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Feb. 18, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:23:21

2619 Giving Up on the World - Sunday Call In Show February 16th, 2014

Is it possible to never lie? Participating in corrupt systems, thought crimes, political and religious indoctrination, giving up on the world, achieving success in entrepreneurship, the material benefits of attractiveness and the parent who got away.

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	Good morning, everybody.
	Hope you're doing well.
	It's the Fenmore New Forum, Free Domain Radio.
	Happy post-Valentine's Day to you.
	I hope you had a day full of love and feather boas, shaved goats, baby oil, all of the good stuff.
	And I just wanted to mention a few things.
	Actually, just one thing, really.
	So, a show was published recently about...
	I think it's...
	We are descended from extraterrestrials.
	And in it, there was a fellow who called in who was telling me that we were descended from extraterrestrials or extraterrestrials had influenced our evolution.
	And I started asking him about his childhood.
	Much of the shock and horror...
	Of a wide variety of people who felt that I was sort of hijacking the conversation.
	Now, I'm sort of of the never explain, never complain kind of philosophy, except about donations and the occasional, I guess, miscommunication between myself and my audience.
	But in this case, I really wanted to help the guy to get his ideas across more effectively.
	And it is a startling idea to hear.
	I have no doubt that there are extraterrestrials.
	Of course there are.
	I mean, in a universe this size, how could there not be?
	But it's going to limit your capacity to talk to people if you bring that up in a way like it's not controversial.
	You know, like, yeah, I talk about anarchy, but at least I recognize that it's controversial.
	So I gave a speech the other day to a bunch of high school students, I don't know, seven or eight hundred of them, and It came up, anarchy came up, and I said, yeah, I said I'm an anarchist, which actually just makes me wish I was only gay.
	Because if you say you're gay, everyone's like, oh, cool.
	You know, here's an Abbas CD, here's some potpourri, and some assless chaps, you know, to which I say, great tunes, smells nice, sorry I'm over 40, my ass can't take it.
	But I sort of recognized that it's a controversial thing, that it's startling for people, and by recognizing it, They know that I'm socially aware and aware of how I'm appearing.
	It's a very effective thing to know how you're landing to an audience.
	Really, really important.
	And that was really my goal.
	Now, people who don't know how they land for other people lack empathy.
	It's usually not their fault, particularly if they're young.
	But if you don't empathize, you cannot effectively communicate startlingly.
	Or unusual ideas.
	So that's why.
	I'm just trying to help clear some roadblocks so the guy can talk more effectively.
	And the fact that people said, well, I wanted to hear about this, or I wanted to hear about that, or you were interrupting and so on.
	Well, maybe that's kind of selfish.
	Maybe the guy does need some help on how to communicate ideas.
	Maybe there are some blocks from his history.
	Maybe it's not all about what you want.
	And your desire to talk about something.
	Anyway.
	So I just wanted to mention that, hopefully to clear things up a little.
	For those who don't know what I'm talking about, sorry for wasting your time.
	Mike, who do we have this morning?
	All right, Wes, you're up first today.
	Wes, go ahead.
	Go, Wes.
	He will talk right now.
	Yes, what's up?
	Yes, he will.
	Yep.
	I'm a big fan.
	I've watched almost all of your videos.
	I'm sure I never will watch all of them, but...
	I wanted to talk about something that you mentioned in one of your previous videos.
	Let me try and think which one it was.
	Oh, it was when you were hosting the Peter Schiff show.
	You were talking about your ambitions and how you have high ambitions and you won't be shy about them.
	And I have some high ambitions.
	I have two questions about high ambitions for you.
	The first is, I was wondering to myself, is it a worthwhile effort to try and live completely morally, like completely consistent, no hypocrisy?
	Do you have any thoughts on that?
	Gosh, I don't even know what that would exactly look like.
	I'm just running through some things in my head.
	Do you mean never lie, never dissemble, and always resist evil and so on?
	Yeah, I mean, I don't think that would work.
	At all.
	No?
	You...
	So let's say you wanted to live.
	You say, well, I'm not going to accept the fruits of immorality.
	I'm not going to accept any benefits from immorality.
	Well, I don't know why you live, but certainly up here in Canada, this would mean not using any roads, not using any water, not using any electricity, not using any health care other than dentistry, which you can pay for yourself.
	So I don't think that would work very well.
	It would also mean not doing any shows because the internet came out of, well, some of the internet technology was originally developed for defense purposes, right, for the military.
	And so I don't think that you could live a life of exemplary morality within the system that we currently have, right?
	So what is it people say?
	Oh, Ayn Rand was a hypocrite because she took...
	I don't know, Medicare or Medicaid or whatever.
	I think it's Medicare for the old and so on, right?
	Of course, you know, the fact that Marx was a complete hypocrite never comes up.
	But as soon as right-wing people, or at least people perceived as right-wing, are perceived to be hypocritical, you just dismiss the whole thing.
	So I don't know how you can...
	And it's a great system because everybody who anyone else hears of Has to participate in the system.
	And as soon as they participate in the system, they have to compromise their moral ideals.
	And, you know, the funny thing is, though, you know, when I watched the movie Schindler's List, nobody really criticized Oscar Schindler for participating with the Nazis in order to save some Jews and other victims of the Gestapo.
	So it's one of these great systems wherein everybody has to compromise moral ideals to survive within the system, and therefore you get to dismiss all moralists that you don't like by saying, well, they participated in a system that they themselves define as immoral, blah, blah, blah.
	Now, that never occurs.
	That never really shows up for left-wing people, right?
	It only shows up for people on the right or libertarians and so on.
	So I don't certainly hold that as a standard for myself.
	I think that where choice is possible, I think we should aim for virtue.
	But where choice is not possible, I don't think that virtue has any hold or any relevance.
	It's completely meaningless to talk about virtue in a state of compulsion.
	So, where I have choice in my life, I try to act as well as possible.
	And where I don't have choice, I don't.
	Now, there's one caveat to that, which is, and I've talked about this before, which is virtuous behavior to me does not exist in isolation.
	Virtuous behavior exists in relation to.
	Virtue is something that comes out in your relationships with people.
	So, in other words, I feel no compulsion to be virtuous towards people who are immoral.
	The non-aggression principle says self-defense is perfectly valid.
	So I don't initiate the use of force, but I have no problem responding to force with force in terms of self-defense.
	And in the same way, I don't initiate things like lying or whatever, but if somebody is behaving in an immoral manner towards me, Then I fight as dirty as I need to be.
	I fight as dirty as I need to to win whatever is necessary.
	Now, this is why I don't really have immoral people in my life because I don't really want to go that route.
	But morality is like peace.
	It has to be earned by the morality and the peace of those around you.
	If somebody violates peace, then they do not have the self-protection of my respect to the non-aggression principle.
	And in the same way, if somebody behaves in an immoral manner towards me...
	They don't have the protection of my dedication to morality.
	So morality is not even remotely applicable to a state of coercion.
	And you see lots of moral quandaries are set up.
	Which is, you know, well, if you have to choose between killing this guy and that guy because some guy is forcing you to and you have to do this and force that and lifeboats and flagpoles and ticking bombs and terrorists and, well, you know, fuck.
	It's coercion.
	It doesn't matter, right?
	All of these things, all they do is reveal that morality and moral choices don't exist in a state of coercion.
	Do whatever you like.
	Kill this guy, kill that guy.
	Pull the switch here, do the switch that, bomb this, don't bomb that, torture this.
	I don't care.
	It's got nothing to do with morality.
	Nothing to do with morality.
	It's like saying magic in Middle-earth violates the laws of physics.
	Well, the laws of physics do not apply to fictional universes, which is why you can have miracles in the Bible, right?
	And moral rules do not apply to a state of coercion.
	So, for me, the people in my life behave with virtue and with integrity, and therefore in my life with them, I behave as best as I can with virtue and integrity.
	But the idea that I would be virtuous towards an immoral person is literally like saying that I owe...
	A payment to someone who has ripped me off ten times in the past.
	No, I don't.
	You start ripping me off, I'm not going to pay you.
	Sorry.
	You don't ship me the iPad, I'm not sending you the 500 bucks.
	You ship me the iPad, I'll send you the 500 bucks.
	So, does that help at all?
	Yeah, that helps.
	So, does that...
	Then would you say that the whole turn-the-other-cheek idea, is that just a completely unfounded idea?
	Well, it's not unfounded.
	I mean, Martin Luther explained it very well in the 16th century.
	Because the Bible has an eye for an eye, right, and turn the other cheek.
	And this contradiction was explained by Luther, obviously the Protestant reformer in the 16th century.
	He said, an eye for an eye is if you break the laws of the ruler who has been placed there by God.
	Then the ruler can enact an eye for an eye.
	However, turn the other cheek is if you suffer injustice at the hands of the ruler, you must turn the other cheek.
	So turn the other cheek is for slaves against their rulers.
	An eye for an eye is for rulers against Hitting on their slaves, right?
	So the turn of the other cheek is, I mean, if it was a virtue, then Christ, of course, wouldn't have been whipping the moneylenders in the temple.
	God would not be blowing up everyone who displeases Him in the whole world and killing babies in the womb and murdering infants in the crib, right?
	So the eye for an eye is, the push is that, you know, you say to rulers, hey, if you're Christians, I'll teach everyone to obey you.
	Or go to hell, right?
	Fantastic!
	You know, a priest indoctrinating a thousand people is a whole lot cheaper than the hundred soldiers you'd need to keep everyone in line.
	So, from a cost-efficient standpoint, telling people that the ruler is placed there by God and to disobey the ruler is to disobey God is fantastic!
	It's incredibly cheap.
	Unfortunately, religion and nationalism Make the total cost of ownership for human livestock go down to the point where it becomes extremely profitable.
	The profits are driven by the ideologies, not by the coercion.
	So, the turn the other cheek is something that is sold to leaders by priests saying, well, you know, hey, you put us in charge of the ideology and we'll teach everyone to obey you.
	That's sort of number one.
	And number two, because The parents have to want to hand over the children to the priests in order to get them indoctrinated in the ideology that succumbs them to the ruling class.
	And so how do you sell Christianity to parents?
	You have to sell it to parents first and foremost, otherwise it can't replicate, right?
	Because if the state gets hold of children at sort of five or six years old and they haven't been indoctrinated already, then it doesn't work.
	It doesn't take.
	Too many kids will get away.
	So you have to do it right away.
	Which is why there's baptism and all this baby stuff and all that.
	And the way that you sell Christianity or religion as a whole to parents is you say, we're going to teach your children that they have to honor you no matter what you do, or they go to hell.
	Well, that's a whole lot easier than earning your children's respect through consistently virtuous actions.
	I mean, you just hit the jackpot of, you know, it doesn't matter what I say, it doesn't matter what I do, You have to respect me.
	It's a commandment, right?
	And if you don't respect me, then you go to hell.
	Well, that's fantastic.
	I mean, that is a form of love rape.
	That is truly spectacular in its value and its evil, right?
	Because then parents can just say, honor thy mother and thy father, or go to hell.
	And the priest will teach that, reinforce it, and so on, and then the children cannot resist.
	The parents and the parents don't have to earn anything.
	And we all have this desire for the unearned, which is, again, not a vice.
	It's actually quite a virtue in a free market society.
	It only becomes a vice in a status in religious society.
	We all have a desire for the unearned, which is exactly why we need a free market, to make sure that we either earn what is unearned through virtue, in other words, through charity and through hard work, because people want us to succeed and they're willing to donate or invest or whatever in us, or through trade and labor.
	But yeah, we all want the honor.
	And you also sell it, of course, to fathers by saying that God has placed you over the wife and children the same way that God has placed over mankind and all of that.
	So yeah, it's a wonderful doctrine for evil and lazy people to reap the rewards of virtue without having to actually go to the trouble of being virtuous.
	Mm-hmm.
	What I was thinking too is that with Christianity it's unethical to think that you can live morally because the sin of thought and deed doesn't really allow you any mistakes.
	You can't cure sin, right?
	Sin is what you're treating.
	So if you come up with a sin called existence, I mean, it's like those SSRIs, right?
	I mean, like those drugs that people take supposedly to cure what is euphemistically called mental illness, which I would call bad philosophy or the effects of bad philosophy.
	You don't want to cure people of that stuff, otherwise they stop paying you for stuff, right?
	So you have to set up a situation where you're born sinful and And the reason that you say that is so that if you said, okay, well, you don't get to sin until you're 18 years old, then people wouldn't really bother indoctrinating their kids in religion until they got to be sort of 16 or 17 or 18.
	Well, it's pretty tough to indoctrinate teenagers.
	You know, they're kind of surly.
	They're kind of skeptical.
	And they're pretty smart, right?
	Particularly every generation gets a little smarter, at least in the modern age, than the previous generation.
	So, I mean, if you want to, in fact...
	People with the virus of religion, you can't...
	I mean, you can't be doing that stuff when they're in their teens.
	You've got to hit them when they're really young.
	You've got to start off with Bible stories.
	You've got to get them to pray long before they understand what the heck's going on.
	You've got to baptize them, send them to Sunday school when they're very, very young.
	All weak viruses attack...
	The dependent and the helpless and the weak and the sick and so on, right?
	And one of the things I really dislike about religion as a whole is the degree to which it preys upon immature minds.
	And we have laws against child labor, but you can infect a child with the idea that he's sinful and has to pay off a priest for the rest of his goddamn life to free himself from this imaginary illness called sin Well, this is in child labor.
	I mean, you are laying in the foundations of child labor.
	Plus, of course, children work for free in the church as altar boys and all that kind of stuff.
	And that, of course, is not considered child labor.
	But I think, you know, I don't go around indoctrinating five-year-olds.
	And I would invite our religious friends to do, you know, if religion is such a good idea, Then they should wait until children reach some sort of age of maturity and independence so they can evaluate those ideas independently, right?
	And they don't, of course, because they know that if they don't inflict it on helpless, independent children, it's never going to survive at all.
	And my boundless and bottomless contempt for all ideologies that inflict themselves on children literally knows no bounds.
	I think it is the vilest form of demonic predation that can be imagined.
	These are helpless, independent children.
	You do not get to inflict your superstitious shit on children.
	You do not get to do that.
	If you've got great ideas, fantastic.
	Wait until they can goddamn well think.
	Before you inflict it on them.
	And don't tell them all this crazy shit about hell and demons and sin and God.
	I was reading a story the other day about Sodom and Gomorrah where God kills everyone in the whole city and then turns Lot's wife to salt.
	Why?
	She turned around to look.
	So what?
	Didn't do any harm.
	That's where our home, being destroyed.
	Wouldn't you look?
	Anyway, so it's monstrous.
	And these were all stories for children.
	Stories for children.
	God kills everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah, and the storyteller says, and sin is a terrible thing, isn't it?
	No.
	No, it's not sin that's a terrible thing.
	It's the guy who destroys the entire city, including babies in the womb, babies in the crib, destroys the entire city.
	That's the terrible guy.
	Not sin, the guy who's actually raining fire down on a city full of half-innocent people.
	But this is the stories that are told to children, that you must worship the God who kills an entire city.
	And then say that through original sin, they're somehow complicit in that.
	I mean, it literally is monstrous.
	You know, we have this This horrifying idea of the Hitler Youth, right?
	Where the youth are indoctrinated into the doctrines of Nazism.
	Well, indoctrination of children.
	I don't indoctrinate my daughter.
	I mean, it would be absolutely immoral for me to do that.
	I teach her how to think as best I can.
	If she asks me my thoughts, I will share them and the reasoning why.
	But I will not provide her conclusions.
	I will not provide her conclusions.
	So, yeah, it's monstrously wrong.
	I mean, the moment that somebody says, well, yeah, I've got to teach this to kids, you know it's an entirely false doctrine.
	I mean, false doctrines can be found in a number of ways.
	So people who say, well, I have to provide material benefits in the teaching of this doctrine...
	Well, they are automatically suspect, right?
	So when you say, well, you see, if you learn this stuff, you get a PhD.
	And if you learn a PhD, you can get a professorship.
	And if you get a professorship, you get paid $150,000, $170,000 a year, at least according to Waterblock, for working a couple hours a week.
	You get summers off, you get sabbaticals.
	And that's why you should learn this stuff.
	It's like, what?
	Wait, what?
	What?
	What?
	You know, if somebody says, if you follow my diet, I will give you a million dollars.
	Well, you know that there's a million dollar hole in the value of the diet, right?
	And if people say, well, you have to believe this stuff or you'll go to hell.
	And if you believe this stuff, you'll go to heaven.
	All it means is the stuff they're saying, do not examine my arguments on their own merit.
	I'm going to have to bribe you into compliance.
	Statism, right?
	Ideas, as the meme says, statism, ideas so good they have to be enforced at gunpoint, right?
	Statism is a confession that the ideas suck.
	Religion is a confession that the ideas suck because they have to threaten and bribe and indoctrinate children.
	That's just a...
	I mean, science doesn't need to do that, right?
	So, anyway, just wanted to mention that.
	Cool.
	Yeah, and I guess for me, I was raised Christian, and for me the first, wait a minute, moment was like when I thought about how, you know, in the New Testament of the Bible, there's the great commission to go and make disciples of all nations, when for the past, like, thousand pages of the Bible, it's like, go and kill people who don't agree with you.
	So that was kind of the first inconsistency that kind of drew me to that.
	And yeah, so I'm actually studying to become a teacher and I have made it my, this is my second question, I made it my life goal to simply put,
	I want to fix the education system, but like I really want to I mean, be there when it happens, when the education system is fixed, and I want to be instrumental in it.
	And my goal is to...
	I mean, of course, I'm only 22 years old, and if I'm ever going to achieve this goal...
	I want to do it through competition and start a private school and then maybe two private schools.
	And I want them to be free, private schools.
	Do you mean free from political control or free in terms of subsidized somehow?
	Yeah, subsidized somehow.
	And also free from political control, I guess, too.
	Fantastic.
	And also, I mean, the reason I'm kind of skeptical about it is that most of the private schools that I know that are cheap are, you know, indoctrination sites for churches.
	And, you know, they're only paying for their education so that they can control it.
	And it's the same way that public school works, but...
	Yeah, well, I mean, I think that's fantastic.
	You should absolutely have that goal.
	Look, I mean, if you achieve it, I mean, how fantastic is that?
	And let's say you don't achieve it, but you achieve something, half of it, or three quarters of it, or even 10% of it.
	Well, you're a hell of a lot further than if you'd never had that goal, right?
	So, yeah, aim big.
	Aim high.
	I mean, you don't hit the mountain if you don't go over it.
	You just live higher up in the mountain where the air is clearer and you're further away from the fetid seaweed of general ignorance.
	So, yeah, I think it's a great plan.
	And I would say go to it.
	Go to it with gusto.
	Yeah.
	I mean, the more videos of yours that I watch, it seems the better I can answer my own questions.
	Yeah.
	Of course, when I decided to do this show a month ago, I had three completely different questions, and then through the course of watching your videos, I kind of realized, okay, he would probably say this on this, and I didn't really need to ask those questions.
	Yeah, no, listen, best of luck to you.
	I think that's fantastic.
	It's a very exciting thing to do.
	How to educate kids, you know, a hugely important question, of course, and find ways to educate them better.
	It's just, it's deliriously delightful, is the phrase I would use.
	Oh, great.
	Thanks.
	Maybe that'll be the name of the school, deliriously.
	Deliriously delightful, absolutely.
	All right, cool.
	All right, well, thank you very much, and let me know how it goes with your plans.
	It's very, very exciting.
	Thanks.
	Thank you.
	And who's up with the nextness?
	All right, Jeff, you're next.
	Go ahead.
	Steph, what's up?
	Oh, whoa.
	Wasabi.
	How's it going, man?
	Really good.
	Really good.
	Thank you for taking my call.
	You're very welcome.
	I just want to quickly say that I've been a donator for quite some time, and I'm so proud to be a part of this.
	That was both a kiss and a hickey, so go ahead.
	Wow, thank you for that.
	I just want to say that I'm so proud to...
	I feel like I support freedom in a material way, and it was a great decision, and I am very glad that I did that.
	Well, I appreciate that hugely, and how do you feel about that?
	I keep telling people, if you support whatever you love, Or whatever you really care about, you'll feel better.
	Everyone thinks, oh, he's just wanting, you know, cynicism, right?
	He just wants donations.
	Well, of course I want donations.
	I mean, you know, we're building this gigantic studio at the moment.
	It's not cheap, and I'm running low on kidneys.
	So, yes, of course I want donations, but I am telling people, and I hope that you'll back me up.
	Let me know if it's not the case for you, but isn't it?
	Kind of feels good, right?
	Like you're contributing something, you know?
	I mean, I do my charitable work.
	We sponsor...
	Oh, absolutely.
	I couldn't agree more.
	Not to be like a ditto head or anything, but when I'm having a bad day or...
	When I feel like, oh, my job sucks or something's going wrong or a relationship isn't working out or something like that, I remind myself that this is all, in a way, it's all for a good cause because it enables me to help you and support you and I always have that sort of North Star guiding me.
	It's great.
	It was a wonderful decision and I don't regret it in the slightest.
	Good, good.
	Now, how can I help you today?
	Sure.
	So, several people have called in in the past and said that they want to look into becoming therapists or becoming counselors.
	And you've recommended that they look into life coaching.
	And I heard that and I was inspired by that.
	And I'm starting a training program next month.
	I'm really excited about this and going to start my own business and hopefully do what you do and have some of the conversations that go on here.
	I think it'll be a really wonderful way to spend some time and hopefully have a career doing something like that.
	I guess I wanted to ask for some practical advice and I have an entrepreneurial background, unfortunately, and I haven't had the occasion to start.
	Sorry, did you say you don't?
	I do not, that's correct.
	Okay.
	And I would love to hear some feedback, and I have sort of a rough outline of how I want to do it, and I would love to just get your advice about that.
	Right.
	Well, what questions do you have?
	Sure.
	Sorry.
	I scheduled this like two months ago, and now I'm getting a little nervous and drawing a little bit of a blank.
	But I think I wanted to ask, at what point did you feel like You could do this, and this could be your full-time thing, and you could support yourself, and you were ready emotionally as well as financially.
	Ready?
	Wow.
	Does that make sense?
	Well, you're not ready, right?
	If you wait until you're ready, you've waited too long.
	Uh-huh.
	Right?
	Because, look, I mean, I found it completely terrifying to start doing this show.
	I mean, I grew up...
	Well, a sort of wild oscillation between having some money and dirt poor.
	It's confusing for people because I was in boarding school, which was kind of ritzy, but for two years, and then we crashed.
	Well, my dad was paying for the boarding school, and then he wasn't paying for the boarding school, and so we crashed back into public school and so on.
	So, for me, financial security has always been pretty important because I've certainly seen what it's like on the other side, which is why I've worked so hard to try and get financial security And then to go into this crazy world, I mean, it was a one-way ticket, right?
	Because, you know, once you, you know, he's an anarchist, he's an atheist, he's this and that and the other, right?
	Well, you know, good luck.
	Everyone Googles you now, right?
	So good luck getting a job back in the executive software IT field after that, right?
	So yeah, it was terrifying.
	You know, was I ready?
	Well, I did it.
	I wouldn't say that I was ready because I don't even know really what that means.
	I guess I was ready enough to do it.
	But it was really terrifying.
	And, you know, I still never feel like I can coast.
	Like sometimes I feel like a bit on a show treadmill.
	Not today, but I like the call-in show sometimes the best.
	But it sort of feels like a hamster wheel, you know, if I don't put shows out, you know, right?
	And now I like the shows, but I, you know, I'm trying to get myself to discipline myself to do more research and put out shows with more facts and sources and so on, which take longer than the rants and all that.
	But I do feel a little bit like I'm on a show treadmill sometimes.
	Mike and I have talked about this, like, oh, you know, we haven't put a show out in a couple of days, the donation's down, and people have stopped listening, ah!
	So, you know, you're never ready.
	And of course, the longer you wait...
	The more you open yourself up for competition, right?
	So, you know, if Apple says, well, we're not going to release a cell phone until it has, you know, a 16 megapixel camera and, you know, an 8-core processor and 45 gigs of RAM, you know, then what happens is by the time they get that phone out, lots of other people have entered the market and have already...
	Cornered certain aspects of the market.
	People have their phones.
	They have their plans.
	They're locked into three-year plans or whatever.
	So you can't really wait forever.
	Waiting until you're perfectly ready is upping your risk for competition and displacement in the market and so on.
	So there's kind of a sweet spot.
	And for me, it was just kind of emotional.
	I just didn't really find myself as interested in business.
	As I was in this philosophy conversation.
	And when I, you know, I took such a massive pay cut.
	And with no particular knowledge that it was going to go up in any particular way, I took a massive pay cut and just...
	Once the people around you are ready to support you 150%, then you can do it.
	And if they're not, then I don't think you can.
	Success is a communal activity.
	It's not an individual activity.
	And so I don't know that there's a time when you're ready for it, but I think there's a time when it tips and you're like, well, it's kind of now or never.
	I really believe in this now or never.
	And the now or never is really important.
	I know it sounds like a real escalation.
	I watched a movie on the recommendation of my therapist many years ago.
	I've mentioned this before on the show.
	There was a guy in a wheelchair.
	He had horrible skin rashes and hives and eczema.
	As my therapist said, his unconscious was in full revolt against his shallow, petty, empty life.
	And he was somatizing, which is physically manifesting psychological distress in an extreme way.
	He couldn't get out of a wheelchair.
	And he had this great therapist in the movie.
	And at one point, he just really wanted to get out of the wheelchair.
	There was nothing.
	His spine wasn't broken or anything.
	It was just psychosomatic, which is not to say unimportant or unreal or anything.
	And he desperately wanted to get out of the wheelchair, but he was terrified because in the wheelchair was safety and security and a lack of risk and lack of change.
	And his therapist said, do it.
	It's now or never.
	And I thought, that is a moment.
	Like, that choice in that moment.
	He either gets out of the wheelchair now or he stays in the wheelchair forever.
	And I think...
	People are not so clear about these unbelievable moments that happen in life and literally the salvation or damnation that occurs in the prism or the fulcrum of that moment.
	And I talked to my therapist about this and she said, I said that that was something, it was incredibly powerful.
	It's now or never.
	And she said yes, because the never has already occurred.
	I was puzzling that over.
	We talked about that.
	I think what she meant, I'm pretty sure what she meant was that he was in the wheelchair and it stayed in the wheelchair for some months because he never planned to get out of it.
	The never had already been in the deferral of getting out of it.
	Because we think, oh, we'll defer things for five minutes.
	I'll do it later.
	I'll do it in an hour.
	I'll do it tomorrow.
	Now, of course, if you keep deferring things for five minutes, as we all know, it will never get done.
	And I've sort of been trying to do this thing over the last year or two where it's like, rather than just say, oh, I need to get something done, I will just go and do it.
	And there are times in life, and sometimes I think it's with people who call into this show, when I know that they've not had a conversation as deep and as important as the conversation is, In this show, in this kind of call-in show, where we go deep, we go early, we go to really important stuff.
	And I find it frustrating when they don't just put everything they've got into that conversation.
	Because I don't know, are they waiting for the next one to come along?
	For someone else to talk to them in this important and deeper kind of way?
	It may never happen again in their life.
	Most people go through their entire lives without talking about anything.
	Of depth and substance.
	I mean that literally.
	I don't mean that like, well, once in a while, blah, blah, blah.
	Most people go through their entire lives talking about nothing of depth or substance.
	And this show is a rare opportunity, I think, for most people to actually talk about something of depth or substance.
	So I think that the now or never is important.
	When you keep deferring that which is very important to you, you keep weakening that muscle.
	So for me, it's sort of like you're trapped under...
	A car, and you have no food, and it's getting colder.
	Well, you have to put everything into that push to get the car off you so you don't freeze to death.
	Because you're not going to get stronger later, right?
	I mean, you're only going to get weaker as time goes on, and you don't have food, and it gets colder.
	Now, a lot of people will just kind of put a half-hearted push in, and they'll say, oh, well, I'll try again later, because they don't want to realize whether they can or they can't get the car off them.
	But I say, the moment you're trapped under a car, you push with absolutely everything you've got.
	And that way, even if you can't get the car off you, you won't at least have the regret of thinking you could have done more.
	But generally, We are nourished through any kind of depth or any kind of connection at any kind of real level.
	And when we don't have that connection, we get weaker.
	And our resolve and our integrity, it gets weaker.
	We are like plants.
	We grow in the sunlight of our society, of those around us.
	And I'm always concerned when people defer, when people...
	Don't take everything they can out of a conversation like this.
	Because it may never happen again.
	Literally, in shows like this, it is now or never.
	You're in this conversation.
	You're having this chat now.
	You grab the depth now and understand what it is to talk about something deep or never.
	And that's not a curse.
	That's just an observation.
	When are people going to have a chance to talk about something as deep as important again?
	For most people, they won't.
	So with stuff like this, I think the now or never is really important.
	You won't find it easier later.
	You're not getting stronger in terms of resolve.
	Every time you defer, you get weaker.
	And that's where I think you have to will stuff now rather than wait for the planets to align and for comfort to improve.
	And then the last thing, just very briefly, is just to say that, as to mention again, the support of the people around you is essential to your success.
	People always look at success like it's vertical, like they're climbing a rope.
	No, no, no.
	Success is horizontal.
	You know, if you want boats in a bathtub to rise, you don't lift them up.
	Because then when you let go, they drop back down.
	If you want boats in a bathtub to rise, you put water in, right?
	It's horizontal.
	It's the horizontal filling that makes them rise, not the vertical grabbing that lifts them up.
	And success is in your horizontal relationships.
	That is where success occurs, or at least a sustainable success.
	It's not in your vertical ambition.
	I mean, your vertical ambition is fine, but then you need to start filling the bathtub, which means that you get quality relationships around you, and then success will occur.
	Does that make sense?
	Oh, absolutely.
	Thank you for that insight.
	I just wonder, did it ever enter your mind, like, well, if enough people don't find this conversation or If I don't feel like doing it anymore, I'll just go back to software, or I have the support of my wife, or I have the support of the people around me, and if it doesn't work out, I'll know it, and I'll find something else to do.
	Well, but that's like trying to be satisfied with some woman in a bar after you've lived with the love of your life.
	And so, for me, there were a couple of considerations.
	Look, this show is not about the Fed, right?
	This show is not about Obamacare.
	I mean, those things, we'll talk about it, and they're good ways of illustrating the futility of coercion, and it's a good way of getting people interested in those things to start listening to philosophy.
	Politics is a gateway drug to depth, right?
	But...
	Let's say instead of Freedom in Radio, I wanted to do a sitcom.
	Well, there's nothing wrong with sitcoms.
	Some of them can be funny.
	They tend to be dumbing down a bit.
	Maybe that's just me, but they can be fun.
	And let's say I said, well, you know what?
	I don't think I'm going to do this sitcom.
	Well, so somebody else is going to step in and do a sitcom, right?
	It's not like if I don't do a sitcom, there will be no sitcoms, right?
	But with this...
	This show is irreplaceable.
	This show is absolutely unique.
	Because this show challenges and annoys everyone.
	Right?
	So there are some people who are into the peaceful parenting stuff.
	They tend to be kind of woo-woo, a little bit lefty, a little bit mystical.
	So then the hard-nosed rationalism, empiricism, and the extrapolation of anti-violence to state structures and religious institutions bothers them.
	It's like, well, I just want to talk about child abuse.
	I don't want to talk about the state.
	Libertarians get annoyed by this conversation, although I agree with anti-statism and anti-war, and they agree with my criticisms of fiat currency and all of that.
	But then when I start talking about spanking and child abuse, ooh!
	Temperature in the room doth chill down a tad or two.
	And...
	You know, race baiters don't like the show, and some homosexuals have not liked the show.
	I mean, it goes on and on, right?
	Some feminists really don't like the show.
	So it bothers everyone, which is, I think, how it should be.
	Because there's nobody, as far as I know, who's really consistently applying principles top to bottom.
	I mean, who else has united anti-statism, anti-war, anti-religion, anti-child abuse, all together in one tidy non-aggression principle package?
	To my knowledge, nobody has done that before.
	People have spoken amazingly eloquently about the non-aggression principle.
	You know, Hans Hoppe and Murray Rothbard and even Iran to a large degree.
	But they barely touch on childhood and have never talked about spanking.
	But spanking is the most common form of aggression in the world!
	This is what drives me crazy about people.
	I am very much opposed to violence.
	Well, if you are very much opposed to violence, and look, this may just be because these guys come from an academic background, and I am so trained in entrepreneurship and marketing and customers and the free market.
	I mean, it's like Lou Rockwell runs, right, lourockwell.com, and I think he's in charge of Mises.
	But that's not the same.
	That comes out of a political band that's heavily focused on economics and politics and this and that and the other.
	And he has a customer base of people who have a lot to do with religion.
	And the moment you start talking about not spanking, you challenge a lot of religious people.
	Fundamentalist religious people hit their children a lot more than other groups, right?
	So you can challenge them.
	It's kind of tricky.
	But if you were to say, well, I'm against violence, you see.
	Violence is bad.
	Initiation of force is against bad.
	Well, the first thing that you would do, I think, in a rational universe, is you'd say, okay, well, if I'm against violence, what's the most common form of violence?
	Right?
	And you'd approach it like a blank slate, like you didn't know anything.
	Like you were two or three years old.
	You'd approach it from a blank slate.
	What's the most common form of violence?
	You'd look it up.
	Well, spanking is the most common form of violence.
	So if I'm against violence, then I should at least keep my eye on the most common form of violence, right?
	I mean, obviously.
	And then I'd say, well, what is the form of violence that people have the most control over?
	Right?
	Prevalence and control.
	Those are the two things that you would need if you wish to enact a particular principle.
	The two things you'd need to focus on.
	What is the most prevalent and what is under people's control the most?
	Now, if you were to say, well, taxation is more prevalent than spanking, I guess you could make that argument.
	But the numbers for taxation are far lower, right?
	So 90% of Americans hit their children.
	But taxation is, what, 30 or 40 percent and less for some people.
	And some people don't pay taxes, of course, through a variety of legal and non-legal mechanisms or choices.
	But certainly taxation is not under people's control.
	So if you're against violence, you look for the most common form of violence that is under the most control of people, of individuals.
	Because if you aim at reducing violence, Then most prevalence, most control is your biggest bang for the buck in reducing violence.
	This is nothing ideological.
	This is simply practical.
	I mean, if I were a business, I would look for the largest customer base that I had a need for and the ability to pay for a product I wanted.
	I mean, that's marketing 101.
	And marketing sounds bad, you know, like you're trying to fool people into...
	But it's just, all of this is looking for a market.
	Marketing is just looking for a market.
	So if I've got Lamborghinis, I'm not going to go and sell them in some slum in Calcutta.
	People would want them, but they couldn't afford them.
	Right?
	If I'm looking at opening a garbage dump, right, I wouldn't do it in the middle of the Sahara where nobody lives.
	I also wouldn't do it in the middle of Bel Air or 90210 zip code because the real estate is too expensive and people will use the state to try and stop me because it's smelly.
	You've got widgets.
	You find the largest customer base who can afford your product because afford means under the control of being able to purchase, having the choice to achieve.
	Same thing with spanking.
	If you're against violence, you look for the most prevalent form of violence that is under people's greatest control.
	That's it.
	Right there.
	Spanking.
	And so it takes a lot of propaganda and avoidance and, frankly, emotional trauma to not see that very obvious thing.
	Now, that's not even to say that spanking is a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	So even if libertarians were to look at that very closely and say, well, it's the most common form of violence, and it's the one under most people's control, then it is at least debatable as to whether it is a violation of the non-aggression principle, right?
	And some people may say yes, and some people may say no.
	I believe it's pretty unarguable that it is a violation of the non-aggression principle, but I don't want to get into that argument here.
	But you see, there's not even a debate in freedom circles.
	There's not even a debate in freedom circles.
	Historically, there has been no debate.
	Libertarian child raising is a topic that is so ridiculously new that it should be an embarrassment to the movement as a whole that it has not been discussed before.
	Most common form of violence.
	Most people will never become tax collectors.
	Most people spank their children.
	And so this just tells you how unprincipled The libertarian movement has been, in that this is not even a debate, when it is the most obvious, widespread, controllable form of violence in the world.
	And people who claim to be against violence have never even discussed it.
	So, this is a challenging conversation.
	And I couldn't say to myself, well, someone else will do it.
	You know, and that was very difficult.
	You know, no one else was doing it.
	Ayn Rand wasn't talking about child racing.
	Nathaniel Brandon, to my knowledge, has said absolutely nothing about spanking.
	Are you kidding me?
	Are you kidding me?
	I mean, the guy taught objectivism in the 60s.
	Brilliant guy.
	I did a search on his site about spanking.
	He's got nothing to say about spanking.
	How about circumcision?
	Is that something that libertarians should talk about?
	It's incredibly prevalent in the United States.
	No.
	It has taken other people, other activists, not from the libertarian movement, to talk about circumcision.
	Are you fucking kidding me?
	We are non-aggression principle dedication robots.
	And libertarians have completely missed the ball on circumcision.
	Is that a violation of the non-aggression principle?
	Of course it is.
	You're hacking off half the penis skin of an innocent baby.
	Of course it is.
	Well, you know, of course, Ayn Rand was Jewish, a lot of Jewish influence in libertarianism, so of course the topic of circumcision is not something that's going to be brought up a huge amount, right?
	But that just tells you that it's not a principled position.
	The principled position is, well, sorry if it makes you uncomfortable.
	I mean, libertarians are fine with making other people uncomfortable, right?
	They're fine with saying to people taxation is force, imperialism is empire, is evil, is, you know, they're fine with saying to other people, making other people uncomfortable, well, how about libertarians make themselves uncomfortable?
	Talk about circumcision and spanking and other people.
	Widespread, highly controllable forms of violence.
	You can't get people to replace the Fed with something else.
	You can't get people to switch to a gold-backed currency.
	You can't get people to stop paying their taxes.
	Nobody puts you in jail for not circumcising your kid.
	Nobody puts you in jail for not spanking your kid.
	For not hitting your child.
	But libertarians don't like...
	They like pointing the big cattle prod of discomfort at other people.
	They just don't like it.
	Being pointed inwards, right?
	It is hypocrisy, I get it.
	But it's not even conscious hypocrisy.
	Because libertarians don't even have the debate.
	I mean, in order for it to be hypocrisy, it has to be somewhat conscious.
	People have to be somewhat aware of it.
	So who else was going to do it?
	If I don't make a sitcom, someone else is going to make a sitcom.
	If I didn't do this show, who the fuck else was going to do this?
	Who else?
	Who else was going to do it?
	Who else was going to strive for this level of consistency and effect in the world?
	Who else was going to say, well, to protect the children, who else wasn't going to say, well, to protect the children, we need to expand the state, you see?
	We need more laws against parents.
	We need to ban this.
	We need to ban that.
	Well, shit.
	That's no good.
	Imagine ban spanking in America, particularly in the South.
	What happens?
	Kids learn about this power.
	They're taught about this power.
	They call the comps on their parents.
	Their parents call child protective services.
	Families are ripped apart.
	Kids go God knows where.
	Oh yeah, much better, right?
	So with me, it was now or never for the species as far as I was able to ascertain.
	You know, the problem of secular ethics has been a huge problem for thousands of years.
	I think I've taken a pretty damn good run at it.
	Who else was gonna do that?
	Socrates praised the state.
	Plato was metaphysically insane.
	Aristotle denigrated women and praised slavery.
	Nietzsche, kinda batshit crazy.
	Hegel, nuts!
	Ayn Rand, statist, right?
	Nathaniel Brandon, nothing really on parenting.
	Nothing about spanking or circumcision.
	Murray Rothbard, I mean, wrote a bit about kids' lib as far as I understood, kind of backtrack from that.
	Von Mises, did he ever talk about parenting?
	No!
	The calculation problem will save us.
	Well, no, it won't.
	Calculation problem will save us when people can think, but people can't think because they're spanked.
	And traumatized.
	Who was gonna do it if it wasn't for me?
	So for me it was a now or never in a global sense, right?
	In a species sense, who else was gonna do it?
	So, you know, cross to bear.
	And what felt at times like a truly terrible responsibility But who else was going to tie all this together?
	I had been waiting for a couple of thousand years for a thinker to come along and tie it all together.
	So if I had chosen not to do it, what were the odds that somebody else was going to do it?
	Statistically, zero.
	So yeah, took some bullets.
	Took some curses.
	Took some hate flames.
	If it wasn't me, if it wasn't us, if it wasn't this conversation, who the hell was it going to be?
	And if you can find something that important, your motivation and level of comfort really doesn't matter.
	Thank you.
	You know, if somebody's dying and you're the only doctor in the room who can save them, what are you going to do?
	In a way, there's not even a choice, right?
	You know, if you're a great swimmer and some kid is drowning 50 feet offshore, is it really a choice to go and save that child?
	Not really, right?
	I mean, anyone who sits there and debated is automatically a dick, right?
	Well, you know, I am a fine swimmer and I... I could go and save that poor child, but you know, I just got my hair done, and this is really quite a nice suit, and I have my best silk undergarments on, and oh gosh, sometimes when I go into the water without earplugs, I find that I get a little bit of juicy, salty water in my ear canal, and sometimes that can make me feel a bit disoriented, and then I have to tip my head to one side and thump my head, and I just don't know.
	I'm on my way to a lovely lunch.
	I... I don't know.
	I might get a phone call.
	Should I really dive in?
	Anybody who's doing that on the shore is just an automatic dickhead.
	Right?
	So I'm like, well, you know, I might lose a lot of money and people might dislike me and newspapers might write bad things about me and blah, blah, blah.
	So maybe I shouldn't.
	Well, yeah, okay.
	So let's just wait for someone else to come along.
	We've been waiting for a couple of thousand years.
	Let's just wait for someone else to come along.
	Who's not going to say, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, render unto God that which is God's.
	Honor thy mother and thy father no matter what.
	An eye for an eye is for the ruler, turn the other cheek is for the slaves.
	The meek shall inherit all the bullshit that passes for thought, which simply serves the needs of the rulers.
	Why is I really, really going to wait for the next person to come along to tie all this together?
	You know, Lloyd DeMoss, great guy.
	Origins of war and child abuse.
	Big fan of Obama's.
	Big fan of the state, right?
	Really?
	Just going to wait for someone else who has the skills, the ability, the technical skills, the language skills, the conversation skills, the reasoning skills, the writing skills.
	Yeah, I just wait for someone else to come along to do it.
	Well, looking up and down the shore, got a whole planet drowning in the sea.
	I don't see any good swimmers around.
	And there haven't been good swimmers around For the entire history of the planet, as far as I can see.
	And I'm certainly not the best swimmer, but I can get into the water and get back out again with some people.
	Does that help at all?
	Yes.
	Yes, it does.
	It sort of feels like that scene in Braveheart where you're storming up the troops, you know?
	Yeah, well, you know, tell me where else.
	Yeah, tell me where else this stuff goes on.
	Tell me where else these topics at this depth...
	It's brought together.
	Other people are doing fantastic jobs in particular fields.
	Peter Schiff talked about the economy is fantastic.
	I think that to not have done it would have been such a betrayal of the future and it would have revealed such hatred of the planet in me that I don't think I would have been able to get out of bed.
	I mean, imagine how much you'd have to hate people if you could save or help some people and chose not to.
	That would have been to give up completely.
	And to say that, you know, evil will now win, at least in my universe.
	I don't even like the potential of people enough, and that's not fair.
	One of the great things with focusing on childhood and parenting is you don't have to like anyone.
	I'm not saying I don't like anyone, but you don't have to like anyone.
	Because no matter what we think of the common herd, the sheeple, the state-sucking, state-worshipping, superstition-inflicting mass, there's a lot to dislike.
	God, one in four Americans don't even know the earth goes around the sun.
	We're expecting them to understand UPB. Right.
	But you don't have to like anyone.
	If you go with politics, then you have to get the herd to agree with you and act on that agreement.
	Good luck with that.
	Then you have to just dumb it down and not traumatize anyone and all that, right?
	When you talk about parenting, you're focusing on babies and toddlers, little kids.
	Well, they sure as shit are innocent, right?
	So I can like them.
	I can talk to the parents for the sake of helping the next generation, even if I don't like most people in the world.
	I can't rationally extend that dislike to their children, right?
	So if I could talk to them for the sake of their kids, I don't need to get them to agree with me on the virtues and values of a free market.
	I'm not dependent.
	In politics, you're dependent on adults.
	And what negative consequences can you threaten them with?
	Well, none, really.
	Well, the dollar might continue to lose value in the national debt.
	Well, that doesn't mean much to people.
	But if you can say to people, don't hit your children, here's the moral case, here's the moral argument, here's the benefits in the here and now.
	Oh, and if you don't, you're going to look like a complete douchebag in 15 or 20 years.
	And your kids may want to have nothing to do with you at that point.
	Okay, there's your carrot, there's your stick.
	There's your clients, there's your customers, there's your marketplace, there's your argument.
	And that's why, right?
	Done some rough calculations.
	About 10,000 people Did not circumcise their children as a result of this show last year.
	Could be much more.
	That's a low estimate.
	Right?
	So 10,000 penises were unmutilated as a result of this show.
	Now, of course, other people are doing lots of work.
	Anti-circumcision.
	I'm certainly not going to claim that this is the biggest or the greatest as far as that goes.
	But that's not bad.
	You know, probably 100,000 families have stopped hitting...
	Their children as a result of this show?
	And committed?
	Not just to not hitting their children, but to reasoning with them, to negotiating with them, to not doing timeouts, to not aggressing against them, to not yelling at them.
	Maybe 100,000 people.
	And we're just beginning, right?
	I mean, you tell me a bigger revolution, I'll go join that.
	Well, thank you for doing this stuff.
	Thank you for your bravery.
	And...
	For doing it when you did.
	Well, thank you.
	And thank you for your support and for everyone's support who makes this possible.
	I mean, there really is not much of a singer without a crowd.
	And I really appreciate that.
	Before I go, I wonder if I could give my website if people want to be part of my conversation as well.
	Please do.
	Sure.
	It's very simple.
	It's just btccoach.com.
	BTC as in Bitcoin.
	Right.
	Excellent.
	Excellent.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Well, thank you very much.
	I appreciate your call, and sorry for the long lectures, but who do we have our next mic?
	Well, first, actually, I'd like to...
	You were talking about the effect the show was having, and we received a really nice note a couple days ago.
	I just want to read that out real quick so people can hear it.
	Is it a high C? I can sing that.
	Not that kind of note.
	Okay, fine, fine, fine.
	Go ahead.
	We were sent this absolutely adorable picture of what looks to be a two- or three-year-old child.
	It says, Attached is a photo of my niece.
	She will never know an intentionally harmful act from her parents, my brave brother and inspiring sister-in-law.
	Thanks so much to you.
	I cannot tell you what it means to me to know that she will have a childhood and life neither I nor my brother or sister-in-law had a chance at.
	She is so happy and loved.
	Just thanks.
	And the note combined with the picture, it's just, I mean, my heart just melted when I saw it.
	It's absolutely beautiful.
	Yeah, no, it's great.
	And, you know, again, I'm always keen.
	If other people have better ways of reducing actionable violence in the world, I'm quite keen on that.
	But so far, I think it's us, pretty much.
	These two combine it with philosophy as a whole.
	All right.
	Well, next up today is Randon.
	Go ahead, Randon.
	What's up, Steph?
	Oh, hi.
	How are you doing?
	I'm doing well.
	Well, good.
	What is the meaning of life?
	I'm just kidding.
	But my question was...
	It wasn't only a question.
	Well, the idea of now or never kind of applies to this.
	The idea that I just, I had this feeling of wanting to be independent from not only my family, but from religion, from governments.
	And I'm not sure exactly where it came from, but a lot of it came from just Doing research and seeking truth and I just have this big desire, this big unquenchable desire to be independent and to provide for myself and not to be dependent on government.
	Not even to be dependent on my family, really.
	And, I don't know, I kind of want to get your thoughts and opinion on that idea.
	And how old are you?
	Um, 18.
	About to turn 19.
	Right, right.
	And why would you be dependent?
	You mean financially dependent, is that right?
	Why would you be financially dependent on your family?
	Uh...
	I guess not...
	I mean, I have a job.
	I have a really good paying job, actually, and I don't necessarily have to be financially dependent on them.
	I just don't...
	Sorry, if you have a good paying job, why would you be financially dependent on them?
	Just...
	Because I feel like if I were to leave...
	Then they would take it personal, you know?
	Well, but that's not financial dependence, right?
	What do you mean?
	Well, if you're saying they would take it personally if you decided to move out, then you're not talking about financial dependence, right?
	Because if you were to say, I can't afford to move out, that would be different, right?
	Right, okay.
	Right?
	Okay, right.
	Right, so it's not only financially, but like, I just, I want to be I want to have my own opinions.
	I want to have my own beliefs.
	I feel like if I stay in the family...
	Wait, wait, wait.
	No, no, hang on, hang on.
	You can't not have your own opinions and beliefs.
	No, honestly.
	I mean, because it's your brain, right?
	Yeah.
	It's literally like saying, I want to choose for myself what I eat.
	Except that you can't actually force feed a brain once you become an adult, right?
	If somebody would come to me and say, well, I want to be able to choose what I put in my mouth.
	I live alone, and I want to be able to choose what I put in my mouth.
	What would I say?
	Yeah, you're crazy or something.
	Well, I wouldn't say you're crazy, but I'd just say, well, that's already happening, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Because you already are choosing.
	Well, nobody else can put stuff in your mouth, right?
	Right.
	Now, when you're a kid, it's different, right?
	Okay.
	When you're a kid, your parents choose the food and the food's in the house and they make the meals and, you know, whatever, right?
	So some people can legitimately say, well, when I was a kid, I didn't really have a choice about what I ate, right?
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	But when you become an adult, and certainly if you're into, say, philosophy, then you are choosing what you put in your head now, right?
	Right.
	Right, so I guess what I'm saying is, let me put it in a different way, I feel like my family is kind of weighing me down from being totally independent, not only financially, but like, I feel like they won't let me go, you know, they won't let me out of the nest or that kind of idea.
	Right, no, I think, I mean, can I take a swing at what might be happening?
	Yeah.
	Well, I would guess that, and my guesses are just guesses, so tell me if I'm full of crap, obviously, as always, but my guess would be that your parents are ego-invested in your conformity, and your independent thought, your independent reasoning, your critical faculties, Are a threat to a sort of empty and complacent existence for them.
	Is that somewhat true?
	Or not at all?
	Can you go more in depth?
	Sure.
	So, obviously if your parents are religious and you become an atheist, that is uncomfortable for them.
	We talked about that in the last show.
	If your parents work for the government and you accept anarchism, that's uncomfortable for them.
	If your parents hit you when you were a child and then you find or accept that that's immoral, that's uncomfortable for them, right?
	If they have particular prejudices that they have inflicted upon you, And then you become aware that those prejudices were irrational and immoral, particularly if they've told you to think for yourself and to be good, then this is a problem.
	So if your parents grew up, if you grew up with your parents and your parents were telling you, tell the truth, right?
	And then you tell them the truth that you don't believe in God, do they say, well, I'm very glad you told me the truth because I always told you to tell the truth?
	No, yeah.
	No, of course not.
	Well, occasionally I'm sure it might happen, but it's not very common.
	Or, you know, if your parents, if your mom's a public school teacher and she says, you know, I need you to tell me the truth.
	Be honest with me when you're growing up.
	Don't lie to me.
	And you say, you know, taxation is theft and you're living off blood money.
	Do they say, well, that's, you know, once they accept the arguments, they say, well, that's great.
	I'm very glad you told me that.
	I didn't know that.
	It's very honest of you.
	They say don't be rude, don't be impolite, don't rock the boat.
	The virtue called honesty was invented so that you would feel bad about lying to those in power because those in power want you to tell the truth to them about things they want to know, right?
	Okay.
	But then when you tell something to people in power that is truthful but that they don't like, you're called rude or bad or whatever, right?
	I mean, very few people and almost nobody in power has the consistent virtue called honesty.
	Honesty is just, well, I want you to know.
	I want to know what happened.
	Who hit who first and who stole this and who took that and who pushed that over, who broke that vase.
	And then when someone in power wants to know something from you as a child, honesty is a virtue.
	Don't lie to me.
	But then if you say, I don't want to go to church anymore because it's boring, that's not acceptable, right?
	They don't say, well, thank you for telling me the truth, right?
	Well, that's not an option.
	Suddenly it becomes bad for you to tell the truth because telling the truth when it's convenient to people in power is called a virtue.
	Telling the truth when it's inconvenient is called a vice or rudeness or inconsideration or whatever, right?
	Like you say, I don't want to kiss Auntie Mabel.
	She smells of mothballs.
	That's rude, right?
	Even though you're telling the truth.
	Okay.
	Yeah, that's actually exactly, I think that's exactly what my situation is.
	So the truth is threatening to your relationship, right?
	Exactly.
	And it's probably not going to be very comfortable for people in your life to know that the truth is threatening yourself to the relationship.
	Nobody wants to say, our relationship is now problematic because you want to tell me the truth.
	I mean, that's a real condemnation of a relationship, right?
	Right.
	So how would I go about pursuing this desire to be independent from my family?
	Tell me what independence means.
	To me, it means...
	Basically, you're a human being and you have no ties to other human beings or you're under no control from other human beings unless you allow yourself to be.
	Independence would be, to me, I just go up in the mountains and I build myself a cabin And I cut myself some wood for fire and I hunt for my own food,
	you know, that sort of idea that I don't have to depend on anybody or any kind of ideologies or any kind of, you know, and I'm independent and I'm providing for myself and I feel like a person is...
	that idea, that idea.
	So you want not just independence from your parents, but from society as a whole, is that right?
	Yes, yes, to an extent, yes.
	Well, you're talking about living in the woods, right?
	Right, right.
	Yeah, okay.
	Well, I was using that as an example, but I guess some internal feelings...
	It can't be an example that's completely irrelevant, right?
	You know, I want to be independent from my parents, like cutting my toenails.
	Well, cutting my toenails is an example, yes, but it's an irrelevant one, right?
	So we assume that it's relevant, right?
	Right.
	Okay.
	But yes, that is my idea of independence, or that is my vision of it, or image.
	So you want to, like, you giving up on the world, is that right?
	Like you want to just hit the exit door?
	Yeah.
	Sort of, honestly.
	Sort of, yeah.
	Well, you've given me these sort ofs and stuff.
	You want to be independent from the consequences of your comments?
	Yes or no?
	You're talking about living in the woods, right?
	Yes.
	Yes, my answer is yes.
	Okay.
	So is it that you have given up on the world like you think it's beyond saving?
	I don't...
	It's not...
	It's...
	I'm not criticizing at all.
	I'm just asking.
	No.
	No.
	I just...
	I look at society and I don't see me in it, you know?
	Go on.
	And I... I just...
	I... It's...
	I feel like I isolate myself from society because they think so much differently than me and they, as in my peers or people on the television, You know, the media.
	And I just, I look at the world through the television.
	I look at the world through my peers, through that sort of group.
	Well, okay.
	I just don't see myself.
	Hang on, hang on.
	Here's where we might be finding your mistake.
	Right?
	Okay.
	Okay, so what am I going to say now?
	I don't know.
	Yes, you do.
	Yes, you do.
	Come on.
	What do you think you're going to get from the TV? What am I going to get from the TV? Yeah, so you say that you're getting some of your thoughts on society is coming from TV, right?
	Oh.
	Well, I mean, from the TV, just all the crap, I guess.
	Yeah.
	I mean, you're going to get propaganda, right?
	Okay, yes.
	I mean, is that fair to say?
	Because, and there's a couple of reasons for that.
	Like, number one, TV is in the business of supplying audiences to advertisers, right?
	They're not in the business of supplying shows to you.
	They're in the business of supplying you to advertisers, right?
	Okay.
	So what that means is that they can't offend anyone.
	Because if they offend someone, if they offend some people, then those people are going to write to the advertisers and threaten boycotts, which is going to put the television stations out of business.
	So television stations, and this is a very conscious process on the part of television stations and show developers, they do the research.
	They say, well, we have to have nothing that the average grade 8 person can understand.
	We have to have nothing outside of what the average person in grade 8 or grade 9 can understand because that's people's average level of intelligence, right?
	And literariness.
	We can't have a lot of references to Bertolt Brecht or Pirandello or anything like that.
	We have to have only references to other TV, sitcoms, movies and so on, right?
	Because that's people's cultural references.
	Yeah.
	We can't talk about anything to do with anything controversial, and every perspective we put in there has to be engineered.
	In other words, we can have an atheist, but that atheist has to be a bad person.
	Right?
	So we can get some atheist arguments in there, but they have to be presented by a miserable person.
	So you can have House, Gregory House in House MD, he's an atheist, but he has to be miserable.
	Kind of sociopathic, right?
	Or...
	The woman in The Good Wife, Julian Margella's character, she can say that she's an atheist and she's married to a complete sociopath of a politician.
	But I repeat myself, right?
	And you can't have anyone from the right wing in the media for a variety of reasons, which we'll perhaps talk about another time.
	You can look at Ben Shapiro's primetime propaganda for more on this.
	And they certainly can't have anything against the state in any fundamental way.
	Netflix has a little bit of that in House of Cards.
	But you can't have anything against the state because the government controls the airwaves.
	And if the government pulls your licenses, you are out several billion dollars, right?
	And people don't make ideological arguments and destroy their own networks for the sake of...
	Or you get fined by the FCC and so on, right?
	And these are legal matters.
	It's not a matter of personal preference.
	If you're a CEO of a company, you have a legal and fiduciary responsibility to maintain the value of that asset and to attempt to increase it where possible.
	And if you knowingly take an action that has a high probability of harming the value of the asset you're in charge of, you will be sued.
	And you will spend 10 years in court and spend millions of dollars Defending yourself, and if you lose, you will...
	God knows what will happen, right?
	Right.
	So, you...
	You know, going to the TV for philosophy is like going to a Russian newspaper under Stalin for the truth about the free market.
	I mean, you're just not...
	I mean, it can be entertaining, fine, you know, whatever, right?
	But, for God's sakes, you've got to limit your exposure, right?
	Right.
	Well, not only that, but, like, everyone...
	Everybody around me watches hours and hours of TV a day, so I can see where I get sick of it, you know?
	And why do you think they do that?
	Because they're not intelligent or because they're ignorant to the lies?
	Well, saying the people...
	I don't know what the cause and effect is, right?
	Saying the people are ignorant because they watch TV... Sorry, maybe they watch TV because they're ignorant, or maybe they're ignorant because they watch TV, right?
	But when people watch a lot of TV, it tells you everything you need to know about their relationships.
	Ah, okay.
	Right?
	So if people watch three hours of TV a night, what they're saying is that everyone around me is less interesting than a sitcom.
	Everyone around me is less interesting than a TV show.
	Wow.
	Right?
	Because everything is a competition for our time, right?
	Right.
	So what they're saying is that generic entertainment made for strangers connects with me more than the people in my house.
	I take more pleasure in passively watching entertainment with commercials.
	None of my friends and family come with commercials.
	I'm doing a lot of research into slavery in Abraham Lincoln at the moment.
	I was out at some dinner with some friends and their kids last night, and we were talking about this.
	At not one point did my friends say, I'm sorry, Steph, I'm going to have to interrupt this commercial for a quick message from Sprint.
	Did you know that you can get an unlimited data plan, blah, blah, blah, blah, and this didn't go on for like five minutes, and then they say, okay, please continue with your conversation.
	None of my friends come with advertiser spots.
	None of them have ever interrupted a serious conversation or a frivolous conversation to tell me exactly how they have a machine that can turn my toilet water into something drinkable.
	Or that they would love to keep chatting, but it's really, really important that they sell me emergency food supplies For when the new world order takes over, right?
	My friends don't come with commercials.
	TV does.
	Now, of course, you can DVR and try and skip and this, that, and the other.
	But I don't have a little remote control that I have to fast forward through my friends' commercials.
	So, what they're saying is generic, spoon-fed entertainment aimed at grade 8 and grade 9 level of comprehension.
	With commercials is way more interesting, much more interesting, infinitely more interesting than everyone in their life put together.
	Right?
	Excessive television watching is a confession of infinite emptiness in relations.
	Right?
	Right.
	Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not an enemy of television.
	I will watch some television sometimes, but I'm aware of all of that, right?
	Right, me too.
	And I'm a bit of a night owl, so I might watch a show.
	I also do media reviews for this show.
	And so, you know, this partly, you know, sounds weird, but I went to go and see the Lego movie to do a review.
	So when people are watching a lot of TV, I mean, gosh, if my wife was watching three hours of TV a day, I would be like, holy crap, I'm a shitty husband.
	Oh my god, I've got to be like the most boring guy to talk to if she'd rather see spoon-fed stupid jokes aimed at people with a grade 8 mentality.
	Right?
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Right.
	So everyone around you is always telling you what their life is like, whether they like it or not.
	Oh!
	A lot of tattoos.
	Well, you're telling me what your childhood was like.
	So everyone is always radiating and communicating about their childhood.
	And the weird thing is that everybody thinks they're being so secretive.
	You know, like you...
	You see some guy with spiky, iridescent glue of fixed hair on his head, you know, and enough safety pins through his face that he looks like he fell down a flight of stairs holding a tackle box, and people think that they're somehow mysteriously whatever, right?
	Like getting away with not telling you all about their childhood.
	People are so ridiculously obvious, and they think they're being so secretive.
	And when I sort of point this out, everyone gets angry at me for pointing this as so obvious, right?
	Right.
	So, by me...
	So, by me...
	Just to...
	Expand what you're just saying.
	So, like, me wanting to be independent, that's like me expressing my childhood, I guess?
	No, I'm sorry.
	You don't want to be independent.
	You don't want to be independent.
	You just don't want to be around the people you're around.
	No, you just don't want to be around the people you're around.
	Okay.
	Does that make sense?
	That's exactly right.
	Yes.
	You know, like, if I'm standing in lava, that doesn't mean I want to go live on Mars.
	If I say, get me out of this lava, and someone says, they take me to Mars, and they say, put me on Mars, and say, look, you're not in the lava anymore.
	It's like, yeah, but that's a little further than I really wanted to go.
	I just really wanted to get out of the lava.
	Mars?
	Eh, a bit too far.
	A bit far for the Mars thing.
	So you're saying, I really find everyone around me emotionally crippled, spiritually vacant, intellectually empty, emotionally dead.
	Therefore, I wish to abandon the human race completely.
	Oh, that may be a little bit far.
	Going to Mars might be a little bit further than you need to go.
	And that's why I said at the beginning, if you've given up on the human race completely, do not let...
	Look, can I make a guess here?
	Yes, please.
	Do you come from sort of a low-rent neighborhood?
	Yes.
	Right.
	And so people, you know, they're kind of working, what, truckers, blue-collar waiters, waitresses, maids, you know, just this low-rent kind of stuff, right?
	Yeah, exactly.
	Yeah, okay.
	Well, good for you.
	A blazing star born among the economically decrepit ashes of society.
	Good for you.
	Listen, I mean, I'm not saying abandon all your relationships, but don't confuse the world for this dung heap of mediocrity, right?
	It's not the whole world.
	Look, Christopher Hitchens used to have dinner with Salman Rushdie.
	And, you know, other British literary luminaries, right?
	I can guarantee you they weren't turning on The Simpsons.
	Right.
	They did intellectual jokes like if Shakespeare had written the Jason Bourne series, what would he have called them?
	I mean, and the answers are, I can't remember, they were just really funny stuff.
	So there are, you know, the Algonquin Roundtable was a sort of famous place where people would meet, literary circles would meet in the 1920s where the conversation, I mean, they're all a bunch of lunatics, but the conversation must have been iridescent, must have been fantastic, maddening in its deranged opaqueness, but some brilliant stuff.
	Gertrude Stein, I think, was there at times.
	Hemingway, F. Gott Fitzgerald, lots of other really interesting writers.
	Ford Prefect, all kinds of cool stuff.
	I think that may be the guy from The Hitchhiker's Guide.
	I can't remember his name.
	Anyway, in A Moveable Feast, which is a great story about Hemingway that he wrote about his time in Paris, where he would have a Rum St.
	James, which I don't even know what it is, but it sounds like a great drink.
	And he would write, look, there are lots of people out there having intelligent, witty, enjoyable, deep conversations.
	I'm not saying they're everywhere, but, you know, they sure as shit aren't in your neighborhood, right?
	But don't confuse that low-rent zoo of dissociation for the world as a whole.
	My God.
	I mean, you grew up in this brain-dead, alienated environment.
	And, I mean, listen, so did I. Don't get me wrong.
	So did I. I mean, my mom was, I mean, and is, I assume, is very intelligent.
	She comes from a very literary German family.
	I mean, her, if I get this right, her father's brother won a nationwide award.
	Poetry contest.
	It was like the poet laureate or something of Germany.
	One of her other uncles wrote, I think, a very famous book on trade unionism in Germany and so on.
	So my mother came from a very intelligent and literary family and was interested in talking about deep subjects.
	Now, she talked about them in a crazy way, but she did talk about deep subjects.
	It wasn't, and she didn't watch much TV, and neither did I when I was a kid, not because it was just England.
	What the hell is nothing on, right?
	But I was not, and I remember, I mean, I won't go into them now, but I remember deep topics from when I was a kid.
	I remember being six in Africa and talking about power generation, and I said, yes, but it would be great to have A power plant that ran on electricity and produced electricity, and the moment I said it, I knew it didn't make any sense.
	And one of my father's workers was a geologist, and we were talking about, yeah, of course, that doesn't make any sense, because you can't use electricity to produce electricity, because that would mean you'd get more power out of the Interaction than it was going into it, which was not possible, right?
	All you can get is friction-free, or I guess you can't get a perpetual motion machine.
	There's always a degradation based on friction, even if it's just air friction.
	But, I mean, there was some deep stuff.
	I remember, I just thought about this the other day, I remember having a dinner with my mom.
	We used to go to this crappy old restaurant, the Dom Mills Mall.
	Dom Mills Mall's gone now, I think.
	But...
	She was listening to all my predictions about the future.
	I mean, she was really into psychic phenomena.
	And I wasn't making predictions like I knew.
	I was just guessing how things were going to work in the future.
	I was 11 or 12 years old.
	And I remember talking about how subways would use...
	Magnetics to float above the track, because then they could go a lot faster.
	And I remember talking, I remember thinking, you know, we're going to...
	I said, I really believe that people are going to cure cancer by the year 2000.
	Interestingly enough, the year 2000 was when I stopped seeing my mom.
	So I guess I kind of did, in a way.
	But there are other friends of mine whose parents would talk about nothing.
	And, I mean, TV addicts, almost all of them.
	Endless, endless, endless TV, TV, TV, TV, TV, TV, TV.
	Bad food and television, bad food and television.
	Garbage for the body, garbage for the brain.
	Amen.
	And again, not to say that all television is garbage.
	I think there's some interesting stuff out there.
	But I look at it as a cultural phenomenon, not as a thing in and of itself.
	I look at it as this tells me something about the world.
	This tells me something about society.
	This tells me something about culture.
	So you study the body if you want to change the body, right?
	And so I study culture because I want to change culture.
	I actually eliminate it in a giant thermonuclear smoking mushroom cloud of reason, right?
	But yeah, TV addiction was just, you know, and if people didn't get to see their shows, they were literally petulant like addicts.
	Not like addicts, they were addicts.
	Because of course everything you feed gets bigger and everything you starve dies.
	And if you feed TV addictions, then your TV addiction gets bigger and your capacity to have any kind of conversation with anyone dies.
	People, this is before the days of DVR, they're rushing home to get to their TV shows.
	They gotta watch their TV shows and talk about it like it's almost real.
	It's retarded.
	Yeah, that's exactly how my family is.
	Yeah, well that ain't the world, brother.
	You don't have to go to the woods to not be around people who are empty-headed media addicts.
	I mean, you can go to college where...
	They're addicted to video games and sex.
	I don't know.
	But you don't have to go to the woods.
	That's all I'm saying.
	You don't have to go to Mars to get away from the lava.
	Okay.
	I see what you're saying.
	Don't let them drive you into the woods.
	No, seriously, don't.
	Because, you know, that's still serving them, right?
	Right.
	Because then you say, well, I guess this is what happens when you think deeply, is you've got to go live in the woods.
	So it's a good thing I'm into TV because my other alternative is to go live in the woods.
	Don't give them that satisfaction, man!
	Have a glorious life and screw their discomfort.
	In fact, enjoy their discomfort a little bit.
	You might have earned it.
	I'm sure you have, right?
	All kids want deep conversations.
	I can tell you this.
	I have been around hundreds of children, daycare teacher, lots.
	I mean, all kids want deep conversations.
	You know, my daughter ten times a day says, tell me about your show.
	Tell me about your show.
	Because we get into these very deep conversations.
	All children want to talk about stuff that's not frivolous.
	Now, when they get older in teenage years, if they haven't developed that muscle, then you're kind of speaking to them in a foreign language.
	And it's not much fun to be spoken to in a foreign language, right?
	Right.
	If you don't understand the language, right?
	So...
	Yeah.
	Just go have a glorious life of depth and connection and resonance and meaning and philosophy.
	And, you know, the unfortunate consequence of that is that people then feel uncomfortable with their addictions.
	The whole world is trying to feel comfortable with its addictions and get really angry when you point out that they are dysfunctional and destructive addictions, whether it's to state violence or religion or spanking or TV or video games or whatever.
	You know, don't live in other people's empty heads.
	Go do something.
	Go create something in the world.
	Don't just be an empty consumer of other people's crap, you know?
	Exactly.
	That's pretty much all I wanted to ask you.
	All right.
	Well, thank you very much, and best of luck.
	But there's a better and deeper and richer world out there.
	It's not always easy to find, but it sure is.
	Hell isn't going to come your way if you don't look.
	Thank you very much, and I guess we've got time for one more quickie, quickie, quickie call.
	Thank you, man.
	All right, Edie, you're up next.
	Go ahead.
	Hello, Edie?
	Hello?
	Man, now I've got that Sarah McLachlan song stuck in my head.
	Edie, I feel that you have failed, failed you, or something like that.
	Anyway.
	Well, first I wanted to say that I'm inordinately grateful that you're a Caucasian male with the cojones to speak truth to women.
	Why Caucasian?
	Do men from other cultures not speak truth to women?
	Well, because Caucasian males are just so politically correct and so careful.
	I don't know.
	They seem so reserved.
	Well, you know, they're just scared that they're not going to get egg access, right?
	I mean, I already have my egg access.
	I already have my child.
	But no, I mean, guys are scared that if they upset women, then women won't breed with them, right?
	I mean, the genes don't care.
	The genes just want access, right?
	But thank you for your kind words.
	What's on your mind?
	Oh, but one more thing I wanted to say.
	I'm...
	I'm actually quite appalled that it's necessary for someone like you to have to tell big people not to brutalize little people.
	I mean, seriously, kids are being beaten for having an undeveloped prefrontal cortex.
	I mean, kids live in the present.
	They don't have the rational brain.
	That the people who are beating them are expecting them to have.
	And I just think American parenting is barbaric.
	But anyway, I just really, really appreciate what you do.
	Well, thank you very much.
	Thank you very much.
	Except when you equate pretty with privilege, I just fast forward the podcast.
	No, no, tell me.
	Listen, correct me if I'm wrong.
	Correct me if I'm wrong.
	So how is pretty not privileged?
	Well, if...
	I guess if you have a mirror-mirror-on-the-wall mother and nuns and you just want to be invisible, pretty is not to your advantage.
	And if you're very quiet, I know I'm talking a lot now, but normally I'm very reserved and very...
	I'm very quiet.
	But if you're quiet and you're pretty, people just surmise you're either a snob or a moron or...
	Oh, so hang on a sec.
	So you're pretty.
	And, you know, people always feel uncomfortable when they're asked that question.
	Well, my friends tell me.
	Are you pretty?
	You can tell me.
	Used to be.
	Used to be?
	Oh, no.
	What happened?
	What happened?
	Age or choice?
	Well, I think...
	I think, well, prior to the acquisition of Kilos and Wrinkles, I used to be a looker.
	A looker.
	And what do we got?
	I don't know.
	I couldn't...
	Remember, false modesty is just another kind of hypocrisy.
	So, what was it?
	I agree, but I... Eight?
	Good.
	Fantastic.
	Fantastic.
	Okay, so you were an age.
	No, I mean, that was past tense, past tense.
	Yeah, yeah, you were an age, so you were an age.
	Yeah, no, I got it.
	I got it.
	See, and it's tough for women, right?
	Because you all start off with a huge amount of money, and then you lose money over time, right?
	Sorry, go ahead.
	All I ever wanted to be was invisible, and it's not possible.
	And the nuns don't appreciate pretty girls in class, and...
	I'll give you an example of pretty, okay?
	When I was a freshman in college, fresh out of the gate, I was assigned a very research-heavy project, and I've always been this mega-responsible.
	And I was assigned a project with another girl who was obese, and I tackled it right away, and I went to get her, and we had to walk a couple of miles to go do research.
	And she kept saying, where's your car?
	Well, she said, where's your car?
	And I said, I don't have a car.
	We're walking.
	And she goes, you are?
	And turned around and went back.
	And basically, she was not only fat, but lazy.
	And I ended up doing the entire thing.
	And her part and mine.
	And I gave it to her.
	And I said, if you want to make any changes, go ahead.
	But all she did was type it.
	Because she was too lazy.
	And I'm too responsible.
	I am more responsible than anyone.
	No, I would argue that.
	Look, doing her part of the assignment is not responsible, right?
	Well, I'm accustomed to doing other people's work, so it wasn't a big stretch for me to do it, and I wanted to get the work done.
	No, no, but it's not helpful to the woman, right?
	Maybe not, but I was a freshman in college.
	I didn't know any better.
	I just wanted to get the work done.
	So anyway, to make a long story short...
	Hang on, hang on.
	But it's bad for her for someone else to do her work, right?
	Because then she gets credit and she doesn't learn.
	I agree.
	I agree with that.
	Okay, all right.
	If we agree with that, because you were talking about how responsible you were.
	And if you agree with me on that, then we can keep going.
	But go ahead.
	Yeah, do you feel that attractiveness then is not an advantage for women in some areas?
	Yes, I think around other women especially, if they are not attractive, they just surmise you've had an easier time and that you are the reason that they're having a harder they just surmise you've had an easier time and that you In fact, yeah, but anyway.
	Sorry, but hang on.
	Hang on.
	Okay, I've kind of lost.
	I wasn't going to go on this and I'm kind of flustered.
	But statistically, people who are attractive earn about 15-20% more than people who are not attractive.
	They do better in job interviews.
	views.
	They do better in the dating world.
	And women who are attractive can marry men who are more wealthy.
	And having more money is relatively helpful in some areas of life, particularly if you want to stay home with your kids and so on in a reasonable style of comfort, have vacations and all this kind of cool stuff.
	Then women who are attractive get men who have more money, they get more jobs, they get better pay, so So I'm not saying that it's not without some cost or anything like that, but there are definite material advantages to physical attractiveness.
	Like, have you ever seen a fat woman with a rich guy?
	Um, yes.
	It's rare, right?
	His wife is quite obese.
	Pierce Brosnan's wife is obese?
	Yeah.
	So, I mean, I have seen fat women with wealthy, gorgeous eyes.
	Yeah.
	Successful.
	All right.
	Let me have a look here.
	Pierce Brosnan watches on as bikini-clad wife Keely Shy Smith has a dip in a something-something.
	Let's see.
	Oh, I wouldn't say that she's obese.
	But...
	I mean, she's got a little bit of a belly.
	Well, I haven't seen her for...
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I haven't seen her pictures for a few years, so when I saw her I was really surprised at how big she was.
	Oh, well, anyway, it wasn't probably the best answer, but you just kind of put me on the spot.
	Yeah, no, no, but it's rare, for sure.
	And, I mean, you never see an Oscar ceremony.
	You don't see obese women usually coming down the aisle married to very rich and attractive guys.
	It's just one of these things that just seems to be kind of true.
	So there are some advantages.
	There are, of course, some disadvantages as well.
	So I'm not trying to say it's all one thing.
	You know, one-sided, but there definitely are material advantages to being physically attractive.
	But anyway, I don't want to displace your other question, if you have one.
	My question is, my mother and sister were often very abusive in tandem, and I don't know if I'm sabotaging myself or if I'm just being pragmatic in In avoiding the toxic stress of challenging the will that I was excluded from.
	And I've fallen off the family grid and I just don't know if it's worth the fight to To challenge the will.
	And of course I would get something if I did, but it wouldn't be as much as the rest of them.
	But they're all gazillionaires and I'm the only pauper.
	Oh yeah, so there's a lot of money at a will that you might get.
	Has the person died?
	Is the will active at the moment?
	I'm sorry, can you repeat your question?
	Hello?
	Yes, is the will active at the moment?
	Is the will in effect as the person died?
	Yes, so my sister is the sister who was usually very abusive with my mother together.
	She is the executor and.
	I don't even know if it's worth fighting, I guess.
	Although my siblings are very, very well off, and I'm not.
	And I feel that it's my father's money, and I should be able to get what's rightfully mine.
	But I knew that there was no chance that she was going to let me have any of the money.
	My mother.
	But did your father leave you the money and she is not enacting the will legally, or did your father not leave you the money?
	No, my father died much earlier, but it's his money that she has, so she died this year.
	Pardon me?
	Did your father leave you money?
	You just need to give me some more details about the will.
	What are the details about Will?
	My father left everything to my mother and my father died 25 years ago and he died young so my mother just died last month and I've been left out of the Will and I just don't know whether I should fight it or not and That's all.
	But there's a substantial amount of money at stake.
	How much?
	Roughly.
	I don't know because I haven't been around.
	I don't go home anymore.
	I don't go home for Christmas.
	I don't do anything.
	But I would...
	Even with our large family, there's seven kids being divided among.
	I would say...
	A minimum of a quarter million.
	So for you, it would be a quarter million dollars?
	Right, a minimum, but probably much more.
	But you're not in the will, right?
	Your mother did not want to leave that money to you.
	Right, right.
	She told me when my 20s that I wasn't going to be in it.
	She never made a threat she didn't keep.
	So how could you get the money if she didn't leave it to you?
	Well, I would have to challenge it, the will.
	And I can't imagine that a court would not give me something, especially considering how wealthy my siblings are.
	Well, I don't know about that.
	How would you get the money to pay for a lawyer?
	Yeah, that's my...
	I don't know whether I'm willing to dive into this at all.
	But maybe the lawyer would do it on contingency fee.
	Yeah, it seems unlikely.
	I'm not a lawyer, but of course you let me know.
	Obviously don't let me know.
	Go talk to a lawyer.
	But you're really rolling the dice, right?
	So if you go into the legal system, I would imagine you're probably going to have at least $50,000 to $100,000 worth of legal bills.
	Now, you, of course, will get some of that.
	Now, if you go on contingency, the lawyer may take a quarter or a third.
	Again, I'm not a lawyer, but this is my understanding of it.
	And also, you may lose so badly that you have to also pay the legal bills of your siblings.
	Because they'll have legal bills as well, right?
	So you might end up not winning a quarter million, but you might end up owing a quarter million.
	Right, right.
	I get that.
	And that's why...
	And just the thought of dealing with my sister is just such a toxic stress that I just thought it's not really worth the money.
	Hang on a second.
	It's the government, right?
	So the job of the court system is not to get you what is just, what is owed to you.
	The purpose of the court system is not to serve justice.
	The purpose of the court system is to make money and power for the court and for the lawyers.
	You can watch a movie called Divorce Core, C-O-R-P, Divorce Core.
	You can get it on iTunes.
	And it's an important film to watch.
	But this is the legal system.
	The legal system is there to make money for lawyers and to aggregate power to the mad god-like vanity of the judges.
	It is not there to get you what is justly owed to you.
	So I try to stay as far away from the legal system as humanly possible.
	Again, it's a tool of control and destruction of profit.
	It is not a tool designed to get anyone any kind of justice.
	Okay.
	And so, like in Scandinavia, a divorce is free.
	It costs you zero dollar.
	You mail something into the government, you wait six months, and you're divorced.
	Free.
	Nobody goes to lawyers.
	In America, the average cost of a divorce is $50,000.
	And the lawyer will say, how much money do you have?
	How many assets do you have?
	Oh, great.
	Now I know how much I can bill.
	And they drag it out, and they bill.
	And the purpose of it is to make as much money as humanly possible off of you, Before setting you free from this status institution called marriage, at least as it's currently performed.
	So, I would argue that...
	I heard Moon Zappa...
	Yeah, go ahead.
	I heard Moon Zappa say it takes two to go in and eleven to get out.
	And everything you have, every penny you have.
	Oh, yeah.
	No, it is a form of indentured servitude.
	Many people's divorces drag on for years.
	And the more assets they have, the more the lawyers will...
	Continue billing.
	And if you're in the divorce court, you simply cannot, like if you're a lawyer, you can't be sued for frivolous lawsuits or for delayed or for slander or for libel or any of the other horrible things they say about people.
	And that's government legal system.
	Government legal system has nothing to do with the provision of justice in any way, shape or form.
	So my advice, like what do I know?
	I don't know the details of your situation.
	I'm not a legal expert.
	I'm not a lawyer.
	So this is just my Advice based upon my understanding of statism.
	But I think if you go in, you have to be prepared that it's going to cost you between $50,000 and $150,000.
	And it doesn't matter if the law is on your side.
	The law is not a magic spell that compels the obedience from judges.
	Right.
	So even if the law is completely on your side, you have zero guarantee That it's going to go your way.
	Now, you know that your siblings can outspend you because they have the inheritance and you don't.
	And not only that, but they're big fish in little ponds, so they have so much more power than I could ever even dream of.
	So I would imagine they only needed to make a few phone calls and it would be settled.
	Oh yeah, if they have power, then for sure, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, then you're not going to get anything.
	I didn't want it to be a grand finale, but on the other hand, I tend to sabotage myself and denying myself what I really deserve.
	And I just was trying to precipitate out this scenario.
	I think this would go under the category of self-sabotage.
	And once you initiate legal proceedings, they're very difficult to stop.
	Of course, you can also be countersued.
	You can be sued for frivolous lawsuits.
	You can be held in contempt of court for wasting the court's time.
	I mean, I think it would be a horrible, multi-year, extremely expensive, highly risky process, the benefit of which is you might get Whatever the lawyer doesn't take, you know, 100,000, 150,000.
	But I think you will pay enormously for that.
	And then, of course, if they have a lot of money and a lot of power, they might just decide to sue you for the money, even if they have no basis.
	In the law for doing that, they might just sue you anyway because, you know, maybe their cruel sadists sue like...
	For the sport.
	Yeah.
	Just for the sport of it.
	And to keep you around, right?
	The victim...
	Sadists don't want their victims to get away.
	So, you know, a law court is a great way of keeping people in your orbit and stuff like that.
	So, you know, again, it's your choice.
	I mean, obviously, I don't even need to tell you that.
	But I would strongly advise...
	And also, it's your mom's money.
	You know, if the woman was horrible to you, why do you want to have anything to do with her, even the money?
	What pleasure could that money possibly give you?
	Well, because it was my father's money, and that's why I... But your father chose to marry your mother?
	Yes, you're right.
	I mean, this was the woman he thought was to be a great mom to his children.
	Yes, but her nickname was in the community, The Saint.
	I think...
	He told me once that if he'd ever seen her with wet hair, he probably wouldn't have married her.
	And, of course, I read into that, meaning that...
	Well, I read into that, meaning...
	My mother?
	Yeah.
	I think everyone thought so, yeah.
	He always told me she was a Grace Kelly clone, and I told him love was fine.
	Yeah, well, that's pretty...
	No, but so, yeah.
	I mean, I told him love was blind.
	Yeah, so he was fooled by a pretty face.
	Well, and her family was prominent, and she was a medical professional, and in a time when, you know, not many women went into professions, and yeah, you know, and...
	But I do think the best thing that she ever gave me was absolutely nothing because it's not that big a deal for me to not get money that I never expected to get.
	It's just not that big a deal.
	Well, the other thing too is it's going to put your life on hold, right?
	And you said that the bloom is off the rose, right?
	That your youthful looks are not there anymore.
	So you don't have a huge amount of time to wait.
	Let's say this thing takes two or three or four or five years.
	Your life's going to be on hold because you're going to be waiting for this to be resolved.
	Right, right.
	Whereas if you know the money's not coming, and then if the money doesn't come, or you're in the hole even more, you will be kicking yourself from here to eternity.
	But if you say, well, look, I don't want any of this money from these bad people.
	I don't want it.
	Then your life can start.
	Right.
	In other words, you can...
	I'm not saying it hasn't started, but what I mean is that you can then go and make the choices to get things going.
	Well...
	Well, okay.
	I just, I was always left out.
	And I just, a little bit of me thinks, you know, I should have fought for more or, I don't know.
	I don't know.
	I'm very conflicted about this.
	What could you fight for?
	What do I mean?
	I mean, if they're bad people, you never wrestle with a pig down in the crap, right?
	Because you get crap all over you and the pig likes it.
	Right, right.
	And everyone blames me for walking away.
	My siblings all blame me for abandoning my mother when they know that her footprint was in my back from day one.
	So bad people think bad things of you.
	No, welcome to the price of virtue, right?
	Yeah, welcome to the price of virtue, right?
	Which is that, you know, one of the ways that you know you're doing good in the world is bad people don't like you.
	I mean, you never want to be somebody who's trying to achieve good things in the world that bad people have no opinion about or like, right?
	The price of virtue is hostility from bad people.
	I mean, there's no way around it, and that's one of your greatest measures, right?
	I mean, if your siblings thought you were the best thing since sliced bread, that would be pretty catastrophic, right?
	Well, I was really close to my sister who died early, but...
	Yeah, and I was close to my father, and I think...
	Yeah, it was just a very dysfunctional household, and you had to capitulate if you wanted to survive, and I just refused.
	I just wouldn't do it, but I paid the price, so...
	You pay the price now.
	Oh, just across the board, neglect, medical and food deprivation and public humiliations and beatings.
	It was just really wretched and a life of servitude.
	When I left, when I finally just said, you know, I'm out of here.
	When my father died, I left and never looked back.
	Well, you're kind of looking back now, right?
	Well, only because she died this year.
	No, it's because of the months.
	Or rather, it's because of what the money means.
	Well, that's what I mean.
	So you're hoping that you can somehow, I would imagine you're hoping somehow you can undo the pain of exclusion by forcing your way in here legally, right?
	Right.
	That's exactly, you put it so succinctly.
	Yes, that's exactly right.
	I just feel like it's my turn.
	I can guarantee you.
	It's never your turn with bad people.
	With bad people, it's never your turn.
	And the only thing that bad people try to do, if you try and get away, they try and lure you back, right?
	They try and lure you back so that they can reenact these bad things.
	She was stalking me.
	She spent an entire life pushing me away and excluding me from the family, even at Christmas time.
	And yet, when I finally cut her off, she was stalking me.
	I mean, calling me and...
	Demanding to know where I was.
	Yes, but you know.
	Come on.
	You know why that is.
	Some guy beats up his wife every day.
	What happens when she leaves?
	I don't know.
	He goes insane.
	Oh, he stalks her.
	Of course he does.
	You're a piece of crap.
	I hate you.
	You're the worst thing that ever happened to me.
	I'm leaving.
	What?
	Don't go.
	I need you.
	I can't live without you.
	This is just what crazy people do, right?
	But why?
	Why do they do that?
	Can I just tell you the last time I was voluntarily around?
	The last time I was voluntarily around her, it was...
	One of those obligatory visits that I hated, but I endured, and I just felt, she's my mother, I have to do this, and blah, blah, blah.
	But my CPA, I went to my brother's house, and I'd just been traveling around the world for four years, something she would kill to do.
	And I went to my brother's house, and he's a CPA, and he said she's coming to pick up her taxes, and She's pretty lucky because the two younger brothers only hit her up for $60,000 this year.
	Whereas the last few years, they've never gotten under $80,000.
	And then we went to, we were going to my house so that, or her house, so that we could meet up with my godmother.
	But on the way, she said, let me take you shopping.
	And I I was embarrassed that I was in my 20s and just felt showered in endorphins.
	It was the first time in my life that she had ever offered to buy me anything.
	And I literally mean that.
	And then we went to the cashier and she said, you have scissors.
	And she goes, I want to cut these tags off.
	I can't believe she's wearing these clothes.
	And then we went to dinner and I mean, so obviously the endorphin trip was quickly abated.
	And then we went to dinner and I ordered a smoked salmon salad I'll never forget because she wouldn't let me forget.
	And it was expensive and she threw a tantrum.
	The next day when we met my godmother for lunch, she said, I can't believe she's still hungry after all she ate last night.
	And it was the temerity to rise above my station.
	And here, she didn't know that I knew that my brothers were getting $80,000 a year.
	But she was really going on about how I had the nerve to order a The most expensive item on the menu.
	And when I just clearly was, you know, Miss Uppity or whatever.
	And so I tell my, and I told my siblings, I said, you know, this is it.
	You know, she, at Christmas time, my junior year, she, it was just such a public humiliation that Well, my senior year, she said, you're buying your present and putting it under the tree and saying it came from me.
	If you tell anyone, you'll never live it down.
	And she never really, you just, if she said that, she meant it.
	And so, and I didn't, I was so relieved not to be embarrassed that I happily bought my present and put it under the tree.
	But when Christmas came around, I was so resentful.
	And I was laying in bed and I wouldn't go down and open it and go through the facade.
	And I heard her outside my door talking to my father and she said...
	She's from the South.
	And she goes, Daddy, I spent all my money on these kids' presents.
	And she doesn't...
	And she's such an ingrate.
	She won't even get up and open hers.
	And here she is, altering Christmas for the whole family.
	I worked so hard for everyone.
	And...
	And my father believed that I was just a bitch.
	And I don't think I would have been that charitable to such a brat, but he never said anything about it.
	And, yeah.
	So, I mean, that's just...
	Oh, and the worst part is, every year since then, I wouldn't come home after that.
	As soon as I left home, I never came back for Christmas.
	And she said, all I want for my family is to have my children together at Christmas.
	That's the only thing I've ever wanted.
	So she spent her whole life putting her foot in my back and then capitalizing on that, the very predictable...
	Yeah.
	Anyway.
	And that's what my brothers and sisters say that I'm being a bitch about.
	Right.
	And I don't think I am.
	I don't know.
	I don't know about you, but I don't think I am.
	And I have more respect for...
	Sounds like your mom never met a Southern cliche she didn't like.
	I actually have more respect for Richard Kulkinski.
	I'm not sure what his name is, but he was the Iceman, the hitman, the mob hitman.
	He grew up in a house where...
	He watched his seven-year-old brother get beaten to death.
	And they were beaten so severely and so frequently that it was just pure hell.
	And, you know, a reason that there can be no God.
	I don't know how people can believe in God.
	But anyway, he stopped the child abuse.
	He never touched his children.
	And my mother was the first-generation belt user, and she never touched.
	Missed an opportunity.
	She was always beating, waiting to happen.
	She just looked for any excuse.
	And I just...
	And she was nicknamed the saint.
	Sure.
	In the community.
	Because she was always...
	Well, she was always the first to run to someone's house who needed help or, you know, if they needed a shot, she would go to their house and...
	And take care of them.
	She was always available for everyone else.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Right.
	While, you know, just making life hell at home.
	Right.
	So anyway, I just, I got as far away from her as I could.
	I used to fantasize, this is so horrible, but I used to fantasize that, that she was just, you know, that she was having chest pains and her fingertips were touching the pills and I just sat there.
	And without helping and just said, you were never there for me.
	And I just knew that when I had those feelings, that I had to just get as far away as I could and never get around her.
	And I've spent my whole life in therapy and trying to undo the damage done.
	And I heard Lionel Richie once say, if you had a bad childhood, you spend the rest of your life making up for it.
	And I think that's true.
	I mean, maybe not for you.
	You sound like you've jumped all the hoops, but...
	But, yeah.
	Well, I haven't been bribed with a quarter million dollars to go back, so I haven't faced the temptations that you're facing.
	So, you know, it's easy for me to say, right?
	And...
	Yeah, I mean...
	Everything I love, she destroyed.
	How do they know what to destroy?
	You know...
	Yeah, I don't know.
	Well, you're not a mom, right?
	I'm not a mom, no.
	Right.
	Yeah, so you know your children incredibly well when you're a parent, right?
	I mean, you see them from before they can even see themselves.
	But I would be so careful not to let her know what I liked.
	I know, but it doesn't matter.
	She'll know anyway, right?
	I mean, you're in the same house.
	You can't help but...
	I spent maybe six months buying an outfit that was a brand name and really expensive and it was babysitting money and lifeguarding money and it was a really special thing and then it went missing and then my younger sister,
	the two of them were always very abusive together and one day I saw it in her closet and I grabbed it and she was screaming at my mother Saying, tell her, tell her, tell her.
	And then finally my mother just looked at me with a smirk and she goes, I cut yours up.
	And I just was devastated.
	It took months to buy.
	And she never paid for anything.
	Listen, listen, listen.
	You can tell me these stories all day.
	I have no doubt.
	Right, right, right.
	Your mom was a complete monster.
	You get no disagreement.
	I'm one of the few people on this planet who'd be like, yeah, evil bitch.
	Evil bitch, good thing she's dead.
	Right, right, right.
	No problem.
	Monstrous.
	But when you say, well, how could she know what was important to me?
	It's like, you just told me.
	You spent months working to try and buy it, and so she knows.
	That's not a hard one to solve, right?
	Yes, but I dated my mother for a long time.
	No, no, no.
	Now we're going off on some other tangent, right?
	So let's not do that either.
	No, no, no.
	I'm just saying that I dated my mother in that I always ended up in exactly the same situations with guys that I used to end up with her.
	No, that is not dating your mother.
	Until I started getting...
	Well, I mean, you know, the critical, the cruel, the...
	No, no, no.
	And it just took so much therapy and get away from that.
	Listen to me.
	I know you're in Japan.
	Hang on.
	I'm listening.
	I'm listening.
	Your father is someone you defend.
	And this is a southern cliche beyond all southern cliches, right?
	Well, big dad, it was great.
	My mother was a Tennessee Williams kind of monster, but my dad, it was just wonderful.
	Right?
	I mean, this is a real cliche.
	No, I don't say that.
	No, you have.
	I don't say that.
	Okay.
	But you listen back to this show.
	You have had not one bad thing to say about your dad, and when I pointed out bad things about your dad, i.e., he married your mom, you started defending him.
	Everyone in the community thought she was a saint, he didn't see who she was, blah-de-blah-de-blah, right?
	Right.
	All right?
	But he was just as abused as I was.
	The fact that you give your dad a pass is why you end up with the same guys.
	Really?
	Of course it is.
	One clue is that they have penises, all of them.
	That's one thing they have in common.
	Okay.
	Not vaginas, but penises, right?
	So you give your dad a free pass, and that defines masculinity for you.
	That there's some ideal, some good thing about your dad.
	That you give him a free pass.
	He was a victim of your mom.
	He was not an agent.
	He was not responsible.
	Come on.
	You don't think I know in the South that men are the head of the households?
	Of course he was responsible.
	He was more responsible than your mom was.
	In terms of setting up a family.
	She ruled it with an iron fist.
	Hello?
	He chose her.
	He chose her.
	I get that.
	Yes, I get that.
	And did he take your side again?
	Hello?
	Are you there?
	Did he take your side against her?
	Yes.
	There's something wrong with this phone.
	Yes?
	Hello?
	Oh, he did.
	He did take your side against her.
	Yes.
	Can you hear me?
	He took your side against her?
	Yes.
	Okay, so if he took your side against her, my friend, then how on earth did you end up with no money?
	When he died, did he not know who your mom was and did he not leave you the money directly?
	Because he was in the process of making the will and he died before it was made and they just gave everything to her.
	Did he know he was dying?
	No, no, no.
	He had a heart attack really quite young.
	Everyone thought he was in really good health because he was very athletic and outdoorsy and slim and no one knew he had a problem.
	But he had a massive heart attack.
	Okay, so hang on.
	So if your father knew this about your mom and knew that you were excluded and knew that you were abused, how did it continue?
	Because, um...
	He preferred to not deal with things in front of me, and she always made sure she never had any witnesses.
	And I went to him once.
	You're killing me here.
	Come on.
	What do you think...
	This would never happen in a million years.
	What do you think I would do if my wife started beating and torturing my daughter?
	Um...
	You'd have to know.
	It's my job to know.
	I'm the parent.
	It's my job to know how my children are being treated.
	It's my damn job to know.
	If you left before breakfast and got home after dinner every day, you'd miss out on a lot.
	So I would have no clue about my wife's character at all.
	Not a clue.
	I think it took him a long time to realize what was going on.
	I do think he eventually realized.
	So what you're saying is he had no clue about your mom's character?
	No, I think it just...
	He was in denial and then he wasn't.
	So you get that you defend him, right?
	He's not responsible.
	I do think he was responsible because I think he was your traditional Catholic father who was trying to be...
	Both.
	The father and the husband.
	And the person who can never leave the wife.
	And she was always making threats about leaving.
	And he was always...
	Wait, she was making threats to him about leaving?
	Yeah, all the time.
	Well, there's a clue.
	There's a clue that she's not very stable.
	Yeah, she was a spoiled brat.
	She grew up in a very wealthy family.
	And she was a spoiled brat.
	And...
	Um, if she didn't get her way, she would just threaten the whole family with leaving or she would, uh, I can remember when she was 40.
	No, no, I'm not getting into stories about your mom.
	No, not getting into stories about your mom.
	So he knew, he knew she was a spoiled brat who threatened to detonate the family if she didn't get her way.
	And he thought she was a great mom.
	Right.
	So men are idiots in your view.
	Men are easily fooled by bad people, have no power to affect a positive outcome, and have no capacity to protect their children.
	I think he just always was in repair mode and just trying to go up and clean up the wreckage from the tsunami she was always leaving.
	I think he felt that that was his obligation.
	I think I know when I'm defeated.
	I think I know when I'm defeated.
	So obviously I will leave you with your perspective about your father.
	I think it's damaging.
	I think it's incorrect.
	But I've taken a good old college try at trying to dislodge this view of your father.
	I think it has a huge effect on who you date and the future happiness and capacity you have for love.
	Because I think it's not a realistic view of your father and his responsibility to protect his children from abuse and damage.
	But I've now probably asked 30 or 40 questions trying to elicit a different opinion.
	And maybe I'm completely incorrect, but I think I will have to leave this there.
	Okay, I just...
	The therapists I've been to have all said that, you know, I was dating my mother and I just guess I had that stuck in my head.
	Yeah, and don't let me talk about your therapist, but it seems to me that if you're looking, if you have problems with men, the first place to look is your relationship with your father, first and foremost.
	If you have problems with women, yeah, look at your mother, but the first place to look, I would say, would be your father.
	I've always said that there's a parent who harms, and then there's a parent psychologically that we let off the hook, and I don't think that's realistic.
	A marriage is a partnership.
	And either fathers are aware of the abuse, in which case they do nothing to stop it, or they're not aware of the abuse, in which case they are derelict in their duty as parents to protect their children.
	So, you know, you can't let your children down the road.
	I agree.
	Well, I didn't know there were cars coming, right?
	That's not an excuse, right?
	I agree, and I think they're both false.
	Okay.
	I appreciate it.
	Thank you so much.
	Hang on.
	You call your mom a spoiled brat and a bitch and you always defend your father.
	You've got to listen to the call back to hear it because you can't hear it while you're talking about it.
	But listen to the call back and hear it.
	Thank you everyone so much.
	I really appreciate your time.
	As always, fdrurl.com forward slash donate to help out this magnificent conversation with these magnificent listeners.
	And I hope you have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful week.

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