WEBVTT NOTE Is There Hope for Liberty in Our Lifetime? 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.680 Well, my talk today is entitled, Is There Hope for Liberty in Our Lifetime? 2 00:00:04.680 --> 00:00:07.600 And it's certainly tempting to think that there is. 3 00:00:07.600 --> 00:00:12.400 As I discussed in the first part of my book, libertarianism, not all that long ago, 4 00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:16.160 used to be something that was really just known to a tiny handful of people 5 00:00:16.160 --> 00:00:18.560 who were scattered all across the country. 6 00:00:18.560 --> 00:00:21.040 I think I've heard, you know, Walter Block say that 7 00:00:21.040 --> 00:00:24.160 several decades ago, if you were in the libertarian movement, 8 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:28.720 you knew everybody else was in the libertarian movement, or at least it felt that way. 9 00:00:28.720 --> 00:00:34.560 And this was even true to a considerable extent when I first became a libertarian about 15 10 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:35.560 years ago. 11 00:00:35.560 --> 00:00:40.480 You know, I only heard about libertarianism because I happened to know somebody who saw 12 00:00:40.480 --> 00:00:45.960 that I was interested in political ideas, conservative ones in my case at the time, 13 00:00:45.960 --> 00:00:52.080 and suggested that I subscribe to the Freeman Magazine published by the Foundation for Economic 14 00:00:52.080 --> 00:00:53.360 Education. 15 00:00:53.360 --> 00:00:56.840 And probably some of the older people in this room were introduced to libertarian ideas 16 00:00:56.840 --> 00:00:58.680 in much the same way. 17 00:00:58.680 --> 00:01:04.080 But most people didn't know anyone who could tell them to subscribe to the Freeman and 18 00:01:04.080 --> 00:01:09.080 so they didn't hear about libertarianism, they didn't read about it in magazines that 19 00:01:09.080 --> 00:01:13.280 they read, libertarian books weren't on the New York Times bestseller list, they weren't 20 00:01:13.280 --> 00:01:19.200 hearing about it on TV or anything. But now, of course, everything's changed. You meet 21 00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:25.660 people who call themselves libertarians everywhere and some of the people don't know what that 22 00:01:25.660 --> 00:01:37.660 It's remarkable that they even know the word libertarian, but what's really remarkable is how many of them really do know what that means. 23 00:01:37.660 --> 00:01:43.660 I've been going around the past year and giving lectures at various law schools across the country. 24 00:01:43.660 --> 00:01:48.660 I've been amazed that law students come up to me and they start telling me about Murray Rothbard. 25 00:01:48.660 --> 00:01:51.660 They tell me they read lewrockwell.com every day. 26 00:01:51.660 --> 00:01:57.060 and they tell me they're reading about Austrian economics from books available from the Mises Institute 27 00:01:57.060 --> 00:01:59.660 that they're reading online for free because of the Mises Institute. 28 00:01:59.660 --> 00:02:03.660 Even when I was in law school less than a decade ago, this was unfathomable. 29 00:02:03.660 --> 00:02:07.660 There weren't law students around like this, like there are now. 30 00:02:07.660 --> 00:02:13.660 There are two big factors that have contributed to this and they both kind of build on each other. 31 00:02:13.660 --> 00:02:17.660 One is the internet and the other, of course, is Ron Paul. 32 00:02:17.660 --> 00:02:23.160 When Ron Paul ran for president, of course, the mainstream media almost completely ignored him, 33 00:02:23.160 --> 00:02:31.160 but you had this hardcore of fans on the internet who kind of put the word out, got people interested, 34 00:02:31.160 --> 00:02:38.160 and eventually they were able to raise enough money online to kind of launch him to mainstream media attention, 35 00:02:38.160 --> 00:02:43.660 and then he was able to give his message from a better platform, reaching more people. 36 00:02:43.660 --> 00:02:51.660 And then in turn when Ron Paul sent people back to the internet to learn more about these 37 00:02:51.660 --> 00:02:58.500 ideas he was espousing related to liberty and Austrian economics and specifically he 38 00:02:58.500 --> 00:03:02.660 sent them to the Mises Institute which had been espousing these ideas, particularly the 39 00:03:02.660 --> 00:03:08.460 most important ideas related to war and the Federal Reserve as no other institution had 40 00:03:08.460 --> 00:03:13.460 been doing and of course they had this wonderful online library that's unlike anything that 41 00:03:13.460 --> 00:03:15.300 that anybody else had out there. 42 00:03:17.340 --> 00:03:19.060 And now that this is happening, 43 00:03:19.060 --> 00:03:21.100 you're hearing about libertarianism 44 00:03:21.100 --> 00:03:23.180 in places you wouldn't have expected to. 45 00:03:23.180 --> 00:03:26.820 You're hearing the names Mises and Hayek 46 00:03:26.820 --> 00:03:28.260 in the mainstream media. 47 00:03:28.260 --> 00:03:29.580 The people who are referring to them 48 00:03:29.580 --> 00:03:32.020 might not understand what Mises and Hayek 49 00:03:32.020 --> 00:03:35.640 actually have to say, but they at least know the names 50 00:03:35.640 --> 00:03:38.260 and it demonstrates that our ideas 51 00:03:38.260 --> 00:03:40.100 are getting into the culture 52 00:03:40.100 --> 00:03:42.500 in a way that they never did before. 53 00:03:42.500 --> 00:03:46.620 Again, to anyone who's been around this movement for more than a few years, this is all just 54 00:03:46.620 --> 00:03:50.340 astonishing. This is something I couldn't have imagined, certainly. Even five years 55 00:03:50.340 --> 00:03:55.780 ago, I don't think I would have thought we'd be anywhere close to where we are now. 56 00:03:55.780 --> 00:04:01.220 So when you look at this explosion of growth that we've had as a movement, when you look 57 00:04:01.220 --> 00:04:05.900 at some of the anti-government sentiment that seems to be out there, again, it's certainly 58 00:04:05.900 --> 00:04:12.420 tempting to think that we have a relatively good shot at getting closer to a libertarian 59 00:04:12.420 --> 00:04:16.100 Society here in the United States and our lifetimes. 60 00:04:17.340 --> 00:04:19.460 But there's a quote from Ayn Rand 61 00:04:19.460 --> 00:04:21.040 that I think is relevant here. 62 00:04:21.040 --> 00:04:23.860 It's a quote that Jeff Rigenbach sometimes brings up 63 00:04:23.860 --> 00:04:26.580 in his Libertarian Tradition podcasts, 64 00:04:26.580 --> 00:04:28.420 which you should subscribe to if you don't already 65 00:04:28.420 --> 00:04:30.260 because they're excellent. 66 00:04:30.260 --> 00:04:34.460 The quote from Rand is, it's earlier than you think. 67 00:04:34.460 --> 00:04:37.780 Meaning, of course, that even though it seems like 68 00:04:37.780 --> 00:04:40.080 our ideas have gained a lot of ground, 69 00:04:40.080 --> 00:04:42.300 even though it seems like it should be really obvious 70 00:04:42.300 --> 00:04:47.000 to everyone that they should cast off, the statism that's oppressing them, it really, 71 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:51.560 we're not that close after all. There's a whole lot more work that we need to do before 72 00:04:51.560 --> 00:04:58.560 we're going to be close to that point, if we ever get there. So the question is, how 73 00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:03.120 will we get from here to there? What kinds of things can we do to get from here to there 74 00:05:03.120 --> 00:05:09.340 faster? Well, first I want to consider a couple things that some people advocate to advance 75 00:05:09.340 --> 00:05:15.020 and Finance Liberty that I don't think will work, and then I'll talk about what I think will work. 76 00:05:15.020 --> 00:05:20.820 Some people think that electoral politics is the way to go. I don't think so. There's 77 00:05:20.820 --> 00:05:27.820 one way in which electoral politics certainly can advance our cause, as an educational platform. 78 00:05:27.820 --> 00:05:33.420 Murray Rothbard favored the foundation of the Libertarian Party because he thought most 79 00:05:33.420 --> 00:05:37.940 people are busy living their lives and they're not thinking about political ideas most of 80 00:05:37.940 --> 00:05:41.720 of the Time, except every four years when there's a presidential election, people start 81 00:05:41.720 --> 00:05:46.740 thinking about it again. So this is a way that we can put our ideas out there when that 82 00:05:46.740 --> 00:05:51.280 opportunity arises. And you know, the Libertarian Party has been doing that with varying degrees 83 00:05:51.280 --> 00:05:55.900 of consistency and success since it's been formed. And of course, Ron Paul did essentially 84 00:05:55.900 --> 00:06:03.640 the same thing in 2008. That's fine. What's not fine for advancing liberty is trying to 85 00:06:03.640 --> 00:06:09.560 to run candidates for Congress or for the presidency with the idea that you're actually 86 00:06:09.560 --> 00:06:14.200 going to win the office. Because you're not going to win any elections with a libertarian 87 00:06:14.200 --> 00:06:21.200 message, not with a real libertarian message, because most people aren't libertarians. 88 00:06:21.240 --> 00:06:25.880 You can point to Ron Paul winning a seat in Congress, but Ron Paul is the exception to 89 00:06:25.880 --> 00:06:32.720 a great many rules. As Lew Rockwell says, there's only one Ron Paul. The reality is 90 00:06:32.720 --> 00:06:38.040 The overwhelming majority of people in America, in every state, in every city in America, 91 00:06:38.040 --> 00:06:41.680 are not libertarians. They're not even close to being libertarians. They're not going to 92 00:06:41.680 --> 00:06:46.160 be close to being libertarians anytime soon. It's just reality. Not most of the people, 93 00:06:46.160 --> 00:06:51.520 not half the people, not a quarter of the people. David Kirby and David Bowes at the 94 00:06:51.520 --> 00:06:56.400 Cato Institute have done some studies where they've looked at polling data and concluded 95 00:06:56.400 --> 00:07:02.200 that 14% of voters are libertarian. If that was true, that would be very encouraging. 96 00:07:02.200 --> 00:07:12.400 Unfortunately, that number is way, way too high. If you look at the questions they asked, 97 00:07:12.400 --> 00:07:16.640 they just kind of gauged people's attitudes towards government and the market and kind 98 00:07:16.640 --> 00:07:21.560 of added that up to some people being libertarians. But there is nothing in those studies, in 99 00:07:21.560 --> 00:07:25.920 those polls, that would give you any clue whatsoever of where those people stood on 100 00:07:25.920 --> 00:07:30.520 the most important issues, some of the most important issues, such as war, the police 101 00:07:30.520 --> 00:07:35.480 State, the Federal Reserve, the people counted as libertarians in that poll could have easily 102 00:07:35.480 --> 00:07:40.400 supported all those things and I don't doubt that most of them do support most of those 103 00:07:40.400 --> 00:07:45.320 things. And so if you took a realistic poll and you defined libertarian the way that most 104 00:07:45.320 --> 00:07:49.800 people in the libertarian movement would define it, you'd find that the actual percentage 105 00:07:49.800 --> 00:07:54.840 in the general public is very, very low. 106 00:07:54.840 --> 00:07:58.600 Well what about the Tea Party? You might think there's cause for hope there because after 107 00:07:58.600 --> 00:08:02.080 After all, it sounds like they're saying, even if they're not perfect libertarians, 108 00:08:02.080 --> 00:08:06.120 it sounds like they're saying some of the right things and they seem to have a decent 109 00:08:06.120 --> 00:08:11.200 us versus them attitude toward Washington, which seems healthy. 110 00:08:11.200 --> 00:08:15.040 And without question, and of course there are some big names in the libertarian movement 111 00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:19.080 who have thought this, who have tried to latch on to the Tea Party movement, tried to fund 112 00:08:19.080 --> 00:08:25.440 it and its candidates, thinking that it might finally be a chance to get smaller government, 113 00:08:25.440 --> 00:08:37.120 Without question, there are some true libertarians in the Tea Party movement, and I'm sure that 114 00:08:37.120 --> 00:08:42.160 some of those people are able to use the Tea Party movement to influence others who might 115 00:08:42.160 --> 00:08:49.520 be new to political ideas, who might be kind of on the borderline in the direction of libertarianism. 116 00:08:49.520 --> 00:08:53.240 I started out as conservative and I came around, so I'm sure they can bring some people around 117 00:08:53.240 --> 00:08:57.360 too. And I know there are little cells of the Tea Party, given the way the Tea Party 118 00:08:57.360 --> 00:09:02.720 is organized, it's decentralized. There are little cells of it that are hardcore libertarian. 119 00:09:02.720 --> 00:09:09.160 But if you look at the numbers, you realize that if liberty is going to be achieved in 120 00:09:09.160 --> 00:09:13.920 America, it's not these people who are going to bring it about. Consider some figures from 121 00:09:13.920 --> 00:09:20.960 an April 2010 CBS New York Times poll that was taken of people who identify as Tea Party 122 00:09:20.960 --> 00:09:27.960 It asked tea partiers to identify what political figures they admired most. 123 00:09:27.960 --> 00:09:29.480 This wasn't particularly rigged or anything. 124 00:09:29.480 --> 00:09:30.640 They could say anybody they want. 125 00:09:30.640 --> 00:09:31.720 They could say none of the above. 126 00:09:31.720 --> 00:09:32.720 They could say other. 127 00:09:32.720 --> 00:09:39.760 Who was number one for the tea partiers among the people they admire most in politics? 128 00:09:39.760 --> 00:09:46.160 If you guessed Ron Paul, I appreciate your optimism, your good feelings towards your 129 00:09:46.160 --> 00:09:52.080 It's your fellow man, you know, thinking the best of people and all, but you're way off. 130 00:09:52.080 --> 00:09:58.720 It's Newt Gingrich, who, of course, is known for favoring the death penalty for drug dealers, 131 00:09:58.720 --> 00:10:03.880 favoring war with Iran, praising the New Deal. 132 00:10:03.880 --> 00:10:07.680 Number two on their list, by the way, when I talk about politicians, I'm not saying we 133 00:10:07.680 --> 00:10:10.040 should vote against these people or vote for that people. 134 00:10:10.040 --> 00:10:14.320 This is just to give you an idea, you know, to make an inference about the people's ideas. 135 00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:15.580 That's all. 136 00:10:15.580 --> 00:10:23.300 Number two on their list, Newt Gingrich, who's number one. Number two on their list, Sarah 137 00:10:23.300 --> 00:10:33.300 Palin, make of this what you will. Number three was a tie between Mitt Romney, the progenitor 138 00:10:33.300 --> 00:10:39.660 of Obamacare, and that noted supporter of smaller government and humble foreign policy, 139 00:10:39.660 --> 00:10:46.340 George W. Bush Then at number four, we have another tie. 140 00:10:46.340 --> 00:10:52.580 This one is between George H.W. Bush who gave us those low flow toilets that we enjoy today 141 00:10:52.580 --> 00:10:59.240 among many other wonderful things, Mike Huckabee who as far as I've noticed has never favored 142 00:10:59.240 --> 00:11:08.240 liberty with respect to anything and then John McCain and then finally we have Ron Paul. 143 00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:19.240 So add up all those people who admire George Bush, admire Sarah Palin, what planet could you be from and think that they're worthy of any manner of admiration? 144 00:11:19.240 --> 00:11:26.240 Well anyway, so add up all those people who admire those figures and then compare that to the number who admire Ron Paul, which was by the way 3%. 145 00:11:26.240 --> 00:11:30.240 That's 3% of all tea partiers, not the general public, tea partiers. 146 00:11:30.240 --> 00:11:37.240 And then you get a sense, you start to get a sense of how likely that movement is to advance liberty. 147 00:11:37.240 --> 00:11:42.760 These figures I gave are a little old. They were from a year ago. So you might be tempted 148 00:11:42.760 --> 00:11:47.600 to think that the Tea Party has gotten a little more radical since then. After all, government 149 00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:52.000 has only gotten bigger. They've had more time to absorb the ideas of Austrian economics 150 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:56.320 and so forth. So maybe they've started coming around. Maybe they're more radically opposed 151 00:11:56.320 --> 00:12:02.840 to the government now. I'm afraid not. Back in September, Pew Research took a poll of 152 00:12:02.840 --> 00:12:09.160 of Tea Party Supporters, and they found that 47% of tea partiers said they're angry with 153 00:12:09.160 --> 00:12:14.280 the federal government. This should seem kind of strange, right, because, I mean, one, the 154 00:12:14.280 --> 00:12:17.600 media is always telling us how angry the tea partiers are, and if you look at the books 155 00:12:17.600 --> 00:12:22.200 that are out there about the tea party, they have titles like Boiling Mad and Mad as Hell. 156 00:12:22.200 --> 00:12:25.640 Well, if they're not angry with the federal government, what are they angry at? I don't 157 00:12:25.640 --> 00:12:31.080 know, but, and if they were, if they're really anti-government, then you would think they'd 158 00:12:31.080 --> 00:12:33.960 they'd be really angry with the federal government because they have a lot to be angry about. 159 00:12:33.960 --> 00:12:40.800 But back in September 2010, 47%. But now, you might think they're angrier now because 160 00:12:40.800 --> 00:12:45.880 after all, government has only gotten bigger, new wars and so forth, and of course they 161 00:12:45.880 --> 00:12:50.920 elected all these Tea Party guys to Congress and government hasn't started shrinking yet. 162 00:12:50.920 --> 00:12:55.600 You know, all these Tea Party guys, almost all of them voted to renew the Patriot Act, 163 00:12:55.600 --> 00:13:01.800 No debate, no changes. They all just went for it. So you think, well, they'd be really 164 00:13:01.800 --> 00:13:05.840 mad, right, because these guys betrayed us, and they'd be really angry with the federal 165 00:13:05.840 --> 00:13:11.720 government. Unfortunately, you'd be once again too optimistic. A Pew poll taken last month 166 00:13:11.720 --> 00:13:17.320 found that only 28% of Tea Partiers now are angry with the federal government. And think 167 00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:22.360 about that. That's just after two months of a Republican House of Representatives. Imagine 168 00:13:22.360 --> 00:13:25.840 And how not angry with the federal government most of these people would be if you also 169 00:13:25.840 --> 00:13:32.640 had a Republican Senate and a Republican White House. I think you'd find they would be led 170 00:13:32.640 --> 00:13:36.860 by the same talk radio hosts who led many of them to the Tea Party right back to where 171 00:13:36.860 --> 00:13:43.160 they were during all those years when George W. Bush, who most of them like, was president. 172 00:13:43.160 --> 00:13:49.440 By the way, all of this is to say nothing, of course, of the troubling anti-immigrant, 173 00:13:49.440 --> 00:13:56.440 and the virulently anti-Islam pro-war views that all of them espouse right alongside their limited government talk. 174 00:13:56.440 --> 00:14:00.440 And if you're interested, by the way, here are the top three, this poll was just taken last month, 175 00:14:00.440 --> 00:14:05.440 the top three 2012 presidential picks of Tea Partiers from a Pew poll. 176 00:14:05.440 --> 00:14:10.440 Number one, Mitt Romney. Number two, Mike Huckabee. Number three, Newt Gingrich. 177 00:14:10.440 --> 00:14:17.440 In fairness, though, that was a month ago. If they took it now, maybe the Tea Partiers would put Donald Trump in there instead. 178 00:14:17.440 --> 00:14:22.640 So, that might not characterize their views now. 179 00:14:22.640 --> 00:14:27.760 So, I don't think it's an especially encouraging sign that the Tea Party movement came along 180 00:14:27.760 --> 00:14:34.360 and adopted some of the Ron Paul movement's rhetoric and strategies. 181 00:14:34.360 --> 00:14:38.820 And I think the people who are trying to fund that movement, who think that backing that 182 00:14:38.820 --> 00:14:42.960 movement is going to advance liberty, I think it's a waste. 183 00:14:42.960 --> 00:14:46.700 Not necessarily for libertarians who are trying to work with them and influence them, but 184 00:14:46.700 --> 00:14:50.700 for actually trying to fund this as a movement that's gonna elect people who are gonna make 185 00:14:50.700 --> 00:14:51.700 our lives better. 186 00:14:51.700 --> 00:14:57.260 And of course, there's still other reasons to think that Americans aren't going to elect 187 00:14:57.260 --> 00:14:58.860 libertarians anytime soon. 188 00:14:58.860 --> 00:15:03.020 I mean, think about the American public and what they've supported, and think about especially 189 00:15:03.020 --> 00:15:06.300 the early 20th century, all the stuff that Americans went along with. 190 00:15:06.300 --> 00:15:12.920 I mean, first you had World War I, so they got behind that, and they got behind conscription 191 00:15:12.920 --> 00:15:17.920 Prohibition to send their sons off to be killed for this senseless war. You had the Fed then, 192 00:15:17.920 --> 00:15:21.280 but maybe you can't blame people for supporting that. Then, of course, you had more than a 193 00:15:21.280 --> 00:15:27.360 decade of alcohol prohibition that people tolerated for that long. Then, of course, 194 00:15:27.360 --> 00:15:31.880 you had the New Deal, which people voted for again and again. Then, of course, during World 195 00:15:31.880 --> 00:15:36.960 War II, Americans tolerated the government rounding up Japanese American citizens, putting 196 00:15:36.960 --> 00:15:41.160 them into concentration camps. Then you had Americans, of course, going along with all 197 00:15:41.160 --> 00:15:45.560 and all manner of wartime economic controls and thinking that was fine. 198 00:15:45.560 --> 00:15:47.520 And that, that was in the early 20th century. 199 00:15:47.520 --> 00:15:52.280 Think about how much closer the country was back then to whatever libertarian roots it 200 00:15:52.280 --> 00:15:54.200 might have. 201 00:15:54.200 --> 00:16:00.440 Those people who supported all that stuff in the early 20th century, they weren't raised 202 00:16:00.440 --> 00:16:03.440 going to federally controlled government schools. 203 00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:10.080 And those people were much more loyal to other institutions besides the state, such as, you 204 00:16:10.080 --> 00:16:13.480 You know, the churches, such as fraternal organizations. 205 00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:18.400 And so if those people could be so easily manipulated 206 00:16:18.400 --> 00:16:21.920 into supporting unprecedented fascism in America, 207 00:16:21.920 --> 00:16:24.360 how much more likely do you think Americans today 208 00:16:24.360 --> 00:16:26.680 are to vote for less government? 209 00:16:27.800 --> 00:16:30.600 Consider also that over the decades ahead, 210 00:16:30.600 --> 00:16:33.560 more and more libertarians, or excuse me, not libertarians, 211 00:16:33.560 --> 00:16:35.720 more and more people will be receiving checks 212 00:16:35.720 --> 00:16:38.120 from the government through social security 213 00:16:38.120 --> 00:16:39.960 and through government employment. 214 00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:43.520 Do you think those people are going to suddenly want to get rid of the federal government? 215 00:16:43.520 --> 00:16:48.280 Do you think they're going to roll it back? Of course they're not. Of course they're not. 216 00:16:48.280 --> 00:16:53.680 I don't say all of this to be negative or to depress you. The point is simply that trying 217 00:16:53.680 --> 00:16:59.520 to win elections isn't going to work, now or anytime soon, because most people aren't 218 00:16:59.520 --> 00:17:06.440 libertarian and aren't about to be. As Iran said, it's earlier than you think. 219 00:17:06.440 --> 00:17:10.560 Some people argue that since libertarianism can't win through the electoral process, we 220 00:17:10.560 --> 00:17:15.760 should go to the federal courts and get libertarianism that way. After all, that's what the left 221 00:17:15.760 --> 00:17:18.840 wing does, right? I mean, when the people won't go for what they want, they go to the 222 00:17:18.840 --> 00:17:22.800 federal courts and try to get the federal, try to get them to force people to accept 223 00:17:22.800 --> 00:17:28.760 what they won't vote for. With these libertarians, the idea is we need to get government to start 224 00:17:28.760 --> 00:17:34.940 reading Congress's powers into the Constitution, like under the Congress cause, more narrowly 225 00:17:34.940 --> 00:17:37.980 and start reading the protections for liberty more broadly. 226 00:17:39.180 --> 00:17:41.900 This camp has had big wins recently, it's true. 227 00:17:41.900 --> 00:17:43.860 They had big wins with the District of Columbia 228 00:17:43.860 --> 00:17:46.980 versus Heller and McDonald versus Chicago gun cases 229 00:17:46.980 --> 00:17:49.880 where the Supreme Court recognizes the second amendment, 230 00:17:49.880 --> 00:17:52.300 protects an individual right to bear arms 231 00:17:52.300 --> 00:17:54.820 and then it applies against the states. 232 00:17:54.820 --> 00:17:58.860 And so these legal activists think with some justification 233 00:17:58.860 --> 00:18:00.900 that their strategy's a good one. 234 00:18:00.900 --> 00:18:04.880 And of course, it is a great and heroic thing 235 00:18:04.880 --> 00:18:10.600 that they went and they did this. There can't be any doubt whatsoever that people in D.C., 236 00:18:10.600 --> 00:18:15.320 here in Chicago, other cities that had stringent gun control laws are now better off. They 237 00:18:15.320 --> 00:18:21.360 enjoy a right that they couldn't before. But their big victory for liberty is not likely 238 00:18:21.360 --> 00:18:26.140 to last very long in the long run. After all, the Supreme Court said in those decisions 239 00:18:26.140 --> 00:18:31.800 that while an absolute ban on guns is unacceptable, reasonable restrictions would be okay. And 240 00:18:31.800 --> 00:18:35.480 And when they tell us what reasonable restrictions means, I think we'll find that the right 241 00:18:35.480 --> 00:18:41.120 that they're willing to recognize is extremely, extremely narrow. 242 00:18:41.120 --> 00:18:44.320 Winning court battles on issues like this helps people in the short term, and again, 243 00:18:44.320 --> 00:18:49.800 that's great. It's heroic. It's saving people from being victims of government crime, but 244 00:18:49.800 --> 00:18:56.160 it does nothing to address the underlying problem of a federal government that's growing 245 00:18:56.160 --> 00:19:01.280 and always grabbing more power for itself. The federal courts are absolutely not ever 246 00:19:01.280 --> 00:19:03.240 are going to help us win that battle. 247 00:19:03.240 --> 00:19:05.200 The federal judges who sit on those courts 248 00:19:05.200 --> 00:19:07.560 are of course selected by the president, 249 00:19:07.560 --> 00:19:09.440 confirmed by a senate, and those guys 250 00:19:09.440 --> 00:19:11.120 are never gonna select or confirm anyone 251 00:19:11.120 --> 00:19:12.520 who won't tell them they can do 252 00:19:12.520 --> 00:19:14.280 absolutely anything they wanna do. 253 00:19:15.440 --> 00:19:17.680 A strategy that relies on the courts 254 00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:21.320 relies on the assumption that the rulers 255 00:19:21.320 --> 00:19:23.160 that Washington chooses for us 256 00:19:23.160 --> 00:19:25.720 are someday just gonna turn benevolent 257 00:19:25.720 --> 00:19:27.600 and give us liberty. 258 00:19:27.600 --> 00:19:30.800 That idea should just seem absurd to any libertarian. 259 00:19:31.280 --> 00:19:40.360 The idea accepts the myth that federal judges, they're really just unbiased arbiters, neutral 260 00:19:40.360 --> 00:19:47.260 arbiters of disputes. Of course they're not. They're political rulers who want to and do 261 00:19:47.260 --> 00:19:53.800 control us. Judges haven't harmed liberty because lawyers haven't made good enough constitutional 262 00:19:53.800 --> 00:19:57.720 arguments in favor of liberty. They've harmed liberty because it's what they're put on the 263 00:19:57.720 --> 00:20:02.040 and the bench to do, so the courts aren't gonna save us. 264 00:20:03.160 --> 00:20:04.000 What will work? 265 00:20:05.600 --> 00:20:08.200 The people who want instant gratification 266 00:20:08.200 --> 00:20:11.280 are not going to be pleased by my answer, 267 00:20:11.280 --> 00:20:13.600 because my answer is the same answer 268 00:20:13.600 --> 00:20:16.200 that Albert J. Knot gave in his classic essay, 269 00:20:16.200 --> 00:20:18.920 Isaiah's Job, and that Leonard Reed gave 270 00:20:18.920 --> 00:20:22.560 in his classic essay, How to Advance Liberty, 271 00:20:22.560 --> 00:20:24.320 both of which you should read. 272 00:20:24.320 --> 00:20:26.480 What we can do now to advance liberty 273 00:20:26.480 --> 00:20:29.880 is first and foremost to work on the one unit of society 274 00:20:29.880 --> 00:20:32.200 that we're actually capable of improving, 275 00:20:32.200 --> 00:20:33.840 which is ourselves. 276 00:20:33.840 --> 00:20:36.860 We learn more about liberty, learn more about history, 277 00:20:36.860 --> 00:20:39.360 learn more about Austrian economics. 278 00:20:39.360 --> 00:20:42.420 And we can learn to improve ourselves in every respect 279 00:20:42.420 --> 00:20:45.880 so that we're more capable of communicating these ideas 280 00:20:45.880 --> 00:20:49.280 that we learn to others and that others would actually see us 281 00:20:49.280 --> 00:20:51.180 as someone who they wanna learn from. 282 00:20:52.200 --> 00:20:53.440 Our purpose shouldn't be to go out 283 00:20:53.440 --> 00:20:56.940 People don't foist our ideas on others who haven't asked for them. 284 00:20:56.940 --> 00:21:02.160 People don't appreciate that and it'll close their minds to us, I think, for the most part. 285 00:21:02.160 --> 00:21:06.040 And that kind of mentality is too close to the mentality that sadists have. 286 00:21:06.040 --> 00:21:10.040 Our job is to go out and remold people into the shape that we think they should be in. 287 00:21:10.040 --> 00:21:12.840 I don't think that's a healthy attitude. 288 00:21:12.840 --> 00:21:18.940 Instead, because we'll make ourselves the best that we can be, people will be drawn 289 00:21:18.940 --> 00:21:20.680 to us. 290 00:21:20.680 --> 00:21:24.520 Because of the character and intellect that we'll cultivate, they'll want to hear what 291 00:21:24.520 --> 00:21:29.960 we have to say. Other people following our example then will want to spread the ideas 292 00:21:29.960 --> 00:21:36.960 to others. And slowly we'll see the ideas seep more and more into the culture. Eventually 293 00:21:38.440 --> 00:21:42.280 we'll see them popping up in unexpected places. We'll hear them coming back to us from the 294 00:21:42.280 --> 00:21:48.320 mouths of people we wouldn't have expected to hear them from, as Nock would predict. 295 00:21:48.320 --> 00:21:52.880 This isn't far-fetched. We have a perfect example of this phenomenon in the real world 296 00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:59.400 today. In fact, this method I advocate, I believe, is responsible for the huge explosion 297 00:21:59.400 --> 00:22:06.080 of interest in liberty that we see. Our perfect example is Ron Paul. Did Ron Paul really ever 298 00:22:06.080 --> 00:22:10.440 seek mass appeal? Did he run national advertisements saying, come check out what I have to say, 299 00:22:10.440 --> 00:22:16.440 or anything of the kind? No. All he did was communicate his ideas clearly and consistently 300 00:22:16.440 --> 00:22:22.960 for Decades, using whatever forum was available to him, while also maintaining an exceptionally 301 00:22:22.960 --> 00:22:29.800 high level of personal integrity that led people to respect him and to pay serious attention 302 00:22:29.800 --> 00:22:35.800 to what he had to say. Then, almost as if by magic, hundreds of thousands of people 303 00:22:35.800 --> 00:22:39.760 were just drawn to him in a way that people in the normal political world couldn't understand, 304 00:22:39.760 --> 00:22:45.000 right, because normal politicians don't naturally attract people. Natural politicians have to, 305 00:22:45.000 --> 00:22:49.400 You know, rather regular politicians have to go out and make all kinds of absurd promises 306 00:22:49.400 --> 00:22:54.320 to get people to come pay attention to them. It's the complete opposite of what normally 307 00:22:54.320 --> 00:22:59.360 goes on in politics. And now look at the people who he's inspired. Look at the people who 308 00:22:59.360 --> 00:23:04.280 have gone out and started spreading the ideas themselves. Look at how the names of Mises 309 00:23:04.280 --> 00:23:11.720 and Hayek turn up all over the place, coming again from people who aren't necessarily libertarians 310 00:23:11.720 --> 00:23:17.080 but who now are aware, at least indirectly, of these ideas. 311 00:23:17.080 --> 00:23:20.240 This is how our ideas advance. 312 00:23:20.240 --> 00:23:24.600 The Mises Institute, of course, also provides an excellent example of this phenomenon at 313 00:23:24.600 --> 00:23:25.720 work. 314 00:23:25.720 --> 00:23:30.700 As far as I know, the Mises Institute never had a plan to go out and convert the masses. 315 00:23:30.700 --> 00:23:34.920 They never were preaching on street corners or anything of the sort. 316 00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:40.920 All the Mises Institute did was build a great institution, build a great website, and people 317 00:23:40.920 --> 00:23:46.040 People just came, people were drawn to it, because the Mises Institute was a light in 318 00:23:46.040 --> 00:23:51.520 a world of darkness. Now, some might say, oh, that's great, okay, more people know 319 00:23:51.520 --> 00:23:57.760 about liberty, great, and they're talking about it. But how do we actually get liberty? 320 00:23:57.760 --> 00:24:01.480 One way we can actually get liberty that's perfectly consistent with this strategy is 321 00:24:01.480 --> 00:24:07.520 by creating institutions that serve as alternatives to government institutions. A great example 322 00:24:07.520 --> 00:24:11.960 of this is the homeschooling movement. People who homeschool their children are freeing 323 00:24:11.960 --> 00:24:17.520 their children from the coercion of government schools. And you'll notice that this came 324 00:24:17.520 --> 00:24:23.340 about just because a bunch of people started doing it. They didn't wait around for liberty-friendly 325 00:24:23.340 --> 00:24:28.640 politicians to be elected. They didn't wait around for liberty-friendly judges to be appointed. 326 00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:33.720 They didn't ask anybody's permission. I know some people will say, well that's fine, there's 327 00:24:33.720 --> 00:24:37.220 little pockets of liberty here and there, but I want a libertarian society. How do we 328 00:24:37.220 --> 00:24:40.580 How do we get that? How do we get rid of the state? 329 00:24:40.580 --> 00:24:44.940 The answer is just that we have to keep doing our never-ending job of self-improvement and 330 00:24:44.940 --> 00:24:50.740 be patient. Someday, we don't know when, the existing Leviathan will collapse just as the 331 00:24:50.740 --> 00:24:57.580 Soviet Union collapsed. Nothing lasts forever, especially not a fascist or socialist regime. 332 00:24:57.580 --> 00:25:01.380 When that collapse comes, however it comes about, we don't know how it will, if we've 333 00:25:01.380 --> 00:25:06.740 done our job in spreading our ideas, there will be a natural aristocracy of libertarian 334 00:25:06.740 --> 00:25:13.140 and leaders in place who are ready to help rebuild society on a better foundation. 335 00:25:13.140 --> 00:25:17.700 This could be many years from now and I think it will be after my lifetime. Maybe it won't 336 00:25:17.700 --> 00:25:24.260 happen at all, but that's just reality. There's nothing to be upset about. There are lots 337 00:25:24.260 --> 00:25:27.620 of good things that might happen in the future after we're all gone that we can think of 338 00:25:27.620 --> 00:25:31.740 that will probably happen that we won't enjoy because we haven't been born in this particular 339 00:25:31.740 --> 00:25:38.340 time period, think of all the technological innovations that we know will happen but will 340 00:25:38.340 --> 00:25:43.760 happen after our lifetime, you know, interplanetary travel, human life spans extended to hundreds 341 00:25:43.760 --> 00:25:50.020 of years, the holodeck from Star Trek and of course flying cars, all these things we 342 00:25:50.020 --> 00:25:53.320 think will eventually happen but we won't get to enjoy them because it will be too long 343 00:25:53.320 --> 00:25:54.320 from now. 344 00:25:54.320 --> 00:25:58.520 Well, you sit around all day being bummed out about that, no, of course not, you're 345 00:25:58.520 --> 00:26:01.520 You're glad you live now when you have all this stuff, iPhones and whatever, that you 346 00:26:01.520 --> 00:26:05.500 do have, and you're glad that you don't live in some previous time when things would have 347 00:26:05.500 --> 00:26:09.720 been a lot worse. Well, it shouldn't be any different for liberty. There's no reason why 348 00:26:09.720 --> 00:26:14.520 we should expect progress in this area to be faster or easier than progress in any other 349 00:26:14.520 --> 00:26:20.600 area of human endeavor. Getting a whole society to change its mind about some of its most 350 00:26:20.600 --> 00:26:26.600 fundamental beliefs is really difficult. There's no reason to think it wouldn't be, especially 351 00:26:26.600 --> 00:26:30.720 Even all the world's governments who have all the guns and most of the money are working 352 00:26:30.720 --> 00:26:32.120 really hard against you. 353 00:26:32.120 --> 00:26:35.880 You know, you might say, oh, it's not fair. 354 00:26:35.880 --> 00:26:40.560 Other people get to see their political ideologies enacted, but that's just reality. 355 00:26:40.560 --> 00:26:42.760 There's no quick fix. 356 00:26:42.760 --> 00:26:47.480 Libertarianism isn't a political philosophy for people with high time preference. 357 00:26:47.480 --> 00:26:52.680 It's high time, really, it's high time preference that leads people to think, we need to get 358 00:26:52.680 --> 00:26:54.960 results in Washington now. 359 00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:58.880 That leaves libertarians astray. It's what makes people latch on to politicians who don't 360 00:26:58.880 --> 00:27:04.780 really share our values. It's what makes people pursue these campaigns for quasi-libertarian 361 00:27:04.780 --> 00:27:09.200 things that would actually move us in the wrong direction, like privatizing social security 362 00:27:09.200 --> 00:27:13.260 and school vouchers. It's high time preference that makes people think we should focus our 363 00:27:13.260 --> 00:27:16.280 efforts on the federal courts, because after all, then you just get a federal judge to 364 00:27:16.280 --> 00:27:19.760 say we should have liberty, and boom, instant liberty for the whole country if you get the 365 00:27:19.760 --> 00:27:24.840 Supreme Court to do it. But that can't work. It can't possibly work, because even if you 366 00:27:24.840 --> 00:27:29.400 If you could get some judges to do that, which you couldn't, society wouldn't be ready for 367 00:27:29.400 --> 00:27:33.840 it. People would not understand the ideas. The pillars wouldn't be in place to underpin 368 00:27:33.840 --> 00:27:40.440 it. This isn't to say that we shouldn't be involved with short-term practical political 369 00:27:40.440 --> 00:27:44.800 projects. If there's a good chance of protecting somebody's liberty by going to court, fine. 370 00:27:44.800 --> 00:27:50.040 There's an anti-war movement that could stand in the way of a war. Join it. View these things 371 00:27:50.040 --> 00:27:56.160 for what they are. Those things are like stopping a particular crime from happening. It's not 372 00:27:56.160 --> 00:28:02.000 a, it doesn't address the underlying root problem of crime, right? It's like, you know, 373 00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:05.960 when the government does a big drug bust and they get, you know, a thousand kilos of cocaine 374 00:28:05.960 --> 00:28:08.640 or whatever they get, you know, a huge quantity of cocaine, and they think, wow, this is a 375 00:28:08.640 --> 00:28:12.640 great victory in the war on drugs. We're stopping drugs now. Is anyone not, is it, are any less 376 00:28:12.640 --> 00:28:15.820 drugs really going to be taken as a result of that? Does that really address the drug 377 00:28:15.820 --> 00:28:19.440 problem, if you want to call it that? No, of course not. It doesn't address the drug 378 00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:22.800 problem at all. They just stopped this one little thing. And so what we need to do is 379 00:28:22.800 --> 00:28:28.680 keep our eyes focused on the big problem, the long-term problem, and we can't ever compromise 380 00:28:28.680 --> 00:28:34.840 our principles if we do pursue those short-term things, because someone has to keep those 381 00:28:34.840 --> 00:28:40.500 ideas alive and growing and pure. And if we don't do it, no one will, and the libertarian 382 00:28:40.500 --> 00:28:46.140 movement that we've built so far could be lost. Now, if you have an urgent need for 383 00:28:46.140 --> 00:28:50.380 for more liberty in your personal life, if that's your complaint, right, that you don't 384 00:28:50.380 --> 00:28:54.080 have enough liberty, there's lots of ways you can go out and get it. And you can reduce 385 00:28:54.080 --> 00:28:58.540 your tax burden, you can find your ways around regulation, right? I mean, you can be like 386 00:28:58.540 --> 00:29:02.100 Jeffrey Tucker and hack your shower so that you can get the showers the government doesn't 387 00:29:02.100 --> 00:29:08.260 want you to take. You can hold onto gold instead of Federal Reserve notes. And you can do what 388 00:29:08.260 --> 00:29:11.620 a lot of people are doing and move to a part of the world where they'll give you more of 389 00:29:11.620 --> 00:29:15.800 whatever kind of freedom is more important to you. And by the way, as people move with 390 00:29:15.800 --> 00:29:19.720 With their feet like that, I think it's going to happen more and more as travel becomes 391 00:29:19.720 --> 00:29:25.400 easier, governments will have to compete for citizens and as they do, they're going to 392 00:29:25.400 --> 00:29:29.000 have to make themselves less burdensome and they'll do it without us having to actually 393 00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:33.480 dirty our hands with politics. They'll do it because we've made people want more liberty. 394 00:29:33.480 --> 00:29:38.000 Anyway, regardless of what happens with the rest of society, we should all be glad that 395 00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:43.080 we're living in a time and place that's allowed us to discover libertarianism in Austrian 396 00:29:43.080 --> 00:29:50.080 and Economics. Unlike most people who have ever lived, we can see things clearly that 397 00:29:50.440 --> 00:29:54.720 they couldn't. Unlike most people, we can see the state for what it is. Unlike most 398 00:29:54.720 --> 00:29:59.200 people, we can see what's going on in the economy and understand what's going on. Unlike 399 00:29:59.200 --> 00:30:06.200 most people, we have the truth. In many respects, the truth has already set us free. So, let's 400 00:30:06.600 --> 00:30:11.320 keep learning, let's keep improving ourselves, let's keep communicating our ideas to others, 401 00:30:11.320 --> 00:30:16.280 Let's create more liberty for ourselves without the politicians' help, and let's take joy 402 00:30:16.280 --> 00:30:17.280 in all of that. 403 00:30:17.280 --> 00:30:21.960 And even if we don't get as much liberty as we might like in our lifetimes, we'll have 404 00:30:21.960 --> 00:30:25.880 enjoyed ourselves doing all of that, and we'll have known, we'll have given our time and 405 00:30:25.880 --> 00:30:29.760 our efforts and our lives to a worthwhile cause. 406 00:30:30.760 --> 00:30:32.760 Thank you very much.