00:01:18.000In Arizona, the Libertarian Party fielded a great slate of candidates for the U.S. Senate, for governor, and a number of other races, and they were all disqualified by a Republican lawsuit.
00:01:31.000And so the only way to get Libertarians on the ballot now is as a write in.
00:01:35.000In the primary to be qualified for the general election ballot.
00:01:40.000And there are enough people who were very upset about this who said, you know what, we're not going to let the Republicans get away with this.
00:01:45.000Since there's this sort of backdoor way onto the ballot, we're going to support another awesome slate of Libertarian candidates.
00:01:52.000So I was recruited and I got to hand it to Barry Hess for being really the lead organizer of this project.
00:01:58.000So last week, I suspended my presidential campaign in order to give it to the 2018 US Senate race.
00:02:04.000I'm running as a Libertarian to take the seat vacated by Senator Flake.
00:02:09.000And running against quite a colorful cast of characters.
00:02:14.000But you know, Al, we should get into that on another interview.
00:02:16.000I don't want to take too much time from this awesome debate.
00:02:18.000But as a U.S. Senator, what I'm going to be doing is meeting with as many of the troops as I possibly can and looking them in the eyes and telling them that I was one of them and that we have been lied to and that they are not fighting for freedom and that I will do everything I can in my power to ensure that not another American soldier dies for lies.
00:02:40.000And for those of you in the audience who don't know me from previous appearances on this production, I'm a former Marine and author of the book Freedom.
00:02:52.000Yes, Adam is actually a three time Chadcast alumni.
00:04:42.000Because the only legitimate borders are private property borders.
00:04:45.000And if you believe in the market, if you believe in freedom, then the only legitimate solutions to the problems of human movement are market based solutions.
00:04:55.000We really can't trust government to do anything that it says, but we can't trust it to even do what it wants to do or what it intends to do effectively most of the time.
00:05:04.000And especially with something like immigration, trying to control.
00:05:10.000I mean, they're what the fear mongers will tell you there are 13 million people here illegally.
00:05:15.000Well, you know, if you want to take it with an American native perspective, well, there are 330 something million people here illegally.
00:05:24.000But when it comes down to it, if you believe in freedom, if you believe in private property, if you believe in free markets, then you have to say the only legitimate borders are private property borders.
00:05:32.000When government claims an entire territory, that's not a legitimate property claim in the first place.
00:05:37.000And if you want to really be able to control, Who lives near you?
00:05:41.000And I think we should all have some natural desire for that, like I do.
00:05:45.000That's why I bought land here in Arizona in an awesome community full of people who share my values.
00:05:50.000And I got a big fence up around my property.
00:05:52.000I get to decide who comes on my property.
00:05:55.000And I think it's unethical and it's holding back humanity when you have a government standing in the way saying, No, we're going to be the one who determines who's allowed in this vicinity and therefore who's allowed on your property.
00:06:08.000And in terms of how much this is holding back humanity, this idea that governments Should have some role in the restriction of freedom of movement of human beings is that it has cut global productivity in half.
00:06:21.000And this is not just me making shit up or off the top of my head.
00:06:24.000There are several economic analyses that will show you that if you remove government borders just as barriers to the flow of human capital, not even like getting rid of any of their other significance, just of labor capital, that global productivity would double.
00:06:41.000So we just get over our hang ups about nationalism and tribalism and ethnic.
00:07:27.000I mean, if you believe in borders, if you believe in government borders and the enforcement of them, you believe in ICE because ICE is the immigration and customs enforcement, which is needed in the 21st century.
00:07:38.000You know, before we could easily just round them up and ship them out if they were illegal, as we did in Operation Wetback in the 1950s.
00:07:45.000And when we enforced the border for a long time, we didn't really even have that problem so much.
00:07:51.000But to address some of the myths, I mean, Adam made a lot of pretty stunning and large claims.
00:07:58.000For starters, I heard in there a pretty interesting one, and this is one I tackle a lot on my show, which is to say that he said that, well, if we have 11 million illegal immigrants, that's fear mongering.
00:08:08.000And actually, there's 300 million illegal immigrants because of the Native Americans.
00:08:13.000And I would say that, you know, if we're going to operate within the paradigm of the current reality and not this like hypothetical, like libertarian fantasy land that's governed by abstract principles, you know, I would say that we have to look at it that settlers are very different than immigrants.
00:08:29.000The people that came here and wiped out the Native Americans were settlers.
00:08:33.000They weren't going from one existing society into another, where you have Mexican immigrants now coming into American society.
00:08:40.000They left British society, which was developed, which was industrializing, and they came to America, which was a frontier where there wasn't a lot of resources, where there wasn't a lot of development, where there was constant warring with the Native tribes until the middle of the 19th century.
00:08:56.000And so it's a much different proposition.
00:08:58.000The immigrants that you see now, if you could even call them that, They're not assimilating into the culture that they come into.
00:09:55.000We then purchased the Louisiana Purchase, which was right up until we go out a little bit further west.
00:10:02.000The rest of the territory we got from the Mexican Cession or we got from various treaties in the Northwest.
00:10:08.000And so that was all done by treaty between governments.
00:10:10.000If he wants to say that's illegitimate, I guess he believes all countries are illegitimate, but the idea that they're totally just based on domination and conquest, they were established through transactions, through purchase, or through some kind of a treaty.
00:10:24.000Lastly, he talks about productivity, which to me is fascinating.
00:10:29.000He advanced this in the debate with Stefan Molyneux, and I was just dumbfounded at this argument that, well, if there was no borders, if there was just the free movement of people, global productivity would double, which is absolutely the height of.
00:10:42.000Of ridiculousness, of ludicrousness, because we look in the case of the Arab migrants in a country like Germany, for example, and they find that 70%, no less than 70% of the migrants from the Middle East and North Africa are long term unemployed.
00:11:00.000So the people that come into Europe, the existing immigrants that are coming in, it's not like they're picking themselves up by the bootstraps and they're starting small businesses.
00:11:08.000They're Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
00:11:14.000And of course, the reason being is because they're bringing over the culture that they left behind, which is that of not productivity, to say the least.
00:11:22.000And anyway, if we were going to entertain something that's hypothetical, we would have to look at the tremendous costs that are involved of integrating people, which some might say are insurmountable.
00:11:31.000I mean, sure, if people were interchangeable, that might be the case.
00:11:36.000If individuals were deracinated, had no religion, had no allegiance to their nation or families, if they all spoke the same language, then you could probably say, yeah, there would be no costs associated with.
00:11:47.000Mass migrations and therefore productivity would increase.
00:11:50.000But there's no evidence that that would be the case.
00:11:52.000We know that the reason that free trade between nations works a lot less than free trade within nations is because people are much more willing to move from Indiana to Illinois, or actually, it's really more vice versa, at least in my experience, than they would be to move from Illinois to China, or they would from Illinois to Vietnam or Indonesia.
00:12:42.000I mean, it's just funny to hear Nick talk about fantasy land where he lives in this fantasy, the Amero fantasy land, where government works.
00:12:58.000And the denial of economic reality that, like, choice, freedom, movement, that is like those are prerequisites for free trade, and that free trade promotes wealth, and that's what makes civilization prosper.
00:13:13.000The cost of integration thing that's kind of a silly, like, well, we're going to be collectivists, so we're going to have to pay to integrate people.
00:13:20.000No, you know, if you don't have a forced collective in the first place, you don't have to be forced to pay the costs to integrate people.
00:13:30.000You can respect the evolution of culture, the evolution of thought that things are going to change, things are going to flow, and that societies and civilizations are going to shift and change.
00:13:38.000But more importantly, I think fundamentally here, there's a point that he brought up about property and that trying to say that government has legitimate property rights claims because it can defend it.
00:13:50.000Now, if I kidnapped you, Nick, and I had you tied up in my basement and I had duct tape over your mouth and weird torture devices attached to you, I wouldn't say, well, I can defend him, therefore I own him.
00:14:33.000If you mix your labor with natural resources and you can claim it, and yes, defense is relevant in that, and so is respect by society in the market, and to some degree, property outside of your body is subjective.
00:14:46.000Uh, but to say it's by like I claim it and I've used it and I've mixed my labor with it or I've traded for it legitimately, that's you know, that's that's a logical basis for property rights that you can apply consistently to a number of issues, you can apply as a foundation for ethics and everything else, but if it's just Well, we can defend it.
00:15:18.000Yeah, I mean, I'm glad that you brought up Locke because I think this illustrates a fundamental divergence in what we believe is human nature.
00:15:26.000And what I would say, firstly, to answer, or first of all, I don't think firstly is a word, but in the first place, when we talk about government versus people, I think what you have is the fallacy of composition.
00:15:37.000When you start to compare, well, Hold on, hold on for a moment.
00:15:53.000So, in the first place, I would say you have the fallacy of composition, which is to say that within a country, you couldn't kidnap me, I couldn't attack you because we have a Lockean order.
00:16:06.000And the reason we have a Lockean order that's based on contracts is because the government enforces the legitimacy and the viability of the contracts.
00:16:15.000If you were to kidnap me, if there was something that would happen, well, that would be the only reason we would say that that would be against a Lockean contract is because the government would come in and say that's illegal.
00:16:40.000And so, in that way, and then this illustrates a larger premise, by the way the world and nations function in a Hobbesian order, which is to say that it is, unfortunately, I don't know if it's moral, but might does establish rights.
00:16:53.000If we were living in an anarchistic society and there was no law established by government, there was I'm not sure there's any other way to establish a law.
00:17:01.000And I took your property, and nobody could take it from me if there was no law to say that was against the law.
00:17:07.000Now, you could say it's wrong all day long.
00:17:09.000You could stand on the sideline and say, That's wrong.
00:17:42.000It means that libertarians live purely in the world of philosophical abstraction.
00:17:48.000They say, well, it doesn't matter if the government exists, it doesn't matter if the government has resources, and you could point individuals and institutions.
00:18:08.000The claims are legitimate, and they're legitimate because people recognize them as legitimate.
00:18:11.000And that's really what matters in lived reality as opposed to it in the world of abstractions where we're, oh, well, it's not really legitimate because taxation is theft and all this kind of stuff.
00:19:14.000Yeah, I think all drugs should be illegal.
00:19:17.000And the reason being is because, you know, we have to, we talk about self ownership a lot, which I think is very fascinating because I've yet to hear Adam define at what point a person owns themselves.
00:19:28.000I mean, would we say that a child is in a position to give informed consent for sex?
00:19:34.000Would we say that a child is in a position to take a drug that they don't understand, like heroin or methamphetamine or marijuana, for example?
00:19:42.000I think what we see in many studies is that when you legalize a drug like marijuana in states like Colorado, among others, the rate of usage by adults and children increases.
00:19:54.000And to see that kind of harm done to society at large and to children, I think is a horrible thing.
00:19:58.000But I think fundamentally, the problem with this idea of self ownership is where do you define it?
00:20:05.000And some might say, some of the more moderate libertarians will say, oh, it's 21 or it's 18.
00:20:10.000And of course, that's entirely arbitrary.
00:20:12.000They say, well, it's when the brain develops.
00:20:14.000That's different for everybody, number one.
00:20:16.000And then number two, who's to say that brain developing is a good metric to define ownership?
00:20:20.000I mean, could we say that it's when the body is fully developed?
00:20:23.000Who's really to say it's all entirely arbitrary?
00:20:26.000And so it all goes back to common sense.
00:20:29.000This is where we live in the real world as opposed to abstractions.
00:20:33.000Is it a better or a worse thing for society to be on drugs?
00:20:36.000Well, it's worse for society, it's worse for productivity, it's worse for people's health, and government should be able to make that decision.
00:20:55.000That's why I used to be a libertarian, but I became a statist because I realized that we can and, in fact, do know what is best for the public at large.
00:21:04.000That's why government should be able to make those kinds of decisions.
00:21:07.000Adam, yeah, you might want to respond to a few things before.
00:21:46.000It enhances their lives, it makes it better.
00:21:48.000For so many aspects of their health to be able to have that freedom to decide what drugs are in their own best interest.
00:21:56.000But this almost isn't a debate anymore.
00:22:00.000I have to wonder if Nick's playing a caricature of a statist here, if this is a libertarian fantasy to get to debate someone so ridiculous who would say that all drugs should be illegal and government knows what's best.
00:22:26.000But I mean, the fundamental difference here with Nick, and I think he said this in his answer to that last question about government knows best, and he said this on his podcast.
00:22:37.000And by the way, someone pointed out that Nick mentioned me in one of his podcasts recently.
00:22:44.000And the first thing he said is that my audience, and I'm going to quote him here, he said that my audience of conservatarian fags who believe this kind of stuff.
00:22:55.000Like taxation is theft, and it's like, dude, really?
00:23:31.000But this thing about like when you say government knows best, basically you're saying I know best, because you're not really for capitalism.
00:24:16.000You represent the culture of statism, of insecure people using violence through government to control their people who are so insecure about their own sexual reproductive strategy.
00:24:48.000There's so much obvious behind this, but what it is that fundamentally you think you're better than everybody else and that you can decide policy and use government to force it on people and justify it by saying might makes right.
00:25:29.000You say, Well, this is an argument that's degenerated to the point where you're just saying you're ridiculous.
00:25:35.000No, you're ridiculous, and it's funny because I gave a very cogent rebuttal to your statement that drugs should be.
00:25:41.000I said, At what point, besides some arbitrary determination, can we objectively establish at what point a person owns themselves and to what extent?
00:25:48.000I think we could all agree it's ridiculous.
00:25:51.000Than an infant totally can make competent decisions, and a toddler could make totally competent decisions.
00:25:58.000And then at what point it's arbitrary?
00:26:00.000And I will say, you didn't answer that in your rebuttal.
00:26:04.000You say that it's degenerated to name calling and this and that, and use your entire rebuttal to my rebuttal to kind of grandstand about, oh, he's a statist.
00:26:31.000I used to be a libertarian, but then I kind of gained just a little bit of experience in the real world and I came to understand why it is necessary that force exists because we know what is good for people.
00:27:08.000He said we need liberty so that we can figure out what is the best way for people to live because, well, we should be able to experiment and we might not think it's a good way to live, but maybe it is.
00:27:20.000Well, I mean, that's entirely fiction.
00:27:21.000I'm a Catholic, I'm a student of history, and then I think we can basically understand.
00:27:27.000I think if we have a competent regime that is in power, They know what is in the interest of the public.
00:27:33.000For example, in Russia, I think Vladimir Putin knows what is good for the Russian people.
00:27:38.000I think, in the case of many countries, in China, Xi Jinping, in Turkey, Erdogan, all the tyrants of the world, they know what is good and they execute the will of the people.
00:27:49.000Now, you're over there saying he thinks all drugs should be illegal.
00:27:52.000He means Tylenol and aspirin and Advil.
00:27:55.000Of course, I was talking about illicit drugs, currently illicit, which go from marijuana all the way up through amphetamines.
00:28:02.000And there are pharmaceutical applications and they're given as pharmaceuticals.
00:28:06.000Not sold on the street, not sold for recreational purposes in dispensaries in Colorado.
00:28:11.000And these are the drugs which I think should remain illegal.
00:28:14.000Alcohol, if it were my perfect world, if I were running the state and the state was absolute and it was theocratic in many ways, yeah, alcohol would be illegal.
00:28:26.000I think a lot of things would be illegal because we know that they're not good for people.
00:28:30.000Alcohol, marijuana are substitutes for reconciliation or rather communion with God.
00:28:37.000They're a substitute, they are filling a God sized hole.
00:28:41.000And you could say, oh, well, they're for recreation or for the, and I understand there are some uses for that, but by and large, we find that marijuana leads to horrible effects in the brain.
00:28:49.000I'm not a scientist, but I've seen many studies and I know lots of people who have taken marijuana regularly.
00:28:55.000And we know it's probably not the best thing for productivity.
00:28:58.000And so I think that's just generally the fundamental contention is that you believe and your vision of human nature is effectively tabula rasa because you are a Lockean.
00:29:11.000People are basically a blank slate and they're fun.
00:29:14.000They're born wanting peace and wanting love.
00:29:17.000And also, because you are a libertarian, I would assume you believe in neoclassical price theory, which posits that human beings are rational economic actors.
00:29:26.000We come up with all these weird epistemological economic arguments where they say that, well, man is a completely rational actor.
00:29:35.000It's a marginal human being who is making decisions based on cost and quality.
00:29:39.000And this is why human beings are rational.
00:29:41.000And this is why we have an economic philosophy.
00:29:45.000We know that people on average are around 100 IQ, and that varies certainly by a number of factors, including race.
00:29:52.000And we know that people cannot really be trusted to make totally competent, rational decisions.
00:29:58.000Now, we could use markets to economize scarce resources, and that's one of the best ways to direct resources in efficient ways.
00:30:10.000But to say that, well, the people know what is best for the public good, for the long term good, for the health of society, Is simply not borne out by the facts.
00:30:18.000We see this with free trade, for example.
00:30:20.000We have a massive trade deficit with the world because we have lowered all our trade barriers.
00:30:47.000We're selling off all these long term projects.
00:30:50.000In exchange for short term consumption.
00:30:51.000And that's really what the free market does it prioritizes short term consumption, impulsive, hedonistic short term consumption at the expense of the longer term or the more total public good.
00:31:03.000And that's just one example, but that's what the public does at large.
00:31:06.000So that's why we need the strong hand of the state to enforce order, to execute the will of the public.
00:32:13.000I mean, we could look at it for medicinal pharmaceutical purposes, but again, that would have to be heavily regulated, and it would be illegal for recreational purposes.
00:32:24.000Of course, the guy in the pharmaceutical industry certainly has no conflict of interest whatsoever.
00:32:29.000But, you know, there's something else there in what you said, Nick, that I found a little.
00:32:38.000Troublesome, even condescending directly when you said, I was just like you, and then I got some experience.
00:34:21.000I went to jail for what I believed in.
00:34:23.000I've read some books about economics, which I would highly suggest you do when you talk about price theory.
00:34:28.000No, the belief that the market can set prices for things is not based on the idea that any individual is going to be perfectly consistently rational, but that the collective wisdom of millions of people in a market exercising their rational choices for themselves on a moment by moment basis.
00:34:45.000Is it creates like the effect of a giant supercomputer that your intelligence can come nowhere near in terms of the power of making those decisions?
00:34:55.000So, for again, it's this arrogance that I see in you that is just so disturbing.
00:34:59.000I mean, you want to learn something, man, look inside and examine that.
00:35:02.000The market is capable of setting a balance between long term and short term consumption priorities.
00:35:08.000That's one of the mechanisms of price theory you're able to say, hey, we want something now that's going to be based on low time preference versus a high time preference, right?
00:35:18.000If you need something now, you're going to have a different approach to the price of it than if you're willing to have it later, if you have low time preference, if you have patience, if you're willing to invest in the long run.
00:35:30.000So, again, it's just, Al, I mean, I'm kind of disappointed here.
00:35:34.000I thought we were going to have a real debate, but it keeps coming down to just this projection of arrogance that I know what's best for you and I can force it on you.
00:35:45.000I mean, what you're effectively doing is, and I've seen you do this on all your other failed debates, I watched your debate with Dyer, with Spencer with Stefan Molyneux, and it's almost like you just professionally go around losing debates on the internet.
00:36:39.000I knew a very good friend of mine who went down to Africa.
00:36:43.000And what he found when he went there, he noticed why there was no economic growth in Africa or why it was very little or it will never be on track with Western nations.
00:36:52.000He said that he met Africans there and what they would do is, One time there was an African who got seeds, okay?
00:36:58.000And he was told if you plant the seeds now, there'll be a big harvest, and then you'll be able to sell what you produce.
00:37:19.000After he sold off all the produce and he had a little bit of money and he had the seeds, he sold the seeds.
00:37:26.000And he spent all the entire money on jewelry and things that would make him look high status.
00:37:31.000And this is effectively the problem is that people can be impulsive.
00:37:36.000So called rational actors cannot, in most cases, be trusted.
00:37:39.000It's a balance along in the short term, and certainly not across the entire public.
00:37:43.000Now, and I offered sort of an olive branch.
00:37:46.000And I conceded this, maybe you missed this, because there's this little hamster wheel running your head saying, freedom, freedom, the free market, that kind of thing.
00:37:53.000But markets are a great way to organize economic activity, they're a great way to.
00:38:02.000And I'm using the language I'm using is very precise here.
00:38:05.000They're very good at organizing and directing scarce resources most efficiently.
00:38:10.000Markets are great for that and they should be used to an extent.
00:38:13.000But there are limits to which the market serves the public good at a certain point.
00:38:18.000And this is what we see in this country it becomes an end in and of itself that the market must be free and efficient for the sake of market efficiency and for the sake of market productivity, never mind the fact that it's wrecking a horrible public.
00:38:42.000It's because their communities are being hollowed out, because all the best talent is being relocated, because all the factories are being shut down, because traditional America is being ripped in half by the disruptive, creative destruction of the market.
00:38:56.000And you could say, well, that's just how it goes.
00:40:09.000Everybody coming together voluntarily to trade goods and services.
00:40:15.000And one of the things that's really important in understanding this, Nick, and this is one of the things that was sort of an important premise to my study of economics that you may have missed, which is that value is what is created by a market, not dollars, not widgets, not things that a central planner can control.
00:40:40.000One of the things that I talk about in the book, In Freedom, is there's a section here called Everything is Economics.
00:40:46.000Everything can be studied and appreciated and understood through the dismal science of the flow of value known as economics.
00:40:55.000And sometimes people say, well, we don't really want to think of our relationships, our personal relationships.
00:41:03.000We don't really want to think about our family exchanges as economic exchanges.
00:41:10.000But I think it's really important to include them in that because when you say you're going to central plan, you're talking about certain parts that you're going to pull out of the economy.
00:41:18.000Based on this big abstract understanding, based on, and I appreciate, yes, you're looking at the economy through looking for underlying principles.
00:41:28.000Earlier you said you couldn't imagine how a law could be created without government.
00:41:31.000Well, your failure of imagination is not an excuse for violence, sir.
00:41:36.000I think that's the most important one.
00:41:37.000There are voluntary organizations that have laws of their own that are not governmental laws.
00:41:44.000But when it comes to this bigger issue of everything being economics, When you say, well, no, we're going to save romantic relationships.
00:41:55.000We're going to keep them out of economics.
00:41:57.000We're not going to try to number them in dollars and cents.
00:41:59.000But there's nothing in our lives more valuable than our time, our attention, and our love.
00:42:05.000And a relationship is a voluntary exchange of those things.
00:42:09.000And when you understand that you can't centrally plan that stuff and you really appreciate what it means for individuals to be able to make choices in their own self interest, you understand that, yeah, they're going to make mistakes sometimes, and that's okay.
00:42:22.000But that's better than me forcing my central planning and my preferences on other people.
00:42:27.000And really, that's what freedom comes down to respect for other people and willingness to say, I might not agree with you.
00:42:34.000I might have different preferences than you.
00:42:36.000I like different flavors, but I'm going to let you have your choice.
00:42:40.000I'm going to let you do that because I cannot decide what's valuable for you.
00:42:45.000I mean, you feel like it's valuable for you sitting here on the internet for an hour being told, you know, How wrong you are, and losing this debate in so many ridiculous ways, and being called out on every logical fallacy.
00:43:00.000There have been a lot that have gone by here, but all the major ones, you're just getting called one out because you think that this is a good use of your time.
00:43:11.000You know, a lot of people would not like being in your seat right now, being told how wrong they are about all this stuff.
00:43:17.000But you are choosing to be a part of it because you believe that it's a value for you.
00:43:21.000And even though you do not respect my right to make the choices for myself about my pursuit of happiness and what's in my self interest, sir, I respect your right.
00:43:34.000But the unfortunate thing is that in many cases, planners and people know what is best.
00:43:39.000There's a great quote by, I believe the man's name is Thomas Carlyle, and he said, The most effective form of government would be if you could find the most capable and the wisest man and just make him an absolute dictator.
00:43:51.000Forget this democracy stuff, forget this market stuff.
00:43:55.000And the reason being is because while you can have your preference and you can have your opinions, there are things that are objectively true.
00:44:02.000And you say, well, oh, well, we are the market.
00:44:05.000And that's a very convenient, again, we have to boil down the fact that most of your worldview is based on rhetoric, is based on abstraction.
00:44:13.000That's a nice thing that you can write in a paper.
00:44:38.000It's a direct result of trade deals like NAFTA, where what happens is that our government lowers our trade barriers with Mexico and with Canada.
00:44:46.000And that industry flees over the border.
00:44:48.000In many cases, it flees over the border to China.
00:47:24.000These arguments were based on rhetoric.
00:47:26.000And see, it's very convenient when, well, you know, a rhetorical device in a sentence is very different than substituting arguments for rhetoric, which is what you're doing.
00:47:34.000And this is what you're doing now, by the way.
00:47:35.000Rather than contend that the free market is in the public good, you want to say, Were you in the room when Cato devised their free?
00:47:42.000I mean, this is exactly what you do in the debates.
00:47:50.000See, it's very important when you're talking about ideas and you're trying to connect with reality to use words deliberately and precisely.
00:47:59.000And so I'm asking you, who are you referring to when you say we destroyed the steel industry?
00:48:17.000You're going to sit there and so disingenuously and deceptively say that eliminating government barriers to trade was actually a government program.
00:49:27.000Well, uh, no, I'm not claiming Krugman, I'm not claiming him.
00:49:34.000No, I'm not saying I'm saying it's the same fallacy, it's the same fallacy, which is to say that no matter how horribly the market will fail, well, it was just because it wasn't free market enough, and therefore, and therefore, because your position has never existed.
00:49:51.000And in your mind, until it works perfectly, it will never exist.
00:49:55.000It can never really be attacked because you can always sit there and say it was a liberalization of trade, but it still wasn't 100% perfectly liberal.
00:50:03.000Therefore, well, it wasn't the real free market.
00:50:06.000I'm going to call in Molyneux for this one because Molyneux makes this amazing point that just blows what you said out of the water and actually blows a lot of what he said out of the water recently, too, in terms of freedom.
00:50:19.000He is saying, hey, we can't have freedom.
00:50:23.000This is the same thing as saying, hey, we can't.
00:50:25.000Get rid of slavery because who will pick the cotton?
00:50:27.000You know, we can't get rid of government because who will build the roads?
00:50:29.000We can't get rid of slavery because who will pick the cotton?
00:50:32.000And Stefan Molyneux makes this great analogy where he says, Well, when people were debating slavery and they took the point of no, we need to abolish slavery, they said, Because it's freaking wrong.
00:50:42.000They didn't say, Well, we can't imagine that someday we're going to be sucking dinosaur juice out of the ground and running machines through fields of cotton that are going to pick all the cotton for us and poop out t shirts.
00:50:55.000It's holding back humanity, doing things that are wrong, that are Reducing our economic efficiency, that are making things that are holding us back.
00:51:05.000And see, everything that you're doing is like we go back, you want to look at like every single thing that you're advocating for government doing is a moral crime, is a violation of self ownership.
00:51:16.000I mean, it's a violation of just basic common ethics that you can only use force and violence in self defense.
00:51:22.000You can't just say, well, I don't like what you're doing, so I'm going to point a gun at you and say, if you don't like, if you don't do what I want you to do, then I'm going to shoot you.
00:51:47.000So now that we've acknowledged you have failed to answer that argument and you've pivoted to another one, I will now rebut your argument that government is based on force and that's inherently immoral.
00:51:56.000Government and the existence of government is not immoral.
00:51:59.000And the big reason I would say, and my contention would be, from where do you derive your morality?
00:52:05.000From where do you derive, and what binds you to your morality?
00:52:08.000You go on these streams and you say, Self ownership, the non aggression principle.
00:52:12.000And you've never yet been able to articulate what binds you to that morality, where you derive it, and why it is actually true.
00:53:52.000And because of the existence of man's more bestial nature, we need a government.
00:53:58.000And this is what Hobbes said to prevent the horrible state of nature that would exist without government, constantly deterring and overpowering individuals who wanted to inflict their tyranny on us.
00:54:09.000You could not have an ordered society.
00:54:12.000When there are evil people out there who are cutting off heads and they're doing horrible things, your response is simply to say, oh, well, the non aggression principle.
00:54:20.000And that's just yet another example of how Adam's entire worldview.
00:55:35.000I mean, it's a pretty disingenuous misrepresentation of what the non aggression principle represents in terms of going after the real problems of the world when there are people who are willing to do violence to control other people, like statists.
00:55:50.000So, no, with the non aggression principle, people are free to come together in non violent ways to form organizations capable of doing force and violence in a defensive way.
00:56:03.000So, like, that's really, and we're going to have Better things.
00:56:06.000This is what the American founders, you want to talk about Americanism, opposed a standing army because they were in favor of a militia defense, which is a more decentralized, market based approach to defense.
00:56:18.000That's what the non aggression principle leaves you with.
00:56:21.000So you talk about the violent and bestial nature of man.
00:56:27.000That's exactly why we can't let people like you, Nick, have a government to force their will on other people because that's how you get tyrannies.
00:56:37.000Now, For the people who are listening, I want to talk to the audience directly instead of talking to Nick or Alan for a second here.
00:56:41.000Because if you're watching this, you're an hour into it already.
00:56:45.000You've heard so many of these psychopathic ideas of control, this bestial nature of wanting to control what drugs people are putting in their bodies from Nick.
00:56:56.000And these are the people who grow up to be the leaders of the Democrat and Republican parties.
00:57:02.000And they have tricked most of America into thinking that you have to be one or the other, that you have to play along with their game, that you have to.
00:57:19.000So, this is why there's an alternative that's so important.
00:57:21.000This is why most human beings are not statist.
00:57:25.000Most human beings do not want to use violence to control other people.
00:57:29.000Most human beings would prefer, when given the choice, to get along with people peacefully and cooperatively in a civilized manner.
00:57:38.000And yet, we end up with Republicans and Democrats and statists like Nick running this country, running this.
00:57:45.000World, because enough of us step back and go, Hey, we're just gonna chill and enjoy our lives.
00:57:49.000There's an evolution happening right now in humanity of people realizing that we don't need force and violence to organize society, that we can be better off with freedom, with respect for individual rights.
00:58:00.000This is why the Libertarian Party is growing, even though most people who understand this about politics are just like, Hey, voting's usually a waste of time.
00:58:08.000And I understand, yeah, when there's not a Libertarian on the ballot, when there's not a legitimate initiative that's worth your time, yeah.
00:58:17.000But right now, there's an incredible opportunity to get involved with politics, to get involved with the Libertarian Party, because we're not about politics in the traditional sense of who do we point the guns of government at to organize society.
00:58:29.000Our answer to that question is nobody.
00:58:51.000If you get involved now, we can stop them.
00:58:53.000We can continue this beautiful dance forward for humanity towards a more peaceful, less violent society.
00:58:59.000So, I highly encourage you to go to lp.org, join the Libertarian Party today.
00:59:03.000The only thing you have to do in terms of taking a pledge to join is say, I oppose the use of violence to achieve political and social goals.
00:59:11.000If you want to help me out with what I'm doing, of course, you can get my book, Freedom for Free, at thefreedomline.com.
00:59:19.000You can find all my other websites through there.
00:59:53.000Tell us how we can elect you to become a senator in the state.
00:59:57.000You know, Nick, you're absolutely right to point out that I didn't rebut all of your arguments here because there were so many logical fallacies.
01:01:29.000I just wanted to clarify that that's what it was.
01:01:32.000And so that's the only reason I interrupted because, and look, if we're in the middle of a debate and you can't answer the argument and you just say, Forget it.
01:02:29.000If you have somebody who is competent, our current government is full of idiots, it's full of people who don't want to get anything done.
01:02:35.000So if we have somebody who is a man of action, who can truly execute the will of the public and is competent, then we can have someone who builds the wall.
01:02:44.000And we've seen in Hungary, In Israel, walls work.
01:02:48.000The wall in Israel shut down illegal immigration, reduced it by 95%.
01:03:45.000So I would say the Federal Reserve to end that is extremely important because that's how you shut down the welfare state and the military industrial complex.
01:04:18.000One final question I want to ask you guys.
01:04:21.000In your opinion, which was more detrimental to the United States, the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913 or the Hart Seller Act of 1965?
01:04:36.000And I look, I definitely sympathize with.
01:04:38.000People who would say the Federal Reserve because it's horrible what fiat money has done.
01:04:43.000And in some ways, like I said, I'm familiar with a lot of the libertarian stuff, and a lot of it I agree with.
01:04:49.000I'm not an anarchist, but I do agree with a lot of the fundamental contentions, which is that the Federal Reserve has been a disaster for this country.
01:04:56.000It's created inflation, it's distorted markets, it's put power in the hands of central bankers, and central bankers are unelected.
01:05:04.000So even if you are for a government, you would at least hope that these people would have some accountability, but they don't.
01:05:10.000And so the Federal Reserve has been a horrible thing.
01:05:12.000It's allowed the welfare state, the military industrial system.
01:05:15.000But by the same token, a country can recover from economic collapse.
01:05:20.000A country can recover from the ills that are created by the Federal Reserve.
01:05:24.000We saw it in the Soviet Union, for example.
01:05:26.000We see in Eastern Europe, these countries, after 50, 60 years of communism, they're still there.
01:05:32.000They still have their old architecture, tradition, language, people.
01:05:35.000You look at Poland, you look at Hungary, Czechia, America.
01:05:44.000We could survive 100 years of fiat money if we had a homogeneous population and ethnic core, but we cannot survive a literal invasion and we don't even call it that.
01:05:54.000So the Hard Cellar Act is far more pernicious.
01:05:59.000Yeah, and I just have one thing to respond to in that, which is that Nick said that it would be preferable if people could choose their own leaders through an election process.
01:06:10.000And I think that seems To really contradict a major part of the premise of what Nick has been arguing this whole time, I think you know, if you really accept Nick's premise of central planning and statism, I think Nick should just choose everybody's leaders for them.
01:06:25.000You know, I don't think we even need elections anymore, we can just let Nick decide everything.
01:06:29.000We'll let you know, make him dictator for life.
01:06:31.000I like that idea because he knows better than everybody else that he can come on, Adam.
01:06:35.000I try and extend an olive branch, and that well, here, the reason why I say an election or you choose them is because, well, I'm I don't believe in democracy, I mean, I really don't.
01:06:45.000But I believe in democratic processes can create accountability.
01:06:49.000So, the one thing that I've always said, I don't believe in democracy.
01:06:51.000I don't believe in that kind of thing.
01:06:53.000But I do believe that the processes that we have in place, some of them create accountability.
01:06:57.000So, if you elect like a state representative, there's accountability.
01:07:01.000If he doesn't do his job, he can be recalled.
01:07:05.000And originally, you bring up the founders like they were libertarians earlier.
01:07:09.000The founders didn't believe in democracy.
01:07:11.000Originally, the electoral college was not, they did not make their determination for what would be president based on a popular vote, it didn't happen that way.
01:07:19.000And senators were not chosen by popular vote.
01:07:35.000Well, another sort of central premise without having to get into every logical fallacy that I've heard here, in this idea of central planning, And this idea that Nick or any other central planner or government will know better for people is, I mean,
01:08:00.000I just go back to this idea of lack of respect for individuals being able to decide what's best for themselves.
01:08:07.000And it's like, I'm actually like, I'm really, you know, it's almost overwhelming to hear this because when Nick attacks the founders, As not being libertarian, it's a bit of a red herring.
01:08:23.000I'm not going to be like, hey, you have to argue exactly parallel to what I'm arguing, because obviously I'm not doing that.
01:08:29.000But I didn't say, hey, the founders are libertarian and therefore the founders are right about everything.
01:08:33.000No, I was making one point that they learned something and that decentralization and free markets and freedom of choice is in the best interest of prosperity.
01:08:44.000But even in what he just said about democracy and elections being accountability mechanisms, the ultimate accountability mechanism is freedom.
01:08:54.000To opt out, that you have the freedom to secede, that you have the choice to leave at any time and say, you know what, I want to be free on my property.
01:09:11.000And it's kind of interesting, though, because I would say that you and I are alike in one way, and that we are, as Spangler would define it, we are socialists.
01:09:42.000That's why he can't interject like that.
01:09:44.000What he said is that a socialist, and this is not like the standard definition, but he defined socialists and he said that we're all socialists.
01:09:52.000All Europeans are socialists in that we want to advance.
01:09:58.000Our view of what is correct on society.
01:10:00.000It's not sufficient that we have our own beliefs.
01:10:03.000It's that we have to put them on the world.
01:10:06.000So it's not sufficient that I believe that the state should enforce things according to what I want.
01:10:12.000It's that everyone should adopt those beliefs.
01:10:13.000It's not sufficient that the communist go off and form his own commune.
01:10:17.000We all have to enforce this cosmic justice on society, socialist.
01:10:22.000And in that way, it's very similar to you.
01:10:24.000You're not content to say, I will leave society with.
01:10:29.000My compatriots, and we will just kind of do our own thing.
01:10:32.000You're saying I have to run for office.
01:11:03.000Right, because I want to show, but you mischaracterize what I'm doing with that and saying that I'm like forcing ideas on people by running for Senate.
01:11:10.000No, I'm saying, look, hey, let's stop forcing so many ideas on people.
01:11:33.000Well, I'm using, and that's why I modified it by saying it was Spengler's definition, which is that you want to see your vision in the.
01:11:44.000It's not sufficient that you live it out.
01:11:46.000You and when whether you do it by force or by persuasion, you're running for center for this reason, for that reason, you want to see society to be libertarian, to be able to see people free to develop whatever they want.
01:12:17.000If you have anything left to say to Nick, and then we'll do Nick's closing statement and we'll call it a debate on America's number one chatcast.
01:12:24.000I want to thank you both for being here.
01:12:43.000So, yeah, well, we might have to do Fuentes Coke Cash too because it's incredible to watch because I mean, I feel as if I'm a little bit, there's some things that Adam says that I like.
01:12:51.000Adam does incredible work with veterans, things like that.
01:12:53.000There's some things that Nick says that I like a lot.
01:12:55.000I mean, so it's weird that there's Al in the middle between the libertarian and the statist, just kind of hearing out both arguments and just enjoying it.
01:13:41.000No, um, I do want to say thanks to both of you for making this happen, Nick.
01:13:45.000And it's been great that we've been able to have as intense a philosophical, political conversation as this has been and kept it lighthearted and been laughing all the way through it.
01:13:55.000And I appreciate that and I respect that about you, Nick.
01:13:57.000And I want to say that you're young, you got a lot of talent.
01:14:00.000What you've put together with your website and with your podcast is something to really be proud of.
01:14:07.000I mean, it is significant that you have the voice that you do in the conversation globally.
01:14:13.000The conversation of humanity right now is something that I think, especially at 19, I mean, I didn't get into independent media until I guess I was 20 something later, late 20s.
01:14:25.000And I really wish that I'd, at your age, been engaged at this level.
01:14:31.000I really think that you have a lot to offer the world.
01:14:34.000Have a lot of talent, and it's really great that right now you're using your talent to make the ideas of statism look so ridiculous and easy to defeat in a debate and in an argument.
01:14:48.000I mean, I really, really appreciate that.
01:14:49.000I know at some point, I mean, when you become a libertarian in the truest sense, it's not like you become it, you realize that you are a libertarian, you realize that you're a free, beautiful, independent human being, and that you don't want to force your ideas on anyone, you don't have anyone's will.
01:15:26.000Okay, well, I wanted to make this a fair debate.
01:15:29.000So before we started this, I just want Nick to know that in the interest of making this a fair debate, I smoked a monster blunt all by myself.
01:15:39.000And I thought I was going to give him a fighting chance.
01:15:42.000I didn't see a little more taking advantage of my weakened state and being able to jump in.
01:15:47.000But even with half my brain tied behind my back, it was still easy to prove that libertarianism, free markets, peace, harmony, cooperation, love is superior to force and domination and statism and violence every single time.
01:16:02.000So obviously, this debate is a great example of that.
01:16:05.000We are proving in this volunteer exchange that coming together peacefully in conversation is better than coming together in force.
01:16:13.000So, I know there's some backhanded compliments in there, but really, when it comes down to it, Nick, I do respect you and I appreciate your willingness to participate in this.
01:16:23.000And, Al, thank you so much for putting this together.
01:16:25.000You can find out everything you need to know about me, including getting my book for free in every digital format possible at thefreedomline.com.
01:18:37.000The natural state of mankind is disorder.
01:18:41.000And we look at disorder that arises through freedom or that arises through all these other kinds of trade or something like that.
01:18:47.000And it's things that can be quite horrible.
01:18:49.000And I think that the only way that we can truly have liberty, truly have freedom, truly have the kinds of things that Adam cares about is if evil, if insanity, if degeneracy is kept at bay.
01:19:01.000And the only way it's kept at bay. Is by the hands of the executioner.
01:19:05.000And that can either be figurative or it can be literal.
01:19:08.000That there has to be a very strong and overwhelming force that underwrites the values and standards and laws that we have for society.
01:19:16.000That if there are people who want to inflict their individual tyranny on us through a terror attack or a murder or through any kind of thing, even if it's individual, that they want to do drugs or harm themselves, that there is a legal force that underwrites that, that connects us horizontally in time with all of our kinsmen.
01:19:34.000But also vertically across time with our ancestors and with posterity, that there is a vanguard keeping all that together.
01:19:40.000The unfortunate and tragic, but only way to do that is with the state.
01:19:44.000So I'll say reluctantly, but because of our nature, that's my position.
01:20:32.000I think in closing, I would say that if I was president of the United States, I would probably appoint Adam as in charge of veteran affairs.