Hey, it's Larry Sharp here at Freedom Fest having some amazing conversations, talking about human respect, talking about morals, talking about ethics. And I'm very happy that I have with me today the man himself, Keith Knight. Keith, tell. Tell him about yourself. Larry, thanks so much for having me. I am managing editor at the Libertarian Institute. I recently published the Volunteerist Handbook.
These are the 50 essays that I read that took me from being a progressive to being a libertarian or volunteerist. The main thesis of the book is summarized in the introduction and the afterword. And I'm generally saying that the way politics currently is, is they will seek to divide people, black versus white, men versus woman, American versus
Russian, rich versus poor. We reject those at the Libertarian Institute as false divides and try to find a true divide on which people can really get behind in support of and something people can really oppose. And the true divide that we claim is the difference between people who achieve their ends in life voluntarily through either persuasion or voluntary exchange among consenting adults, and those who achieve their ends violently. This is what covers the main immoral things.
Volunteerism and consent differentiate slavery from work, trade from theft, kidnapping from spending time with people. All of the really evil things really are violations of consent. That's the philosophy we try to put forth at the Libertarian Institute. You can buy a copy on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or download a free PDF from libertarianinstitute.org. There we go. I love that you are talking about things that you know, I love talking about.
You know, I'm all about that. So let me talk about that. You, you went from a progressive to a voluntarist or libertarian. That's a, a change I want to talk about right now because that meant at one point in your life, you thought that the world in general should be more liberal. But not only did you believe that, you thought that it was not a bad idea for government to make that happen.
And that's the piece that I think we're talking about, the idea of lots of people want to be more liberal or more conservative, whatever they might want. But are they ready to make that happen through persuasion, as you talked about, through their works, through their example, through their community, or are they ready to use government? I think that's our chart here. We talk about all the time, right? You're conservative, progressive. Do you want coercion or do you
want persuasion? And the idea, I think there is the idea of human respect. I think that's the the piece that I talk about, which is if I can show respect to the other, that's when I can persuade them. But if I don't show respect to them, they're not worthy of persuasion. I'll just coerce them. I'll just, they're not, he's not a person, he's a conservative. He's not a person. He's a liberal, he's not a person. So who needs respect? Am I wrong here? Tell me. No, you're totally right.
And just as before, they provoke a war and really start killing people. You got to vilify those Russians as a bunch of bastards who interfered in our election. They're putting bounties on troops in Afghanistan. They planted Hunter Biden's laptop. These people, it doesn't matter if they're all conscripts and they all get killed. They more or less are all behind this stuff. Same with the Japanese. Same with the Muslims. Who?
Years ago I was told there were a billion Muslims who wanted to cut my head off because of our lifestyle of freedom, and now it's just Russia and China. We can see all of these fake narratives being pushed. Another example of fake arbitrary divides. One of the great things that you mentioned is, well, once you disrespect someone then you can
use the coercion of the state. The important thing for the statist magician is for them to be able to make their violence invisible and say this isn't violence, this is actually us coming together. This is a form of cooperation. We voted to crush these people. Exactly. There we go. And then the second you say, well, if it's so moral, then can the Koch brothers do it? And Amazon, certainly the Catholic Church can start issuing taxes on your income so long as they provide a free
education in exchange. And the second you apply those principles consistently, they go, OK, hold on. So it's. Because they've made the violence invisible, they're able to get people to really sign on board with something that in any other circumstance they wouldn't. Be well, there are 2 + 1 to bring up here. The first one is the idea that I think we as Americans feel that it's invisible, to use your
word, if we vote for it, right? So even though the example I'll give is, say, stopping someone from selling drugs, right? The war on drugs, because we voted for it. Well, now it's not really violence because we voted. So it seems almost invisible, even though there are literally people who are losing their lives, being destroyed every day. So not only do we make it invisible, but I think the way we go about it also makes it invisible in our minds. So the voting part makes it OK.
So you put up a principle though. So the principle then, if we look at it that way, is unchanging. So if I got you right, you're saying if I use coercion by default, it's going to be bad. I'm going to create some form of harm or lack of happiness or lack of freedom or lack of prosperity or lack of harmony because I'm using coercion. Is that really a universal principle? Is it always or is it not
always? Could be possible in some cases where initiating coercion could outweigh the benefits, could outweigh the costs. However, you have to 1st determine whether the person who's initiating the violence has the knowledge and incentives to know what's going to happen once that coercion takes place. Seldom is government able to pass that test of first knowing the complexities of the situation and, two, having the incentive to implement. OK, so hold on, let's say there is one.
All right, let me give you an example. Helmet laws. Let's say that you had data and I'm actually ignorant of this, but it's something to make this up to see of argument. So please believe my made-up stats only for the story. In the case of this story I've just made-up, the government can look at say state A and say they impose the helmet laws and now less people riding motorcycles are injured. So they now have data. So then they then decide, well see we have data.
So now that means in state CI can now use coercion to make you wear a helmet because I have data so I know the outcome is going to be a good outcome. Does that make the coercion OK now? I don't think it makes it OK because it's important to realize the person riding the motorcycle, we are dealing with a consenting adult in that case. So even if people choose to increase the amount of risk that they take, I don't think people should be gambling very much.
But I still think people have the right to gamble. Same with prostitution. I believe in free speech. That doesn't mean I condone everything everyone ever says. It means I don't believe in initiating coercion against people for doing that. I think you absolutely should be wearing a helmet. My dad wore a helmet one time in his whole life and that was the day he crashed. There could be he he totaled his motorcycle.
There could be evidence that it makes you more reckless and more likely to kill Podesta and again. I made it up. I don't know if my date is correct, just. As well. But the reason that it's still important is because there's always another side to this coin. As as helmets for football players have gotten more stable and more complex, head injuries have increased. Because the players say, well, my head's safe, I can ram it as hard as I can. This is something most people
don't know. In World War 11 of the reasons why they put helmets on soldiers is so they would attack. Yeah, it made them feel safer. The helmets didn't actually protect him at all from machine gunfire. That would be like putting a piece of cloth on your face and thinking it protects you from an airborne virus. Yes, it would. Who could believe that's correct? Yes, but boy did people believe it. So did people believe it?
But Tony Fauci did tell the truth accidentally on 60 Minutes in March of 2020. He said people should not be wearing masks. It might cover a drop lid or two, but other than that, these are useless. And then he lied and said well actually 3 masks are good but. Wait a minute, wait a minute. The government lied. Never. Never can't. Believe that that is another example of one of the constants
that we see in society. People will initiate violence and lie and use fraud under any social system. The reason the volunteer system is superior is because it doesn't recognize any moral double standard within society. So even though Larry Sharp might be a huge fraudster, the worst thing we could have is a state for him to occupy. The best thing we can have is a system where we ride, where we widely recognize the freedom to disassociate with bad actors.
So as bad as Lindsey Graham is, if we were able to disassociate with him, he wouldn't have any power. He would, he would. He would have virtually none. The same with all of these other tyrants that that we face and the ones in other countries as well. So. So actually what you're saying is intent doesn't even matter because in the case of the in the case of the helmet law, my intent is to protect you, right? My intent is not a bad intent in this case.
So I as the individual activists on the street, my intention is great, right? My, my, I'm not a bad actor, right? In my eyes, at least, I'm not. I'm trying to help you by putting a helmet on your head. So you're saying though even if my intent is good, that still does not validate coercion? Am am I reading you correctly? Correct, and the reason is, is you are simply using someone else who is a rational human being.
Instead of treating them like an end in and of themself and treating them with dignity, respect, and reason, you're more or less treating them like a slave, claiming that you own, that you have a better claim to their body, their time, and their property then they do. So even if it's for the good, people should be reading the Volunteerist handbook, but I don't think they should be coerced into reading it.
I think they should fund great organizations, like if Larry Sharp runs for Governor of New York. Again, I don't think people should be forced to, but this is the classic. They should support him. But this is the classic imperialist mindset where you can clearly say, well, Britain was clearly wrong to impose itself on 1/3 of the world, but if I occupy Washington, DCI can impose my will on 330 million Americans whether they like it or not. Got it?
They've completely rationalized something for themselves, which they've vilified for everyone. Else. So you're saying that even if we vote doesn't make it OK? Even if my intent is good doesn't make it OK. Even if I have some data that might show that the thing I want is good doesn't make it OK. So then how can we, how can we get people to be safer or better or whatever the case may be? If we're not going to have the federal government making laws,
What do we do? By having a system of free exchange, which means any consenting adult has the right to exchange property, money, time, voluntarily, what you do is you allow for the most amount of people to make as many mutually beneficial voluntary exchanges that allow you to adjust for the amount of safety that you want. So the more freedom there is, the more safe opportunities there are. If you take the case of PayPal, when your PayPal account gets hacked, no one but we had a big
hacking the other week at work. None of them are libertarians and none of them said we need to call 911. What they did do is we need to go to our Google backup, we need to go to our PayPal security, drive more private security, our Facebook security, and finally they did a ransomware called Sentinel One. So they used four people to protect their property, to keep them safe. None of them involved the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the state
police. So when people actually want things done safely, done effectively, when they want their property and their person to be kept safe, they will go to the free market. Having a free market gives more people that option than if there was state coercion into the economy. Also, another way to get people to do things safely is have really cool people. This is what the idea of advertising is. They get a celebrity to do something so people will
hopefully copy them. So when we find really cool people like Dave Smith or sometimes Joe Rogan, RFK Junior yourself, Larry Elder, Walter Williams, when those really cool people start doing the safe things, then it becomes more popular. It becomes. It becomes a green light for the population as a. Whole of community and and and our our example. OK, he's doing it. Maybe I should oh she's doing that. OK maybe I should. It's more like that. Exactly.
So this idea of human respect, this idea of focusing on it, it is then in your view a natural law, a natural principle that's basically I'm breaking. You sound like an absolutist in that look, this is the way. And there's, there's never an example that we shouldn't, shouldn't always focus on persuasion. Am I wrong? There there can be examples. Every rule has an exception, including this 1. So it's a large scale general
trend. There could be times where forcing someone to perform labor against their will, such as a doctor, you could save someone's life. That doesn't mean enslaving people is a good general rule. Sometimes if you steal one piece of medicine, you can save someone's life and then later compensate. Your general rule shouldn't be. Therefore let's steal.
Also, it especially shouldn't be Let's give one Group A sole monopoly right to initiate taxes, to be able to declare war, to have a monopoly on guns, to have a monopoly on the judicial system, to have a monopoly on compulsory education. All of those general rules are bad. It doesn't mean you can never find exceptions. What it means you don't have this organization that acts like a bat signal constantly attracting the most evil people who want to initiate coercion
against innocent people. And we see that no matter what that they seldom if ever will face consequences when they do unjust things. Joe Biden, August 29th of 2021 murdered 10 civilians and seven children in Afghanistan, in Kabul. And there was never even a discussion of you think he's going to get impeached? If I did it, I'd go to jail. You think Joe Biden is going to go to jail? No, no, not at all. And they might give him a Nobel Peace Prize.
They might if things in Ukraine don't get completely nuclear. They. Probably has to bomb a couple more countries though together. I mean, Obama bombed like eight or nine to get his. So Joe Biden though, hasn't bombed enough yet to the Peace Prize. Couple more bombings, maybe he'd get one. Not yet, but that's why the state is so dangerous and also it turns really good people into justifying the most atrocious
things. People who will bump into you and apologize and say I didn't mean to will literally say I don't care that 100,000 people in Tokyo were killed during Operation Meetinghouse in March of 1945. After all, they were part of the damn Japanese imperialists, constantly generalizing. No respect, back to no human respect, not respecting humans or humanity, back to dehumanizing people. Oh, it's, they're imperialists,
they're not humans, right? They're whatever, They're Russians, They're not humans, They're whatever, right? They're conservatives, they're liberals. They're not humans, right? I, I think it goes back to the again. All right. So let me ask you, do you think as you're communicating, I mean, you've look, you've written a book on this, right? You've put together, you've put together tons of stories. How many stories have you read? Probably hundreds by now.
Do you think focusing on human respect as a as an actual natural principle, do you think that's gonna make things easier or harder to communicate? And what I mean by that is if I start with hi, I'm a voluntarist or hi, I'm a libertarian, is that is that lead gonna stop versus I say, hey, hi. Can we talk about some human respect here? By the way? I'm this, I'm that. Do you think it's better to leave the human respect or not?
Yes, and I really haven't thought about this much, but I will say that is why I have such a crush on RFK Junior 'cause he came to Pork Fest and defended us publicly when the Democrats were bashing him saying look at that, I can't believe. Doesn't he know that these people are a bunch of free Staters and some of them don't even believe that there should be a state in existence. And RFK said these people believe in freedom. I generally believe in freedom of speech. I'm against censorship.
I'm against the wars. We have a lot in common. I'm going to Pork Fest. So I waited in line. We got in and we saw him there. So just because he's willing to treat us with respect, I like him so much more.
So if we're able to learn from that and treat others with sometimes undeserving but still initiating respect against people so long as they don't think that well, when we say we believe in freedom, we actually mean the Koch brothers should be crawling the shots and forcing you to to be subjugated to them. So long as, like I do with my book, I start off the very first section is a list of definitions. This way we can all be on the same page.
So we know communism is the abolition of private property, socialism is the institutionalized aggression against private property, and capitalism is a social system of the explicit recognition of voluntary private property contracts between consenting adults. So once you define the terms, you can say, OK, even if I disagree with this person, he's not completely crazy. He doesn't want big business to have all these extra rights.
In fact, the free market makes it so big business can't get a penny out of your pocket or a second of your time unless you voluntarily give it to them. With a state, there's Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, who can take tons of your cash. They don't even need to go to you. In fact, they laugh if you complain. So it is about rooting it in respect largely. And and I think we're we'd be doing ourselves a great service by leading by example with something like that.
I also feel like Tulsi Gabbard respects us in a way that when we're being called deplorable by Hillary Clinton or constantly being negatively generalized by Joe Biden. Growing up in school, I always felt disrespected Americans or these people, they just invented slavery. Whites are constantly engaged in imperialism. I was always insecure and very feel and felt I was very
disrespected because of that. So if we could learn from that, flip the lesson on its head, I think libertarians are in for a a better future than we otherwise would be. So that's a great way of saying we went on leave with human respect and that'll actually make things better. I appreciate it. Keith, thank you so much for giving me a few minutes. I appreciate it. Larry Sharp, thanks so much, brother. Bye.