The Mindcrime Liberty Show with Dobson and Patton

Ep. 33 A politically incorrect discussion about Abortion, Pro choice, Murder, and what is life.

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses abortion. We open up by pointing out that one of the world’s biggest boogieman especially according to the Left, as well as normie libertarians and conservatives, Richard Spencer, is pro choice for extremely politically incorrect reasons. It’s worth pointing out according to the CDC that in states that report by race/ethnicity whites and blacks both have roughly equal total numbers of abortions yet blacks only represent about 13 percent of the population. A large portion of this debate hinges on what exactly that thing is or isn’t. If it is merely a toothache or cow (animal rights activists aside) then we should kill it, trade it, experiment with it, sell it, or whatever one wants to do with “it.” If it’s a person then we should treat it as a person. One of the reasons why Tim is skeptical of the pro-life movement is the fact that much of the pro-life movement (including the pro-life woman who debated Walter Block) will disavow the “punish the mothers and doctors” position. Trump had a Freudian slip a while back and of course all the moderate Christians as well as the Left totally disavowed this viewpoint. I know prison abolitionists movement and crime is merely a social construction viewpoints exist but most people, in particular the Left/Left liberals/politically correct libertarian, think that school shooters should be punished. Effectively they are the same actions from an entity viewpoint (killing children). Swithun lays out what he describes as the anti-murder position quite effectively and its implications. We also discuss that pragmatically by allowing more free choices in particular when it comes to healthcare it would eliminate much of the supply. In a possible Ancapistan situation one could imagine that “Gary North Inc” will compete with “Margarat Sanger Inc.” for the right to control that entity. No solutions just tradeoff but its worth pointing out that depending on one's worldview things can be both features and bugs.  If your for the right for woman to choose that is a feature (and vice versa).  Ancapistan might allow for both in theory for better or worse.  

Ep 32. Mistaken, Evil, Ignorant or Good? Meno dialogue, human action, and choice.

The Mindcrime Liberty show discusses how Socrates/Plato’s concept in the Meno dialogue, as well as book one of The Republic, have wide ranging effects on ethics, theology, and what exactly is the good life. If you take the formalistic approach of ethics adopted by Plato it appears that no one really does evil and we discuss the implications small and large. Isn’t this the view that shows up in Misesian style economics where the choice you act upon by definition is the choice you thought was the best use of one’s time? The actions can vary from small things such as the small time thief to the murderer, or someone who wants to sit in bed all day smoking weed (or homeless on the street) and merely take advantage of charity or welfare from some benefactor. The actions can get comparatively larger such as going on a shooting rampage in a church or school, creating a party to hijack a state to kill certain ethnic groups, bomb Dresden, bomb Pearl Harbor, bomb Hiroshima, bomb the Federal Building or fly planes into the World Trade Center. In any of these cases do the various “theys” do these actions out of benevolence and for good in this formalistic way? Does malice as defined by Thomas Aquinas or evil as its colloquially known exist? Are any of the “bad men” in history truly evil or are they just making mistakes and have differing views about what the good life is and how to achieve it?

Ep 31 Why no one including Marxist and left anarchists (not merely H. Hoppe) believes in Democracy

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses Hans Hoppe’s criticism of democracy and why no else really believes in Democracy including various groups of the left: Left libertarians, Marxists, left anarchists, social democrats, and other factions who often times hide behind the word democracy when they in fact have other goals than just majority decision making. For all the criticism that Hoppe’s book the Democracy the God the Failed got, we subject that criticism toward the left. For example if a 51 percent group in a given area votes to outlaw homosexuality or no “fill in the blank group” allowed, would Kevin Carson, Richard Wolff, Cornel West, or you average leftists think that is legitimate even if it’s done “democratically”?

 

What if an elected party or person (and does so while campaigning) intends to abolish democracy and create a personal dictatorship? It is highly unlikely in either case the left or left-liberal groups would support these parties. Another problem about democracy is the existence of power, truth/science, division of labor, and class/gender/ethnic divisions. There is the classic 1984 line about the state saying that 2+2=5 whereas everyone would clearly say the answer is still four even if a democratic state did so. Whatever the actual “truth” of the matter on origins of the species, it is the case that in plenty of areas if the matter was put up for election intelligent design would be taught in school for better or worse.

One could always take the Foucauldian version of truth and say it’s merely power and that truth doesn’t exist which then you wind up with the Foucauldian critique of science as well as scientific imperialism (destroying traditional teachings on the grounds that they aren’t true...although if you read Stephen Meyer or watch him debate I am unsure if that is actually proven). which interestingly even itself ends up falsifying democracy as well.

There is also the classic elitists position as Michael Malice and Moldbug puts it that the “idiots who need leaders don’t have the ability or the right to pick them.” This dovetails with the classic claim that the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. Finally the hardcore Marxists, just as the hardcore libertarians, think of there are socio economic theories as being true regardless if they are elected and of course actual existing socialism/marxism tends to be quite undemocratic. It’s not like minorities under Fidel Castro or Stalin got treated well (just see the treatment of Afro-Cubans
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/26/1604234/-Fidel-Castro-s-Racist-legacy).

 

 

Finally we end with a discussion of why workplace democracy is a flawed idea which if executed needs work. This is what someone like Richard Wolff tends to argue for but as David Friedman points out the small dictatorship model (i.e. a restaurant or business run by a boss) with the right for employees to leave and start their own firm or get a different job is actually more effective, and as pointed out above, actual existing socialism is a dictatorship too where workers do not have very good choices. The advocates of workplace democracy and trade unionism also have to deal with the problems of outsiders and innovation. Do unions represent the interest of the consumers or foreigners or merely the workers? Arguably in the US, cops and teachers are too protected by trade unions. As far as technology is concerned trade unions can also promote backwardness by forcing higher prices and inefficient modes of production merely because workers are protected.

Episode 30: Sean Gabb on how the UK became subservient to the US.

The Mindcrime Liberty Show interviews Sean Gabb on the relationship Britain has had with its former colony from once mighty empire to arguably a lapdog of that colony in the Blair administration. The British Ruling Class has lost the will to power and has failed to assert its interest since Suez crisis to the Americans but arguably earlier. When and why did this happen? Was this decline inevitable or was it avoidable? Was it all due to the First World War or were there other events which were important? Would the British people be better off if it just entered the US as states considering that at times it’s a lapdog for the Americans? Is there any truth to the special relationship? Are the Americans and British people “foreigners” to one another despite them sharing for the most part a common language and similar historical events/movements? Finally would Britain be better off under Biden/Harris since there is no pretense of a special relationship?  Sean Gabb himself is the author of over 40 books including the novel the Churchill Memorandum, , a translation of the Aeneid and the piercing political work: Cultural Revolution, Culture War.
You can find more of his work here https://www.seangabb.co.uk/

EP 29 The absurdity of reparations. Tying together development, third worldism, and western history.

We discuss reparations and why outside of an extremely narrow area of interest they are an absurd idea (in particular state mandated or state funded reparations). We interviewed on one of our earlier shows one of the prominent libertarian intellectuals Walter Block on the topic of reparations who advocates a narrow view of reparations for property which can be clearly demonstrated. Even within this narrow view, as we pointed out previously in our episode with Block, that plenty of typically considered “masters” or “whites” or westerns could in theory be owed wealth/land too. Plenty of land wasn’t stolen or was merely taken by what is basically is hunter gatherers and plenty of the genocide was merely an environmental inevitability which even Jared Diamond would point out in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel (ie germs).

As far as the British Empire is concerned it created plenty of positive externalities which if you take the expansive view of reparations it should be included too. Some examples of this are railroads, the abolishment of the slave trade, spread of literacy and Christianity, and modern institutions such as parliaments (for better or worse) are left behind thanks largely to the British Empire which was funded mainly by home British taxpayers who in some cases were not that much better off then subject peoples (read Road to Wigan pier by Orwell). This is the other absurd half to the reparation absurdity that reparations' will mainly fall upon working class citizens of the developed societies which is THE least libertarian or even left libertarian thing one could think of. It’s also worth pointing out that immigrants to the US didn't exactly come in the nicest of conditions and many came over in what is known as Coffin ships, weren't considered white at the time (almost black by the scientific racists at the time), and were drafted to fight in a war between states. Are these people owed money?

As far as ADOS persons or former subject persons living in Britain are concerned, we point out that functionally many of them not only have integrated they are full members of the dominant society and now in positions of power. The richest black in terms of per capita income (they would either be 44th or 15th richest nations depending on what metric one uses and year) and about ¾ of the black billionaires live in the US. So if you really want to take certain Chomskyite and Carsonite arguments about the West (or for that matter being wealthy while everyone else is much poorer) seriously these persons are functionally just as “Western” (i.e. exploiter class or imperialist using the Third Worldist terms) and owe money or reparations to the developed world supposedly. We don’t of course think the West created its wealth through exploitation which we tried to lay out in last week’s episode but nonetheless why would this group want this money if it’s so tainted according to the left and considering that many of them have integrated ? If ex slaves like descendants like Frederick Douglas and Martin Luther King Jr want to integrate into a "common America" they have to in theory own up to America’s “greatness” or “genocide” depending on one's view. The back to Africa program never happened to any large scale for better or worse and the ones that did emigrate there ended up being a minor “colonial” elite themselves in Monrovia Liberia still to this day. Do these colonial elite in Monrovia owe reparations' to Liberians?

Reparations will only occur in developed/wealthy societies (like the UK, Germany, and US) that are even remotely capable and willing to do it. Poor societies will never pay reparations. The Soviet Union (now Russia) is never going to pay Ukraine in any fashion close to what the Ukraine famine cost it. Western intellectuals barely talk about it without couching it within hundreds of qualifiers and the USSR denied it for years. Germany; even after getting its scientists stolen, cities bombed, many of its ex-soldiers used as crop pickers for years by France and Russia, patents looted by the Americans, and half of it turned into a jail by the Soviets. The German taxpayers still pay Israel and the victims of holocaust a payment and arguably German taxpayers themselves should might be owed reparations too! Finally the West to a large extent has withdrawn from Africa but who is moving in and building new bases and buying up ports? China. We highly doubt they will ever pay any reparations or that Noam Chomsky or Carson will critique them as hard as they do the British or the Americans. The Chinese have no trouble treating blacks poorly in China itself or Muslims in certain provinces and most intellectuals and for that matter the NBA don’t seem to care. The UK and the US (as well as much of the other west including Spain and Germany) is the cleanest dirtiest shirt. Reparations are absurd.

Ep. 28 Economics of slavery...Did slavery make the west rich? Is the 1619 project/Chomsky correct?

The Mindcrime liberty show discusses arguments about the economics in favor and against slavery. If you take the 1619 arguments seriously, as well as some Third Worldist and Chomskyite ones, the “West” is primarily rich thanks to this institution if one really gets to the bottom of their arguments. We think this argument has a ton of holes in it and lots of special pleading definition aside.

We try to at first define slavery noting that the institution is not merely a white on black scenario: Christians were enslaved by the Romans and the Ottomans enslaved Europeans. It’s also worth pointing out that Africans local were a key cog in the slave trade itself and it was the British who ended it. That aside, why is it that even though the Ottomans, the Chinese, the Russian tsar, as well as many Africans and South Americans practiced a form of slavery did not industrialize or are comparatively less rich? Why was the American South less industrialized then the American North? Why was the comparatively freer western Europe ahead of the less free tsarist system of serfdom in Russia? These are the cases that must be answered by the Chomskyites, the third world Carsonites, as well as the 1619 project people.

We at the Mindcrime liberty show do hold there is no universal argument in favor of slavery as profitable. It may be profitable for the slave holder to hold slaves but it’s not profitable for the slaves themselves. The West got rich materially thanks to the Nuclear family, some form of markets or capitalism (depending on ones parlance and in spite of the crony capitalism not because of), IQ, Christianity, and the demystification of the environment. Slavery largely harmed the West on balance (hence its not in the long run economically effective) and its worth pointing out the only two forms of “slavery” today either occur in failed states like post Hillary Clinton and Nobel prize winning Barack Obama intervention Libya or its merely taxation by progressive governments, which as Robert Nozick would point out almost no one thinks the former is legitimate (buying and selling slaves) but still thinks the latter is. We do touch on the idea that taxation might be slavery or that living in East Germany might be a form of slavery but recognize there is a sliding scale.

Ep 27. Why the left, including left anarchists like Chomsky/Carson, will never abolish the state.

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses why the Left will never, in all likelihood, abolish the state. This is a continuation of an earlier episode we did with Keith Preston on “Does the left advocate the police state” but this time we state our own views. The left, compared to the right, has a very unconstrained vision in Thomas Sowell’s term such as: defeating climate change (if it exists) or public health crises, mass education and mass healthcare, or equality which can only really likely be “defeated” with a state.

The Mindcrime Liberty Show outlines three or four different types of the left including the social democrats, the Marxist-Leninist, and the anarcho et al or classical anarchist. One could include primitivists but considering the fact that indigenous societies according to the myth of the ecological Indian weren’t that nice to the environment and according to mainstream natural historians might have hunted large mammals to including the buffalo. Considering that for the most part indigenous societies are rather functionally “traditional” or reactionary (ranging from the Amish/Hutterites to maybe uncontacted isolated groups), most left wing people aren’t going to become primitivists anytime soon.

The social democrats are not that radical as identified by both Jeff Riggenbach as well as Jonah Goldberg (although they place them differently on the political spectrum) and are not that much different then normie conservatives, rather, just want to spend money on healthcare or public works projects instead of the military. Although considering the fact that public works projects tend to be military in intent, we at the Mindcrime Liberty Show tend to think this distinction doesn’t even exist. The Marxist-Leninist are quite obviously “statist.” The Marxist-Leninists have always historically had a state and actually a larger, more deadly police state then either the Romanovs or the Bourbons.

The hardest case for us libertarians at the Mindcrime Liberty Show to diagnose is the anarchical et al groups. We already discussed the primitivists but the more advanced anarchists must first show why they can’t defend themselves from the Marxist-Leninists? Why did the classical anarchists lose to them in both the Russian and Spanish civil war? Right libertarians might have a defense problem but so does left classical anarchists (as well as mutalists and the other et al groups).

Also how does classical anarchists deal with climate change or a major public health crisis if they of course think it’s a problem? We at the Mindcrime liberty show are agnostic or even “deniers” who take a Alex Epstein view or a Knutt Wittkowski view respectively on the issues but if you listen to those “infallible” “most high and mighty” state healthcare “experts” how are they solved under classical anarchism/mutualism considering people like us exist? Bismarkian social democrat might be able to work but as discussed that requires cops, a mass education and propaganda system with authoritarian teachers, and of course a military to defend it from outsiders who would “contaminate” the system. Thus, considering all that we at the Mindcrime Liberty Show thinks the left will never or rather unlikely to abolish the state and all its apparatuses for a variety of theoretical and pragmatic reasons.

 

 

 

26 Is Libertarianism traditional or libertine w/Rik Storey. Hoppe, Tucker, Block or all the above?

The Mindcrime Liberty Show is joined by Rik Storey to discuss whether Libertarianism is a reactionary/traditional or liberal/libertine system of thinking? Is libertarianism about free love, abortion, and drugs as often times criticized by conservatives? Or is it a form of private landed patriarchal tyranny as believed by average social democrats and Noam Chomsky? We discuss the dispute between Hoppe, Tucker, and Block over what libertarian attitudes ought to be towards culture. Is Hoppe's realistic strategy the correct strategy or is Tucker's more liberal more likely? What is the underpinning culture of libertarianism? Is it traditional Christianity or Liberalism? Is Christianity traditional? What is libertarianism and Christianity's relationship to family and children?

 

URL Feed.

https://mindcrimelibertyshow.podbean.com 

 

Ep. 25 What is progressivism? Who is a progressive? w/guest Don.

The mindcrime liberty show is joined by a guest to discuss what is progressivism. Is it a meaningful word and who is personified by it.  

Ep. 24 Carl Schmitt and the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Supreme courts, power, and the exception

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discuss the death of RBG and how it relates to sovereignty. Schmitt's definition of who is sovereign, is he who decides the exception. If the US constitution, as opposed to the people, is sovereign who decides when amendments apply and what precisely the words mean. In that case the supreme court is sovereign in theory. Whether the executive, the military, and legislature follows it is of some question and to some extent is the question in itself.  Furthermore,  does Britain have a comparable institution at this point? In a future, hypothetical libertarian world of competing law generated on the private market would a similar institution exist? How do the intractable decisions get resolved to decide what the law functionally and practically is rather then what some philosopher or theorist thinks it ought to be.