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March 21, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
38:44
2115 Debating Statists - A Conversation

Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, describes some debating techniques to help change the minds of statists.

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I just want to let you know I'm a huge freaking fan of whatever you do.
Everything you do, basically, in terms of the front on the children and government and whatnot.
Please excuse my English.
Oh, don't worry about it. No problem at all.
I'm about to probably dump a whole lot of things on you right now, and hopefully not get you as confused as I am.
Let's cross our fingers.
Hope for the best. So, as I told you, I've been having this ongoing argument with a friend of mine, and it's just beautiful.
Pretty much I am...
I am the polar opposite of what he is in terms of government and authority, and I'm a bit more proud than to just bow down to a hierarchy or authority of people that I don't really respect with their views and whatnot.
And he throws a lot of propaganda at me.
Alright, so let's get started with the propaganda.
How do you go on about arguing with somebody Who fully believes all the talking points that these politicians go on about and have developed this sort of defense mechanism which is purely emotional.
It's an emotional appeal, pretty much arguments from fear that, you know, if we don't have guns pointing at other people then it will be chaos and anarchy and, you know, the bad connotation of the word anarchy.
I was just going to say that.
But... So, I mean, you have a lot of great arguments that make a lot of sense to somebody who's sort of stepped away from all this bullshit of, you know, emotion and patriotism.
Let's cut to the chase. You play this dude, and I will try to respond in some semi-intelligent way.
Yes, so...
Basically...
You want a voluntary society.
No. But how would you...
No, no, no. See, I would disagree with him, first and foremost.
I want a muffin.
I want a full head of hair.
I want a six-pack abs.
These are things that I want.
This is not...
It's not a matter of personal opinion.
It's not a matter of personal preference.
Yeah. Right? It's like saying to Darwin, you want there to be evolution.
Mm-hmm. No, there is or there isn't.
You just say to Einstein, you want the speed of light to be constant.
It's like, no, I don't want the speed of light.
I'm just trying to figure out what's true and what's false.
So I would initially start with saying, no, I reject the premise that this has anything to do with my personal preferences or your personal preferences or Barack Obama's or Ronald Reagan's or Grover Norquist.
So anybody's personal preferences is immaterial.
So I would say, okay, let's start again and see if we can figure out a more philosophical way of discussing it.
Yeah, see, that's just the thing about the basics of the conversation.
It has really not much to do with rationality in terms of as an empirical...
To him, it's just pretty much opinions.
Okay, so be him.
So you've got to stay in character and be him.
And now, so I would say that.
And what would he say in response?
Just this. Well, you know what?
That's your opinion and it's just as valid as my emotional concerns in terms of...
Okay, so I would say, so fantastic.
So what you feel or what you believe is that all opinions are equal?
Yes. Well, then that's great.
Then you're an anarchist. So we're in full agreement.
And there's no need for us to even discuss this anymore.
Yes. However, he feels that...
No, no. He would say, well, what do you mean?
I'm an anarchist, right? So then you've got to stay with him, right?
So if we're going to do this, you've got to stay, pretend just be him for like the next half hour.
Yeah, the thing is that's going to be really hard.
No, it's going to be easy, trust me, because it's all propaganda.
We all know this propaganda. Sometimes he throws curveballs.
I know. So be him and throw curveballs.
So he would say, well, what do you mean I'm an anarchist?
And I would say, well, look, if you believe that all opinions are equal, I don't believe that, but let's say that you do believe that, then obviously it would be wrong for one person to impose his opinion on another person, right?
Yes, but... If I like rock and you like classical, it is wrong for me to use violence to impose my preference on you, right?
Let me finish the bit.
Don't say here he would. Just pretend again.
I don't want to ask you to do this again.
Just stay in character. Because the state is about enforcing some people's opinions on other people's.
I think that drugs are bad and therefore people should go to jail.
I think that we should have traffic lights and other people would prefer there to be different ways of doing things but they're going to go to jail if they don't agree.
I prefer that children should be educated by the state and if people don't agree with me they're going to go to jail.
So the state is all about imposing, violently imposing one person's or one group's opinions upon others and if you believe that all opinions are equal and none should impose their opinions on others, then you're already an anti-statist and I think we're on the same side of the fence, happily.
See, but I think, in character, that we need, we need because people are inherently selfish and evil and so then We need a majority who believes in great things to impose the will of the majority on these few assholes.
I mean, without these great people in government, there would be no one to keep us safe, pretty much.
Okay, no, I understand that.
But you've just changed your position, because before you said that all opinions are equal, and now you're saying some opinions are good, but the opinions of other people, they're assholes, right?
So what's the difference?
I believe, again, in character.
Yeah, I got it. I got it.
You're in character. Go ahead. I believe that people's opinions are equal Not in an empirical way, but more like in a subjective way so that there could be some tribe that believes in cannibalism and to them is just as valid of a rule in morality than to you, the non-aggression principle.
Yeah, I got it.
And so what you have is basically all these opinions, and so who is going to enforce the good opinion?
Okay, so not all opinions are equal.
What you're doing is you're changing your position.
And look, I'm just pointing out, I just wanted to pass unremarked, that you are changing your position from all opinions are equal to some opinions are good and some opinions are evil, right?
Okay, so how do we know the difference between an opinion that is good and an opinion that is evil?
What's the test? Well, I have no idea what he would say to this.
He would say something like, you know, an opinion is evil if you inflict it on someone else against their will or blah blah blah, right?
No, because he's not opposed to inflicting anything on somebody's will, as long as it serves the greater good.
So then he would say in an opinion is evil which harms the collective or the good of society as a whole or the greater good or this or that, right?
Yes. Okay, and how do we test, right?
Because what you've done is you've said evil is that which is bad for society.
But saying something is bad for society doesn't help us to understand what it is and how we differentiate the two.
So how do we know whether an opinion is bad for society or not?
Pretty much based on what the majority wants.
So what the majority wants is good for society and what the majority doesn't want is bad for society.
That would be correct.
So the elevation of Hitler to the ruler, the chancellorship of Germany in the early 1930s was good for society because he was...
Hello? Hello, can you hear me?
Yeah, I just cut off for just a second.
Yeah, sorry. So Hitler was voted in, and so, you know, it was not exactly a majority, but, you know, he was voted in democratically.
So that would be good for a society.
Yeah, Hitler was voted in before he did all these...
Yeah, but he said he was going to do all these things.
He wrote Mein Kampf and he said he was going to do all of these things.
So this was not a big secret.
But by this argument, of course, then Socrates should have been put to death, that the Vietnam War, which people voted for, should have occurred.
Hitler should have gotten in.
And people continue to vote for the Federal Reserve.
They continue to vote for national debts.
So all of these things are good for society, although, of course, they're certainly bad for a lot of people in society.
And so this would be your position?
I guess so, yes.
Okay, so help me understand.
So if something like the majority of people liked slavery in the past, and then Now the majority of people don't like slavery.
So there's nothing that's absolute through time, right?
It's all just whatever the majority wants is what is best.
Yes, he would also argue that we are inherently evil in such ways that throughout all these years of evolution in human society, we pretty much got where we are on the backs of slaves and being selfish and dominating one another.
Okay, so then I would say, so you're saying if human beings are inherently evil, in what way are you inherently evil?
Or are you an exception to the rule?
Not an exception to the rule.
He believes that the system today is working and that it's a good thing to...
No, no, no. We can't go to pragmatics if we're talking about ethics.
Because there's a contradiction, right?
Here we have a logical contradiction that's very obvious to somebody who's not propagandized to the gills, right?
And the logical contradiction is this.
The majority of people are evil.
But the will of the majority is good.
Right. You understand?
That makes no sense. Yeah, I do understand.
It's like the majority of people want to run off a cliff, but if the majority of people tell everyone where to go, we won't run off a cliff.
Right. Okay, so which is it?
If the majority of people are evil, then we can't have the will of the majority as a standard for good, right?
We understand that, right?
So either the majority of people are not evil, in which case...
You can rescue some potential goodness, but you can't have any kind of democracy.
Or if you believe that the will of the majority is good, then the vast majority of people must be good, right?
So which is it? Well, I believe the majority of people are Only not evil because there's a government already keeping that in check, so that tomorrow if we abolish laws,
everybody would go out and pretty much make it easy for themselves to, you know, help themselves do things, steal and murder and rape and do all these things, so that we need this Sorry, I'm still a little confused.
If the majority of people want to do these terrible things, and the majority of people vote in a democracy, then why don't the majority of people vote to get rid of these laws?
I'm sorry, I'm not sure I followed.
Well, you're saying the majority of people want to rape and kill and pillage and steal and all this?
They don't want to now, but they would.
It's more of a fine line in terms of You know, now they just don't do it because it's inconvenient because then there would be consequences.
Yes, but what I'm saying is that they could vote to have these laws removed so that it would no longer be inconvenient.
If the majority of people wanted to do all these terrible things, then they would vote to get rid of these laws, right?
It's not an option because they understand it's bad, but they would still do it because they can.
It's sort of like if you ban something for a long time that nobody really cares about, and then it becomes this forbidden fruit, then once you sort of lift the ban, everybody would do it just because they can't.
So there would be a lot of chaos stemming from this.
Oh, so the argument is that the majority of people don't want to do it And they support it being banned, but if it were not banned, they would go and do it.
Yeah, so the people who might want to do it, but don't care enough to campaign or make it legal, because they do understand that it's criminal and illegal, and it would never happen, ever, then So once there's no ban on it, they will just do it because there's nobody to punish them for that.
Okay. So then I just need to understand one or two other things and I appreciate your clarity on that issue.
We'll come back to that in a sec. So if the majority of people want to do bad things, escape the consequences of their actions if they can, then wouldn't those bad people try to control the government and use the power of the government Well,
good, because they're in the public sphere.
And they are accountable to public opinion.
You know, somebody's keeping also tabs on them.
I'm not sure who it is.
Certainly isn't me in character.
Yeah, but sorry, but I'm still trying to understand that.
Of course, a lot of the things the government does is done in secret.
And a lot of we certainly never find out about them or we find out about them decades later when everyone's dead and so on.
So, wouldn't it be the case that if people wanted to do bad things, wanted to use violence to get what they wanted, and the state, of course, is an agency of violence, wouldn't they just join the state and do it that way?
I mean, then it's legitimate, it's propagandized, people are taught that it's good, there are no negative consequences, they're above the law.
Wouldn't they do that?
I'm just trying to understand why that wouldn't be a magnet for all the bad people.
There is an aura around...
I believe there is an aura around government and all these public positions, including Hollywood or just celebrity, that to most people it's sort of not accessible so that they don't even bother going there.
They would not...
You know, care to run just to be evil.
They just rather take the easy road and just do criminal things outside of it.
Okay, so what you're saying is that people in the government are subjected to a higher moral standard because they're in the public eye?
Yes. Well, this is a pretty empirically testable theory, right?
Because what you would do is you would go to, say, look at Congress or wherever, and you would say, is the incidence of criminality, things like bouncing checks and drunk driving and assault and all of these kinds of things, should be almost zero among the members of Congress, as certainly it should be far lower than the incidence among the general population.
And do you know what the answer to that is?
No, I don't. And I think this is an important thing, right?
Because if you have a theory, the first thing you want to do to be a responsible thinker is to go and check the facts, right?
And if you have a theory and you have not checked the facts, that is the height of irresponsibility.
So it tells me a lot about your intellectual integrity if you have a theory and have never subjected it to the test of fact, right?
Because the fact of the matter is, That congressmen and congresswomen have far higher incidence of petty criminality than the general population.
They bounce checks, they have drunk driving things and if you want to think that people are above the law, what about Teddy Kennedy who abandoned a woman to drown after he drove her into the water under the bridge at Chappaquiddick and then immediately rushed to a party to establish an alibi and face no negative consequences.
People start wars and lie to the population to start those wars.
If you look at the Gulf of Tompkins before the Vietnam War, if you look at the foreknowledge of things like Pearl Harbor, if you look at the recent wars in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, which was falsified to the general population, these people start wars that get literally tens of millions of people killed And do not seem to face any negative consequences.
In fact, they get pensions in presidential libraries and book tours and speaking tours and so on.
So again, if you have a theory, I think that's great.
It's fine to spin theories, but if you're like a spider, you're spinning theories without attaching them to anything real, they're just floating off in space.
And the fact that you are not willing to...
Like, the fact that you haven't really thought through a lot of these contradictions and the fact that you're not willing to or have not yet subjected your theories to any empirical tests, It tells me that you are not particularly serious about these matters.
Exactly. Right?
That is absolutely correct.
The other thing that I would say, sorry, to this person is if you feel that the moral character of mankind is sorely lacking, then the first place that you would do is Look to the moral instructors of mankind, right?
So if you say, well, gosh, the math skills of 15-year-olds are terrible, the first place you would look at is, well...
Teachers. Who's been teaching them the math for the last 10 or 15 years or 10 or 11 years.
Right. And, of course, if you feel that the moral qualities of mankind are sorely lacking, the first place you would look is the moral educators of mankind, and they are all the governments.
The governments have a monopoly, a virtual death grip on the monopoly of education or regulation of the education of children.
And so if you feel that people are bad, then they lack a certain knowledge about morality, and then you would look to their instructors.
And if the instructor is government, and the moral knowledge and moral actions of mankind are generally bad, That is a blow against the state rather than a justification for the state.
Does that make sense? And what if I believe that all these bad things that I'm pointing out do not necessarily come from the moral educators because that matters very little compared to By nature, we are what we are, and these moral leaders, so to say, are just doing their best.
Sure, it's not perfect, but they're doing their best to have this country running, and the system is not perfect, but it's the one we got, and it's still better than North Korea, and it's still better than Afghanistan, and the Middle East, where they stone women, and all that stuff.
Well, I mean, I think that's...
It's true, but who cares?
There's no question that losing all four limbs is better than having your hand cut off.
Of course. But we do not justify cutting off a man's hand because in other countries they cut off all of his limbs.
What we say is we should not be taking knives to any person involuntarily.
And so the fact that there are worse situations out there Should not be the bar.
No, it should not be the bar.
I keep saying that.
But otherwise, this person should say, if his kid comes home with a D, should say, well, that's fine, because there are kids out there who have an F. There are kids out there who don't even show up to school.
There are kids out there who go and shoot up schools.
So the fact that you've got a D is fantastic.
Mm-hmm. That's obviously not...
Let's say that the person gets his dinner and his dinner is cold in a restaurant.
Does he sit there and say, well, there are kids...
In India who have no dinner at all, so I'm going to be perfectly happy with this and tip the waiter.
No, he's probably the kind of person who's going to say, you know, this soup is cold.
I want a warm one.
If he gets a cold latte at Starbucks, does he say, well, you know, latte is an incredible luxury, so I'm not going to bother.
I mean, this is just not how people, that's not how we live our lives.
If his boss says, I'm going to pay you $50,000 a year and his first paycheck comes in for the month and it's five bucks, does he say, well, you know, there are some people who don't get paid at all.
So, I'm going to be happy with this.
No, he's going to raise hell and high fury because, you know, so saying that there are things that are worse off, you know, is ridiculous.
And you probably point Somalia and, you know, all of these kinds of nonsense.
I keep saying, I keep pointing this out and somehow it always comes back to that, that we are sort of the pinnacle of...
As a government, we are just the leaders in freedom, pretty much.
Freedom comes with all these things that some people have to stay down for us to be up.
Yeah, I don't really know what that means.
I assume it means that we have to do BUL officer because there are kids in India who have to make her sh** and stuff like that.
That's all nonsense. We would be far better off if the kids were engineers than...
And if they were, you know, getting educated properly, it would be far better off as a society.
Okay, so, yeah, so somebody with real intellectual integrity would, within a few minutes of starting the call, would say, you know what, I guess I really haven't thought this stuff through, because I'm contradicting myself right away.
But somebody who tries to skate over those contradictions is not somebody you want to get into Particularly involved discussions with.
Did you know what I mean? Yeah.
This is exactly why I came to you with this and I'm really glad that you took the time to talk to me.
I was just wondering whether I should just stop talking about these things because, I mean, to me these things matter.
To me it matters to To have some sort of evidence behind my opinions and behind my views and sort of build up my morality because God knows growing up in Eastern Europe that didn't happen.
Right. But yeah, see most people what they do in debates is they have a position and then they say whatever shit they can to justify that position.
Exactly. And those people you do not want to debate with.
You know, it's the old line about you can't play chess with a pigeon because the pigeon will just knock over all the pieces, shit on the board, and then walk around like it's one.
If this guy does not know the rules of reason and evidence, then he either doesn't know them, in which case he needs to be in a home.
And if he does know them, but is conspicuously ignoring them, then you don't want to have anything to do with him, right?
He's an intelligent person.
That's even worse. So, he might know them or might not, but they just don't matter that much to him, I guess, when it comes to these things.
I mean, most of the arguments are usually from emotion or fear.
No, but he wants to win, right?
He wants to win, he wants to justify his position.
In other words, he has a fixed position already, and no amount of counter-arguments slow him down.
That's not good. I mean, if he's contradicting himself right out of the gate, then the humble thing to do is to say, you know what, I haven't really thought these things through very well.
You're right. I really got to think about these things more carefully.
Because if you're making universal pronouncements about good and evil and how society should work and all this kind of stuff, then you really should know what the hell you're talking about.
Do you know what I mean? Yeah.
Like, if I'm telling people that eating pine cones cures cancer, and I get a bunch of people to believe that, and I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, that's a really dangerous thing for me to do.
It's a really destructive thing, and this is much more important than that, even, right?
Yeah, and another thing is that kind of...
I wouldn't say scares me or anything, but usually when you speak to people about this and those people have not thought or have not heard arguments such as the ones that you present, what usually happens is...
How would I put it?
Okay, I told it, lost it.
I'm so sorry. Well, I'm going to guess.
What happens is they have the entire backup of the media, of art, of intellectuals, of history, of propaganda, of school, of church, of everything.
They have all of that stuff behind them.
And so they've got this confidence that comes from being in a majority.
Look, this guy is being honest.
He says the majority is right.
And he's in the majority, and that's how he's claiming to be right.
Did you see what I mean? He's not talking about society, he's talking about himself.
Yeah, so I wonder sometimes that whether the morals that some of these people perpetuate, the ones that are good, like, you know, anti-slavery and whatnot, I wonder where these people would be in the 1800s, I'm pretty sure,
with the majority, exactly, and that is really hard to point out to these people, because then you get this emotional appeal again that, oh, you're criticizing, you know, the system which is nowhere near slavery, or You know, we're not there anymore, and then...
Well, actually, I mean, in many ways, it is, right?
I mean, in many ways, it is.
And the best way to explain that is, well, the national debt is selling the labor of people who aren't even born yet.
And giving their time and life and energy and money and blood and sweat and ambition and work to banksters and foreigners and hedge fund managers.
And they're not even born yet.
Yeah.
I mean, how is that not enslavement?
I mean, if I go out and run up $50,000 on your credit card and you have to work for the next five years to pay it off, how are you not my slave?
But if you buy some things that I use and then I need them, like roads, it's always the roads.
You can't avoid the roads in any of these conversations.
Then I guess you should somehow contribute.
And I say that that's fine if people come together and they want to build whatever the hell they want to build.
The roads is not the problem.
The roads is not the problem.
What is the problem is the fact that you don't have a choice about alternatives.
Yeah, that's where I was going with it.
It's fine if you voluntarily do stuff like this and you pitch in, but when there's a body of people deciding what to put your money to for you, and the scary thing is almost nobody sees the bad in this.
Oh no, they all see it.
Oh look, trust me, this is what you mean.
Everybody sees it. That's why they fight so hard.
What do you mean? Well look, everybody says that they're looking for the truth, right?
I have the truth, I want the truth, and my opinions are not just opinions, but they have the truth behind them.
And so the truth is kind of what people are looking for.
Now, if your friend loses his cell phone, right?
And you point out that he's going completely insane, right?
Because he's lost his cell phone and blah, blah, blah.
He's worried about all of that. And you just say to him, oh, it's in your back pocket.
Then he's going to turn around, slap his ass and say, oh, man, thank you so much.
Because he found what he was looking for, right?
Yeah. But the basic truth that everybody says that they want, whenever you point it out, they don't slap their ass and say, oh, thank you, man, that's great.
So when you point out that, say, taxation is theft, or that the government is an agency of violence, or whatever, right?
Or that, you know, a violation of choice is brutal.
This is all true.
I mean, obviously, it's true, right?
But people don't sort of slap their asses and say, oh, thank you for fighting my cell phone.
I've been looking for this truth my whole life, and now you've given me this great truth and I've not seen it?
Thank you. No, that's not what they do.
They refuse to look at these things clearly.
They simply start fogging and avoiding...
And attacking and manipulating and insinuating that you're some kind of freeloader who wants everyone else to deliver your bananas on roads without having to pay for them and that you're naive and you're ridiculous and you don't understand human nature.
All of that stuff. So, people don't want the truth.
They want to pretend they have the truth because that makes them feel that they're not just bigoted.
They see no alternative to this.
They see no alternative.
They think that if you eliminate all these evils, then it's just going to get worse.
Because then a lot of people will get unchained and, you know, the people from the ghettos coming in and doing whatever they want with you.
What they do not see most of the time is that those people are the product of the system they believe in.
I mean, they can vote for stuff.
So people say, well, I'll be subjected to the arbitrary rims of people who have guns.
It's like, do you not understand what your relationship with is to the government?
Right. Yeah, it's just hard to...
For these people, it's very hard to see the reality of those people.
They don't see it as people with guns and everything they do dependent on these guns.
That's the hardest thing to point out.
Because when you do, especially when you're me...
A young guy. No, you're naive.
So for me, it always looks like this.
It's like some guy who's a slave is getting beaten every day, right?
And you say, listen, I can get you to Canada.
And in Canada, you won't be a slave anymore.
And he's like, well, yeah, but in Canada, in five years, I might get into a bar fight.
And it's like, dude, are you kidding me?
If you're afraid of physical violence right now, you're getting whipped every day.
And if you escape to Canada, yes, it's true.
You may get into a bar fight in five years, although that's pretty avoidable.
But it's that level of...
I mean, that's just Stockholm Syndrome, right?
That's just making up excuses as to why the existing system should continue.
It's not any kind of rational analysis.
And that's why you say to this person, okay, well, you have this theory.
How have you put it to the test?
And if they haven't put their theories to the test of empiricism, Then you know it's just bigotry.
And if they reject empirical evidence to the contrary of their theories, or they just explain it away, or they adjust their theories fluidly to sort of pretend to take into account the new evidence, then don't give them the respect of pretending to debate.
Do you know what I mean? Yes.
I know what you mean.
It's tempting, and they want you to engage with them because then it makes them feel like they are debating.
But don't. Don't pretend to.
Don't play chess with a guy who knocks over pieces at will.
Don't give him the respect of pretending he's playing chess.
I guess I just have to draw a line in terms of when I will call it quits and what sort of frames I will not get sucked into.
There's a lot of them and some of them are ridiculous.
Actually, most of them are ridiculous.
The bad thing about me, and I'm pretty sure a lot of people have it, is once you walk away and you go to sleep at night, then you come up with great comebacks for these things.
When you evaluate things and think about them, because You know, when you just speak to another person, it's not really a formal debate.
It's like, you know, interrupting one another and then sort of...
And that's how it should be. I don't like formal debates.
But no, so the illusion, though, the illusion that you probably have, my friend, is that you think, oh, my God, I should have said this when that person said that.
And then you imagine that that's somehow going to win.
Right. But it's not.
I guess so, yeah. I mean, I'm pretty good at it, right?
I mean, did I win with this guy?
No. Did he concede any points?
No. Did he even hesitate when pointed out, rank contradictions were pointed out within three minutes?
Did he even apologize for mischaracterizing my position by saying, so you want to state the society, like it's some, like, I like ice cream and no government?
You know, I mean, did he apologize for that and saying, you know what, that's true, that's not a right way to characterize it, I'm sorry about that.
No, he just... So, we think, ah!
And do you know what that is, though?
That's the bait. That's the hook.
So, people put that hook in the water and say, ah!
If you get just the right phrase, then I'm going to change my mind.
But they never do change their mind.
And then later, you come up with another perfect one, you come back to them, and they still don't change their mind.
They're just trying to lure you back in.
Because the guy who's knocking over chess pieces at will wants to believe that he's playing chess, and so he's got to get chess players to sit down with him and pretend that he's playing chess.
But you can't get Bobby Fischer to sit down and play with a guy who's just going to knock over the chess pieces however he sees fit or change the moves or whatever.
Just don't give these people the satisfaction of pretending that they're debating.
Right. And the thing is exactly with the arguments you make for the free market and I believe a long time ago you had a video about why there needs to be real regulation.
And real rules rather than favoritism by government, that's a whole other foreign thing to most people.
Government is a big blob, like religion, that allows people to pretend they've answered questions, right?
How do we regulate the powers that be, economic powers that be?
Oh, we'll have a government agency.
And then, poof, look, the problem has vanished.
Where did life come from?
God breathed on a snake, and a woman sprang to life, and boom.
Look, I've answered the question!
It is intellectually...
Pretty weak to imagine that you've waved a bunch of guns with a bunch of books held by guys in blue costumes and think that you've solved the problem.
It's as crazy as doing the river dance to heal a heart disease.
There's a lot of activity, noise, sweat, and motion, but you're not doing anything other than Happy the guy gets sick because he thinks it's something.
And this is empirically true.
I mean, the more the government regulates, the worse things get.
The government is regulating the currency.
The currency has lost 98% of its value.
And the government is regulating the worn drugs, and the drugs get more and more prevalent.
The government is supposed to be helping the poor, and the poor poverty situation is getting worse and worse.
And so, I mean, the idea that the government is managing something and being productive at it is...
It's so anti-empirical that anybody who claims that is living in a world of words that has no connection with the world of reality.
And because words can be redefined however the hell people want, you know, what they need is a cold towel to the head, not the pretense of rational debate.
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