 only on the blaze radio network All right my final hour filling in for Michael Pelka, let's make it good great We've been we've been doing a lot of good news today and a lot of a lot of the good stuff happening in the world And I think and I think we're we're wrapping up that discussion by discussing What leads to good stuff? What is the source of? Progress, what is the source of? happiness what is the source of success in one's personal life and in a economy in a culture in a world Where is the good stuff that we have around us? come from and Where does the bad stuff come from and? I have argued That the good the good comes when we exercise our minds when we use our reason when we think Before we act when we embrace reason and thinking as Our tools as a means of cognition and our guides to action and You know that doesn't mean ignoring your emotions emotions are great Emotions how we live our life or how we experience our life You want to have your emotions ultimately aligned with your thinking and sometimes takes time all it means is you don't act on those emotions Until you've thought it through you know unless you're in an emergency put aside emergencies it means That whim emotion are not tools of cognition They're not how we know about the world They might be how we know about our internal state and they're important to tell us about our internal state But if we really want Human beings to be successful what we need to teach them what we need to emphasize to them is That they need to think that they need to use their reason and how to think we need to give them the tools on how to do it It's not self-evident How to define one's terms what a how to think conceptually is not easy It's it's it's why we need a robust educational system Why education is the most important industry in the world so important and i'll say something controversial and leave it there So important that i don't think the government should be involved in it at all Too important to leave up to government bureaucrats. I want the marketplace I want the innovation that the competition of a marketplace to be in education Not just in making iPhones and making apps, but in actually the most important area Teaching people how to use their minds ultimately how to think Not self-evident Progress is not self-evident. You know take some simple examples uh, if you're going to uh If if you're 10 20 30 000 years ago You're still a hunter-gatherer think about think about even hunting the amount of thinking that had to go into it To design weapons design traps design strategies You can't run off chase down a bison jump on it bite into it and then eat it You can't do that. We're not equipped as human beings to do that We have to Trap it. We have to kill it with weapons And then we have to skin it. We have to open it up now with our teeth But with the tool and then we we use The fur as clothing, but I do does anybody out there know how to Turn animal fur into clothing. I don't no idea Somebody had to figure that out some genius of their time thinking Is what makes all progress possible but but You know in our personal lives think about human relationships How many times have you messed up with other people because You jumped in the bed with them or jumped into a relationship with them Without really thinking about it without really evaluating the character without really judging them Thinking needs to be applied to everything one does How many times have you messed up a friendship? Because you acted on emotion without really thinking it through without taking into account all The different possibilities How many times have you screwed up your career because you didn't think it through because you didn't plan because you didn't have a strategy You don't have to be Super smart to have a strategy about your career. You just have to take your life seriously to have a strategy about your career But when we don't do that we mess up Or even about your own health Requires thinking you know the two way too many obese people in the united states and most of that is a lack of thinking Thinking using your mind using your mind to to to to initiate the will To control how much you eat or to exercise more And to think about what's healthy and what's not healthy That means having a strategy about your life having a strategy about eating But that has to be initiated your feelings are not going to tell you your feelings are not going to tell you so When you're fully integrated when you've got to really down and you've thought about all these things and you completely understand them Then your emotions become integrated with your thoughts and your emotions then Are much more aligned with reality Even then you have to be careful Because it's hard on the spot to evaluate emotions Whereas you can look you can see you can think You can get evidence you can get facts and evaluate so always Think I mean one of the great tragedies in america today Is the fact that There is a vast number of people Who are significantly unhappy? That are depressed Suicidal suicide rates are very high right now that are drinking deaths because of Uh drinking and and destroying one's liver, I guess and destroying one health a way up Opioid addiction, which is a lot of it is psychological I mean some of it has to do with with The way healthcare is practiced. I'm going to leave that aside non-expert on that but but a lot of it has to do with with people wanting an escape Wanting an escape but drugs are an escape drug use generally To the extent that drug use is popular the fact that so many people excited About the legalization of marijuana because they get to use it Suggest to me there are a lot of people out there who are You know at the very least neurotic depressed whatever and they need an escape because that's what marijuana is for the most part It's an escape So I'm I'm all for legalizing marijuana just so we can I'm also for legalizing harder drugs because I think that's the way you solve These problems is by legalizing them and bringing them out from under From from the black market, but I'm not celebrating because I get to use them because I don't use them because I don't want to escape reality reality is really cool Reality is really good life is really cool and really good. I don't want to dull my brain My brain is the source of the goodness in my life I want to sharpen my brain Now if you had a drug for that we could talk but I don't know if you're familiar with the statistic, but there's this statistic out there that says that right now a white man Lower middle class between the ages. I think it's between ages of 35 and 55 or something like that Have a declining life expectancy for the first time in american history a group of americans Is actually dying younger Than they did a generation ago And a lot of that is attributed to suicide uh heavy drinking and drug use I would say it's a symptom of a society That doesn't respect reason that doesn't respect education That doesn't respect productiveness going out and working for a living And having a career and planning out a career and I know a lot of these people lost their jobs go find another one Change careers in spite of all the regulations and all the controls and the slow economic growth There's still plenty of opportunities out there in the world I think that this You know tragedy of depression in this country is a consequence of our educational system of the dulling of the american mind Of the of the of the destroying of the minds of students Of not teaching them how to think but more importantly than that not teaching them the value of thinking not teaching them the value of reason That's the ultimate cause of the opium epidemic opiod Epidemic the ultimate cause of of binge drinking in college The ultimate cause of the increase in suicide rates among teenagers and among older adults Is they haven't been taught what it means to live what it means to live as a human being They haven't been taught the value and the importance of using their mind And they haven't been taught how to do it They've spent their time in circles Emoting to one another All right I'm gonna take a break now Take a breath calm down And come back and talk more about the importance of reason and rationality It's a negative consequence when we don't do it. But also what kind of political economic environment Do we need in order to allow it to flourish? You're listening to your unbroke on pure apelka And we'll be right back after this point. There's a lot of people suffering. There's a lot of people depressed There's a lot of people who are who are not happy A lot of people who are underemployed a lot of people who don't have work I mean You know donald trump got elected. He didn't get elected because people were feeling good about their lives He got elected because feeling people were feeling terrible about their lives but I don't think I think we need to stop looking To our government to solve these kind of problems These problems are caused by Our educational system They are caused By a sudden mentality that people have accepted a sudden Entitlement mentality sitting around waiting For stuff to happen to them sitting around waiting for jobs to show up sitting around waiting Demanding that the job be around the corner I've said this on shows many times, but you know if you're in southern ohio And you don't have a job get in your car and drive to northeast arkansas or to texas Where there are plenty of jobs right now In dynamic economies With a lot of upside With a high quality of life What do you need to stay in south ohio for so Our ancestors didn't stick around europe to be slaughtered You know if they if they were jews or whatever they didn't stick around europe to die of starvation if they were i wish during the famine they got in boats and left and in those days when you left You couldn't go back you'd never see your relatives again, and it took months and he didn't know where you were going now It's easy get in the car go find a job now It's not that simple Because we haven't been thought to think think that way We haven't been taught To fail You know our teachers protect us from failure shield us from failure They shield us from thinking They shield us from really engaging with the world They don't tell us what actually leads to success in life You know we're center on in high school now all these kids have to do community service Community service is not what changes the world community service doesn't make you a better person Community service doesn't help the poor long term community service doesn't help you As a human being be a better person You want to be a better person go work for a living Have have teenagers work in the summer have them do paper routes Have them actually learn where money comes from where wealth comes from And fail them in class once in a while They need to learn how to fail But they need to learn that the tool for success is not other people. It's not government. It's not their parents It's their own Mind and whatever level They can use their mind or whatever Ability they have we're not all born the same with the same Level of intelligence, but whatever your intelligence level is You can still use it. We all have the capacity to reason we all have the capacity to think we all have the capacity to have a career Even if it's something simple We can do a good job. We can do a bad job But if you teach them how to feel pride in their work If you teach them how to think through They work and and and think about their work and and figure out how to do it better And and and succeed and and and set values and and strife to those values and set goals and achieve goals And achieve greater and greater goals. That that's how you achieve success and happiness and fulfillment It's the opposite of the of depression and alienation and You know and and and suicide and drinking and drugs that are so prevalent in the culture we have today Right need to get over it You are the only person responsible for your life if you're over 18 Nobody else is responsible for your life. You're it And if your teachers haven't given you your tools then damn those teachers If the culture is not has not given you your tools damn that culture, but you know what? You know what? It doesn't matter. You're the one who has to live with it So figure out what the tools you need are Figure them out. Learn them yourself today with the internet. You can learn anything anything on the internet figure it out set a goal Aspire to do something aspire to be somebody And go out there and do it Live This is all about just living Not wasting your life Get out of bed Get off the drugs stop drinking that alcohol And go and live you got only one shot at this it ain't you ain't gonna get there's no, uh, what would you call it groundhogs day It's not gonna happen to you one shot one shot And it all boils down to take your mind seriously don't let your emotions over Be so overwhelming that you can't think yourself out of whatever predicament you have And get help if you really need help if you really can't do it yourself then get help There are people out there who can help you Unfortunately, I think most of the people out there to help you don't have the tools to really help you Which means to emphasize to you what i've just been saying the importance of your own mind the importance of thinking the importance of reason the importance of Being productive of having a job Too much of today's do-gooders And and psychologists and so on are focused on yeah, you're entitled and somebody else needs to help you All right, so, uh, that's my uh self-help segment of the show today Uh But I think I think we want to we want to now broaden this we want to now ask the question of okay What kind of environment what kind of culture what kind of political system? What kind of economic system? Would make this easy Would make it it was still require effort thinking is hard 30 and would make it possible for us as an economy as a culture to grow and thrive and be successful Not just as individuals but as a culture. What kind of political system? What kind of economic system? Allow people to achieve happiness Just to pursue it and achieve it All right, we'll do that when we get back. You're listening to you run brook on 10 Pelka we'll be back right after On the plagues radio network All right, we're heading into our last half an hour filling in for uh, michael pelka. He'll be back tomorrow And uh, let me just remind you that if you want to listen to more your on brook Uh, the your on brook show is on the blaze every sunday from two to four East coast time it's the success We talked about what is uh, you know, what is Uh At the end what is good for an individual human being and how an individual human being can be successful and uh be successful in their life and their career and everything and it at the end of the day boils down to Using their mind using their reason and and taking their life seriously enough to think it through to plan to consider and not get carried away by whim by emotion by By everything else, right by by by non cognition If you will by other people How do we create a culture like that? How do we create a society like that? How we create a culture in a society that reinforces that that supports that and that really makes that a norm and and possible and and really a norm and uh I'd say that what we need is what does the human mind need in order to flourish? What do individuals need in order to use their mind? What is the enemy Of reason the enemy of thought the enemy of rationality the enemy of truth The enemy of seeking truth we talked about seeking truth yesterday The enemy is force The enemy is coercion The enemy is an authority with a gun The enemy is anybody trying to impose their will or their ideas on you Force is The enemy of the individual it's the enemy of happiness It's the enemy of progress. It's the enemy of success. It's the enemy of thinking of reason of rationality So the kind of world we want to live in is a world without force It's a world without coercion It's a world without authorities that are there to Implement their authority to force their ideas down your throat Now, how do you live in a world like that? Because that's tough. They're they're bad people out there They're people who want to kill us. They're people who want to who want to steal from us Fewer than one would have expect right fewer in a civilized country than one would expect But there are people there are the frauds are the criminals. They're terrorists In the you know coming over from the more barbaric part of the world Who want to kill us who want to impose their ideas on us when impose sharia law in this case on us And they want to kill us So what do we do? You have to defend yourself And in my view that is why we institute government We create a government not to live our life for us not to give us stuff not to You know intervene in our day-to-day life not to become an authority over us Not to tell us who to trade and who not to trade with who to be friends with and not be friends with We create government to protect us from the initiation of force by bad people Whether they're domestic or whether they're foreign that's it That's why we create government Government is the institution that has the monopoly over the use of retaliatory force They shouldn't be allowed to use force against us. They cannot become the authority over our lives Shouldn't become they can become unfortunately they are becoming They should be there to protect us from people from bad people or from mistaken people Or from our own, you know from from from conflicts that we get to with other people It might be innocent conflicts. That's why you have a judiciary system. That's why you can sue people That's why you have a you know, you have a whole mechanism you create whole legal mechanisms to obitrate disputes that we might have with people But that's the job of government. That's it. It's to protect my mind It's to protect me from force. It's to allow me to think allow me to plan allow me to strategize so I can live a good life it's government is there to protect me so I can start a business Think about today today government is there to regulate and control and make it as difficult as possible for me to start a business how Upside down is that but no government is there to protect me so I can start a business so cooks can't come around and steal my stuff So when I sign a long-term contract with a supplier or with a customer There's a legal system that that allows me to to to follow through on that contract and penalizes me if I don't Or if they don't please penalizes them if they don't government is there to protect it's there to create The world in which We can use our minds To our maximum potential and maximum ability Think about why is it that we had an industrial evolution when we had an industrial evolution? Why was suddenly people suddenly people became really really smart? Suddenly people figured out how to build steam engines. Why why then? Because For the first time in human history The human mind had been liberated liberated from dogma primarily religious dogma Liberated from kings and queens and authorities and dictators of various sorts Liberated from a social framework that said you had a conform Liberated in the sense that for the first time in human history maybe with the exception of Greece The mind became venerated Reason became venerated it was called ultimately the the the pre-industrial evolution was called the age of reason suddenly Suddenly reason was respected thinking was respected planning was respected And then people went out and used their mind to improve life to build to create to make They applied All the stuff that had been discovered during the scientific revolution again a product of reason To the problem of human survival to the problems of human life electricity running water steam engine railroads Automobiles flight and ultimately computers But for the first time They had the freedom to do all that they weren't worried about the gangs Murdering them or butchering them. They weren't worried about the church burning them alive at the stake They weren't worried about offending people They could speak their mind And they could produce their mind This is what the founding fathers gave us they gave us freedom freedom to think and to act on those thoughts And that's why the 19th century was so productive. That's why the 19th century saw the largest advancements in human history in human well-being All right, we have to take another last short break And then we'll be back to wrap it up if you're listening to Ron brook filling in for michael pelka. We'll be back after this Pure opelka with michael pelka on the blaze radio network So like I ran I am a huge advocate for capitalism and for freedom and for the government staying out of my life But I'm I'm a advocate for those things because I'm an advocate for my own life Because I want to be able to live the best life that I can live. I care about my own happiness and my own success and my own flourishing I am self interested And I understand that the only way for me to be successful in life Is to use my mind to think to apply thinking And The only political system that leaves people free to think and and and And act on those thoughts is capitalism. That's why I'm a capitalist I'm a capitalist because I understand the role of reason in human life. I'm a capitalist because I understand that reason thinking Rationality is man's means of surviving and thriving and flourishing And if I want the government out of my life And I want and only when we get the government out of our life can we have Can we get people now starting to take Reason and in their mind seriously because if we get government, for example, the first thing I would want to get government out of What is the one industry you would want to get government out of tomorrow tomorrow if I had to pick one if I could abolish one Department in the federal government, but it's not just the federal government The problem is this is primarily regularly by the states and by local government if I could do one thing It would be to abolish public education Abolish it completely And then encourage private entrepreneurs to enter the space. I mean we could do tax credits. We could do vouchers whatever but get government out of education break up those evil evil teacher unions who care more about Much more about the teacher pension than they do about educating our kids Get education on a private footing so that companies compete for our kids companies compete to create and to innovate the best educational product possible companies compete to to to provide us with information about what works and what doesn't work in education so to to to facilitate and to make possible parents taking control over their kids education choosing between schools that's The number one thing I would do before the EPA before the any any of the regulatory agencies before lowering taxes before all of the other stuff privatized education Because education is the key because because Teaching kids how to use their mind and again more importantly that using their mind is important Is the most important thing you can do now parents should be doing this already now Don't wait for the teachers But Not every parent has the time not every parent thinks about these things That's what teachers are for to teach kids the importance of using their mind and then how to do it ah so We need freedom and education to support kids grown-ups everybody understanding the role of the human mind in human life so We need capitalism we need freedom and and start with education and then dismantle the rest of the federal government and the state governments and the local governments And all of the people out there who want to tell me how to live who want to tell me what to think who want to tell me what to do And and and let me just let me just go off on on donald trump for a minute I mean This guy wants to tell me who I can hire Who I can trade with he now wants to tell me whether I can trade with with somebody in china or mexico or canada He wants to dictate the terms of me dealing with them Let me be clear and i'll do a whole show on this You know and if if you if you start listening to my show on sundays between two and four east coast time You'll hear the show when I do it But I have a right to trade with whoever I want if I want that person happens to be a chinese person If that person happens to be a mexican if that person happens to be A south korea Why is it any of donald trump's business? Why is it any business of our government at all? They're there to protect me Not to impede my freedom not to impede my ability to go out there and try to make my life better And if I believe making my life better Is by trading with somebody in china then it's none of their business That china was an enemy like like iran and north korea. Yeah, I'm all for banning trade with the enemy But yeah, let's define the enemy. I'm all for that not having trained with them Sure, but they're only like three four countries in the world They would probably qualify as the enemy of the united states of america most of them are not enemies Mexico is not an enemy canada is not an enemy So Because I value my life. I value trade trade is win-win trade improves my life And all the all economists who look at this and you know, you don't need this economic data because trade is a fundamentally A moral issue. I have a moral right to trade with who I want and the government should just get out of my way The only only only legitimate trade policy is zero tariffs Get out of the way lower unilaterally the united states should lower tariffs to zero Unilaterally tomorrow. That's the only moral thing to do And from an economic perspective, it is the only logical thing to do It would raise The wealth of americans dramatically But nobody nobody talks about that everybody everybody wants to tinker everybody wants to control In politics. This is why I never go into politics right politics is about imposing your will on other people It's about today being an authority of other people telling people how to live telling people who to trade with Telling people how much of their own money they can keep I don't want to have anything to do with politics Now if politics was the way it should be protecting then we could talk all right So today we talked about all the good stuff in the world We talked about the fact that good stuff in the world comes from the human mind And we talked about capitalism as the only only political system In human history to protect the human mind and that's why it's so successful and that's what that's what we have all the good stuff Out there from better health care to better food To five to better technology. All right, you've listened to one book on the michael pelka show. Goodbye