If one rejects laissez-faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason, also reject every kind of government action. Welcome to Keith's night. Don't tread on anyone today. I am joined by Spike Owen, former vice presidential candidate for the libertarian party. Mr. Cullen. Thank you for coming on. Where's the best place for people to find your work? All over the Internet.
Honestly. Keith. So if I'm if you look on Facebook search for Spike Owen if you look on Twitter search for Spike Owen, if you look on YouTube search for Spike Owen, if you look on Instagram, search for Spike Owen, technically, I'm on Tick-Tock. I just don't do much on there. But I if enough people follow me and harass me, I will start doing stuff on more stuff on Tick, Tock to, but pretty much anywhere that you are on the internet. You can find me.
Yes. I've also seen his videos on Odyssey and The Alternatives and the superiors to YouTube, which we are trying to to get out there. Before we get into why progressives and conservatives should embrace libertarianism, please define libertarianism, and government. So, libertarianism in a nutshell is the belief that people do best when they are most free.
We could spend hours breaking down the different schools of thought of libertarianism and you know, ideas like property rights and self ownership and individual. Me and the non-aggression principle and all these other things. But they all boil down to the belief that we own ourselves have personal autonomy over ourselves and do best when we are respected. When our, when our lives and our rights. And our individual autonomy is respected.
And when we respect the lives and rights and individual autonomy, and property of others, and that conversely, the system that we're in now which does the opposite, which puts the collective, and those in power. The individual that we not only live in a society that is less just in less moral. But also in a society that doesn't work as well as a society.
That isn't as free as a society that isn't as prosperous as a society, that isn't as fair and Equitable and a society that has more endemic abuses, and blow in an efficiency and harm that comes as a result of it. So, that's sort of the, the nutshell of libertarianism. Now, government is depending on who you ask and either a necessary evil to Protect the lives and rights and property of the people, or just another infringement on the lives and rights of property.
The people that has no rightful claim to exist in the first place. Other than through, you know, if force and extortion, it doesn't have a moral justification for its existence, Liberty. I personally am an anarchist. So I tend to lean towards the latter But ultimately Libertarians respect anyone in that. In that belief, either that it is, you know, we all believe it's evil. It's whether it's a necessary evil. Or an unnecessary evil, which is
where we disagree. But we recognize that it is inherently and a de facto infringement on the lives and rights and property of the people, some of us believe that it's not necessary and as and actually makes things worse, some of us believe that it is necessary to protect to coercively protect the lives and rights, and property the people under it, but that's sort of the nutshell definition. And, and again, the core definition and core ethos of
libertarianism. Is that the more free we are the better. Things will be not just, the more just our society will be and the more moral our society will be but the more free it'll be the more prosperous. It will be the more fairer and inclusive and Equitable. It'll be the less abusive and harmful and destructive. It'll be that's sort of the the basics of libertarianism.
So, do you see government as sort of a neutral tool that sometimes we can employ or is it literally a group of people that claim the right to initiate aggression? Peaceful people as, you know, economists like Murray rothbard have said, I believe it's the latter. Now again, I am willing to work with people who believe that it's the former and honestly even people many men artists who believe that. It's because that's sort of the
argument. The men are kiss those who believe we need a minimal government and the anarchists who believe we don't need any government. But really we both recognize that they are a group of people who presume the authority to to order us around and to take from us mitr kiss, believe that that Level of coercion is necessary to stop a worse coercion from happening from growing.
That there needs to be a baseline amount of coercion to exist to kind of set the standard for protecting the lives and rights and property of the people and to protect it from some worse, coercion. That would come. I disagree with that. I think that when you create coercion and systemize it and rationalize it, then you create the ability For Worse coercion to come and you and you you de facto justify those, but ultimately it's not an argument.
That's really worth having when men are kiss and anarchists can agree that we're currently, you know, if you look at where our country and our society, and our government is headed, it is, you know, moving at the speed of sound in ever-worsening ever tyrannical, ever oppressive ever bloated, ever inefficient, ever destructive path and that and that we all agree, the direction. We need to be making a 180, degree turn and moving, you know, solidly in the direction
towards a greater. Human Liberty. When we get to Greater human Liberty. Then we can start spending more time. Arguing on, you know, whether we need, let you know, a minimal State, a so-called nightwatchman state that just is protecting us from those who would do us harm or whether we don't need one at all. And all of those services are better provided by competing and cooperating free providers.
But, you know that again that's that's, that's sort of a, it's like, if we're in a plane crash and we're all trying to figure out how to get out of the plane alive and you, and I start arguing over, you know, Whether whether they should have used Rolls-Royce jet engines or Pratt & Whitney engines to prevent this from happening. Like, it doesn't matter in that
moment. Once we get on the ground, we can have a discussion about which engine to move to use, moving forward, or you know, what, what, you know, what process in the in the, you know, the safety maintenance process needs to be changed to make sure that doesn't happen again, but let's try to get on the ground and, you know, minimize the number of casualties in the meantime.
It's like, When in Seinfeld, when the plane is crashing and George Costanza admits to lying and cheating in the contest. Like really, that's where your head is. That's the moment. Scratching please. Can we get, can we prioritize so focus on the plane, exactly like that. So I am a progressive. I believe that everyone in order to live a life with dignity needs education. Let's just stick on education for now. A way to achieve. This is for a group of people citizens to delegate.
Eight a right to representatives to tax the populace in order to provide such an education. This way everyone gets it, not just the rich people and the spike Collins of the world, but everyone is entitled to this education, which is necessary for us to live with dignity and honor. Why should I consider something like libertarianism? Well, you're 100% correct. That, in order for us to have a thriving Society. We need to have education in.
In order for our children and ourselves to be able to have a future, we have to know things. We have to know how the world works. We have to know, we have to learn how to have certain, you know, marketable skills to be able to actually make an income. We have to know about things like philosophy. We need to know about things
like history. We need to know about things like the Arts. We need to know about all of these different things, Libertarians recognize, and and you being the hypothetical Progressive. When you say to me, I think that the best Way for us to have education is to, you know, is to delegate the power to people, to essentially, you know, Rob everyone, or tax everyone to be able to provide this education. My question to you is, how's that worked out? It has worked out.
It's worked out very well. Everyone is guaranteed a k through 12 education. Now granted everyone also now has to go to college and we have to now start subsidizing that. But in general, it has given people a bare minimum as that. It may be the bare minimum isn't perfect, but it's better than nothing, which is what they'd have in the absence of this
education system. It's what they'd have in the absence of any education system, but what I would say to and this is and I've had this discussion with progressives around the Country is all say, you know, if you are a parent of a child then I don't have to tell you what your child is going through in public schooling. In terms of, you know, these increasingly Draconian systems of testing standards where they're not really learning where they're just learning to
take a test. And we're if God forbid, they aren't, you know, geared in such a way to learn that way, which is a large number of children aren't geared to learn by tests. And they're labeled special needs. They're putting classes that they don't need their put in classes with people. Who actually do need those classes. The special needs teachers are overwhelmed as a result because they weren't taught to, you know, teach they aren't their specialization isn't teaching a
bunch of kids. It's in providing personal one-on-one education with people who need that, you know, special attention. No one is being served well in this system and an increasing number of children are being
left behind ironically enough. Given the the name of some of the legislation that led to this, you know, we are raising generations of Scantron babies who aren't actually learning anything and It is actually easier to give that argument to parents of children in public education and to teachers, because they're the ones living it. You know, I've talked to people in school boards where I say, you know, your on your, on your school board. How much decision-making do you get to do now?
And they say none, we hear what our newest Federal dictate is, and we figure out how best to comply with it in a way that we can afford. And I go how much money do you have to do that with? And they go not very much and I say, why is that and they go? Well, it's As we need more money, I go. Yeah. Yeah, but where did the money go? Where is the education money going and that's when the light
bulb goes off. They're sitting there figuring out how they can get more money from the locals and they're not realizing the amount of money that's being taken out of their community and put in the hands of central planners who have clearly demonstrated that they are doing a good job.
And so the answer for education is the exact opposite of what we have now because the education system we have now, is that a small handful of people are given all of the power or actually they've taken all of Power and the freedom, and the money to make education systems for all of the schools, all of the teachers, all of the parents, all of the students.
Now, even if they were the best actors, even if they were, you know, people that were, you know, morally above corruption, and were incredibly intelligent and knew all sorts of things. They couldn't possibly be able to decide as well as the actual parents and teachers and experts in that Community what they need for. For their students and their schools as well as they can't. There's no way that a small handful of people hundreds or thousands of miles away.
Could possibly determine what is best for everyone as well as those individuals in those communities could be able to do and of course we know politics does not attend to attract the best. Actors. It tends to attract people that want Power people that want to Rob everyone. People that want to have that ability to tell everyone else how to live people who want to be put in power by billionaire cronies in Change for Kickbacks
by the taxpayer. And what happens is whether we're talking education or health care or anything else. When you put these people in power, when you systemize, when you get centralize all of that power into the handful of a small few, you are leading to corruption. You are leading to bad outcomes. You were leading to bad policies that leave an increasing number of everyday people behind. And that's how our education system is playing out.
The libertarian solution to education is, is the exact opposite dismantle that entire thing? Take all of that power. And freedom and decision-making, ability, and money, and put it back in the hands of the parents and the teachers, and the communities to be able to fix
their schools. And to be able to address the problems that their schools are facing for their students empowered, with their freedom, and their power, and their money back by kicking these clowns out of office, by taking all that power back and putting it back in the hands of the people where
it always damn well belong. Let's say you had gotten the chance to debate Kamala Harris when you were running for VP and it's, you know, largely known that she was as a prosecutor very interested in Prosecuting parents, whose kids were truant or did not attend school for the state-mandated number of days. What would you have said on stage to Kamala Harris? If she had said, look, I did what I had to do.
Number one. It was the lot number two, if Allow parents to beat their kids or not, educate their kids or keep their kids in hellhole conditions. That is a form of abuse. They would not be able to grow up and live in a society where they had their rights protected. If they are not educated. How would you have respond?
I would have if I would have, there are a few things, I would have said, but the first thing I would have asked her, as I would have said of the children that you had taken from their single parents and put in foster care. Because they miss school a few times, how many of them have gone on to lead?
Better Lives? How many of them have gone on to have college education's and you know, and work in professional Fields. How many of them have been have gone, you know have done better as a result of it? Conversely? How many of them were subjected to rape and torture and abuse and neglect? How many of them stayed in the foster care system? And never had a parent, an actual permanent parent again.
And eventually graduated out of it at the age of 18 and having to try to reconnect with their families that they were torn away from. And the reason the reality is she can't give an answer because she has no idea.
And so she'd hem and haw around it and give some non answer answer to basically saying I don't know and I'd say if you don't know what happened to the tens of thousands of children who you tore away from their parents because they didn't go to a state-mandated education center for a few days. Then why? Why the hell did you do it? If it was for their Goodwill? Why don't you know what happened to them if it was for the greater good?
Why don't you know, what outcome it led to if you assume that every time that you take that you rip a family apart for not complying with the dictate of the state. Then what makes you think that you are morally Justified to have even more power because you've demonstrated that you are willing to harm people without even knowing or caring if it leads to a better outcome for them.
Very nice. Let's say I see the world as a lot of First World countries, having guaranteed Access to Health Care, Australia, Great Britain, Canada our neighbors. However, in the u.s. We have extremely high Healthcare prices, u.s. I associate with capitalism. Capitalism, is about making money. And therefore, we have embraced a making money system, instead of a care system where everyone is guaranteed Access to Health Care. Or go to their thank you.
Therefore, I do not support libertarianism. I support the aggressive plan for the state to guarantee access to health care for all Americans. Why should I consider libertarianism? Well, if so, if I have a short period of time in responding that I usually respond with questions because that's a good way to get more time by kind of forcing them to think about it. If I had the just the short period of time, I would say who got us into the system into the situation.
We are right now. Shins billionaire, cronies, you know, the insurance companies, the major medical companies and all and so forth that big Pharma the big Healthcare Management Companies, the big insurance companies. And so for in the politicians, they put in office, both Republican and Democrat. And you know, why did they do that to profit to make billions of dollars on the backs of patients? And to be able to create a system that is more about fleecing the public, then
actually providing care. We all agree on that. How does giving them even more power fix that? How does Completely removing the patient from the equation and turning the taxpayer into a bill paying mechanism that directly pays to these cronies. Because Medicare for all and secret single-payer health care, doesn't get rid of the insurance companies. It doesn't get rid of the, the big Pharma. It doesn't get rid of the of the, the large Healthcare Management Companies.
It codified as them as the official providers and makes it so that the taxpayer is paying an endless amount of money without even seeing the Costs going directly to those to those people. And so, you know, how would that fix it? And then their next day answer, maybe. Well, then maybe that's not the
answer. Maybe the answer is nationalizing health care and having a nationalized healthcare system and my answer my question answer or I guess, question / answer to that would be, how many veterans have you talked to? How many people in, for example, the UK which has the national healthcare system, which is distinctly different from the single-payer system in Canada, or Australia or Scandinavia. Have you talked to someone who has government-run, not just government paid, but
government-run health care. If. So, what were their outcomes like I have MS. I have multiple sclerosis and, and I am in groups for people that have MS and we talked about, you know, Lifestyle Changes. And and medications and things to try to slow and stop. And even reverse the progression of Ms. And there are people that participate in this across across the, the planet. The people who live in countries that have government-run Health Care Systems are constantly
lamenting. Now, in America, we lament the cost and the fact that we often aren't able to get care many of us aren't able to get care because we can't afford it. That is a real problem. And we need to fix our Health Care system by getting the cronies.
He's out of it and by and by, you know, giving the money in the power back to patients and by and by getting rid of these barriers to entry that are destroying small providers and making it so that you have fewer and fewer options to actually
get your care. We need to get rid of terrible policies like drug protections for, you know, big Pharma for drugs that have been around forever and we need to get rid of the Cost Plus model that, you know, incentivizes buying a saline bag for 500 dollars, in selling it for Instead of buying it for four dollars and selling it for five dollars, you know, we need to get rid of all these bad policies that have made things. So expensive and wasteful in the
first place. There's no argument there. But the reality is, when I hear people in the u.s. Complain, they complain about the cost when I hear people in, for example, the UK or or, or what's another country, that has a government-run health care. It escapes me at the moment, but you know, these countries, some of the Eastern European countries where it's, you know, government Run Healthcare and government, Managed Health Care. They lament the fact that they
can't even get it at any cost. They can't get an MRI maybe every two or three years, they get an MRI, even if they have a, you know, a very, very fast progression of Ms. They can't get the drugs that are, that are working the best right now, drugs that were able to get over here. They aren't even available there because the government won't pay for them. And they can't, they don't have an option to pay out of pocket. They just can't have it.
So they either have to legally go somewhere else to get it or, and hope they don't get in trouble, or they just have to use the Lesser options, the cheaper options that are available to them, you know, so I guess my, my way of addressing that is saying, you know, do you want the cronies in charge or do you want the government who have powered the cronies in charge? Because that's what those are, the two different options nationalization and an expansion of the welfare state are too.
Different options that are basically putting the people who created this mess in charge and systemizing that, so that we can never get out of it. The libertarian proposal is to introduce things like the price equilibrium, which is what happens when things aren't being paid by governments and insurance companies. They're being paid by individual patients, which means that now, the doctor can only charge with the patient can afford and if they can't afford it, that
doctor don't get paid anything. So they have to make their products and services cost. What? People can afford and by getting rid of all that bureaucracy by getting rid of all that red tape, by driving out all those thousands of regulators and and people running the insurance actuarials and and administrators working in their company to make sure that they're complying with all the various regulations and rules. You're driving down the, the cost of the provision by getting rid of Cost.
Plus. You're making it so that they're going to look for the most cost-effective option. Instead of looking for the most expensive option is that they get a bigger piece of it by getting rid of the insurance model. Model.
You're making it so that they can tell you right there what it costs and they're not having to spend, you know, tens and hundreds and thousands and even millions of dollars a year just to pay for the cost of compliance with the various insurance regulations and hoops and hurdles that they make them go through. By decentralizing Healthcare. You allow it to become cheaper, you allow it to become better. You allow it to become more Innovative.
You provide for more providers to come into the space and you and the only people that don't benefit from this are the Big cronies that lose out. Well, I'm fine with that arrangement. Now, we're constantly told that requiring a license, a driver's license to get access to voting is voter suppression and it raises the barrier to entry. So fewer people vote. However, they don't see that when it comes to healthcare and it's not one Lysa. It's not one license. You have to get that taken.
By the way. The DMV is, as bad as everyone says, the FDA is so much worse. I read marriage a roo Arts, nightmare of a book. I could only read like one chapter. Then I'd have two week break because it's so bad. So if yeah one license is suppression. Thousands of regulations is
ultra Healthcare suppression. That literally is what we should run on anti Healthcare suppression because that's that's that's really what it is when only Pfizer and moderna and a few oligopolies are able to compete in this realm. It's also extremely. I don't want to say it's a lie, it's rather misleading to say I support guaranteed. Well, you're just putting The state in charge of it.
It's like saying we have guaranteed criminal justice and property protection because of government police. So, that is an excellent point. You can say, Hey, listen, we have a government-run universal system of justice. That's free. How's that working? It's pretty yeah, exactly. So let's say, I am very motivated by black lives matter and I see that there is terrible Strife between Two people and the state is the mechanism to sort of solve this out to stop any racism, sexism, hatred
xenophobia. And while the current criminal justice system is terrible, the way to do it is to fix the state's way of issuing Justice to the populace there for a BLM. Advocate might be a progressive. Why should they consider libertarianism? Well, we're, we probably agree with them is in fixing. The injustices that are happening by the state. So, for example, when in a bad actor in the state does harm to people, they need to be held
responsible. So we need to end qualified immunity and I go even further, not only do we need to end qualified immunity for agents of the state. We also need to end absolute immunity, for politicians, and judges and prosecutors. Why does no one talked about that? We talked about the fact that a police officer can abuse your rights and infringe upon you and not be held accountable. What about the judge?
Yeah, about Kamala Harris, who literally intentionally withheld, exculpatory evidence in at least two capital murder cases. Why can she not be held accountable for that? Why can Bad actors in these Halls of Justice in the criminal justice system, we focus on the police and good. We should definitely hold Bad actors and police departments accountable. If you were I hurt someone Keith. We would be held accountable. They should also be held accountable. What about the prosecutors?
What about the judges? What? About the politicians we should be doing that too. Yes, we need to end no-knock raids, which led to the death of Brianna Taylor and many others. Duncan limp. We need to end red flag laws. We need to end. We need to end the war on drugs, which was the justification for no-knock raids. There was no justification for breaking into someone's house until the cop said.
Yeah, but if we knock, they can flush the drugs, down the toilet, which it, which is always been an interesting argument. If we don't knock first, then they won't. Stop committing the crime. So that's it. So that's. So what does that give us the right to break into cops homes? Well, we couldn't have not exactly sir. That's why I came in and sorry that I shot shot. Sorry. It's wrong for us and you get your rights from us. Well, then we can't delegate the right to you. Exactly.
And it's real and it leads to the legal fiction, whereby Brianna Taylor's boyfriend and the cop were both justified in
shooting each other. So Brianna Taylor's boyfriend was justified in shooting the officer because people broke into their home and had they had no idea who it was and the cops were Justified or legally justified in shooting back because they were carrying out a lawful no-knock warrant any time the government has created a legal fiction, whereby, people are legally allowed to shoot and kill each other. You have a problem. So obviously the answer is
ending, do knock raids. We need to end things like civil asset forfeiture, where the government is the biggest burglar in this country. If you take all Fremont, if you take all That private theft. All burglary all reported private theft civil asset, forfeiture government taking property and money from people who have not been convicted of anything dwarfs that private burglary.
We need to end that we need to end the militarization of the police state through programs, like the 1033 military surplus program. We need to end all of this and more than likely progressives agree with us 100% on almost all those things. Maybe not the red flag laws, but if you spend enough time talking with them about It even if they support gun control, they'll see how it could become problematic that I can simply pick up the phone again. Say that guy's a problem. Over there.
Go Rita's house. You know that? That's a problem. You're basically swatting. It's legalized swatting. And so we have many agreements there. Where we disagree is that the problem is just racism or that the problem is just, you know, bad officers. The problem is the system. The reason that you have our police who are supposed to protect our lives. The, the abstention purpose.
The thing that we are told that the reason for the police existing is to protect and serve to protect our lives and our rights and our property, but the reality is The police largely exist to enforce victimless crime laws and to excel to extract revenue from the public. They pull people over for having a broken taillight and they fix the problem by finding them $300, which definitely fixes their tail light, actually.
It robs them of the money. They need to fix their tail light or they pulled him over for not feel wearing a seatbelt. And they fix that problem by giving them a two hundred dollar. Fine or a hundred fifty dollar, fine, ruining them financially for days or weeks depending on how poor they are. And that's a regressive tax. By the way, the poorer you are the more that hundred fifty
dollar fine hits you hard. If you're a millionaire you get to find you just keep driving without the seatbelt and I mean anything to you. But if 150 bucks to a lot of people that ruins ruins them for the month, that that messes them up financially, for quite some time. The system is the problem and the more laws you create, the more power and presumption of moral good. You put in the hands of the state the more of these abuses
happen. If I see an abuser and their Using me and I go, you know what the problem is. I'm not letting you abuse me, right? I need to give you more money so that you can educate yourself better on the fact that you shouldn't be abusing me. Like there's no, no. The problem is that the abuser has that power in the first place and that they're not being held accountable when they commit that abuse.
So, yes, we believe in holding them accountable and we believe in ending systemic abuses, which is what the left hand to also agree on or progressives tend to also agree on. But we also recognize that The very presumption of that power and the Very presumption of being able to extort people and and coerce them and force them into things is what leads to those abuses in the first place. I fear an America where there are children, who have food insecurity.
Why should I consider libertarianism? Because we to fear in America where people have food insecurity, which is why we think the federal government should stop paying Farmers to grow crops and then not sell them since the 30s since the 30s. I talked to a food security expert and we went back and forth on this. This was this wasn't like televised or anything. This was goes in Rhode Island. Anyway, I was somewhere and I was talking with the food
security expert. That's what he called himself and we were talking and he did a lot of charitable work and stuff. And he said, you know, and we had this conversation. He's like, well, Libertarians, they don't, they don't care if people eat, and I'm like, of course, we do. That's why we want to end the USDA and and he was, mine was blown. He said, but but you Can't do that because then there will be a volatility of pricing. I said, let's walk through that.
What does allowing Farmers to to what is not paying Farmers to, to not sell their products? What will that lead to? And he said the pricing will fluctuate. I said, which way will it fluctuate? If there's more product? What will happen if the same demand for food exists, which it will, it's not like people are going to suddenly demand more food. If the demand for superfood continues to rise at the same level of population growth, and all that stuff.
And if the supply of food goes up, it's basically overnight because they're already growing it and storing it processing it. They're just not doing anything with it. What happens, what happens if in a month, the amount of food that's available goes up, 30, 40 percent and he said well, I guess the price would go down. I said, how would that help food security issues, you know, this is what happens when people don't finish working through stuff.
They get so focused on trying to solve the problem, within our current Paradigm, that they don't look and see how that Paradigm could be fixed. They just look at how more Band-Aids could be added. So if you can't, if these walls are permanent these structures and barriers are permanent. Well, then I have to figure out a solution within this if I can't. And these walls. And in this case, you know, in this case, not paying Farmers to
not produce food. Well, then I just got to figure out how to work with the zero sum of what I have right now. Well, no, that doesn't work. We've seen how the federal agricultural policy has led to shock. You know, it's shocking surprise here. It has led to centralization of farming. It has led to more and more factory farms because they're the ones who have the lobbying teams to lobby for regulations that are Needed them and hurt their smaller competitors.
So you have big factory farms that are having their less efficient model subsidized by the US taxpayer. While smaller Farms are basically given pennies to grow stuff and not sell it. That's why you should support it Libertarians. If you want, if you want more food security because it will end factory farming or at least
I won't say n factory farming. It will end the subsidization and entrenchment of factory farming interests and it will end the the handing pennies off to small farmers in exchange for promising not to provide any food to people. Let's say I fear the inequality that exists in a free Society if anyone is able to do what they want. Some people are going to get very large amounts of wealth, power and attention. Others are going to be left
behind. If you look at Amazon, Walmart, Apple, a few people with tons and tons of power which the average person does not have, the state is a mechanism to correct this unhampered unregulated terrible dystopian nightmare that the free market issues us. Therefore. I am a progressive. Why would I ever Consider libertarianism. If it wasn't for the government who would stop this, police officer from hitting me in the head with a billy club.
The, the, the, when people talk about, I usually end up interrupting them when they're saying this. I don't wanna interrupt you because this is your show but I so someone will say, you know, in libertarianism we'd have wealth inequality and we'd have a small handful of people that are really really wealthy like Amazon and Walmart. And I go yeah. Totally different from what we have now, right? Yeah, really. And so, you know, disarm them a little bit.
And then say, that inequality exists because of the enforcement mechanism of the state.
If I remove all of the rungs of the economic ladder and I put the majority of people in a safety net, that they can't get out of and I make it so that only those who are already in power or that small handful of people down here who have such an impressive vertical leap that they can actually work their way up, you know, without having to climb up the ladder, you know, someone who's an incredible Entertainer or an Incredible athlete or Do you know, one in a million economic thinker, who
could never be stopped? Even with the most tyrannical, love of impositions, placed on them? Then you're going to have massive and growing income, inequality, income, inequality, continues to grow. And the reason it continues to grow is because those who have power are the ones who are writing all the regulations and rules that are basically created to entrench and grow their market share at the expense of literally everyone else. By removing that in dismantling, it by decentralizing.
It you make it where. Now there are more people that are able to compete. It in this sphere, and I'll usually tell a story, one of many different stories. One that I often tell is when I, when I was before covid, and the pandemic, I was doing a lot of door-knocking Tours in low-income communities. This was before I even got the, the nomination. This is when I was still running for the vice presidential nomination for the libertarian
party. And I was and I was doing it as basically as a proof of concept, you know, Libertarians tend to talk to each other and I'm like, okay, that's great. We can talk to each other. I'm going to show you how I'm going to spread the message of Liberty to, you know, normies to Everyday People. And so, I went to housing projects, and low-income communities, and did door knocking, tours went through and talked with them about our
policies. And what I found was that, I was in these communities in North Carolina. That's where we started. And once kind of once covid. Hopefully, you know, once things get back to normal, we plan to fully rapidly, expand this out to the rest of the country, but I went, I knocked on doors. And what I found was that in these households. These are people that own almost nothing. These are people that live
entirely on the state. These are people that Libertarians are Often told her a complete waste of time because they just want to live off government. No, they don't. Every almost every single household. I went to regardless of their age and this was these communities were like 99% black. Probably more, probably effectively 100% black. There were a small. Smattering of non-black people are very end and poor had nothing.
Well, in some communities. They had something they were just lower income but in the housing projects, they owned it essentially, nothing they had nothing on paper. They all had businesses. They called them, you know, side hustle or, you know, a side thing, they were doing or, you know, a little thing I do on the side or whatever, but they were businesses. They were Food Service. Catering DJing event promotion, Landscaping handyman work, housekeeping. Hey or aesthetic.
Work Hair Braiding waxing, Nails, lips, whatever, you know, all these different things that they were doing all different services that people need fixing Windows roof repair, electrical work. Plumbing, but they had to keep it small. Because they couldn't afford the cost of compliance. They couldn't afford all those occupational Licensing, Laws and zoning laws and and and minimal education laws. And and and again, I'm not talking minimal education to be a brain surgeon.
I'm talking State man today. Stan state-mandated education to cook food for money. You could cook the food and give it away for free. But if you charge anything that now you need that. Now you need that the government's permission and as a result of this, they could never grow their business because you can't mark it, because you could go to jail or have the police come and take everything from you. So you you do it for this person and this person and you say yeah.
Yeah, you can let them know that I'll do it, but just be careful who you tell. It's the exact opposite of how to grow a business. I've been in business for I've owned businesses for 20-20 and I'm old 23 years. Now, almost 23 years. Now Dev. Number. One thing you have to do is always be marketing. They can't mark it because they can't afford the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars
in compliance costs. And so they are stuck in poverty where they either have to work for someone else or just do something on the side and live off of welfare. Instead of being able to, I met people that should be
millionaires. I met a couple people who probably should be billionaires, and I met many more who should be able to have a A decent modest business that they can live off of and they can provide some jobs for, you know, they're for people in their community and they can build a financial Legacy for their children. They're not going to be multimillionaires or anything, but they be self-sufficient, they'd be self-reliant. They don't their own property.
They'd be able to build something for their children. Who could then expand to be able to do that, but they can't because of the state imposed barriers that they can't afford their, the large crony, overlords can afford it, but they can't. When you get rid of that. Equality runs rampant because you're now no longer holding back. The dynamic we're will and spirit of the individual person. Excellent answer their say that someone who Embraces the ideology of conservatism.
They generally want institutions and society that are strong that reflect Family Values, Community, Mutual Aid, and an idea of a higher power and humans being worthy of Sort of a general standard of humans, being above animals. And that's my way of saying right. Well saying the word religious I feel is sort of saying they have that, it's worthy. They have their moral and religious values and they want to see that reflected in their society Coretta. Thank you.
I wrote this horribly. Why should someone like that consider libertarianism? You wrote it fine. You're doing a great job. Keep this is actually great. I love how your how you're doing the Back because this is how they talk. Um, so the answer to that is, you know, when someone says, I want to see my values reflected in my Society, I go or my community, I go, okay.
Yeah, no, I get it. I could certainly see why you would want that and I can see why you would want to work, why you would want to you know, live with people that to have that. And and they'll say well why can't I have that, you know Nationwide. And I'll say because what happens when the other side wins. So when you say I'm not content with having My community and Community, doesn't have to be a geographically, contiguous thing. You know, I live in a
subdivision, but I'm not sure. I consider every single person here my community. I have my neighbor's, I had my people I get along with, I, my people, I don't really know that well, and but I, but I have a much greater community of people across the country and across the planet. So however, you define your community. If you're not content with those in your community, sharing your values and you want everyone else to I'll also share your
values. What you're saying is I want to force people into believing what I believe. Now, putting aside the fact that that's not feasible or possible because there's never been a successful a successful attempt to make everyone believe the same thing.
There have only been massive catastrophes and atrocities that have happened in the attempt to implement that but it's ever actually worked or happen, but let's say that you could What happens when enough people who disagree with you want to impose their ideas on you? You've created the mechanism, whereby they can do that. You've created this system.
This enforcement arm, that allows them to turn it around and go know you you have to you now have to be a secular humanist who, you know, accepts all all sexual. Weird, I'm looking for sexual orientations, and genders and, and everything else. And things that you that go against your deeply held moral, and religious beliefs, and tough. You have to bake the damn cake. You have to, you know, you have to be okay with these things.
You're not allowed to, you know, say the parts of the Bible that, you know, that are discriminatory towards, you know, gender and sexual minorities. You're not allowed to have an opinion about, you know, people of, you know, different beliefs or different whatever. You're not allowed to have any of that because I've now taken your system and used it against you. And that's actually what we have. This is not a hypothetical. Yeah. In the Western World. The Western world's power
structures. Were essentially created by feudalist under the under the well in Continental Europe, under the auspices of the Vatican and then later in the Anglo World under the auspices of the Church of England. And so, this is not hypothetical Keith. This is what we have now. A structure in a system that was created to enforce and entrench a religiously based Divine rule of right. Monarchies was eventually, you know, basically repurposed for Liberal secular democracies.
And if you don't like it. That's what happened. It is what happened? So what I say to conservatives is you want to, have you want to exist in a community and the society that reflects your values that is perfectly understandable, that is perfectly valid.
You should be able to have that when you try to impose it outside of your community in your society when you try to collectivize and I like using terms, like collectivize to conservatives because they don't like the idea that they're collectivist when you try to collectivize that out to everyone else. You're no longer say. I want Society. I want my Society to reflect My Views. You're saying, I want everyone's Society, everyone's Community to reflect My Views.
And historically, we know that that leads to bad things. It does not lead to everyone, adapting your views. It leads to harm, it leads to malice. It leads to oppositional, you know, and opposition and confrontation. It leads to conflict and eventually it leads to the system you wanted to have to Control everyone else being turned around and used to control you exactly all the power.
You give George Bush when he had the ninety percent approval rating, got to the evil, Barack Obama, and then all the power they gave him went to evil orange man. And now it's to about the dementia patient as it until Kamala takes over. I see the intelligence agencies and the military keeping the country safe. The terrorists who want nothing more than to kill us until we give in to them and embrace Islam. Why should I consider libertarianism?
So this is actually the question that was asked me that made me go from being a neocon to questioning what I even believed. And and against the backdrop of watching everything, play out the way that Libertarians and other anti-war and anti neocon. People said it would but this question led to it. It's a multi-part question. If the government, if the intelligence agencies in the military are so concerned with fighting terrorism.
Why do they keep getting caught creating an arming and funding and training terror groups if they care about our safety, why are we being robbed to pay for the people who want us dead? To be taught, how to kill us. And if the people who are Trusted with that, keeping with keeping us safe, are using the power in the money that we're giving them to do that. Then why would we trust them to keep us safe?
And I hated that. Damn question, man, cuz when I heard it, I'm like my immediate response was well, you just, you know, want the terrorists, a winner, you, I mean it was what I would always say, you know, you just don't you don't care about American but but that question I couldn't default to that because It sounded like, the intelligence agencies wanted
the terrorists to win. It sounded like the military, didn't care about our safety, or not the militant, but the military brass, not the veterans, but the actual the people in charge of the militant that the military-industrial complex didn't care and that led to a lot of other questions. If Mill, if the military industrial complex complex exists to keep us safe. Why isn't it doing it? Why is it just making themselves rich? Why is it just building this? This, you know, Global Empire
that is making us less safe. Why do more and more people hate us even though we didn't do it, you know, why is it leading to this? And it's either because of intentional malice or because of incompetence, either way. They don't work. They aren't keeping us safe, whether they mean to or not. They're not keeping us safe. They're making us less safe. They're making everyone less safe there, and causing irreparable and immeasurable damage around the around the world in doing so.
And so that was actually the original thing that, you know, disabuse me of being any kind of conservative really being a neocon and kind of started me on the path to going from being more of a Paleo constitutionalist, you know, eventually being the, you know, final form Super Saiyan libertarian that Today, so it's not only people like Trevor Aaronson, who wrote the terror factory, or the New York Times saying, 14 out of the last 22, terrorist plots have been
started by the FBI in their informants, but you even have like a blatant examples, like taking Al-Qaeda side in Yemen, taking Al-Qaeda side in Libya, LIF G, the Libyan Islamic fighting group against Gaddafi. And then, most obviously, taking the side of Al Qaeda. Jabhat al-nusra to fight Assad in Syria. You where Joe Biden says it at Harvard in front of people that are like, yeah, it was rough. There weren't any Thomas Jefferson's or James Madison.
So we ended up siding with, you know, our allies who are sighted with, you know, the guys hide up. I'm a nozzle here. He's guys in Syria and then it also gave Al Qaeda Iraq after the u.s. Overthrew Saddam. They also rejected the talibans offer to hand over Bin Laden and his co-conspirators. Which Bush said was Done to show their Defiance to justify an invasion that was actually planned on September 4th. So I appreciate you giving them sort of wiggle room as well.
We don't know what that maybe they have bad intentions. Maybe maybe they're just idiots. You know, like, I will always, you know, what is it handling? The razor? I think that, you know, anything that can be attributed to, you know, instead of looking to attribute it to malice, anything that could potentially be attributed to incompetence, should probably be done. So, but I Tend to think it's malice. I tend to think it's, it's probably a combination of malice and incompetence.
But Keith you mentioned, you mentioned Yemen. The US government is basically sponsoring a genocide in Yemen. And the genocide is being carried out by the Saudi government. And as you said, Al Qaeda. Now, when we get caught up in this discussion about, you know, the, the central, you know, these intelligence agencies and the military industrial complex, arming and training, and fighting and allying with terrorist groups. We get caught up in the, in the brass tacks of it.
Well, that's not going to work. And doesn't that make things worse. It's treason. Yeah, if you and I said, hey, let's give 12 cents to Al-Qaeda. We'd go to jail, probably for a long time because it's a terror group and they're trying to kill us. But when the US government publicly gives hundreds of millions of dollars worth of money and training and weapons, and, and air support, and all this other stuff. The million measured in the millions and billions.
We talked about it in policy terms. This is treason. It's not just war crimes. It's not just, you know, terrible policy. It's not just the the biggest single recruitment tool for these Terror groups, people joining these Terror groups because they're the only ones trying to fight back against, you know, the global US military industrial complex Campaign Of Terror against Eric their entire. Region in the in the world. It's also treason.
They are giving material and comfort and Aid to the enemy to declared and sworn enemies of the United States. And it's just incredible to think of that and there's nothing that can be done because they would be the ones to do something about it. Right? So here, so, you know, that's that, all speaks to when people say Well, they're keeping us safe. Not only, are they not keeping us safe. They are. Engaging in regular public treason against us to make us less safe.
So they are the last people that I would trust to keep us safe. On Note reason number six, written in 1870 Lysander Spooner says it, purports at most to be only a contract between persons living 80 years ago, only a small portion even of the people than existing were consulted on the subject or asked or permitted to express either their consent or dissent in any formal. Mater and the Constitution so far as it was their contract, it died with them.
What is he talking about here? What are the most important contributions of Lysander Spooner? He is talking about he is using the equal English. Common law structure to argue against the legitimacy of really, of all governments, but specifically the constitutional government. So the theory of why government is just in in an arc Lauren, you know, Democratic Republic that we have basically is, well, it has the consent of the governed.
That's what makes it just like if you really try to drill down into the basics of why we should even tolerate people taking from us against our will and telling us how to live. It's well, you know, once you get past the pageantry, and the badges, and the metals, and the, you know, the marble buildings and the, you know, the the, the, the grand writings on parchment, and all this stuff and really Drill down to why we should take any of this seriously as being anything other than just
organized crime. We are told well it's because they have the consent of the governed, they have our consent and he's arguing they never had our consent. Everyone who's watching this and I can't see it. I can only see if Keith does it raise your hand? If it's some point, you were asked, if you were okay with the Constitutional system of government or whether you wanted to opt out, my memory might be fading. But I'm gonna say no since it's See you.
And I. Yes and and I doubt anyone else did either unless you unless you actually and even for those who because I've had people say, well, I swore to uphold and protect and defend the Constitution when I joined the military or when I ran for office, I go. Okay. Did they ever give you a chance to opt out of it? And I don't mean to opt out of swearing in to protect and uphold it, but opting out of
living under its rule. If the answer is no, which it is, you don't they never got your consent? What he was talking about is when the Constitution was founded, it only got the consent of a of a majority of those who were consulted, the people there did not the average person in the in, what is now the us or what was considered the u.s. Back then or the continent. The former colonies were never given a chance to opt out. They were never allowed to do
that at best. They were Allowed to elect politicians who were then able to decide whether or not they wanted to ratify the thing, but that's different from being able to opt out from all of it. And the reality is back, then only white landowning males, were even able to vote, but even if everyone was able to vote, even if every single person including the slaves, were all allowed to vote on whether or not they wanted to have it only those who voted for.
It would have been able to say that they had their consent, anyone who voted against it. It was forced into it now. Let's go even further. Keith. Let's say that 100% of every single human being in the colonies, including the natives voted in favor of the ratification of the Constitution. All of them. Every single one. There wasn't a single dissenter. Everyone read this document, when my God, that's the best thing I've ever seen. Where do I vote? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. They're all dead.
Their children are all dead. Their grandchildren are all dead. They're great. Korean children, should all be dead. We are many, many, many generations removed from that, from the people. Who, as we know, the vast majority were never even consulted. But even if every single one of them had been consulted and in their totally informed on coerced State. They said, yes, I want this. It still wouldn't speak to you and me, we did not consent to this system.
And if anyone other than Government tried to tell you that you had to live under an agreement by them, by virtue of the fact that you were born. Within their presumed jurisdiction, they would go to jail for racketeering and extortion, and threats of violence, and you know, and a Ponzi scheme and a myriad of other things because that's blatantly false using their own legal framework. It is false to say that anyone has consented to this. We were never given an option consent, only exist.
If you are allowed to say no, you know, we often say the difference, between working for someone and slavery, is having the option to say, I don't want to do. Is the difference between consensual sex and rape is the is being is saying, I don't want to do this, the difference between paying someone and, and being robbed by someone is the difference or giving to someone or being robbed by someone, is that is the difference, whether or not you are allowed to say, I
don't want to give this to you. If you're not being told that you have an option to opt-out, not leave, not leave, but stay where you are and opt out and live as you see fit harming, no one. Else. Then you did not consent and there is no there is no consent of the governed when an opt-out isn't given.
Exactly Frederic bastiat said if every person has the right to defend even by force his person, his Liberty and his property then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly.
Thus since an individual cannot lawfully use Force against the person, Liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force for the Some reason cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, Liberty or property of individual groups. So if you have a security Force, make sure you've only delegated rights to them. That you yourself have. That's what I love about bastiat. What is your favorite thing about Frederic bastiat?
And his book, The Law written in, what 1850 it was, it was published in 1850. It Was Written sometime around the 1840, the French Revolution. So it was, it was believed that it was written. In between like 1845 and 1848. I love Basquiat because I love the law because it's it. Can you just show them how thin that book is? It's such an easy read, you can read it like it's like a you can
read it on the bathroom. Your legs might be a little a little numb when you get off the toilet, but I think this is the new edition with Walter Williams has forward. So it's thinner than this. Yeah, it's thinner than that. Just the basic without usually. It has at least one or two forwards to which, to give it a little bit of something to it because it's like a it's a such an He read, it's such a quick
and easy read. And you know, one of my other favorite quotes from it and I always mess it up is the delusion of the day or this is the delusion of the day, the idea of enriching all classes at the expense of one.
Another like you're basically you're grouping people up or making a fight each other and then you're convincing each one that you're going to rob everyone else to give them something when reality is you're just robbing everyone and skimming from some of the top, what I like about the quote that you said, is it really speaks to? To the core of what we talked about. John Stossel did this once to a Paul to a congressman or a senator? He said do I have the right to
to do you? Do you have the right to rob? Me and he said, no. And he said, Do you and I have the right to go and Rob someone and he said no and I said and he said, do you and me in like five? Other people have the right to go? And Rob said, he went into the sea. Said, why do you as a politician?
Have the right to take from me? And he said well because the people have bestowed, the power to me and he said, so then I don't have the right to rob you, but I have the right to empower someone else to rob you and he said, well, you know, No, the our system is well alive, and we'd have Anarchy with that. If you don't have the right to do something, then you don't have the right to do it and you sure as hell, don't have the right to tell someone else to do it.
Imagine if it were legal to hire a hit man. Well, you didn't kill him. You just bestowed that right onto someone else. That's our social contract, Keith. That's essentially what we have that is the justification of government. Again, I am more than happy to work with menorca's. Constitutionalist, people of all political stripes on working to dismantle authoritarianism, and to, you know, and to put power back in the hands of the people. So I this is not a hill.
I wish to die on in terms of, you know, libertarian circles. There are many some of my some of the greatest activists that are in our party and our movement arm in Turkish. So I got one Burger who I'm Jacob hornberger, I mean so perfect example, when I was knocking on doors and housing projects, guess who was right next to me? Jacob Warren Burger. Yeah. He was with that. He was there with me and two of the times that we did it so and they're in Justin Amash is an
incredible Mentor kiss. There are many incredible Mentor kiss. In this party and in this movement and I certainly don't want to disparage them or anything like that. But let's be very clear about this. If you don't have the right to Rob someone, if you don't have the right to impose your will on someone else, then you are then you do not have the right to empower someone else or to you can't delegate something, you don't have. So you can't delegate theft
extortion, kidnapping, murder. You can't delegate these things to a different group and it's a to someone else. To some other group. Any manifestation of government has to have some level of coercion and theft and control or else. It's not a government. It's a voluntary community group like it's not or at least it's not a state. It might be a form of government, but it's certainly not a state.
A state has a presumption that this is our set of standards and you have to comply with them and it doesn't matter if you like it or not. You simply have to the most that you can do is participate in some electoral system, we create for you to put the people in charge to decide who controls those levers. But you can't actually dismantle the levers because that's treason.
Okay, so which is why, which is why Lysander Spooner is book, is called No treason because if there's no moral justification for the thing, then there is no treason to it. There is simply the refusal to comply with it. Final question. Mr. Cohen, thank you so much for being generous with your time quote book. The book How to Win Friends and Influence People, isn't it? Amazing? All these books are so old but
they have such amount of wisdom. You have to bring 10times to understand half of it. Yeah, consists of four parts, fundamental techniques, in handling people ways to make people, like you how to win people to your way of thinking, and how to change people without giving offence. What is the most important lesson you? Learned or lessons from Dale, Carnegie in his book, How to Win, Friends and Influence People.
The number one thing I learned from Dale Carnegie and really from it just in studying the best ways and to be clear when I was reading these things and learning these things. It was with sales in mind. It was not with politics, in mind. It was with my business in mind, how to grow my business, how to be able to cold call a business owner and in a three or four minute period, have them go from trying to figure out how to get me off the phone.
Phone and try to figure out how I even got their number to, you know, telling me about their company and figuring out, which of my packages is going to work best for them. And you know, what, how we can start, you know, it could put down a down payment and start the first consultation or whatever and and so that's where my mind was in it. But what I learned the most powerful thing that I learned from all of that is that no one cares what, you know, until they know that you care. Huh?
No one. Give us a crap about your political principles or beliefs, or your you're the moral philosophical. Underpinning of what? No one cares. And for that matter. No one cares about your product or your service or anything else. If they don't know that you actually are care about or are concerned with their situation
and how to make it better. And so, all of my messaging and the messaging that I've been going around the chi, just got back from See, I'm going to be in Miami next week, and I'm going to be pretty much every week. I'm going to be in a different place.
Pretty much through until November October November and I'm going around the country largely to rally the troops to help identify good candidates and to help, you know, build the resources and support for them to run for the various offices. They're running for. But the number one thing I want to do and that my number one goal is to teach Libertarians how to message are. Leafs how to message our beliefs in a way that connects with everyday Americans.
And the way you do that is by beating them where they are in their spaces and from their precepts, connecting with what they care about by listening to them. Reflecting and empathizing that you understand what they're going through and then and then there you can show them how we got here and take them on the journey for how our Common Sense. Libertarian ideas are the fixed
to their problems. We are not consequentialists, but we can use a consequential argumentation to be able to bring people over to our side because if I show up to someone who tells me that they're worried about, you know, crime or they're worried about health care or they're worried about Ocean and I start talking about self ownership. They aren't they, it's not even going to connect with them, that
they're not going to match. They're not going to care about it. What they care about is, how can I afford? You know, an emergency room visit without a destroying me financially. How can my kids get a good education? How can I the questions? You were asking me today? How can you know, how can, you know, my kids grow up in a society that, you know, treats them, you know, with respect. How can I keep my kids out of prison? How can I be able to grow my business?
How can, how can we get rid of? Stupid, lockdowns, how can we end gun control so that I can defend myself and my family's. As I see fit. These are all great questions. We have the best answers to them. I love that. You asked me questions. That progressives would ask and conservatives would ask because the reality, is we have better answers for the left than Democrats. Have we have better answers for the right than Republicans, have we have better answers for
everyone than anyone else has. So, there's no need to argue with them. There's no need to To get into some, you know, into deep philosophical underpinnings. At first. All we have to do is tell them how our ideas work and we're going to win over the vast majority of them. If and if you are already a Libertarian, I don't have to you know, explain to you that libertarianism how it works. Go read How to Win Friends and Influence People. Hmm. That is so much more important at this point.
Then you getting even more deep into the finer underpinnings of libertarian. Thought. They're certainly time for that. I'm We not just discouraging you from reading more about are your beliefs and and and finer tuning. Your beliefs. It is much more important that you be able to share your beliefs in a way that connects with the other 95% of people who don't think the way we do and that is so much more crucial.
So that that would be my final exhortation to you is GoGo read about how to actually be able to connect with everyday people and what you're probably going to find. Is that the way you Connect with everyday people about other stuff. That's just how you connect with them on about libertarianism to. So that that would be my take away from all this if you got nothing else from any of this, learn how to be able to share our ideas in a way that connects with everyday people. That's how we win.
The guest is fight Cohen, mr. Cohen. Thank you for joining me on Keith Knight. Don't try it on anyone. Thank you Keith.