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July 14, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
05:01
60 Minutes: The Evil Banana Empire
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Hi everybody, it's Defend Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio.
I hope that you're doing well.
We're going to try a new little item out for a spin.
This is Current Events.
I was watching 60 Minutes last night and saw reports on the evil Banana Empire and thought that this would be quite an instructive thing to have a quick look at.
So it was 11th May 2008, 60 Minutes story.
In Colombia, Chiquita Brands, the banana people, acknowledged that they had paid nearly $2 million in protection money to a murderous paramilitary group that has killed or massacred many, many people, threatened 50 of their own employees.
They decided to pay, over the period of many years, about $2 million in protection money to avoid the initiation of the use of force against them.
And then it went and confessed this once these groups were put under the category of terrorists by the Department of Justice in the United States.
And they went and confessed that they had paid protection money to these paramilitary groups or a paramilitary group and then was fined twenty five million dollars by the Department of Justice.
So let's just run through this so we're clear and make sure that we understand the equation.
Basic equation.
Chiquita plus $2,000,000 in Colombian violent extortion over many years equals evil.
On the other hand, Chiquita, plus a one-time $25,000,000 violent extortion from the Department of Justice equals good, angelic, and infinitely positive.
So this is a very important thing to understand when it comes to looking at the moral nature of the world.
Threatening people if you're a paramilitary group and requiring money from them otherwise you will kidnap and imprison them is one thing and it's evil.
But if you're the Department of Justice you can do exactly the same thing and it can be a heaven-sent moral good.
So why is Chiquita getting sued?
Well, the argument goes something like this.
Chiquita gives money to Colombian military people which they then use to kill people and therefore Chiquita is considered to have blood on its hands because it has allowed itself to be violently extorted by a group with guns that goes off and kills other people.
Let me do my magic.
On the other hand, Chiquita gives money to the U.S.
government, which then uses it to go overseas and... Oh, yes.
Oh, yeah, indeed.
As you can see down there, create a lot of skulls.
But it's different because the skulls on the bottom are... Okay, there's no difference whatsoever, but they are at least lower down on the screen.
Very, very different, you see.
So clearly the problem is the word para.
And let's just spend a minute or two examining this.
So if we look at a word like paradox, it's kind of brain twisty, it's bad.
If your scientific or mathematical theory results in a paradox, it's considered a failure.
So paradox is bad.
But if you take the word para out of the equation, what do you get?
Well, you get a nice pair of comfortable boating shoes.
So that is a vast improvement.
If we look at something else, see paranormal It's kind of freaky.
It's ghostly, it's scary, it creaks in the haunted house at night, and we consider this bad.
However, if you take the word para out of that, what you get, of course, is a normal, all-American, healthy, clean-cut... Oh, maybe that's not such a...
Not such a good example.
So, let's get rid of that one.
Let's look at parasite.
And parasite, clearly, is a bad word.
It's things which suck the lifeblood out of you and cause great damage to your health.
So parasite is bad.
Ah, but on the other hand, if we take the word para out of that, what we get is clear and accurate vision.
Which is good.
We get sight, we get accuracy, and we get all of the wonders of philosophy.
So that is a positive thing.
So, just to remember, when you are looking at these kinds of moral questions, it's fairly easy to unravel them.
Para is a magical moral reversal prefix.
I have actually trademarked that, although I don't believe in copyright.
So paramilitary, para, equals evil.
Military, though, equals good.
Or, another way of putting it is evil equals evil.
But, para-evil Equals good.
If you think I'm wrong, I'm not at all wrong.
What I am is para-wrong, which is exactly the same as being right.
Thank you so much for watching.
I hope that this has cleared it all up for you and not resulted in any paradoxes, but instead comfortable boating shoes.
Drop by freedomainradio.com for more on the philosophy of personal and political liberty.
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