The Last American Vagabond - Larken Rose Interview - The Illusion Of Authority & The Collapse Of The Two Party Paradigm

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Joining me today is Larken Rose, author of The Most Dangerous Superstition, here to discuss exactly that, the most dangerous superstition: the illusion of authority. We discuss how this illusion is used to control our lives and how it is at the root of most every problem we face as free individuals. We discuss voting and how it is a central part of this deception, as it is designed to give us the illusion of control over the entire process, and we highlight the many different solutions to overcoming this all-encompassing mechanism of control, that only exists because we allow it to.Source Links:The Rose Channel(244) The Most Dangerous Superstition by Larken Rose [Audio book] - YouTube(12) Larken Rose (@larken_rose) / XBitcoin Donations Are Appreciated:www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/bitcoin-donation(3FSozj9gQ1UniHvEiRmkPnXzHSVMc68U9f) Get full access to The Last American Vagabond Substack at tlavagabond.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome with Last American Vagabond. I'm honored to have on the show today, Lark and Rose, to discuss his outstanding book, the most dangerous superstition. And really, this is something we've talked about many, many, many different times on The Last American Vagabond, the daily wrap-up, the conversation of the illusion of authority or voting in general within that. And the conversation of how important this is, I mean, right now with the selection process coming up, how much of the conversation revolves around things we're going to discuss today. So I'm excited to have him on to discuss why this is such an important manipulation, the illusion around all of this and what we may do to possibly change that going forward. So Larkin, thank you for joining me today.

How are you? Thanks for having me on. I'm doing great, even in Phoenix. Outstanding. Well, you know, it's interesting to start off that I've been saying a lot that I, and maybe this is just me being hopeful, but I still think it's important to lean into. I do see a lot of mental change happening. And as usual, it comes along with a lot of, you know, the powers that shouldn't be amping up our uncomfortableness to make you fall back into line. But I really do see a lot more people than I've ever seen before asking questions in a lot of different areas coming from the COVID-19 illusion conversation, what's going on in foreign policy, but specifically around the election. And we've been talking a lot about just in my entire career doing this. I've always been a two-party

illusion mindset person. I've talked about the reality of, you know, kind of just the big facade around politics in general. And then also going further into the idea of the illusion of authority. but it's been there. We've talked about it, but most of my audience is still kind of like, well, I get it, but we're probably going to vote. And I play that game every single year.

This year, something is shifted as I feel, at least as I feel. And I see a lot of people asking questions investing in these ideas, even if they still may vote that I've ever seen before. And we got a really incredible pushback from the certain kind of people and the higher level left-right paradigm commentators

when we simply said the same thing we say every year, sort of like, you know, vote no one, 2024. And it got this crazy response. And so I immediately was like, I've got to have Larkin Rose on. We've got to talk about his ideas because people are listening to these things more than I've ever seen. So unless you want to comment on just that in general, I'd like to start with just, you know, explain for people that have never heard this before. What is government and what is it, what is it that we incorrectly see it as?

Well, I'll start with the incorrectly see it as because it actually ties in with what you were saying. And the reason it's falling apart and the reason more people are starting to question it is because the that we were all taught is falling apart in front of our eyes. What we're taught to think is that society needs this thing called government that's above us mere mortals. Like you're not supposed to think about it like that. But it's this thing that keeps us in line and it keeps us civilized and it settles disputes and it protects us and yada, yada, yada.

And people don't even recognize that that's actually a religious belief because they talk about government as if it isn't just people because they well the government will handle that well what are you talking about like some dandy we're talking about or is just human beings and the fact that most people recognize if you ask them not only do they recognize it's just human beings they recognize it's the worst human beings there are right and as that becomes more and more obvious, like in recent years, where the elections are just one slime ball against another slime ball, and the mask fell off. Tons of people who used to just take it on faith that, of course, we need government, of course there need to be sort of societal managers or something, keeping the

rest of us in line, the more the facade that these people are somehow superior and they have special knowledge or special rights or special something. And the more and more people see, you're not even like average, you're not, you're worse than my neighbor. Right. Like I'd rather have my neighbor rule me than some random, you know, Republican or Democrat. And so the entire belief in government is the notion that we have to have some people who have special rights, who have authority, who have the right to tell the rest of us what to do, have the right to tax the rest of us, to pay for big things, because we can't handle that, and we can't be trusted to, like, just, you know,

pool our resources voluntarily and stuff. Now, we, the stupid little children, need our parent government bossing us around and taking our money and for our own good and funding these big things that we're told, you know, us mere mortals could never possibly handle. And I think more and more that lie has been falling apart precisely because nobody really has faith. The best they can say is my slime ball isn't quite as bad as

your slime ball. Right. That's pretty much the entire conversation right now. And that's not enough to maintain people's actual belief. And I remember when like the idea of the Office of Presidency, even if you disagree with the policies of whoever's there right now, you respect the Office of the Presidency. and I got to shake hands with my congressman. And it was in my lifetime not that long ago where there was this reverence for government. And it has completely fallen apart over the last 15 or 20 years because the propagandist for the state have gotten so bad at their job. Because instead of looking like we're above you, sort of the high priests of society, like you need us here doing these complicated things that you can't. possibly understand. We have these legislative sessions and we decide public policy for the blah, blah, blah.

So the average peasant out there can go, well, I don't know how any of that works. So I'm glad somebody's doing it to now just these screaming idiots. I mean, they don't even come across as smarter than the average person. Right. These screaming power happy idiots pointing out how the other one's a liar corrupt, correct. And more and more people, they can't help. but notice, we can't possibly, society can't need these people to have special power. Well, let me ask you something. And this is interesting you bring, so do you think there's any level of this? And I mean, I think everyone can sense that.

And so the question is, do you think there's any level of this that is sort of part of the design at some level? Because, I mean, I find hard to believe that it could have gotten this. I mean, I guess I shouldn't even say that because if I mean, it's obvious, it's almost like the logical decline. But do you think that this being so obviously kind of like before like you said, there was reverence, there was at least like an semblance of difference of policy. Like now there's just like these screaming wedge issues, then everything else kind of seems to line up in the same direction. And I think those of us that see this always know that's kind of how it works, but it's very

visible right now. So do you think any of that's by design for some reason? Actually, no. And the thing is I often use the analogy of a test game is if you're playing chess and it looks like the other guy did a colossally stupid move, you still have to pause and go, was that a trap? Like, is there some clever thing behind this? Because that looked really dumb, but maybe there's something I'm not seeing. And so I am just by default in that mindset when it comes to government doing stuff that looks stupid. So I even hesitated for a while to all the way except they really are

this dumb. I think they have drifted so long on the momentum of the propaganda of the past. geniuses like Edward Bernays evil genius but he was still a genius he was brilliant at manipulation and propaganda and the politicians were way better at duping people into thinking we needed them and they're the source of law and order and all that and I think they've gotten their way so long that the geniuses just sort of faded away and the parasitic politicians like they come out and they do the dumbest thing they have billions of dollars at their disposal and they come out and they do the most moronic things while like trying to pretend they're one of us i'm just like you and then they do you know idiotic things

that everyone's laughing at them and i was hesitant i mean years ago but i was hesitant to believe are they really that bad the first book i wrote which is actually out of print at the moment is how to be a successful tyrant and it describes the manipulations and it describes all the nasty tricks they do, they're getting an F minus at this point in being successful tyrants. Because when they just grab for brute force power, that's like they may get it short term for some people. But in the long run, that is colossally stupid. You can't rule a people if it's just by brute force. If they don't feel obligated to bow to you and obey you, you as the tyrant, you're in deep doo-do. Right. I'm happy about.

So I think they really are this incompetent now. And I think what you said there a moment ago is the idea is that I think it's a lot of the people that might have otherwise gravitated around this power structure are just so aware of how any number of things we see on the decline that they're just not invas. It's almost like I said, the natural decline of how this is going. You know, and I think that's pretty visible. But so you said about the illusion about the idea that you have to believe that they have this authority. So let's talk about that. And that's a central part of your discussion in the book is that it's not. that everyone's inherently bad, that people believe that these people have the right to rule over them.

So to touch on your point about the consent of the governed and why that is an illusion and what it means and, you know, in a context even of a democracy that's really just the mob having rule over what you say. So break that down for people. Right. Well, picture there's a king. There's one king. He bosses people around. He steals their stuff.

And people go, hey, we don't really like this. And then he goes, oh, they're getting kind of upset. I'm going to let them choose between me and my brother who's going to rule the first. and boss them around and take their stuff. We're still going to boss them around and take their stuff. But then we're going to tell them, well, because we let you choose which bully was going to brutalize you on a regular basis, that sort of means you're in charge. And it sort of means you consent it.

So democracy, I mean, people are like, well, at least it's democracy. Democracy is the best trick tyrants have ever come up with because it gives the people the illusion that they have some say in the matter, that they're being represented or that it's by their consent when none of that's true and they have no saying the matter at all but the reason for the tyrant to do that is because if people have think they have no influence within the system they tend to like have revolutions or at least just disobey and like we're going to sneak over here and not tell the master what we're doing but if if they can keep the focus on well have this election and have these bicker and and get the the livestock into two groups

who are yelling at each other. We want our guy in power. We want our guy in power. It's literally just managing human livestock. And that's what the movie Jones plantation is about that we made. And so as long as people think the institution is legitimate and they play these stupid games, they lose because they've already accepted the premise that somebody has the right to rule them. They're just bickering over who.

And if you start with that premise, you already lost. You've already agreed that you're somebody else's property, basically. Now you're just whining about which person it's going to be. Right. And what a lot of, here's the thing that a lot of pro-freedom people don't even like to hear. It's very easy to point at Washington, D.C. or wherever, and point at these crooks and go, they're evil psychos.

They're causing all these problems, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they are evil psychos, and they are causing lots of problems. The thing is, all of their power comes from the belief. of their subjects. Right. And people don't want to think, right? Democrats can point at the system and go, this is unfair. Republicans can point in the system and go, this is unfair.

Everybody political can do that. None of them want to admit that their belief system is why this is happening. Right. And democracy is a fine example because people say, well, if we vote really hard and I say, okay, if 49% of voters voted to like end some tax, does it end? No. If 10% of people being taxed just go, not giving you my money anymore, that's the end. It doesn't matter who's in power. It doesn't matter what the legislation says. It's the people's belief that they're obligated to obey, which makes their focus be on begging the masters for permission to be free. And if you have to beg somebody else for permission to be free, you're already not free. Right. Exactly. Good. And that is the heart. and soul of politics. And that's why most of the people who go, rah, rah, rah, and pro freedom, they don't get that as long as they believe that government is a legitimate thing,

they are the problem. And not on purpose, not because they're malicious, but because they've been duped into believing this superstition of political authority where they think, well, of course, we're going to have a ruling class. Now let's bicker about what it's allowed to do and who should be in control of it. It's like, you already lost. Like, as soon as the game, board was set, you had already lost because you already accepted the premise that you're going to have a ruler. And then they'll hide that under, well, it's representative and blah, blah, blah. It's a ruler. They tell you what you can do and they decide how much of your paycheck, they will let you keep. And then they say, we represent you. Right. If I went to you personally and said,

from now on, I'm deciding how much of your paycheck I'm going to take every time you get a paycheck. but don't worry, I'm serving you. And in any other context, everybody would recognize that is utterly insane. But because this is a belief system, they've been surrounded by their entire life, they think, well, this must be real. Government must be legitimate.

We can bicker about the details, but we can't, like, throw out the entire idea. Absolutely. And then you called it what, hand-me-down beliefs. I thought that was pretty a good way to put that, the idea of people. But you know, what I think the foundational point that I really want people to listen to here is that as you highlight that, yes, these people are evil, these rulers. But it's, if without the belief that they have that authority over our lives, this would not

be the dynamic. Now, you could obviously, and maybe you can address the idea that there would be some level of force or consequence, right? Well, you're not listening. I'm going to put you in jail. But the point is if it actually became a mass action to a certain degree, enough people saying, we just don't acknowledge your authority, you know, that, that's the obvious point there is that they wouldn't have it if we didn't give that to them. But so I guess that's sure I said to bring it up, address that point there is like, how would that look? Let's say 99% of the grouping of just, let's say the United States or the world said, you know, we don't acknowledge your authority. Wouldn't there then be an immediate response of force? And then how do you deal with that in that

moment? No, because their enforcers are us too. Congressmen aren't out there beating people up and collecting their taxes, they're using the livestock to enforce it on the other livestock. Right. And so it's totally a numbers game. If one person says, well, I don't acknowledge your authority, they might get a tank in their living here. It's not going to go well. But it's a numbers game when enough people don't believe, and it doesn't have to be

everybody, it doesn't have to be a majority. It is so easy for a pretty small minority of a country to just disobey a law out of existence. And there's lots of historical examples. Like in the US, we have alcohol prohibition that just it became unenforceable because people were just like, we don't really feel obligated to go along with this. So we're going to do this. In fact, we so much don't feel obligated that we're going to start to shoot your revenues when they like try to find our stills and stuff.

And it's like, the people in power are thinking, yeah, not only are they shooting at us, but most of the other people are going, yeah, the revenues kind of deserved it. when the victims don't accept their victimization, it becomes really hard to control them. And so, not even 99, if 50% of the people in the country in the U.S. said, we're just not paying taxes, we're not going to hide. We're not going to report anything. You're not going to do withholding. We're not going to give you any money.

That's over 50 million people. What are you going to do about it? And the answer is absolutely nothing. Like financially, logistically speaking, I don't think that would be possible. The consequence would be too damaging for the entire system, right? It's an excellent point. To what you said a moment ago, though, about alcohol, cannabis is an interesting part in that conversation, though, right? Because that's an example of what you're saying.

Clearly, they just explicit resistance. Now it's just kind of by default legal in most places, but the federal government has still maintained the illegality. So it's like in this middle quasi zone. Is that kind of like the new dynamic? Like, how do you get that? That's kind of where I see that going is they just kind of let you do it. but then you're still allowing them to have the ability to enforce on you. You know, it's interesting.

Right. It's funny because the people in power, like I've said a million times, the only thing they care about is what they can get away with. They don't care with like when people protest. We don't like this. Were you under the impression that any of them care whether you, they're literally stealing your paycheck? You think they care whether you want that to happen.

So it's just about what they can get away with. So they're not thinking, well, they're not even thinking like, well, who's going to vote for whatever? because the two parties are the same thing anyway, they're basically thinking resistance versus compliance. Like, can we keep doing this? So when it came to marijuana, because the mentality had shifted so much,

and almost everybody was like, okay, whether or not I like the habit, caging people, kicking down their doors and caging people for having a plant, that's just bonkers. And so when the mentality of the people isn't on the side of, you're all horrible criminals, because you smoke weed or something,

it becomes unenforceable. And the thing is at some point, if they try to make an example of somebody, when the mentality is shifted too far in the other direction, they trigger a way worse backlash than if they just quietly let it happen. So right now, you see the feds quietly letting it happen in a lot of states, including Arizona, where I am, where the state said, yeah, we're fine with weed, whatever. The feds are like, well, technically it's illegal, but we're not really going to do anything because we know that's going to go really badly for us. and just real quick just right there just to vivid anybody can acknowledge the example of what you're highlighting right there that's simply the act of of civil disobedience if you will just saying we're not going to comply has caused that to be now the reality now i guess what i was saying before would even be illogical based on your point that they can still enforce or they want to the point then i would argue that you probably would say is that the reality is they don't exist it's illegitimate it's not it's an illusion that they even have that power and the fact that we don't acknowledge it then it no longer matters i guess that's i'm just coming together with that right now. That's, it's fascinating. And I think, I think most people, this is what I was saying in the beginning. Most people are going like, yes, yes, like this is connecting for me right now than I've ever seen before. It's powerful. There's another very important

element that a lot of people don't think of. They view the cops as enemies for good reason. Like, their enemies of freedom, like 99% of the time. But they don't actually think through the mentality of these are people. Sometimes it's hard to remember that. But these, These are people. They're blindly obedient, obedient people doing immoral stuff on a regular basis. They need to feel like what they're doing is righteous too. If they start to enforce it and the entire population says, you suck, we hate you. What you're doing is not good.

You can call it law all you want. We still all hate you. At some point, whether it's just the pressure or the stress or maybe even a trace of conscience, they have such a thing they go i don't want to do this people ian rand coined the phrase uh the sanction of the victim many years ago where she she was describing the fact that the victims of authoritarianism talk as if they're bad if they disobey so it's not just oh they're going to hurt us it's oh i he broke the law all the people around him go tisk disk and he goes i'm so ashamed well did he hurt anybody no it's just some stupid arbitrary victimless law

The fact that all the people, including him, feel bad for disobeying them, that's where their power comes from. But if you get to a point where all the people feel perfectly justified in disobeying and the tyrants are like, well, we're going to enforce it. If the people decide, well, we're going to stop you from enforcing it and everybody is on our side, it's over. And that's why you see things like the Bundy Ranch where the Fed show up, rah, rah, rah, rah. and a bunch of people showed up with guns and the feds were like they came by yeah it had nothing to do with that particular like can we win this shootout well they have helicopters and stuff they could have won it what they couldn't have done is one the thing that happened a week later when three million more people said this isn't okay here we come with guns that's what they're gauging is how much is the

livestock going to actually put up with how much are they going to comply now the the forcible resistance isn't even necessary when enough people just go, I'm just not going along with this. And there's so many very sad examples in history of literally, if the people hadn't volunteered to walk to the train and get on the box cars, millions of lives would have been saying. If they just said, okay, you can kill me, not even going to fight back, but you have to carry me there. That all by itself would have saved millions of, now I'm all in favor of like, shoot the psychos, you show up to put you in a, box card to haul you away. But even if they just said, well, we're not going to help you

to victimize us. Just that is so powerful. And I'm, I'm definitely not a pacifist, but Gandhi demonstrated what happens when like a hundred, however many hundred million people just say, we're going to keep doing our thing. You can send thugs and beat us up. And we're going to keep doing our thing. And we outnumber you about gazillion to one. Eventually, literally your thugs are going to get too tired to keep beating us up. Right. And again, I fully believe in self-defense, but even with none of that, I'm just saying we're not obeying.

We have no obligation to do what you're saying. We're going to, like in that example, we're going to go to the sea and collect our own salt. And you can beat us up. And you can look up and see a line of us going as far as the eye can see and realize, we're done. We can't enforce this. We can beat them up all day long. We're still not making a dent because they don't believe in the obligation to

obey. Right. And that's why historically it's a common tab, you know, this, a lot of people know this, too, but don't connect these two points that in any historical kind of shift of power, it usually is a shift with the enforcement arm, right? Where the police or the military suddenly go, okay, well, we're shifting. And then, you know, that they no longer have the enforcement arm of that illusion. And so that's the point right there is that if we can get these people to recognize that what they're doing is illegitimate or immoral, then, you know, there's a point in shift right there. And I think that, to some degree may be happening. But I think this is where the whole political dynamic comes into play where they identify with a certain side.

We can get to that in a second, you know, and I think that's... Right. Go ahead. But because the belief of the people is so huge, like, people think, well, who gets elected matters and what they legislate? None of that matters if the people don't feel an obligation to obey. But because people are so focused on the political circus, they miss hugely significant events.

And to me, the two most significant... stories I can think of in American history are barely mentioned by any. One is a few years back, there was a poll that asked people if you could cheat on your taxes and not pay the IRS and get away with it, would you feel bad about that? And more than half people said no, which means they're only paying out of fear. Right. And that was a huge change from like 10 years earlier where they did the poll and the vast majority said, I, I'm proud to pay my taxes and blah, blah, blah. Just that mentality shift, even if all the people are complying, if you have a population that doesn't want to comply and feels no obligation to comply, you're this far from the collapse of the empire. And the second story, which people noticed more during the ridiculous COVID circus was where a whole bunch of sheriffs, including a couple here in Arizona, like Yabapai County, just north of us, where the governor's going, we're shutting down this and we're doing mass.

And the sheriff came out and said, no, we're not. Right. Right. Right. When you're in the position of, and that is monumental, when you're in the position of the tyrant and your own enforcers go, yeah, no, we're not doing that. Don't worry about you guys. We're not doing that.

That is enormous because if your own enforcers are starting to question legitimacy, even if it's not, you know, they're not questioning the legitimacy of the entire game or they wouldn't still be law enforcement. But if there's any point at which the enforcers go, yeah, the higher-ups told us to do this and we're just not going to, that is humanity winning out over the belief in authority in a huge way. And that is becoming more and more routine. And, you know, obviously there are plenty of badge wearing thugs still out there beating people up on behalf of the ball additions. But there's more and more who are at least capable of thinking, should you really be doing this? And maybe if we get together and we tell the politicians, no, we're not doing this either.

Like, why would we, aside from everything else, why would we risk our necks enforcing this absolutely idiotic thing? Yeah. Put ourselves in danger just because politicians made up some ridiculous decree. We're not doing that either because the people don't feel obligated to obey. And we don't want to, like, have a shootout with the people just because they won't do some dumb thing that that guy told them to do. And when even the enforcers are having that inner dialogue, those in power are in deep due to. And we're seeing similar things in foreign policy in multiple countries, actually,

but the United States in particular, where less people enjoy the military. And I think that's a pretty, I think that's more obvious than the, you know, it's local police discussion where pretty much, I mean, I don't even know very few military people I speak to that have, you know, been there and come home have nice things to say about the government. You know, it's very interesting. And I think that's a growing problem for them in this.

I was actually going to ask you about that, and I'm glad you said that because I think, you know, I think the historical point you make is that most people comply out of the idea that they think, as you highlighted, that it's just the right thing to do. But I agree, and I'm glad you highlighted that, that today I see it far more, my personal perspective out of just fear for what the consequences will be. And I think that leads to what you're saying is about just highlighting that we can simply just resist this or push back and not obey these illegitimate things. And so that goes back to the illusion of authority.

and as you said before, that it really just another way to frame it is that most think, like, because of these dynamics that, like, obedience is a virtue. And I think this is something that people are recognizing as a problem. And I wanted to ask you, like, how do you see, how is it possible that we can even have that perspective that obeying government just as a general concept, even though we talk about evil bad guy governments all the time is somehow the right thing to do when history has shown, like just taking World War II, for example? Like, how is that something we still pretend makes sense with how much history,

we have around governments being the focal point of the problem, even by the view of like the American government today. They'll point it Iran and the rest of them. So how do you think, how does that make sense? It's funny because it's massively hypocritical. Like there's so much about the American culture today that's about the underdogs resisting the authoritarian control freaks. And we go rah, rah, rah, raw, on July 4th, you know, most Americans ignore the fact that we're way less free than we were as a British colony, but whatever. But they still go rah, rah, rah, about a revolution, about a bunch of people who said,

we're not going to obey you anymore. And if you try to enforce it, we're going to shoot at you. And they go rah, rah, rah, rah, and they go rah, rah for v for vendetta. And they go rah, rah, rah for the Matrix and Braveheart and all these movies where they go ra, ra, ra, ra, for the underdog, illegally resisting authority. And then they go and brag about how they're law-abiding taxpayers. And so we're seeing the wearing away of the indoctrine. but there's still this chunk left there that has been so ingrained in generation after generation

that even most people who go rah, rah, rah for particular acts of disobedience, they go, well, yeah, but you need government and you have to have law and you need. So they haven't looked at the underlying problem. They can look at certain symptoms and go, well, in that case, we should disobey. Like you'll get conservatives who say, well, if they come to, you know, seize my firearms, I'm not handing them over. Okay, good. And yet, you still feel obligated to obey and you go rah-rah-rah, rah,

if somebody gets arrested for smoking pot or something. Because people have this disconnect, because they've been indoctrinated into this. I mean, I'm sure plenty of your listeners know of the Prussian indoctrination system. We've been trained to think, like, deliberately openly. They described the purpose of the Prussian indoctrination system, which is the foundation of all Western schooling, the purpose was to deprive the individual of his free will, to make him just be a malleable thing that will do whatever

the authority figure tells them. That was their stated goal of the system. They said so out loud back in a time and place where you could say that and you wouldn't be thrown into a chipper or something. They just openly said that. We still have that system. but we also have this culture that is very like vigorously pushing anti-authoritarian and it's just most people still haven't noticed that a basic thing about their belief system like anybody who says

well yeah but we need some government you still have the problem inside your head you can recognize the symptoms of the problem and go well that's bad and that's bad and this authoritarian corruption and that war mongering and I don't like this but we need to government and it takes a while for people to be able to step back enough to go the whole thing is illigent the concept is it the problem is not that the wrong person is on the throne the problem is there's a throne right why is there a throne right why is anybody nobody should be on that thing right and the thing is a lot of people have seen so many symptoms now especially in the the the COVID circus, that a lot of them are starting to actually catch glimpses of the problem

underneath and go, do they have any right to do anything? Maybe they don't. Right. And so, yeah, what you said early on very much matches my experience and the experience of a lot of people I know because a lot of people relay to me. They're like, you know, I've been trying to tell my family this stuff for years and now all of a sudden some of them are listening to me. Yeah, it's fantastic. Yeah, the tyrants got so ridiculous in their control freakism and just so transparently corrupt and insane that even a lot of people who were there like loyal, faithful livestock are now going, ah, something's wrong. And it isn't just, I like that guy more than this guy.

There's something way bigger has to change. And I would point out, too, that one of the logical, like, let's just say we effectively break this down entirely in the United States, that what I can already see is people looking to other representations, like they still can't get past the idea. The whole point you're making, the government itself, authority itself is the illusion. It is illegitimate, not this one versus that one, but entirely. And the problem is you worry that people might see it as, you know, the U.S. was the evil bad guy in the pro, oh, but the BRICS. are the ones they're going to save us. You know, and that's still part of the problem, as I know you're highlighting right now.

And that's, that's concerning. And, you know, it's like, so let's actually bring this into the, the election kind of dynamic because that's all kind of the same problem, seeing that as the out of the same, we're in a problem created by the government that we're looking to the government to solve that problem. So as you, as you said in your book, the problem, and kind of paraphrasing, the problem is not that evil people believe in authority, but that basically good people do and end up advocating for evil believing it's the right thing to do. And in your book, you make it in actually in the introduction, you make an important point that I think is that it really stood out to me. And again, paraphrasing,

It's most will read about the horrors committed in our name around the world and wish for it to stop, as I'm sure most people do. But you suggest that their own beliefs are responsible for even contributing to this horror. If you suggest to them that their beliefs are responsible, or at least part of this problem, they'll dismiss it or even attack you for bringing it up. And as you point out, most would literally rather die that objectively reconsider their own belief system. And so this brings us into the voting election, 2024, lesser of evil dynamic. It's because, I mean, for me, this is like the problem of the, I mean, and bumping up against this everywhere, where people are simply resistant to even considering something outside of that dynamic and really that ultimately, you know, even if you're providing facts and backing it up. So could you just speak to that in the first point about people that are unwilling to address or even consider that their beliefs might be part of this problem? Yeah, because that's, that's uncomfortable.

I do, I, Amanda and I did a course called Candles in the Dark where we teach a method of, talking to normal people about these things in a way that doesn't immediately trigger them and make them defensive. The problem is if somebody identifies themselves with their political beliefs, they don't want to be told you're evil, you're advocating evil. They're not trying to advocate evil. And if somebody is painting their political beliefs as evil, they don't want to hear it because they think, no, I'm a good guy. I want good things. I want truth and justice and yada, yada. So the ones I want in power, that would be good. The government I want, the ideal thing that I want authority used for, that would be perfectly fine.

And the inability to let go of that is just a matter of lack of familiarity. They've never seen a world where they've never lived a life where they weren't somebody else's livestock. They don't see it anywhere in the world. Now, in their day-to-day lives, they're voluntarists. They interact with all their neighbors. They're not like robbing their neighbors and stuff. They do voluntary trades and stuff. But within the set of, well, of course, we need government.

And this is our country. And you have to obey the laws and yada, yada. And it's way too uncomfortable to think that, I mean, this is just psychology 101. In almost every dispute between any two people, nobody wants to think, am I the problem here? Am I the one that made this happen? Like, I didn't try to. But even if somebody means well, because I think,

most voters mean well, even when they're screaming at each other, they don't want to accept the possibility that those, that massive corruption in the warmongering and all that stuff, their belief system is what makes that possible. And if somebody still believes in government, your belief system is what makes that possible. Right. I'm not right, but any belief in government. That's where people even hear that right now. Right. And that's, and I sometimes pointed out this way, that the idea of representative government versus corruption, the only difference is somebody calls it representative government when authoritarian violence is used to their benefit.

And they call it corruption when it's used for somebody else's benefit to their debt. It's the same thing. If violence was used to benefit you, you're just the beneficiary of corruption, so you want to call it something else. The Democrats and Republicans and everybody who vote, they want authoritarian violence used to benefit themselves. Tax those people and pay for this thing.

And then they wind that it's corruption when they lose the game and somebody else got it. So they were wrong. And to be able to back up enough to go, I want nobody robbed is like a huge process. And it's an uncomfortable thing for a lot of people, myself included, to go through, to realize to be a moral human being, I cannot support government. because by definition to support any candidate, any government, including tiny little minarchist government, I'm saying I want this thing there that's going to forcibly rob tax my neighbors for things that I want. I don't have the right to do that. I can't give anybody else the right to do that.

But being able to back up enough to actually advocate freedom, because everyone wants their own freedom, it's just they don't want everybody else's freedom. Like, I should be free to do what I want. while you're being taxed and controlled in the way I want government controlling you. And it's the ring of power. It's the Tolkien's ring of power is the perfect example of you have this way to control people. And almost nobody would go, I don't want it. I want to control other people.

I want them to be free as much as I want me to be free. And the control freaks know full well, as long as you can trick the people into believing power is legitimate, you can very easily pit them against each other, bickering over how the power should be used. This group wants that group robbed and dominated and this group. But they'll both be in favor of robbery and domination, and every voter is in favor of robbery and domination.

Right. And zero percent of them would admit it. Sorry, so what you make is that the only reason, and I agree that I think most people at least want good or try to be in that direction, and the only reason that they're okay by, thinking that is they think that they accept the idea that allowing this entity to rob your neighbor is simply what you're supposed to do. It's virtuous. It's good. It's the law. Right. And I think that's the big issue right there is that people just, I think most people like you're saying,

they feel uncomfortable about it when they look into it. They research and they just fall back on, well, that's what's supposed to happen. You know, and this is the crux of the problem. We need to get past this. Yeah. And there's so much indoctrination involved. And one of the things I've sort of accidentally learned a whole bunch about along there, because I've been at voluntary now for 28 years. And I accidentally learned a whole bunch about psychology along the way of like, how do people believe these, these beliefs don't even match their own beliefs. It's not just they have this belief in mine is this.

They have contradictions inside their own heads. How do they not notice that? And I've developed ways to basically gently make, and I'm not always gentle, obviously, but gently make people notice. Like if somebody says, I'm for reasonable gun control, blah, blah, blah. And I say, okay, if I own an AR-15, which I do as it happens, and you got that law passed, you petitioned or whatever, and they passed a law that says, normal people aren't allowed to own these.

What do you want to have done to me? And immediately you can see their brain going to backtrack and like, well, I want to, I want to say the fluffy stuff. Well, I just think we need a, well, you have to obey the law. Okay. If I don't, for whatever reason, like I haven't threatened or hurt anybody. but I say, I'm not going to obey that. What do you personally want done to me?

Do you want them kicking down my door and dragging me away and putting me in a cage? And you can see by the discomfort in 99% of people who were two seconds ago, we got to ban these guns. Well, what does that literally mean? And when you try to make them literally describe, well, what happened? They don't disappear because somebody wrote a law. What happens when somebody, what do you want to have happen if somebody disobeys? Well, I think in their mind they've got the criminal, right?

They don't see you. They see a criminal. And then when you confront you, you put yourself in that position, I think that's part of what triggers it. Right, right. Because then you make it personal and you make it beyond them. If it were up to you and I said, I haven't threatened anybody, I haven't heard anybody. I'm keeping this. I think I have a right to.

Even if you think I'm wrong, what do you want to have happened to me? And it's not just gun control. It's literally every single political agenda of anybody, including just taxing people. Like, well, I think we should have property taxes to pay for schools. Okay, if I say I don't have kids, I don't even like what the school is teaching. I'm not paying. What do you want to have done to me? And the reality is like eventually sheriffs will show up and steal the house.

Yeah. But people don't like to say that. But that's actually a very good sign. Because if people were just power happy sociopaths, they'd go, well, I want this law. And if you disobey, they should kill you. Like that would be the honest. I mean, it would be insane and evil. but it would be honest and consistent.

The fact that they go, well, I mean, you have to obey the law. There would be consequences. Well, yeah, I know. I'm asking what consequences you would want there to be on me. The fact that they back off almost every single time, every once in a while to get someone go full fascist, but almost everybody backs off because they don't actually want the literal reality of government. They want the fluffy rhetoric that makes them feel good without having to look at

what they're really condoning. And the reason that's such a good sign is, that's when their conscience comes up and goes, I'm not going to say I want you killed. If you don't, that's insane. So I'll have to like try to sort things out in my brain and do tap dancing around.

That battle inside, you know, billions of individuals, the battle between your own conscience and the crap you were taught about authority, that is the only battle that matters for like the future of humanity. not to be overly dramatic when enough people choose their own conscience and go yeah this is wrong i i don't have to obey authority when they do that when enough people do that that is the end of

of oppression right they can't oppress if we don't give them power and we don't give them power if we stop feeling an obligation to obey right and i think what this one of the main things this really should show people and i think i was credit i think kately johnstone made a great analogy about this a while back that I always think of, but that, you know, it's, they know that we want good. That as, as the by and large, the majority of the world, I think, or just take the country now, a point from the U.S., want good. That's why they pretend to do good and scream freedom and democracy, why they kill people, you know, and so I think that's what's so interesting is that it, that we can see that

this is an entity masquerading as good when we really want good. And I think it just shows you the core nature of what we're fighting for here, that people genuinely want that. And I think that's what you're highlighting there is that most people will go, oh, whoa, wait a minute. I am, I am, this is wrong. I feel wrong about this. And I, I just love this.

And I think that it's important to continue to kind of tease this out. Now, I wanted to go to the election part again, in regard to the next part of what I was going to get into around this, of what we were saying before is that people just can't seem to reconcile like that, you know, your beliefs may be in fact part of why this is a problem. People will push away from that. But in regard to the, I wanted to read something here that I thought was really important, that you put, you put, you said,

People are so accustomed to engaging in the cult rituals collectively referred to as politics, voting, lobbying, petitioning, campaigning, that any suggestion that they not bother participating in such pointless and impotent endeavors amounts in their eyes to suggesting that they do nothing. And my God, is this something that we're constantly dealing with right now, is that we're going, okay, okay, well, we've got a whole lot of other things you could do that might even have more effect on the outcome. And it's just the response. It's like, oh, you're black pill. Oh, I'm never going to pass your purity test. things we keep seeing. And it's mind-blowing to me, both again, the fact that we've got this

response now, even though we've been saying this for a decade, but it's so important to see how, you know, let's put it this way. What would you say to people in that mindset? Let's just say, for sake of conversation, somebody that genuinely would want to hear what you have to say, and it is simply going, you're selling me to do nothing if I'm not voting. What would you say to that person? Well, there's a lot of approaches. Part of it depends on sort of what level of philosophical thought they're at. But a thing that works for almost everybody is if they ran literally the two worst people in the world, would you still vote?

And like you're, so best case scenario is you're trying to put the second worst person in the world into power over yourself and over me. Would you still do it in that case just to get them to think, okay, at some point, we have to not play this game. Yeah. And then back it up and say, if this person that you're voting for, if they weren't running against somebody that you're even more scared over you,

hate them even more, or think they suck even more, and they're even more corrupt or whatever, if it was just the choices were this person has power over you or that person doesn't have power over you, that's it. Would you give that person, Trump, Kamala, whoever, would you give that person power over you

if your options were, give them power or don't give them power? And everybody would be like, well, yeah, I don't. I don't really want Trump to be able to tax me either. Okay. So what you're telling me is all they have to do to trick you into advocating your own victimization is put another person up there that you like even less. And then you're going to cheer for your own victimization by somebody you don't trust and you don't like and you don't want to have power over you.

And you're going to go in and press a button to try to put them into a position where they have power over you. That's all they had to do to make you personally vote against your own interests by telling you these are your options. Punch in the face or kicking the crotch. Like, you'll have to choose one. You're free. We're representing you. You consented to it because we'll give you two choices. But it's still hard because it's so easy for people.

And the fact that now it's all fear on both sides. Like nobody's voting for anybody. They're all voting because they're even more scared of the other one. it used to be that politicians were slick enough that they get, I have this vision for America and then spew a bunch of socialist nonsense. But now they've gotten so bad that it's just a badness competition. Like who's the one you trust even less than the other guy? And that's almost their stated campaign at this point.

Like literally pointing at the other side. It's crazy to me. Yeah. And the fact that people still fall for it. Yeah. And but it is true that fewer. and fewer people are falling for it and i see it i i actually think the reason the trump clown was brought into the circus was precisely because nobody was paying attention to politics it's just a bunch of lukewarm

boring blah blah blah nobody means anything on the other side and if people don't watch it and pay attention and focus on the the political circus they stop remembering that it matters because it doesn't right so they had to bring in this clown and jump the shark and do Oh, listen to how outlandish he is and he's so anti-establishment, even though he raises taxes and appoints all the same people to all the same position of power. But they had to, basically, they had to ramp it up to professional wrestling just to get people's attention again. So they wanted that ridiculous drama because most of the politicians had just become lukewarm, blah, nobody really cares, nobody's excited and nobody's scared.

They're just sort of, ah, whole government sucks, whatever. So we have to literally do what professional wrestling does, which is fabricate this rivalry and get everybody riled up. Oh, your guy sucks. My guys. Awesome. And so it is pathetic that anybody's still falling for that. But I think it's gotten so ridiculous that it's actually helping a lot of people see through it. And I would throw in the sort of a positive note that as bogus as it is for anybody to vote for anything,

The fact that most people now admit, I don't believe any other one, but I'm scared of that one more. Like, they're basically admitting this whole game sucks, but out of desperation, I'm going to try to pick the less sucky one. Like, that person is at least closer to giving up the superstition of authority entirely than the person's like, oh, FDR, all your plans of giving people free stuff, you're just God. So I'd much rather have the person that goes, well, yeah, they both suck and they're both corrupt. I'm just more scared of that one. Because at least they're in a position where they might be able to think about maybe the whole game has to go. And maybe you have to stop focusing on it and empowering it and imagining you have any obligation to play their games. What's interesting, though, and I agree with you actually, but I think what's interesting is I tend to get the most pushback.

Maybe that's just because they internally recognize how uncertain they are about that point. But from those people, where, you know, I get that response that, you know, essentially that, you know, the lesser of evils, like, you have to pick her or him because the other one's just that bad, like, in response to the same conversation. And I basically point out, well, that's black pill. Like, I hate even using the terms again, but I'm like, you're giving up. You're just accepting the dynamic. I'm like, well, here are all these other choices. And again, same point. Well, it's not voting.

It doesn't matter. But, I mean, I think that's what I would argue is that they, those people are so, like, they're just vulnerable or uncomfortable. They're uncomfortable. They recognize this thing's falling apart in front of them. But they still want to. believe in it. You know, so I still, I just, my hardest, the thing I have the hardest time with is trying to reach those people with the idea that there are other actions to be taken because they're so convinced that this is the end of the world. And again, that's the other thing is that,

not just that Leisure of Evils, but it's always kind of built on the idea now that this won't, we won't even have an election if we don't pick this person. And that's an endless cycle in it of itself, right? Right. This continues. Yeah. And that's been happening forever. And they just have short memories of the young. A lot of our lifetime. Exactly. Every single election is the most important. And it's always the ridiculous fearmonger. If the other one wins, it's going to be, it's going to be Soviet Union. It's like, no, it isn't. It's going to be mostly the same stupid stuff and them seeing how much they can get away with, which has absolutely nothing to do with who you voted for. It has to do with when you stop complying. And I do think, I'm, I totally agree that there's often that very strong resistance.

of people to give up that last little bit. And I try to be patient with limited success because I remember being that possession myself where I was still, this was 8,000 years ago, it feels like a lifetime, where I still believed in politics. And I knew the government was totally corrupt and everything else. But I'm like, in my case, it was literally Ross Perot. He's different. He's an outsider.

He's blah, blah, blah. We have to vote for him, which I have to laugh at the old me falling for that crap. But it's still, like, they know something is horribly wrong. The thing is, as long as the system can be dramatically changed, they don't have to question anything in here. They want the problem to be external. They want the problem to be something outside of them that can change because it's way more trouble and discomfort to have to change your own belief system. So almost everybody think, whatever the problem is, it's not me, it's that guy, it's those parties, is these votes. No, it's you.

If you're voting, it's you. Right. Listen to that, ladies and gentlemen. And that's not meant to be some kind of an attack. Like, the reality is that if you really want to see beyond this problem and what we're dealing with, you have to first acknowledge that you're part of that problem. It's the same old idea that you can't solve a problem if you haven't first acknowledged that it exists.

And I think that's obviously where we are. So on that note, let's talk about, you know, I mean, again, it's an abstract discussion, but the idea of like a solutions and what might be done like in this moment. Oh, actually, I wanted to ask you one thing before we go past that and kind of finish on that is with just voting in general. So obviously it's obvious that the idea, and I agree with you, we see, you see government authority all that as an illusion, right? It's illegitimate doesn't exist. But within that, we still see a process. We still people go out and check a box and go through this whole dynamic.

So even if we're acknowledging that this is an illegitimate construct in and of itself, do you think that voting is an illusion itself or do they still tally this and just, you know, how do you see that in that? discussion. They it's funny because in the novel version of the Jones plantation, Mr. Smith talks about it. Like ultimately we can fudge the votes if we have to, but we don't have to because we fudge how people think and we fudge the choices they have and we make it so the choices don't matter. Like I think a bunch of people were surprised that the puppet Trump won and it made no difference anyway. It's just like there's there's different puppets inside the game who actually can hate each other, but they're all loyal to the game and they all play the game. So it's the like I'm sure they cheat at the voting level too, but mostly they don't need to.

If they have you voting for a master, that's all they need. And it's there's a scene in the movie Jones plantation where Smith is talking behind the scenes to the people running for a slave manager. And they're like, what if it doesn't go our way? And he has to explain, it's just us. Like we win either way. Our way is the only way as it is. either way, we're still in power. Right.

And it has to get to a point where people understand that if you vote, you lose. If you vote and your guy wins, you lost. If you vote and your guy lost, you lost. Either way, you lost. If you vote for a master, you already lost. You already advocated your own subjugation, whether you got the oppressor you wanted or whether you got the other oppressor, you already lost. And you didn't just do nothing.

You did something worse than nothing because you gave it the appearance of legitimacy. Now they can say you can send it. If Trump wins and he's taxing you and making all these stupid laws like he did the first time around and you say, hey, I don't like that. Well, gee, who voted? Oh, yeah, it was you.

You put him into power. And now you're complaining about what the person in power did. And, of course, president's mostly a puppet and isn't really deciding much anyway. on his own, but that's that's another layer of the the circus. But when people, when people don't want to accept the responsibility of what they voted for, like the people who voted for Trump first time. Okay.

When he made several hundred thousand Americans into felons overnight by declaring bumpstocks illegal. Right. Like you, you press the button to try to put him in the position where he did that from, right? Well, yeah, but I'm against that. So did he ask you? you, did he ask for your permission before he did it? Or did you empower the person who did that to a bunch of other Americans? And are you going to do it again in November? Or support an injection that killed untold amounts of people. You know, there's a different examples. But so what's

interesting there is it's, you know, because I'm always talking about the vote in the context of first what we're saying today, but then the idea being that, you know, the voting process, what I say simply to put it this way is I don't think your vote translates to the outcome. There's a reason I say it like that for exactly what we're highlighting here is that that's just the outcome no matter what the dynamic is and so what you're highlighting is is it really whether or not they're being tallied it ultimately doesn't matter which is what we're always talking about is because it's there's just your government there's not this or that it's just your government controlling you and i think that's a very clear picture you're making there so in regard to the solution side of this you know

what you say in the book in general and outlined very well is that we're talking about not necessarily an action needs to be taken or person but what things we're not doing or things that we should not allow to happen. So can you outline that and really get into what people should be doing right now? Like they'll say they've been listening to this and they're just going, okay, this guy gets it. This guy makes sense. What do I need to do to start changing in this direction? And, you know, I want what you mean about like not allowing things to happen. Right. The answer is painfully simple, but it's still uncomfortable for most people to think about because they haven't thought inside this template yet. The answer is literally stop imagining that anybody has special

rights, period, the end. That's all the world has to do. Because the rest of the solution is what naturally happens when people don't believe in the divine right of politicians. Right. Because then they voluntarily find ways to organize and cooperate. I actually, a number of times has been ages since I did it, but I did a little event thingy called the island where there'll be like 50 or so people in the room and I'll say,

let's say it's just us. We're on a desert island. And we don't even know each other because we didn't. It's like a bunch of people who came to a talk. It's just us, some island. There's lots of resources, but nobody knows we're there. There's no government. Nobody owns it.

It's just us, what are we going to do about it? And we go through the process and we have a little discussion back and forth of like, you know, some people who go, well, I know how to hunt. I know how to grow stuff and, you know, I had to build stuff and whatever. And we go through a discussion, that is the answer to the question, but what do we do without government? We have eight billion people decide. what to do without government because you know what nobody has ever suggested in any of the times

I've ever done that I get to rule you all and hurt you if you disobey me in fact at some point I will say that and every single time people laugh at it because it's that bonkers the notion of government and authority as necessary you're legitimate in any other context is bonkers if we're on an island I go well I think first of all put me in charge and give me some enforcers and I get to heard anybody who disobeys anything I say. And people, first of all, chuckle because they realize that's insane. And this person can't possibly mean it. He's not that bonkers. It doesn't occur to people to impose authoritarianism if they haven't been indoctrinated into it. Now, there are some nasty people who will try to rob you and boss you around and decent people have to like defend against that.

But those are few and far between compared to the power of the guy who all the good people think they're obligated to pay taxes to. Like, will they be war mongering? I don't know. Will there be 300 million people giving trillions of dollars to psychopaths? Yeah, right. Why would they, if they didn't feel up? Oh, they wouldn't.

So you can have a warmonger with zero dollars. What's he going to do? Absolutely nothing. As I always point out, is, you know, you will always have danger in your life. Government does not remove danger from your life. I simply point out it just adds other layers and aspects of danger to your life. I mean, I always point out with like the police. When's the last time you called the police and they were there to save you from something that you called them before?

Like the reality is it's an after-the-fact concept and it rarely does address immediacy of danger. It's your responsibility to do that. It's just it's incredible that we can't piece these things through though. And I think, again, it comes back to the superstition, right? And that's the word that we should be making sure like you use is that's really what it comes down to because superstitions in most cases are irrational. And that's what we're dealing with. Yeah.

And nobody like the island thing demonstrates, Nobody would rationally come up with government as the solution to anything. Right. Like nobody does in those groups. And when I suggested, they- Who's going to build the roads, Larkin? Who's going to build the roads? And even that, I'd say, well, if we're on an island and we want a path up to the lake or something

where there's fresh water, how do we do it? I know. Put me in charge. Let me forcibly control. And they're like, no, duh, why would we do that? Right. The whole thing of what about the roads or what about this, what about that? And this was something it took me forever to learn is the psychology behind that has absolutely nothing to do with Rhodes or them wanting to understand.

It's literally a way that the human brain shifts the discussion to something comfortable to think about. Because if you, if it's in the sort of flippant but nasty parallel is, if we don't have slavery, who will pick the cotton? You know, that doesn't matter as much as ending slavery, even if nobody picks the cotton. But the reason people go, but Marauds is because it's comfortable talking about the practical things of, well, how will this happen? It's uncomfortable looking at the fact that they personally advocate violent extortion of all their neighbors for the government version of this solution. What I was simply just kind of facetiously pointing out is the obvious answer is, well, we still would. As you were saying earlier, it's the same dynamic. So it's just the illusion of some, we don't need some government overarching hand pointing to tell us to do things that we already know that we need.

You know, I think it's so hilarious that that's where that goes. But I actually did want to ask you one other point about this that I thought was really interesting. And we can, we can end on this, that really the idea of, well, the first thing is that if you, let's just say hypothetically in an imaginary world. Because this goes to the point that you make that there is no good authority, which frankly I agree with. But let's just say we had a world where there was a dictator, an all-powerful, encompassing dictator that controlled literally everything. And just for sake of conversation, because this is a unicorn, it doesn't exist, but he cares more about the people than anything.

Every single thing and every waking moment is done in the interest of the people, right? Couldn't you explain for, would that ultimately be a good authority? And let's just say he lived forever and it would never change. It's like that. Wouldn't that fit into being good? And even though it doesn't exist, not possible. How do you see that? I actually made a video called If You Were King many years ago.

It's not on YouTube. little silly animated thing. And it basically walks through, like, it lets, it lets the viewer be the dictator. Like, you're a good person. You want good things for people. Let's give you unlimited power. What would that look like? What would the outcome be?

And you walk through it and you realize either I have no power or I'm immorally, violently dominating people. Because that's the only way you can use authoritarian power is tell people, you have to do this. You're not allowed to do that. My guys with guns will beat you up. you disobey. Like you have no other power. And so it walks through some scenario, well, I would feed the poor with what money? Well, I would ask people for money. What if they say no? Well, then I'll tax them. Okay, now you're a tyrant. Way to go. Like, now you're a violent thief in the name of

compassion and generosity. Just to demonstrate that authority cannot be used for legitimate ends. it's impossible because by its very nature, it's immoral aggression. And there's a very simple way that I like to break this down, which is if a cop has the right to do certain things that I don't have the right to do, like he has authority to enforce certain laws. I'm just me. I have the right to defend myself. I have the right to defend other people. I have the right to use inherently moral force in rare situations where it's like defensive. all authority can ever add to society is immoral violence.

Because if the cop is allowed to use force in situations where I'm not, but I'm allowed to use force in every situation where it's inherently justified, the only difference is you think that guy has the right to use immoral violence. That's all the belief in authority can ever add to society immoral violence. viewed as legitimate by the peasantry. Right. Well, so I did that little thought experiment.

I was just for fun, I was trying to think about, like, could there be an exception to that? And my thought process was ultimately, interestingly, came down to the idea that,

you know, even if that person that would never exist, had that intention, there will be difference of opinion within the population. And then you come down to the idea. And my thought is like,

oh, that's interesting. So now it brought you to where the, like, just the idea of that you divide yourselves, essentially by like it's it kind of shows you what's happening in the world today where we end up pitting against ourselves acting like we have to decide what the authority will tell us to do it's just a fascinating thing and it all comes back to the point you're making right and this is really what

like a lot of work i try to do is try to not just go here's what you should think but get people to think at themselves like connect the dots and make the understanding so it's something they see and i just think that's it's fascinating and so i guess the last part was about the idea of how this is shifting where you know historically the government sees itself as the right to rule, right? But we historically saw the idea of like the divine right to rule. So do you see that one as something that's kind of the same today, which is a different veneer? And do you see that as something that might be resurfacing to a degree? Because I've seen a lot of discussion about that with like the world government's idea,

a writer for TLAV in his own platform, Matt Erritt, made this interesting argument a while back about how that that's what he sees as the World Economic Forum and that these are the technocrats, whatever you want to call them, that really just for whatever reason a long time ago, to let us pretend to think we were, you know, in putting them in power and now they're like, screw it, we're going to step back out of the shadows. Now, it's interesting thought to end on. Do you think that might be part of what's happening

and, you know, anything else you want to discuss? Yeah, the divine right of kings was the old excuse they used when people were sort of way less educated and way more superstition. God said, I get to rule you. Oh, well, yes, we have to obey. And people, you know, humanity progressed enough that people were like, did he, though? I mean, did you like something signed maybe?

Are we just taking their word for it? All that happened between then and now is their excuse for authoritarian power had to get way more complicated. It is just as dumb as it ever was. The idea that, well, these people have the right to rule you because constitutions and elections and appointments and there's a house. There's a little three hours of lecture about civics BS. Now they have the right to rule. It's just a more complicated excuse for something just as dumb and something just as insane and just as destructive. In fact, more destructive because back when it was just a king going, I'm going to boss you around, the people would occasionally go, all right, we put up with enough of this.

But if people think, oh, they're doing the will of the people. They're representing us. They put up with way more crap than they ever would from a dictator, which is why the U.S. today under a constitutional republic is a billion times less free than it was as the colony. of a king like that's pretty bad i would end with this and it's something it's one of the illustrations why it's an insane superstition and if people dare to look at it it gets pretty obvious pretty fast but it takes a lot to dare to look at it to solve 99% of the world's problems people have to abide by one thing and understand what it means the one thing is this and when i say it everybody goes oh yeah i totally agree and nobody believes in government don't ever try to get somebody else to do something

that you have no right to do yourself right that's the end of government that's the end because everybody who votes is trying to get government power used for something that they know damn well they don't have the right to do themselves just that rule like if you shouldn't do it don't try to get someone else to do it absolutely that solves 99% of humanity problems if people would just go, oh, yeah, first of all, duh, obviously. I shouldn't kill you, but if I hire him, it's okay. No, it's not okay. Just grasping the ramifications of that one concept ends the superstition and ends literally all human oppression. Man, I agree. You know, and I think that it's, to end on a positive note, to what we started with is I really genuinely

believe that there's a shift taking place. And as I'm sure you know in the past, that they're, there's been moments like this before, and often we find, we fall into some new trap and it gets, you know, we recycled back in. But again, we're in a moment where I genuinely believe people are hearing this, they're entertaining these ideas, they're understanding why it makes sense, and seeking change and maybe going through government to do so. That's what we're trying to, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. There's other ways to go here and there's other chances, paths to take. But I think that this is a time where, you know, your message can really reach people. So I'm honored to have you on today, and I'm really hoping people can take the time to read your

books, your work, and at least just consider the validity of what you're saying. Because I think it's powerful. And, you know, anything else you want to leave us with upcoming events or stuff you're going to be doing? So I'm just really hoping people will take the time to just go through what you've done because I see a positive thing on the horizon here. If we can actually understand this. Absolutely.

And that's, I would point out in response to that, that throughout history, lots and lots of people have objected to certain authoritarian regimes and their solution was always a different authoritarian regime. Now more than has ever happened in the history of the world, more and more people are starting to realize we don't just need a different flavored ruler. We need to not have rulers. And that is a fundamentally different thing that's happening right now than has ever happened before because it isn't just like even the American Revolution was you suck. Let's put new rulers in power. Right.

How did that go? The solution is not the problem is not the current people in power and the solution is not putting new people in power. it's realizing the power is the problem. The political power is the problem. Right. I think almost everything I do is sort of outreach and trying to get people to think about these things. I would strongly suggest people check out the movie Jones Plantation, which is now on Amazon and Apple TV and stuff. And, of course, the book you've been talking about the whole time, The Most Dangerous Superstition.

A lot of people assume that if you're disagreeing with what they say, you think they're bad people. You're condemning and attacking them. So what I would ask people to do or challenge people to do is simply this. Are you sure that your conscience matches your political beliefs? Just look at that. Doesn't matter if they match mine. Like, I'm just some guy.

It doesn't matter if you have my approval. Can your belief system actually have the, approval of your own conscience and do you dare to look closely enough to actually find out? Well said. Thank you for bringing this to the table luck and I really hope people will check it out. And as I was reading from and discussing, make sure you guys check out this book. I mean, it's just it's important to see more than just this discussion. I mean, I think there's a lot of important illusions that are falling over, you know, kind of breaking down in front of us right now.

So it's an exciting time of things like that and change. but as we said in the beginning, it always comes along with the dying power structure. Desperately, they're dying, you know, the cornered animal, whatever analogy you want to use, clearly trying to make you feel like things are worse because they don't want this to be changing. That's how I see it anyway. And so we just need to continue to follow your conscience, follow what you believe is right. So thank you for being here today, Larkin. And as always, everybody out there, question everything.

Come to your own conclusions. Stay vigilant.