 I think the most talked about issue of the day in the United States these days and, you know, traveling in Israel and in Europe, when people talk about the U.S., it seems to come up very quickly in conversations. And there's a major election right now in the U.S. that will have a lot of bearing on this issue. Is this your health care? There is a massive debate and a massive new legislation with regard to the situation of health care in the United States. And what's the problem, we are told, with health care in the United States? Well, it's too expensive. Costs, you know, a huge percentage of GDP is being spent on health care. We all know there's some optimal level of GDP that shouldn't be spending on health care. And I mean, we've exceeded that optimal level, we are told. There are many, anywhere between 20 and 30 million people who are uninsured, don't have health insurance in the United States. And that, we are told, is a real serious problem. So, it's too expensive, we're told. People don't have it. The solution is obvious. What's the solution? The solution is, well, the government needs to do something. The government needs to act. We need to force people to get insurance. We need to subsidize their insurance. We need to lower costs because costs are too high. So, the immediate response is more government. More government, in spite of the fact that, you know, if you look at American health care, you'll find that somewhere close to 50 cents, so every dollar spent on health care in the United States is spent by the government. So, you've already got the government being a major purchase of health care. Yes, a price of price of prices keep going up. So, now we want to go to buy more health care and expectation of prices will go down. You look at health care, you see massive regulations throughout the entire industry. In order to make health care cheaper, more accessible, more available, more comprehensive, and so on. Government is everywhere in health care. There is no markets. There is no free market. There is no free choice in health care in the United States. It is completely, well, half of it is government run and the other half is government working. So, what is it that leads people so instinctually? And by the way, you know, if you read the polls and you read the newspaper articles, a lot of people in the United States against this health care plan, right? Polls, you know, somewhere around 40% are for it and somewhere around 55-16% are against it. But a lot of people against it, against it because it doesn't do enough. So, when you actually look at why people reject the health care plan, a significant percentage of them are rejecting it because it's not, you know, it's not enough for government to mention. And a lot of them are against it because it's so, this particular plan is so obviously corrupt. I mean, people were paying buckets of money to book this. And people just don't like the sleaziness, but nobody, or very few Americans, are actually objecting to the idea that government needs to step in here, take care of health care somehow, make sure they're insured, get their insurance, and lower the costs in some way. There's almost, there's a minority that thinks the government should stay out of it. But it's a minority. When the Republicans propose an alternative to what Obama's proposing, it was basically the same thing that the Democrats had proposed, just fewer ages. And it was simple. It was less government intervention, but still an increase in government intervention, just slow. You know, the Republicans in the U.S. want to socialize everything just in a slow pace than the Democrats. You get it faster. So why is it, why is the response, why is the energy so much behind this notion of there's a perceived problem, let's get the government involved, let's get the government to solve it, let's increase the world of government here. And I think it has to do with the fact that there are people out there that have a need for health care and that need is not being met. So the people out there who are suffering, who are not getting the kind of care they would like to get, imagine again that people who are spending more than they would like to spend on health care, the people who feel, and this is very much an emotional level, feel like they should get more. And the people, most people look at them and say, yeah, you should get better treatment. It should be cheaper, it's not fair, somehow. The health care debate really comes down to this question of fairness, this issue of need. Some people need it, and they deserve it, and they should have it, and we need to find a way to provide it. And that need is perceived today as a right. People have a right to health care. They have a right to the treatment that they want. They have a right to get that treatment cheaply, not to pay too much for it. And if somebody has a right to something, they see that somebody has a right to health care, to food, to living wage, then who's going to provide that right? Whose job is it to provide for rights, to defend rights, to protect rights, to take care of the rights of people? It's government. So if somebody has a right to health care, then we need to provide it with health care. The only entity that can provide that is government. People have a need for jobs, they have a right to a job, then the only entity that can provide for a right is government. And that's right. The role of government is to protect individual rights. That's the central characteristic of the American government. It's in its founding documents. And if we define health care as a right, we simply define housing as right as we did before this crisis. We talked about this banking crisis, this housing crisis. A lot of it came about because housing was perceived as some kind of right and the government spent huge amounts of money subsidizing it. If you want me to go through the causes of the financial crisis, you can ask me in the Q&A and I'll be happy to go through that quickly. But that idea and housing is a big part of the cause of what happening. So how we define right is crucial. Because there's no question that if we define it over health care and all these other things, then the government, the socialized government, government intervention, government involvement, it is going to only escalate. Now of course it should be quite obvious to people that there's something wrong with the notion that somebody has a right to health care. Because if somebody has a right to health care, then somebody else is obligated to provide him with that right to health care, right? I mean, that's to come from somewhere. The health care is a product, a good service that somebody is providing. And if you have a right to health care and I'm a doctor, then what position does that put me as a doctor? Well, I am obliged. The government is going to force me to provide for you health care. But what about my right to decide what I see and what I don't see? How much I charge my services? How much I don't charge? What kind of procedures I do and what kind of procedures I don't do? What about my right to do what I don't think is good for me? Well, we can't. We don't care. And the doctors, they all get together and they say, wait a minute, we've got rights too. And these people come and say, well, but we've got rights. So what do you get? You know, you get a doctor's lobby and a pharmaceutical lobby, an insurance company lobby, and a patients lobby, and all kinds of lobbies. Every little group out there comes up and says, we've got rights too. And how do we decide on policy? Well, whoever manages to manipulate the political process best wins out. You know, deals are cut. People are appeased. And everybody gets a little peace and politicians then vote on what they think will maximize their ability to get elected. But once they turn into this battle between groups that all claim to stand for individual rights, to stand for what America was talking about, right to health care, right to be adopted, do what I think is right to be adopted, right to follow suit equals to make a profit, but it's all rights. There's no standard. The standard is who has the most, I mean, you're thinking of democracy generally, the standard is who has the most votes. But I need those votes. Right who has the most poll. Right who manipulates the political process and all. You know, it's a little civil war. Every time you get something like health care, what you get is a little civil war going on behind the scenes where people are pushing and pulling to get the best outcome for themselves possible. There is there a standard for what a right is. When we talk about the government's role in defending and protecting individual rights, what does that actually mean and where does that actually come from? We go back to the funny documents of the United States, and then the Declaration of Independence and so on, we should have a right to life, liberty, and suit happiness. And in any other way to those, what does that actually mean? Now these, these concepts are really important. They shape the way we think about politics. They shape the way we think about the world of government. They shape the way we think about what governments should and shouldn't do. So it's really important to make a standard of rights on how they've been prohibited, distorted, corrupted, and used in a way that the front of fathers of America would find horrific. And we should all find horrific. And we should all have the tools to be able to fight for them. And I think that most commentators out there, both on the left and the right, have gotten this issue of rights wrong because they don't understand what the concept is and where it fundamentally comes from. So what is a right? What do we mean when we talk about individual rights? And here I think I ran bills on the Enlightenment thinkers of Locke, on the front of fathers, on the tradition of rights that I think brings their own unique views to this question. Fine Rand Wright's manifestation of that vision, the manifestation of morality, the application of morality to politics. Fine Rand morality is primarily an individual's responsibility. Primarily deals with how individuals interact with their own life, with themselves. With how they interact, not so much with the world now, other people, but with their world, with themselves. They own more responsibilities to themselves. But we all live in a society. We all live among other people. Rights are the rules in a sense that the standards by which we interact with other people, the application of a specific moral code, a certain moral view to how we interact with other people. And therefore, to understand the corruption of rights, you have to understand different views of ethics. You have to understand the prevalent views of reality and culture. And to understand the proper view of rights, you have to understand a proper moral view. Rights about the individual. The individual rights are called to determine the freedoms of an individual. The freedom of action. Rights fundamentally of action. When you say the rights of life, it means that you have a right to pursue those actions necessary to sustain your own life. It means that you have the right to take care of yourself. To be left free. But think in any way that you view as beneficial to your life. Essentially, what rights are? And there is only one right. Fundamentally, that's the right to life. The right to property. The right to free speech. The right to liberty. The right to pursue what's happening. That's the right of others. I've got one idea. The we as individuals need to be left free, left alone to pursue our life. To pursue a right to property and human beings. So rights, you know, people talk about rights negative or rights positive. There's a whole debate about positive rights negative. In a sense, they're both. Rights are positive in the sense that it says you as an individual, you are free. They're negative in the sense that they tell your neighbors that while each one of them is free to pursue their own life, the negative is they can't violate your rights. So you can pursue your life as long as you're not violating, as long as you're not prohibiting the ability of others to pursue their rights. Now, how does one violate rights? How does one violate rights? The only way to violate somebody's right to talk about freedom of action and freedom to pursue your life. So what is it that's going to interrupt your ability to pursue your life? What is it that can stop you from doing the things that you vastly believe are going to make your life the best life that it could be? There's really only one thing out there that other people can do to you to prohibit you from pursuing your life, and that is force. And it's violence. And you know, violence, force, can also be fraud, but it's stepping in your way. It's stopping you. It's putting a gun to your head. It's deceiving you. And that's what your name doesn't have a lot to do with the system of rights. The system of rights recognizes the individual's sovereignty to go after his own life free of coercion, free of force, free of other people using force to dictate what they think he should be doing. It's simple. It's a lot to say. Leave us alone. That's what the doctrine of individual rights really stands for. Think about health care. How can health care be a right? You have a right to health care in this sense that you have a right to pursue health care. But it should not stop from visiting your doctor. Think of it should not interrupt your decision together with your physician to choose what treatment you should get or what treatment you shouldn't get. Think of it should not use force to tell the doctor what medicines he can't prescribe to you and what medicines he cannot prescribe to you. That's your right to health care. That's your right to health care. You're right to pursue health care. Free of anybody else's force upon you. Indeed, the government's job is to if there's a fraudulent doctor about to steal or cheat then the government's role is to come in and protect you from those kind of people. To protect you from they use force against you. But other than that, the government has no role. It has no place and how is the only way it can provide you with health care? How can the government provide you with health care? Only by using force and taking it from somebody else. Whether it's taking money or whether it's forcing a doctor to do stuff he does not want. So when people talk about wanting to take health care they're talking about violating some people's rights in order to give you something you have not. The real right to health care is just basically the individual right to be left free. A need, just because you need something, does not give you the right to take it from others. To steal it from others. To demand it from others. You can ask that individual rights, if we country, it means that if you need something, you have a right to go and do the best that you can do. Pursuit. Whether it's again health care or a job or wealth or ipod or an iPhone you have a right to earn a living and buy these things. Now, so the essence of individual rights is to protect the individual free. The whole revolution of individual rights is a revolution that says that when I input state first and we are all slaves to that state in some form or another, or collective or group or somebody's need for us. The whole revolution of individual rights is that we are going to put the individual first and make the state the individual's servant. Government is the servant of the people. And what does that mean? It means that government plays a role, one role and that is to allow people to stay free. To leave people free. To pay the cooks and the frauds and it arbitrates disputes but otherwise it has no role. Now left would like us to believe that rights are not based on anything in reality. They're just whatever, you know, they're complete subjectivists. They would like us to believe that rights are just interactive. Then indeed, right to gifts. Right to gifts that government provides. Right to a minimum wage. All those are gifts from the government. Yes, they say. Conflicts inherent in human nature. The fact that there's a conflict between the gift that I'm giving to doctors and the gift that I'm giving to the patients. The fact that there are conflicts there, that's just life. That's what we need politics for. That's what we need democracy. We need to be able to vote on all these things. And ultimately to them all this falls down to absolute democracy. Again, democracy that's been influenced in the back of it. If you could get a vote, then it's the majority moved. Now anybody who really understands rights as individual freedoms that's incompatible with this notion of democracy. Democracy is anti-individual rights. Democracy is the tyranny of the majority. That's not my statement. That was what my father's room, I could call it. You know what happens? Didn't like what Socrates was doing in the streets of Athens. He was corrupting the youth. Telling them that maybe those myths about the gods were true. Back and forth, challenging the refugees, challenging their religion. So what I did, and this is pure democracy, right? So it was pretty close to real democracy. Everybody got into a big anti-theatom in Athens and they all voted. And I don't know what the percentage was but it was more than 51% voted to shut him up. And the most effective way to shut up Socrates was having to drink some poison. And Socrates being a real staunch defender of democracy and a play-o-com statement says about Tunnel, there's one Socrates says no. I believe in democracy, the people are spoken and he drinks the poison at us. But that's democracy, right? If 51% of the people think we should build a test court on my house then that's what should be done. Right? Individual rights say if I were to my own body then 99% 99.9% I'm assuming I'm voting against. 99% of the people come to build a test court on my property and they can't. And Socrates everybody in Athens could hate Socrates and yet his right to speak is inalienable. But it's not his right to speak, his right to use his property his right to go see a doctor his right not to go see a doctor his right to buy insurance his right to do whatever he thinks is inalienable. It doesn't get decided by our vote. And you'll notice that Democrats or the left wants us to have big votes they want to have a big federal government where all the votes happen and Republicans and so the right in the U.S. is still looking but obviously they just want to have small votes they want to do it in a local level so they they're not okay with the federal government stealing my property, they're okay with the local government stealing my property. So meaning it's a test court. State rights they call it or county rights or city rights or whatever they call it. But there is no system there's only one concept that works and that is individual work but work cannot be taken away not be allowed to be taken away by any size body it doesn't matter if it's a local council it doesn't matter if it's a state it doesn't matter if it's a big, evil federal government rights are inalienable democracy inherently is anti that concept of individual rights inherently against the individual so pure democracy the individual rule is a way in which both the left and the right get around the concept of rights and rights lose their meaning as they have in the United States as a concept the right of course claims to people for the funding for this concept of individual rights they claim to stand for what they view as rights but they never define it they never explain it and this whole hell getting made in the United States nobody on the right has really emphasized that this is a massive violation of individual rights there's no real discussion because they have a problem because where do these rights come from well all they got is they have no idea of a basis for where these rights come from and therefore they always fall back on what the Declaration of Independence unfortunately fell back on and that is that they come from God they're just cured they just arrived they're cured of you anytime when you say I know this to be true because I've got a connection to you guys don't have it are you so I'll tell you how to live because I have that connection that's not a good policy in terms of convincing anybody an idea it's not a rational explanation it's not based on reason therefore it's not a workable concept of rights to our nature our nature as individuals our necessity to produce ourselves our necessity to live our own lives the necessity of using reason and the fact that the the obstacle to reason the primary obstacle to reason really ultimately the only obstacle to reason is force and force has to be aware of human life so that we as individuals can live the best life that we live that is the tie of rights to the nature of human beings the nature of us as individuals so the right and the left get it wrong and there's a consequence there's almost no discussion today about concepts like rights there's a complete perversion of what capitalism means you know capitalism is just some government intervention not too much nobody can define how too much is and of course there's consequence that continues to grow and the discussion is about my new show over here we haven't heard about the principle it's a real principle and the principle is individual rights leaving people alone letting them assume their own happiness their own life in the way that they the day view has most reaction the way that they view fits there so you don't have to look at the whole welfare debate into the whole of the details from beginning to end it involves violating individual rights and therefore it's wrong and you know the Republicans you know they they want to say that and sometimes they do and it was this article in the Wall Street Journal that's headed to a Republican party steel quote where he says look we don't believe in government run healthcare we think this is a really really bad idea but Medicare I don't think there's no Medicare government run healthcare for the older in the United States that's good but what's they doing they can't have a principle there because they have nothing to ground that principle on so healthcare for the elderly is good because they need is greater I guess so it's okay because they really really really need it to violate other people's rights and give it to them if you only need a little bit it's not okay to violate your rules that is not a winning argument so if we're going to fight for capitalism and when I say capitalism I don't mean a system that existed in the United States two years ago that failed I mean a system of free markets of no government intervention in our lives if we're going to fight for capitalism then we have to fight for the concept of individual rights we have to fight for that idea that bought the definition of individual rights and if we're going to fight for bought the definition of individual rights then we have to fight for individualism for the idea that we are sovereigns of our own life that nobody has a right that nobody should be able to tell us what we can and cannot do we're not sacrificial animals to the state we don't live for the sake of a group for the sake of our country for the sake of a state we live for our own that is the central point is who does your life belong to if it belongs to you then God needs to get out of the way if it belongs to the state then we're on the road to serve that's the fundamental choice that we have to make and those are the fundamental ideas that we have to fight for thank you this seems for me I thought that was a great speech but in terms of libertarianism and promoting sort of eye-hand and these sort of three ideas we have on an intellectual level here I think everyone can listen to this and go oh this is a great speech to understand what you're saying my main interest though is getting those people who have less of an interest in politics to understand our ideas and one of the key ideas I think we have a problem with is there is a model what we have today this idea that we still have capitalism when really it's just this sort of state-backed corporatism I'd like to know your thoughts on how we unmuddle that and present a simple argument that we don't have maybe a less of an interest in politics well let me first address the danger that I think exists and even in the terms you use state-backed corporatism is a dangerous term and I think one that I would avoid although I know most libertarians use it quite extensively because state-backed corporatism would suggest that the real villains here are the corporations now I'm not saying that the corporations are really good guys but I don't think they're the villains they do things I don't like but everybody out there is doing stuff they don't like and they have huge influence sure but I don't think they're the villains so I think there are two issues one who is the villain and I think that needs to be explained and second how do we describe the system that exists today now let me start with the second one because it's easier I think what we have today is a mixed economy we have a mixture yes there are elements of capitalism yes you can go to the mall and you're free to choose what you can buy nobody is forcing you to buy a particular product versus the Soviet Union where you were told this is what you buy and you only have one choice and that's it so there are elements of freedom out there there's no question about that but then only elements because for example you're free to choose but the choices are limited by subsidies and regulations and controls and everything else that's going on where the government is has its fingers in your life and in the life of the manufacturers of the products that you're purchasing so we need to describe the system as what it really is it's a mixture of freedom and coercion and a mixture of capitalism and socialism with the elements of socialism at least in the United States in the U.K. is a little bit you've gone through more cycles but in the U.S. systematically the elements of socialism increase systematically for the last 100 years and then you need to link that to their economic the economic consequences of that which are quite brutal these days and you can easily show that the economic consequence of freedom elements within society but as a result of the government regulations it's not that hard to do if you have somebody's attention and personal freedoms are there going on and you have to appeal to people's fundamental love of freedom because I think most people do want to be free most people do want to make their own choices about their own lives you have to convince them it's okay to let other people have their own lives everybody's happy with the choices they're making it's other people they don't trust and they want to do that so I think you have to explain the system as it is so banks in the United States I like to say 80% government 20% capitalism and banks are the ones that collapse high-tech is 80% free 20% government and it's doing pretty well and you can even show that so yes I agree with you we have to communicate better the notion that capitalism is not what we have today capitalism is not what failed capitalism indeed is not really even being tried we dabble in it a little bit in the 19th century but we didn't really do it all the way white even in the 19th century even in the 19th century the areas where government dabbled in other areas that didn't really really badly like railroads they didn't survive in the United States very well into the 20th century because of government banking and other areas like that land use so you can show government intervention with people staying and living with the quality of people's lives now why only is helpful to go after corporations although it's populist and it has a big appeal and it seems to it plays well fundamentally business small and low the fundamental activity is is a huge value add to each one of our it is a huge contributor to our ability to live well and the left hates them the left hates them for being businesses they don't hate them because they're big they hate them for making money they hate them for the profit motive they hate them for their very existence they hate the idea of a corporation they hate the idea of a business and we need to be very careful and to some extent the white does too particularly if they make too much money we need to be very careful not to play into them and you know I see I don't know how many of you are familiar with Ron Paul Ron Paul does this a lot he lambels Wall Street he goes after them and he plays right into the hand of the leftist who say you know it's all paper shuffling they don't do anything but that's BS that's just not true they do something incredibly productive and they do something incredibly productive in spite of all the regulations and yes when government is going to round up and regulate their industry as they're going to do right now they're going to spend gazillions of dollars to make sure that they get as much benefits as they can from it and to help with everybody else but the problem is not them the problem is government the problem is that government has the power to regulate them to begin with the problem is that government has the ability to choose winners and losers if the government is going to choose winners and losers and you're a big company who are you going to try to what pile are you going to try to be you're going to try to be in the pile of the winners I mean you'd be stupid not to I'll give you an easy example Microsoft used to spend zero dollars on lobbying in Washington zero that was Washington none of their business they did their thing they created all this wealth all these opportunities with no lobbying of government and then the justice department went after them for antitrust and they got hammered they got hammered here in the US and then the Europeans went after them and they just guess what Microsoft today spends tens of hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying in Washington and when a bill comes up that affects high tech and that bill is going to choose between winners and losers is Microsoft going to spend the fortune to try to make sure that the winners pile absolutely and if you don't see your Microsoft and you don't do that you're violating the fiduciary duty towards your shareholders so the problem is not Microsoft or Citibank or Goldman Sachs you know the problem is the politicians have the power to be winners and losers the problem is the politicians introduce bills that are going to hurt some benefit others the problem is the morality that allows all of this to exist this is an intellectual philosophical debate this isn't about let's get away from what I described earlier this pressure group versus that pressure group now what ideas are driving the very existence of these pressure groups that's what needs to be attacked and I think when we play big business as bad business is we play into the hands of the wrong people and yes we get some populist appeal but I think it's short lived and it's not lasting business by nature is good yes they are bad businessmen who prefer it and use Washington to gain advantage and we need to attack them but don't attack business called business or big business called big business attack because he goes to Washington to beg for handouts attack wasn't even GM that asked for bailout they were bailed out whether they wanted to or not government forced it down their throat attack city bank for forgetting another bailout but don't attack big business or big business attack the particulars the particular instances where they are going after attack the particular business men who are the Leslie Munchers and the Harlan Boyles if you read out the shrug the particulars but not as a group because I think we do them we do ourselves a disservice and the cause of disservice when we attack them yes do you think the object of the political office or are they likely to be attacked by the system I you know it's a tricky question because we've got a great example a negative example of an object who is captured by the system and that is for those of you who know that is Alan Wiespan who I think is a proof that power corrupts and that absolute power which you certainly have as federal chairman corrupts absolutely I think Alan Wiespan was corrupted by the system he was corrupted by power he cared more about the kind of people he was with parties and people's attitudes towards him than about the truth and I think that completely corrupted his ability so I guess it depends if you're an Alan Wiespan don't go to politics you only give us a bad name if you have integrity if you don't think Alan does if you're a person of integrity you don't think you have to be corrupted by the system the question really is what can you do what is the best way to change the world and I think we're going to need politicians whether it's now or down the road they're going to have to be objectors politicians they're going to have to be people who stand up in principle and oppose things on principle and are not willing to cut deals but you have to realize that if you go under politics under that guy, first of all it's going to be tough to get elected second, you know you're going to make a lot of it if you're not going to be a popular guy people are not going to like you you have to be able to have the backbone to stand up to them because if you believe in principles then it's not just about the less of two evils it's not just about getting the best compromise you can it's about, and I think we're at the stage where we need people to say no we're not going to support this even if it's we're not going to yes, thank you in order to try to reign in government some of us on the centre of Britain have actually argued that far from abandoning the people of democracy we should be using radical direct democracy to try to make it state much more immediately accountable to people and therefore to try to curtail it and in fact do the job that if we had a functioning legislature it would actually be doing itself and then it's to reign in the ambitions of the politicians and to shrink what is defined as public policy you seem to suggest that actually democracy is more radical direct democracy is actually not the way forward obviously we are forward I think it is a strategy that will backfire because the principle behind it is I think wrong government is not about direct democracy of the people government is about protecting people from voting away the minority rights for the sake of the majority any group that you have you're always going to be able to call a majority that's going to screw the minority and what is the ultimate minority the ultimate minority is the individual the whole idea of government is to prevent that again a group are going after the individual it's the individual rights and therefore shrinking it I don't think so is it and I don't think that there's evidence to suggest at least by experience in the US and it might be different in the UK any evidence to suggest that it actually practically works to shrink the role of government so for example in the US there's as much rights violation going on every day at city councils in deciding whether I can what I should be allowed and not allowed to do on my land on my property whether I can open a school where I can open a school I was involved in a school in some point in our county California and the amount of lobby and taking out city council members, the lunches the corruption just becomes more intimate people are going to be upset about the corruption now because the next time they want something they'll use the same tools so I think it's inherently corrupting in size just makes that corruption more intimate but it doesn't really change the nature of the corruption and I think it I think you give up a huge amount you give up the principle you're giving up the principle of individualism you're giving up the principle of individualism you're accepting the notion that what matters is a majority the size of the majority, the size of the voting group shouldn't matter what's important is individual what's important is are his rights being protected or are they not being protected can he use his land any way he chooses to or not I think that the size of the group that is right to develop and plays into the hands of you know the socialists who can also organize on the local level and probably get as much influence on local politics because I think in our culture they have them all high ground because our culture has adopted their ethics and they have much more influence with people the United States and the UK and the right to invade Afghanistan what gives any political entity a country a right to exist in a sense as a political entity and I say what gives it is the extent to which it defends the rights of its citizens that is a government is only legitimate to the extent that it protects the sovereignty of its individual governments don't have, countries don't have sovereignty only individuals have sovereignty you own your own life to the extent that you grant your government legitimacy is to the extent that it's legitimate if it's any dictatorship in my there is illegitimate any country that systematically violates the rights of its citizens what does it mean to say Saddam Hussein has sovereignty over you all I mean that's bizarre, he is a murderous thug who killed his own people in mass who didn't allow individual rights in any respect anybody in his country yet he has sovereignty over Iraq now he's completely legitimate anybody could have invaded any government if they wanted to be completely legitimate now the question is should you invade to get rid of Saddam Hussein that in my view is completely a question of you know your own interest that is wasn't an America self-interest to invade Afghanistan probably but not the way they did so it really is a question of self-defense so what is it self-interest the ultimate people is not this isn't crucial for American self-defense to invade Iraq if it is an answer yes then you invade it if it's an answer no then you nominate the legitimacy of the country the legitimacy the sovereignty of Iraq is relevant to the question now if we talk about France then there is a question of self because it is a legitimate government it is right to respect it at least to an extent just as Britain is just as America is the wrong mix that are pure but they're all mixed but look I can see by your face if you think that France or take the UK that the UK are France on the same scale of rights violation as Iraq is you're completely detached from reality what are the lines in my view the line is the four characteristics of a state let me see if I can remember all four but the four characteristics of a state that is illegitimate completely that is basically a dictatorship one party rule you know whether you have the most important one in my view whether you have citizenship or not it's a week of speech and just the extent to which it is applied whether you have any kind of elected government you know ok so those but the key is in my view some kind of one party rule which denies any kind of election like freedom of speech why do you have freedom of speech in a country there's some freedom left in that country there's some way to use reason and thought and argument and discussion in order to change the world in which you live when freedom of speech is gone you're basically living in a dictatorship in which your only means of dealing with change is through violence through evolution a country that rejects almost as a speech clearly walked in which clearly France and Britain and America don't there's freedom of speech I'm here right I'm not a very popular guy I was just in Israel there's freedom of speech in Israel I could speak in France I spoke in most of Europe you know there's basically freedom of speech in the West and in much of Asia you know China is an interesting excuse there's clearly less freedom of speech in China there's one part of ruling China you know China is not China is probably the one the most borderline you're going to get clearly Europe, the US Japan, the Korea fundamentally three countries they're not as free as we'd like but they're fundamentally free clearly North Korea Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and I think a bunch of others I'm not free enough for fundamental sense between the two and all you'd have to do is go visit those places not for very long and you would notice that there is a stark, stark difference now is the US and England will be wanted to be no absolutely not they're nowhere near as free as they should be but they are much freer than these guys and therefore they're much more moral and therefore legitimate regimes those are these that are not legitimate regimes North Korea regime is not a legitimate regime somebody wants to invade them and get rid of the guy all that power to you I wouldn't do it because my life's on foot whisking for the sake of the North Koreans but you know if you want to do it that's your business that answer your question yes I think you mentioned the World Capitalism to most of you in the street that definition is completely corrupted and they don't think you do and I don't visualize they think of people who are earning the side of the money which is a bad thing fat cats, selfish people talk about people so how does that go about how do we get rid of them well I think to some extent we have a package a package deal that people have there you said a number of things that I think capital is the best for example selfishness I think capitalism is selfish it stands for making lots of money sure it does and what we intermits people is that those things are good things not bad things that is people pursuing their own self interest people living their lives the best that they will be making the most out of their lives is a good thing and that's pretty selfish it's about my life not about your own we need to convince people that rational self interest is good that they each one of them see to me the battle about capitalism is all about the ethics it's all about ethics we lose the battle on ethics we lose the fight for capitalism we win it we want it's easy if we can convince people that they have a right to live their life any way that they choose them as long as they're not violating someone else's way and that life is worth living and it's worth making the best and most out of your life capitalism is easy because all capitalism is is a system of legal law to do that we can convince people that they are not their brother's key that they're not morally responsible for the group and their neighbor and their community and their race and their ethnic group or whatever the latest fad is we can convince them that they're not morally responsible for them they can take care of them if they want to they're free to help their friends but they're not morally obligated as the essence of who they are to live for the sake of other people their moral obligation is to live for themselves make the most out of their life if you buy then you ask them ok well if you want to live the best life that you can live then the question is what kind of political system or you want a political system that allows you to do that to pursue what you think is right you know what if you think communism is the best thing you want to live in a commune capitalism allows you to do that you can go off somewhere and start your own commune and live there the whole notion is that ridiculous setup then that's your business so the notion is that everybody everybody is willing to think is willing to work if better off better off when big brother is not telling them what they shouldn't shouldn't I think that's the real core of it because if you just talk economics it's confusing and it's difficult there's so many things going on it's about their choices it's about their lies other people telling them they shouldn't do it and that's their appeal I meant so appealing to teenagers because that's the age where we certainly don't like being told what to do with it and we even suddenly this book legitimizes our wanting to live our own lives our own way and you know to give you a whole idea of what that means to do that but it's appealing to that time and our lives will be challenging what happens when you have two equally legitimate books completing their own rights how do you work out that conflict I don't think it exists two people in the seat I'm sorry there's a text but I promise you two people on a book in the seat of the late individual rights don't exist on a lifebook if it's not such a thing but reality is not about lifebooks reality is about day to day living reality is about what really happens in real life on a lifebook all of the titanic emergency situations whatever happens you throw the guy over and you jump over and you come into the seat both choices are horrible they're really really bad but that's not what life is about emergency do what it takes but life is not an emergency 99.9999999% of life is not emergency and ethics and intellectual pursuits and politics and philosophy is not about the 0.000001% of lifebook situations they're just not interested they're boring but that means that for every person there's an emergency and the action is a discipline no because people who are poor are not in an emergency situation people who are poor can go and work people who are poor can go and beg people who are poor can go to a charity and ask for charity there are a thousand opportunities for people who are poor to gain the things that they needed on the side it's not an emergency it's not a lifebook situation which is truly the only situation or 0.000001% of life where it's a zero sum game but life is not about a zero sum game life is about win-win situations all around us all the time the essence of human interaction is win-win it's not lose-lose which is what a lifebook is lifebook is no winners you're screwed but that's not life that's not life for people there are lots of jobs out there particularly in capitalism there are more jobs that you can fill out in the capital there's negative unemployment in capital there's always a deficiency of jobs in the capital just lower the minimum wage the zero and you'll see how many jobs are created just like that I mean non-employed not everybody but a big chunk of unemployed in any society those people who just can't produce up to the level of the minimum wage it's just not worth ten bucks an hour I believe it is to say it's just not worth it, it worth five but they live a better life on each five than they do unemployed but we deny them the job they don't pay them five and there wasn't a fight for jobs that were in China or someone else we deny them here we're injecting new ability to make an end I have a question about the intellectual proxy but I just wanted to comment on the war thing just briefly when you start talking about war you've already denounced state's rights but when you start talking about war all of a sudden now you're writing state's rights to it and the state's right to defend itself and you've gotten about the increase of rights so can I deal with that before you ask the question no what I've denied is states' rights and the context of the U.S. of states and the government the government doesn't have any rights governments don't have rights but governments have responsibilities they have one function only and that function is to defend the individual rights of its citizens doesn't have any other responsibility now to provide health care and not to provide for the poor and not to provide for anything except to protect the individual rights so if somebody comes jumping out with a machine gun trying to shoot me it's the government's job to jump in and shoot them before they get to me and sometimes when they're shooting the bad guys my standards might get shot and kill me and that's sad and that's unfortunate but whose responsibility is that it's the guy who is wielding the machine gun to begin with and try to kill me it's his responsibility so when I talk about going to war I'm talking about going to war as my representative to defend my rights when somebody is trying to violate them somebody is running at me you know with a nuke with a machine gun or whatever it happens to me and then it's my government's job to go out and kill them and do whatever is necessary to prevent them from ever coming at me again with a machine gun and that is not an issue of government rights it's an issue of individual rights 300 million American individual rights should have demanded and didn't but should have demanded that the American government do whatever was necessary al-Qaeda in my view islamic totalitarianism from ever striking America again and that's the job of the American government now then you get into a question should we evade an ualka in defending my rights should we go after ualka Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia or Iwan that was a technical military question those aren't questions of rights anymore now it's a question of in protecting my rights who do we belong you know I have my ideas and who should be belonged it wasn't and what should be done and wasn't but it's not an issue of the state having rights it's an issue of me having it as an American I won't see that but al-Qaeda is an intellectual problem I feel that the international property there's nearly a grand say that it's an absolute individual property right as well yes but I have your response to that to me that doesn't seem rational because if you have an idea you need the state to protect that idea on the international property and this guy over here has the same idea and I can't prove that we didn't come up with that idea and then I can only say it looks a lot like my idea so it's not I'm with the international property it's not a question of stealing stuff it's a question of how do you state absolutely protects you and you can have whatever ideas you want nobody nobody's going to take those ideas away from you but the state is protecting it's a physical manifestation of those ideas that is the actual product that is the consequence of those ideas and that is a physical thing that is if you have an idea it's an exclusive privilege it's an exclusive privilege it's absolutely the fact that you have an idea doesn't give you an automatic right to make something if making that something violates the intellectual property of somebody else who had that idea before you and is producing that thing based on that idea you need to still hold that idea in your head nobody can go in and zap it away but you just can't act on it the action is now the right to somebody else it is bizarre to me that the most important creation that we're all engaged in which is ideas that is the most important creation every product out there is started as an idea everything out there is about ultimately ideas I believe very much that the only power of creation is reason ideas somehow we don't protect that under property rights that is the one thing that we truly do create but what else got to the marketplace before you based on the idea that he had and made stuff it's his that patent that idea that he registered is his that manifestation of that idea in reality and I think it's a real mistake for libertarians to eject that because if you eject that I think all property goes given that there's no pure state of the moment secondly we should buy the magic of the country more of our past existence these ideas you're speaking about do I need capitalism to stay in them the idea is your physical past existence or you have to have a multi-party system and it doesn't exist anymore yes I mean note that the essence the essence is not the multi-party system the essence is because for example the founding fathers of the US didn't believe there should be any parties they thought everybody should be one as an individual and there should be in that sense no parties and that could be doubtful I don't know what the hunk of multi-party would be it didn't succeed it they reported that parties very very quickly after yes but I think if you define government clue the wall of government clue you define what it's supposed to do you put the boundaries on it very clearly and unambiguously unfortunately in the American Constitution there's a lot of ambiguity in it at least to a modern reading of it then there's still room for debate for example how do we apply ideas of property rights to the internet not obvious not just something we could legitimately disagree about these issues but the principle is applying the concept of right to the internet and the principle is non-initiated force and now we can have a robust political debate about how we can do that and what's the right function so under those parameters now will politics be a reveal no I don't think so I don't think politicians will be that interested in a profession or that important of a profession because the government will do very little you know maybe it only needs to meet Congress only needs to meet three months a year well it doesn't need 12 months because what do they do there's not that much to do I think to this day the legislature in Texas only needs the reality they don't even need all the time Texas is probably the threeest of the states among the threeest in the United States so you get part-time politicians you know a working man who do this in addition so they really don't know that you get robust debates about real issues about applying the concept of right you probably get some multi-party system and maybe not maybe without the individuals I don't know how we all play out the essence of stability is to think getting the Constitution right unambiguous and right and second having a culture in which that Constitution that people believe in that Constitution so you can have the best Constitution in the world and people don't believe in it too well so the United States has a pretty good Constitution probably the best in the world not perfect but really really good but people stop believing in it a hundred years ago educating about it a hundred years ago the ethics that are prevalent in the culture is anti-theatrics of the Constitution so what's happened the Constitution has slowly been chipped away and voted out and the Supreme Court keeps ruling against what the true nature of the Constitution is that they don't understand it because they lost the intellectual path back to what the Constitution really meant so you need philosophically a culture that believes continues to believe that that Constitution that system is right in order for it to sustain and that we often care about human rights and uses in America and it's perhaps a good example that would be a lot of time of the day regarding your views on individual rights and how you define what the Constitution is about how would you react to it? People who try to kill me don't have rights it's just the fact when you violate somebody else's rights you lose your own all of it, you steal an apple and that's your right a gun and shot isn't it to take you and figure out what the just punishment is you know there's a slap on the wrist in a couple of days in jail maybe or whatever but if you're trying to kill people then the just punishment is your own death in my view or at least putting you away for the rest of your life it is my belief and I don't want to get into a lot of discussion about those of you who were Spanish libertarians and there's a difference between Japanese and libertarians those of you who are Spanish libertarians who are really upset about my false views but you know we're not here to really discuss false calls the people who are turning away were trying to kill me they were out to kill Americans they were caught on the battlefield with guns in their hands trying to shoot Americans that were there me, the fan Americans and were there mistakenly to bring freedom to the Afghans and they wouldn't even have to press the Afghans and tell them to slay them these people are shooting at them that's how freedom will be I don't know what human rights violations happened in what time I don't think any did in fact they did to Kuala Lumpur I mean I don't view that as a human rights violation they probably didn't they probably didn't they probably did the people they're fair I guess that's the main so look war is hell war is a bad thing, it's not a good thing but the only responsibility of a government going to war and assuming it's a just war that is, it's a war itself defense the only justice of war is to defend yourself when you go to defend yourself is necessary to win that's the only consideration you should have you know and when the West had that approach to fighting wars, they won and that will evolve, killing a lot of innocent people I'm the one guy who's not embarrassed to say that when you go to war innocent people are going to die many innocent people just ask the children in Hiroshima and Nagasaki they died they were innocent, you can talk about the adults and question how innocent they really were but the children clearly were innocent they had nothing to do with this war but they died, it's sad and it's the fault of the Japanese it's not the fault of Truman it's the fault of the Japanese, they should have started what they would do many children tried to address them sad for the children tragic even whose fault is it, Hitler not Churchill for approving the bombing of Dresden indeed Churchill and Truman are moral ethical heroes for doing that and ending those wars and minimizing the casualties of their own people and also including Japan of the Japanese themselves but certainly of American truth they are heroes for having a more backbone to you know to do what was necessary to win we today don't have that moral backbone and therefore we fight unwinnable wars endless wars wars with no end many many many many people are still going to die in the war we are fighting because we are not willing to win this we are not willing to do what's necessary non-voluntary we have time to get to those but that's a bit of a question through a voluntary taxation as I don't believe in compulsory taxation it's theft even if it's just a little bit it's still theft but I don't know about you guys but right now the government takes about 50 plus percent of my income actually if you take into account everything the government actually takes it away from me 60 plus percent of my income maybe close to 70 percent it also reduces my standard of living dramatically through all the regulations and everything else going on in the world imagine that all went away people are truly free I'd have my 60 70 percent of my income back but I'd be making a lot more money in real terms because the economy would be you know I think the US could grow at 8, 9 percent GDP growth a year I don't think there are any boundaries to economic growth I mean imagine that technology is in the advancement of quality of life and the standard of living and life longevity and everything like that would I be willing to take a percentage of my pay and voluntarily pay for military and police absolutely I'd be happy to do it who am I protecting me and my values and my property and my goods would most people be willing yes is there going to be a small minority do we call them an economics free writers yes do I care no what's that you can't be excluded from the benefit that's true so what oh you don't people are happy to fund goods that they are the beneficiaries of even if other people benefit for free in the old America in the 19th century people built roads they built roads and they didn't charge a living for using them people just used the roads because they wanted to get from point A to point B and they got enormous economic benefits from getting from point A to point B and if a thousand other people got smaller economic benefits from getting from point A to point B what did they take there's very little cost to maintaining that road and yet the benefits are huge so look they are every single day all of us benefit enormously from positive externalities people like to talk about negative externalities but there are many many more positive externalities in the world we live in the negative externalities how many of you actually pay the true value to you of all the products that you use I mean think about what your computer really really needs you all the benefits that you get so at an entire lifetime of having the computer not just you having the computer but that the computers exist and that society is our computer I mean is it worth a thousand bucks to you now it's worth millions of dollars to you if you really think about what it's worth to you as a cumulative of its impact on the whole society yet you pay a thousand bucks but the fact that the computer industry exists is an enormous positive externality if you would force to pay the true cost whatever the hell that means I mean but that's not how markets work markets are all about positive externality enormous positive externality not to mention the little ones you know you know we all talk about these negatives but the negatives are trivial as compared to positive externality now there's few hundred problems out of all so there's few writers I'm still willing it's still you know the police forces they don't protect me yes I can go through the calculation well I won't pay but my neighbors will but I want to pay because these are good guys and they're protecting me and I value my life and if you're rational you would want to do that and if we ever reach a point where we actually have a free society most people would be rational we're not going to reach the you rational people so they would be happy to pay for the services that they have to give when you're going to a store it's the only reason you don't steal because you'll get caught how many of you pay when you go to a store because it's the great thing to do because you got a service and you want to compensate the other side for the service I hope most of you if you could get away with stealing would you do it no so why wouldn't you pay for police if you're getting that service so hopefully I'm going back to your point about there's possibly private companies in our national security I'd like to direct you to the things in South Africa where the young building was actually used by the young police and the result has been actually the young police was actually involved in better police to police then and the results in the new government have been beating up certain private more sleeping nurses like we should not see this as a possible problem oh yes I don't believe in private police forces I don't believe in private police forces the state should control the police forces control the military I don't believe in private contractors for doing police work and doing military work you know that's the job of the state it's the only job of the state there only one job can run a police force right and run a military right and they should do it and South Africa those kind of examples of great examples of the fact that private police forces don't work they're corrupting and they ultimately result in gang versus jogging by police force given the emphasis on rationality would you consider an individual who doesn't confront on other people's rights that is irrational would you consider him to be immoral for the student well I mean by the very nature of saying he's irrational you're saying that he's not necessarily stupid I know a lot of very very smart people who are irrational in some aspects of their life I would consider him immoral rally fundamentally in a poor time around is about using your reason it's about using rational thought in order to pursue your values in order to to pursue your life and make your life the best life it can be but priming value is a reason for self-esteem so if you're not assuming the primary value then you are obviously not wrong so rationality is an issue of morality is not an issue of ability you can be have a fairly low IQ and be rational you can have a very high IQ and be completely utterly irrational it's only an example of that unfortunately in our society so I think that whether you're applying your mind or not in other words whether you think rationality or not this is for Iron Man each fundamental ethical question whether you engage your mind with reality is so qualified and that's where rationality is engaging your mind with reality so qualified figure stuff out that's the essence of morality and I know that it's a very different way of looking at morality than what is common but that's for whom because she's an individual she's about morality and where do we get the values that are necessary for us to pursue our life on rational thought if you don't engage your rational thought you can't pursue the values that are requirement for your life therefore you are not engaged in morality why not if you haven't really talked very much about children and those who are helpless how would you see an object of this society a small family the parents of children and accident those children perhaps don't have any other relatives what's to be done how would you fund their care so the children end it for us yes well no in a single way if they were poor they could be helpless these are children children children children have their parents in a sense hold their rights in trust in a sense children don't have they don't embody their full rights because they're not fully rational they're not capable of dealing with the world and parents that's their responsibility their responsibility is to help them get to the point where they're adults and they take care of themselves in a case like that in an object of this society I'm not doubt that a charitable entity would come in and help those kids and take care of them I think it would ultimately be up to quite a challenge to take care of the poor of the helpless you know you can imagine somebody born at 5 or 3 years they don't take care of them or it'll be a challenge what isn't legitimate what isn't legitimate is that I be forced to take care of them I can be approached and I can be reasoned with people can ask me to help them but they have no right to pull out a gun and force me out and as soon as you have government doing that then you're basically done all the government is going to get to the defendant yes then government has a role to step in and stop their youth because right to be violent trust that the parents are holding is being violent but it's apparent if the kids run a week home if there's a poor business that is an issue for charity it's not anything I'm supposing you have somebody who can support themselves because of some kind and nobody would have helped then they would have but I don't think that would happen I don't think there's any evidence in American history which is or even in the history of other places that have approached freedom everybody's just approached if they've ever seen it even in a place like Hong Kong it's brutal of a place it is it's poor of a place it was at least for some people people weren't dying in the streets people didn't care about there were charities even in the poorest of places there was no welfare state in Hong Kong for millions of years people by the millions by the hundreds of thousands and we put it in people were escaping to get the welfare of other countries people were coming in I mean that's that to me it should indicate something that they are free people want to move it people are not climbing I mean some people want to come in to the welfare state but people certainly are not climbing with climbing to go to the Soviet Union people are climbing to go to North Korea they want every grade in T.U.R I mean that's there's an indication of a legitimate country a legitimate country the degree to which people want to move it people want to go to Japan even though the Japanese won't let them in people want to go to South Korea people want to come to America they don't want to go to North Korea they don't want to go to Iraq Arabs want to come to Israel they don't want to go to West Bank they don't want to go to Jordan but if Israel opened up its job it's Arabs from all over the Middle East it could attract millions and millions of Arabs to come and work in Israel because Arabs in Israel are freer than that country in the Middle East and indeed and this is not even the topic today but indeed just the historical fact between 1890 and 1948 when the State of Israel was established the Palestinian so called Palestinian Arab population of Israel grew dramatically not because of both rates but because of immigration from Syria, from Lebanon, from Jordan from Iraq and from America why? because those nasty Jews were building industries they were building businesses they were building roads they were creating civilization they were creating activity and all these Arabs wanted jobs so the Palestinian problem the so called Palestinian problem that exists today is all the fault of the Jews for building up a 73 country to begin with the slaves in Syria Jordan and anywhere else today they wouldn't be so called refugees in Palestine but capitalism freedom individuals create prosperity and so prosperity again is a proxy for freedom and where people are good poor I can guarantee you they're also unfree for recognition travel a little bit around the world you can see thank you thank you very much it's always good value for money we're tanking zero it's always a privilege and a very stimulating experience to hear and speak I do want to wrap up quickly because we have to fill this room by 9.30 so we've got 45 minutes just before we do that we would like to present to you your own with a copy of Donut's book which is kindly signed for us at the start of the evening so thank you very much it's a small thank you to our appreciation thank you to you all much more