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Please make your opening 
arguments, including what 

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socialism and capitalism mean to
you and why you believe 

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capitalism is better. 
The floor is yours and you have 

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4 minutes for your opening 
remarks. 

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To clarify, when I say 
communism, I'm referring to the 

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abolition of private property 
and voluntary contracts. 

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Socialism is most accurately 
described as the 

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institutionalized aggression 
against private property and 

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voluntary exchanges. 
Capitalism is a social system 

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based on the explicit right of 
private property and voluntary 

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contracts between consenting 
adults. 

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In advocating capitalism, I'm 
simply affirming the truism that

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human beings are self 
interested. 

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This is why we are devastated 
when someone close to us dies, 

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but have trouble getting worked 
up over the 100,000 deaths that 

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took place during the Franco 
Prussian War. 

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Human beings do not stop being 
self interested just because 

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they are elected to public 
office or because they enter a 

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voting booth. 
The key difference between 

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capitalism and socialism is the 
constraints faced by self 

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interested actors. 
Under a system of private 

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property and voluntary exchange,
no one can get a penny out of 

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your pocket or a second of your 
time unless you voluntarily 

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agree to it. 
This freedom of association and 

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disassociation is the ultimate 
check and balance against the 

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inevitable self-interest and 
greed all human societies 

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operate within. 
Politicians and state employees 

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are not unpaid volunteers or 
people who only demand to be 

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paid the bare minimum in order 
to survive. 

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They too are self interested. 
Socialism allows greedy people 

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to take property without consent
or without creating any value in

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exchange through taxing the 
money other people have acquired

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voluntarily. 
This vitally important check and

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balance, the freedom of 
association, is also critical to

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raising living standards. 
If you don't value a product or 

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service that I create, you have 
no legal obligation to allocate 

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your scarce time or money to my 
endeavor. 

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If you want a society where the 
least well off have the most 

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opportunities, you would want a 
system which gives those very 

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people the most amount of 
opportunities to trade and 

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contract with other people in 
order to raise their living 

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standards. 
Far from just being theoretical,

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capitalist enterprises such as 
Amazon and Walmart have given 

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more people access to low cost 
products and services than our 

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ancestors ever could have 
imagined. 

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Companies like Apple have 
succeeded not because they make 

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products only billionaires can 
afford, but because they make 

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computers the average person can
afford. 

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Henry Ford did not invent the 
automobile, but in channelling 

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his self-interest to meet 
consumer demand, he made the 

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Model T car affordable to the 
average worker. 

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Cornelius Vanderbilt lowered the
cost of steamship travel from 7 

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dollars to six cents primarily 
through capital investment 

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because he wanted to profit by 
creating something many people 

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valued. 
Andrew Carnegie lowered the cost

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of steel from $56 a ton to 
$11.50 a ton in 27 years by 

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experimenting and investing in 
efficient production methods 

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which everyone else in society 
benefited from by having an 

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increased access to goods, which
deal was used to make Grok 

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Twitter's artificial 
intelligence, Wikipedia, Zoom, 

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YouTube, the Khan Academy 
Internet Archive all provide 

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more free access to education 
than any socialist program any 

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government has ever produced. 
On a larger scale, we see the 

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same result in dividing up the 
Korean Peninsula. 

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We see that the Koreans with 
more freedom to exchange have 

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higher living standards for the 
average person, just as we saw W

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Germans have a higher living 
standard than E Germans, just as

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we saw the drastic increase in 
the growth of China when Deng 

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Xiaoping allowed more people to 
voluntarily trade and contract 

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in the late 1970s. 
Capitalism harmonizes the 

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self-interest among human 
beings, not only resulting in 

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higher living standards, but is 
the only moral system since it 

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rejects the socialist double 
standard where some people have 

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a right to initiate violence and
others do not. 

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Convince our young skeptics out 
there, and there's plenty of 

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them that are skeptical of 
capitalism in this audience. 

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How is capitalism going to 
deliver the goods for them? 

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You have two minutes. 
We can look at the free 

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education that capitalism 
provides when it comes to 

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websites online, as I mentioned 
in my opening statement, YouTube

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Odyssey, Internet Archive, the 
Khan Academy using Grok. 

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Thanks to people like Elon Musk,
we can access more education 

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than we ever could have. 
If you advocate something like 

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the need for college to be 
coercively funded by the state, 

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that is an admission that the 
last 12 years that the kids 

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spent learning absolute nonsense
is created. 

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People who are in such dire need
of education that they 

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absolutely need 4 years and we 
need to stay to coercively 

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funded. 
I would think that you'd want to

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brag a little more about public 
education considering it's five 

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days a week, six hours a day for
12 years. 

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You'd think that these kids were
so brilliant that no politician 

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could ever trick them with 
propaganda, that they would be 

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immune to falling for logical 
fallacies and the such. 

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But the reality is that the 
teachers do not have the 

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incentive to create a very good 
product or service. 

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So after 12 years, kids know so 
little that the socialist is 

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demanding, gosh, we really need 
four more years of this. 

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This because the last 12 years 
was such an unequivocal waste. 

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In the case of healthcare, look 
at the most regulated verse, 

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least regulated things. 
Something like cosmetics is much

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less regulated and the cost has 
gone down. 

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More people are able to access 
it than previously before 

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because there was market 
competition, because there was 

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innovation. 
If you go to Walgreens, you 

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could look at the stuff that the
state does not require a 

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prescription for versus what the
state does require a 

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prescription to get. 
Less regulation, more options, 

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and lower costs as a causal 
result of competition. 

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And with housing, as I mentioned
earlier, people like Elvis, 

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Summers, Jay Austin, it's not 
that these those are two people 

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who were building tiny houses 
for the cost of between $1200 

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and $5000. 
This would have come about just 

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as smartphones. 
Gordon Gekkos brick phone in 

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Wall Street was impressive 40 
years ago and now no one would 

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be caught dead with that. 
That's the innovation that 

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capitalism can yield us. 
Or you could say, well, actually

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it's not the profit incentive, 
it's people just wanting better 

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things for the future. 
That's totally fine. 

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Then just fund those 
voluntarily. 

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Just let us opt out of what 
frankly we think are just 

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disasters as such as, you know, 
state schooling. 

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Think it's a complete waste of 
time and it's unpaid child labor

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and I would much rather kids 
have jobs when they were much 

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younger getting their foot in 
the door and getting on the job 

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experience so they could gain 
skills in the workplace. 

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Just let us opt out. 
That's the only capitalism 

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response that I have. 
Our final topic in this round 

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will be an elevator pitch to the
next generation. 

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Imagine you're speaking directly
to a 22 year old who's watching 

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this debate and feeling 
frustrated and cynical about 

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their economic future. 
They're asking what does your 

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side have to offer me 
personally? 

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Why should I believe in 
capitalism or socialism, Keith? 

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What hope can capitalism give to
that young person who's worried 

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about inequality, climate and 
living standards? 

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You have two minutes to sell 
your case before the elevator 

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arrives at your executive suite 
on the top floor. 

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For the same reason we should 
have religious freedom, we 

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should have economic freedom. 
People should be free to make 

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voluntary exchanges with their 
friends, their coworkers, their 

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employers, with potential 
customers in the absence of a 

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third party coercively 
intervening and attempting to 

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exploit both consenting parties.
I'm very happy that the Me Too 

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movement has brought consent 
front and center in the 

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discussion. 
Consent is what differentiates 

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slavery from work, rape from 
lovemaking, theft from trade, 

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and kidnapping from spending 
time at a friend's house. 

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Consent is the root of morality.
We should extend the principle 

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of consent to the economic 
sphere, allowing the average 

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person to have the most amount 
of job opportunities, the most 

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amount of access to products and
services that they could have. 

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Embracing consent is not only 
the moral approach, it gives 

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people a higher standard of 
living because you have 

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entrepreneurs competing for the 
dollars in your pocket. 

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Don't make it easy for them. 
Don't give them a big state that

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they could just tax the money 
away from you. 

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Make them work for it. 
When you look at the great 

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crimes of. 
Let's just stick with American 

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history, it's commonly 
recognized that there were 

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atrocities against the Native 
Americans. 

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Some people initiated violence 
against other people, and we had

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an unjustifiable double 
standard. 

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Well, it's not our fault. 
They were just savages, and we 

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improved on the land, so 
initiating violence wasn't that 

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big of a deal. 
Yeah, it's OK that we coerce 

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some people into performing 
labor against their will, 

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whether it's because they're 
less intelligent because they 

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come from less primitive 
societies. 

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There was another blatant double
standard that we are still 

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paying for to this day. 
What capitalism's advocating is 

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US dropping this double standard
and not allowing some people to 

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initiate aggression at the 
expense of others. 

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Regardless of what your theory 
of property rights is, it's 

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still inconsistent. 
If there's a socialist state 

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where one group has a unique 
right to initiate taxes against 

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the rest of the population, 
that's what makes this an 

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inconsistent theory. 
Even if you said, well, it's 

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just about making sure there's 
enough for everyone, well then 

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why is it that the state has a 
unique monopolistic right to 

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initiate taxes? 
If it's something totally 

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legitimate, allow everyone to 
initiate taxes. 

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This was the great disagreement 
between George Fitzhugh in his 

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book The Sociology of the South 
and Abraham Lincoln. 

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Mr. Fitzhugh wrote in his book 
that slavery is a great, great 

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paternal institution. 
Instead of the slave being free 

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and then having to compete in 
the dog eat dog profit seeking 

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voluntary sector, the slave is 
taken care of. 

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He's given a home for free, he's
given a place where he can have 

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a shower, he's given healthcare.
He is under the ownership of the

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slave owner. 
This this concept of 

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volunteerism we should ignore 
and focus about really caring 

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for people to the point of 
enslaving them. 

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This is what I refer to as 
domestic imperialism. 

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The progressive will rightfully 
say that America should not be 

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using the government to enforce 
laws on people in Haiti. 

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The government of Britain should
not be forcing itself upon 

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people in South Africa, yet they
say that that same government 

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has the right to initiate 
coercion against its domestic 

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population. 
It's the very principle of 

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imperialism that they reject in 
a distant geographical area. 

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They embrace it when it comes to
people who happen to live in a 

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closer geographical area. 
This is today's double standard 

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that we need to reject. 
This is the double standard 

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which allows people to fund mass
murder campaigns in Gaza, in 

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Ukraine, in Iraq, in Libya, in 
Yemen, in Afghanistan, because 

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we haven't taken this principle 
of voluntary exchange and 

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extended it to members of the 
state. 

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I'll end with a story out of 
Kansas City, MO. 

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The health department is 
speaking out after it poured 

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bleach on food intended to be 
given to the homeless. 

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Nellie Mccool, who helps run 
Free Hot Soup Kansas City, has 

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been helping the homeless for 
years until Sunday. 

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Quote officers and health 
inspectors demanded we destroy 

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our food and we were violating 
the health code violations by 

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sharing meals with our friends, 
said Mccool. 

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00:12:08,400 --> 00:12:11,280
The department said the group 
wasn't following the law about 

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serving the homeless, quoting 
Dr. Rex Archer, the director for

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public health in Kansas City, 
MO. 

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They were notified back in a 
meeting in September that they 

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needed to get a permit, and they
just outright said they refused 

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to do that. 
Mccool disputes that, claiming 

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someone in their group got upset
and threw food on the ground. 

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Inspectors then poured bleach on
the food to make sure no one ate

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it. 
That is the domestic imperialism

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you get with the state when some
people literally believe they 

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have a better claim to the 
property you've justly acquired 

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and your time and your body, and
they separate themselves in an 

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apartheid state where they have 
rights to do things to you, you 

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don't have rights to do to them.
That is the nature of our 

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problem in society. 
We keep embracing double 

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standards. 
It's time to embrace free market

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capitalism and reject double 
standards. 

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Zero Hedge and Mr. Burgess, 
thank you guys for your time.