My Son: Klan Reformer - A Political Fable

By Stefan Molyneux
Host, Freedomain Radio
http://www.freedomainradio.com/

Ah, my son, my son…

He’s 40 years old, and really needs to change careers.

When he was 20, he joined the Ku Klux Klan, because he was concerned that the Klan was getting too big, too aggressive. In those days, they were lynching some poor man every week, which he felt was wrong. He felt that the Klan should limit itself to a lynching every month, and that things were getting waaaay out of hand.

I’ve spent my life arguing that the Klan should be abolished, so I had mixed feelings about his decision. Without a doubt, I would rather the Klan lynch someone once a month rather than once a week, so I was somewhat tempted by his ‘work from the inside’ approach, but I had some significant doubts that it could work.

“But dad,” he said, those many years ago, “I can get the word out that the Klan should only be lynching someone once a month, rather than once a week, which will be a step in the right direction, right?”

“Well, I’m not sure,” I said uneasily. “Won’t people be getting the message that lynching is good, rather than that lynching is bad? You’re legitimizing the principle.”

“But I want to reduce the number of lynchings, dad!” he replied. “In an ideal world, sure, there should be no lynchings at all, but I’m going to bring that number down, which is a step in the right direction, right? I mean, it’s better if fewer people get lynched, right?”

I was uneasy, because something just sort of – seemed wrong with his approach, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

For the past twenty years, my son has been notorious in the Klan. He draws a paycheck, goes to meetings – and has been given control over his very own district of Klan loyalists.

To his credit, whenever the Klan Council votes on whether to have a lynching, my son usually votes ‘no.’ Often he’s the only one casting a negative vote.

Still, since he joined the Klan with the goal of reducing lynching, lynching has gone up and up and up.

Now, the Klan that 20 years ago only lynched a man a week is now lynching a man a day.

And my son’s district? Has he been able to reduce the lynching in the area he has control over?

No. In fact, the lynching in his own district has actually gone up over the years.

When I ask him about this, his answer is always the same: “Sure, dad, but I don’t have that much control over who gets lynched in my district. I oppose it, of course, but there’s not a whole lot I can do.”

A few months ago, my son came over and told me he was running for Grand Wizard.

“If I become Grand Wizard,” he said, “I will be able to veto most of the lynchings that come up for a vote. Then I’ll really have the power to reduce the number of people getting killed or beaten up.”

“But son!” I exclaimed in horror. “People – other than you, let’s say – only join the Klan so they can lynch people. If all they want to do is lynch people, why on earth would they vote you in? And if you somehow got in, the moment you stopped them from lynching, they’d just toss you out! If you stop the Klan from lynching, it’s not the Klan anymore!”

“No,” he said earnestly, “it’s still the Klan – it’s just a smaller Klan that lynches less!”

“Twenty years ago,” I said softly, “you said that in a perfect world, there would be no lynching at all…”

“Sure,” he said, coloring slightly. “But I can’t talk about that. About there being no lynching at all. I mean, that would be mad – I’d never get elected Grand Wizard!”

“Right, so you’re on a ‘pro-lynching’ platform, you just want less lynching.”

“Yes,” he said, nodding vigorously, immune to irony.

“So it’s wrong to lynch a lot, but it’s right to lynch a little.”

“Well, ideally, there should be no lynching at all…”

“But that’s not what you’re telling people. You’re telling people that the right thing to do is lynch less.”

“Sure – because less lynching is better than more lynching.”

“But no lynching is better, right?”

“Yes, in an ideal world…”

“So why don’t you tell people that? That you want to take over the Klan in order to abolish it!”

He laughed. “Oh, I don’t think that’s the right idea. Right now, we need the lynchings. We need the Klan. It’s just gotten too big.”

Round and round we went, from pragmatism to principle, back and forth… It was most exasperating!

After a public debate where my son roused a real ruckus by openly stating that the reason that certain minorities hated whites was because of white support for the Klan that lynched them, his numbers shot up from somewhere near 0% to around 3%.

He came right over, ecstatic. “I’m really getting the message out, dad!”

I grimaced. “Well – I hate to say this, son, but I think you just shot yourself in the foot.”

“Wh – what?” His voice hardened instantly.

“You say that minorities hate the Klan because of the lynchings, right?”

“Right!”

“But the number of lynchings has gone up like five or six times since you joined the Klan – and the number of lynchings in your district has also gone up!”

“But I vote against most of the lynchings!”

“But son! You are in the Klan! You support lynchings! How can you say that the Klan is immoral?”

“Because, as I’ve said about ten thousand times over the past twenty years, dad, there’s too much lynching!”

“So you think that minorities will love you now? When you say they have every right to hate the lynching that you support less of? My God son – when did it happen that the best possible outcome a good man could hope for was to present himself as the lesser of two evils?”

“Because change has to be gradual, dad!” he cried out. “Has your podcasting and scribbling stopped even one lynching? At least I’m out in the real world trying to get something done!”

“And what, after twenty years, have you achieved? You said to me, long ago, ‘Dad, I’m in this to reduce the numbers of lynchings. And you’ve been taking Klan money and hanging out with these thugs for decades, and what is the outcome? More lynchings. More Klan power! So what have you achieved?”

He jumped up. “Well, yeah, sure, there are more lynchings now, but can you imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t joined the Klan? Instead of just one lynching a day, there could be two or three!”

“How do you know that? That’s just something you tell yourself, so you don’t feel that you compromised your principles for nothing. There’s no evidence of that!”

“I’ve voted against most of the lynchings!”

“And the lynchings happened anyway! And still you stay with these thugs!”

Suddenly he changed tactics. “Why do you care so much what I do? We’re both for less lynching, we’re both on the same side of the fence, we shouldn’t be fighting each other.”

“But you are fighting me,” I said softly. “Don’t you understand that?”

There was a long silence. Our mutual anger was spent.

“What do you mean?”

“Son, you think that lynching should be reformed, I think it should be abolished. It’s like slavery.” I sighed. “In the 19th century, a lot people were very uneasy about slavery. Deep down, they knew that it was wrong. But they also were afraid of real change. And there were two groups: the reformers and the abolitionists. The reformers promised people that slavery could be made more humane, that the slaves could be treated better, beaten and raped less – and so slavery did not have to be eliminated. They worked to pass laws against the extreme mistreatment of slaves, held rallies, raised money – an enormous amount of time, energy and resources were wasted trying to reform slavery. And, as they worked and worked, for decades and decades, more slaves got beaten and raped, conditions got worse and worse, and – the worst thing in my view – people uncomfortable with slavery were given the comforting illusion that it did not have to be abolished.

“The abolitionists, on the other hand, knew that slavery could not be reformed, that is was evil through and through, and that it had to be abolished. And their most dangerous opponents were not those who were unabashedly pro-slavery. Their most dangerous opponents were the reformers.”

He rolled his eyes. “So – you’re saying that I’m your enemy now?”

“No, because we’ve never had this conversation. And for that I’m sorry. But what you’re doing, what you’ve been doing for twenty years, is telling people that the Klan can be good if only the right person is in charge. You’re giving people false hope, because the Klan can never be good. And so they shrink back from abolishing the Klan, because that seems extreme, because here’s this smart, well-spoken person who’s been in the Klan for twenty years, who’s saying that the Klan is good and necessary, and all we have to do is put him in charge of it. So when I come along and say that the Klan is immoral, and needs to be abolished, you know what people say to me? They say, ‘Nahhh, I’m going to support your son, he has great plans to reform the Klan, I agree with a lot of what he says, there is too much lynching – we don’t have to abolish the Klan, that’s too extreme.’ And that’s been going on for the last twenty years, son. You’re giving people a false choice that helps them avoid the necessity of change, from confronting the evil in their midst. And you legitimize the Klan by claiming to be a good man and being part of it. I’m telling you this from the bottom of my heart, son: if you did not exist, the Klan would have to invent you.”

There was a long pause.

“All right, dad,” said my son eventually, raising his eyes to mine. “I’ll drop my run for Grand Wizard. On one condition.”

“Anything!” I cried out, overjoyed.

“You drop your support for Ron Paul.”

Man, Family and State

About a year and a half ago, I started recording libertarian podcasts in my car during my drive to and from work. It seemed like a fun way to kill the time in traffic, and it also gave me a chance to help clarify my thoughts with regards to various issues that people had written to me about after my first articles were published on Lew Rockwell. At first, my podcasts were largely concerned with the economics of anarcho-capitalism, and details regarding the implementation of my theory of Dispute Resolution Organizations (DROs), and how they could replace existing state functions.

I was impressed at how quickly this turned into a very involved philosophical conversation. At first, a few thousand podcasts a month were downloaded -- then, this figure began to rise inexorably. In March of 2007, 200,000 Freedomain Radio podcasts were downloaded, and tens of thousands of videos were viewed.

The Internet is a wonderful medium for philosophy, because it can instantly distribute ideas to hundreds of thousands of people, and through messageboards, can stimulate fascinating discussions on the resulting topics. Plus, philosophy was originally an oral art form, designed to be spoken and discussed, not just read.

Also, because of the amount of time people spend doing things which preclude reading, but which do not preclude listening, such as going to the gym, doing groceries, doing laundry, going for a walk, or driving, podcasts can reach interested parties in a way that books never can.

The rigor of this new philosophical conversation was far beyond anything I had experienced before. As a community, we certainly talked about economics, politics and contemporary events, but it quickly became evident to me that where there is disagreement on fundamentals, there can be no real agreement on details -- and that, relative to metaphysics, epistemology and ethics, politics is a mere detail.

So, with the help of the listeners, I began to define the methodologies that we could use to help determine truth from falsehood -- largely based on the scientific method, empirical observations and rigorous logic. And we made great progress, or so it seemed...

And then, my wife got involved.

My wife, a practicing psychotherapist, said something extraordinary to me after reading one of my tracts on moral philosophy and the evils of the state. Looking up, she said, "It all starts with the family."

It all starts with the family.

We mulled this over for some weeks, and then I decided to expand the conversation from philosophy to psychology and, in conjunction with my wife, began to trace our susceptibility to statism from our very first experiences of family life. In a series of podcasts, I put forth the proposition that the state is merely an effect of the family, and thus in order for libertarianism to really take root and flourish within society, what was required was not only a reevaluation of man, state and society, but a rigorous moral examination of the most essential social unit: the family.

This is when the conversation really began to take off!

I received hundreds of e-mails from people about their experiences of authority within their own families, within the school system, within churches and other cultural institutions, which in general supported the role that our personal experiences with authority plays in our later susceptibility to impersonal authority, in the form of the state.

So far, this new direction seems to be really bearing fruit. If our adult susceptibilities to political hegemonies are rooted in our childhood experiences of authority, this helps explain why decades of talking about the evils of the state has done precious little to prevent the growth of the state. If statism is primarily an emotional reaction, or psychological defense mechanism, rather than a rational deduction, then it cannot be opposed with logical argument alone, but rather must be patiently undone through empathy and introspection.

Naturally, to many this all sounds too ridiculous to be believable! Responding to the statement "I believe that the state is both moral and necessary," with the question "Tell me about your parents," seems like a blinding non sequitur. However, it can be a very powerful approach, since it is based on a simple and empirical observation:

No rational examination of the evidence would lead any sane man to statism -- yet statism is the default position in society. Since statism is so blatantly irrational, it cannot have become so widespread through rational argument. Thus, there must be another source to the pervasive belief in the virtues of governments.

To many libertarians, the answer seems clear: children are turned into statists in public schools, where conformity and a deep, fearful "respect" for arbitrary authority is instilled day after day.

However, this cannot be the full extent of the story. Anyone who has spent any time around toddlers during the "terrible twos" knows that the willpower and independence of very young children is a near-superhuman force. It strains credibility to imagine that a single kindergarten teacher can restrain in 30 children the force that two parents find difficult to deal with in one child.

Thus it must be that many children are delivered into the public school system with their independence already undermined, and filled with unease in the face of arbitrary authority.

This lesson can only have come from their parents.

This does not mean that all parents are malevolents beasts out to destroy their children, but rather that the virtue of subjugating oneself to arbitrary authority -- which is another way of saying that arbitrary authority is always virtuous -- tends to reproduce itself generation by generation. Children who are subjugated to the mere authority of their parents -- without reference to objective values -- tend to grow up with a blind spot about the dangers of arbitrary power, and to assume its virtue in the absence of evidence.

This approach also helps explain another baffling aspect of libertarianism -- why people take political arguments so personally. How many times have you been involved in political or economic discussions with someone who gets irrationally offended by your arguments? Unless you are Condoleeza Rice, if you and I are discussing foreign policy, it has about as much relevance to our daily decisions as the existence of a gas planet orbiting Alpha Centauri. People rarely get offended about mathematics, but economics and politics seems to light an enormous fuse in far too many people.

At Freedomain Radio, the theory which may explain this goes something like this:

• When most people are talking about the government, they are really talking about their parents.
• When you criticize the government, most people unconsciously interpret that as you criticizing their parents.
• If you equate government power with immorality, most people unconsciously hear you saying that their parents are evil.

This theory, while it might seem outlandish, has proven to be remarkably accurate in practice -- but there is no reason to take my word for it! One of the amazing things about philosophy is that we get to work with empirical data from our own lives. Both I and hundreds of board members at Freedomain Radio have found this to be a very powerful and effective way of figuring out whether it is possible to have a rational discussion with someone about philosophy, economics, or politics -- but you can easily determine for yourself whether this approach has any value. Just ask about the personal history of those you debate with, and see if any patterns emerge.

When we talk about the state, we are really talking about authority, which is nothing more or less than the power that one person has over another. When children are young, each family operates as a kind of "mini state." Just as, in the democratic ideal, states exists to serve and protect their citizens, in the familial ideal, parents exist to serve and protect their children. Just as citizens are considered participatory members of the state -- though ultimately subject to its authority -- so children are considered to be participatory members in the family -- though ultimately subject to the authority of the parents. The ideal within the democratic paradigm is that the more virtuous citizens are, the less authority the state is justified in wielding. The same is true in the familial ideal -- parental authority should only be exercised when children are acting badly. From Socrates onwards, the goal of an ideal state has always been considered the same -- to inculcate virtue in its citizens, and thus reduce or eliminate the need to exercise authority over them. The same is true in ideal parenting, which has always been considered the process of inculcating virtue in children, so that parental controls and authority can be relaxed -- and ideally, eliminated.

However, libertarians understand that the modern state does not follow the democratic ideal -- in fact, it acts in direct contradiction to it. If the power of the state is inversely proportional to the virtue of its citizens -- in other words, the more moral people are, the less state power is required -- then clearly there is one sure method to increasing the power of the state, which is to make citizens more and more immoral -- either within their own minds, or in reality. If citizens can be convinced that immorality is on the rise, and the power of the state can be "legitimately” expanded, under the illusion that an increase in state power will reverse the trend towards decadence.

Of course, as libertarians well know, quite the reverse is true. Increases in state power -- banning drugs, the welfare state etc -- always lead to increases in immorality -- both real and imagined -- and thus a vicious circle is created wherein the state feeds its own increase, a process which generally only ends in bankruptcy and collapse.

But where is it that people get the idea that power is legitimized by the immorality of those it controls? This idea must already have been absorbed by the time the children go to public school, since public-school teachers merely capitalize on this belief.

It must come from parents -- and this is primarily not the fault of parents, but rather of philosophers.

Societies which do not have an objective and commonly understood methodology for determining truth and falsehood, good and evil, inevitably have to end up substituting authority for virtue. Statism leads to war, science leads to conferences. If, to educate children in what they should and should not do, parents have to end up invoking authority rather than objective values, then the best that they can do is to teach their children to be obedient, not to be moral. To conform, not to think. To bully or be bullied, but not to approach others as equals.

How many times do children hear these clichés of parenthood? “Don't be selfish.” “Share.” “Be Nice.” “Be Polite.” “Be Considerate.” “Think of others.” "Don't push." And so on and so on and so on. All of these injunctions to children are mere orders, empty of meaning, thought or reasoning. The silent expression at the end of all of these orders to children is “because I'm telling you to.” Children cannot ask "why," because there is no answer. Parents cloak these orders in the moral authority of objective values, but cannot explain how they came about, and so strenuously resist being questioned.

Thus the greatest sin for children becomes disobedience, not irrationality. The worst thing that they can do is not fail to think or examine evidence, but to defy the will of those in authority.

And what is the will of their parents based on? Objective reality? Rational values? Of course not. The will of their parents is based on the expectations of everyone else. Conformity with social norms becomes the eternal absolute, a dog chasing its own tail.

If children have this experience with their parents, how will they experience the state when they become adults? Will they be able to say that values exist independent of authority, which authority itself must be subject to? It seems unlikely -- almost impossible -- given their own experiences with their parents. Most people do not have the willpower or intellectual strength to create values independent of their personal histories. In the realm of values, most of us just blindly reproduce what came before. Great philosophers are as rare as great scientists, and expecting the average population to reach such heights is like asking everyone to be a movie star.

Once children learn that morality is conformity with the will of those in authority, this allegiance is easily transferred to the State through the public school system.

And then, when some libertarian comes along, equating the state with evil, unconscious defenses rear their ugly heads, since what is really happening is that the original and irrational authority of the parents is being questioned. This is why people react to arguments about the immorality of the state as if you were waving a hot poker in their face.

As my wife said, "It's not about the state. It all starts with the family.”

Having come to this realization, we have spent the last year or so in the Freedomain Radio conversation attempting to find ways to get through these psychological defenses, so that we can have rational debates about the nature of authority and virtue without provoking aggressive or defensive reactions in people. We've had some good successes, though there is always further to go!

I invite you to join in this conversation, because I think it is essential. I am as passionate and committed an anti-statist as I was I was 16, but I think that now I have some new and powerful tools, both for understanding why this conversation has been so difficult in the past, and how to make it far, far easier in the future. If we understand the emotional and personal sensitivity of these issues for others, we can design our conversation to get to the real root of the issues, rather than dealing with the mere symptoms, and focus on personal freedom first.

We cannot make men free by getting rid of the state. But we can get rid of the state by making men free.

The Hypocrisy of Gun Control

Stefan Molyneux
Host, Freedomain Radio
www.freedomainradio.com

As we saw with the Virginia Tech shootings, whenever guns are pointed at the wrong people, by the wrong people, the knee-jerk reaction is to want to ban guns. There are two important aspects to the question of gun control, however, which have not been discussed in the recent anti-gun hysteria.

Most gun control arguments are based on the “argument from effect,” or the belief that the question can be settled by appealing to evidence. In general, the question runs thus:

• Do guns promote crime or diminish it?

Unfortunately, the “argument from effect” can never decisively answer any question – just as, in the absence of a theory of gravitation, measuring the falling rate of individual items does little good. Rocks fall down, helium balloons fall up, and no progress is made.

The question of gun control can only be settled in relation to a logical theory of morals, and to an appeal to incontrovertible evidence. Let's step through two examples of this in action.

Incontrovertible Evidence
If you ask someone whether it is moral to sell handguns for profit to known criminals, the answer is almost invariably “no” (and if it isn't, RUN!). If handguns are ideally used for self-defense, selling them to active criminals can be considered a fairly negative act.

How would we feel about a man who made his fortune selling guns to a mass murderer? Would we put him in charge of disarming a country? What if he also sold RPGs and tanks and chemical weapons to known mass murderers?

Yet this is exactly what governments do, by selling billions of dollars of weapons to despotic tyrants the world over – and the US government leads the pack in this blood-profiteering.

If it is wrong to make profits selling arms to criminals, then we must abolish the government, not give it additional powers to disarm us. If it is not immoral to sell arms to anyone – even criminals – then gun control is a non-issue.

Logic

In general, the argument for gun control comes down to this.

• Guns are used to commit crimes.
• A crime is defined as the initiation of violence against a peaceful citizen.
• Thus guns must be restricted or banned, in order to reduce crime.

It is easy to see the illogic of this argument. How does the government go about banning guns? Why, by initiating violence against those who possess them “illegally.” Thus there is no way to ban guns without initiating the use of force – in other words, a certain crime must be committed for the sake of possibly preventing an unknown crime at some point in the future. We might as well jump off a cliff when we are 20 to prevent the possibility of falling off a cliff when we are 70.

It is important to understand that those who love state power will use any argument to increase it. When arguing about gun control – or any other moral issue – steer clear of the “argument from effect,” and spend the effort to define your terms from the ground up. It is only by digging that we shall uproot this tree.

Locked in the Trunk of a Car: A Political Solution to Shopping

Now that my wife has started taking political science courses, things are getting really confusing at my house. Just this morning there was a knock at our front door. Opening it, I saw an enormous man, who asked for my wife.

“Actually, I think she’s just heading out to go shopping,” I said, my eyes narrowing just a little.

“Yeah,” he drawled, a toothpick working back and forth across his lips like a little oar. “I know. That’s what I’m here for.”

I stared at him, then shrugged. A personal shopper? Professional bag-toter? Foot-masseuse? Who knew?

I heard my wife coming downstairs. “Ah!” she exclaimed. “Excellent, I’m just ready!”

“All right,” growled the man. He pulled out a large burlap sack from under his coat. “Lean forward,” he said to my wife, lifting the sack over her head.

I made a motion to grab his arm, then decided to use words instead. “What are you doing?” I demanded – not weakly, I hoped.

My wife held up her hand, smiling at the man. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m afraid my husband is a libertarian.”

The big man rolled his eyes, then sighed and crossed his arms, leaning up against the door frame.

“You see, honey,” my wife smiled, “I really want to go shopping…”

“So this… man gets to put you in a sack?”

“Of course! That’s how it works. I didn’t really understand it until I started taking political science, but it’s so radiantly clear now!”

“What is?”

“Well, before, when I wanted to go shopping, I wasn’t very efficient. I just grabbed my purse and my car keys, went to the mall, and just – shopped. I mean, how crazy was that? Now, I finally understand how it’s supposed to be done. So when I want to shop, I call this fine gentleman, who takes my credit card, puts me in a sack, puts the sack in the trunk of my car, then drives me to the mall and does my shopping for me – and buys quite a bit for himself as well! Now isn’t that so much better?” Her eyes shone.

“Seriously, honey – I have no idea how that even makes sense, let alone could be ‘better’!”

“Honey,” she said soothingly, “this is how it is supposed to be done. If I want to do something, I call a man up who forces me to do it! What could be better? It’s perfect!”

“Do you get to keep your car?”

My wife looked inquiringly at the large man, sunning himself in our doorway. He shrugged. “Dunno. I guess I could use it for a day or two. I’ll give you a call when I’m done with it, and you can come and pick it up. Okay?”

“No, it’s not okay!” I fume. “If my wife wants to go shopping, she doesn’t need you to force her to go shopping, and buy things for yourself besides!”

“Sweetie,” my wife said soothingly. “It’s exactly how things are supposed to work.” She tapped her fingernails against her front teeth. “It’s exactly how we help the poor with welfare programs, right?”

“What?”

“Well, we as voters want to help the poor, right? So we vote politicians in who force us to help the poor. They take our money, spend it on the poor as they see fit, and buy a lot of things for themselves as well! And if that way of doing things is good enough for something as important as helping the poor, surely it is good enough for something as inconsequential as my shopping expeditions! Am I right, or am I right?”

“But – if we want to help the poor so badly that we vote politicians in who force us to help the poor, then what do we need the politicians for in the first place? Why don’t we just help the poor ourselves?”

“Ah,” she said with a triumphant grin, “that’s because we are too selfish to help the poor ourselves!”

“But if we’re too selfish to help the poor ourselves, then surely we would never vote politicians in who would force us to help the poor! And if we don’t want to help the poor, then the government will never do it for us, because we’d never vote in a politician who promised that! So if the majority of people want to help the poor, then they don’t need to vote politicians in to force them to help the poor, right?”

For a moment, she seemed confused. “Well…”

“I mean, look what’s happening here! In the past, if you wanted to go shopping, you just went to the mall and bought whatever you wanted! Now, look at all this extra overhead and complication – this guy has to come and put you in a sack, and drive you to the mall in the trunk of your car, and then shop for what he thinks you might want, and buy stuff for himself as well. How is that more efficient – or in any way better – than what happened before?”

She frowned. “No, that’s…”

“If we get all these politicians to force us to give them money to help the poor, what happens if they spend money in ways that don’t help the poor? What if they decide to spend more money on themselves than on the poor? Can we get our money back? You see, if we want to help the poor – or the sick, or the old, or whoever – then we’ll just do it, and we don’t need the government to force us to do it. If the government reflects the will of the people, then it doesn’t need to force those people to do things. If the government does not reflect the will of the people, then it is mere tyranny. Do you see what I mean?”

“Yes, but…” My wife scowled, trying to reason her way out of the fog of statism.

“I mean, who told you all this stuff?”

The big man leaned forward. “I did,” he growled.

“Yes,” said my wife distractedly. “Sorry I didn’t introduce you. This is my professor of political science.”

He stretched out his enormous hand. I stared at it.

“Hey,” said the professor, dropping his hand suddenly. “I haven’t got all day. What say we put this to a vote? I mean,” he added, leaning over my wife, “I assume I can count on you to do the right thing, and show me that you understand the course material.”

She nodded slowly, staring up at him. I guess she really wants to pass his course.

The professor raised his hand – the one with the sack. “Then I vote: let’s go shopping!” he grinned. “I need some stuff!”

My wife tightened her lips. “It’s the right thing to do,” she said, raising her hand and averting her eyes.

In a blink she disappeared into the sack. I was about to cry out in opposition to this violation of sense, property, morality and rationality, but of course I am in the minority, so what’s the point?

Strong Atheism: The Case for Evacuating the Middle Ground

In the world of philosophy, those who make the active claim that God does not exist are often viewed as extremists. Taking a positive stand about the nonexistence of God is considered akin to claiming that all forms of matter, energy and consciousness have already been discovered, and that there is nothing new to be learned from the universe. The simple fact that scientific truths are constantly being overturned is considered reasonable justification for a form of scientific agnosticism, which is generally expanded to include the vague possibility of the existence of a supernatural being such as gods. Since we do not know everything about the universe, agnostics claim, it is impossible to rule out the possibility that gods might exist. Thus “strong atheism” – the positive declaration of the nonexistence of gods – is generally viewed as an irrational position, ironically on par with the theist’s assertion that gods do exist.

Thus, like most positions in the post-Hegelian world, the truth is considered to lie somewhere in the midpoint between two extremes. Wildly asserting that gods exists is as irrational as blindly asserting that they do not. The most sensible position is to withhold judgment.

Those with any decent knowledge of philosophy know that the burden of proof lies squarely on the shoulders of those who assert that gods exist, and that no action is required from atheists to disprove the existence of gods. However, the inevitable failures of all attempts to prove the existence of gods never seems to move the theist position into the “not true” category – merely into the “not proven but possible” category. In this essay, I will endeavor to give it just a little push over the line.

Like most problems in philosophy, the conflict stems from imprecisions in definition. “God” is a notoriously fluid concept, able to slosh fashionably into almost any mental container. God can be defined as a “higher power,” or “love,” or “energy,” or “nature,” or “an old man on a cloud,” or “the energy that binds the universe together” or “the first cause” or “hope” etc. etc. etc. Naturally, no philosophical discussions can retain any coherence in the face of such wildly amorphous – and often contradictory – definitions.

Similarly, the definition of “existence” is often confused. Does “existence” mean “any form of matter, energy or consciousness that could conceivably exist in this or any other universe,” or does it mean “a Christian deity whose son came back from the dead”? Does it mean “that which is composed of matter or energy,” or “that which I believe with all my heart to exist”?

Of course, if “gods” and “existence” is defined in a tautological manner, no advance in knowledge is achieved. If “gods” are defined as spiritual beings discoverable through faith, and “existence” is defined to include that which is discoverable through faith, nothing is gained. “Existence” must be an objective state, and “knowledge” must be an objective methodology.

Now, for science, “existence” is a relatively simple concept – it is defined as that which consists of either matter or energy. This is quite different from “accuracy,” which is the correlation between concepts and the behavior of matter and energy in the real world. A concept has accuracy – or validity – if it precisely predicts or describes the behavior of matter and energy in the real world. This, of course, is the basis of the scientific method, which is that all human concepts must bow to the empiricism of physical evidence. Or, to put it another way, in any conflict between consciousness and matter, consciousness must give way, since consciousness can contain errors, but matter cannot.

With this (admittedly brief) introduction in place, we are a good deal closer to understanding the conflict between strong and weak atheists. The central question about the existence of gods – no matter how defined – is this: are gods subject to physical laws?

If gods are subject to physical laws, then the first law that gods are subject to is this: since existence is defined as that which is composed of either matter or energy, if gods exist, they must be composed of either matter or energy.

The opposite corollary must also be true. If gods are not composed of matter or energy, then gods by definition do not exist. Since “existence” is defined as that which is composed of matter or energy, “non-existence” must be that which possesses neither matter nor energy. Thus to argue that gods exist despite a total absence of matter or energy is to argue that existence equals non-existence, which is a complete contradiction. If I define an “orange” as a round citrus fruit that is orange in color, I cannot include in that definition an invisible orange that is the opposite of round, the opposite of citrus, the opposite of fruit, and the opposite of orange. (I mean, I suppose could, but who would believe that I was serious – or even sane?)

If gods are subject to physical laws, then physical evidence is really the only methodology by which we can ascertain that gods exist. Of course, this does not require direct physical evidence – we cannot perceive black holes directly, but we know that they exist due to the effects of their gravity wells on surrounding matter, as well as the flashes of energy that are released as captured matter crosses the event horizon. But since “existence” is defined as that which is composed of matter or energy, the scientific proof of existence must be some evidence of that matter or energy. “Evidence” is basically defined as that which impacts our physical senses in some manner – either directly, or through some translating device such as a spectrograph or an oscilloscope. Since our physical senses are organs designed to transmit the effects of matter and energy, it is essentially through the evidence of the senses that we can determine the existence or nonexistence of things. If I argue that something exists, but that there is no way to detect it, my argument contradicts itself. Let’s say I tell a deaf man that I hear a deep loud sound coming from a speaker. If he lays his hand on it and feels no vibrations, he has every right to be skeptical. If I say that this loud sound does not have vibrations, he may then pull out his trusty microphone or other sound wave detector. If this instrument detects no sound in the vicinity, can I still tell him that this loud sound is occurring? At some point, if my definition of “loud sound” basically boils down to “that which is the opposite of any evidence that a loud sound is occurring” then clearly my approach to truth needs a little work!

This approach helps clarify the truth-value of the proposition that gods do not exist. If gods are subject to physical laws, then sensual evidence of some sort is required to determine the existence of gods. If gods are not subject to physical laws, then gods do not exist by definition, since that which is not subject to physical laws – i.e. is not composed of matter or energy – does not exist.

If gods are subject to physical laws, important ramifications follow. Since gods must be bound by physical laws, miracles are impossible, since miracles are by definition violations of physical laws. Similarly, gods cannot be omniscient and all-powerful, since both attributes would violate the basic tenets of physical laws. Omniscience would require instantaneous knowledge of all matter, past, present and future, which is clearly impossible, while omnipotence would require the ability to break the bounds of physical laws, which brings us back to the realm of nonexistence.

If gods are subject to physical laws, then religion makes no sense whatsoever, and praying to gods makes about as much sense as worshiping a black hole, begging the Sun to grant you favors, or circumcising your son to appease the speed of light. If gods are not subject to physical laws, then the concept of “gods” is synonymous with the concept of non-existence, which makes religion even more deranged. Then, rather than praying to the moon, you would be in fact praying to the empty space between the Earth and the moon.

Why is there such opposition to the proposition that gods do not exist? Many people I have talked to with regards to strong atheism feel extremely uncomfortable asserting that gods do not exist. Or, to be more precise, they feel extremely uncomfortable telling Christians, say, that the Christian god does not exist. Rather than confront faithful believers with the hollow falsehood of their imaginary worship, they redefine “God” within their own minds as “a potential form of matter or energy that has not been discovered yet,” or “that which could exist in an alternate universe,” or something to that effect. This allows them to continue breaking bread – or least avoiding open conflict – with those addicted to superstitious nonsense. However, it could be argued that this is a fairly cowardly position. Either a criterion for determining truth exists, or it does not. If such a criterion exists, then it must be objective, and based on the evidence of the senses and reason, which precludes the existence of any form of religious deities. If no such criterion exists, then both everything and nothing is true, and agnosticism, atheism, superstition, religion and the steadfast belief that shoes can fly and sing songs are all equally valid.

If an objective criterion for truth exists, then it cannot logically be applied according to whim, the expediency of the moment, or only in situations that feel emotionally comfortable. If you wish to take a stand for rationality and truth, then I for one completely applaud you – and sympathize with the attendant social difficulties that often result. If, however, you take a stand for rationality and truth, but then sit back down whenever anybody gets upset, there’s very little point getting up to begin with.

Universal Morality: A Proposition

Sometimes the greatest plans can be derailed by a single word. One of my earliest articles was entitled “Proving Libertarian Morality,” which was my attempt to provide a rational and universal justification for a theory of ethics, and which has proved thoroughly confusing for some people, all because of one single word.

I wrote this article in the first place because it always struck me as odd that we libertarians are fascinated by right and wrong, and pour prodigious effort into arguing that society or people should do this or that, and yet our opinions rarely rest on a universal foundation of ethical reasoning. If pressed, we appeal to “the greatest good for the greatest number,” or “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” or state that economic inefficiencies are bad, taxation is evil, violence is wrong, government power corrupts and so on.

Without strict ethical reasoning, however, these statements remain fundamentally as baseless as “government is good,” “social programs help the poor,” and “unicorns are pretty.” To really change the world, we must present more than just opinions, more than mere assertions. The great challenge in ethical debating is possessing the leverage to radically extend people’s opinions about core moral issues. This is easier than it sounds, since a good philosopher does not change people’s minds, but rather just logically expands the principles they already accept. Newton didn’t change people’s minds about their everyday experiences of the tangible world – he just extended those everyday principles to the universal. The force that drops the apple also moves the moon.

The same is true when debating morality. Have you ever met anyone who argued that murder is the highest moral good, or that rape is a man's best course of action, or that the Golden Rule is: steal everything you can get your hands on, all the time? Of course not. Most people already consider violence and theft to be morally wrong. However, as morality gets more abstract, it gets harder and harder for people to maintain their consistency. I can’t even count the number of times people have agreed with me that “theft is wrong,” but who then instantly become baffled when I reply “therefore taxation is wrong.” It’s the same with the military. No one has any trouble with the equation: Man + murder = evil. Throw in one little inconsequential variable, however, and most people get very confused. Man + murder + green costume = ?zzttz¿¡[short circuit] um, national hero?

Newton’s challenge was not to convince people that apples fall down, but that the same force that moves apples also moves everything else. Extending the principle of gravity from immediate experience to interplanetary motion is quite a mental feat – and even more is demanded from libertarians! Our real challenge is to extend the moral principles everyone already accepts – thus if we lack a solid argument for the universality of those moral principles, we are unlikely to gain much ground. I believe that our lack of a compelling argument for universal principles is one reason we have made so little progress over the last century or so. If moral rules are accepted (i.e. murder = evil), but universal consistency is optional, we have no real leverage to change people’s thinking. Everyone thinks that apples and planets move according to separate – and probably opposing – principles.

For quite some time, I sweated my brain dry working on this problem. The argument that I came up with was, in essence:

1. Morality can be defined as Universally Preferred Behavior (i.e. a moral theory is that which proposes which behaviors should be preferred – or proscribed – for all peoples in all places at all times.)
2. For a proposition to be defined as moral, it must advocate a logically consistent set of Universally Preferred Behavior, such as “don’t steal.”
3. Anyone who argues against Universally Preferred Behavior must do so using clear language, arguments, logic and evidence – all based on the principle that truth is better than falsehood.
4. Clear language, argument, logic and evidence – and a universal preference for truth over falsehood – are all examples of Universally Preferred Behavior. Therefore a man can only argue against Universally Preferred Behavior by using Universally Preferred Behavior, since anyone who argues is acting on the premise that clear language is universally preferred to gibberish, logic to illogic, and truth to falsehood.
5. Since Universally Preferred Behavior cannot be opposed without accepting the premise of Universally Preferred Behavior, Universally Preferred Behavior must stand as a valid concept.

The argument follows the same general lines as arguments for logic itself. Logic as a methodology for validating the consistency of arguments is irrefutable, since logic can only be dismissed either on a whim, which is invalid, or using logic, which relies on the validity of logic in the first place.

Arguing against Universally Preferred Behavior is like shouting into somebody’s ear that sound does not exist, or phoning someone to tell him that phones are a fantasy. The argument self-destructs on deployment.

A sample argument runs thus:

• Person A: People should not steal.
• Person B: There is no such thing as morality, since objective standards do not exist.
• So I should not believe that theft is wrong, because no objective standards exist?
• That’s right.
• Is it merely your opinion that no objective standards exist, or is it objectively true that no standards exist?
• It is objectively true that no standards exist.
• And is it merely your opinion that I should not believe in morality because no objective standards exist, or is objectively true?
• It is objectively true you should not believe in morality, because no objective standards exist.
• And what criteria have you used to separate mere opinion from objective truth?
• Reason.
• So reason, then, is the objective standard by which you have determined that no objective standards exist?
• [minor forehead detonation]

A standard argument against proofs of universal morality is that morality does not exist in the real world. That is true, of course, but so what? The scientific method doesn’t exist in the real world either; neither do logic or numbers – does that mean that science and math are utterly subjective, and that any old opinion goes? Of course not. It is exactly the same with morality. Moral theories must pass the test of logical consistency, just as theories in science or mathematics. If you submit a mathematical paper, and on the first page you assume that 2+2=5, rare would be the individual who would read any further! Any sane reviewer would simply circle that error, hand it back and tell you to start over.

The same is true for moral propositions. No one has to engage in moral theorizing – just as people are free to read chicken entrails rather than use the scientific method – but the moment that somebody corrects you on anything, he is acting on the premise that you are bound by some standard of truth or behavior beyond mere whim – and so he accepts Universally Preferred Behavior. If someone tells you that truth is better than falsehood, then he is telling you that it is universally better to believe things that are true than to believe things that are false. The moment that someone invokes a universal preference, he is instantly bound by the requirements of logical consistency. Thus no man can argue against morality – Universally Preferred Behavior – without using morality.

If I tell you that it is better to believe things that are false, my argument self-destructs, because either (a) I am lying, which means you should believe me, but that my argument is the opposite of truth, or (b) I am telling the truth, in which case I am immediately contradicting my stated principle that it is better to believe false things.

The same contradiction occurs if I argue against the basic libertarian principle of self-ownership. If I open my mouth and use my larynx and tongue to express an argument against self-ownership, my argument immediately self-destructs, since I am exercising self-ownership to argue that self-ownership is invalid, impossible, or immoral.

A Way Forward?

In my view, it is essential that libertarians work to develop and communicate ironclad arguments for the universality and consistency of morality itself. If we take a rational and scientific approach to the challenges of moral theories, we shall start to get real traction in the world of ideas, and elevate ourselves about the yammering hordes of debaters who pound tables and bellow that their opinions are just somehow more correct than everyone else’s.

The disservice that I have done to this idea is using the word “preferred” rather than “preferable.” I would like to now officially change my definition of morality from Universally Preferred Behavior to Universally Preferable Behavior. My use of the former phrase has confused a large number of people, who think that I am defining morality as “behaviors that are universally preferred by all people at all times,” and thus using a descriptive and not prescriptive definition. I was rather surprised by this misunderstanding (though I can see how it could be derived linguistically), since it is quite obvious that many people have many different opinions about what is moral – not to mention that if everyone in the whole world had the same opinion about what was right, we would scarcely need a science of morality! So to all of those who have written to me to tell me that people do not have the same opinions about what is good, I can only agree, and add that people’s existing moral preferences are irrelevant to the science of morality, just as people’s existing beliefs that the world was flat was irrelevant to the physical sciences.

Three Hurdles

To further develop the science of ethics, I propose that any moral theory must surmount three basic hurdles. The first hurdle is, of course, logical consistency. I have spoken about this at length before, so I will just touch on it here. By “logical consistency,” I mean that, at the very least, any theory proposing Universally Preferable Behavior must not be self-contradictory. If a moral theory proposes that “everyone must steal,” it immediately self-destructs, since stealing is only of value if a thief gets to keep the proceeds of his theft. No man would steal a wallet if he knew that it would be stolen from him immediately afterwards (and the spectacle of a world full of people constantly stealing from each other would be rather ludicrous to contemplate). Thus a thief only steals – or violates property rights – because he wishes to exercise his property rights over the stolen item. Implicit in the action of stealing is thus a simultaneous rejection and affirmation of property rights, which is how we know that theft as a moral rule is both logically – and therefore morally – wrong.

Logical consistency also requires categorical uniformity. A physicist who argues that all objects which are heavier than air fall towards the ground neatly deals with both rocks and helium balloons – but he cannot say that one rock falls down, but another rock that is also heaver than air falls up. In other words, opposite actions require opposing properties – in this case, that all rocks are heavier than air, and so fall down, while helium balloons are lighter than air, and thus float up. The opposing property is: lighter than air versus heavier than air.

In the same manner, a moral theory which proposes that murder is wrong, but that it is morally right for soldiers to murder, immediately fails the test of logical consistency. Putting on a green costume does not change a man’s moral nature, any more than painting a rock makes it lighter than air. (The same, of course, goes for all manner of statist occupations, such as policeman, politician, prison guard etc.)

On the other hand, where objective physical differences do exist, such as mental retardation or childhood, moral theories are perfectly right in assigning diminished moral responsibility to such individuals.

The second generalized hurdle for any moral theory can be described as “the coma test.” It defies common sense to propose that a man in a coma can be immoral. Thus any moral theory which puts forward positively prescribed actions, such as “you must serve your country” or “you must help the poor” immediately fail the coma test. A moral theory which prescribes a positive good must immediately condemn its opposite as immoral. If “helping the poor” is a positive moral obligation, then refraining from helping the poor must be morally wrong. Since a man in a coma cannot by definition be out helping the poor, he must be immoral, which is quite ridiculous. (Let’s not even get into the evils we would all be committing every time we took a nap!) Of course, you could “adjust” the moral rule to say “you must help the poor to the best of your ability,” which would bypass the coma test, but then plows straight into rank subjectivism – what on earth does “to the best of your ability” really mean? (As it happens, I have a podcast on this very topic!)

The third generalized test is evidence. Any decent moral theory must explain some of the well-known and consistently observed facts of history, such as the grinding poverty of the Middle Ages, the murderous actions of dictatorships, the violent nature of theocracies, the fact that governments always grow, the slow economic suicide of socialism (or the rather more rapid self-immolation of communism) and so on. Any moral theory which predicts that communism would be a smashing success, and that capitalism would result in poverty for all, obviously fails the basic test of empiricism and historical evidence.

I truly believe that we must resist the short-term tactics of arguing only about politics and economics, and instead spend our energies hacking through the challenges of defining arguments for an objective and universal morality. If we can come to a rigorous, well-defined and well-understood theory of morality, then we will gain immense traction, and can finally begin to achieve the success that has hitherto eluded us. Without a doubt, my suggestions are far more strategic and tactical, but I think that it is very clear by now that our prior tactics have not succeeded. If we train ourselves in moral reasoning, and learn how to refute those who oppose universal ethics, rather than, say, merely arguing against the minimum wage, then we can really truly turn the tide of history and save not just libertarianism, but the world.

Turtles All The Way Down

According to an apocryphal story, a well-known scientist was describing to an audience how the Earth orbits the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of his lecture, a little old lady got up and said: “This is all nonsense. Everybody knows that the world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant turtle.”

The scientist smiled and said, “I see. Can you tell, me, then, what is the turtle standing on?”

“You’re very clever, young man,” replied the old lady with a prim smile. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”

This story neatly captures the logical foolishness of the “Infinite Regression.” It is a tale pregnant with meaning for Libertarians, for we face some version of it almost every time we open our mouths.

The appeal to political authority in all its forms is really an attempt to bypass the black hole of Infinite Regression.

Here’s a pro-state argument we are all intimately familiar with:

Bad people like to use force to prey on good people.
Good people require a government to protect them from bad people.
This government, in order to be the final arbiter, must possess overwhelming force.

The logical madness is clear. Since bad people like using force to prey on good people, and the government is the greatest concentration of force in society, it stands to inevitable reason that bad people will use the government to prey on good people.

This is the central problem of Infinite Regression: who will watch the watchers? There is, of course, no rational or political answer. (There is an anarchistic answer, which I discuss in my podcasts at www.freedomainradio.com.)

We see the same problem in theology. Since the universe exists, people claim, it must have been created. This solves nothing. If the principle is put forward: “that which exists must have been created,” inventing a god immediately triggers an Infinite Regression. A god which exists must then have been created by a super-god, who in turn must have been… Well, let’s just say that it’s turtles all the way up.

Intelligent Design, or Creationism, faces the same problem. If “all life must be created by a god,” then that god, who is clearly alive, must have also been created by another god…

Unjust parental authority faces the same problem.

I say to my son: “I am right because I am your father.”

He naturally asks: “Are you ‘right’ because you are my father – i.e. all fathers are right – or are you right because fathers possess some wisdom or knowledge that sons do not?”

“I am right because I am your father,” I repeat.

“And who taught you this?”

“My father.”

“And he was taught this by his father?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“So who was the first father to say this? And did he not disobey his own father by teaching something new? And does that not make all subsequent teachings of this rule invalid?”

Here I am generally stumped, and call him a communist. Another argument is swallowed up by the black hole of Infinite Regression.

Here’s another. People like to argue that the government should control the use of guns. Why? Because there are bad people who would use those guns to hurt us. The logical rule invoked? Well, we need a gang with more guns (the government) to protect us from gangs with fewer guns (criminals). So naturally, when the government, having gotten rid of its competition, steals our money through taxes, we logically need a World Government to disarm the existing governments. Then we will doubtless need an Interstellar Federation to, well you get the idea…

Rejecting all “arguments” based on the Infinite Regression fallacy can unleash prodigious creativity. What has been sometimes called the single greatest idea in the history of the world arose from Darwin’s failure to be impressed by the Infinite Regression paradoxes of creationism. Free markets – and economics in general – arose from the failure of Ricardo and Smith to be impressed by the Infinite Regression argument that the nobility should manage resources on behalf of everyone else.

In the realm of morality, the problems of Infinite Regression are, literally, genocidal. The fantasy that a minority of men can justly force obedience from everyone else is responsible for more deaths than any other single delusion. In the realm of morality and the use of force, there is simply no solution to the problems of Infinite Regression. A stateless society is the only answer.

Any fundamentally rational philosophy must reject arguments that pass anywhere near the black hole of Infinite Regression. Appeals to the “virtuous violence” of the state instantly self-destruct, because of Infinite Regression. Demands for “obedience to gods” instantly self-destruct, since there must then be an infinite chain of more powerful gods, all obeying the “god above,” which would instantly result in a truly bureaucratic cosmic paralysis. Even merely mortal parents who attempt to justify their commandments through appeals to power, biology or position fall into the gravity well of Infinite Regression.

The three traditional power centers – politicians, priests and most parents – all justify their authority based on Infinite Regression fantasies. If mankind continues to believe in any moral authority except logical consistency and evidence, we will continue to sail blithely over the edge of the old lady’s imaginary plate, falling forever.

As the turtles descend, so do we.

Statist Dating

Statist Dating
By Stefan Molyneux

So this afternoon, when my son comes home from school, he’s carrying a cat-cage. He throws his books on the kitchen table and flashes me a smile, heading to the fridge.

“Hey son,” I ask, “Where’d you get the cat?”

“Oh” he says, opening the fridge door, “it’s my date’s.”

“Your date’s?”

He takes a swig of milk. “Yeah. For the prom tomorrow.”

“Ohhh-k. Why do you have her cat?”

“Uhh, well, for insurance.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Well I’m not sure she’s going to show.”

“What happened? What did she say when you asked her?”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, she’s all: it’s sooo totally inappropriate. She wasn’t into.”

I shook my head slightly, trying to make sense of my son. “So – you… took her cat? Because she said no?”

“Uh, Dad, no, what do you think I am, crazy?”

“Uhhh, no… But you do have her cat.”

“Well sure! She said she didn’t want to go to the prom with me, and I told her that she did, but she just didn’t know it yet, and that going to the prom with me was the right thing to do, and so I would have to make her do it if she didn’t want to.”

“What? What kind of… Where on earth did you learn that that was a good idea?”

“From my political science class.”

“Your political… What? How on earth does that make sense?” I took a deep breath. “Step me through it.”

He smiles. “Sure! So my political science teacher tells us we choose the government, and then the government gets to tell us what to do. Right?”

“Yeah, that’s the theory I guess…”

“So I asked her: hey, what if we don’t like what the government tells us to do? She says, well, we have to obey the government anyway, but we can protest, or vote for someone else in a few years or whatever. And then I said: what if the government orders us to do something we really disagree with – can we say no? She says, not really, you have to obey the government. Why? I ask. She says: because you have chosen the government. But if we have chosen the government, why would it need to force us to do things? It’s like– if I go to a store to buy an iPod, and say to the guy, I really want this iPod, here’s my money, and he pulls out a gun and says: you totally have to buy this iPod, or I’m going to shoot you.” He shakes his head. “What kind of sense would that make? If I want to buy the iPod, no one has to force me to buy it. If I don’t want to buy the iPod, isn’t it kind of wrong to force me to buy it? Am I wrong, Dad?”

I sigh. Sometimes I wish my son didn’t have to learn these lessons. “No, son, you’re not wrong.”

He smiles. “So then I said that governments, then, must be always forcing people to do what they don’t want to do, or I guess stop them from doing what they do want to do. And she says that people want to do the wrong things, but that government makes them do the right things. So I asked her how people who want to do the wrong things can vote for people who will force them to do the right things? I mean, if you know enough to say to someone: force me to be good – and here’s my list of good things – then surely you’re good enough already, and don’t need to be forced. And only bad people would want that job anyway!” He shakes his head. “Then she gets really angry and just says that people have to be forced to do the right thing, that there are a lot of bad people in the world, and we need governments to protect us, and so we have to obey, because the government is trying to help us, and basically it knows best. So I say: then it’s OK to force people to do stuff even if they don’t want to. She says yes, as long as you have their best interests at heart. I started to ask her how you could possibly know that, but she cut me off and said we had to move on, and that all the other kids were bored, which I don’t think was the case, ’cause they were all pretty wide-eyed by then.”

I nod slowly. “Right. Sooo… The cat?”

My son hops up on a stool. “Right, right! So, I want a date for the prom, and I ask someone in my poly-sci class, but she’s all ‘nooo, that’s soooo inappropriate,’ but I really want her to come, ’cause I have her best interests at heart, so I tell her that she has to come to the prom with me, because there are lots of bad dates out there, and it’s my duty to protect her. She says that she doesn’t need protection. I say sorry, that’s not really an option. She tells me to get lost. I say that if you don’t want to obey me, there will be consequences. She gets really mad and tells me to stop threatening her. I say I am not threatening her, I am just governing her, and if she doesn’t obey me, I’ll be forced to take her cat. She calls me a little creep and storms off.”

“So… that’s her cat?”

“Yeah, it’s easy to find out where people live. And it was an outdoor cat, so I didn’t have to break in or anything.”

I sigh. “So when can I expect a call from the girl’s parents?”

He blinks in confusion. “Parents? Why would her parents call? She’s, like, ancient.”

“Ancient? You’re in grade 9!”

“Sure.”

“So how old is this girl?”

He pokes his finger into the cat cage. “Hi there!” He glances at me. “Oh she’s not a girl, dad. She’s a woman.”

“What?”

The phone rings. Numbly, I pick it up. Before I can say anything, a shrieking female voice hits my ear like an icepick.

“This is Mrs. Staten, your son’s political science teacher, what on earth is going on, and where the hell is my cat?”

Worst. Meeting. Ever!

In my role as a business consultant, I am often asked to provide solutions to highly complex problems. Recently, a large, politically well-connected agricultural business paid me a fortune to provide them with a five-year plan on how to best allocate their assets, capital and human resources in order to maximize profitability. The complexity of the business challenges involved were overwhelming, and I almost despaired of being able to provide them with a solution. The night before my big presentation, however, I suddenly remembered a central lesson I had learned in my political science classes. Armed with inspiration, I scribbled down a complete and total six-step solution, slept well, and presented my answer at the Board of Directors meeting the next morning.

This is what I showed them:

Step One
Find some people.

Step Two
Arm them.

Step Three
Help them disarm everyone else.

Step Four
Give them enormous amounts of money.

Step Five
Give them your wish list.

Step Six
Wait for the solution!

I finished my presentation and turned to my audience, flushed with triumph. But for some reason, my solution was not greeted with cheers and accolades. Instead, I saw nothing but baffled and angry faces.

“What the hell was that?” demanded the Chairman of the Board.

“Excuse me?”

“What kind of crap was that?”

“I’m sorry,” I frowned. “I’m totally confused. Are there any Republicans or Democrats in the room?”

“Well of course, but…”

“And do you vote? Do you all vote?”

“Sure, but…”

“Well,” I asked, “do you have something against democracy then?”

Of course not, they all cried, but what does any of that have to do with this presentation?

“Well,” I said, “that’s the beauty of it! If you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you already agree that this ‘six step’ solution is the perfect answer to incredibly complex problems like educating children, providing health care, alleviating poverty and eliminating drug use – and tons of other problems far more complex than the one you want me to solve! So – given that you already approve of this ‘six step’ program for the most complicated and challenging social problems, surely it should be perfectly applicable to your much less complicated business issue! Heck, it might even be overkill!

This did not go over very well at all, which was rather surprising to me. I had to interrupt their angry words. “What on earth are you upset about?” I demanded. “Do you disapprove of public education? Does public education use something other than this ‘six step’ program? Don’t we give guns to a group of people and then ask them to educate our children? Don’t we give these people the entire power of the state, which they use to prevent other educators from competing with them? Does this power not give this group access to enormous amounts of money? Do we not keep handing those in the government our ‘wish list’ of the problems we want solved? And do we not fully expect that they will provide us with a solution? Why on earth are you angry? You have already approved this plan!”

More anger, more hostility – and then, most strangely, the Chairman suddenly demanded that I give them a full refund! I could not believe it! I asked if everyone had decided that they no longer were Democrats or Republicans. Strenuous denials all around! I held up my hand. “Excuse me. Excuse me! What do you do when the government fails to give you what you want? Do you demand a refund? If not, then why should I give you one?”

They ended up throwing me out on the street, shook their fists in my face, and promised to sue me if I didn’t give them back every penny they’d paid me.

I got up and dusted myself off, shaking my head in utter confusion. When I offer them a political solution, they scowl and yell at me – but they cheer and vote for a politician! I offer them the exact same solution that the government does, and they express loyalty to the government and threaten me! They throw me out into the street – and then meekly send their children to government schools. And jails. And wars.

People are very, very confusing.

The Gun in the Room Part 2 (Part 1 below)

Compliance is not Freedom

First of all, thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts with me about my last article – “The Gun in the Room.” In general, responses tended to fall into two rough categories:

• Great article!
  - and
• You’re insane!

Naturally, I do not wish to take issue with the first assessment, so let's have a look at the general objections contained within the second.

Overall, my sanity was questioned because many people thought I believe that the moment a man breaks the law, the government shoots him. In my world, apparently, the moment your speedometer creeps over the speed limit, state snipers blow your head off.

This, of course, would result in a largely unpopulated planet, and therefore I would like to clarify my position on the correlation between breaking the law and being aggressed against by the state.

If you fail to file a tax return, you are not immediately dragged before a kangaroo court, and shot after a speedy and Stalin-esque trial. That takes time. ; ) Rather, you will get a letter – often a rather polite one – asking if there may be some kind of problem. If you do not respond to this letter, very little will happen.

For a while, anyway.

If you fail to file a tax return again, you may get another letter. Or, you may not. Tax authorities will sometimes leave you alone for several years, to bolster their eventual prosecution by showing a pattern of intentional tax evasion.

However, the day will come when you receive a letter that is not quite as polite. In this letter, you will be told to file your tax returns, or face the consequences, which will decidedly not involve just another letter. If you still do not file your tax return(s), you will get another letter detailing the actions will be taken against you if you do not file your tax return(s) immediately. If you continue in your course, you will receive another letter – decidedly un-polite at this point – with a court date, and a list of penalties that will be assessed against you when you are found guilty of tax evasion. Initially, these penalties will be largely financial – back taxes, fines etc. If you show up at the court, you will be found guilty, and large fines will be imposed upon you. If you do not pay the fines – or do not show up in court to begin with – sooner or later, the police will come to arrest you.

When the police come to arrest you, you will be severely discouraged from acting in self-defense, despite the fact that their actions are identical to a “home invasion.” When the policemen break your door down, if you pull out a gun to protect yourself, you will very likely get shot. Even if you do not get shot, your prison stay will be greatly extended because you have now threatened the police in addition to not paying your taxes.

If you attempt to escape from the custody of police – or, later, the prison guards – you also will very likely get shot, and will certainly receive harsh punishment. If, after you are released from prison, you still refrain from paying your taxes, you will very likely spend the rest of your life in prison. (We need not go into the horrible details of what happens in prison – let’s just say that, after your first night, you may have a new appreciation for the legal victims of the “war on terror.”)

The fact that months or years can pass between breaking the law and being violently punished – combined with the reality that most people do obey the state, and thus do not incur such punishments – often confuses people as to the true nature of the society they live in.

To take a parallel example, let’s look at the institution of slavery. Most slaves did not try to run away, and neither did they aggress against their masters. If they worked hard, and obeyed the rules, they were even unlikely to be beaten or deprived of food (though rape was another matter). In other words, a slave could live most of his life without being directly aggressed against. Does that mean that slavery was not enforced through violence? Of course not! Compliance to violence only obscures it, it does not eliminate it.

Let’s take another example. Most people will give up their wallets at gunpoint rather than risk of getting shot. In most robberies, then, no actual violence occurs – only the threat of violence. Do we then believe that no violence occurs unless someone actually gets shot? If a man approaches you and hints that if you do not pay him protection money, your house just might get burned down at some point in the future, is that immoral intimidation?

Mentioning public schools also confused some people. They understood my point about the Iraq war – that you cannot be said to have any right to oppose it if you are forced to fund it – but they could not make the leap to public schools. Let me clarify. If you do not pay the taxes that pay for public schools, the sequence of events that starts with a letter and ends with you getting shot or thrown into the rape room of a government prison also occurs. Not one single aspect of state finance or activity occurs outside the realm of violence. Even the Federal Reserve is based on violence, because if you attempt to duplicate its capacity to counterfeit, or set up your own currency… Well, you know what happens.

I certainly understand that the simple reality of universal state violence makes many people very uncomfortable – and they are quite right to feel uncomfortable! Once you really get this idea under your skin, your life will change irrevocably. You will no longer be tempted to base your arguments on tedious and complicated abstractions. When talking to people about freedom, you will cut to the core of the issues very rapidly. This will have enormous effects on every single relationship in your life. You will very quickly discover the true moral natures of those around you – and this can be quite shocking. So I certainly understand why people are hesitant to accept this idea, and why they prefer to label me as an “extremist” rather than to begin exploring the reality of state violence in their own hearts and with the people around them.

Of course, there is also an empirical method by which the existence of “the gun on the room” can be tested. It’s really quite simple, although I certainly don’t recommend it.

Stop obeying the law.

If you are right, you have just saved yourself enormous amounts of time and money. If I am right, though, we may never see you again – which would be a real tragedy, because libertarianism needs all the supporters it can get!

If, however, you hesitate to flout the rules of the state, then it is important to examine why. If you’re honest with yourself, you will find, as I did, that you tremble in fear before the guns of the state, and that the humiliation of being ordered around for your entire life is almost unbearable.

The solution to the humiliation of forced compliance is, however, to reject the force, not to imagine that compliance makes it vanish. Such magic is beyond us. We must face the reality of the violence we live under. The fact that you have not been arrested does not mean that you are free.

The Gun in the Room

“Put down the gun, then we’ll talk.”

One of the most difficult – and essential – challenges faced by libertarians is the constant need to point out “the gun in the room.” In political debates, it can be very hard to cut through the endless windy abstractions that are used to cover up the basic fact that the government uses guns to force people to do what they do not want to do, or prevent them from doing what they do want to do. Listening to non-libertarians, I often wish I had a “euphemism umbrella” to ward off the continual oily drizzle of words and phrases designed to obscure the simple reality of state violence. We hear nonstop nonsense about the “social good,” the “redistribution of income,” the “education of children” and so on – endless attempts to bury the naked barrel of the state in a mountain of syrupy metaphors.

It is a wearying but essential task to keep reminding people that the state is nothing but an agency of violence. When someone talks about “the welfare state helping the poor,” we must point out the gun in the room. When someone opposes the decriminalization of marijuana, we must point out the gun in the room. When someone supports the reduction of taxes, we must point out the gun in the room – even if one bullet has been taken out.

So much political language is designed to obscure the simple reality of state violence that libertarianism sometimes has to sound like a broken record. We must, however, continue to peel back the euphemisms to reveal the socially-sanctioned brutality at the root of some of our most embedded social institutions.

I was recently involved in a debate with a woman about public schools. Naturally, she came up with reason after reason as to why public schools were beneficial, how wonderful they were for underprivileged children, how essential they were for social stability etc etc. Each of these points – and many more – could have consumed hour upon hour of back and forth, and would have required extensive research and complicated philosophical reasoning. But there was really no need for any of that – all I had to do was keep saying:

“The issue is not whether public schools are good or bad, but rather whether I am allowed to disagree with you without getting shot.”

Most political debates really are that simple. People don’t get into violent debates about which restaurant is best because the state doesn’t impose one restaurant on everyone – and shoot those trying to set up competing restaurants. The truth is that I couldn’t care less about this woman’s views on education – just as she couldn’t care less about my views – but we are forced to debate because we are not allowed to hold opposing views without one of us getting shot. That was the essence of our debate, and as long as it remained unacknowledged, we weren’t going to get anywhere.

Here’s another example. A listener to my ‘Freedomain Radio’ show posted the following comment on the message board:

If you say “Government A doesn’t work,” you are really saying that the way that individuals in that society are interacting is lacking in some way. There are many threads in this forum that address the real debate. This thread’s counterarguments all focus on government vs. free market society. The rules defining a free market are all agreed upon interactions at some level, just as a government is. Don’t debate that a government is using guns to force others, when it’s really individuals with guns, instead show how the other way will have less guns forcing others or how those guns could force others in a more beneficial way.

I responded in this manner:

But – and I’m sorry if I misunderstand you – government is force, so I’m not sure how to interpret your paragraph. Let me substitute another use of force to show my confusion:

“If you say that rape doesn’t work you are really saying that the way that individuals in that society are interacting is lacking in some way. There are many threads in this forum that address the real debate. This thread’s counterarguments all focus on rape vs. dating. The rules defining dating are all agreed upon interactions at some level, just as rape is. Don’t debate that a group of rapists is forcing others, when it’s really individual rapists, instead show how the other way will have fewer rapists forcing others or how those rapists could force others in a more beneficial way.”

Do you see my confusion?

Thanks!

It is a very helpful sign for the future of society that these euphemisms exist – in fact, I would not believe in the moral superiority of a stateless society if these euphemisms did not exist! If, every time I pointed out to people that their political positions all required that I get shot or arrested, they just growled: “Sure, I got no problem with that – in fact, if you keep disagreeing with me I’m going to shoot you myself!” – then, I would find it very hard to argue for a stateless society!

In more than 20 years of debating these issues, though, I’ve never met a single soul who wants to either shoot me himself or have someone else shoot me. I take enormous solace in this fact, because it explains exactly why these euphemisms are so essential to the maintenance and increase of state power.

The reason that euphemisms are constantly used to obscure “the gun in the room” is the simple fact that people don’t like violence very much. Most people will do almost anything to avoid a violent situation. Even the most bloodthirsty supporter of the Iraq invasion would have a hard time justifying the proposition that anybody who opposed the invasion should be shot – because it was to defend such freedoms that Iraq was supposed to have been invaded in the first place! But how can I have the right to oppose the invasion of Iraq if I am forced to pay for it through taxation? Surely that is a ridiculous contradiction, like arguing that a man has a right to free speech, and also that he should be arrested for speaking his mind. If I have the right to oppose the invasion, surely I cannot be forced to fund it. If I am forced to fund it, then any right I have to “oppose” it is purely imaginary.

In essence, then, all libertarian arguments come down to one single, simple statement:

“Put down the gun, then we’ll talk.”

This is the core morality of both libertarianism and civilization. Civilized people do not shoot each other when they disagree – decent people do not wave guns in each other’s faces and demand submission or blood. Political leaders know this very well – I would say better than many libertarians do – and so constantly obscure the violence of their actions and laws with mealy-mouthed and euphemistic weasel words. Soldiers aren’t murdered, they “fall.” Iraq wasn’t invaded, but “liberated.” Politicians aren’t our political masters, they are “civil servants,” and so on and on.

Although libertarianism is generally considered a radical doctrine, the primary task of the libertarian is to continually reinforce the basic reality that almost everyone already is a libertarian. If we simply keep asking people if they are willing to shoot others in order to get their way, we can very quickly convince them that libertarianism is not an abstract, radical or fringe philosophy, but rather a simple description of the principles by which they already live their lives. If you get fired, do you think that you should hold your manager hostage until he gives you back your job? No? Then you already hold a libertarian position on unions, tariffs, and corporate subsidies. If you find your teenage son in your basement smoking marijuana, would you shoot him? No? Then you already hold a libertarian position on the drug laws. Should those who oppose war be shot for their beliefs? No? Then you already hold a libertarian position with regards to taxation.

Like the scientific method, libertarianism’s greatest strength is its uncompromising simplicity. The enforcement of property rights leads to an immensely complex economy, but the morality of property rights is very simple – would you shoot a man in order to steal his property? The same complexity arises from the simple and universal application of the non-aggression principle. It’s so easy to get lost in the beguiling complexities and forget to keep enunciating the basic principles.

So forget about esoteric details. Forget about the history of the Fed and the economics of the minimum wage. Just keep pointing out the gun in the room, over and over, until the world finally starts awake and drops it in horror and loathing.