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Sept. 9, 2021 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
28:03
DON'T YOU DARE LOSE HOPE!
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Would you guys like some hopium?
Would you like some hope?
Would you like something positive to enjoy tonight?
Would you like to have a spring in your step and helium in your heart and be floating up into the stratosphere of pure joy and hope?
Would you like a little of that?
Because, you know, things can be kind of negative as a whole.
But I can tell you, I can tell you precisely.
What is going to happen and how great it's going to be.
The pandemic is our salvation.
I mean, as far as liberty goes.
Do you want to hear the reasoning?
You want to hear what's going to happen?
All right. Yes, hope is needed.
Yes, hope is the opposite of love, I heard.
So, yes, I will tell you what's going to happen.
What's going to happen is there are a lot of people who are skeptical of the state and who hold crypto.
And so a country, a region, a whatever, is going to emerge that is going to galt-skulch all of the smartest and wisest and wealthiest people in the liberty movement.
And they are going to find a way to bring the most productive and most intelligent and most liberty-loving people.
And how are they going to do that?
They're going to lure us there with liberty.
They're going to lure us there with freedom.
Because a lot of people, a lot of people I'm talking to are looking to get out.
Looking to get out of wherever they are.
Because, you know, they can see the steps that are coming, the writing on the wall.
This is not that complicated, not that hard to figure out, right?
Rudimentary, cursory understanding of history.
So, at some point, someone...
And maybe it's El Salvador.
The guy is super smart who's in charge of it, right?
And so at some point someone is going to say, holy crap, if I can lure these people to where I am with the breadcrumbs of liberty, it'll be the new Atlantis.
It will be the new Goldscotch.
If I can just figure out how to get these people to come.
If it's going to be citizenship based upon Bitcoin ownership, if it's going to be tax breaks based upon whatever, right?
There's going to be some place in the world, and probably more than one because they'll be competing with each other.
There's going to be some place in the world that is going to scoop up the digital nomads, put them in its economy, and become immensely wealthy.
You keep looking for that eruption.
It's going to come.
It's in the same way that America lured everyone in from the old world with freedom, with liberty, separation of church and state, Bill of Rights, Constitution.
So there is going to be a place, and they always emerge in history, there's going to be a place, especially now that people are so immensely portable, there's going to be a place where people get lured to on liberty.
And keep, yeah, whether it's Central Europe, whether it's someplace in Southern or Central America, someone is going to figure this out.
And it's not that hard to figure this out.
Someone is going to say, wait a minute, okay, we got a trillion dollar asset and massive portions of it are held by a relatively small number of people.
Okay, what do I need to do to bring those people here?
Now, some countries are already doing this under COVID. Like, if you look under digital nomad on the internet, you can go and find tons of places, a lot of tropical places, beautiful places.
They'll give you a year, they'll give you two years, you can come, you can work, it's very little taxes, it's a beautiful environment, you're on the beach, right?
So, and this just looking for digital nomads, right?
They're looking for people who can work anywhere and who want to escape whatever's going on with COVID, right?
So, at some point, I imagine the real inoculation, the real vaccine is being under communism for 70 years or 50 years, depending on Russia or Eastern Europe.
At some point, some country, some region, some land, some...
It's going to be like, it's going to put out the bat signal.
Come. It's going to be the Bitcoin signal.
Come here. Come here. Come here.
And we will build a new Atlantis together.
Whether it could be seasteading, it could be just about anything.
And there will be a brain drain, just as there is from, unfortunately, the third world countries to the first world countries, there will be a brain drain and people will just get out.
And, you know, because a lot of them will be white males, of course, because of whatever, right?
So... There is going to be a new Atlantis.
There is going to be a place.
Don't worry. Keep your eyes peeled.
Keep yourself mobile.
There will be a place to get to.
It's such a powerful opportunity and it's such an obvious opportunity.
Someone's going to do it.
Someone is going to do it.
And Panama has lower taxes than the US. Yeah.
Yeah. I don't know that it's going to be...
Oh, stream stops?
Back now? Yeah, so I don't know that it's going to be a place under a federal structure.
I consider it's always going to be Texas or whatever.
What was it? Colorado in Atlas Shrugged.
I don't think it's going to be some place under a federal structure.
And I'm not going to be...
It's all going to be legal stuff.
It's all going to be above the board and all of that.
But there is such a frustration with increasing restrictions, and there is now a very strong sense that there is no return to normal.
I mean, it's not, right? There's endless booster shots and vaccine passports that are going to morph into social credit scores, and it's all very predictable.
So there is such a hunger for a free place to go.
A place of freedom to go.
That someone, where there is enough of a market demand, somebody will supply.
Somebody will supply.
And that's really, really important to understand.
I mean, imagine if you could get a bunch of whales in the Bitcoin space or the Ethereum space or whatever.
Imagine if you could get a bunch of whales to come and set up shop in your country.
Imagine what that would do.
Imagine what that would be like. It would be amazing.
It would be amazing.
So, that is my hope.
Remember, things always look darkest before the dawn.
You understand all of that, right?
Things always look darkest before the dawn.
And if all you're doing is staring at the state, you will...
Right? You will be plowed under.
Be of good cheer. Be of good cheer.
Be of optimism.
There's nothing that is done as yet.
It's not over yet.
It's not done yet.
There are moves left that we can't even conceive of at the moment.
Do not give up hope.
Do not succumb to despair.
And for this, I will give you 5,000 lemons.
We're just going to hand it out here.
Just going to hand it out.
Here we go. Do not...
Do not succumb to the sin of despair.
Please, my friends, do not do it.
We have never had more capacity for freedom, never had more capacity for mobility, never had more capacity for the free movement of free-ish people to aggregate in a place where liberty can be rediscovered and shone as a giant light to the rest of the world who might follow suit as best they can.
Please, I'm begging you, don't give in to despair.
Don't let them win. Don't let them take down your joy.
Don't let them take down your happiness.
Don't let them take down your optimism.
Look, I've had the living crap beaten out of me all up and down the internet for 15, 16 years straight, and I wake up loving the day.
I wake up enjoying the day.
I wake up happy to be alive and excited about the future.
Please, please don't give in.
Please don't let them win.
Please don't let them plow you under.
Please don't let them put you into a spiritual grave before your body.
Turns to ash, please drill upwards like you are trying to crack through the ice to get a breath of air in order to survive.
Please don't let them win.
Of course they're trying to chisel back and they're trying to get you to despair and they're trying to get you to break down and they're trying to get you to fall down and give up and give in and they're trying to make it look like an understanding of the world and a thirst for liberty is its own punishment to drive anybody away from you, to make you full of so much negativity that your message can't inspire, can't grow, can't spread anywhere.
Still you must be a beacon!
You must hold strong!
In this world, you must hold strong!
It is not an option to fold and fade and give up.
I know. It's strong wind and there are nails and fireballs in it.
And it's hard sometimes.
I get that. I understand.
I understand. And you may give up on your country as your country.
I mean, you don't leave a country. Your country leaves you and you just recognize that.
But you don't give up on liberty and you don't give up on your happiness and you don't give up on your optimism.
Because then the light is out.
The light is out. You understand?
People are only able to navigate...
By the stars that we represent in the night sky.
If we go out, if we fuck off and fade out, people will have no capacity to navigate and they will be swallowed alive by the Leviathan, by the state.
Hold Fast.
Hold firm.
Continue to be optimistic.
It is a war of passion.
It is a war of optimism.
They're optimistic. They're going to control.
You must. You must be mobile.
You must be optimistic.
You must still be a light through which people can navigate this darkness.
Because if we go out, there's nothing left.
You understand? If they get to wet finger us, if we go out, there's nothing left.
Nothing. They win.
And a dark tide sweeps over humanity for how long?
With all the technology they have?
For how long? If they put us out, it might be thousands of years before the light returns.
We don't Who hold this literally sacred flame of freedom, of reason, of truth, philosophy, virtue, value.
We who hold this, we cannot let it go out.
How many people died to hand us this treasure?
How many? Dozens of people in my family alone died or shredded, hung on barbed wire.
Eaten from the inside out by mustard gas.
My mother was likely raped by communists.
Father's family, half destroyed, mostly destroyed in the First World War, and what was left from the First World War was taken out of the Second, just to give us this light.
You understand? Just to give us this light.
And we stare it in, we let it go out.
Do you know how long it took to gather the wood, to spark the fire, to light this light, and how many people have died to hand it to you?
And what would they say?
Looking down From heaven, what would they say about their sacrifice if you succumb to despair?
What would they say? I'm so glad I died so that you, with digital currency and a passport, could give up.
I didn't give up when the yellow mustard gas was rolling towards me, but you give up because there's a mask mandate.
No. Absolutely not.
No. Never.
There is always hope.
There are always options.
There is no excuse for falling from the line.
There is no excuse for For turning tail and burrowing into the sin of despair.
None! You stand up.
You stand firm.
You hold these values.
You hold these truths. You inspire people.
You keep this flame alight.
Oh, you're damned even worse than our enemies.
Even worse. Because they have no intention or desire or virtue in keeping this flame alight.
You let it go out, that's on you.
And if you've got to go some other place to keep the fire going, you go there.
But you don't give up.
You don't give up.
Ever. They can take a lot from you That cannot take your will to survive and your optimism to win.
Please, don't leave me alone here.
Don't leave your brothers and sisters alone here.
We all need each other so much.
We are all linked arm in arm.
Don't leave us.
Don't flee. Don't crumble.
Don't fall. If you do, we all do.
We all do. It doesn't take a lot for the tear, for the break to become a tear, to become a hole, to become a rout.
You wake up. You read the news.
And you say, yes, there are new challenges.
There are new problems.
But we can solve them.
And we can find a way.
We can find a way. Don't let them.
You know how much they want you to despair?
Do you know how much they want to wet finger the stars in the sky so humanity has absolutely nothing left to guide itself with?
Do you know how desperately they want that?
For everything to be dark.
For people to be in such a darkness that their eyes are useless and meaningless.
And it doesn't matter how far away the light is.
As long as you can still see it, there's something.
Your eyes still work.
There is a light somewhere.
Find a way. Get a community.
Strengthen your heart. Dig into your resolve.
And I would go one step further.
You won't believe me.
You won't believe me.
You won't believe me. It's like that line from the old Robbie Robertson song.
Thing is not to be afraid of it.
No, I'm not afraid of it.
I like it. It's good. She said, you like it now, but you'll learn to love it later.
What if instead of the sin of despair, you rise up, onward Christian soldiers, you rise up and you say, I embrace this.
I treasure it.
I am glad. I am glad that this intellectual challenge occurred within my lifetime with the internet, with inspirational figures who refresh me,
who inspire me, who I can in turn refresh and inspire, that I have a lusty enough throat that if I must sing the song of intellectual war, I'm glad that I was born with such a fantastic choir around me and so many opportunities to do good in this world.
St. Crispin's Day.
Henry V, that speech.
Look it up. That was a battle where the king said there will be many asleep in bed who wish that they were with us on this day.
Do you understand that in 500 years, in 1,000 years, in 10,000 years, they will look back at this moment of history and they will see who stood firm and who succumbed to despair, who folded, who caved, who dropped, who ran, who burrowed and buried themselves, and who did not?
Isn't it glorious?
To strike a match with the tinder of your mind that could be visible for 10,000 years.
Isn't it glorious to stand in the face of those who would take our liberties and argue and debate and reason and inspire?
No violence. No initiation of force.
No terrorism.
But no mere civilized will of rational integrity.
It's glorious.
Would you rather be 10,000 years from now in a free society, that's probably a little boring, a little bit complacent, a little bit routine.
And there will be people, particularly young men, of course, who look back at this moment in history and said, Oh God, what I wouldn't have given to be back there in the thick of things with these magnificent bastards.
As I wake up and look across my free city where I have things to do and, you know, we'll travel, we'll explore space and it's kind of neat and it's kind of cool, although there's a lot of barren planets out there.
But oh, God!
To have been back then.
When things hung by a thread.
When the future looked, at times, hopeless.
To be back there with them in that moment of deep glory and potential.
What I wouldn't give to be back there in that incredible fight of intellect and resolution.
What would you have given to be back putting out the fires at the Library of Alexandria?
What would you have given to be back voting on the trial and death of Socrates?
What would you have given to be back at the time of Jesus?
Those moments of high encapsulated drama and power in human history are incredibly rare and we're right in the heat and heart of it.
I would not Want to live in any other time.
I dream and yearn of the future that we can create through freedom and reason.
But I'd rather live here.
Now! Laying the foundations, building the basement up of what we can be.
My role in this fight is unclear.
To stand for truth, reason, evidence, principles, virtue, honesty, integrity, and don't back down in your conversations with people.
To shake them awake with the core gravitas of your resolution.
Right? To plant yourself so deeply in the rootedness of the world that the world will have to rotate around you if it is to continue moving at all.
That is what you do.
To push back against the rage and the resentment and the frustration and the hostility of the immature and the unwise and the easily manipulated.
Gandalf, Bridge, Balrog.
You understand? If you'd tell, we can't win that guy, he's too big.
There'd be no movie. There'd be no drama, no excitement.
You want to stand with Gandalf on that bridge?
Or do you want to live in the Shire and worry about people not returning books you lent them?
Be incandescent truth.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Do you see? The incandescent truth.
Have people's eyes adjust to a brighter world.
Have people recognize and realize the depth and power of their humanity, the infinite gift of infinite thought that has been bestowed upon us by a potentially accidental universe.
That at a time when we need a lamp Lightning strikes a tree, it bursts into flame, and it falls into our hand, and the torch is what we can navigate with.
That is the incredible impossibility of us being born at this time with these capacities and this technology, that we reach for something and it appears as if given us by the gods.
Oh, it burns! Run away to the dark.
No. No.
A thousand times no. You push back intellectually.
You push hard philosophically.
You wake people up with the intransigent resolution of your opposition to violence.
I can't do it.
You can't do it.
We can do it. Maybe.
Maybe. There has to be a maybe or there's no honor in it.
There's no honor in playing mini-pup with a two-year-old.
There has to be only a maybe or there's no honor and there's no grandeur.
There's no glory if it's a certain thing.
And you fight intellectually, rationally, philosophically.
And if the time comes where you cannot fight for reasons of safety, Then you find another way.
You find another place.
You retreat, regroup, and fight again.
That's what you do.
That's what you do. The small band of resolute people win.
I will give you an analogy from the military sphere which has nothing to do with what we're talking about intellectually or philosophically.
And this is amoral.
It's not a justification.
It's simply an analysis of power.
You look at Gandhi facing down the British Empire, the British Navy, the most powerful army and navy the world has ever seen.
You look at the Taliban facing down $700 billion plus a year, thousands of nukes, aircraft carriers.
The Taliban looking down the U.S. military saying, we got this.
We got it. Gandhi.
Yeah, we got it.
We'll win.
Are we facing that?
No.
Thank you.
We're facing disapproval.
We're facing hostility. We're facing lies.
We're facing slander. Which adds up to one.
Ooh, people have bad thoughts about me.
They're not scuds, right?
It's a glorious time.
It's a glorious time.
It's a time of high drama, high intellectual power, high potential, and the future is staring at us with bated breath.
Are they free or are they not?
Are they in liberty or in chains?
Bated breath. Does it go one way or the other?
They can't change it because they're in the future.
The past can't change it because they're in the past.
Only us, only we, can do it.
That is a sacred duty that has been handed to us at this inverted pyramid, this fulcrum of history.
To be peaceful. To be rational.
To have such deep integrity that the world slips its moorings and pursues a new path.
Hopefully never to return.
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