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Feb. 14, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
19:17
2616 Ghosts Kneeling Before Guns: The Story of Government

Stefan Molyneux responds to a listener question regarding his recent The Greatest Gift in the Entire Universe podcast.

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Hi, everybody.
Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio.
Hope you're doing well.
Feedback from a listener.
Hi, Michael Stephan.
First, the obligatory thanks.
I love what you're doing, and it made a huge difference to me.
This is my first correspondence.
It's regarding the greatest gift in the universe, a video I did yesterday.
I know you're right.
But in response to that, I thought, I always think that we're kind of living in the repressed, statist, poverty-stricken hinterlands of history.
I have trouble thinking of this as the greatest gift in the universe.
I think people in the future will be living on Mars in material abundance and self-fulfillment.
Compared to what's possible, we're barely out of the medieval ages.
This is more of an intellectual concern, as our reaction should be the same either way, but I'd like to hear what you think about it.
Best regards, a listener.
Repressed state is poverty-stricken hinterlands of history.
Do you know, there was a book that I studied when an undergraduate in history studies at McGill University.
It was called The Village of Montaillu, and it was the records of a group of priests who were sent out to seek out heretics during the Inquisition, and they went to this Backwater village in France.
I can't remember when.
Middle Ages, late Middle Ages.
And dear God, the lives these people lived were horrendous.
They basically spent all winter huddled under blankets, half starving to death because they were desperate not to eat the seed that they needed to grow their new crops in the spring.
And most people In human history, vanish.
They add a molecule or two to the gene pool, and they generally regurgitate their own prior trauma onto the fresh faces of their children, turning them into acidic status nationalist religious hags, and then they vanish without a trace.
Most people's lives are like, imagine an airplane over a very calm lake, and in its bomb bays are javelins.
And it flies over the lake, the bomb bays open, and the javelins fall.
You know, they fall horizontally, and then, because of air resistance, they end up pointing straight down.
And they go, bloop, into the lake.
And they barely make a ripple.
And they vanish from sight, and that's it.
That's most of human history.
Think of...
People you know from human history, the famous, the illustrious, the murderous, whoever, most people have come and gone leaving barely a trace.
They were born into prejudice and irrationality and superstition and nationalism and statism and racism and colonialism and you name it, every ism except the productive J under the book.
And they replicated like a blind photocopier of history trundling its way through the human gene pool.
They replicated whatever they were told.
They absorbed and mirrored back whatever they had told.
And they had all the creativity of a hand mirror held up to a gorgeous tapestry of human potential.
All they did was reflect anyone who'd ever done anything before.
That is the reality of human history.
The people around you In many, many, many ways, fundamentally do not exist.
I mean, there's a reason why we have an affinity for zombie movies, vampire movies, undead movies.
The people around you fundamentally do not exist.
They are programmed through a variety of mechanisms, cultural, religious, educational, through the media, they are programmed to have particular perspectives.
And I can make this case very simply, if you don't believe me.
It's very easy.
In 1850, 2% of the human population opposed slavery.
98% of the polled population, which I imagine did not include the slaves, were in approval of slavery.
Now, nobody approves of slavery.
Is that because people have had some sort of fundamental moral epiphany?
Of course not.
Of course not, because what happened was slavery ended when the ruling class realized that it was more profitable to let us slaves choose our own occupations.
Then we were enthusiastic and we were much more productive.
The free market is steroids and antibiotics for us tax livestock.
It makes us stronger and more productive.
But we're not supposed to be free.
They also found that the more productive the human livestock were, the more they could use the future productivity through taxation, the taxing of future productivity as collateral to borrow, and thus they could consume the future for the sake of the present.
But people have learned nothing from slavery whatsoever.
What was wrong with slavery?
100% ownership of human production.
Okay, so here in Canada, it's about 50% taxation, and then you pay a bunch more on your goods and services, and then, of course, you have debts and you have fees.
The other day I took the family to a park.
It was $20 to get into the park.
Whenever we go swimming at the government-run swimming center, it's another $8 to go swimming.
So they tax for everything, and then they charge you for everything, and then, of course, there's all the unfunded liabilities and national debts.
So taxation probably hovering 60%, 70%.
So you see 100% It's evil.
That's slavery.
You see, 60-70% or so, well, that's civilization.
You see, that's the social contract.
People have learned nothing whatsoever.
People say, well, you see, hitting your spouse is wrong.
And then they say, well, but hitting your child, well, that's very good and that's very necessary.
People have no principles whatsoever.
They have no principles whatsoever.
They don't exist.
When was the last time someone around you uttered an original thought?
Created something new?
Wrote a poem?
Wrote a story?
Wrote a play?
Wrote a screenplay?
Made something new?
Came up with something new?
Or are you just shuffling around the papers of other people's creativity and calling yourself an origami wizard?
How many people around you?
And this is true for yourself.
Have exercised any originality, any thought, any excellence in philosophy or virtue?
How many people around you have you ever seen stand tall against immorality?
How many people around you have you ever seen hold up a shield against the oncoming fiery breath of verbal abuse, which we actually have metaphorized into fire-breathing dragons who hoard gold, finance industry, How many people have you ever seen around you?
Create something new, have an original thought, become passionate about something that is individual to them, and stand firm, stand tall against immorality.
Even an immorality that they themselves define.
You don't really see it.
The people around you are photocopied ghosts of ancient crimes, hatreds, fears, and prejudices.
You understand that, right?
We are Neolithics in a spacesuit provided by the rare human beings around us.
So this is the reality of where you are.
Now, when you look at these army of ghosts that surround you, It's bone-chilling, of course, and it's terrifying because there are so many of them, and they are so empty-headed, and they're so reactionary, and I sympathize with this to some degree.
It comes out of prior trauma.
It comes out of abandoned, neglected, and abused childhoods.
I understand all of that.
But the beautiful thing about adulthood is responsibility, like it or not.
And you always have the capacity within you for resurrection.
You always have the capacity within you to spit out the worms eating your brains planted there by the obscene death-bringers of history.
You have to spit them out and regrow your brain.
That we always have the choice to do.
So I still blame them.
I still blame them.
Though I sympathize with the origins, I still blame the execution of life.
So we're surrounded by this ghost army that is designed to photocopy the trauma of history and continue it forever.
It's kind of alarming when you first see it.
But let me tell you something.
You can walk through ghosts.
You sneeze and ghosts scatter.
You stand up and ghosts crumble.
You open The window shade.
You draw the curtains back.
You let in the light.
And ghosts vanish.
And your fear of ghosts vanishes too.
Like a scary dream 20 minutes after you wake up.
You're brushing your teeth.
You're like, well, I guess I had that dream.
What was it now?
I don't really remember.
That is what it is like to wake up To the dead.
Because the dead cannot stand the living, and they cannot conquer the living except through words.
In the past, when people wanted to achieve something moral, they were drawn and quartered, they were burned at the stake, they were killed in their sleep, they were exiled, they were...
you name it.
You name it!
Just do a quick Google search online for medieval torture implements.
Which I guess for most of my audience is a Justin Bieber video, but for a lot of other people are things like thumbscrews and metal cages and all kinds of ghastly things that go around this strange obsession everybody has with torturing genitals.
But that's what people had to face in history.
And those people subjected themselves and were subjected to torture, mutilation, maiming, And a faceless grave where you could barely even scoop enough of their remnants together to put into a plywood coffin.
And they have given us this incredible opportunity, this amazing, fantastic, extraordinary opportunity, which is to do good.
All we have to do now is stand against words.
Not swords, not hot pokers, not people nailing our nutsacks to mahogany chairs, not being burned at the stake.
All we have to do is stand against language.
The fire-breathing dragons of history now only burp up abusive syllables, which we barely even need a shield for.
And this is the great secret of moral advancement, and this is what the torture and death and ostracism of thinkers throughout history has given us, and it is a great gift.
Now we can speak truth to power, we can speak virtue to evil, we can conquer with language, because all that evil has left, through most of the world, at least the Western world, is its language.
So if you want to do good in the world, all you have to do is close your ears to the silly speak of petty abusers.
It's a miracle.
I don't know if I would have the courage to face what Galileo faced when he was tortured for his beliefs by the papacy.
I don't know that.
Fortunately, I think I will never have to know that.
But all you have to do Is stand firm in the face of language.
And that really is not such a bad thing.
At all.
Compared to history.
Compared to history.
That's an amazing thing.
You can go and speak truth to power.
You can go and say to your friends, do you know when you support the government you want me thrown in jail for following my own conscience?
I revile.
The military-industrial complex.
I am disgusted by what is called the welfare state, which is a soft, sticky, money, sperm and egg trap that captures the poor and sends them to the Atlantis undersea underworld of perpetually raking their noses through public housing in search of food stamps and never arising to anything.
This roach motel of government support is vile and disgusting to me.
And there's much better ways to help the poor, or at least not to harm the poor.
And I am revolted by my productivity being used as leverage to sell off my daughter's future.
I am disgusted by all of these things, and I wish to act on my conscience, say I. No!
Say my former friends, nay, even my family of origin.
No, they said!
You must obey the law!
You must pay the people with guns, not because they have guns, but because they have US to support them.
It is not the guns of the state that imprison you.
It is not the prisons of the state that imprison you.
It is the support of others in your life for the state that imprisons you.
Evil can never conquer.
Because once people see something as evil, they reject and recoil from it.
So it is the evil that redefines itself as good, that gains the support of the majority, that does the greatest evil.
It's the predator that can't be seen, that takes down the healthiest among us.
The invisible predators cloaked in the Romulan wrappings of the deluded government program we call modern language, or language throughout history.
Subjugation to violence, which is obedience to state laws, is term de virtue.
And it is only possible because of the praise and support of those around you, of those who wish to feed you into the furnace of state power, because they themselves are little more than bipedal ash.
And all we have to do To break the power of ghosts cheering guns is step back.
Just step back.
Just leave the dungeon of imaginary virtues covering up tangible crimes.
Step out of the dungeon.
Step into the light.
As Plato said, stop looking at the shadows of a fire on a wall and thinking you're seeing the real objects.
Don't even look at the things in front of the fire.
Don't look at the fire.
Step all the way out of the cave and see things for what they are.
And once you see things for what they are, you have no desire to spend time with the dead.
with those who want you thrown in jail for daring to disobey their programming.
Some you can save and some you carve a blazing path towards the sunlight and other people will be curious and follow your trail.
Come out into the light.
Through the internet we can find each other.
We are not a single star in an endless dead universe.
Now we can find each other.
We can have constellations of communities found through the light of the internet.
Because now you do not have to be a javelin dropped from a bomber.
You do not have to disappear without a trace.
You can rail against the powers that be.
You can expose the ephils of the world and be visible.
To your fellow soul-searchers, to your fellow virtuous candles, to your fellow rocket ships and skybeams of illustrious virtue, we can find each other.
We have the sonar of digits and digital connections.
We have the spiderweb that can join together, called what you're seeing now, what you can do now, how I can talk to you now.
We are not asked to throw ourselves into the fire.
We are not asked to take bullets for the future.
All we are asked to do is to cease embracing lepers.
You don't need to fight the Klan as a black man.
I would suggest it's a pretty good thing to stop associating with Klan members and calling them friends.
You don't actually have to take on The Nazis, as a Jew, you just have to question the friendship of your open Nazi friends if you are a Jew.
And if you are dedicated to a life of voluntarism, peace, virtue, and reason, you do not have to go and scrub your face against the power of the state like an old crumbly cheese on a cheese grater.
All you have to do is say NO to the people.
Who support you being thrown in jail by thugs in blue for following your conscience?
It is not an act of self-sacrifice.
It is an act of self-affirmation that is required.
And it's hard sometimes, of course, right?
We wish to hug the dead and think we have friends, right?
We wish to sit around a table with people who want us killed for disagreeing with them, and we want to think that we are eating not our children's future or the hopes and virtue of humanity, but, you know, a little duck à l'orange and some mashed potatoes.
But we are eating the future and the children with those who support the state.
It's not a meal I want, and I would suggest it's not a meal that you should accept either.
The more you eat that, the more you die.
So, there's something called the Stockholm Syndrome, which is where you fall in love with your captors.
We bond with power.
We bond with power.
It's the way you survive the powerful throughout history who usually had the capacity to kill us at will.
Someone suggested, I think it's a good term.
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