Today, I'm joined by Tom Mullen. He hosts the Tom Mullen talks
Freedom podcast and is the author of where do conservatives
and liberals come from and what happened to life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness find him at Tom.
Mullen talks. Freedom.com.
Today. We're going to be discussing his
new book, anti-state Christmas. Mr. Mullen.
Thank you for your time, sir. Thank you.
Keith crazy. Be here.
I want to give you a quote by one of my heroes Larkin Rose.
Tell me your response to this. This perhaps most telling is
that if you suggest to the average person that maybe God
does not exist. He will likely respond with less
emotion and hostility then if you bring up the idea of life
without government this indicates, which religion people
are more deeply emotionally attached to and which religion
they actually believe in more firmly.
What are you thoughts on that? Well, he's right on the money
and, you know, government or status.
I should say, especially From the left are hostile towards
religion and it's just so funny that they have such a religious
belief in the state. And I always say, look, you
don't have to believe in God, you want to be a Christian, or a
Jew, or a Buddhist or whatever. But if you're going to believe
in something, don't believe in the government, as a religion,
that's like, you know, that's not like being a Buddhist or a
Christian that's more like believing in snake charming her
or fishing through entrails. I mean, look at the results.
Absolutely, everything it does is a disaster.
You got better luck dancing and trying to make it rain.
Now when we hear State, you know, people who've done, you
know, such a deep Dives, we constantly some of the things
that, you know, come to mind, I think of the world wars, I think
of Yemen. I think of, you know, putting
people in jail for victimless crimes ruining the lives of
those people, and their families, and their future job
opportunities. A lot of people will say, well,
when I think of government, I think of roads and schools, I
think of More of like a parent or a provider popular meme.
Once went around saying people who believe in small government
and hate, the state are sort of like dogs who just hate their
owners that they say anyone can criticize anyone.
But in reality without the owner, the dog is left to fend
for himself and will most likely die.
When you come across someone with that mindset.
The state is more or less. A provider.
How do you communicate some idea to them?
That would make them either skeptical or Or question their
initial assumptions. Well, of course week.
The first thing we always hear about is the roads as if 99.999%
of the taxes, didn't go to something else.
Including a big chunk for those Wars you talk about which kill
people who've never attacked us, mostly kill people who've never
done anything but but, you know, defend their own country, but,
you know, getting back to the Rhode show.
The roads are terrible. I mean monkeys could be Rain to
manage the road system better and I spent this most of this
Century traveling for business and a good deal that travel was
flying into an airport through the TSA which we can get to a in
a minute and then having to drive quite a bit through many,
many states on the government's roads, and here's one
observation and this is probably charitable.
You can't drive seven minutes in any City without Seeing delays.
Because of Road repairs that never get repaired, never get
fixed or, or an hour on the interstate highway system
without incurring a major delay. This is not normal.
It doesn't have to be like this and it wasn't always like this
for the first 80 years of the wreck of the Republic private
companies built and owned the roads.
And I don't mean that they got, you know, tax money.
Just to build them. They save their own money.
Formed corporations themselves. How's add funded owned and
operated the roads? And as horrible as the
Confederates were, when they left the union, they didn't have
to do anything with their constitution about slavery,
because the Constitution already defended slavery.
Unfortunately, what they did put in that was drastically.
Different was the government doesn't get to provide any
infrastructure, build any roads. That's how bad the few attempts
to build, government's wrote grow government roads were
before the Civil War. So, It doesn't have to be like
this and it's one thing after another, you know, first.
It was the roads that we just learned to live with the misery
of the government managing that. Then the government took over
health care and then they had a War on Drugs.
Now, they're into education, 40 years ago.
They started the Department of Education to make education
affordable for everyone. And now we've got to forgive all
these loans because education is Affordable for No One,
everything they do is a disaster and everything.
They do has been Done and will be done better by the private
sector. The roads question is much more
important than you know, what? Then we think it is because if
the state provides something we assume that they can be the only
provider of that thing. So we're more likely to defend
blatant atrocities and will always be criticizing people
instead of Institutions. So, when they look at all the
crimes of government, they'll say, you know what, I'm against
that, I really hope they change that policy, but Look, my
grandma is on Social Security. I take the roads to drop my kids
off at the government school. So I mean I I'm against the wars
but I'm still gonna, you know, make sure I'm voting and
saluting and thanking the troops and everything else.
So really once you get people dependent in, this Biz Markie
and way. The human Minds ability to
justify any other atrocity, will almost fall automatically look
like people will never say. Well, I really think the cost of
Into Afghanistan and Iraq were better.
And even though it led to later intervention in Syria, though,
just be like, look without government.
They're probably be chaos. So in, they can't even take a
blatantly obvious, moral stance on something like, you know,
drone kills 10 civilians in Afghanistan in response to, you
know, well what happened during the that the Afghan pull out, so
did you see the Chinese spokesman the other day?
Come out and say. Well, no longer tolerate
American atrocities in the name of democracy.
I heard about it. I didn't actually see the clip,
but good for him. It's just one of those things
where it's like, you know, what, obviously China evil gangster
regime, but can we not play the what about card and just say
yeah, you know what? He's probably right.
Anyone who's not willing to just take a step back.
Let's bring this to anti-state Christmas.
So many people on the right will Justify government atrocities
and say, well, it's called collateral damage.
Well, it's for the greater good. What do you think?
Jesus is message? Would be to those people who
defend crime, so, long as it's done in the name of the state.
Well, I think that, you know, a lot of woke liberal pastors
might be telling their congregations, you know, you
need to be meek and, and suffer and turn the other cheek and be
like Jesus and you'll get your reward the next life.
Not that Jesus. I find in the New Testament.
I mean, I'm no Theologian but according to the state of New
York. I've mastered the skill of
reading and interpreting literature for whatever, that's
worth. And and the Jesus that's in the
Bible is constantly butting heads with the government,
constantly excoriated excoriating them.
He's not even nice about it. I mean, at the end of Matthew,
he goes on a diatribe against the Pharisees and scribes.
I mean, don't forget the whole story.
Starts with a government. Trying to kill them.
Well, he's still a baby. I mean, what?
Butter, comment on the government as then that and why
are these Pharisees and scribes, you know, so out to get them, do
they really believe that he's a threat to anyone's Soul telling
people to love their neighbor as themselves.
No, he's a political threat. He threatens their power, the
people are listening to him instead of them.
And so they're constantly trying to trip him up constantly.
Trying to get him on some trumped-up charge.
So they can kill him which they eventually do.
So, you know, he's he's the greatest libertarian in the
world to me. He never has one.
Nice thing to say about the government and when he runs into
a law, like the guy with the withered hand that says, oh
well, you shouldn't cure him on the Sabbath at.
Forget it. I'm curing him.
Yeah, yeah. Hey disobeying regulations at at
the early stage. That's good.
Because once there's regulatory capture, he couldn't have said
that he would have been he would have been encircled when it
comes to the idea that Jesus was giving away things to for free
to people in very vulnerable situations.
We see this today with people advocating progressivism
Socialism or communism about 17% of The professors in the social
sciences identify as Marxist. Jesus was a communist.
How do you respond? Yeah.
Well, that's I mean, there's that's crazy on so many levels.
We number one. The obvious thing is he never
says, let's start a government program to help the poor.
He tells you to help the poor. He tells me to help the poor.
He certainly doesn't tell you, let's put the Pharisees and
scribes that. I just got done taking to the
Woodshed about how sinful and hypocritical.
They are, is he never says to put them in charge.
That's 41. And then, for a socialist, this,
this Jesus has some very curious Parables where, you know, he
always represents God himself as either a capitalist or a
property owner and the Bolsheviks like the husbandman
in the parable of the vineyard owner, you know, the Bolsheviks
are the villains that are going to get kicked out, you know, and
suffer for eternity. So, you know, he's always put it
this way. Those are all spiritual lessons.
I get it. He's not making an economic
lesson in those Parables, but it's kind of a funny literary
device for his socialist to use to make the capitalist, the
hero. What else does the right have to
learn from the story of Jesus? Well, you know, there's a
chapter of my book called. Jesus, dunks on the left, which
we were, I was just referring to, there's one called Jesus,
dunks on the right. And I think there's a lot to
learn from the woman caught in adultery because they're about
to Stoner for this. Now, of course, people are
punished rather severely for even legitimate crimes in the
gospels. Like the guys were crucified for
robbery. The next next to him, but you
know, when it, Jesus comes across this rather moral crime
and it's a little ambiguous. It's not clear to me from
reading it, you know, whether the woman was married, somebody
in the Act was married, but this is not a crime against the
property of somebody else, other than violating a marriage
contract. So, of course, you don't kill
somebody over this. You don't throw somebody in jail
over this, you know, you he tells her avoid this sin in the
future. This is not good for you to do.
What a great parallel to the drug wars or to any kind of
victimless laws against any victimless crimes.
Prostitution. Of course, we don't want
everybody to go out there and be prostitutes.
But, you know, this is not something you use Force against
because no force was used in aggression.
Big Facebook, debate, the other day in a group.
I was in every now and then it can get pretty productive
depending on so long. As you pick the right groups.
The statement was Jesus would have supported you taking the
vaccine. What do you think about that?
And the obvious implications behind that?
Well, I don't think even I have an objection to anyone taking
the vaccine. It's again, would he would he
put the Pharisees and scribes in charge of which vaccines get
approved and lived to tell everybody they have to take
them. Of course not, that's all he
does is criticize them his whole.
The whole gospel is about him fighting with the government.
So, of course, he's never going to let the government be in
charge of this. He doesn't want to be in charge
of what goes on in this world himself.
He tells punch Pilate. My kingdom is not of this world.
I'm not looking to rule over the people, you rule over.
I don't think that that can in any way be taken, as an
endorsement of Pontius pilate's rule.
He's rather dismissive of pilot and says, hey, I'm not going to
answer any questions. Just another way.
He's very libertarian. He don't talk to the cops.
Don't talk to the government don't and don't provide any
evidence and what happens. He gets acquitted and then what
happens, the mob gets him killed.
Anyway, Even though he's acquitted.
You know, I mean, you couldn't read a better book than the
gospels. Even if you're an atheist, if
you were looking for libertarian principles.
Once they lose the Jesus debate, they inevitably inevitably move
on to, Santa is a socialist of really giving out gifts to all
implying, both kindness and equality Progressive values.
How do you respond? Well again, I mean these people
just don't understand any activity that isn't either
mandated or prohibited. They just believe those are the
two categories into which Every Act of human will is exercise,
but of course, Is no Santa Claus, even if they'll affable
and economically, a little spurious.
He gives away gifts for free. And in fact, if you want to
watch a great libertarian show about, Santa Claus.
Look at Santa Claus is Coming to Town the one that starts out.
I think with maybe Fred Astaire narrating and Santa Claus, you
know, we got Burgermeister meisterburger.
Prohibiting toys. Okay, not far from prohibiting.
Again, you know a completely, you know, harmless to other
people activity and Santa Claus bucks.
The system. He delivers the toys and the
government responds, just the way it has in the drug war, you
know, it, harsher and harsher must measures to prohibit people
from getting the toys people from using the toys.
At one point in the spend, this little special, the government
actually breaks down somebody's door and a no-knock.
Grade, you know, the children are huddling and fear.
I mean, wow, what a great message and then the end, you
know, there's a happy ending. I think the narrator says, well,
eventually the good people of sombertown learned that the
Burgermeister is rules were really idiotic and you know,
they got rid of them. Well, I wish we'd get that
smart. It has been pretty encouraging
to see all the protests in Austria Germany.
Granted. It's devastating to see what But
what ignites them in in the first place, it was also great
sanitation workers. Taking a bunch of trash,
throwing it into De Blasio's residency.
We get what we do. Get some of this rebellious
Spirit against blatantly unjustified actions.
What do you think? People can learn if they are
curious or if their hearts are sort of, tugging them against
the lock downs, but they're also being pulled in the direction of
God. If I just obey my life's going
to be so much easier. Ji'er, what can they learn from
the message of the Gospel? Jesus, or the Bible in general?
Well, he bucked heads. With the government.
He had to die for. It are our founding fathers and
maybe the only Justified war in American history, got invaded
and a lot of them had to die for it.
We don't have to Die For Freedom today.
I mean, all it takes is a little Disobedience.
And believe me, these bullies have no spine there.
Nothing like the British who at least, you know.
Came in and backed up. There there edicts with Force.
You say no. We may have to take some
inconvenience. And that's really what it is.
We may have to you know, not patronize businesses that are
going to go along with this. Is that fair to the businesses
know. Hey life's not fair.
We got to start resisting and you're going to find that.
There's very little ability for the government to enforce things
like mask, mandates and vaccine mandates.
If you Resist. They don't have the resources,
local Town officials. And a lot of places including
here and you know, the People's Republic of New York.
We've got Town supervisor saying.
I'm not enforcing this all over the place County executive's.
We're not going to enforce this. So you've got to get behind that
and you may have to take a little bit of economic pain and
maybe a little inconvenience, but you're not going to have to
take a bullet for it. You know, we've got to stand up.
It's Time to say, no. What is the thesis of your book?
Where do conservatives and liberals come from?
Well, the book really takes a look at the two philosophies.
You know, we always hear the problem that for Republicans.
We just didn't elect a real Republican.
They're all rhinos. They're not real conservatives.
So apparently, the only real conservative in American history
was Calvin Coolidge. And other than that, we've just,
you know, everyone else has been a rhino and there's there's a
similar on the, on the left, you know.
Real Progressive, a real liberal, you know, Barack Obama.
He was to capitalist Joe Biden's to moderate.
And and what I argue in the book is know when you look at the
Philosopher's that, you know, these people parrot everyday
when you listen to the left, you're hearing John Jacques
Rousseau, I mean word, for word every day.
Not so, not as much Karl Marx, it's really more Russo.
When you hear the right, you're hearing Thomas Hobbes.
And they don't like to hear that.
They say, oh no, I'm more with Edwin Burke.
Well, I have bad news for you. Edmund, Burke agreed with
Thomas, Hobbes on just about everything.
He did have a very, you know, significant difference in how
the government should be set up, shouldn't be one, Central
Authority with all the power. But other than that, I mean, the
purpose of the government to thwart our Liberty because we're
so depraved that allowing us to be free would, you know, result
in chaos and and Savagery now Burke was lockstep with Hobbes
on that right in the revolution Reflections on the revolution in
France. And it's not so important that
these enlightened been people, wrote these things, what's
important. As you can see this thinking
every day, why will the conservative back?
The police, no matter how ridiculous the situation might
be. They really believe that if we
don't, we're going to be in chaos that there's absolutely
nothing called spontaneous. Aeneas order and also in trade.
No, tariffs are a very core conservative thing because like
Hobbes they see, everything is a war and trade, there's a winner
and a loser. What did what did Donald Trump
win on? We're not winning anymore.
Okay. Nobody wins in a voluntary
exchange. Okay, there's Mutual benefit or
they don't make the exchange. So, you know, I don't want to
pick on the right too much. The left is just as bad.
They don't believe in property. Our ship and that's his anti
nature. And as anti common senses as
possible. There is no such thing as
freedom, without private-property starting with
self-ownership, but including and absolutely necessary
ownership of the fruits of your labor.
You have to have that or you can't have freedom.
Well, it's like this Hassan piker worldview of private
property is terrible. It gives too much power and
influence to too few people also the Ermine tones, the entire
country and everyone in it. Okay.
Well, doesn't that just completely violate the first
principle to pretended to have like 10 seconds ago, or even
even the right will say Neville Chamberlain.
The one thing we learned from him is that appeasement doesn't
work and it's really important. You blindly obey the police and
the politicians whenever they tell you to do something Larry
Elder who was so good on so many issues says, you know, if you
don't want to die just obey the cops hand a tenant.
Do what they say Sam Harris going as far as to say, you
know, this whole, you know, Sovereign citizen cult.
It's like look, you get pulled over on a Tuesday, instead of
complaining. What worry about your rights on
a Wednesday. He said that, I mean just
unbelievable. The whole point in mentioning
that is there is an idea that freedom is selfish.
So me saying, excuse me officer. Well, I'm kind of being uppity,
not caring about everyone else in this state and the payers and
the people that I live amongst. I'm just caring about myself
there. For freedom is selfish.
How do you respond? Well, of course, they don't
nobody, who runs for public office has ever selfish, right?
I mean, no. No, the corporations that they,
that they make special regulations for.
So my company has a, an artificial advantage over yours.
That's not selfish. I mean, I mean, come on this.
This is childish type behavior. And I mean, you could just say
look, I don't agree with the Declaration of Independence,
which says that the government's there to secure our rights, the
rights that already. Exist before we even form the
government. Now, you could disagree with
that. But why is it?
I that have to move to Somalia? Why don't you move to Somalia or
moved to Sweden or move to France or wherever you think
they're doing it? Right?
I mean our country was founded on this idea and these
conservative and liberal philosophies are pretty foreign
to that idea. As far as property goes, all
property is ultimately private. If you're eating food, that That
is private property. Even in Soviet Russia, people
ate food or they would have died.
And so at some point you have to take possession of physical
Goods. You have to exclude, you know,
the own the disposition, by anybody else.
Okay. And have to act completely
selfishly over those goods. So the only question really is,
how do they come into your possession?
And if you say well the government decides, well, why is
that? Better than a voluntary
transaction where I, I get from you, something that you have an
exchange for something. You want that?
I have no rational person could think that, you know, people
with guns, just, you know, seizing things and deciding, how
to hand them out is going to be better.
So it's a completely vapid argument and you know, all you
have to do is really talk it through to yourself and you'll
come to the conclusion that, you know, there's nothing to this.
Yeah, but because you can't even defend the, it's okay to steal
argument because the second the government has taken the
trillions of dollars while it's wrong for them to exclude.
Anyone from taking that money. So we should take it from them
and then it should be taken from us.
And the only right thing to do is for everyone to be constantly
stealing from one another. They'll say it's terrible to
have tons of money. So the state should take
trillions and then exclude everyone and then according to
whatever laws regulations. Ins or new plans?
It has well, then it can spend the money on those things, but
then we could just steal, we can just go occupy the DMV, we can
go into OSHA and we can just take all their computers because
that are you saying we should be forcibly excluded from property.
I mean, I mean, they have such high standards for the average
person, but q and on is irrational, Russia, gate.
Now almost starting a war with a nuclear power, bam, whatever.
No one's perfect. They Were wrong.
Every network was wrong for three years and and they don't
care. The the double standard they
have is is just incredible. If you look at the Encyclopedia
of Wars, they cite about 1763 Wars between 8000 BC and 2000 ad
about 6.9 or about 7% of the wars were religious wars about
93% involved governments. How has the scam that Jin is the
cause of War been foisted on the public when it's so obviously
could be religion but as most often government.
Well, I certainly most religions advocate for peace.
Now, of course, governments can use religion and twist their
teachings. And even, you know, line up with
the administration of religions, as you know, some of the early
Roman Empire a did I should say late Roman emperors in the late
Empire, after Constantine, you know, they kind of used religion
by this conquer that certainly pretty foreign to Jesus message,
who didn't even Even want Peter to defend his abs person with
the sword. So, ya know, it's always the
government and it's kind of a parallel to all the big
corporations or bad. Okay.
So the big corporations use the government to, you know, get
loopholes for themselves, give them in a cell's, an advantage
over their competitors, you know, rig the game, so to speak.
Well, that's only because the government's there, the
government created that opportunity and not to be an
apologist for Bezels or whomever, but if you don't play
the game, then you lose. So you either just don't go into
business or you kind of got to play by the rules, or your
competitors will. So it's always the government.
If you didn't have the government, then religion could
never be an evil thing and obviously, Commerce could never
be an evil thing. Yeah, it would certainly make it
much more costly for you to be evil.
You'd have both competitors and people wouldn't see you as oh.
This guy has A badge. So all right.
Yeah get you can shoot a couple bullets through with it through
towns. So long as it's overseas and so
long as you do it while you're wearing camouflage and and now
it's all okay. We're going to come home and
have a parade for you. Tom Woods has a great quote.
He says, libertarianism, is cultish.
Say the sophisticates. Of course, there's nothing
called the shit all about allegiance to the state.
With its Flags. Its songs, its mass murders.
It's little children saluting and paying homage to pictures of
their dear leaders on the wall, Etc.
Do you see that? We are in a cold or almost hot
war against a cult mindset called statism?
Oh my God. Yeah, of course.
We are. You the end and the belief.
That's what I was saying earlier is, it's just so hard to see how
anyone could believe in this. I mean, forget the roads.
Let's just talk the war on poverty for everybody who's
liberal, who thinks we need the government to help the poor.
How have they done? It's been 50 years.
And now you think we have to ditch the a whole system and
start over because the results are so bad.
Well, it's not like you haven't given the government a chance.
It's really been, you know, over 100 years and and for the right,
okay, we need the government to bring manufacturing back to
America. Well, okay, we threw a whole
bunch of tariffs up in 2018. And what happened, the is M,
Manufacturing Index, went in the toilet.
It was in a recession. Nobody pays any attention to
that, you know, so it's a disaster.
It Works. My God, I mean I was so fired
up. That socialism was making a
comeback. I was like, didn't we prove this
wrong in the 20th century 50 years ago.
Well, I'll tell you what mercantilism.
That's why economics was invented and him Smith wrote his
Treatise to write against tariffs and mercantilism.
That was his main motivation. So I mean, these idiotic ideas
just keep coming back. And here's the here's the catch,
they appeal to your emotions. They If they show you some bad
outcome and they say, here's what's going to fix.
It. Don't look behind the curtain at
the 44. Other times.
We tried this and it was a disaster every time now, it's
going to work this time. We just didn't do it right.
Last time. We didn't erect.
The the are elect the right bureaucrats to to manage it.
So, you know, we've got to yeah, we are fighting a cult and we're
fighting a goofy call. I mean, not even like, you know,
something that has some plausibility, we're fighting the
kind of call. We're like I said, people are
fishing through entrails and you know, looking for the answers
there. It's that bad.
I know it's like I never see a gents a key, press conference
and go. Oh God II got to get a phone
call with the other guys from The Institute.
We got to go over this and see if we could poke any holes in
this. It's like you could just do a
livestream as she's doing it at any point in your day and refute
all the nonsense. She says she went as far as to
say the three trillion. The three point five trillion
dollar build back better, which was their first version not the
one that just passed. It's going to cost zero dollars.
And then she did this to the camera.
She put this circle in the air to indicate it and then Pelosi
did the same thing like this as if it was perfectly coordinated.
And then Joe Biden's Twitter account on the same day tweets
out the same thing. So they think that like
literally two plus two equals five is the propaganda joke,
they are literally saying, three point five trillion equals zero,
and they We have ways to pay for it.
Do you not know what it cost is like?
It didn't cost me anything. I just paid for with my savings
account. Well, that's a cost.
That's a cost. So I love the point about where
it's not just a cult. It's a very weak one.
And that should give us an indicator as to how much these
people are willing to enforce. So, let's just take lockdown,
edicts. For example, are there really
officers and people in the military saying I'm going to,
I'm going to risk. My life and die for Joe Biden.
That speech was so terrific or, you know, Nancy Pelosi really
made some convincing arguments that if I have to kill 50,000
people. It's like, I'm doing it for the
paycheck. If five people resist.
If, if my wife starts, you know, nagging me about, you know,
doing a terrible job. If my in-laws look down on me,
I'll probably find something else.
Isn't that a little encouraging that they're so pathetic?
They have people like Biden and Bush Obama.
And Bernie as is that there had Richmond.
Well, yeah, I mean if we could go in a time machine and just
take the transcript from a press conference with Jen sake.
Today, we could go back to Saturday Night Live and get paid
for handing in a set tires script.
I mean, it's really that crazy and you're starting to see the
wheels come off a little because, you know, when you see
a guy like Bill Maher, yeah, he's still mostly, you know, in
the cult. But when they go so far beyond
Anything like reality, you know, a guy like him, start to say,
wait a minute. This is getting out of hand.
You know, know America is not more racist than it was in the
1960s. When the Ku Klux Klan used to
have rallies on the National Mall and get interviewed by news
stations. Like they were some kind of
legitimate, you know, political organization.
You know it? No, that's that's just can't be
true. And you know, I'm hoping that
they'll just keep getting more ridiculous.
That's because you are starting to see people say I'm just not
going along anymore. Even even elected officials and
we shouldn't put too much faith in them.
But there are some especially at the local level here, the more
local you get the more real even an elected official is and I
it's got a real quick antidote. I used to work in the healthcare
industry. All during the 1990s.
I work for a couple of those evil hmos and it was the first
kind of brush I had with the Regulatory system, and I, and
before I ever even heard the word, libertarian.
I formed this hypothesis that, you know, the government's are
always incompetent. But as you go up the ladder,
like the state government is more incompetent than the County
government and the federal government.
When I once I ran into those people, I was like, you got to
be kidding me. They're, they're just off the
charts. Now.
This is like 1995. I'm talking about when I was in
management at an HMO and they were, you know, We, you know,
give our life's blood, they have those bureaucrats back in place
of the ones we have now, so they just keep getting worse, but you
can do some stuff at the local level and I'd encourage people,
even anarchists like me, run for Town supervisor.
If you think he could win, you got a lot of power there to say
no. Yeah, yeah, definitely showing
up in person to those places. That's definitely where a lot of
sort of intellectual energy is so you can look at the number of
people who are, you know, as social justice advocacy, as the
gap or Ben & Jerry's, or a lot of these corporations try to be
on their social media is very few.
The point is, is that these people are the one sort of
creating the narrative. They're the ones really standing
up for something and making it. Our for corporations to sort of
take their side and create the idea in the populace that this
is something legitimate. This is where our power should
be, should be focused. So by talking to the people at
least willing, to show up to say something like, you know, Town
Council or something like that. At least you're kidding into the
minds of the people who are sort of caring.
Like if you're going to change some Minds, you'd want to
allocate your time. They're probably rather than the
average person who is not too interested.
I could be wrong. About that.
I'm totally open to being wrong. This comes from me attending a
lot of the school board meetings.
A few years ago. I want to say it was like 2015
in in Arizona, some of the best conversations.
I'd have were at these school board meetings with people
believe it or not, on both sides.
When there's not a camera and there's not a lot of pressure in
someone's face. They're actually willing to open
up their minds and they say, you know, what, this, this
libertarian guy Ron Paul. I thought it was so stupid, but,
you know, it seems like he was Write about but just foreign
policy and the war on drugs and just the welfare state,
everything else, though. They're that they're wrong about
and but actually the more I talk these people seem to have, you
know, some good arguments just asking them.
Well, if we have the right to opt out of you know, Catholic
Church education. Shouldn't we just have the same
principle for government? Not anti-teacher.
I don't hate you guys. I'm just saying, shouldn't we
just have the same principle for both?
But both systems everyone on the five, chair panel was looking at
each other and and they said that's something that we're
going to address later. And of course they never did.
The point is, is at least it planted that seed.
So I just went on that little tirade because I know people are
going to say Town Council legitimized.
The state. Are you crazy?
Unsubscribe? All right, Tom, you have two
other books. Just give me a quick thesis on
whatever happened to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. Well, yeah again that is the one
that tries to explain that. Look at the conservative, the
real conservative philosophy, the true blue, you know, Edmund
Burke philosophy is not consistent with the Declaration
of Independence. It Edmund Burke did not believe
that, we have natural rights that we keep and carry into
society. And that's the government's job
to secure those rights. He says.
So, right in the wreckage Recollections, on the revolution
in France, okay. And the liberal philosophy based
on Jean-Jacques Rousseau and you know, once you read Rousseau,
you can never unknow, read it because you will hear
word-for-word quotes from him every day by Elizabeth Warren.
Barack Obama Alexandria. Ocasio, Cortez, that's, I'm not
saying that they're carrying around his book in their back
pocket, but they think identically to him, and what did
he say that in order to have a society, you need to have the
Pleat alienation of the inventor of the individual, and all of
his natural rights and submission to the general will.
So you can't have inalienable rights and alienate them all at
the same time. It's completely antithetical to
the Declaration of Independence as well, which was really based
on, you know, channeling, John Locke.
And he's the founder of libertarianism to me and I know,
you know, same thing, everyone's going to unsubscribe.
He wanted a government. He wanted a monarchy.
Yeah, I mean when you're breaking new ground, you you
don't, you know, realize all of the implications of the
principles you set down. But if you believe in self
ownership you believe in the non-aggression principle.
This is all lock. This is the guy that that
crystallized it more than anyone else before or after or at least
until Murray rothbard. So the book there is to try to
convince people that if you believe in Freedom, you really
got to ditch. These philosophies and adopt
hours. Is there any sense in which that
could almost rip someone of their identity and give them a
disincentive? So couldn't we also say that but
Burke's idea of the general will and the desire for a collective
will to be achieved couldn't we take that principle and say sure
and the general will can be achieved through any of the
millions of voluntary Mutual Aid, associations that could
exist. So long as people have the right
to opt out we could say that government.
It is the first organization we get cross off the list of
promoting the general will because generally they would get
our funding and participation voluntarily.
So what we can cross them off the list other than that.
Yeah. I love the general will Mutual
Aid, churches, book clubs. All these other ways.
We could voluntarily cooperate. Do you think it could be
beneficial to accept their premises and come to different
conclusions? Or should we say?
Hey we got to cut this tree off at the root.
Well, it's I think you're speaking with Russo is, the
general will guy Burke has his own issues.
But but I think you really have to confront this whole idea of a
general rule. There's no such thing.
I mean, there's no such thing as a common good.
That's the whole idea behind the right to pursue your happiness.
Why do we need a separate right from Liberty?
The through the pursuit of happiness, the whole idea about
that is, everybody's happiness, is different, and it's not
necessarily just between Real wealth.
I mean, I'm not all that interested in that.
I do like the enough material wealth to pursue the things I
want to do and not always be working to serve others, but we
have to, you know, confront the reality that there's no there
never has been. And there never will be a
general will know American leader was ever elected by a
majority of the population, including in the last election.
If Joe Biden did indeed, get 80 million votes.
That's about a Fourth of the population.
Okay, so and believe me, everybody who voted with Joe
Biden? Does not agree with everything
that comes out of Joe Biden's mouth.
So, when he has a particular policy, no, it's not even 80
million. People voted for that.
So, it's just a concept that people have to get past.
We got to confront that. And, you know, again, recognize
you can't have freedom if your will has to be the same as
everyone else's. The opposite of freedom, but if
there's no such thing as Freedom, if you've got to, you
know, follow somebody else's will.
What if Freedom isn't what motivates people, what if it's
safety, how you talk to someone who says, you know, I just want
to be safe and secure. I don't really care about
Freedom. Well, you know, why don't you
move to Somalia? I mean, they've got a government
again. No.
No, I'm kidding. Yeah, really, but but but think
about how safe, the government has kept, you know, you've got,
let's just say the FDA, okay. They're supposed to make drugs
safe. And even before this whole covid
disaster started. I mean, they have thousands and
thousands of drugs on their waiting list to be approved.
By the way. The last time I checked Germany
had like two dozen. So there are a lot Freer than we
are in that respect. Why are they doing this?
Do you really believe that they're concerned about Public
Safety? Or could it be that the
established pharmaceutical companies, who already have
products out there selling don't want more.
Mission, you know, you really have to decide for yourself.
What's more plausible? How gullible are you?
Now? Every drug that's been kept off
the market, by the FDA has resulted in somebody dying, who
could have been saved or at least somebody, you know, who
got seriously ill, that could have been not seriously.
Ill, that whole EpiPen disaster. Okay, that was all because there
were many other competitors that the FDA wouldn't approve.
And when you look at the reasons, That they answered that
question with for why those those other Solutions weren't
approved. No reasonable person.
Could believe all this had to be kept off the market because the
delivery system was different. Come on.
It's because the company that owned, the EpiPen had influenced
with the FDA. I'm just talking about one
little agency and let's not forget.
They can draft, you send you to Afghanistan for you know, God
knows how many years and get you killed over nothing and that
goes for sending us to sir. Bia.
Or, I think we only bombed Serbia, I'm sorry, or Iraq, or,
Vietnam, or Korea? My dad was a Korean War veteran
and I'll tell you what, by the end of his life.
He said, he said this, he died on Veterans Day.
He said, we should have marched on Washington, d.c.
Instead of soul. And this guy was his true, blue,
American rah-rah Veteran. As you can imagine that reading
the newspaper turned him around on that.
So the government's not keeping you safe.
You'd be a lot to say. For without it.
I could give 40 million examples.
II. Love that answer because it
doesn't say I'll just screw safety freedoms more important.
You just take their premise and apply it, you know, logically
using the economic examples of. Yeah, I love safety.
I'm more crazy about safety than you are.
That's why I support achieving our safety through voluntarily
funded competing organizations. Instead of one Monopoly
organization, that Lon horyuji murders.
Vicki Weaver shoots at Waco survivors and then gets up.
Pension. Yeah, but that's not exactly the
beacon of safety. That that you think it is.
Speaking of safety. Let's talk about the good War, a
book. You and I both love cap.
You cannons, Churchill Hitler, and the unnecessary War, how
Britain lost its Empire in the Hostile world?
What is the big takeaway from this book?
And why do you love it as much as I do?
Well, I should preface it by saying, get off Pat Buchanan.
We're sitting next to us. He'd probably have hit both of
us over the head with his chair by now, because he doesn't
really agree with us on A lot of things.
But boy, is he ever great on on foreign policy?
And, you know, whenever we say, you know, we shouldn't invade
some poor, third world World, third world Backwater with some
tin pot dictator. Who's the latest Hitler, you
know, they're all Hitler. It's a 44 neoconservatives.
It's always 1938. We're always, you know, like you
said before, we can't appeal is him.
Saddam Hussein could take over the world, right?
Okay, you know, but it always goes back to World War.
To well, that was the good War. Well, maybe it wasn't and maybe
it could have been avoided and it is a complicated question.
But what Buchanan says in his book and he's not so much
placing the blame in the United States as he is on England,
giving a war guarantee to Poland, which they reneged on.
They did not follow through with that little intervention.
He kept Poland from kind of negotiating with Hitler now.
Look there. No solution for Hitler, that was
going to be painless or good, but we could have had a better
solution. And what was that?
Maybe they give Hitler, what was called at the time?
I think Danzig. It's today called Gdansk and for
Germans and poles, who are like, you know, crying over my
pronunciation. I apologize.
So he gets that city, which was had already voted.
Like, the recent vote in Crimea to go back to Germany.
And what does he do next? He's going to march on on
Russia. I mean, that was what he had
been saying ever since mine. Comped.
Germany has to expand Eastward. He wanted the Ukraine.
Okay, it's not a great thing that he has this.
Bloody war with the Soviets and tens of millions of dollars died
there. But we had that anyway, in World
War Two, what might have been avoided was the Soviets taking
over half of Europe, killing many, many times more people
than the Germans and subjecting half of Europe, to 46 years of
slavery, maybe that could have been avoided.
If england, didn't act like the United States does now and poke
its nose in there and make a promise that couldn't keep
because they promised to defend Poland and them when were Hitler
invaded. They didn't do it anyway, so,
you know and then we got this big huge World War.
So I'm sure there's a million arguments, you know where
people, because they'll come on, come on and believe me.
There's a good argument that That the, that the world war
could have been avoided. Every war can be avoided.
And, you know, we should not be conned into the next one which
might involve China and Russia. Exactly.
Yeah, in 1999. Buchanan talks about in a gosh,
his book is titled a republic, not an Empire.
And he talks about foreign policy bankruptcy and it's the
idea that look at the foreign policy as you would a balance
sheet of here are my costs. Here's my income.
Here's what? Can afford and here are my
potential expenditures. He goes, you know, that if like
any country gets invaded, there's almost some sort of
Allegiance. We have to go fight a war on
their behalf. Whether it's against China or
Russia, we're having. And you know today of course
even say 299, but he said NATO wasn't able between 2003 and
2021. To keep the Taliban out of
Afghanistan. Iraq, was not the success that
we thought it would be. Bill kristol said, it was going
to be about a two-month War. So what do you think about, you
know, protecting all of Europe or Ukraine?
They're talking about bringing Ukraine into NATO after they had
promised in 91, James Baker, promise to Nato would not expand
Eastward because there's no more Soviet Union, there's nothing to
do and then they bring in, you know, Hungary and Poland and
Slovakia and Slovenia with Macedonia.
It's like they constantly are just pushing for this war to
happen. They need this enemy in To
survive, you can and summarizes his work saying on September 1st
1939. 70 years ago, the German Army crossed the Polish Frontier
on September 3rd, Britain declared war six years later, 50
million Christians and Jews had perished Britain was broken and
bankrupt, Germany. A smoldering ruin Europe.
Had served as the site of the most murderous combat known to
man and civilians had suffered worse whores, then the soldiers
by May 1945, Red Army hordes occupied all the great capitals
of Central Europe be in. The Prague Budapest Berlin, 100
million Christians were under the heel of the most barbarous
tyranny in history. The Bolshevik regime of under
the regime, of the greatest, terrorist of them all Joseph
Stalin. What could justify these
sacrifices? Not to mention the Korean War,
which came after as a result of communist popularity.
Also the war in Vietnam and expansion into China with the
Communist Party, having more power against Chiang Kai-shek
than it otherwise would have. So this is the good War.
This is the one that they brag about.
That's you. Reason I mention it all all the
time. Last question, Tom, any more
ideas on any more ideas on short-term Solutions and
long-term Solutions in the fight for freedom and voluntourism.
Well, you know, I I've always said, you know, you could, you
could get little wins, you could get, you can trick the state,
you can find a loophole, whatever.
And those are all great. And every single person who
finds every one of them, I Add them, but in the end, we really
have to break the spell. We have to change people's
thinking and in order to have the kind of society.
We want most people have to think our way or at least a
significant minority of people have to think our way.
So I'm a big homeschooling Advocate.
I think that there's a big opportunity right now.
Now that parents know what they're teaching their kids in
school. Plus the fact that they don't
care about masking them. They don't care about
Vaccinating them for a disease that poses no risk to Children
whatsoever. There.
Can't be any public health motivation behind that, that's
all corruption. So we have an opportunity to say
look, pull your kids out. And, you know, what happened
with us is back in when my daughter was young, you know, we
did the math and by the time we paid for daycare and then, you
know, the cost of want my wife at the timer and a little less
money than me. So we just Made a decision to go
with the higher income. When we subtracted, the cost of
that job, the parking, that the travel that everything, you
know, the difference started to shrink quite a bit and we were
able to pull it off even when we weren't, you know, by any means
fabulously wealthy, you know, really take a hard look at home
schooling because the school system, the people who work in
it, don't even realize they're reinforcing this, the statist
religion anymore because they were brought up in it.
So that's one thing and the other thing is just, you know,
what Jefferson called manly firmness firmness, and if you
want to call it, womanly firmness, or they need firm less
or whatever you want to call it. You know, you just have to say,
no. You don't have to be violent.
You don't have to be belligerent.
You don't even have to be rude. You could just say, no.
I'm not wearing a mask anymore. I'm just not doing it.
If I if you know, you're going to make me, leave your property
then that's fine. I'll take my money and go but
I'm not doing it. And you Will not believe how
many people around you agree with you and and there's a story
in my book and this is a little, you know, off the present topic
of covid. But back during the war on
terror and I'm talking, it was on Full Steam.
They were issuing, the orange alerts for all those who
remember those orange alert for terrorism?
Today. Everybody be on your guard.
I mean, just complete Mania and it was like you would go to an
airport gate, especially in a red state.
And a guy at a military uniform, we get off the plane and they
would they would give him a standing ovation at the gate.
Right? Who knows if this guy's a clerk
or whatever, right? He's wearing a government
costume. He's a hero.
Well, I'm waiting to get on the plane at the end of a long trip,
and as usual, they said, first class and Military and uniform,
or welcome to board. And I was just so fed up with
this, that I decided to utter, what is sacrilege to both.
Both sides of the aisle. Now, for the all-powerful state,
I said loud enough. So everyone could hear me.
I'm a, I'm a taxpayer uniform. Can I get on the plane now?
And swear to God? I thought someone was gonna
punch me and all of a sudden I start to hear nervous laughter
all around me, and it just told me something.
It's like I just said something that all those people, laughing
are afraid to say, they wish they could say it, right?
And this is no joke. This is No, happy ending to the
story of a military guy, and uniform came up and thanked me,
because I hate all this stuff. I hate this.
Thank the troops. Said, I don't come to your job
and thank you for going to work. Well, I don't get, you know, so
believe me. There's a lot of support out
there for irreverent, irreligious worship of the
state, you know, have the courage to speak up politely.
However, you want to do it in politely, and you're going to
find. You got a lot of alleys iíll
allies out there. Thank you everyone for watching
Keith Knight. Don't tread on anyone in the
libertarian Institute. Tom Mullen talks Freedom, Tom.
Thank you for your time, sir. Thanks so much for having me on.
I appreciate it.