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Individualism versus war. 
Obviously, individualism is 

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something heavily espoused in 
the libertarian tradition, just 

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individual right to life, 
liberty, and property. 

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I would argue that war is 
largely the extreme opposite of 

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that, where life, liberty, and 
property is being rampantly 

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violated. 
So who is the author of this 

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essay, and and what does he do 
to unpack that dichotomy between

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individualism and war? 
The author is Scott Horton, who 

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is the director of the 
Libertarian Institute. 

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My boss over there. 
And when he's talking about 

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individualism, a lot of people 
might think individualism is 

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when people do things by 
themselves. 

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Collectivism is when people do 
things together. 

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That is not an actual 
explanation of what the 

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individualism is. 
Individualism is people 

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cooperating in the web of 
society based on individual 

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consent. 
Collectivism is when some people

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have the right to coerce others 
under the guise of helping the 

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nation, helping the race, 
helping the poor for the greater

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good, etcetera. 
The reason this is important is 

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because if you are doing 
something alone, you're just 

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reading a book in your house. 
You probably didn't write the 

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book, you probably didn't chop 
down the trees to make the 

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pages. 
The author probably stole words 

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that other people. 
Came up with and put them in the

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book. 
You're probably not generating 

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your own light. 
You're probably not generating 

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your own electricity or air 
conditioning. 

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You probably bought the house 
from someone else who built it. 

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Even at the point of doing 
something alone, we're 

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constantly cooperating. 
That is a true understanding of 

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what individualism is. 
So with that understanding, 

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Scott Horton says war is 
ultimately about collectivism. 

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During crisis, individuality 
fades in favor of team effort. 

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During vital and conflict, 
particularly between 

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governments, the world becomes 
especially, it seems for 

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Americans, a giant bloody 
football game. 

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Our team first, theirs, us first
them. 

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Good verse evil go team go. 
So his thesis is that the only 

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reason the average person is 
able to justify something like 

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Operation Meeting House bombing 
of I think 100,000 civilians in 

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Tokyo. 
Japan. 

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This would have been in March of
1945, as deadly as Hiroshima and

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Nagasaki. 
So if you know about it, but 

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they will immediately come back 
with well, they started it. 

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They had Pearl Harbor, as if the
people in this geographical 

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area, mostly civilians, had any 
part in the decision for the 

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Japanese regime of Emperor 
Hirohito to attack Pearl Harbor 

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four years earlier. 
But they have put them in the 

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same BLOB. 
It is literally like me going up

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to an American and arresting 
them and saying, well, Joe Biden

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on August 29th of 2021 murdered 
10 civilians in Kabul, 

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Afghanistan. 
Seven of them were children. 

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So I'm arresting America for 
what America did. 

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Well, America is a group and not
everyone in. 

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A demographic is responsible for
the actions. 

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It's the equivalent or a general
understanding is that each 

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person is part of a number of 
different collectives. 

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So I would be part of the male 
collective, the collective who's

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in their 20s. 
I'd be an American who's in 

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Arizona. 
I would be part of the 

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podcasting collective. 
You can constantly generalize 

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people and then hold everyone 
responsible for what a 

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microscopic number of people do.
So because people are able to 

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1st buy into collectivism, Scott
Horton says the most dangerous 

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extent of this thing of this 
assumption is that it leads to 

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literal mass murder. 
And they still managed to call 

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us the ideology of greed for 
advocating voluntary exchange as

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they defend indiscriminate mass 
murder. 

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So he says this is the 
underlying issue with so much of

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what we see. 
The reason I chose this one is 

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because it is a timeless 
message. 

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It's something I wish people 
would have read in the First 

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World War, the 30 Years War, the
Spanish American War. 

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It's so vitally important 
because it really gets to the 

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heart. 
Of of what the issue is even 

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today, you'll see people say 
just ridiculous nonsense. 

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Well, Xi Jinping is a terrible 
person, so we might have to go 

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to war with China even though 
want a former Republican. 

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Richard Nixon shook hands with 
Chairman Mao and Henry Kissinger

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shook hands with Chairman Mao. 
But we can't talk to President 

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Xi. 
He is just absolutely evil. 

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The US had a formal alliance 
with, who many say is like a 

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terrific president, Franklin 
Roosevelt. 

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Had an alliance with Joseph 
Stalin, but they're like, oh, 

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but we can't talk to Vladimir 
Putin. 

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He did bad things in Ukraine. 
Stalin murdered far more people 

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in Ukraine in the holiday more, 
and then after that they formed 

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the Allied alliance. 
So all of these ridiculous 

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things, all of how smart people 
can make such ridiculous 

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justifications that are 
blatantly irrational is because 

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they first believe in something 
called collectivism. 

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That's why I think Scott 
Horton's essay is important.