Aug. 2, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
07:35
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| All right, to our feature tonight. | |
| With contempt for government at an all-time high, more and more Americans are attracted to the message of presidential candidate Ron Paul. | |
| But more important than the messenger is the message. | |
| And many who come to Ron Paul's philosophy from my idealistic generation, the millennials, take that message to its extreme logical conclusion. | |
| Or are at least asking, Would we be better off with no government at all at this point? | |
| One of our contenders in the first matchup tonight is anarchist philosopher Stefan Molyneux. | |
| If Ron Paul's message of conservative libertarianism is the gateway, many consider Molyneux's message to be what is on the other side. | |
| Our other contender, taking the side of conservatism, is our own Jake, negative neocon, Nancy DeLiberto. | |
| Now, he's not really a neocon, but he is a conservative, a certified theologian with a degree in divinity, a Marine veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, and a proud registered Republican with a strong independent streak that sets him apart from the leadership of the party. | |
| So, without further ado, the showdown you've been waiting for. | |
| Gentlemen, thank you so much for being with us tonight. | |
| We'll start with Stefan Molyneux. | |
| Stefan, why is government immoral? | |
| Government is immoral because it violates two fundamental moral axioms that every civilized human being takes for granted. | |
| Number one, the non-aggression principle. | |
| You do not initiate the use of force against your fellow man, woman, child, or hermaphrodite. | |
| Number two, property rights. | |
| We own ourselves. We own the effects of our actions. | |
| And government violates the non-aggression principle by creating a monopoly of force. | |
| A small group of people with all the guns on the planet who get to order everyone else around. | |
| And people are always shocked. | |
| That this concentrated, unlimited application of violence to the solution of complex social problems always goes wrong. | |
| And they steal, and they lie, and they are essentially a criminal organization and attempting to manage and control and minimize a criminal organization doesn't work. | |
| Minarchism, or the goal, The goal of minimizing government through political action is just another government program. | |
| And it does exactly the same thing as all other government programs. | |
| It achieves the opposite of its intended goal, which is why government keeps getting bigger and bigger the more that we try to make it smaller and smaller. | |
| So that's why we have the problem today. | |
| It must have been a bill that I missed that was passed by Congress to minimize the size of government. | |
| Jake, in the face of that, Moral argument. | |
| How do you say what we do need government for? | |
| What's your objection to that? Well, two things. | |
| One, I'm not a minarchist and I'm not an anarchist. | |
| I'm a conservative, but I believe that there's a need for government. | |
| Now, to be clear, I think Stefan might include or we could use minarchism broadly and say conservatism by limiting government by conservative principles is a form of minarchism. | |
| Okay, fair. One thing that Stefan's trying to do, he's trying to take a universal principle and apply it to what all governments do and what all society would look like if there wasn't a government. | |
| If you look at societies across the world throughout history that haven't had government, they're by far more barbaric and society targets minority groups far more if there is no government. | |
| Now granted, governments aren't perfect, but if you look in the cases of Somalia Of Africa in the pre-colonial times. | |
| If you look at Afghanistan in the 1980s and 90s when there was no government. | |
| Barbaric, cruel punishment to women and children. | |
| So is government perfect? | |
| No. Does it pose a necessary evil? | |
| Yes, it does. And the reason why is because there are some times when... | |
| So hold on. I want to go back to Stefan for the historical reference. | |
| But you would then concede that you believe in the anarchist ideal that government is a necessary evil and perhaps Someday, if humanity evolves past not needing it, it would be nice to not have it. | |
| Right, and one thing about this that... | |
| You make a utilitarian historical argument. | |
| That's very good, that a lot of people have an appeal. | |
| I want to give Stefan just a quick chance to respond to that before we get more into your platform. | |
| Stefan? Look, primitive tribalism is just another form of government. | |
| Government grew out of this sort of hierarchical pyramid where you had warlords and witchdoctors in primitive societies. | |
| That is not an example of a stateless society. | |
| Warlords and witch doctors in primitive societies had an absolute monopoly of power and violence over their citizens. | |
| That is not an example of anarchy. | |
| Anarchy is when people are all equal. | |
| Hold on. Fair enough, Stefan. | |
| That's a good context. | |
| I want to go back to Jake. | |
| Jake, as a conservative, there are specific things that you want to see government doing. | |
| And we all know conservatives love to complain about government and throw out some of the great philosophical axioms. | |
| What are your important, essential functions of government for which you think it is justified? | |
| Well, in the United States, what's kind of ironic about our debate here is that there's a Canadian arguing with an American about, on a Russian television network, what government should be. | |
| And he's arguing for anarchism on a largely left... | |
| Hey, wait till the next... | |
| Next block, we're going to have a Polish-American immigrant debating 9-11 with someone from England. | |
| Carry on. This is the ironic point. | |
| But really, as an American, the government needs to do what the Constitution says. | |
| The Founding Fathers were very aware of liberalism. | |
| They were very aware of how monarchies can abuse people. | |
| The Founding Fathers really knew what we should do. | |
| Therefore, they put a balance of powers, a check and balance. | |
| Let's hammer you down on this point philosophically. | |
| What should government do? | |
| Exactly what the Constitution says. | |
| The Constitution doesn't say that we should go out and nation build other nations. | |
| The Constitution doesn't say that there should be a centralized bank. | |
| The Constitution says that you have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that no human being has ownership over another human being. | |
| Women, men, and children are equal in society. | |
| That's what our Constitution guarantees by law. | |
| Now, I don't know what it's like in Canada. | |
| I've never been a citizen, but I would tell you... | |
| It's crazy in Canada. Maybe if our Canadian friends spent a day down here and find out that actually life in America is not that bad considering what's going on around the rest of the world. | |
| I've been to 58 countries and I'll tell you, this is the best place in the world to live. | |
| It's not perfect. We've got a lot of work to do. | |
| Again, viewers, we've got a lot of work to do. | |
| But it's still the best place on the planet to live. | |
| Stefan? Well, I suppose that Canada might be as great as America if we were also oppressing millions of people around the world with a military-industrial empire. | |
| However, the view from the inside of an empire always looks a lot better than the view from outside an empire. | |
| But look, the reality of the Constitution is that pieces of paper do not stop bullets, they do not stop knives, and they do not stop evil people who want to take you over. | |
| There is nothing magical about a piece of paper. | |
| It is not a magic spell. | |
| It is not a bulletproof piece of vellum. | |
| There is nothing that will ever stop. | |
| The government took in America about 80 years to bust out of the Constitution and become even bigger. | |
| And the great danger of limiting government is that you then provide a great environment for people to trade and become wealthy and you generate huge wealth in society. | |
| The government then comes in like a vulture and scoops up all of that wealth and uses it to further repress the people we saw in ancient Rome by trade. | |
| That's just not true. That's just, Stefan, hold on. | |
| All right. Just a last word here for Jake. | |
| The point's made, yes, governments can be abusive. | |
| They can allow people to develop wealth, to abuse people. | |
| But the bottom line is that there needs to be a check and a balance because if we can only control as a nation what we do, we can't control what everybody else does. | |
| And the Constitution provides one thing specifically, a military to protect ourselves. | |
| And that is one thing that we do need because we can't control what everybody All right, Jake, all right. | |
| Fair enough, fair enough. And that's all the time we have for tonight, but I feel like the energy in this debate here could go on for another hour. | |
| And both of you will be back here hopefully together again on the air. | |
| Thank you very much for joining us tonight, gentlemen. |
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