The Last American Vagabond - Nations Of Sanity Interview - The Non-Aggression Principle Peace Agreement

Episode Date: February 22, 2026

Joining me today is Matthew Sands, founder of the Nations Of Sanity project, here to discuss a potential path forward for those seeking an end to government and the statist society in which we are forced to exist. Matthew presents a solution to the endless cycle of rulers to which we are subjected—a viable solution that is rife with government-created educational roadblocks and various challenges—and that is primarily the creation of a peace agreement among free individuals, establishing a new governing structure. This structure has only one universal guiding law: the non-aggression principle.Source Links:(1) A Message for EVERYONE! - YouTubeNations Of SanityWhat is the Nations of Sanity?Introducing the Sanity Agreement/The Non Aggression Agreement(21) Matthew Sands (@MatthewtrueI) / XThe Universal Principles of LibertyBitcoin Donations Are Appreciated:www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/bitcoin-donation(3FSozj9gQ1UniHvEiRmkPnXzHSVMc68U9f) Get full access to The Last American Vagabond Substack at tlavagabond.substack.com/subscribe

This is a message for everyone, and I mean everyone. What do you mean everyone? We are all different, and we all face different problems. But on a more fundamental level, we all face the same basic problem. We are ruled by criminals. No one should have the right to rule over others, and when such a power exists, it is inevitable that the worst of us will gravitate to these positions of power. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

So the nation's sanity has a very simple solution. Remove that power. We ask all good people to unite and join us in demanding that the non-aggression principle be established as the law through our three-part peace agreement so that we can create a truly free society. For those who don't know, the non-aggression principle is a principle that basically defines crime by whether or not you are causing harm or loss to another, or at least threatening or attempting to.

It is not a pacifist principle and it does allow for the use of force, both for self-defense and the defense of others, but it strictly forbids the initiation of force against peaceful people. Establishing this principle as the terms of peace, a law that is universally applied, would give us true equal rights and freedom for all. Welcome to The Last American Vagabond. Joining me today is Matthew Sands from the Nations of Sanity Project,

something that recently caught my attention. It appears it's been around for a few years. And it's something that you've seen Derek and I talk about quite a lot. And this project focused primarily around the non-aggression principle, as it was explained in the opening clip. But there's a lot of different kind of ideological, you know, back and forth going on today. And something that I, you know, stress more than anything today is trying to find a path forward around or circumventing or completely, you know, something that goes away from the path we've always been taking.

And government is something that I'm constantly pointing out is like the central problem to most of the plates of the world. And so this project was coming at this from a different, a slightly different angle. And I really wanted to flush this out today and have Matt on to discuss, you know, how he sees this going forward, how it could possibly be something we take in that new path that I'm discussing. So Matt, how are you today? Thank you for joining me. Yeah, I'm good, Ryan. Thank you for having me on. Well, it's my pleasure, man. I'm really, you know, enjoying the perspectives that you were laying out with this going through your material. And as I was saying, just there to open, it really is something that, you know, as I'm sure you agree with, this year old project is we need to find the new path, you know. And government and, you know, just being ruled over is something that I think, you know, you tell me what you think.

I think more than ever just in the last year, I've never seen this many people. open to that idea, you know, and what do you think about that to start? Are you seeing a shift in people's opinions about things like this over the last year or so? Yeah, I am. I'm always kind of cautiously optimistic with things like that, because I've also seen it in the past. It seems to come in waves. And I feel like the people who rule us do a good job of keeping the divide and rule going enough to kind of distract us from the solution that I'm obviously trying to present. And I think a lot of people would and should find themselves if it wasn't for all of these divide and rule tactics that go on. Yeah, yeah, most definitely.

Well, why don't we start with, you know, introduce yourself. Let us know, you know, the project and how it came about. And then we'll get into the, you know, nitty gritty of it and break down the, you know, how and why and all that. So go ahead and introduce us to Nations of Sanity. Yeah, well, the Nations of Sanity is based on the assertion that crime and therefore also law can and should be defined by the concept of individual self-owners. and established as the terms of a peace agreement. So the non-aggression principle, which is the principle of individual self-ownership, is basically the idea that you can do what you want,

as long as you don't violate the same self-ownership rights and freedom that obviously comes with that that everybody else has. So we'll have the, I mean, it's equal rights in its truest sense. The one right that everybody can have in equal measure is right over themselves. And this is the only kind of foundational right that really, you know, that provides the foundation for all other rights. Like rights as a concept isn't really coherent without self-ownership. Like if you don't have right over yourself,

then you can't coherently have right over anything or anyone. So there's a kind of objectively undeniable moral truth to the concept of individual self-ownership. And I think if we kind of all come to understand and accept that, then the solution that comes from that becomes almost self-evident. Yeah, most definitely. And again, I think this is kind of what people are starting to grapple with. We're always presented. I mean, we're, you know, like speaking from an American

perspective, but it's very similar in the West and in most places of the world. You know, we're brought up in this mindset that there's some inherent empirical, you know, morality or truth in government because they're there. And, you know, it's something that I just, it's ridiculous when you look at just anything other than what they're saying. But because of all the shifting of everything happening today, people are starting to, I think, find the courage to actually look into this and realizing that it's, it's an, it's an It's not a balanced relationship. And as you kind of highlighted there, this is, you know, if you're being doled out rights by a power structure, it could just as easily be taken away, which from an American perspective, that's not how the Constitution is presented, but it's how it's

being applied today. And so that's, you know, it just represents the, a collecting power structure the top will inevitably end up in this position. Even as the founding fathers of the United, of the United States said in the beginning, we just can't learn from these, these long-term lessons. But let's start with the point of, you know, implementation on all this. Because as you write in your documentation, you know, you have a three-part piece agreement. And so then I'm going to get into like how, you know, what my audience is going to come from. And just like I would do, very skeptical-minded. And as I know you welcome, right, that's important for all this.

It is like how would this actually work in the world as it is today? Because I'm right there with you. I think that this is the right path in regard to, you know, if you were to start something from, you know, no one understood what government was. this would be an easy thing to get people to agree with. But because we're in this, who's going to build the roads kind of a mindset, it becomes very difficult. So how would this be implemented, hypothetically? It was, you know, the global agreement, we're going to go forward on this.

How would this begin? Well, I mean, I think the best way for people, because I think the reason why people struggle to envisage it is because all they've ever known is government. So two things that are provided by government currently, it's hard to imagine how could we do it, you know. But the obvious kind of parallel to that is the abolition of slavery. You know, how are we going to pick the cotton without slaves?

Well, first of all, the question is kind of a side note to the simple fact that slavery is wrong. And it's like, well, we abolish slavery and deal with that question afterwards. But also that question kind of answers itself once you abolish slavery. Once you abolish slavery, then the cotton industry is forced to use like consensual employment. And then it goes on from there. It's kind of a similar thing that I'm trying to say that we do with this is once we abolish statism, which is, you know, a kind of wider, I mean, because the other thing as well is another reason why I like to use the parallel of the abolition of slavery is because what I'm saying is,

let's abolish slavery like we did, but we didn't do it properly. There was two things we did wrong when we abolished slavery the first time. One, we only abolished a very narrowly defined form of slavery, whereas, like, you know, I would argue that stateism and the kind of ownership that governments claim over its people is basically just another form of slavery, what some might call free-range slavery, because we're not, you know, chained to a specific manual labour that we are forced to do, but we are still, there's still a claim of ownership over us, and we're just given a bit of more free reign to choose our job, but the government still claims ownership by demanding taxes from our income, taxes from our property, taxes from our trade, you know,

basically, and even though they don't take 100% of it, the fact that they claim any percentage and they're the ones who decide the percentage is essentially an ownership claim over the whole thing. So basically, just as people could, you know, struggle to imagine a world without slavery before slavery was abolished, because it's all that was ever known in, you know, throughout remembered history. But also the other problem with it is when we abolish slavery, in addition to only abolishing this very narrow form of it, is we also abolished it under the authority, primarily under the authority of the same ruling governments that are guilty of these crimes. It would be like a slaver abolishing slavery for everybody but him and continuing to own his slaves. So those are the two problems. And what I'm saying is, OK, well, let's do that, but do it right.

So the two things we need to correct is we need to not just abolish this narrowly form, narrowly defined form of slavery, but we need to branch out to statism and to all nap violating coercion. Any coercion that violates your ownership over yourself is, needs to be abolished. And that's what we would do by establishing this law. And then the other thing that we're going to do different is instead of establishing this law under the authority of a ruling government, we're establishing this law as a peace agreement, as the terms of a peace agreement. So there's no ruling authority, no one's saying I own you or you owe me, we're all equal owners. And it's a little bit like how international law works today.

Because that's the thing, there's already the precedent for this. We have law that's established through ruling authorities, but we also have law that's established, i.e. international law, as peace agreements between sovereign governments. Now, obviously, we don't recognize governments as legitimate, but the same principle applies to individuals. We can have a peace agreement between us as equal parties. No one rules over anybody else, but it's the terms of peace and it's formalised as the law in that sense. And by doing that, we would abolish, well, I would say abolish slavery properly, but we would abolish statism. We would abolish all forms of nap violating coercion. And by simply just nailing it down to self-ownership, the, you know, because obviously there's all sorts

of different laws that come from that, but they're all objectively identifiable from that one simple fact that you own you and I owe me. So we don't need to vote on whether rape, murder, theft, and assault, or crimes because they clearly are by the fact that it's a violation of your self-ownership to do any of those things to you. So there's a kind of undeniability to it. And there's also, there's a precedent that we can look to in history where something similar to this has been done. But the two things that were wrong with that, we can, you know, because that's the thing. It's like a little bit like the Constitution. Obviously, this is, you know,

superior to that too, but there's elements of that that were saying, okay, well, they got that part right. They got that all men are created equal part, right? But then they established a government that kind of contradicted that. And it's like, okay, they've got the abolished slavery part, right? But they only abolished a small part of it, and they've done it under the authority of what essentially a slave owner. So, you know, we just do it right.

We abolish slavery, but we do it, you know, in its fullest sense. And we do it through a peace agreement rather than any kind of top-down authority. And for those that didn't hear me mention the beginning, NAP is the non-aggression principle is what he was mentioning, guiding the whole point. And so, you know, it's definitely, it's, I see, you know, your general point is in the question being implementation. This is something that it sort of takes on its own, you know, it's already inherent in all

of us. Everybody, as you make clear and we'll get to in a second, the gray area versus the black and the white, like it's inherent reality. Like, you know violence when you see it. It's very clear. Now, there are nuances, and we can get into that. Like there's areas where it might become questionable or debatable. But when you punch someone in the face, no one's going to debate whether or not that was violence, right?

Or yelling loudly, whatever. Like there are those lines. And so it's interesting. This is already something that we already all deal with. Just from what I'm getting in my mind from what you described, the only moment that the government law, the way it is today becomes, it ultimately always end up in a place where it's no longer about whether it's right or wrong or moral, but rather it's the nuance of the government abuse of it and using it for their benefit or control over the. population. So going back to the implementation point, right? So here we are with this discussion, again, saying that let's just say you get a universal, I mean, I know this is unlikely because I know I do want to get into the some degree, some agree, some don't, but let's say the world universally

goes, I agree. We all want this. We agree that non-aggression principle is the guiding force. How do you implement this going forward? I think you already answered it, but kind of for those that are wondering how this becomes like day one, what would you argue happens? Well, the key is about formalizing it because that's what, I mean, again, And looking back to the abolitionist slavery as an example of this, it was formalized. You know, before it was abolished. I mean, again, it wasn't abolished worldwide in one click. You know, I mean, the British Empire abolished it before America did.

And then peace agreements between nations, you know, sprung up after that. So obviously, it wasn't all done, you know, like in one foul swoop. But the fact of the matter is, is when it was abolished, it was done in a formal way. You know, there were many people speaking out again. And this is the difference as well between what we're doing today where, you know, We've got people that speak out against statism and against the crimes of the government and stuff. But what we haven't done is actually abolish what they're doing. And that's the kind of hurdle that we need to overcome.

But it really is about formalizing our understanding, about having it, you know, written in stone for one of another word. But, you know, because it's all very well having this kind of lucy-goosey understanding of, yeah, everybody owns themselves. But if there's no formalized agreement, that actually that's when, that's when governments can step, in and kind of take advantage of the ignorance, take advantage of the ambiguity. So that's why I want to kind of have it set and say, look, this is what the law is. You own you and I own me. And that's how, you know, we can get into the details and also we need to get into what we do about the grey areas.

But that basic principle is there. You know, it's like America has its constitution that says, you know, this is what you can do and this is what you can't. There's still going to be, you know, disagreements over interpretation, which is why you need to be as explicit as possible. And the more complicated law gets, the more it's easier to manipulate and pervert and corrupt. So that's why it has to be really, really simple

and just say there's no ruler. There's only one, if you want, ruler, which is this principle. That's the only ruler. And the validity of that just comes from its subjective moral truth, which can be, you know, scrutinized, but it always comes back to the same thing. Because anybody that would want to complain about this law being applied to,

you know, like a rapist couldn't make a coherent argument that they have the right to rape. You know what I mean? You know, because it would just come back on itself. You know, so this is, like I say, there's a certain undeniableity to self-ownership. I do think it strikes at the heart of what most people kind of understand, even if they don't, like, articulate it in an intellectual level.

You know, most of us, those of us that aren't overt criminals do already treat each other interpersonally that way. You know, there seems to be a disconnect when it comes to government for a lot of people. But as, you know, people, how we treat each other, you know, individually, that is how most of us behave anyway. So I think this, I think, you know, for all the things that are against us, the things that are on our side is the like the undeniableity to it. You know, once it comes under scrutiny, it just becomes stronger because, you know, people try to poke holes in, they realize there's no holes, you know.

In the white areas, right? Then we agree on that. Like that's the, but in the nuance is what we'll get into is that you can create a conversation where someone's going to go, well, I think it is, I think it's not. And that's where it gets in. And again, I think you're, information explains it very clearly how that would just be an inherent reality. But to the point, though, like, what's the hurdle? What does the day one look like? So now we've done that. Like, so what is the, let's get into the details. So what is the absolute agreement? How does that work? What would that become? Is that just our individual choices? Since there's no status, government mindset, how do you formalize that amongst individuals or communities? Like, how does that

begin? Right. So, I mean, this is where the whole three-part agreement kind of comes into play. because initially when I first sort of conceived this idea, it was, well, you know, the kind of simple logical progression. The first few steps of which is just what all libertarians take upon themselves of, you know, self-ownership, the only justifiable force is that which protects rights and not that which violates it. But then from there, you realise that the only justifiably enforceable law is than that. And from there, you should then realize the only way to establish this principle as law without contradicting it is to do it through a peace agreement. So those kind of things kind of follow on from there.

But then the other thing that you kind of brought up there is the issue of the gray areas. And okay, well, what about differing interpretations? Even if we all agree on this basic principle, what happens to the gray areas? And there are no matter how. And I think we can do a lot of work to cut through and then to identify black and white where people think there's gray. But no matter how good a job you do with that, there's still going to be gray areas. There's still going to be fuzzy edges. And one of the kind of metaphors I like to use is the desert and the grassland.

I say, look, you know, imagine, you know, you've got a big load of desert and you've got a big load of grassland. If you walk from one to the other, there's going to be an area in between where one slowly becomes the other that's kind of hard to define. You know, if you're in the middle of the desert and you've only got sand around you, you know, you're the desert, that's nice and simple. And if you're in the middle of the grassland, you know, likewise. But if you're in that kind of area in between where it's a bit arid, it's not quite grassland, but it's not a full desert because there's still a bit of trouble. You know, that's when things are going to get hard to play. And I think we've got a very simple approach to that, which is still objective, because this is the point.

We have to be objective from, you know, from this thing. So the way we approach, and this is, sorry, and just, maybe to be all over the place, go back to the three-part peace agreement, is part one is the basic agreement. Part two is what I call lines in the sand, where we separate the black and white from the grey area, and we kind of draw this light, because we can accept that because we're all equal individuals, none of us has the authority to say, well, this is the correct interpretation.

So we can accept differing interpretations, but there has got to be a limit of tolerance to the differing interpretations. We can't let people take it to the extremes where they're actually encroaching into the black and white and calling it gray area. But with that in mind, our approach would be to take, and this is the same approach that we already take with criminal law today, just like how you have to have a beyond reasonable doubt that someone committed a crime before you can punish them, because if you don't have that, you're being guilty of potentially recklessly

imprisoning somebody who's innocent and all that. So by doing that, that kind of, you know, obviously polices it. So we take the same approach to the principle itself. So is this a non-aggression principle violation? Well, if we have a beyond reasonable doubt certainty of it, then we are justified in enforcing it. So if I can say beyond reasonable doubt,

not only that you committed the crime like murder or whatever, but if it's something that what you could or the crime you committed is actually a crime, that it is actually a non-aggression principle violation. And if I don't have that beyond reasonable doubt certainty, then the force that I would apply to you would itself be criminal. And this is the kind of self-policing element of this, because if we establish this principle as law and you've got, say, competing courts and competing law enforcement and what have you,

the best guard against like a kangaroo court system is the first. fact that while the law is rigid, the right to enforce it is something that belongs to everybody. So you can have competing agencies. And because one of the things that guarantees corruption today and why you have true kind of kangaroo courts through government is the fact that you have like qualified immunity and prosecute your immunity and all these things that basically mean that there's no accountability for miscarriages of justice. Whereas if you have other courts that can take you to court because they've seen that

you've done some sort of kangaroo system. imprison somebody, they can then prosecute you for kidnapping and imprisonment and all the rest of which you would then be guilty of if you didn't meet that burden of proof that we've already discussed about being beyond reasonable doubt. And that's, and that goes back to drawing this line in the sand. So that's what part two of the three part agreement is about, it's about, yeah, it's about drawing that line in the sand and say, okay, there is a fuzzy edge. But like with the desert and the grassland, we don't have to lose the definition of a desert just because there's a fuzzy edge between desert and grassland. We can still say, okay, when there's only sand,

we know we're in the desert. And the same with the non-aggression principle. If it's definitely a violation, if we can definitely say that, you know, you're encroaching on my right, then I can stop you. If it's debatable,

then basically I can't use force against you. And when there's a kind of gray area where, okay, well, there's a decision that has to be made one way or the other, because sometimes it's not a simple case of inaction is good enough. Then you have a self-ownership answer as well.

Because, for example, if there's like an encroachment of personal space this grey area, well, who came to who? You can still fall back onto first use principles because if we're both equal, then the person who approached the other person can't complain about the invasion of personal space, but the person who's been approached can do. A similar thing like with children, like we have like age of consent

and you've obviously got, you know, you can have a clear understanding that children can't consent, but competent adults can and that obviously segregates things like, you know, legal contracts or consenting to sex and things like that. but there's obviously, again, a grey area in between. So what do you do about that? Who has the authority to make that grey area decision? Well, in the case of children, it would be parents.

And again, that's not an arbitrary, I just think that's a good idea kind of thing. That comes back to self-ownership because, like, I'm responsible for my child because I brought them into the world based on self-ownership. You know, like if I push someone in the water and they drown, I'm to blame for them drowning. And if I bring a child into this world, that's obviously, you know, they can't provide for themselves and survive on their own. So if you brought child as a world and then just didn't look after it,

and it started if you would be guilty of because you put it into peril. So there's a duty of care that parents owe their children, again, based on self-ownership. And that duty of care also gives them certain rights with how they fulfill that duty of care. They're basically the rightful guardians. I'm the rightful guardian over my child, which means when it comes to the grey areas of raising that child, including when I can release them as a competent adult and when I still have to hold on to them as a parent who's responsible for them, that grey area, and again, I'm only talking about grey areas. I can't step over the black and white. But if it's a grey

area, then it's my decision. It's my domain. And the reason for that, again, it's objective and comes back to self-ownership, because anyone who'd want to step in and say, oh, you know, like, I'm abusing my child by abandoning it too early or, you know, or holding onto it. And too late, like, you know, like imprisoning when it's actually an adult, stuff like that, they would need that beyond a reasonable doubt standard to step in and take my child away from me. So if it's a grey area, you know, like, you know, and again, I think this strikes to most people's common sense, because if your neighbour, if you didn't agree with how your neighbour's parent, but they weren't stepping over that line of child abuse, then as much as you might disagree,

and as much as you might want to peacefully persuade them or whatever, like maybe they're overfeeding them or spoiling them, all the things that are kind of, like I say, debatable, then we have to say, okay, well, they're the parents. So they have a higher right than me on how they raise their child. But if they step over that black and white line, then they're no longer acting as parents. They're no longer acting as guardians. And again, it's the same with everything. Sorry, I didn't mean to go on there.

But there's so many things it applies to, but that you can still find an objective approach, even if there's not an objective answer. Does that make sense? Right, totally. And I think this is a really important part. And so here's what it comes back to you for me on this. And we still have that part three, but in this, this part's really important, is that, you know, we have a circumstance where what you're describing, and by the way, I agree entirely with,

is what we're highlighting is how it's applicable to the individual, right, to individual society choices, to my versus you, my neighbor, but, and this is where I'm coming from with, there's a lot of good ideas like this out there that I will, I support, but I still find it, I don't see where and how this becomes real with the way our system is today, which is why I appreciate what your outline, because I really do think this has merit in this regard, is it's easy to understand. But what I would like to flesh out is how to get it beyond the government that's there now. Or hypothetically, what we can get into more in the nuance, maybe right now is that we do it here, but then that group right next door doesn't care about

our mindset. You know, and so how do we, like the pointed question would be, who decides in the analogy you were just making? What court, what entity, what power structure, right? How do you figure that out? Is that something you formulated or is this still on the personal part of it? Well, to clarify the question a little bit for me, so when you say who decides, what do you mean precisely? We come to the analogy you were just laying out about, you know, any one of the things you laid out, the neighbor, the child, whatever. And it comes into one of those inevitable gray areas, which will be there in any circumstance. Even if it's not great to me, maybe somebody else disagrees and what's the gray area, right? There will be disagreement.

And so suddenly now you've got one side saying, that's a, you know, they violated the law, the other side saying, no, I haven't. who decides? Well, you would have to prove your case and you would have to prove it beyond the reason. Sorry, go on. No, who would be the person you're proving that case to? What power structure? Well, this is the point because it could be anybody that would challenge you. So this is the thing.

There's no, like there's no particular person that has this divine right. Just, you know, it's like when they say who would enforce this law? Well, anybody could. Now, one of the ways, so like, for example, if you had some kind of kangaroo court and you and you thought, well, that's a miscarriage of justice, then you could hire another court to take them. And if they feel like they've got a good enough case that it wasn't a miscarriage of justice, then they would step in and use force as a more competent law enforcement that doesn't have kangaroo court systems. I mean, obviously, there's a certain degree of free market meritocracy that's going to be applied to all of these courts

with regards to, you know, the kangaroo courts are going to struggle in many ways because there's going to be, you know, more legitimate courts that are actually following these laws more faithfully. that will just prosecute them for being criminals, you know, for imprisoning people falsely. Just jump in really quickly. So that this is exactly what I'm getting at is that so that's in the hypothetical world in the future where this exists. So I'm saying like day one right now. Like now. How do we get there? Yeah, right? And this is and this is in no way meant to invalidate the idea. I think this is exactly where we should be going. It's about working together to figure out how we implement this, right? It's like, that's my issue is it's like right now you've got

the government that in no way is going to allow this. And maybe this is getting a little head. much more we can talk about, but this is where my mind always goes to, is how do we get past the power structure that's currently there? And back to that point specifically is, you know, so I can decide that I can, you know, we, let's even say the group around us can collectively go, oh, wait, I think that this person's right. And that's kind of what you're saying is that would be sort of the societal kind of moral guidance, but then what if the power structure that exists comes and says, nope, that's a, that's against our U.S. government law or whatever. Like, how do you get beyond that now? Maybe the answer is we don't know, you know, but I, I was curious if you had thought into, like, how this becomes real day one kind of idea. Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, obviously there's got to be a tipping point to actually enact this.

But again, I draw on the parallels with the abolition of slavery. It's like, how did we do it with slavery? For all the imperfections I've already spoken about, about how we didn't do it properly and we didn't do it expansively enough. But it's the same principle. And because the thing is, there's no point in my mind trying to shrink the government as it is or convince the government to reform itself or any of you. these kind of crazy notions. You know what I mean? It's like what you need to do is you need to

take the malignancy out of it because we don't have to tear up the roads and the institutions. What we need to do is we need to abolish the criminals who rule us and overthrow them with this law, with this abolition of their immoral rule over us and then take control of those institutions. So I mean, there's even one of the articles on my site is called overthrowing the government with the nations of sanity. It's like saying, well, this is how we would overthrow the government, not violently by storming the capital and not by doing all this, but by convincing enough people to formally abolish the government as a ruling entity and force it to become a voluntary collective,

just like we force the cotton industry to become regular employees rather than slavery. You just answered my question. If I'm hearing you correctly, so you could see a world in which the next steps being introducing this hypothetically through a body, a governing body right now, and allowing that to take place, but eventually the goal would be to get them out of the way entirely. But a starting point would be to, let's just say from a U.S. perspective, for my audience, to have Congress introduced this law as the universal law. I may not happen.

So that's what you're saying is we definitely go. Go ahead. Go ahead. Well, no, I still, I mean, you know, if people want to try that method, but that's not what I'm advocating because that's still advocating their authority. I agree. What I'm saying is I think we need to overthrow their authorities. I'm not interested in what Congress, because I don't think they would anyway.

But also, I don't recognize their authorities. The people need to say Congress doesn't have this authority. President doesn't have his authority. The people need to wait. No, no, I just just this is now we're back to the same question of like, okay, well, then how does this become implemented? If there's not some formal process through which we can universally say now this is the reality. You know, that that's the stopping point for me, is it. You know, because, but I look, back to the individual point, I'm all about the idea of

changing one person at time and the mindset. And I think we're doing that right now, quite frankly. I think that's why this is something that people are going to be more open to. But at some point, there has to be that, like you said, the tipping point to where it's, you know, it's not just us. At some point, it's going to be people like us hoping the government doesn't step their foot on top of us. You know what I mean? And so that's like, how do you get around that point? But maybe that's just still what we have to take it one step at a time, you know? Well, no, no, it's a valid point. And I understand what you're saying. But my point is, is I agree that we need to formalise it. I mean, that is kind of the crux of what I'm saying.

But what I'm saying is you don't confuse the idea that we have to formalize this with the idea that we have to formalize it through government authority. You see what I'm saying? It's like I go back to the international law example. There's two ways to establish law. We can establish it under an authority. You know, like when the British Empire said slavery is legal, then under their domain, under their territory, and they even attacked other nations and, you know, that we're committing what they now considered to be a crime. But they've done it under their authority.

They said it's slavery's wrong because we say so, you know. But later on, treaties were then applied through international law, where it's not one government saying, I own you, and this is what the law is because I tell you. It's two governments or three or four, or however many are all part of the international law agreements, that are saying we're all equal, but we're going to set as law through peace agreements,

through treaties, as the terms of peace between us, but it's still formalized. It's no less formalized. It's just not done under the authority of a ruling government. So I just wanted to address that point because you're right to point out that this needs to be formalized. And again, using the abolition of slavery example, there were plenty of people that weren't practicing it and speaking out against it. And there's lots of good work that, you know, like you say, that's akin to what's being done today that needs to be done to get to that tipping point where you actually have that formalized abolition. but that formalized abolition is what you need to all get to. You know what I mean? It's like it's not enough to just decry slavery.

We have to abolish it. And it's the same with statism. It's not enough to just decry it. We have to abolish it. But you're right. We have to do it in a formalized way. But I would say not under the authority, never, never take that step of saying, let's do it under the authority of government and then remove government afterwards.

Because they'll, they'll pervert it. And we're doing it the wrong way. It's like I say, we need to look at the abolitionist slavery. And they've done it. there's two things wrong that they've done with how they done it they they were too narrow wasn't all slavery and it was also under the authority of essentially slavers rather than as the terms of peace agreement and those that just so i'm just saying let's do exactly what we've done with the abolition slavery we formalize this law but we abolish all slavery statism and all

nat violating coercion and we do it as the terms of a peace agreement rather under the dictates of some ruling authority which would be criminal under this law and sorry and just one other thing and to go back to what this would mean. So like say this happened in England, say I could get enough people in England to do this and we could overthrow the UK government. Not a single building gets burned down. The only thing that happened, maybe a few people might get arrested within government, but the only other thing that would really happen, everything carries on. Like, you wouldn't have to, I wouldn't even have to think about a single thing,

although I'm not saying we shouldn't think about these things, but you don't even have to think about a single thing on how government would shrink or how institutions would shrink or disappear because freedom would do the rest, the market would do the rest. All of a sudden, tomorrow you would wake up and now every tax that you are currently forced to pay would now be voluntary. And every institution that's now being supported through those coercive taxes would either continue under a voluntary system because enough people find value on it, or it would die the death that it should do because it's only being kept alive through coercion anyway.

Does that make sense? Totally. Totally. I mean, look, we're exactly the same mindset with that. What I'm trying to, you know, put together my mind is, and I just think what I think you just answered is the how of it. And so we'll let me put this one forward then with what you just highlighted. Then so you could say it would take a form of a peace agreement put forward by anybody

that then gets signed by the majority of the population of the planet. And then that gets implemented in a way that's then just we collectively agree. And so like you're saying, that would no longer, it wouldn't need to be like we, you know, essentially, begins to be the reality you can't enforce that at the barrel of a gun you can't invade that foreign country whether they do or not but then we can collectively point to that and say you're breaking our internet so that would be a way you could see that being implemented hypothetically okay so yeah then i then i didn't sorry and yeah and just to give a little shout out to stephen

canseller who's recently done a document called uh principles of liberty i believe it's called i'll send you a link if you want to um you know uh have a look at it but basically now this is he's not proposing it as a law exactly. So it's not exactly what I'm talking about. But he's basically setting up like an agreement, like agreeing to this principle and also laying out the various implications and connotations. Now, I've not even gone through it myself in detail because I was only made aware of it quite recently and I've not had a chance to read through it in detail. But a quick glance, it basically would be a perfect stepping stone to exactly what I'm talking about. Because although it's not actually proposing this as law, it's just saying, hey, let's get

some registered agreement. Like you can click on it and you can sign it. And you can sign a the document like through this Google app to just register your support for it. Is that this one? That's exactly it. Yeah. So. Go ahead. Go ahead. You know, so that's a good example of like, you know, if you were to like say someone wants to think of this like a constitution, then there's a good example of it being presented in that kind of way and saying, okay, this is what it means.

And like I say, I've not actually read this in detail to fully endorse it, but Stefan knows his stuff. And he's been very helpful to me with regards to my own kind of refined my understanding of his principles and helping me kind of refine my presentation of this idea. You know, so he's not, like I say, he's not advocating the exact thing that I am with regards to saying, let's make this law, let's do it through a peace agreement. But he is presenting an agreement that articulates this principle. And this could be the sort of thing that may be a kind of precursor to exactly what I'm talking about.

You know, like, you know, I think it's great. And it goes into a lot of details of implications. Like I said, I've not read through it in detail. Whereas like my peace agreement is a little bit more kind of sort of surface level and just saying, okay, well, these are the three dimensions that we need to have agreed to have this agreement. We need the basic agreement to establish its law. We need our lines in the sand approach where we understand that we have to have a black and white certainty that something is a non-aggression principle violation, just like we have to have a black and white certainty that someone's guilty of the crime. And then part three, which is about ratifying white flownship, which is again really just reaffirming what property rights really is from. self-ownership and just to quickly cover that, you own yourself, first use principles.

If we're both walking through a forest and we come across an apple tree, if you pick an apple, then that's your apple now. If I took that apple from you, I'd have to regress. You didn't have to address to pick that apple. It's so simple. We have things like creation and voluntary trade, which ratify ownership more or transfer over to somebody else, but that still just comes from self-ownership. If it's your apple, you're allowed to give it to me or send it to me or, you know, and all that. So, you know, again, it comes back to the fact that although there's so many details that need to be gotten into, right, just like we've got maths and we can work out

complicated sums because we know that two plus two equals four, we can work out more complicated stuff and still have a, find a correct answer. We can do the same with this principle. We know that you own you and I own me. So who owns that apple that you just picked? Yeah. Yeah. So, and this is why, I mean, I think this is self-referral.

evident. But I know people, I know there are people out there that might have their difference of opinions. So I just have what you've already presented. I think this is, you know, it's morally sound. It's exactly what, you know, and I'd like to believe it is the same, that any, you know, most people would see it the same way. That it's just like, well, obviously, but we all know that there are people that think differently. And so let's, let's go through some of the, you know, like you said, the details, which we may not, it may not be an answer for it or may be undefined, but let's let's let, I want your opinions on some of these things. So, for example, what, the next logical after implementation and the reality is in your mind, and I think we've probably

already kind of discussed this, but who ultimately would decide if the law is broken? And I think you already kind of just said people, well, go ahead. What's your answer? In a circumstance, who would decide how the law is broken? Well, like I said, no one person would have the rightful authority. Any court could come along and challenge another court. So say, for example, somebody, say again, sorry. I'm sorry, the law guides, not the individual. but the lot self, the non-aggression. Yes, exactly. The principle does.

Just like you have a constitution that tells you in America, supposedly. But, I mean, in fact, this is actually a really good example, actually, of what I'm talking about. Because you have a constitution in America, which in theory tells your government, you know, tells you how laws are applied. But as you, I'm sure, are well aware, that's completely violated in the most overt ways. I mean, half of your government agencies are overt violations of the constitution, the ATF, the CIA, you know, the DEA, these are all agencies that shouldn't even exist under your constitution. And you've obviously got loads of laws that violate the constitution in pretty clear and obvious ways, all your gun laws, you know, all these sort of things. But so, so someone could point to it and say, well, even with a constitution, you know, it doesn't get followed.

But the reason it doesn't get followed is because there's nobody to hold because the only people that has the authority under this constitution to enforce this law and create laws as well, is the government and no one else has the authority to hold them to account. Whereas into this system, you'd have this kind of constitution, for one of a better word, it's not, it's a peace agreement, but you know, like the constitution, but unlike the constitution where you just got this one big criminal gang that can basically violate it and enforce it because there's no accountability and they've got their immunities and all the rest of it, you would have this decentralized system where you'd have competing law enforcement agencies and any one of those could arrest the other one if they were, you know, basically violating the laws they're supposed to follow.

And they can point to this constitution. I mean, like imagine, even though it's not what I'm talking about, but imagine you had American constitution exactly as you did, but without this monopoly on force given to the ruling government. So you had your constitution, but everybody had the right to enforce a law. Do you think your court system would be more or less corrupt than it is today? Well, exactly. And I think it's, well, let me answer with another.

Here's what interesting to me is that what you framed is actually really important. and is partly what I would argue is happening, but let me give you a different perspective from, from an American perspective, which is that the Constitution in its original state was designed as something that is a inherent, it is a declaration of rights, not necessarily who gets to dole them out and was very clearly outlined as inherent rights, God given to people. We could only enforce it within these boundaries so it will be applied here, but hopefully the world will follow suit. It's kind of the original mindset from the founding fathers, right? And so what's interesting is it was founded as something that's a universal law that's not bound by,

but what government did, as I'm sure you know, was bastardize that and turn it into and convince Americans that they were given those rights and they could be taken away. So we are effectively there. But it's so interesting. So this is where my mindset's all coming from, right? Because we've lived through this. It's like, I want to see this succeed. But how do we get around that very problem? Because you can have something that is instituted.

But if you have enough powerful people to say, we disagree or we don't want to follow that, something. like this is where you always get into the conversation about anarchism and libertarianism. This is always where it comes to. I believe it is possible to what you're talking about. But that's why it's so important to have these conversations that kind of flesh out that nuance right there is that it becomes back to the Constitution a point to where they can just simply choose to disregard it because in the United States, the way it was supposed to play out was that Congress would hold them accountable if they didn't. Hypothetically, executive branch, they impeach them. Well, today, everything's broken. We all see it. And the Congress does nothing.

And so you can see that that's the enforcement arm. So, you know, in that kind of analogy, like, can you see that being a problem in the line of, or rather the path of nations of sanity? Like, could we, we could see ourselves reaching that point, right? Well, the thing is, it is a problem, but it's a problem that, like, again, a little bit like where we have to learn from the mistakes of the ablabor, just like we can take inspiration from the abolition of slavery, but we also have to learn from the two errors that it got wrong. We can also take inspiration from the Constitution. Like I say, you know, you've what wars and created, you know, a whole new nation based on this constitution, but you need to look at, so you can still, you know, take a lot of heart and that was implemented and, you know, it was done, you know, just like abolition and slavery, it was done, you can take inspiration from that. But what you should also do is learn from where they went wrong.

And where they went wrong with the constitution was, is it allowed for government? It gave, it gave the duty to control the government to Congress. It's like, it's still, it dealt with this immorality of authority. And what my point is, is like the constitution, would have been perfect if it was all men are created equal and just stop there. Yeah. None of this, none of this Congress has no power.

No one has any power. All men are created equal. And that tells you everything you need to know about what is and isn't a crime, what you have authority over, you know, your authority is over yourself, maybe over your children to the point that you're their guardian. But that's about it. And then over your rightfully owned property, which again is still dictated by your authority over yourself as a free individual.

you know it all just and I think I suppose what I'm saying is is where these things went wrong in the constitution's case it had too many contradictions to that what was the founding what seemed to be the founding principle that all like I say that all men created equal if that was the entirety of the constitution it would be almost perfect but all the other stuff ended up ruining it and contradicting it they gave authority to people that didn't have authority under their own professed idea that all men are created equal then what what the hell is this Congress you're talking about? You know what I mean?

It's kind of... It's such a different point, though. And here's what I find, you know, if those two ways to look at it, if they were genuine in their intentions, and I question that, like anybody should, then it appears to me that if you listen to like,

you know, the statements made, you know, were built with crooked timber and so on. The point being is they were very aware, you know, it's a republic if you can keep it, right? They knew that there would be power structures. They knew that people would try to take control of it.

And I guess the argument be that they thought this was the way that they could keep that at bay, knowing it's inevitable. but I'd like to believe it's not inevitable. You know what I mean? Like I'd like to try at least to go in a direction where that's not the assumption that eventually the power structure is going to win. And so, you know, that's why I'm so interested in this idea.

Well, I would say, and just to add to that, I would say that it's not about it being inevitable. I think it's like it's always a danger. There's no guarantees. Like, you know, even you make, you can make rape illegal. There's still, rape still happen. You know, even when slavery is abolished, slavery still happens. But it has to happen in the shadows. It's not, it's now formally recognized.

as a crime. So that's kind of like the fundamental part of it. But it's just a place of like looking at these things and saying, okay, well, there is these dangers, but when you have a rule, when you have a monopoly on force, when you have a ruling government, those dangers become pretty much inevitable. They become, you know, corruption is pretty much guaranteed when you have this coercive system. But in a decentralized system where everyone is truly equal, that's the best, like I think, you know, like the best policing against kangaroo courts is that everybody to have the right to prosecute everybody else. You know what I mean? That doesn't mean everybody's going to be going around doing it because everybody wants to do that. You know, like it's not, everyone doesn't have the obligation to enforce the law.

And again, the other beauty about having it, having this like abolition is we don't have to start again. We already have the infrastructure in place. And by just simply having this new law that abolishes all coercive authority over people and makes law purely defensive, purely about protecting rights, then the existing law enforcement can continue, as long as they can continue under that new paradigm, but competing agencies can keep them honest and keep them. But the public-owned infrastructure already has an advantage over the private sector, as in it's already established. It's like a little bit like, again, I don't want to keep harping back to the slavery example, but it's like, you know, you didn't have to do anything to the cotton industry that wasn't just going to happen as a consequence of market functions once you took the coercion out of it.

And I'm just saying, let's do the same with government. Take the coercion out of it. And then we don't have to lose all our public institutions and collectives. Like the socialists can have their socialism and the capitalists can have their capitalism. And all we're saying is just don't force the other to do what you're doing because they're as free as you are. And there's a certain fairness, I think, in that that would appeal to people. But a lot of the points that you raise about like these concerns, they're valid concerns. But I think when we actually think through them, they're actually bigger danger.

when we have a monopolistic government, than they are under a system where everybody is just of equal rights and authority. Yeah. And the question is how to get there, right? And so let's, let me ask you one question here to kind of wrap in it, to finish, wrap up here, that I think, you know, I was, what I was thinking about over the last week in general, you know, what is, is, how would this from a mind of an entity or a government design with the, with the intention to stop something like this?

You know, what could they do? Well, how could it be manipulated? That's some of these other questions. So you've been doing this a long time. And I guarantee you've thought about this. And so in a world where this is beginning to happen, like let's say the momentum is there and people are signing this document. You know, what ways could government manipulate this?

You know, you'd be the best person to ask this. I'm sure you've thought this through. Like what you see them stepping in to try to worm this back the other way? And how can we be on guard to that? Well, one of the ways would be the suggestion you made about, oh, well, what if we tried to get Congress to do this under this? the authority of government, you know, they could try to preempt it and say, oh, yeah, we'll abolish this under our authority, you know what I mean? It's a little bit like, you know, I mean,

maybe they've done with the abolition of slavery. Maybe they just decide, you know, what, people are cutting onto this, so we need to throw them a bow and make them think they've won something and obviously give them something genuine. We'll abolish slavery, but we'll do it in this narrow defined and we'll keep it, and we'll do it under our authority, which is just further, you know, so that's one way. That's why it needs to be a peace agreement. We, we, we, we'll do it. We, We can't be letting it go, you know, as much as I would love, you know, to have the Napa's law, even under the, you know, swap all our current corrupt laws just for NAP law, because that's a fair law. But it's not fair that only one group has the right to enforce it, that they have monopoly of power,

you know, all of these things. So I think that's one of the things that could go wrong that I'm kind of guarding against by being very explicit about it's got to be a peace agreement. And the other thing as well is I'm keeping it simple. So it can't be corrupted. You know, like I say, the Constitution was corrupted because it got the first bit right about all men being created equal, but then instead of stopping there, it went on with a load of other stuff. And the more stuff in there, the more people, because, oh, well, we have this Congress and they have this power, so let's do that. And then that ends up violating a part of the Constitution. But because you've got another part of the Constitution you can use as your kind of justification, there's kind of this conflict. There's no conflict with this peace agreement.

It's quite simple. You own you, I own me. There's nothing else to it, you know? And, you know, this should be, you know, we're saying we want to formalize this as law and establish it in a formalized way. And we want to do it through a peace agreement. You know, these things are just explicit parts of that. But we're not, because sometimes people have, and I've had lots of great ideas myself and other people come to me, which I, we have ideas, you know, oh, well, under that system, we can have this, we can have that. Those are all great ideas.

Or maybe they are, maybe they aren't, you know, they can be tested. But my point is, is none of that is part of this. Right. This is just the idea of that. And whatever works or doesn't work within that, you know, you know, like, you know, because the thing about it is I'm not trying to, you know, I want conservatives to be conservatives and liberals to be liberals, socialists to be socialist, as long as they're voluntary forms.

And capitalist to be capitalist, again, as long as it's, you know, nap compliance stuff. You know, it's like I'm not trying to change and I'm not trying to dictate any element. Even though I'm not saying we shouldn't, you know, all have good ideas and conversations. about that, but I don't want it to pollute what this is. This is just this one it's like the abolition of slavery would have been perverted more

if it had loads of other stuff. It's a little bit like the joke with when Congress passes one valid thing and they'll throw in a bunch of other crap to go with it, you know, like pay rises for themselves or whatever. You know, it's kind of like that. Don't let any crap attach to it. Let it just be this one simple thing,

one simple moral truth. Law is defined by this one objective, simple moral truth that you own you and I and me. That's what defines law, not any government, not any, and you know, and like I say, even though we need to formalise this and we need to abolish nap violating coercion, you know, in this formalized way and we need to do it for a peace agreement, but the fact of the matter is, is there's no more to it. So, you know, I mean, it's like I say, there's no guarantees, but I think that's about as foolproof as we can make it, you know,

keep it simple and and be regimented on what it is. Don't let it be changed into anything else, you know. Well, this is exactly why I reached out in the first place because, you know, and as I said, when we talked, you know, before we did the interview is, you know, I'm at a point right now where obviously, you know, I mean, I think most of this country, the world seems to be at a point where we're starting to challenge some of these classic held, you know, the government should exist. You know, the fact that people are even asking that question today is blowing my mind. I've been bringing up forever and people are so, oh, yeah, that's a good question. You know, is that people are starting to ask these things.

And that left-right politics, at least from a U.S. perspective, is just, you know, know, it's the same thing. The false binary exists everywhere, but it's just, it's just, it's overwhelming in this country right now. And I'm trying to find something to give people as an opportunity, as a, as a solution, you know, as we, as I mentioned Derek Brose's work, you know, we talk about solutions often. And I thought, you know, something as simple as, you know, just simply, just the non-aggression principle, the reality of how that can change things and to lean in and not left, not right, not voting again, none of the president, just find this path forward. And, you know, it's simply one of the many that you could

put forward to people, but it is a solution that is easy to digest. It's simple mind. You know, I think that it could reach people for that very reason alone because of how, you know, people are just overwhelmed today. And I get it. It's by design. I think you probably agree. It's just like this overwhelming left, right. You know, it's a cacophony. It never goes away. And so if you give somebody something like that that just makes sense, it's simple and it actually does have the potential to change, you know, this may be the one that, you know, reach people. So I'm glad I'm glad you join me today, brother and I hope that this does get more reach. Anything else you want to leave us with on the way out? You know, any final thoughts, any upcoming events that you're working on or anything else

on the way out? Yeah, I suppose like the final thing I want to say to people and anyone listening to this is, I mean, I do think there's a certain undeniable about this idea. And I think it's not going to it's because it's not about me as a person or you as a person or anything like that. I think we really need to concentrate on this idea. And one of the things I really appreciate about this conversation is the scrutiny because the more people ask to questions that you're asking, because these are valid questions, you know, but because this is so true in itself and so objective, the more it's scrutinized, the stronger it gets. I like, like, the biggest weakness of the nation's of sanity is that it's a tiny project that no one's heard of by somebody

that no one's heard of, you know, I mean, and all of these sort of things. But I think once it gets out there as an idea, not, you know, not with necessarily me promoting it or you promoting it, but with lots of people just, and it doesn't even have to be the nation's society project, but this, it's the idea that's important. It's basically saying let's abolish, I mean, like I say, let's abolish slavery, let's abolish statism. So I suppose my message to everybody is really think about this. I welcome scrutiny because that's what's helped me refine the idea to this point. And it may well need further refinement, you know, through the kind of pushback and scrutiny, like what you've offered today.

But I'd ask people to really consider this in their mind because I feel like it's the elephant in the room in a way. I feel like it's like we're all kind of dancing around what in a way is a kind of obvious solution. You know, and it appeals to a universal truth that I think the left can get the left, people on the left and people on the right that are, you know, sane, rational, decent human beings, which many

are, I think they can recognize this, as well as a lot of the people that don't even identify with that particular puppet show, I think they can recognize it. And the few people that genuinely oppose it will be a much smaller number once we kind of push this out here. It's almost like, and so one final

I don't want to go on to it, but one final thing I say, I've got an article where I say unite and divide. Because I do want to bring people together, but I also want to divide people. I want to divide people in the right way. I want to divide all the people, I want to divide us from the people that want to violate us. All the people that want to live free and respect each other's rights, I want to unite them. And I want to divide us and separate us from all of the people that actually, because they're all

the people that oppose this, they're going to then expose themselves as wannabe criminals. and there's a certain, like I said, there's a certain way that this could become undefeated if it ever kind of reached the kind of levels where it was under that kind of intense scrutiny. That's when it would, its strength will really shine through. So, sorry, I didn't really go on so much,

but that's kind of my part in message. I think, like, sunlight will show how true this is, you know. No, thank you, man. I couldn't agree more. I'm glad you did. And I think it's just, it's, it's undeniable. And I thought you were going to say, you kind of did, is that, you know, if somebody comes out and goes,

I disagree. It's like, well, well, there, you go. Silence on everybody. How clear is that? You know, it's, it's, it's, you'll probably find it, you know, I'm sure you've seen the overlap out there, the interesting connection between the, you know, the general prevalence of sociopathy and psychopathy in the population and how interestingly exact that

is when you look at the general, the prevalence of politicians that exist in our world. It's actually crazy. We look at the numbers. The percentages, it's like identical. So it's like the people that want to rule over you and decide how, you know, it's usually because they know what people would do to them if they were in that. position. That, I think, is clear in and of itself. And given the opportunity, I think people, I would like to believe the majority of people, gravitate sort of something like this. And I really do

think this has the potential to change people's understanding of it because of everything you said today, especially the end part, where this is not about a personality. It's not about a program. It's about an idea. And it's about trying to change things for the better. And I'm of the mind that most people seem to be getting in that path, man. And I think most of the ones that didn't even realize they weren't, like, weren't there before, thought they were. They've just been tricked by a bunch of fast-talking politicians and people in media. And I think for whatever reason, people are finally starting to see it, man. So Matthew Sands, thank you again. Thank you for your work and what you're doing. And I plan to connect again in the future and kind of, you know,

force us back out there again. So thanks again, brother. And everybody out there is always question everything. Come to your own conclusions. Stay vigilant.