarchy makes no sense whatsoever.
Because if you don't experience hierarchy, aggression and control within the home, how are you going to experience it with any legitimacy within society?
So I would say that if you really want to free the world, Treat your children peacefully and benevolently and with love and patience and respect.
That is a mutual relationship. I learned as much from my daughter at 18 months than I've learned from anybody else in my life.
And that mutuality, if people are used to that mutuality in the home, the state can't survive that.
The state is built on this hierarchy within the home first and foremost.
That's what it profits from.
That's why you get schools where a teacher can control 35-year-olds, because they've already been controlled at home.
So I would say, focus on raising your children well and peacefully.
And that's how we outgrow this historical monstrosity called the state.
Thank you everybody so much. I'll be here all week.
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