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July 14, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
19:32
The Truth About Voting: Part 2 | True News
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Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain Radio.
I hope that you're doing very well. This is True News!
Current Events Clarified, number 6, October 30th, 2008.
Voting, part 2.
Brutal, smiling ballot bribery.
Our good friend Hamlet has some wonderful things to say about the voting process and particularly the charisma of politicians.
Oh villain, villain, damn smiling villain!
My tables, meet it is I should set it down, that one may smile and smile and be a villain.
What am I talking about? What villainy is here revealed?
Well, this is how the government works, of course.
We have this essential called taxation.
Good, voluntaristic folks like you and I create value through the division of labor and specialization and trade in the free market.
We create lots of lovely money.
And what happens then is a certain group hives off, uses violence to create the state and take our money through the threat of force or imprisonment And what happens then is they take a small portion of the money that they take from us and they use it to pay the enforcers, the people who use the guns against us.
This is the standard model for any organized crime, of which the government is the most successful example.
And to use our friendly, I guess we'll call this Joe the Farmer, this example would be that I have a herd of cows, and from the profits that I accrue through milking and slaughtering them, I build fences around them.
And the fences, of course, are cheaper than the profits that I make from controlling them, and this is how it basically works.
Not to call farmers criminals, of course.
This is part one.
But the second way that the government will take your money is through inflation.
So again, here we have our lovely people who are creating all that lovely loot.
And what happens is there are times when the government does not want to spend money on enforcement or increase the amount of taxes because that causes people to get upset.
So they magically create all of this silly monopoly fiat money.
And what that does, of course, is it diminishes the value of your money.
This is the hidden tax called inflation, which occurs when you pump more money into a static provision of goods and services.
The value of each dollar declines, and that's another way that it works.
You say, well, this isn't directly violent.
Well, it is, but it's a little different, because what happens is...
If any private citizen attempts to do what the government calls an essential public service, which is to create money out of thin air, type stuff into a bank account, they, of course, are called, ooh, so evil, counterfeiters, and the gun is turned to point at these people.
The government doesn't want competition in the creation of magic money any more than the mafia wants competition in the extraction of protection money from helpless victims.
This, of course, is fraudulent and wrong.
It's exactly like a farmer diluting his milk with water and selling it for the same price.
Everyone gets less nutrition and he gets more money.
It's completely unjust. And then we have the magic world of debt.
This is the third major way in which the government will steal from you.
And we've got all these lovely people in the free market creating value voluntarily.
And the problem is that if the government increases its use of force directly to taxes more and so on, the value of what they receive per dollar spent on enforcement declines.
And that's not always what they want to do.
So if we introduce a magical, let's say, Chinese dragon that has the magical ability to create currency out of thin air, much like the federal government or the Fed, then this magical Chinese dragon will lend money to the US government.
And why will they lend money to the US government?
Well, in order to harvest the future taxes of US taxpayers, right?
Because that tax money is then shipped to the Chinese Dragon in the form of interest payments.
And to take our farm metaphor once more, this is like a farmer who takes out a loan based on the future earnings of his livestock's milk and their meat.
And this is another way that the government sells off your future for the sake of consumption in the present.
So how does this all tie into voting?
Well, let's have a look at how elections actually work.
So, again, a bunch of people, a bunch of money, you need both, otherwise there's nothing to steal.
And we have those who want to use violence to get stuff, and lots of people do, right?
I mean, it's easier than actually creating something and trading it in the free market, is to just go and steal.
And so we have corporations which are state-created and controlled enterprises.
Even if they're in the free market, a corporation is a way of limiting liability and was introduced in the 19th century in order to protect rich people from going broke.
We have unions, public sector, private sector unions, special interests of all kinds that you can imagine.
Now, the problem is that, of course, these groups...
Kind of want to take your money, right?
But they can't fund the gun themselves, right?
If they each come up with their own private army, it would actually not be profitable to take your money.
So they want to offload the cost of enforcement to the state, right?
And of course, if they all get their own army, which as I talk about in my free book, Practical Anarchy Couldn't Ever Happen, It would not be profitable.
There would also be endless civil war.
So that doesn't work, right?
For each of them to get their own gun doesn't work.
So they'll leave the money in your hands and what they'll do instead is they will turn to their friendly local government.
And they will take a small amount of their profits or some degree of their profits and they will give it to people who want to get into office, right?
And through that, the money is then through the monopoly of force that the government represents through the, you know, one police force, one army, one court system, one jail, no competition, no efficiency, no optimization.
Then the money goes to the government and the government then use it to pay off the special interests.
And this really is what voting is.
The relationship is not you and the state, but the state and the special interests.
So I think it's really, really important to remember because there's lots of talk floating around during an election about everything the government is going to give you, every wonderful goody that the government is going to give you.
But the government no more produces money than the mafia produces voluntary goods and services.
Violence produces nothing except destruction.
The government has no money to give you.
The government has no money to give you.
Repeat after me, right?
It's very, very important to remember.
The government can only return portions, small portions, dribs and drabs of the money it has first given.
Stolen from you, right?
So this is the important basic reality to remember.
It's like the mafia gives gifts to their victims.
You know, it's like, you know, hey, I took $10,000 from you, Mr.
Restaurateur, but hey, I'll send you a gift basket at Christmas.
Possibly the worst accent ever done.
And the problem is that this actually turns us against each other.
So what happens is the government takes the money from everyone and then dangles it in front of people.
And this turns us against each other.
Like, well, if you get it, I don't get it.
And if you get it, I don't get it.
So we end up squabbling amongst ourselves.
Like starving ducks with a few bits of bread thrown down.
We don't ever look at the fence around us and the control and the violence as a whole.
We're just fighting amongst ourselves to pick up these scraps, which is pretty pitiful.
So here's some examples. You could get them from Nader, from Obama, from McCain, from the Green Party, any one you want, but we'll just pick the two biggies, right?
Ah, what is Obama going to do?
Enact a windfall profits tax to provide a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to American families.
Ooh, look, goodies. Look, they're bribing you with your own money.
Oh, here's another one. $50 billion to jumpstart the economy and prevent 1 million Americans from losing their jobs.
You see, if you put caps, it suddenly becomes real.
Oh, and invest $150 billion over 10 years, right?
To advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure.
The Obama-Biden plan will increase funding for federal workforce training programs, create a national infrastructure reinvestment bank.
And they support doubling federal funding for basic research.
And this is all nonsense.
It's a fairy tale. You know, they might as well say, you know, we will send you a dozen pixies and half a dozen unicorns every day.
They don't have anything to give you.
They don't create anything.
It's all stolen money, right, through taxes, through deficit financing, or through inflation.
It's all a shell game.
They have nothing to offer you.
It's all an illusion. But they, of course, always talk in terms of voluntarism.
The guilt and shame and ugliness and violence of the state is always revealed.
Through this language of voluntarism, we can imagine that every rapist imagines that his victim really wants it and says it was a date.
In the same way, this coercive violence that is used to fund everything that the state does is always reframed as, you know, we're going to invest, reinvestment, infrastructure reinvestment, we're going to create this, we're going to increase this funding, but this all turns as if they actually have something to offer you, which they don't.
So here's some examples from our good friend Cranky Pants McCain.
Well, John McCain proposes a one-year spending pause to evaluate programs.
Well, I mean, this has nothing to do with saving you money.
This has everything to do with increasing the power of the presidency, right?
So if he pauses spending on all programs, what he's going to have is a whole bunch of, you know, like vulture chicks.
Ah! Ah! Give me some worms, right?
They're all going to be pestering and begging him to increase their funding.
And so there's going to be a feeding frenzy on the power of John McCain to increase the power of the presidency.
It's got nothing to do with saving your money.
Oh, he's interested in buying up bad mortgage loans, converting them into low interest FHA insured loans.
So he's going to bribe you, you know, after completely shafting you economically with all of the stuff that I talked about in the previous video on the housing market.
They may throw you a few shekels.
So after they put your home in danger, they may throw you a few shekels.
After they have set fire to your home, they might give you a bucket of water.
Summer gas tax holiday, which will do nothing but ensure shortages.
And, of course, what is so magically wonderful about the summer that they shouldn't steal your money at gunpoint.
But in the fall, winter, and spring, the ethics reverse themselves.
I don't think that they can do that to gravity.
They also can't do it to ethics.
Student loan continuity plan, right, to snatch up the young souls who might otherwise be drawn to the admittedly charismatic Obama.
Oh, this one. No American should be denied access to quality and affordable coverage for healthcare simply because of a pre-existing condition.
Well, this is all complete madness.
It's very beneficial for those who didn't take out insurance when they were healthy.
But all of this is going to do is jack up the price of healthcare.
I mean, if... Imagine if you didn't have to buy a million dollar health insurance until you were on your deathbed at the age of 90 and it cost you 200 bucks a month or 150 bucks a month.
Well, you would give them 150 or 200 bucks a month and you would get a million dollars, right, in terms of your life insurance.
The whole point of insurance is it's a hedge against the risk, right?
So you pay when you're healthy and then you collect when you're sick.
If you can't be denied because of a pre-existing condition, all that's going to happen is people won't take out health insurance until they're sick, which will drive up the premiums for everyone, and then of course everybody will blame the free market.
Debt relief. This is an interesting one, I think.
So, both Obama and McCain are for cancelling third-world debt, you see, because it is unsustainable, it harms the people, undermines the infrastructure, reduces the education, and people are not responsible for state debt, so when a government ends up in too much debt, we should just cancel the debt, because that's the morally right thing to do, and it might get me a private concert from Bono.
Well, uh... If it's good for Uganda and it's good for Ghana, why is it not good for you?
Why not cancel US debts?
If you can repudiate government debts when they become unsustainable, unpayable, it's bad for the people, destroys the infrastructure, enslaves the population.
Why is it morally good for Ghana and morally bad for Arkansas?
It makes no sense whatsoever if you think that they have any interest whatsoever in helping you out financially.
The same principles apply.
U.S. debts, unsustainable harms the people.
They're not responsible for state debts, harms education, healthcare, infrastructure.
Of course, your income tax is only going to pay the interest on the national debt, so why not just repudiate it?
And then they don't have to give you these little tax credits, these manipulative little things like, you know, if you put your money in here, we won't tax it quite as much as if you put...
They don't need to do any of that. Because you get 20, 30, 40% of your income back right away.
Just repudiate the debt. They already advocated it for other countries.
Why not for you? Madness.
This is a form of indentured servitude.
This is what they used to do with sharecroppers.
Just simply load them down with debt and end up owning them forever.
And we've had an 18-month election cycle.
It's not been talked about once!
This is very important.
This is the magical crap that you're being forced to eat and live in, if you want.
Look, if they're not going to stop stealing from you, then all they have left is to bribe you.
That's all they have left is to bribe you.
That's why I call it a matter of pride.
It's just a matter of pride.
Don't bribe me.
Don't rip out my kidney and then offer to give me a dialysis machine at reduced rates.
I mean, at some point, we just have to stand tall and stop begging.
And stop pretending to participate and giving them sanction for what it is that they're doing and groveling for our pennies back from these rapacious sociopaths.
Letting go of voting, letting go of this fantasy that you will become free by attempting to get people to point the gun at other people.
We've got to let go of this fear and greed.
Government operates on fear and greed.
I say, oh, well, if my guy doesn't win, the other guy is going to destroy the country and harm me and continue the war and blah, blah, blah.
Well, it's nonsense.
Both guys are going to harm you.
The entire system harms you.
The whole system is around pillaging you.
Vaguely intelligent cows don't say, I want one farmer over another.
They say, I want my freedom.
I won't settle for anything less.
I'm not going to play this game.
They say, oh, well I want to vote to get some money back or to prevent other money from being taken.
You can't get any money back.
There's no money to get back.
There is no money. They have no money.
It's gone. It's spent. You can't get it back.
All you can do is get them to print more, which ensures inflation.
Or they're going to increase your taxes.
Or they're going to borrow.
You can't get the money back.
There's no money. There's no money.
Look, don't sell your future.
Don't sell the future of your children for a few pennies on the dollar that was originally yours.
The whole system is corrupt. It needs to be changed.
We need to go to voluntarism.
We need to. This is not going to work.
This goal, this idea that we are going to vote ourselves into becoming free, we're going to participate in this coercive, brutal and criminal system and magic fairy dust and pixies and flying unicorns and daisies and freedom is going to sprout.
From the shell craters of increased violence, it's just a fantasy.
And I hate to say it. I'm not making anything up.
Americans have tried to limit the power of the state for 300 years, trying to control the government for 300 years.
It just grows and grows and grows.
I'm just pointing out the inevitable facts, the basic empirical reality.
It's not going to work. It's not going to work.
And I know that's startling.
I know that's frightening. I know that's unsettling.
But we need to pry ourselves away from these mad delusions if we're actually going to help the world become a better place for our children.
Violence is not going to work.
Attempting to get people, yelling at people to point the gun at someone else is not going to set you free.
Voting is not going to work.
It's not going to work. Because the whole point of the state, right, the whole point of the state, why it never works, is that it avoids the basic reality of the state, which is that we have people, we have people in government, and we have what I call the gun in the room, and I've done some podcasts on this.
The whole point of voting is to pretend that there's no gun in the middle, right?
That it's voluntary, it's participatory, it's democracy, it's an orderly transition of power, it's a public-private enterprise, it's this.
I mean, they always use these words.
They don't use violence and voluntary.
They use public and private, too innocuous sounding.
Oh, it's a government partnership with unions and business.
All they're ever trying to do is to get you to not see and talk about the gun that is in the room.
Say there's an elephant in the room, a dysfunctional family, and everybody edges around this elephant.
Well, everybody looks at this interaction and ignores the gun in the room.
And voting is a way of pretending there's no gun in the room.
And if we're ever going to diminish the use of violence to achieve solutions to social problems, which never solves anything, makes them worse, we have to accept and recognize the basic reality that the government is based on coercion and that we are using coercion to try and solve complex social problems, which is never going to work and is only going to ever make things work and the violence is going to continue to expand.
Until, right, the best disinfectant is sunlight.
We point out repeatedly the gun in the room and we don't participate under the threat of violence.
And that really is what the state is about, what the participation called voting is about.
Just have to keep pointing this out.
Any dysfunctional interaction continues until one party stops.
And I can tell you it's not going to be there.
For sure. So it's up to you.
It's up to you. Thank you so much for watching.
I really do appreciate it.
If more on Philosophy of Freedom, you know this, blah, blah, blah.
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Thank you so much. And I hope that you will spend next Tuesday talking to people about freedom or at least just telling your children that you love them.
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