Should we start with the essay, And I hope I'm saying this correctly, coercivist and voluntarist. Can you tell us for I guess first of all, who wrote that? And then what is this particular essay about? This is an essay by Don Boudreaux, APHD economist from George Mason University, and what he says is that so many of the divides that we see are completely fake and arbitrary.
The corporate press is constantly pushing black verse white rich verse poor man verse woman, American verse Muslim which now has completely switched and Muslims are totally off. The chopping block. And now it's America versus Russia and soon to be America versus China, unfortunately. So he says these are so obviously fake, they put a divide in front of you. You can see even organizations like Democracy Now will say it turns out studies show that whites get loans at a higher
rate than blacks. And then they just end the segment there and they completely leave out that Asians actually get approved more than whites. So why leave them out? Because it's a constant fake divide. So Don Boudreau says well. The reality is, when people are looking at the political situation, logic kind of is is set aside and what people look for are villains to hate and heroes to cheer.
So what are what is rather a true divide that we could base society on if we are to say what is just and what is unjust behavior. So he says a true divide would be people who achieve their ends in life coercively. Or by initiating violence or threats thereof versus volunteers, People who achieve any of their ends in life, whether it's where you want to have dinner tonight or whether it's what do you want in the future, career wise, he says.
This is a true divide where we can see who is right, who is wrong, just behavior that is civilized and barbaric behavior that should be dismissed. This gets to the root of the most evil things in the world that differentiates slavery from voluntary work. Kidnapping from spending time at someone's house, Rape from lovemaking, theft from trade. This really gets to the root of morality. So he says this is a true divide. Democrat and Republican is another fake divide.
I remember watching John Kerry and George Bush have a debate. This had to have been like 2003, 2004 and Kerry's big objection to. Invading Iraq. Murdering civilians, Initiating a war based on lies. George Bush explicitly said it's been confirmed that Saddam Hussein has bought a yellow cake uranium from Niger. Turns out that was a fake story. Dick Cheney said it's been pretty well confirmed. Mohammed Adam met with Iraqi intelligence in Czechoslovakia. That was fake.
So Kerry's objection to all this evil was. I think we should have sent 40,000 more troops at one point and and really you know, gotten serious about the war, not just dilly dally looking back. And then of course the the the tax rate discussion, they're like should it be 38 or 36 or 36 verse 39 when talking about the corporate high income tax rates. All of those divides are fake. Don Boudreau says a true divide in society is coercivist first. Volunteerist.
That centrally really is what the book is about. No, that's interesting. So it seems like there's kind of this sowing of a false false dichotomy or false dichotomy is actually this us versus them dynamic that that status largely attempt to create. Is the purpose of that to create more demand for regulation and statism? Like you just get people divided, Classic divide and
conquer strategy. You get people divided across different ideological lines and then from that you create some some internal conflict from which more statism is demanded. Is that kind of the general point? It certainly seems that way, just because the follow up to every evil is and that's why the state needs more power to tax and regulate. You know, racism is a terrible thing. Vladimir Putin is a terrible guy and there is a dangerous virus that exists.
Therefore, my group and organization should be able to take more income by force and regulate voluntary exchanges between consenting adults. Now, even if you buy into so many of their fake narratives, it doesn't necessarily follow that you should therefore give them more money and power. There could be a numerous alternative methods to what to achieving such a thing. For example, both Donald Trump and Barack Obama got together and lot.
Ideologically got together and lied about the Pulse nightclub murder of June 12th, 2016. They both came out and said this was a horrible crime against gay and lesbian Americans and this was a hate crime. He was targeting them because they were gay and we cannot allow such a thing to exist. It turns out that his 911 call after murdering 49 people enduring 53, he held the remaining people hostage. He called 911. And actually explained his
motive. The reason we can actually take his word for it is because the goal of terrorism is to amplify a message as opposed to conceal your motives. And he explicitly says again and again, you have to tell America to stop bombing Iraq and Syria. They're killing too many women and children there. What am I to do here when my people are getting killed over there? Tell the US to stop the drone strikes, Stop collaborating with Russia. They're killing too many women
and children now. You see how it is. Now you feel how it is. He said that repeatedly throughout this, you know, 20 minute discussion. I think he was on with, they transferred him to an FBI negotiator. You can actually find this transcript. So even when they say there is a real problem, someone used massive violence against innocent people and homophobia exists, it doesn't mean that the state should get more power. And in this instance, just as so many others, it was actually a result.
Of state power. This was blowback as a result of government intervention in the 1st place. Same with the financial crisis. As I'm sure your audience understands, they say well, there's a terrible financial crisis. Also, it has nothing to do with the Federal Reserve. Monopolizing the currency as well as interest rates has nothing to do with Fannie and Freddie guaranteeing terrible loans or Sallie Mae guaranteeing
terrible college loans as well. So governments so often cause the very problem that they claim to usher in the solution.
It also looks like there was a great deal of gain of research funding that was sent to the Wuhan Lab of Virology before they told us COVID is the new justification for state tyranny through the Eco Health Alliance and the National Institute of Health. So again and again, even if the problems are real, they are either caused by government or the state is not a successful solution to what should be done.
Yeah, so many great points there and it So every time we get on these topics, I'm often reminded of one of my favorite quotes from Nietzsche. I probably repeated this more than any other quote. Everything the state says is a lie and everything it has, it has stolen. It sounds a bit extreme, but man, I think you're hard pressed to find a counter example. I'm also, sorry, go. Ahead, one more thing on that. The reason they lie so
frequently. I came across this thesis from a 1928 book by Arthur Ponsonby titled Falsehood in Wartime. He says all the countries lied to their populations at this is after the First World War, he goes. So are they like all secretly friends and all planning to lie? He goes. That seems extremely unlikely.
What is likely is in order to get people to say I'm willing to have my son's limbs blown off and get him killed, you have to scare them into the most crazy psychotic state that they're willing to do. Literally.
Anything Putin's going to take over Ukraine, then Poland, then Europe, then South America, and then he will take over America and start murdering civilians here, just like he's doing in Donison Luhansk. Well, the reality is either Zelensky is going to be on the throne NATO puppet, or Viktor Yanukovych is going to be on the throne, somewhat of a Putin puppet. That's the real dichotomy.
So they always lie because they have to justify this totally irrational power grab that they otherwise wouldn't be able to justify. If they told you the reality of the situation, they have to tell you. COVID is killing people, especially children, who are the most vulnerable. You have to wear a mask. You can't stand 5 feet apart in 11 inches. It has to be 6 feet. And you can't go outside till
Moderna tells us it's okay. All of the lies have to occur simply because the truth is not going to arouse the passions of the feebleminded like they'd like to.