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Oct. 6, 2012 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
45:31
2232 Iran, Nuclear Weapons, Imperialism and Inflation
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Welcome to the day.
I am Christopher Green.
This is Green Wave Radio Live.
We are back on the air.
It's October 9th, 2012.
Top of the second hour broadcasting around the world.
I have the pleasure of having Stefan Molyneux on the show with us.
He's been on the show once before a long time ago.
Welcome to the day.
Before the break, Safa, we were talking about sanctions on Iran.
And we're getting a lot of reports.
Mitt Romney has stated many times before that the biggest threat to American national security is the threat of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, their nuclear capability.
I've read reports that they've been experiencing hyperinflation as much as some 40% last week alone.
Can you tell us how these economic sanctions are affecting the Middle East?
Well, they're affecting it very intelligently, Christopher.
That's the remarkable thing.
Do you know when in America they have economic worries and troubles, what do they do?
Well, they go and they camp out in public parks and they sing Kumbaya and they mutter about the fascist banks.
And yes, I agree in general with the fascist bank statements.
But do you know in Iran, they go and protest the central country.
Bank.
They go and protest the government monopoly banks, and I think that is really something to be admired.
The degree of economic acuity in the general population in Iran should not be underestimated.
They've learned about economics in the same way that a man who lives with lions learns a lot about lions, because they're in a great deal of danger from them.
But it's been crippling, and it's something that is not well understood, and of course the mainstream media doesn't really touch it much, but three sort of examples from the past popped to mind.
Third century AD, Rome's emperors start to burn through money with massive promises to keep all of the unwashed masses fed, clothed, and entertained with lions crunching up Christians.
And they debased the currency like crazy.
I mean, they just mixed all of this crap in with the silver and gold.
And then when the economic problems began to hit, all of these leaders, they need to find scapegoats.
And so, of course, in ancient Rome, it was the Christians.
And the Christians were the big problem.
And in medieval Europe, it's interesting to note that there was, of course, all this hysteria about women being witches and so on.
But the number of women on trial actually climbed statistically in sync with the debasement of the currency.
You know, when people...
When the currency is really the lifeblood of human civilization, it's what separates us from the apes.
And when it begins to go bad, people start looking for scapegoats.
This, of course, happened in the Great Terror in Revolutionary France, where the Assignats were incredibly messed up.
And then they had a reign of terror that slaughtered 17,000 people.
And, of course, Germany in the 1920s, Hitler blamed the Jews for what happened to the country when really it was just hyperinflation.
And the same thing, of course, is happening now in Iran.
It's just incredibly dangerous.
Yeah, so these economic sanctions are a legitimate act of war, an act of economic war.
Any idea how bad it is for the Iranian people?
You know, because the reports I've been reading said they've had hyperinflation some 40% in a single week.
Oh, yeah, it's brutal.
What if that happened in America?
What if that happened in Canada?
I mean, what would that look like?
How bad do you think it is for the people of Iran?
Well, Iran, of course, does not have the wealth of Canada or the U.S. I mean, Americans have lost 40% of their net worth over the past half decade.
But there's not a revolution because the net worth was very high.
And of course, the per capita income is very high.
In Iran, this is just not the case.
I mean, it's slowly been losing value against the U.S. dollar since mid-2011 when these international sanctions against the nuclear program took effect.
And it was pretty gentle.
For the first year, and of course, in June, it began to speed up, and then a few months later, I mean, it's just gone nuts.
And just one weekend, September 8th to 10th, the real lost almost 10% of its value.
On October 1st alone, 17% it went down.
So by the next day, this is October 2nd, the black market exchange rate It was 35,000 rials to one U.S. dollar.
That's an 80% decline in a single year.
I mean, it's just astounding.
And of course, what happens is there is inflation.
The Iranian government says, oh, it's only 25%.
And as with all government estimates, it's wise to double and perhaps even wiser to triple them.
Some unofficial estimates are putting it at between 50% and 70%.
So it staples food and fuel.
That's really all it comes down to.
Iranians are paying three times as much for Meat as they did a year ago because I mean the farmers the animal feed and vaccines are imported They're priced in US dollars and of course they have to then raise the price so unemployment So inflation helps debtors, you know, we'll hear that, you know conversation a lot So, I mean, that's actually what the intent is here in the United States of America That's why it's one of the reasons why the Fed is monetizing our currency Is that a good thing then for for US debtors?
Is that is that a good thing here in the US? Is it from that perspective at least?
Well, I mean, inflation, of course, I mean, if you owe money, inflation is your friend.
But not really, in the long run, because, I mean, anything which debases currency may have short-term winners and losers, but it's catastrophic for the general population as a whole.
Because it doesn't take long for, you know, so if you've had some sort of fixed money that you owe and some fixed interest rates that you owe, say you owe somebody, you know, paying at 10%, and then inflation's running at 10%, well, of course, you're You're really not paying any effective interest.
But that's only a very small slice of people in a very small slice of time because what happens is, of course, the markets adjust to inflation very quickly, thus driving up the interest rate higher than it would be because there are all these people who aren't paying interest in a sense because the inflation rate is so high.
And so they have – the banks have to make money or the lenders have to make money so they simply overcharge the next people relative to market price to make up for all the people who aren't paying interest as a result of inflation.
So it's a short slice of people who are like, woohoo, free money.
But it really – it hits the next people particularly in the shorts.
And of course inflation is hardest.
On the poorest.
It is the most regressive tax that you can imagine.
Because the rich, they're nimble.
And of course, they can move money offshore.
They can buy foreign currencies.
They can invest in gold.
They can do all of this stuff that's a hedge against inflation.
But poor people who are living paycheck to paycheck find that food prices are rising disproportionate to their income.
And this is pretty catastrophic.
I mean, this is what happened in Egypt last year or the year before.
I mean, the price of wheat went up.
And of course when you've got 40% of the population living on a few bucks a day, that is, I mean people, revolution is a very desperate act, particularly in despotic regimes like in the Middle East and it's when you can't eat and can't work, then you turn rancid, but it's a very, very desperate act and it indicates the desperation of the people.
So what do you think this signals?
I mean the fact that the United States has implemented these economic sanctions against Iran, they've been incredibly effective.
We've just talked about the inflation, the hyperinflation, if you want to call it that, how that's affecting the Iranian people, and especially affecting the poor.
What is this signal to you?
It makes me morally nauseous.
It's repulsive.
Because, I mean, we use these collective terms for convenience, but they really are meaningless.
There is no such thing as sanctions against Iran.
Iran.
You know, like Iran is some naughty child that we're going to put in a timeout.
I mean, because the truth of the matter is that it is punishing the Iranian people who are not responsible for their society.
Not responsible for their society.
So it punishes the people who can't change their society.
It does not punish the people who are in charge of the society.
And the real sanction, of course, in terms of its effect upon America, is the poorest Americans.
You put sanctions on Iran, and this causes instability.
This causes oil prices to rise.
This causes food prices to rise for Americans.
This causes, of course, the price of transportation to rise.
And everything is based on transportation, of course.
You can't get foods into cities with catapults.
And even if you're good, those catapults would probably run on oil prices.
So it is sanctions against the American poor and those who can't change the American government, and it's sanctions against the Iranian poor and those who can't change their own government.
So, you know, it's as usual with government programs.
It rewards the guilty and punishes the innocent.
Yeah, it definitely in a sense is, you know, anti-Americanism as well, which I don't think is, you know, a good thing from our perspective and the perspective of the Oh, Oh, yeah, without a doubt.
Of course, of course, because people – sorry, I say of course like it's obvious.
But people who wish to trade are not initiating force.
I mean, that's by definition, that's praxeologically practical.
People who are voluntarily trading with each other are not initiating force against each other.
I mean, you stick a knife to my ribs and take my wallet, well, you've crossed over into the NAP violation land.
But if you want to trade with somebody, then you are not initiating the use of force.
If somebody forcibly prevents you from trading with someone, that is an initiation of force.
And so what we see in these situations is...
You know, the usual suspects.
A moral sense of self-righteousness that is utterly, completely and totally displaced.
Look, I don't like nuclear weapons.
I don't know anybody who does.
And I don't know the degree to which Iran is or is not.
Developing nuclear weapons and so on.
But, I mean, to see this from outside the biosphere of empire, to look at it from the outside in, is kind of disorienting.
Because you have to remember, I mean, the statistical facts are that America, through unbelievable foreign policy, aggression, mayhem and genocide since the Second World War, has caused the deaths of 25 to 30 million people.
That's almost a bucket of World War II victims.
I mean, that's astounding.
And so America has done this through, of course, through its military dominance and through economic power and so on.
Iran is not the country that has 700 military bases scattered around the world.
Iran is not the country that continually invades and provokes invasions and insurgencies in foreign countries.
Iran is not the country that is meddling in all these other countries and causing unbelievable mayhem and destruction.
So for America to say, well, you can't have nuclear weapons, I mean, for the average Iranian, it's like Satan saying, you can't have any horns.
I mean, anyway.
So why are we there, in your opinion?
I mean, is it about nukes?
Is it about these weapons that they could potentially be building?
Or is there another reason?
I mean, what is your take on that?
Yeah, I mean, there was lots of people who said that the true reason for Iraq was for the oil.
I mean, it just takes a moment of thought to realize that this is just not true.
I mean, it's just not true.
Okay, so if you want to trade oil, just go trade oil with people.
I mean, it wasn't like Saddam Hussein didn't want to sell his oil.
Evil guy that he was.
I mean, he did want to sell his oil.
So there was no problem getting the oil out of Iraq.
And of course, the idea that the government is going to go in and be somehow efficient in extracting and selling this oil, like it's going to be more efficient than companies that have specialized in this for 100 years plus.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
And so it's got nothing to do with trying to get natural resources or even trying to prevent other countries from getting natural resources.
And of course, there has been no massive outflowing of oil from Iraq.
I mean, all that's happened is the country has been decimated.
But the reality is very simple, and, you know, George Orwell got it right in 1948 when he wrote 1984, which is that what they want to do is to create a perpetual series of boogeymen in order to scare the general population into being distracted from the crimes of the local politicians.
I mean, look, the big problem is over there.
I'm sorry?
They do a great job of, you know, creating those boogeymen.
I was talking about Osama bin Laden, for instance.
I mean...
Honestly, I'm not even convinced necessarily the guy was a real person.
I mean, these could just be fictitious characters.
They crate out of thin air and blast all over a television screen so we think it's real.
Much like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, or Donald Duck.
He may be real, but the way that he is perceived by the population held captive in the biodome of Empire, he might as well be a fictional character.
Just ask yourself, wake up in the morning while you're brushing your teeth, while you're shaving, Look in the mirror and just be honest with yourself.
That's all we really ask of people, I think, who are all interested in the truth.
Be honest with yourself.
Is your big problem Mahmoud Ahriman?
No.
Your big problem is not the guy who can't seem to find a tie or a razor.
That's not the guy who's your big problem.
The guy who's the big problem is the guy who is, say, putting your children hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt before they draw their first breath.
That's the guy who's your problem.
Look, anyone who points at you and then points at someone else and says, that's the reason, that guy's the reason that your life is crappy.
Well, I guarantee you, whoever's pointing the finger, just follow up the arm to the shoulder And find that that's the guy who's your problem.
And the idea that America has something to fear from Iran rather than say the Federal Reserve is astounding.
I mean it wasn't Iran that got America into over a decade of unbelievably destructive wars.
It wasn't Iran It wasn't Iran who caused the hyperprinting of money.
It wasn't Iran who created the national debt.
These are all your local politicians.
It wasn't Iran who decimated the educational system to the point where 40% of people aren't even making it out of high school.
There's not Iran that's doing that.
I mean, come on.
It's a bizarre theater that we live in.
Yeah, well, it looks like it's the debt collapse.
It's the wars that are a byproduct of the debt collapse here and our currency crisis that we're experiencing, almost like we're taking out our aggression on the rest of the world because we've run out of options.
And I don't know how much you've followed.
I know you've probably followed a lot, actually, the Arab Spring movement.
We saw Mohamed Morsi take power in Egypt.
You mentioned Egypt.
He's a known member leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.
He's pretty much Proclaimed his allegiance with Iran, Israel's his number one enemy.
What's your take on these movements?
Were these organic?
Were these completely controlled by the U.S.? You know, what is your take on that?
Well, it's hard to know for sure, but you can't do these things without significant arms, without weapons.
You can't do these things.
And, of course, America and England and Russia, I think, are the top three.
It's off the top of my head.
They're certainly high up there.
America certainly is the biggest.
And you can't do any of these movements without substantial foreign aid, without particularly military aid and advisors.
And these all come, for the most part, from the Western democracies, so...
They may not be, you know, picking these people and grooming them and all of that.
But all of these things are pretty much impossible without Western participation.
And so, I mean, the West calls the shots.
And you can see, of course, I mean, I think that the generic failure of these is because the idea that America is going to do or Canada or England is going to do something to help other countries be free and Yeah, it's pretty ludicrous.
You know, I know you have a good grasp of history.
Are we the next Rome?
I mean, is that what we look like in your opinion?
Or how would you relate, you know, American history to, you know, what you've studied?
Well, I mean, Rome is a little different, but the pattern is the same.
And I don't want to put everyone to sleep with the history lecture, so I'll keep it very brief.
But, I mean, Rome ended very quickly.
There was a long lead-up to it.
There was a whole lot of burghers and then a really bad heart attack.
The heart attack was quick.
The burghers took a long time.
But what happened, of course, was in Rome, in the Roman Empire...
They had this massive expansionistic policy.
They debased the currency.
They began to restrict trade.
They played favorites among the corporations of the time and all that.
And the same nonsense that goes on now, the same nonsense that will continue to go on as long as we have states.
And then what happened was they ran out of money to pay.
We got the music jumping in on us here, Stefan.
Radio live broadcasting around the world through our syndicate, American Freedom Radio.
I have the pleasure of being with Steph Bot on YouTube, otherwise known as Stefan Molyneux.
You can check him out at freedomainradio.com.
Now, we talked a little bit, Stefan, about Iran.
We're talking about what's been happening in the Middle East.
He's very credible threats.
And according to people like Mitt Romney, Iran is the biggest threat to national security, although a lot of us in the liberty and freedom movement would say it's the national debt.
It's the money printing.
It's the monetization of our system that is actually the biggest threat to the American people.
We talked a little bit about the debates while we were on commercial break.
I wanted to get into that a little bit.
What's your take on American politics, the upcoming, the election that we're in right now?
You know, it's kind of like a charade.
It's almost like we're watching reality TV. Yeah, you know, there's, I mean, there's this old psychological concept called the elephant in the room, you know, like, which is that if you've got a family where somebody is an alcoholic or something like that, that everyone gets together and somebody drinks themselves stupid blind in a corner, and everybody smiles brightly and emptily and talks about everything but the actual topic that is the most important.
To the elephant in the room, so everyone's walking around, this giant elephant in the room, pretending that there's no elephant in the room.
And that is so dysfunctional in families, and it's so dysfunctional in a society.
It's even more dysfunctional in a society.
And what's fascinating about the American political discourse, now that Ron Paul has dropped out, you know, to his eternal credit, he would bring these issues up repeatedly...
But the things that aren't being talked about really are the most important thing.
I mean you have these absurd things where You know, Obama's like, I would give Big Bird a raise.
And Mitt Romney's, well, I would fire Big Bird.
And really, I mean, talking about a fictional, cartoony, flightless bird, I mean, it's, you know, this is the level at which, or where people say to Paul Ryan, well, you give me the details about what you would cut.
And it's as if everybody knows why they won't give details.
Everybody knows why they won't give details.
The moment you give details about what you're gonna cut, you mobilize a huge bunch Of entirely self-interested people to spend whatever they can to blow you out of the water.
I mean, nobody – I mean, if you're in the – if you're a sniper, you put on camouflage.
You don't just sort of say, here I am.
You jump up on a hill with these big flares and, hey, shine some shirt lights on me.
You don't do that.
And so – I mean, I don't know whether – I mean, Paul Ryan has any sense when it comes to debt or crushing the spending or whatever – But everybody knows why he can't do that.
Now for the same reason everyone knows why even the Republicans praise public school teachers because the public school teachers union will spend millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars to blow any candidate out of the water who says anything bad about public schools.
And so, this is true of the pharmaceutical company.
This is true of patents.
You know, they're spending, in the cell phone industry, they're spending more money on patent trolling than they are on research and development.
I mean, it's horrendous.
They can't talk about it in terms, they can't talk about the national debt.
I mean, in any real way.
They can't talk about collapsing foreign involvements through the troops.
They can't talk about going after anybody who Instigated these terrible wars on false pretenses.
So what it is is a massive map that outlines the black hole of everything that can't be talked about for fear of creating enemies, for fear of provoking a hysterical and witch-hunting media.
So it all is just a bunch of nonsense to me.
But it was quite fascinating to see the way that Obama was sleepwalking his way through the last debate.
And people have had a lot of theories about it.
You know, he was tired.
You know, like you can't...
I heard it was the altitude.
To me, it looked like he didn't want to be there.
I mean, he did look completely disinterested.
He looked bored.
My theory on it was, it's just the theory is, has he already gotten a phone call from the power structure, told him, look, you're not the pick.
Romney's our guy.
It's almost like he knows he's not going to have a second term.
Well, that's one way of putting it, though.
But the other possibility might be that he already got the phone call from the powers that be saying, you will be the next guy.
So he's like, okay, well, if I'm going to get a gold, why run hard?
That's a good point.
That's an angle I wasn't originally looking at.
So what are your thoughts?
I mean, do you have a prediction?
Is it Obama?
Yeah, it's going to be Obama.
You think it's going to be Obama?
Yeah, it's going to be Obama for the very simple reason that...
There are so many people dependent on government spending that you have an increasing leftward drift of the politicians in general.
And this is not ideological.
It is simply the reality of dependent-based, late-democratic fiscal collapse scenarios.
I mean, you have almost half Americans are dependent on the government for significant portions of their income.
You have massive amounts of public sector unions Going into retirement, the baby boomers and all of that.
And by retirement, I mean they've turned 50.
And they want massive pensions and free healthcare and benefits and all that for the rest of their days.
And you can't touch any of that.
I was in Vegas for Freedom Fest.
I gave a speech there and I was talking with a lawyer who was attempting to try and get a few benefits scaled back.
I mean, only in the government would the majority of money be spent on people who aren't working in Illinois.
75% of every new dollar is going towards the pensions for retired teachers.
And this lawyer I was talking to was trying to take on some of these special interest groups in the legal area and You know, he had a picture of Murray Rothbard on his wall.
He was a fairly famous libertarian anarchic thinker.
He sort of prayed to him every morning.
Oh, Murray, give me strength to do another day of this.
I mean, it's exhausting.
It's debilitating to try and take on these special interest groups.
And I don't think that there's any particular way that you can go right at the moment because there's so many people dependent who will just go to the ends of the earth to overturn you.
And this is why you have something just completely ludicrous like Mitt Romney instituting Obamacare in his own state and then somehow opposing it at the federal level.
I mean it's just – you put that in a story and people would be like, well, who could – that's too much.
Come on.
I know that's hypocrisy in politics but that's just too much.
And so it's all nonsense.
I mean you can't take on these special interest groups.
They will...
I mean, this is why I'm so glad that Ron Paul didn't get in.
If Ron Paul had gotten in and tried to take on these special interest groups, I guarantee you there would have been blood in the streets.
These people would have chained themselves to buildings.
They would have lain down in front of police cars.
They would have clogged up entire cities, including ambulances that need to get through.
And, you know, you would have had to use force to move them out the way.
And, I mean, it would have been a black eye for libertarianism for the next 500 years.
So the system, unfortunately, has to wind its way out now.
So do you think, Ron Paul, did he play his politics about as best he could in the presidential race?
Do you think he could have done something differently or better?
It's tough.
You know, I've had a lot of criticisms of the movement.
You know, as far as it's going, educating people, I think all that's well and good.
But the problem, of course, with politics is...
You really can't tell the truth about your ethics because people have gone so far away from the original ideal of America that to even be close to it would just be deeply shocking to people.
If I were running for office, people would say, What do you want?
What's your goal?
It's like, well, my goal is respect for property rights and banning the initiation of force, right?
And then some clever soul in the audience would pipe up and say, well, doesn't that include taxation?
And I said, well, yeah, of course, taxation is the initiation of force.
It's primitive, it's medieval, it's immoral, it's destructive, and, you know, it's a drug.
Violence is a drug.
It benefits a few people in the short run and slaughters everyone in the long run.
And then people would say, oh, so if there's no taxation, then what you must mean is that there's no such thing as government.
It's like, well, yeah, of course.
I mean, if you're not allowed to own slaves, then there's no such thing as slavery.
And if you're not allowed to beat women, then morally at least, there's no validity to wife beating.
And if you are for...
The non-aggression principle, then you can't have a government.
Government, by definition, is a violation of the non-aggression principle.
And then people will be like, oh my god, he's an anarchist.
He wants us all to eat kittens in the streets.
He wants to bring the rain of fire down from the mountain of the collapsing society.
He wants us to be like Somalia.
Then it's just, okay, well, you're done, right?
Why don't you eat kittens in the street for your next YouTube video?
Yeah.
It's scary.
And maybe I could throw out a few recipes and, you know, all that kind of stuff.
So you can't tell the truth.
And I think that Ron Paul was, you know, I saw some videos where he basically said, yeah, of course, the goal in the long run would be no government and so on.
But you can't exactly go up in a big, you know, when you've got a flag the size of Mount Vesuvius behind you, you can't really go up and say that, honestly.
And so he's obviously better at hedging than I am, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
I'll leave for your listeners to decide.
Well, here's the criticism, and this has even been some of my criticism.
I'm a big fan of Ron Paul.
I still support Ron Paul to this day.
What he's done for the Freedom and Liberty movement, you just can't argue it.
It speaks for itself.
What I'm concerned about, Safan, is the outcome of these movements and the movement for change.
If I evaluate the outcome, what did we accomplish?
You know, through Ron Paul's, you know, campaign outside of waking a lot of people up and educating a lot of people.
What kind of change have we really influenced within, you know, the federal government and American politics today?
Do you think it's been adequate?
Has there been a change?
Or are we still waiting for it?
Well, I mean, that presupposes the argument that politics is not only the only, not only the best, but really the only way that we're going to achieve freedom in this world.
I don't believe that for a second.
And, I mean, you could only believe that if you don't know much about history, which is an annoying thing to say, right?
But, you know, it's like, you know, in the financial world, you've mentioned that you did finances before.
I worked as a coder in a brokerage house, so I know a little bit about it.
But, you know, in the financial world, you can make money off a bear market and you can make money off a bull market.
But you make money off a bear market...
Off everyone who's never been in a bear market before.
And then after you've been in a bear market, you're like, oh, that's what I should do.
So I'm not going to get ripped off anymore.
And the same thing is true with the bubble.
So if you know history, then, I mean, this fight to control the state, to find some way of binding the state down with the chains of the Constitution, as Harry Brown used to say, has been going on for certainly hundreds of years in America.
It's been going on for thousands of years in the West.
And Probably tens of thousands of years if you count the whole world.
So what is – in your opinion, if politics isn't the best vehicle for change, what is?
How would you recommend people approach that I guess in theory or maybe even in practice?
Well, you just, you live relentlessly by the non-aggression principle in your own life, and you don't worry about the state.
You can't control the state.
You can't manage the state.
You can't beat the state.
You just relentlessly live by the non-aggression principle in your own life.
What that means is that you examine every facet of your own life, and you say, am I using force here?
Am I using aggression?
Am I using falsehoods?
Am I defrauding?
And, I mean, maybe you have a moral perfection that I can still only dream of, but most of us can look in our lives and say, look, there's an area here where, you know, I yell at my kids.
Well, that's kind of aggressive, right?
I hit my kids.
Well, that's a violation.
Of the non-aggression principle, so you should stop doing that.
I associate with people who are big fans of me being thrown in jail for disagreeing with them.
You know, like if somebody's really pro-taxation, then they are pro you being thrown in jail as an individual.
Cats in blue coming to your house with guns, putting them to your neck, dragging you away and throwing you in a cage indefinitely.
Well, then that's not really very good.
If you're going to live by these principles.
So, for me, I think you just forget about society as a whole, because you can't affect that.
What you can do is find as many conceivable ways to initiate, sorry, to live the non-initiation of aggression in your own life.
And I think that's how it spreads.
I mean, if you think of something like anti-racism, well...
You can't go and make the society, if you live in a racist society, you can't go make that society non-racist.
But you can examine yourself, you know, reduce any elements or eliminate any elements of racism within your own life.
You can refuse to associate with known and outspoken racists and you can talk about your ideals and so on.
And I think that's, you know, you shoot up your flair and you see who gathers.
But I think you have to be that flair, you have to be that integrity, you have to be that light.
And then people will see and they will come as best they can and as much as they can and to the degree that they can.
But I think that the idea that you can somehow join this criminal gang and turn it into a charity, I think is just delusional.
I mean, it's a tempting delusion.
How do you feel?
How does the non-aggression principle deal with the aggressor?
Because there's always going to be an aggressor.
Your competition, an opposing government, another country...
Aren't they not going to use that as a vulnerability?
And how does the non-aggression principle deal with that?
Well, of course, it's the non-initiation of force.
So the non-aggression principle is perfectly fine with self-defense, right?
So in fact, I think self-defense is, it's not morally required, but it certainly is virtuous to defend yourself against aggression.
So I think that's fine.
As far as, you know, let's say you have some country without a government and then Some other government wants to invade you.
I mean, it's going to be hard to invade you because you don't have a government.
Why did you invade another country?
To take over its tax structure, right?
I mean, that's why you go and invade another country.
If you don't have a tax structure, there's nothing to take over.
I mean, there's no setup thing which just keeps delivering truckloads of money to your sort of government capital all the time.
And so I don't think that there's much use in doing that.
But of course, even if there was, there's some natural resource or whatever.
I was, you know, thinking of just as you were talking there, and we've got about a minute before we head to the break, is who decides what is self-defense?
I mean, isn't there a certain level of subjectivity there?
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah, I mean, absolutely.
And so what I would do is I would buy insurance, right?
I would buy insurance that said, well, first of all, I'd buy insurance that said, look, if anyone steals my wallet, you'll just pay to get my wallet back or whatever, pay whatever cost it is.
So you get insurance for that.
And then I would also include in that insurance that if I act in self-defense or as far as I know, acting the best I can in self-defense, then I may go before a jury of my peers who will question me very closely on this.
And I'd want insurance against that as well to see – to make sure.
And that would require some training and all that.
So, I mean, these problems can be solved.
But wouldn't it be great to have self-defense against people taking your money who weren't from the IRS?
It would be great to have that, Stefan.
I'm Christopher Green.
I'm here with Stefan Molyneux.
And I'm back.
This is Green Wave Radio Live.
I'm here with Stefan Molyneux.
During the short break, Stefan, you brought up something pretty interesting.
You talked about the fact that the United States has a self-interest to destabilize other currencies around the world, too.
As Bill Gross, I know, has mentioned quite a few times, it's almost when you're looking at global currencies and you're looking at fiat money, it's almost like you're asking yourself the question, at least from an investment perspective, which is the least dirty shirt in the room?
But they're all dirty.
So what's your perspective on that?
And is that why we see and we even hear Mitt Romney talk about China and how they're currency manipulators?
I get that all the time.
We hear this from Obama as well.
The United States is a currency manipulator.
How are we any different from China?
Yeah, I mean, the idea that...
We can somehow get out of debt by buying our own debt.
It's like mailing in your visa bill to pay your visa bill.
I mean, it's completely insane.
But yeah, it is.
I mean, if you look, imagine if the European Economic Union, right?
Imagine if they had gone onto the gold standard about 10 years ago.
What would the U.S. dollar look like right now?
Well, I guarantee you it would not be the world reserve currency.
I guarantee you.
In fact, anybody who seems interested in a gold standard very quickly finds that their palace becomes a smoking crater after made up nonsense about war.
But imagine how much capital would be fleeing from the US if there was...
A truly gold-backed or basket of commodities-backed currency somewhere in the world.
So the U.S. has only not gone into freefall because everyone else has gone into freefall.
So it doesn't look like you're falling.
If you've all jumped out of the plane and all you're doing is looking at each other, you don't look like you're falling very much, do you?
It's a matter of perspective at that point.
Yeah, so the U.S. has a significant incentive to destabilize other currencies so that it doesn't Look as bad as it really is.
And if you see, I mean, imagine some country decides to go on the gold standard.
I don't even know what country could.
They're also horrifically in debt.
The moment you go on the gold standard, your gold all leaves your country to pay off your debts, which is one of the reasons why you don't do that.
But it would be, I mean, it would just be catastrophic.
And so the fact that the U.S. sanctions are causing incredible destabilization in a resource-rich country like Yeah, all looking at gold-backed currencies before they were toasted from on high.
So I think a lot of this nonsense that goes on about patriotism and war and protection and defense and all that, a lot of it is just a cover for the basic financial shell game that is occurring in the world.
We have trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities all over the world and an aging population that's fallen off of the conveyor belt from even remotely productive work in society to to complete dependency status, this is completely unsustainable.
And this is another thing that's not being talked about.
How do we pay for that then?
Because, okay, we see the baby boomer generation like we talked about.
50-year-old, now they're retiring and they need all these social programs, entitlements for the rest of their life.
And I'm not even saying, hey, they don't deserve that.
They've forked their butts off.
How do we pay these people?
I mean, it's not even feasible.
Even if we could get Generation X and Y off their butts for 10 seconds and they wanted to pay for these programs, how do you do that?
I mean, it's a pyramid.
But you can't.
You can't.
You can't.
And also the other thing, too, is why should they be paid?
When I was a kid...
Literally 11 or 12 years old when I first came to Canada, the guy, I remember a history teacher talking to us about Canada pension plans.
And he said, oh yeah, and the money will all be there for you when you retire.
And we laughed at it.
I mean, maybe we were smarter than your average bear, but literally half the class laughed at this idea that our government was going to take care of her money.
No problem.
It's never going to be used on political purposes.
It's never going to be used to buy votes.
It's never going to be used...
The government is the most trustworthy agency in society, and it's the one who's going to take care of it.
This stuff was known decades and decades and decades ago.
And when I was a kid, if I knew there was a test and I had Remind us that there was a test.
If I failed to study for that test, I just got an F. And so for baby boomers to say, well, you know, we owe this.
It's like, no, no, no, no.
You guys had the power.
I didn't have the power when I was 11 or 20 or 25 or 30.
Y'all had the power.
You all had the voting blocs, you all had the political people in charge, and none of you wanted to deal with this.
So if the fact that you haven't dealt with this when you had decades to prepare, I don't see how that then becomes the right to enslave a younger generation.
Plus the boomers are the very richest generation in the history of the world.
The world has never seen a richer generation than the boomers.
So why on earth Should the young people who had nothing to do with setting up the system and no control over any of the laws or rules that were passed, why should they be literally chained to the yoke of providing endless benefits to those who refuse to rein in, who refuse to control and refuse to be suspicious of the state?
And as someone who spent about 30 years trying to convince people that the state is not their friend and, you know, been laughed at and rejected and scorned, I may be a little bitter about this, but when somebody's been yelling at you to stop smoking...
For 30 years, and you've sort of said, don't be an idiot.
Smoking is good for you.
And then they get lung cancer.
Why should I have to pay?
I mean, I'm the one who's been saying forever.
There are repercussions of your own lifestyle and your own actions.
And hey, you know, you look at the baby boomers.
I'm not saying...
There's not baby boomers that work tremendously hard, but yeah, they were a byproduct of that huge credit expansion.
I mean, a bunch of free money, everything was growing.
You know, you throw it at the stock market, you throw it here.
I mean, yeah, there was a few speed bumps along the way, but anything you touch pretty much turned to gold.
Well, they saved, sorry, they saved a lot of money because a lot of their life requirements were socialized and indebted.
So if you get free roads and free healthcare and free charity and education is free, then yes, you can save a lot of money.
Absolutely.
And then when you've saved all that money, you should spend it when the system collapses on what you need.
And maybe you can give a little bit back to the young to say, I'm sorry, but we really messed you up and we handed you a big monstrous statist fascist mess.
But yeah, they saved a lot of money because a lot of the stuff that they otherwise would have had to pay for, like roads and education and healthcare and all this kind of stuff, and all the feel-good, help-the-poor flim-flam that went on, well, that was all paid for through debt.
And so, yeah, if other people are going to fling me free money, yes, I can save a lot of money, but I don't think that means that I then get to enslave other people to pay for the stuff that I didn't want to spend on.
Sure, and it's not even a matter of wanting to.
Even if, again, the younger generation wanted to bear the brunt and bear the burden, they couldn't.
They can't.
It's not feasible.
So I guess the question on a lot of America's minds is, okay, well then, what's next?
What do we do from here?
It sounds like, from your perspective, you're saying, well, just don't pay them.
I mean, it seems to make sense.
It's not a popular political platform to run on.
No, and listen, let me be real clear about this.
It's a horrible thing to have to say.
I mean, I really want to be, it's not like, ah, you know, let them all, let them eat cake or whatever.
It's a terrible result.
It's a terrible, terrible outcome.
But I cannot find it in my heart to force the young people to pay for the endless political avoidances of the elder generation.
You know, there's an old statement.
I can't remember who said it, but he said, if there is to be trouble, let it be in my day that my child may live in peace.
And the exact opposite, of course, has occurred with a lot of the elder generation.
They've avoided confronting public sector teacher unions, and as a result, Children are coming out with vastly worse educational outcomes now than they did, say, 40 years ago when the unions were first nationalized.
We know the younger generation.
They've inherited a housing crash.
They've inherited a financial collapse.
We've inherited all these problems we've been left with.
I'm just thinking of what the baby boomer argument would be.
And the baby boomer argument is, my kid and the kids I know today don't appreciate anything.
And they've been riding the coattails of the baby boomer generation.
You've got a lot of kids that they've become wealthy or they're going to become wealthy as that transfer of wealth hits.
You know, the largest that we've seen in history, although it's been depleted since 2008.
Is there any argument there that the younger generations benefited in a lot of ways as well from what was produced, you know, through the past several decades?
Well, I mean, if that benefit was through voluntary trade and the free market, then great.
But then nobody owes anyone anything, right?
Because it's just a free market trade, right?
So, but the idea that...
Because the baby boom generation has been...
And again, I know that there's exceptions.
Speaking collectively is always tricky, so I want to point that out.
But...
I don't see how the younger generation can say, well, our schools are worse, our environment is worse.
The government is about eight to ten times larger, not even counting the debt that it was when you were little.
The amount of regulations, the control over my entrepreneurial potential is vastly diminished.
And the national debt is vastly larger.
The amount of poking sticks in the hornet's nest of foreign radicals has been much more Now we have greater controls over communications through NDAA and all these other kinds of things.
So what is it that you're handing to me that is so all-fired and wonderful that I should be happy to fund your retirement at a time when I can't even get a job?
I mean, youth unemployment, I mean.
Even in Greece, over 50%.
In Iran, it's over 30%.
In the West, depending on how you count it, it's 20% to 30%.
So how is it that I'm supposed to achieve all of the wealth to pay off the boomers' debts, the unfunded liabilities that the boomers want, when I have probably only 20% of the economic freedom and opportunity that the boomers have?
It's simply you cannot square that circle.
You can't make these magnets with opposing poles squish together.
Yeah.
Real unemployment rates are probably more like 20%.
Some of the estimates I've seen, people think we've got 30 million people that are unemployed in the country today.
These are These are huge problems, and they're very difficult to address, and I think that's what people find frustrating about politics.
No, they're easy to address.
No, they're easy to address.
Philosophically, they're easy to address.
Put that on the head for me as we close out the show.
We've got about a minute.
I mean, what would you change?
Very easy.
All we have to do is stop pointing guns at each other, pretending we're getting anything done other than making the world a bigger and bigger cage.
Okay, so stop pointing guns at each other through things like that.
Yeah, stop passing laws, stop passing regulations, repeal the laws, repeal the regulations and let people trade freely.
Let people who want to become doctors become doctors.
Let people who want to become plumbers and accountants and lawyers and teachers do those things.
Stop controlling everyone all the time, stop subsidizing, stop printing money, stop using force and then pretending we're achieving anything in society other than throwing more and more people into a deeper and deeper cage.
We just simply have to put down the guns, reason with each other, Thanks, Chris.
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