May 16, 2025 • 31 mins
When was the last time you questioned whether good intentions actually lead to good outcomes? In this thought-provoking episode of The Spiritual Agnostic, we dive deep into the dangerous disconnect between well-meaning policies and their often devastating real-world consequences.
Drawing from Taoist wisdom that "it's better to do nothing than to be busy doing nothing," we examine how government programs with appealing names like "Aid to Families with Dependent Children" and "Project Head Start" have not only failed to achieve their stated goals but have actively damaged the communities they aimed to help. The destruction of the nuclear family, particularly in minority communities, serves as a stark example of unintended consequences from policies that sounded virtuous on paper.
The conversation takes unflinching looks at personal responsibility, compulsive behaviors, and why suffering consequences is often the only effective teacher. From Social Security's transformation from safety net to unsustainable burden to the graduated income tax's failure to meaningfully redistribute wealth, we challenge conventional thinking about government intervention. As your host explains from personal experience, sometimes hitting rock bottom—like his time in prison—becomes the wake-up call that changes everything.
Beyond criticism, we explore alternatives like anti-politism, a merit-based lottery system outlined in "A Radical Reset" that could provide more accountable governance. The episode concludes with a sobering warning: our current economic system built on fiat currency will eventually collapse like similar systems throughout history. When that happens, will we be prepared with better solutions, or will desperate times lead to desperate measures?
Whether you're a libertarian, a progressive, or somewhere in between, this episode will challenge your assumptions about how we should approach societal problems. Have we been killing our communities with kindness? Listen now and decide for yourself.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning everyone .
It's me, your friend, uncleHerbie, your host at the
Spiritual Agnostic, the showthat concedes that religion is
the core and the bedrock ofsociety.
But as God is being killed byscience, we're going to have to
talk about what can replace it,and that is philosophy, in my
(00:23):
view.
I'm a Stoic, I'm an objectivist.
I don't know if the purephilosophers, the guys that have
PhDs, would say that you couldbe more than one thing.
I would think so.
So anyway, but I am a Stoic andan objectivist and, in a very
major way, at my core, a Taoist,because I do believe that if I
(00:46):
can teach all of you just onething, it would be that 999
times out of 1,000, the bestthing to do about anything is
nothing.
And I say that that is, I'mrestating the core foundation of
Taoism, which is it's better todo nothing than to be busy
doing nothing.
And boy doesn't our modernworld say that.
(01:07):
And it also speaks to thesubject of today's podcast,
which is going to be briefbecause I am packing to go on a
weekend camping trip with my dog, who I don't ever refer to as a
dog in her presence.
I call her my puppy Pepper, whois an Airedale Terrier, and the
two of us.
She's six years old, along with.
Call her my puppy, pepper, whois an Airedale Terrier, and the
two of us.
She's six years old, along withshows you my priorities.
(01:28):
I talked about my puppy beforemy daughter and grandson, which,
by the way, is no reflectionbut my daughter, my grandson, my
grandson's friend and myselfand my puppy are all driving up
to a place called ChristopherCreek, which is a campground
outside of Payson Arizona, alonga creek called, in fact,
christopher Creek, which is avery good trout fishing stream,
(01:50):
and we're going to camp and fishfor trout and enjoy a couple of
days of cool pines, and it'sonly two hours from Phoenix.
A lot of people those of you who, by the way, aren't familiar
with Phoenix, just as an FYIit's going to be 100 degrees
today or close to it in Phoenix.
We're getting into thesummertime and it's going to be
(02:10):
consistently between 100 and 110all summer long.
And that sounds terrible, Iknow, and when you live here for
a long time, it really you getused to it, in the sense that
you get all your stuff done inthe morning and then, because
there's almost no humidity atall, it's not that bad.
You just have to be carefulthat you drink a lot of water
because you're always sweatinglike a pig, but you don't know
it because your clothes are bonedry because everything
(02:33):
instantly evaporates.
I live in a one-bedroomapartment.
I can wash my hands in thebathroom, not dry them.
Walk to my living room, whichis a short walk, and they'll be
dry by the time I get there.
That's what it's like to livein humanity when.
I was born and raised on theEast Coast, in Miami and
Pittsburgh, but what I'm aboutto say is primarily Miami.
(02:55):
Those of you who ever fly downto Miami from anywhere else, you
know what I'm about to say istrue.
The minute you step off theplane, the first thing you smell
is mildew and it kind ofpermeates.
Then you know, you get used toit and it goes away in your mind
, but it's always there.
And, for example, after ashower in Miami, you have to, at
the very least, depending onwhat level of crazy clean you
(03:17):
are either put your towel backin the dryer and hang it up or
wash and dry it.
But you're going to have to putit through a dryer one way or
the other.
Where here in Arizona, when Ihang my wet towel and I freely
admit, I do not wash it afterevery shower.
I wash it after every othershower.
So when I hang my towel after ashower, it's dry in about 15 to
(03:37):
20 minutes.
So, anyway, why I got onto that,I don't know.
So today we're going to talkabout why good intentions have
no bearing on good results.
And the reason I bring that upis and I'm not changing the
subject when I share this butone of the most important books
that I read as a young person,and I first read it when I was,
(04:00):
I want to say, 17, maybe 16years old.
I went to college when I was 16.
So I'm going to say, yeah, 16.
I think it was my very.
I think I read it in the summer,when I was 16 and going to
summer school at the Universityof Arizona and I was living in
(04:20):
the Kaibab Huachuca dormitoryand somehow I got my hands on a
paperback copy of Atlas Shrugged.
And the reason I bring this upis it's written by Ayn Rand, and
I'm not going to go into alibertarian screed today because
I'm an antipolitist, which isthe system of merit-based
lottery, democracy and republicthat I've invented.
You can read about it, by theway, in A Radical Reset.
(04:42):
A Radical Reset available onAmazon on Kindle, paperback or
hardcover, depending on how youlike to read.
Anyway, I read Atlas Shrugged.
I was a natural libertarian whofound myself throughout Atlas
Shrugged.
As opposed to, I was kind of aleft-wing progressive who found
(05:03):
who saw the light after I readit.
No, actually, atlas Shruggedsimply put into a narrative,
novel form a lot of the thingsthat I was thinking and was a
very predictive book.
A lot of the things that AtlasShrugged said were going to
happen, as written.
By the way, atlas Shrugged forthose of you who've never read
it is a novel.
It's not, you know, it's not atextbook, but the novel has a
(05:25):
lot of lessons in it.
It's kind of like reading abiblical story, which Ayn Rand
herself would appreciate thatcomparison, because when one of
her editors said, when she hadturned the manuscript in for
publication, that they needed toyou know, could she edit down
some of the stuff?
It's a very long book Heranswer was do you edit the Bible
?
So she was, ayn Rand was kindof a jerk really, but the truth
(05:51):
of the matter, is a very, very,very, very bright woman and she,
you know, like all people,complicated, and she was the
founder of the libertarianmovement, I think kind of
unintentionally or maybe not,but anyway.
So in Atlas Shrugged thegovernment did what the
government does in real life,which is basically give really
pretty names to lots of thingsthat don't work and then keep
justifying adding new onesbecause they put pretty sounding
names that are full of goodintentions.
(06:12):
So I've spoken, for example, onthe podcast about aid to family
with dependent children and Isay you know that's what we call
welfare and you know thatsounds great Aid to families
with dependent children.
But what it really is is theNuclear Family Destruction Act.
It's certainly one of theprimary causes which I've
(06:34):
discussed at length and I'm notgoing to rehash in this episode
of the complete destruction ofthe nuclear family, particularly
in the black community, where80% of children are born into
single parent families.
It makes it no coincidence thatblack people are 13% of the
population and commit over halfthe crime, and the reason for
that is not that there'sanything wrong with black people
, god knows.
It's that we have killed themwith kindness.
(06:56):
The road to hell is paved withgood intentions and so pretty
names like that.
Here's another one Project HeadStart.
Now, every presidency since Iwas, I think Head Start's been
around I guess since the 60s, Idon't know but a long, long time
.
I should have looked it up butI didn't.
But as long as I can remember,project Head Start has been
attacked by one Republicanpresident or congressperson
(07:19):
after another.
But it has such a night, butwe're giving our children this
and that another.
And, but it has such a nightbut we're giving our children
this and that, blah, blah.
Listen, there are lots of, again, well-designed, well-done
studies.
Whenever you hear, by the way,that there's a study says this
and a study says that there's alot of studies that are just
propaganda, you have to look athow the questions are asked and
(07:40):
what group of people they'reasking the questions to, and do
they have a control and do theyunderstand?
You know, are they?
Are they starting out withtheir idea and then mushing all
the numbers because figures lieand liars figure to prove what
they asserted, without everwaiting to see if what they
asserted was true?
Or is it a true study, which isto say, we think that you know,
this is here, here's our theory.
(08:02):
And then, like all goodscientists, whether social
scientists or hard scientists.
Their goal is to disprove theirown theory.
A good scientist tries todisprove his or her own theory
and a good social scientisttries to disprove his or her own
theory.
So, anyway, there's been a lotof good studies on Project Head
Start and the bottom line isit's never given anybody a head
start.
Children who went throughProject Head Start versus
(08:24):
children in the same demographicgroups who were not given
Project Head Start, which isbasically babysitting your
children and giving thembreakfast for free and then off
to school they go.
There's absolutely nodifference in performance.
So why do we spend billions andbillions and billions and
billions of dollars?
And why do we have all thosebureaucrats?
And why is it still around?
Because it has a pretty namebut it's produced nothing.
(08:45):
But that's much less damagingthan, for example, afdc, which
has not only produced nothing,it's produced worse than nothing
.
It's destroyed the progress ofthe black.
It's destroyed the blacknuclear family.
It's destroying the Latinonuclear family 56% last time I
looked at it and it's beenrising, so it might be close to
60 now.
Last time I looked and it'sbeen rising, so it might be
(09:05):
close to 60 now.
Of Latino children are borninto single-parent families and
then 36% into white families.
That might be up towards 40 bynow.
It's been a while since Ilooked and the number is
constantly going up all the time.
Because the children of brokenfamilies themselves have broken
families, because they have norole modeling that would teach
(09:25):
them anything else.
And society has suddenlydecided and this is the downside
also of good intentions ifsomething has a pretty name,
it's hard on the part of thecowards that represent us.
I think of them as sociopathcowards.
You know they're sociopaths andthey're shameless.
They being politicians in bothparties.
(09:46):
They'll lie about anything.
You know the term liar andpolitician for all of us and I
know this is true of youlistening is a synonymous term.
They Just have no shame.
You can't expect them anyway.
Antipolitism would change that.
Antipolitism would change that.
(10:06):
Pick up the book A RadicalReset and there's so many other
programs.
I mean the easiest question toask is, of all the pretty names
like, for example I'll give youone that's positively Orwellian
the Inflation Reduction Act.
That's much more recent,relatively Orwellian, the
Inflation Reduction Act that'smuch more recent Inflation.
(10:26):
For those of you who are notstudents of economics, I'm going
to give you the quick course ininflation.
Here you go.
Inflation is always, always andeverywhere the result of the
printing of money by thegovernment.
It's the result of governmentaction.
It's a monetary phenomenon.
Milton Friedman said inflationis always and everywhere a
monetary phenomenon, and he wasright.
And it is.
By the way, if you hear alittle background noise that
(10:47):
just came on, it's because myair conditioning is out, which
in Phoenix is a terrible thingand I have a temporary unit
waiting for them to bring thenew unit in the next couple of
days, because God only knowswhen it will show up.
So in the meantime, so I don'tsweat to death, I have a
portable and it's a little bitloud, but I dare not turn it off
or I will turn to a cinder inmy own apartment.
Anyway, I being a littledramatic.
(11:13):
So, since inflation is onlycaused by the printing of money,
all of these acts to stop whenthey say you know, for example,
right now, as I'm doing this,there have been some tariffs and
they're all talking about this.
This is going to causeinflation.
No, there's a difference betweena one time price rise and
inflation.
So let's use the tariffs as anexample.
If there's a 30 percent tariffon an item and now it's the
price rises 30 percent, which itwon't, because, by the way,
(11:35):
when there's a price rise andthis is why you can't call it
Well, anyway a lot of it iseaten.
People in a free market willonly pay what they want to pay.
So what happens is, is theproducer of the product and the
middle people the middlemen allwill eat some of that increase.
So it is often the case thatthere is no price increase,
(11:56):
despite a tariff, because theproducers eat it out of their
profit margin, because theircustomers will not pay that kind
of money for this product orservice, or no, it has to be a
product.
And anyway, the bottom line isthis it's a one-time thing.
Even if they rose the price 30%, it's a one-time thing.
One of the things that I favor,for example, is I think that we
should repeal the income tax.
(12:17):
Stop with the charade that wecan redistribute wealth from the
rich to the poor.
You know, there's anotherclassic example of a program or
an idea that is absolutelyfailed the graduated income tax.
The idea is that it would beprogressive and that it would
and they literally use the wordprogressive income tax, because
the tax rates are higher on therich and the poor don't pay any
(12:39):
tax.
The idea is, think of it thisway we go down to the deep end
of the pool, we scoop out abucket of water, then we walk
down to the shallow end of thepool and we dump the water back
into the pool.
But see, the problem is thepool always returns to the same
level.
That's the problem withredistribution of wealth.
Poor people aren't poor becausethey're being persecuted or
(13:01):
because they're black.
Poor people are poor becausethey make shitty decisions.
Now, they might make shittydecisions.
I'm talking in the UnitedStates, in places, like you know
, many countries in Africa,where there's absolutely no
possibility.
Then that's not.
That's not true.
But here in the United States,where we have nothing but
possibility in what is at leastmostly a free market economy, it
(13:25):
is the only reason that you'renot successful is because you
make crap decisions.
The only reason I'm where I amtoday is because I made some
crap decisions.
You know, when you make crapdecisions, you have to live with
the consequences of it, andwhen you make a lot of them, you
end up being poor.
But giving money to somebodywho not only makes terrible
decisions but pays no price forit because they keep getting
(13:45):
free things for people.
Feeling sorry for the result oftheir terrible decisions only
reinforces their terribledecisions.
It would be like trying topotty train a toddler, but every
time they pooped on the floor,laughing and making a game out
of it.
It's not the way that you dothat.
(14:07):
Intention means nothing, okay,other than I guess it's good
that you want to.
Well, you know what altruismitself really is a dangerous
concept.
The idea behind altruism isthat it's all more noble for us
to help everybody else butourselves, and that's simply not
true.
Your first and foremostresponsibility, particularly in
a free market system, should beto yourself and your family,
(14:28):
because when you act on theirbehalf, the byproduct of that is
good for everybody.
So if you, for example,maximize your income, reduce
your taxes as low as possible,have more money to spend on your
family than your family spendsit, it creates jobs and
opportunity in all the placesthat you spend that money,
because there's millions ofpeople just like you doing
exactly the same thing.
In a free market.
(14:48):
Intention means nothing becausethe system itself is set up to
accommodate no matter what aperson's intentions are.
A person could have completelyevil intentions and still create
a lot of good things simply bythe fact that they're spending
money.
And because the market isvoluntary, no one is forced to
spend monies, and that's theproblem with government ideas
(15:08):
and that's the problem withallowing government to put
pretty names on programsdesigned to do something and
then keeping them alive foreverwhen they don't.
I mean, the easiest questionfor me to ask a progressive and
I've asked them this a milliontimes can you name a single?
A million is an exaggeration.
I've asked them a lot of timescan you name a single government
(15:29):
program that actually does whatit was designed to do?
I mean, seriously, I guess youcould say Social Security, but
Social Security is when.
Social Security?
Here's a.
That's another good example.
Social Security was designedokay at the time in 19,.
In the 1930s, when FranklinRoosevelt the mid-1930s set up
Social Security, he set theretirement age at 65 because the
(15:53):
average life expectancy inthose days was 63, okay, so most
people would already have diedby the time they were old enough
to receive the benefits in thefirst place.
Then he told people it was atrust fund instead of what it
really is, which is just anothergovernment welfare program.
It's old age welfare disguisedas a pension program.
Because back in those daysalthough not today, but in those
(16:14):
days it was considered adisgrace to take government
money.
So he disguised it as a pensionso the people wouldn't feel
disgraceful over it.
And the other thing was thatold people were the poorest part
of the population.
The average old person had thelowest net worth, the lowest
income of the entire populationacross the board.
So he set all this up Well, andhe did it as a pay-as-you-go
(16:36):
system.
A little bit of it looked toworkers like they were
contributing to their pensionwas the great lie that Franklin
Roosevelt told them.
Franklin Roosevelt, by the way,is the second worst president
in American history afterWoodrow Wilson and a real liar,
but anyway.
So he told that lie.
People bought into it.
But there are also 139 workersfor every one retiree and the
whole thing, the whole charade.
(16:57):
It's a giant Ponzi schemeworked.
So you could say the SocialSecurity worked, and it worked
so well that it's become amassive transfer of money from
the future to the past, becausetoday old people are the richest
part of the economy.
People my age are thewealthiest demographically
overall, much wealthier thantheir children and their
(17:17):
grandchildren, and that'sperverted.
And so Social Security alsodidn't work the way it was
designed because it basicallyright now, today, if we don't do
something about Social Security, that's going to be what
destroys the country and that'swhere so much of our debt comes
from.
All this stuff that we argueabout cutting this, and cutting
that doesn't amount to a hill ofbeans next to Social Security
and Medicare, and those are.
(17:38):
And you know like today theaverage person lives to be 80.
Again, I'm rounding 78, 80,depending, you know.
But of course if you live to be65, these days you're going to
probably live to be 88.
That's where those statisticsare a funny thing.
You can say the average personlives to be 78.
But that includes everybodyfrom birth.
And the number one cause ofdeath prior to the age of 65 is
(18:00):
accidents, not disease.
But as you get older you haveless accidents, not more.
I know falling in the tubsounds terrible and that would
be a bad accident because thebrittleness of some old people's
bones not mine, I'm happy tosay.
But here's the thing, becauseold people know that can happen.
They're very careful, they puta look down a lot of non-skid, a
(18:20):
lot of handles.
That can happen.
They're very careful, they puta look down.
A lot of non-skid, a lot ofhandles.
You know you can always tellthe.
If you live in a snowy place,like, let's say, for a time I
lived in Northern Colorado, inLoveland you could always tell
old people's houses by the greennon-skid crap on the front
porch and down the steps andoften down the sidewalk, to
prevent them slipping on ice.
(18:40):
Old people are very consciousof the fact that they can go
down easy and so they have lessaccidents, and so if you make it
to 65, you're probably going tolive to be 88.
And the point of that wholediscussion is that we can't
afford that.
There's only two workers todayinto every one retiree, instead
of 139, I'm not making that up,that's a real statistic.
And the system isn't solvent.
(19:02):
And so it looks like it's insurplus, but in fact its money
has been stripped out to pay forother government programs that
don't work, all of which havepretty names, pretty pretty
names.
Names mean nothing.
Intention means nothing.
The road to hell is paved withgood intentions.
Every progressive idea has agood, pretty name attached to it
(19:24):
, but when you get into thenitty gritty, the fact is none
of them should be enacted.
We should not interfere withthe only teacher, my friends,
and the point of this entirepodcast is, instead of trying to
live other people's lives forthem, and instead of thinking
that your intentions, becausethey are good, are therefore
acceptable, is a concept thatyou should reject, you need to
(19:48):
think through.
In other words, the analogy Ioften use is you need to play
chess in life, not checkers.
So instead of worrying aboutthe move in the moment because
the polls say, this is the move,you should make if you're in
the public eye, what a personshould be doing who's in public
life is saying to themselves ifI do this, what's the likely
outcome of me doing this?
(20:09):
I mean and again back to AFDC,perfect example If I pay mothers
who have children out ofwedlock and if a requirement of
the program is they can't bemarried, because that's what the
whole program is, would thatnot be an incentive not to get
married but get pregnant anyway,and what would be the outcome
of that?
(20:30):
We've always known that singleparents are bad parents.
Again, I know that someone'shead just exploded as I said
that and you know who's a singlemother and she's going to say
I'm a great parent, blah, blah,blah.
Or I know I'm another singlemother, blah, blah, blah.
Listen, I'm not saying thatfamilies with single parents
can't have good children.
Especially when there's anotherman around to take the place of
the missing father, like agrandfather or an uncle, who
(20:51):
steps into that role andembraces it, then there's a good
chance you're going to have awell-adjusted child.
But in most cases, especiallyin the modern world, it's every
man for himself and woman, andso the children are raised like
wild beasts and end up beingexactly what wild beasts would
be.
No chores Mom cleans up afterthem when they're home Running
(21:13):
wild.
No father to tell them to sitthe goddamn their asses down
before they get a paddling whenthey're little or they're
punished.
Without that boundary, childrenneed boundaries.
Human beings need boundaries.
You know, as a libertarianmindset, there's a strain of
libertarianism.
That is anarchy, that areanarchists, and anarchy the word
(21:35):
simply means no government atall that we all can take care of
ourselves and through privatenegotiation with each other, we
can settle all of ourdifferences on an ongoing basis.
There's no need to give thepower of imprisonment and legal
killing of its own citizens toany entity to help us out.
That's what government is,after all.
The government has a monopolyon the use of force without
(21:56):
paying the price for it.
So, and in the end, that'swhere all government power
derives.
The problem is is that in thereal world, we would descend
into the Lord of the Flies, andif you've never read the book,
read it.
I'm not going to explain it,but it would be chaos.
And so the bottom line is we'regoing to have to have some form
of government.
So we need to separate the ideathat government needs to act
(22:22):
upon every good idea,well-intentioned, okay.
Well-intentioned means nothing.
The result of beingwell-intentioned is that we're
at the brink of societalcollapse.
Okay, you know.
For example, it would be easyfor a parent, when a child
starts complaining about doingtheir chores and their mother
starts to give in, because womenare more empathetic to their
(22:44):
children and more nurturing.
That's why they're mothers,that's what estrogen does, among
many other things.
They're more nurturing.
As a again, general rule, Notalways.
There are plenty of nurturingmen, plenty of exceptions, but
you can't govern by theexception.
That's idiotic.
You have to accommodate theexception and govern by the
majority need, and so the bottomline is the majority of the
(23:07):
time when you do that, you endup with a spoiled brat little
bastard.
Pardon my language.
I used a bad word and he is alittle bastard because he
doesn't have a father, by theway, and that word needs to be
re-stigmatized, by the way.
And that word needs to bere-stigmatized, by the way.
And there is a reason for thatstigma, by the way.
So, again, giving in becauseit's the nice thing to do, it's
the well.
I just wanted them to be happy,I just wanted them to feel safe
(23:27):
, I just wanted, you know, no,no, bull baloney, they need to
suffer a little, includingchildren.
There has to be hard boundarieswith punishments attached, and
that goes for adults as well.
If you try to shield somebodyfrom the result of their own
actions through good intentions,the only result will be more
bad actions.
You must allow a person and Ispeak from personal, firsthand
(23:49):
experience.
Having gone to prison and itbeing on a very personality
level, let's call it the bestthing that ever happened to me
and so far as I would not behere with a clear view without
having gone to prison.
Sometimes you got to.
Really, when you're especiallymessed up, as I was, you just
need to get slapped across theface and suffer the consequences
(24:10):
.
It's the only way anybody learnsanything that sticks, you can
tell somebody to do something,because so many of these
behaviors and this is how I'mgoing to sum it up are
compulsive.
Okay, compulsive means peopledo them even when they know they
shouldn't Fat.
People know that they're fatbecause they eat too much.
Okay, and don't give me that.
(24:30):
You have a.
You know you have a thyroidproblem or you have slow
metabolism or you're big boned.
Whatever your excuse is, that'sall baloney.
You know it, I know it.
Okay, the truth is those areall excuses for and there are
rare exceptions where it's not.
But come on, let's again.
Let's not worry about the lessthan 1% where that might be true
.
Let's worry about the 99.9%,where it's always true which is
(24:51):
fat?
People are fat because they eattoo much and exercise too
little and they know they shouldexercise more, and they
themselves that.
And they wake up every morningthinking this is the day and
every day their mind works insuch a way.
That's a compulsive behavior.
Compulsive behaviors can't betalked to.
The only way to change acompulsive behavior is to go all
the way to the bottom with itand suffer the consequences.
(25:11):
By sparing people, theconsequences of their own vile
decisions, we do not help them,we hurt them.
The road to hell is paved withgood intentions.
Good intentions do notguarantee good outcome.
Not only do they not guaranteeit, they guarantee a horrible
outcome.
Leave people to live their ownlives.
The appropriate role ofgovernment is to protect us from
(25:35):
foreign enemies and protect usfrom domestic enemies, in other
words, bad criminal actions.
Other than that there's nothingelse.
Oh, and conduct foreign policyOther than that they should be
doing nothing.
Okay, and leave it to thecommunities and the people in
them to make those decisions,because most of the time when
people at a more, the reason thesmaller government is better
than bigger government is thatthere's fewer places to hide.
(25:58):
When the governor is yourneighbor four doors down, you
know, and your state legislatureis your neighbor on the left
side, your next door neighbor,they're much less likely to do
sneaky, crappy things becausethey're going to answer to you
the minute they get home.
They're not off in some farawayplace doing things behind
closed doors in smoky rooms.
Smoky rooms probably doesn'thappen anymore.
(26:18):
It's a reference to mychildhood, but anyway, you all
know what I'm saying.
I think I've made my point fortoday.
Okay, don't forget to pick upyour copy of A Radical Reset.
It is on Amazon.
It's by me, herbie K.
It lays out anti-politism, ademocratic republic by
merit-based lottery.
How that's done and why itsolves all our problems, you
(26:39):
will discover in the book.
And it does solve everythingwhen it well.
Solve is the wrong word.
It's the most perfect form ofgovernment that anyone has
thought.
I know how arrogant that sounds.
Why I have thought of the most.
I'm sure that someone somewhereelse has already thought of
this too.
You know, I I am positive.
I've Googled and tried to findsomebody else and haven't found
(27:00):
them, but I'm sure it exists.
I don't think my thoughts areparticularly unique.
I think I more or lessdiscovered anti-politism as
opposed to thought of it.
I think it's always been there.
Read about it in a radical resetand I think you will agree.
And then you're going to say toyourself it'll never happen.
But remember this, my friendsthe radical becomes reasonable
(27:21):
when the shit hits the fan.
And the shit is going to hitthe fan.
It might be today, and it mightbe a month from now, and it
might be a year from now, butthe shit will hit the fan.
This edifice, built on a bigpile of paper money with nothing
behind it is going to collapse.
Like every other time, thisexact same thing has been tried
in different scales in differentcountries since the dawn of
time.
Other places have tried thisprinted money, fiat let's
(27:44):
pretend it's worth something.
Set up a system.
We're all so sophisticated, wecan do it, and then we can spend
money we don't have.
It's been tried.
It's failed every single time.
It's going to fail this timetoo, and when it does, the
radical become reasonable andwe'll need an alternative,
because that's when thedemagogues come out and that's
when you get Hitler's.
And if we aren't ready withsomething else that works better
, we're going to end up withsomething that works much, much
(28:07):
worse.
And that's it for today.
That was a horrible.
Have a beautiful weekend.
Let me end it on a happy note.
I'm about to pack up my car, mylittle SUV, and head for the
mountains.
I hope you're doing.
Good morning everyone .
It's me, your friend, uncleHerbie, your host at the
Spiritual Agnostic, the showthat concedes that religion is
the core and the bedrock ofsociety.
But as God is being killed byscience, we're going to have to
talk about what can replace it,and that is philosophy, in my
(00:23):
view.
I'm a Stoic, I'm an objectivist.
I don't know if the purephilosophers, the guys that have
PhDs, would say that you couldbe more than one thing.
I would think so.
So anyway, but I am a Stoic andan objectivist and, in a very
major way, at my core, a Taoist,because I do believe that if I
(00:46):
can teach all of you just onething, it would be that 999
times out of 1,000, the bestthing to do about anything is
nothing.
And I say that that is, I'mrestating the core foundation of
Taoism, which is it's better todo nothing than to be busy
doing nothing.
And boy doesn't our modernworld say that.
(01:07):
And it also speaks to thesubject of today's podcast,
which is going to be briefbecause I am packing to go on a
weekend camping trip with my dog, who I don't ever refer to as a
dog in her presence.
I call her my puppy Pepper, whois an Airedale Terrier, and the
two of us.
She's six years old, along with.
Call her my puppy, pepper, whois an Airedale Terrier, and the
two of us.
She's six years old, along withshows you my priorities.
(01:28):
I talked about my puppy beforemy daughter and grandson, which,
by the way, is no reflectionbut my daughter, my grandson, my
grandson's friend and myselfand my puppy are all driving up
to a place called ChristopherCreek, which is a campground
outside of Payson Arizona, alonga creek called, in fact,
christopher Creek, which is avery good trout fishing stream,
(01:50):
and we're going to camp and fishfor trout and enjoy a couple of
days of cool pines, and it'sonly two hours from Phoenix.
A lot of people those of you who, by the way, aren't familiar
with Phoenix, just as an FYIit's going to be 100 degrees
today or close to it in Phoenix.
We're getting into thesummertime and it's going to be
(02:10):
consistently between 100 and 110all summer long.
And that sounds terrible, Iknow, and when you live here for
a long time, it really you getused to it, in the sense that
you get all your stuff done inthe morning and then, because
there's almost no humidity atall, it's not that bad.
You just have to be carefulthat you drink a lot of water
because you're always sweatinglike a pig, but you don't know
it because your clothes are bonedry because everything
(02:33):
instantly evaporates.
I live in a one-bedroomapartment.
I can wash my hands in thebathroom, not dry them.
Walk to my living room, whichis a short walk, and they'll be
dry by the time I get there.
That's what it's like to livein humanity when.
I was born and raised on theEast Coast, in Miami and
Pittsburgh, but what I'm aboutto say is primarily Miami.
(02:55):
Those of you who ever fly downto Miami from anywhere else, you
know what I'm about to say istrue.
The minute you step off theplane, the first thing you smell
is mildew and it kind ofpermeates.
Then you know, you get used toit and it goes away in your mind
, but it's always there.
And, for example, after ashower in Miami, you have to, at
the very least, depending onwhat level of crazy clean you
(03:17):
are either put your towel backin the dryer and hang it up or
wash and dry it.
But you're going to have to putit through a dryer one way or
the other.
Where here in Arizona, when Ihang my wet towel and I freely
admit, I do not wash it afterevery shower.
I wash it after every othershower.
So when I hang my towel after ashower, it's dry in about 15 to
(03:37):
20 minutes.
So, anyway, why I got onto that,I don't know.
So today we're going to talkabout why good intentions have
no bearing on good results.
And the reason I bring that upis and I'm not changing the
subject when I share this butone of the most important books
that I read as a young person,and I first read it when I was,
(04:00):
I want to say, 17, maybe 16years old.
I went to college when I was 16.
So I'm going to say, yeah, 16.
I think it was my very.
I think I read it in the summer,when I was 16 and going to
summer school at the Universityof Arizona and I was living in
(04:20):
the Kaibab Huachuca dormitoryand somehow I got my hands on a
paperback copy of Atlas Shrugged.
And the reason I bring this upis it's written by Ayn Rand, and
I'm not going to go into alibertarian screed today because
I'm an antipolitist, which isthe system of merit-based
lottery, democracy and republicthat I've invented.
You can read about it, by theway, in A Radical Reset.
(04:42):
A Radical Reset available onAmazon on Kindle, paperback or
hardcover, depending on how youlike to read.
Anyway, I read Atlas Shrugged.
I was a natural libertarian whofound myself throughout Atlas
Shrugged.
As opposed to, I was kind of aleft-wing progressive who found
(05:03):
who saw the light after I readit.
No, actually, atlas Shruggedsimply put into a narrative,
novel form a lot of the thingsthat I was thinking and was a
very predictive book.
A lot of the things that AtlasShrugged said were going to
happen, as written.
By the way, atlas Shrugged forthose of you who've never read
it is a novel.
It's not, you know, it's not atextbook, but the novel has a
(05:25):
lot of lessons in it.
It's kind of like reading abiblical story, which Ayn Rand
herself would appreciate thatcomparison, because when one of
her editors said, when she hadturned the manuscript in for
publication, that they needed toyou know, could she edit down
some of the stuff?
It's a very long book Heranswer was do you edit the Bible
?
So she was, ayn Rand was kindof a jerk really, but the truth
(05:51):
of the matter, is a very, very,very, very bright woman and she,
you know, like all people,complicated, and she was the
founder of the libertarianmovement, I think kind of
unintentionally or maybe not,but anyway.
So in Atlas Shrugged thegovernment did what the
government does in real life,which is basically give really
pretty names to lots of thingsthat don't work and then keep
justifying adding new onesbecause they put pretty sounding
names that are full of goodintentions.
(06:12):
So I've spoken, for example, onthe podcast about aid to family
with dependent children and Isay you know that's what we call
welfare and you know thatsounds great Aid to families
with dependent children.
But what it really is is theNuclear Family Destruction Act.
It's certainly one of theprimary causes which I've
(06:34):
discussed at length and I'm notgoing to rehash in this episode
of the complete destruction ofthe nuclear family, particularly
in the black community, where80% of children are born into
single parent families.
It makes it no coincidence thatblack people are 13% of the
population and commit over halfthe crime, and the reason for
that is not that there'sanything wrong with black people
, god knows.
It's that we have killed themwith kindness.
(06:56):
The road to hell is paved withgood intentions and so pretty
names like that.
Here's another one Project HeadStart.
Now, every presidency since Iwas, I think Head Start's been
around I guess since the 60s, Idon't know but a long, long time
.
I should have looked it up butI didn't.
But as long as I can remember,project Head Start has been
attacked by one Republicanpresident or congressperson
(07:19):
after another.
But it has such a night, butwe're giving our children this
and that another.
And, but it has such a nightbut we're giving our children
this and that, blah, blah.
Listen, there are lots of, again, well-designed, well-done
studies.
Whenever you hear, by the way,that there's a study says this
and a study says that there's alot of studies that are just
propaganda, you have to look athow the questions are asked and
(07:40):
what group of people they'reasking the questions to, and do
they have a control and do theyunderstand?
You know, are they?
Are they starting out withtheir idea and then mushing all
the numbers because figures lieand liars figure to prove what
they asserted, without everwaiting to see if what they
asserted was true?
Or is it a true study, which isto say, we think that you know,
this is here, here's our theory.
(08:02):
And then, like all goodscientists, whether social
scientists or hard scientists.
Their goal is to disprove theirown theory.
A good scientist tries todisprove his or her own theory
and a good social scientisttries to disprove his or her own
theory.
So, anyway, there's been a lotof good studies on Project Head
Start and the bottom line isit's never given anybody a head
start.
Children who went throughProject Head Start versus
(08:24):
children in the same demographicgroups who were not given
Project Head Start, which isbasically babysitting your
children and giving thembreakfast for free and then off
to school they go.
There's absolutely nodifference in performance.
So why do we spend billions andbillions and billions and
billions of dollars?
And why do we have all thosebureaucrats?
And why is it still around?
Because it has a pretty namebut it's produced nothing.
(08:45):
But that's much less damagingthan, for example, afdc, which
has not only produced nothing,it's produced worse than nothing
.
It's destroyed the progress ofthe black.
It's destroyed the blacknuclear family.
It's destroying the Latinonuclear family 56% last time I
looked at it and it's beenrising, so it might be close to
60 now.
Last time I looked and it'sbeen rising, so it might be
(09:05):
close to 60 now.
Of Latino children are borninto single-parent families and
then 36% into white families.
That might be up towards 40 bynow.
It's been a while since Ilooked and the number is
constantly going up all the time.
Because the children of brokenfamilies themselves have broken
families, because they have norole modeling that would teach
(09:25):
them anything else.
And society has suddenlydecided and this is the downside
also of good intentions ifsomething has a pretty name,
it's hard on the part of thecowards that represent us.
I think of them as sociopathcowards.
You know they're sociopaths andthey're shameless.
They being politicians in bothparties.
(09:46):
They'll lie about anything.
You know the term liar andpolitician for all of us and I
know this is true of youlistening is a synonymous term.
They Just have no shame.
You can't expect them anyway.
Antipolitism would change that.
Antipolitism would change that.
(10:06):
Pick up the book A RadicalReset and there's so many other
programs.
I mean the easiest question toask is, of all the pretty names
like, for example I'll give youone that's positively Orwellian
the Inflation Reduction Act.
That's much more recent,relatively Orwellian, the
Inflation Reduction Act that'smuch more recent Inflation.
(10:26):
For those of you who are notstudents of economics, I'm going
to give you the quick course ininflation.
Here you go.
Inflation is always, always andeverywhere the result of the
printing of money by thegovernment.
It's the result of governmentaction.
It's a monetary phenomenon.
Milton Friedman said inflationis always and everywhere a
monetary phenomenon, and he wasright.
And it is.
By the way, if you hear alittle background noise that
(10:47):
just came on, it's because myair conditioning is out, which
in Phoenix is a terrible thingand I have a temporary unit
waiting for them to bring thenew unit in the next couple of
days, because God only knowswhen it will show up.
So in the meantime, so I don'tsweat to death, I have a
portable and it's a little bitloud, but I dare not turn it off
or I will turn to a cinder inmy own apartment.
Anyway, I being a littledramatic.
(11:13):
So, since inflation is onlycaused by the printing of money,
all of these acts to stop whenthey say you know, for example,
right now, as I'm doing this,there have been some tariffs and
they're all talking about this.
This is going to causeinflation.
No, there's a difference betweena one time price rise and
inflation.
So let's use the tariffs as anexample.
If there's a 30 percent tariffon an item and now it's the
price rises 30 percent, which itwon't, because, by the way,
(11:35):
when there's a price rise andthis is why you can't call it
Well, anyway a lot of it iseaten.
People in a free market willonly pay what they want to pay.
So what happens is, is theproducer of the product and the
middle people the middlemen allwill eat some of that increase.
So it is often the case thatthere is no price increase,
(11:56):
despite a tariff, because theproducers eat it out of their
profit margin, because theircustomers will not pay that kind
of money for this product orservice, or no, it has to be a
product.
And anyway, the bottom line isthis it's a one-time thing.
Even if they rose the price 30%, it's a one-time thing.
One of the things that I favor,for example, is I think that we
should repeal the income tax.
(12:17):
Stop with the charade that wecan redistribute wealth from the
rich to the poor.
You know, there's anotherclassic example of a program or
an idea that is absolutelyfailed the graduated income tax.
The idea is that it would beprogressive and that it would
and they literally use the wordprogressive income tax, because
the tax rates are higher on therich and the poor don't pay any
(12:39):
tax.
The idea is, think of it thisway we go down to the deep end
of the pool, we scoop out abucket of water, then we walk
down to the shallow end of thepool and we dump the water back
into the pool.
But see, the problem is thepool always returns to the same
level.
That's the problem withredistribution of wealth.
Poor people aren't poor becausethey're being persecuted or
(13:01):
because they're black.
Poor people are poor becausethey make shitty decisions.
Now, they might make shittydecisions.
I'm talking in the UnitedStates, in places, like you know
, many countries in Africa,where there's absolutely no
possibility.
Then that's not.
That's not true.
But here in the United States,where we have nothing but
possibility in what is at leastmostly a free market economy, it
(13:25):
is the only reason that you'renot successful is because you
make crap decisions.
The only reason I'm where I amtoday is because I made some
crap decisions.
You know, when you make crapdecisions, you have to live with
the consequences of it, andwhen you make a lot of them, you
end up being poor.
But giving money to somebodywho not only makes terrible
decisions but pays no price forit because they keep getting
(13:45):
free things for people.
Feeling sorry for the result oftheir terrible decisions only
reinforces their terribledecisions.
It would be like trying topotty train a toddler, but every
time they pooped on the floor,laughing and making a game out
of it.
It's not the way that you dothat.
(14:07):
Intention means nothing, okay,other than I guess it's good
that you want to.
Well, you know what altruismitself really is a dangerous
concept.
The idea behind altruism isthat it's all more noble for us
to help everybody else butourselves, and that's simply not
true.
Your first and foremostresponsibility, particularly in
a free market system, should beto yourself and your family,
(14:28):
because when you act on theirbehalf, the byproduct of that is
good for everybody.
So if you, for example,maximize your income, reduce
your taxes as low as possible,have more money to spend on your
family than your family spendsit, it creates jobs and
opportunity in all the placesthat you spend that money,
because there's millions ofpeople just like you doing
exactly the same thing.
In a free market.
(14:48):
Intention means nothing becausethe system itself is set up to
accommodate no matter what aperson's intentions are.
A person could have completelyevil intentions and still create
a lot of good things simply bythe fact that they're spending
money.
And because the market isvoluntary, no one is forced to
spend monies, and that's theproblem with government ideas
(15:08):
and that's the problem withallowing government to put
pretty names on programsdesigned to do something and
then keeping them alive foreverwhen they don't.
I mean, the easiest questionfor me to ask a progressive and
I've asked them this a milliontimes can you name a single?
A million is an exaggeration.
I've asked them a lot of timescan you name a single government
(15:29):
program that actually does whatit was designed to do?
I mean, seriously, I guess youcould say Social Security, but
Social Security is when.
Social Security?
Here's a.
That's another good example.
Social Security was designedokay at the time in 19,.
In the 1930s, when FranklinRoosevelt the mid-1930s set up
Social Security, he set theretirement age at 65 because the
(15:53):
average life expectancy inthose days was 63, okay, so most
people would already have diedby the time they were old enough
to receive the benefits in thefirst place.
Then he told people it was atrust fund instead of what it
really is, which is just anothergovernment welfare program.
It's old age welfare disguisedas a pension program.
Because back in those daysalthough not today, but in those
(16:14):
days it was considered adisgrace to take government
money.
So he disguised it as a pensionso the people wouldn't feel
disgraceful over it.
And the other thing was thatold people were the poorest part
of the population.
The average old person had thelowest net worth, the lowest
income of the entire populationacross the board.
So he set all this up Well, andhe did it as a pay-as-you-go
(16:36):
system.
A little bit of it looked toworkers like they were
contributing to their pensionwas the great lie that Franklin
Roosevelt told them.
Franklin Roosevelt, by the way,is the second worst president
in American history afterWoodrow Wilson and a real liar,
but anyway.
So he told that lie.
People bought into it.
But there are also 139 workersfor every one retiree and the
whole thing, the whole charade.
(16:57):
It's a giant Ponzi schemeworked.
So you could say the SocialSecurity worked, and it worked
so well that it's become amassive transfer of money from
the future to the past, becausetoday old people are the richest
part of the economy.
People my age are thewealthiest demographically
overall, much wealthier thantheir children and their
(17:17):
grandchildren, and that'sperverted.
And so Social Security alsodidn't work the way it was
designed because it basicallyright now, today, if we don't do
something about Social Security, that's going to be what
destroys the country and that'swhere so much of our debt comes
from.
All this stuff that we argueabout cutting this, and cutting
that doesn't amount to a hill ofbeans next to Social Security
and Medicare, and those are.
(17:38):
And you know like today theaverage person lives to be 80.
Again, I'm rounding 78, 80,depending, you know.
But of course if you live to be65, these days you're going to
probably live to be 88.
That's where those statisticsare a funny thing.
You can say the average personlives to be 78.
But that includes everybodyfrom birth.
And the number one cause ofdeath prior to the age of 65 is
(18:00):
accidents, not disease.
But as you get older you haveless accidents, not more.
I know falling in the tubsounds terrible and that would
be a bad accident because thebrittleness of some old people's
bones not mine, I'm happy tosay.
But here's the thing, becauseold people know that can happen.
They're very careful, they puta look down a lot of non-skid, a
(18:20):
lot of handles.
That can happen.
They're very careful, they puta look down.
A lot of non-skid, a lot ofhandles.
You know you can always tellthe.
If you live in a snowy place,like, let's say, for a time I
lived in Northern Colorado, inLoveland you could always tell
old people's houses by the greennon-skid crap on the front
porch and down the steps andoften down the sidewalk, to
prevent them slipping on ice.
(18:40):
Old people are very consciousof the fact that they can go
down easy and so they have lessaccidents, and so if you make it
to 65, you're probably going tolive to be 88.
And the point of that wholediscussion is that we can't
afford that.
There's only two workers todayinto every one retiree, instead
of 139, I'm not making that up,that's a real statistic.
And the system isn't solvent.
(19:02):
And so it looks like it's insurplus, but in fact its money
has been stripped out to pay forother government programs that
don't work, all of which havepretty names, pretty pretty
names.
Names mean nothing.
Intention means nothing.
The road to hell is paved withgood intentions.
Every progressive idea has agood, pretty name attached to it
(19:24):
, but when you get into thenitty gritty, the fact is none
of them should be enacted.
We should not interfere withthe only teacher, my friends,
and the point of this entirepodcast is, instead of trying to
live other people's lives forthem, and instead of thinking
that your intentions, becausethey are good, are therefore
acceptable, is a concept thatyou should reject, you need to
(19:48):
think through.
In other words, the analogy Ioften use is you need to play
chess in life, not checkers.
So instead of worrying aboutthe move in the moment because
the polls say, this is the move,you should make if you're in
the public eye, what a personshould be doing who's in public
life is saying to themselves ifI do this, what's the likely
outcome of me doing this?
(20:09):
I mean and again back to AFDC,perfect example If I pay mothers
who have children out ofwedlock and if a requirement of
the program is they can't bemarried, because that's what the
whole program is, would thatnot be an incentive not to get
married but get pregnant anyway,and what would be the outcome
of that?
(20:30):
We've always known that singleparents are bad parents.
Again, I know that someone'shead just exploded as I said
that and you know who's a singlemother and she's going to say
I'm a great parent, blah, blah,blah.
Or I know I'm another singlemother, blah, blah, blah.
Listen, I'm not saying thatfamilies with single parents
can't have good children.
Especially when there's anotherman around to take the place of
the missing father, like agrandfather or an uncle, who
(20:51):
steps into that role andembraces it, then there's a good
chance you're going to have awell-adjusted child.
But in most cases, especiallyin the modern world, it's every
man for himself and woman, andso the children are raised like
wild beasts and end up beingexactly what wild beasts would
be.
No chores Mom cleans up afterthem when they're home Running
(21:13):
wild.
No father to tell them to sitthe goddamn their asses down
before they get a paddling whenthey're little or they're
punished.
Without that boundary, childrenneed boundaries.
Human beings need boundaries.
You know, as a libertarianmindset, there's a strain of
libertarianism.
That is anarchy, that areanarchists, and anarchy the word
(21:35):
simply means no government atall that we all can take care of
ourselves and through privatenegotiation with each other, we
can settle all of ourdifferences on an ongoing basis.
There's no need to give thepower of imprisonment and legal
killing of its own citizens toany entity to help us out.
That's what government is,after all.
The government has a monopolyon the use of force without
(21:56):
paying the price for it.
So, and in the end, that'swhere all government power
derives.
The problem is is that in thereal world, we would descend
into the Lord of the Flies, andif you've never read the book,
read it.
I'm not going to explain it,but it would be chaos.
And so the bottom line is we'regoing to have to have some form
of government.
So we need to separate the ideathat government needs to act
(22:22):
upon every good idea,well-intentioned, okay.
Well-intentioned means nothing.
The result of beingwell-intentioned is that we're
at the brink of societalcollapse.
Okay, you know.
For example, it would be easyfor a parent, when a child
starts complaining about doingtheir chores and their mother
starts to give in, because womenare more empathetic to their
(22:44):
children and more nurturing.
That's why they're mothers,that's what estrogen does, among
many other things.
They're more nurturing.
As a again, general rule, Notalways.
There are plenty of nurturingmen, plenty of exceptions, but
you can't govern by theexception.
That's idiotic.
You have to accommodate theexception and govern by the
majority need, and so the bottomline is the majority of the
(23:07):
time when you do that, you endup with a spoiled brat little
bastard.
Pardon my language.
I used a bad word and he is alittle bastard because he
doesn't have a father, by theway, and that word needs to be
re-stigmatized, by the way.
And that word needs to bere-stigmatized, by the way.
And there is a reason for thatstigma, by the way.
So, again, giving in becauseit's the nice thing to do, it's
the well.
I just wanted them to be happy,I just wanted them to feel safe
(23:27):
, I just wanted, you know, no,no, bull baloney, they need to
suffer a little, includingchildren.
There has to be hard boundarieswith punishments attached, and
that goes for adults as well.
If you try to shield somebodyfrom the result of their own
actions through good intentions,the only result will be more
bad actions.
You must allow a person and Ispeak from personal, firsthand
(23:49):
experience.
Having gone to prison and itbeing on a very personality
level, let's call it the bestthing that ever happened to me
and so far as I would not behere with a clear view without
having gone to prison.
Sometimes you got to.
Really, when you're especiallymessed up, as I was, you just
need to get slapped across theface and suffer the consequences
(24:10):
.
It's the only way anybody learnsanything that sticks, you can
tell somebody to do something,because so many of these
behaviors and this is how I'mgoing to sum it up are
compulsive.
Okay, compulsive means peopledo them even when they know they
shouldn't Fat.
People know that they're fatbecause they eat too much.
Okay, and don't give me that.
(24:30):
You have a.
You know you have a thyroidproblem or you have slow
metabolism or you're big boned.
Whatever your excuse is, that'sall baloney.
You know it, I know it.
Okay, the truth is those areall excuses for and there are
rare exceptions where it's not.
But come on, let's again.
Let's not worry about the lessthan 1% where that might be true
.
Let's worry about the 99.9%,where it's always true which is
(24:51):
fat?
People are fat because they eattoo much and exercise too
little and they know they shouldexercise more, and they
themselves that.
And they wake up every morningthinking this is the day and
every day their mind works insuch a way.
That's a compulsive behavior.
Compulsive behaviors can't betalked to.
The only way to change acompulsive behavior is to go all
the way to the bottom with itand suffer the consequences.
(25:11):
By sparing people, theconsequences of their own vile
decisions, we do not help them,we hurt them.
The road to hell is paved withgood intentions.
Good intentions do notguarantee good outcome.
Not only do they not guaranteeit, they guarantee a horrible
outcome.
Leave people to live their ownlives.
The appropriate role ofgovernment is to protect us from
(25:35):
foreign enemies and protect usfrom domestic enemies, in other
words, bad criminal actions.
Other than that there's nothingelse.
Oh, and conduct foreign policyOther than that they should be
doing nothing.
Okay, and leave it to thecommunities and the people in
them to make those decisions,because most of the time when
people at a more, the reason thesmaller government is better
than bigger government is thatthere's fewer places to hide.
(25:58):
When the governor is yourneighbor four doors down, you
know, and your state legislatureis your neighbor on the left
side, your next door neighbor,they're much less likely to do
sneaky, crappy things becausethey're going to answer to you
the minute they get home.
They're not off in some farawayplace doing things behind
closed doors in smoky rooms.
Smoky rooms probably doesn'thappen anymore.
(26:18):
It's a reference to mychildhood, but anyway, you all
know what I'm saying.
I think I've made my point fortoday.
Okay, don't forget to pick upyour copy of A Radical Reset.
It is on Amazon.
It's by me, herbie K.
It lays out anti-politism, ademocratic republic by
merit-based lottery.
How that's done and why itsolves all our problems, you
(26:39):
will discover in the book.
And it does solve everythingwhen it well.
Solve is the wrong word.
It's the most perfect form ofgovernment that anyone has
thought.
I know how arrogant that sounds.
Why I have thought of the most.
I'm sure that someone somewhereelse has already thought of
this too.
You know, I I am positive.
I've Googled and tried to findsomebody else and haven't found
(27:00):
them, but I'm sure it exists.
I don't think my thoughts areparticularly unique.
I think I more or lessdiscovered anti-politism as
opposed to thought of it.
I think it's always been there.
Read about it in a radical resetand I think you will agree.
And then you're going to say toyourself it'll never happen.
But remember this, my friendsthe radical becomes reasonable
(27:21):
when the shit hits the fan.
And the shit is going to hitthe fan.
It might be today, and it mightbe a month from now, and it
might be a year from now, butthe shit will hit the fan.
This edifice, built on a bigpile of paper money with nothing
behind it is going to collapse.
Like every other time, thisexact same thing has been tried
in different scales in differentcountries since the dawn of
time.
Other places have tried thisprinted money, fiat let's
(27:44):
pretend it's worth something.
Set up a system.
We're all so sophisticated, wecan do it, and then we can spend
money we don't have.
It's been tried.
It's failed every single time.
It's going to fail this timetoo, and when it does, the
radical become reasonable andwe'll need an alternative,
because that's when thedemagogues come out and that's
when you get Hitler's.
And if we aren't ready withsomething else that works better
, we're going to end up withsomething that works much, much
(28:07):
worse.
And that's it for today.
That was a horrible.
Have a beautiful weekend.
Let me end it on a happy note.
I'm about to pack up my car, mylittle SUV, and head for the
mountains.
I hope you're doing.
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