 Hey everyone, welcome to Triple V a show dedicated towards advancing the message of a free society. I'm your host Mike Shanklin tonight I'm joined with a real special guest. His name is Stefan Kinsella. He was actually on my show What's it been about two months ago? Anyway, I'm going to I know the live viewers can't see this but for those gonna be on Watching the recorded version you guys can check out the past video right here Just click on this little link and it'll take you over there and leave this video open as well So you can hopefully check out the original interview and then come back and check out this one now on that last interview We went over a variety of topics. We don't obviously with Kinsella. You'll have to you have to touch an IP intellectual property We also went over the Ron Paul versus Ron Paul calm situation Adam Swartz that was a sad scenario and we talked about Aaron Aaron's I always say Adam I'm telling you. I don't know what it is. Yeah, Aaron. Excuse me. I need to get that right and Corporatism to so we went over a variety of topics I want to have them back on the show obviously to talk about a new niche new set of Questions and topics and issues that haven't been touched on at least on this show Anyway before we get too deep into it Stefan. How you doing? I'm good. How you how about yourself? I can't complain man I'm uh, I'm pretty tired. The baby's really Starting to take its toll on me, you know for those you don't know I just had a baby about two and a half months ago and he's awesome But he's also a handful but anyway, um other than that things have been going pretty good. So, um You know looking back on it. Yeah, I want to skip through the whole You know what? Voluntaryism is and you already did all that so people can check out that past video for that tonight I just want to jump right into the topics before we can move on to some of the other topics So we have to kind of go back to IPP real quick because I had a lot of people obviously when you come on the show people are gonna ask me questions to ask you about intellectual property, okay? And and what one of the ones I think is it's a really good question, you know And to some people it might be a lens is kind of a foolish question or some kind of like libertarianism 101 But I think it's actually something that more people need to hear the answer to and that one is asked by Shane wolf Shane wolf asks How would musicians artists etc make money if we abolish intellectual property? So I think questions like that are Reasonable understandable and they're fine But we I think we do have to establish ahead of time that a question is not an argument Okay, so and and also and that's obviously a Good question and honest one, but quite often I get asked questions more in a rhetorical smart-ass way And they don't really want the answer to the to the question. They just want to implicitly They so they want to imply something with their question that they're not capable of or willing to make an explicit argument for So it would be like Sometimes it'd be like saying Well in your free market society, you know, how am I supposed to get myself a security check? Or how am I supposed to live when I'm When I'm 88 years old and I know how many money or how am I supposed to get health care if I can't afford it? And quite often those are not sincere or honest questions or they sort of assume something, right? They assume that there's some kind of right to health care or Old age provisions, etc So quite often when I get the question, I'm wary of just answering it because they'll just go to the next question They're never they're never satisfied So for example, they'll say well, how would authors make money and I'll give them a net I'll say well, you know, I can't predict what a free market would look like But here's what I think would happen, but I don't think that my answer Or I don't think our view of IP depends upon the answer because it's a question of justice So if I answer well, here's one way authors could make money So I'll give an example. I'll give an example. So well, for example, let's take the author of Harry Potter The Harry Potter novels, right? Very popular. I think she was the first female billionaire in Britain so she made lots of money off of Royalties from books and movie deal probably mostly movie deals and merchandising, etc So the question is how would JK Rowling make money? So I say to myself well in a copyright free world She's going to face piracy like she does now, right? There is piracy going on now people haven't noticed So the question is almost how do you make money in today's world? And the answer is the same that any entrepreneur faces that's a person who acts and tries to make a profit You have to look at the world Determine what the future will bring about when you act and whether it will satisfy you in monetary or other terms And if you think if you're trying to make money, which people do in some aspects of their lives You have to find a way to make money. You have to find a way to satisfy consumers So the smart-ass kind of short and simple answer would be Produce something people want to buy and sell it I mean there's nothing illegal in a free market without copyright about writing and selling a book You're not it's not like you can't sell a book So the first answer will be write a book and sell it like on the Kindle platform or something like that And then the question would be well But then how do you stop people from competing with you and then we get to the real question So the question is not how do you make money? It's how you stop people from competing with you But let's get back to the JK Rowling example I've got a blog post on my website c4saf.org about this. So I suspect that a JK Rowling She wrote the first she was a welfare mom. She wrote the novel because she was just entranced by the idea She had a passion for it. She probably would have written Harry Potter Anyway, as she did Because she wasn't hoping to be a billionaire. She didn't think she'd be a multi-millionaire So she sells she puts the first novel on let's say she puts it on amazon the Kindle store for a dollar a copy three dollars a copy Even in a world where people could copy her Well, she would sell some initially because it was a good book and people liked it And then maybe people started knocking it off and pirating her and I don't know. I guess the pirates would sell it for 25 cents And so she'd have to lower her price to compete with them or maybe People wouldn't mind paying a dollar instead of 25 cents because it's not that much of a savings And if she didn't have a publisher she could the dollar book is about what authors make anyway After going through the publishing guilds Which were set up because of copyright in the first place So she she sells the first Harry Potter novel. She makes I don't know. Let's say she makes 20 thousand dollars or 100 thousand dollars on it Whatever she becomes popular And there are Harry Potter fans all over the world and guess what she's got six other Harry Potter novels in her mind That she's ready to To to write and publish So she gets in her mind. Well, let me do a Kickstarter project or let me go on my Let me start a website called jkrolling.com or harry potter.com And I'll tell my fans I've got book number two ready to go And as soon as I get a hundred thousand people that commit to pay five bucks each for it, you know, half a million dollars I'll release it and then I'll sell some on top of that. So now she's got a million dollars Then two or three companies say let's make a movie based upon the first book. It's a popular book series They don't need her permission So they might two or three or four movies come out. Well, even if they come out They're going to make harry potter even more popular so she can make more money on the third book And one of the companies might come to her in the studios and might say listen If you will agree to authorize or consult on this movie and we can say it's the authorized version Authorized by the author of the novels. We think we can sell more tickets Right because more of your fans if there's two or three harry potter novels movies coming out at the same time You know movies are 10 15 bucks a piece They might choose to see the best one which would be the one that the author authorized So maybe they'll give her a cut of the royalties. Maybe they'll give her a million maybe 10 million dollars That's the first one So you can see that after seven novels She might be worth 50 million dollars or maybe 100 million dollars without copyright at all So that's one example But the problem is you give an example like this and then they'll say Well, what about a poet? What about a painter? What about a sculptor? What about a software programmer? I mean, they just keep coming up with one Rattatat machine gun example after the other And they're never going to be satisfied until you give them I don't know an answer for every possible question they could have So basically their implicit position is I want a world where the following goals that I have arbitrarily Specified have to be met in any society or going to be met in your society So I think there needs to be this percentage of creativity needs to be in movies and blockbusters and hollywood hits And kate winslet being in titanic and you know, I mean Basically the way it's been it's got to be the way it's always got going to be and I've got to prove that And I don't think that's going to happen. I think things will change um, so Long answer to a simple question, but that question I think it's often Um, a mind trap or disingenuous or at least we have to be clear that look I can answer these questions I can give a stab at it and there's other answers by the way for Inventions and academic look academic works. I you and I both write things on facebook and Uh, nonfiction works all the time. We don't get paid for it. We do it because we're interested in doing it Most scholars do not get paid a cent for their law review articles or their scholarly publications They do it for the prestige and to contribute to the field and to get their reputation Um to get well known some some of them actually pay These journals to publish in the journals so The idea that without the monetary incentive provided by copyright there would be no say non academic writing or no No scholarly writing is ridiculous. There's no incentive now financial incentive From copyright copyright actually only hurts them because They often have to assign the copyright to some journal or publishing house or their university And then they don't even have the right to reprint their own works later on So it restricts how many people can see it So that would be one answer and there by the way is a lot of case studies and suggestions on techdirt.com and on my site The problem is that we don't have freedom now And so these people that object to copyright because we can't give them an answer to what a copyright free world would look like Won't let us try a copyright free world out to see what would happen Yeah now good stuff and you know what you brought up guilds earlier talking about how They were actually a result of previous statism Can you go into the the history of guilds real quick and yeah Well, so the in so one of the classic examples of well the origin of modern copyright law Was um in at the with with the you know before the printing press came about It was really hard to pass down the information. So we had oral traditions and you had these scribes People who would inscribe or hand copy the bible and other books Um, we didn't have a problem of too much copying. We had the the opposite problem Um, but they could be controlled a little bit by the church and the state because there was a Small number of scribes Well, then the printing press starts and then so the government and the church starts freaking out. Uh-oh We might have people reading things. We don't want them to read, you know Um, maybe Protestantism was spread or Catholicism or I don't some other views Um, so you had this company called the stationers company chartered our 1500 or something in England Which for I don't know good hundred or so years had basically a monopoly It was basically the organization that the church and the crown used To control what books could be printed So you had to get permission from the stationers company to print something because you had to go through a printer To print things back in those days. So the government had an easy way to To control this well when their patent or monopoly ran out at that point The stationers company was lobbying parliament this is late 1600s early 1700s to Give them their monopoly to to renew their monopoly So there was a but there were some, you know people were concerned about this So what happened was these the the publishing industry lobbied parliament to pass the statute of n 1709 Which was the origin of modern copyright and they did it under the guise of giving authors a copyright Okay, by the way, this the history of all this is fascinating and you can find it on a website Called question copyright dot org just go there and look on one of their pages. They have a whole history of all this um So what the the publishing industry realized was that They could under the guise of getting parliament to grant a copyright to authors, which everyone thought was a good thing Oh, let's give it to the authors now. They are they write the books. They should have the right They knew that the authors would have to go right back to the publishing companies To get it published And they and they would get the chokehold on it again So you had emerging right after the stationers company's charter and monopoly expired You had a a statute enacted allegedly in the name of authors But really what it did was it allowed the publishing industry to come back in again And assume control again This is why even till this day although the internet and amazon is starting to break this monopoly down Even to this day most authors Have their copyrights locked up by some publishing company So it's just like the guild all over again. So it looks it's just like inventors at the companies everyone says Oh, you need patents to protect the small inventor. Well, that's nonsense. Most patents are kept by big companies oligopolistic corporations and which if you're an employee working for one of them You have to assign your rights over to them as part of your employment agreement. So it's it's it's again the same thing It's it's just a disguised way of keeping these Monopolies and these kind of guild like systems perpetuated and and the irony is that um One reason one way that the copyright system was sold to the public and to the authors was by telling them Up till now the government the crown the church the guilds have been able to Decide whether your book was going to be published. So they could censor you well under the new copyright system You will have that right in other words. They sold it to the authors Not telling them you're going to have a monopoly on this You'll be able to stop people from publishing works, but they're telling them We're going to liberate you. We're going to let you be free of censorship And have the right to publish your stuff yourself And of course it's turned around again into another censoring tool because now authors will or their publishing agents will sue people For copying their stuff and by the way something similar happened with patents One reason the patent system which was had its origin in around 1623 with the um statute of Monopolies they actually called it that In england and it's funny. Yeah, you have advocates of the patent system now who get indignant when you call it a monopoly How dare you call what i'm your favorite monopoly? It's like, oh, I don't know how about 1623 statute of monopolies, but One way they sold that was again They told people there there was a complex system of guilds which had these quasi monopolistic controls Over who could be in what trade and what goods could be sold in a certain town or region? And the idea of the of the statute of monopolies and the patent system was The government would come in and give you a patent over this Which would kind of give you permission to make this good at least it was a way of breaking the the stranglehold On of the guilds. So even the patent system was sold originally in part as a way to break the Previous system of censorship and monopolies and anti-competitive controls of a kind of quasi state Um arrangement and of course both have turned out to be exactly um what they purported to be Fighting against yeah It's all double speak in the end. Anyway, I mean good stuff. I'm at people need to hear that stuff Let's let's move on from ip. I don't want to have a you know We already have a whole video on ip so let's sit on a variety of different topics David Laverne wants to ask you How is the government going to collect the sales tax from the internet revenue or from the ever internet? sales tax they're talking about How could government enforce an internet sales tax if it was to go into effect other than like Because you would think you know, we're gonna be as as time goes on more and more We're gonna be doing business more globally than we are just locally So it's not going to be just me in california. I might buy something from canada or england or Name a country. You know what I'm saying? Right. I mean how how how do you see the the internet either helping us reduce our tax burden? Or do you think it can be controlled? I want to hear your opinion on this well, of course, I'm totally against Any state and any taxation whatsoever anywhere and I'm not even I mean There is an issue of the discriminatory effect the fact that the internet is largely unregulated right now And permits say amazon sales to largely be You know To escape sales tax It does penalize to some degree Brick and mortar stores which have to pay sales tax But of course the penalty is the sales tax that they're subject to and the solution is not to tax Unregulated and untaxed industries. It's to free up the others So the proposals I've heard in the us at least would be for Um, I don't think the federal government is right now seriously proposing Doing that although it's been miss mischaracterized is that I think the federal government is proposing changing a federal law which I think Temporarily restricted the states from imposing sales taxes um So I think the states a lot of them want to impose sales taxes for obvious reasons Sometimes they're being lobbied by the brick and mortar stores so that they have a more level playing field. Sometimes they just want the money so I don't know Maybe most people are not familiar with this but in most states in the u.s If you Buy a good on amazon, let's say or from an online merchant from another state and it's shipped to you and you're home If you don't pay sales tax Then the reason is because the sale did not quote take place in your home state So your state has no jurisdiction over the seller Okay, but they still do have jurisdiction over you So there's usually in most states a corresponding what they call a use tax So what you're supposed to do? Let's say you live in california and you get a shipment from the texas company And you you you receive a hundred dollar item and you don't pay the 9% or whatever sales tax in california because The the seller is not Complying with california law because they're not subject to their jurisdiction. You are supposed to as a consumer Report on your state income tax that year That you bought this hundred dollar item and voluntarily divulge the the cost and pay a use tax to california now california texas can't both tax the same transaction because Of the interstate commerce clause in the federal constitution which prohibits double taxation. They have to Allocate it or purate it somehow, but just the basic rule they've adopted So technically actually what I would like to see is every politician who's running for office I would like them to be asked when they have these debates Have you ever reported a use tax? On your state income tax return because no one does it So they're all evading taxes. So they're basically violating law which I think is perfectly fine for for law abiding non politicians But I think politicians ought to be Completely exposed and even penalized for not comply with the state laws of the state that they support So I think just like the use tax is hard to enforce I think that Enacting a sales tax on online transactions would also be difficult for the states to enforce I think they would initially try to do it similar to The use tax like they'd say you have to fill out fill it out on your annual state income tax return or they might start Approaching the the online companies and say if you have a presence in our state Which would be a website which anyone can access Then you must comply with our law and you must collect the sales tax for us and submit it Some companies are going to comply some are not especially the ones out overseas so What you're going to have I think is if it gets too high and too many companies start complying Other companies will emerge that or basically gray market or black market or they start using bitcoin Or other anonymous transactions the government can't track So you're going to have like a flight into Anonymous or untrackable wet Ways of doing commerce which is not good for the consumer because it it's less reliable. It's more costly in a sense, right? But they'll do what they have to do to evade high sales taxes. I I hope and I believe Yeah, well, we'll see how that works. I mean, let's before we get too much deeper in this I have to ask you this question because I've never really asked you this before What's your whole take on voting? What what do you say to people when they say who are you going to vote for this election? um, I don't vote And um, I think it's a waste of time I don't quite agree with some of the more ardent libertarians who thinks it's um Immoral to vote I think if you want to vote, it's fine. Although I do think if you vote for you know Evil socialist that is immoral, but if you just try to get the lesser evil in the office I can understand why people do that But I think it's completely futile and I don't think changing the Look, the state is an organization that exists Independent of the current administration and the people that fulfill its role. It exists for a certain reason it exists because Of a certain fictitious belief on the part of the population the great mass of the population And they have that belief in part because of state propaganda and because the state has warmed its way into our lives taken over all the institutions like communication education Uh, the the academy, you know academia security justice law Even language in some cases So it's kind of a weird feedback loop, but I don't think changing the actual individuals who occupy the current administration or as they say in in Outside the u.s. The government I don't think that's the solution to the problem the the the organization or the entity known as the state Will will will subsist and it will continue So I don't think going trying to vote to change these fairly non-distinguishable current politicians who serve roles in the administration is is ever going to solve Anything although I can appreciate why people Get sort of impatient and want to try that. So I think it's futile Um, I think it's not the solution. I don't know if there is a solution. I mean, I don't think we should Only be for liberty if we delude ourselves into believing that we're going to achieve Complete liberty forever once and for all in the next five years Right, you know, even if we achieve liberty in five years I mean, maybe the state will come back. I mean, you know so If if you're the type of person who's going to give up and not be for liberty If if you stamp your foot and you can't be assured by some activists that you're going to have liberty You know in two or three years or five or 10 15 years Then I don't think you're that good of an ally. Anyway, you're not going to stick with it You're going to give up and go into the darkness I fight for liberty because I think it's the right thing to do. I want to understand justice and rights Um, I do think we're gonna have you you can have liberty in your life in certain ways. You can be aware of the state I view the state as a dangerous animal. It's like a disease or a tornado or a natural disaster or The unfortunate fact of immortality. I mean mortality or or the fact of criminals these things exist in life and Your your job as a surviving human actor Is to try to flourish and try to be aware of the dangers and to try to find a way to prosper Despite the these things and I think that's true of the state as well. It doesn't mean you're endorsing it It doesn't mean you're giving up. It just means you're being realistic. So There are ways you can take you know, look the state is a slow stupid beast It's pervasive and it's dangerous and it's easier to destroy than to create In a sense, right? So that's my take on voting do it if you want to but I don't think you have any obligation to and I don't think it's gonna Do any good. No good stuff and you were just mentioning the justice system Um, you know, I think that's what we're all trying to search for for what we believe is justice. Maybe you know, that's a whole Uh rhetorical and etymological discussion. We can have a different day, but James Cox, you know, this guy's he's always been fighting for fija down over in the in florida fully informed jury association Which I would I would encourage everybody to go check out fija.org I think it was on his blog His podcast sorry a few years ago too. Yeah Well, actually he just went up to new york city with me a couple days ago Well, when I gave my speech up there in uh anarchy in my seat But he's he's been a friend of mine for years. Anyway, um, he had a bunch of great questions Uh pertain to the court system. It's pretty in depth, but let's let's jump right into it One of the things he wants to ask is what changes would you like to see In today's court system an example he has is like judges having less power in the courtrooms He says maybe they're just referees and not as as much as authoritarians One other thing he said was maybe attorneys should not Have to be a part of the bar association and they could have their uh and have their jobs dictated by this association You know, maybe we can hammer on that before we jump in the other things Yeah, let's let's talk about a few things. Well, first of all again, I I think we have to be honest and And recognize the nature of what we're dealing with here One change we can make is to not call them courts and judges because they're not courts and they're not judges They are fake courts and they're fake judges. These are just employees of the government Pretending to administer justice and law they do that to have a veneer or a veneer or a patina of respectability To have some legitimacy behind their rulings, but they're all just government goons So that's one thing we can do comply with their orders to avoid Physical harm if you have to but don't delude yourself into respecting them Uh, if they make if they make you call the mirror honor, you know, go through the motions do what you have to do But first of all, let's recognize them for what they are. They're not real judges. They're not administering real law They're not real courts. Um a real court would be Private it would be to settle a dispute between two actual people based upon principles of justice Developed in a private law setting Not some guy that was appointed by a governor or elected in an election Who has the power to enforce the arbitrary Decrees and dictates of another branch of the government a legislature, which are called legislation or statutes The idea that The idea of justice is to try to do justice in a dispute between two parties two people have a real dispute They both claim the same thing who gets this truck, right? Or this guy hurt me. How much of his money do I get or how much of his money does he need does he get to keep That's a real dispute and a fair-minded person in a partial jury or a judge Or an arbitrator or whatever can try to at least find the answer to the question Who is the rightful owner of this property? But that is not what judges today do because the vast bulk of law so-called law Is just statutes that are enacted arbitrarily by a legislature Which don't have anything to do with justice Um, and so the job of the judge nowadays and I feel sorry for these so-called judges because their job is to interpret statutes Which is basically the job of an english professor or a lexicographer So the question before the judge is not what's the just result That's never the question anymore or very rarely The question is what does this word mean in the statute that the government passed so for example if the statute says You shall go to jail for 10 years if you sell cocaine So then the only question is or a control substance, let's say So the only question is what's a control substance? So then you go look at another List of definitions by another agency of the government which defines the current list of control substances And then the only question is well did this guy sell a control substance? And if the answer is yes, then he's got to go to jail for 10 years or 15 years or life So that's not so he's got to go to jail and you have to you have to come up with that answer whether it's just or not so That's my first thing. I would recognize these as criminal Organizations that have almost nothing to do with justice anymore And it's not the judge's fault the judges are trying to just they're doing what they're told but you know on the other hand They're just following orders, right? But if you want to talk about real changes, I would say a couple of things I do agree that it would be better if lawyers didn't have to Be a member of the bar or swear an oath to the court Although to be honest as much as I don't like Lawyers, I mean I don't like engineers. I mean they're you know There're too many socialists and all of them lawyers tend to be Pretty good defenders of civil liberties when it when push comes to shove and think of the ACLU for example I mean I'm not a liberal But I do admire the ACLU for standing up to for civil liberties and a lot of lawyers do that Right. Um, in fact a lot of the complaints people make about lawyers and I am one I understand but I would say nine times out of ten. It's the clients that are the jerks not the lawyers The clients insist on going to trial and suing someone Standing on their rights when their lawyers are saying listen. Can we just settle this? You really don't want to do this No, dammit. I don't care if I spend a hundred thousand on your fees to get a hundred thousand from this guy I'm going to make him pay. I mean so usually it's it's jerk clients who make lawyers look bad um, but That change I don't think would make a big change if I could just say two things I would change Number one, I would change the legal system Not to a loser pays rule a lot of people have said we should adopt the um, the english rule The loser pays rule actually it's the non american rule most countries have a rule more similar to the english rule Where the loser pays? I actually don't agree with loser pays because if you are the losing defendant Then that just doubles or amplifies the amount of damage you could suffer Like if a big company sues you for copyright infringement or patent infringement Now you not only Are jeopardy of losing the lawsuit but of having to pay the attorney's fees So that makes it even easier for people to engage in legal bullying So I would institute the rule the losing plaintiff pays What that means is if you ever institute a lawsuit, which I regard in almost every case is an act of aggression Um, no matter what the cause of action because you're using the the criminal court system of the criminal state Um By criminal I mean it's unjust not that it's the criminal courts I mean you're using the court system of a of a criminal gang of thugs Um Even if you have a legitimate dispute I would say it'd be better to go to a private arbitrator So I would say if anyone ever sues anyone else for anything even a contract breach and you lose you have to pay the The attorney's fees for the loot for the for the side that you sued because they didn't ask to be drawn into court So that would be um That'd be one change I think and then the other would of course be The the the faiji idea the fully informed jury amendment I do believe people should be made aware By the judge or by leaflets or by some kind of regular institutionalized or other information of their right to Nullify any law they disagree with on any grounds whatsoever So, you know, they they can acquit a defendant of a criminal um a prosecution Even if they think he did the crime um Even if even if even if they think the law is constitutional as long as you disagree with the with the verdict You can acquit the guy and then double jeopardy should apply So I would say fully informed jury and jury nullification Combined with a losing plaintiff pay's rule would be improvements Yeah, it would obviously incentivize people to only bring real Cases to the to the system Anyway, good stuff. It was funny too because my next question was do you believe the jurors should be educated on their rights? So good stuff You know james cox did have a couple more questions. I want to ask this one real quick Why is freedom of speech controlled in the courtroom? Why can't you say what you want to say? That's what james cox asked him The reason well, there's there's a cynical reason which is because the judges are little Kind of little fascist dictators in their courtrooms. They kind of have carte blanche. I mean they can actually send these people to jail with no With no Due process whatsoever For contempt of court and things like that So of course they become power. They do what people do when they're given lots of power They abuse it Um or use it you could say I don't know if it's abuse. It's just the way people act when they're given power Right, just like lord of the rings, right? That's one problem with power. I mean I look I'm an anarcho austrian capitalist. I don't know if I'd make a good president much less someone like um Your typical run of the mill politician. I'm if you put Any any of us in position of controlling a 16 trillion dollar Or four trillion dollar a year government I mean it's hard to resist not using it giving out jobs and Harming your enemies. I mean what else are you going to do with the power? I don't know what the objectively right thing to do with that such power is um So um Sorry, where am I? What was the question? That one was freedom of speech in the courtroom. Why can't you do what you want? Yeah, so that's a cynical answer I think the real answer though is there are rules of evidence and procedure in any In a real court in a real Judicial proceeding There would be tend to be rules of evidence and rules of procedure Which which is where the idea of due process comes from and of course the modern courts mimic this to make it look like They're just right to give their rulings of a near legitimacy Uh, but even in a in a real just society I think there would be rules of evidence and that would that would that would require some limits On what could be said it would it would it would prevent Some information from being shown to the jury because it's inflammatory or it's irrelevant or it's likely to confuse them or to Leave them Although my tendency as a libertarian Is to have a very low threshold for what's material or relevant for the jury to see I tend to think you pick a jury at random like out of the phone book literally And you don't disqualify anyone unless they basically know someone or have an obvious bias Um, so I would get rid of the that's another thing I would change to back on the other question I would get rid of the ability of the lawyers and the judge to disqualify jurors Um, based upon all the litany of reasons they can disqualify them for that I mean you have to get 100 jurors for some trials to get down to 12 or maybe even more because there's so many peremptory Challenges or challenges for cause Um that lawyers can use so each one gets a certain number of like just arbitrary Challenges except they can't be for the wrong reasons can't be for race or whatever So maybe I can disqualify six jurors For free and then I can disqualify as many as I want if I can show cause which is You know any slightly unapproved opinion like it's like it's like probable cause cause with the police officer Yeah, it's similar So the judge or the or the lawyers can disqualify jurors for cause or they can disqualify for no cause Using up their peremptory challenges. I think that's what they call it I would get rid of that because I think if you're going to use a jury It should just be a random selection of people as long as they're up here and they're not obviously biased That's it the first 12 or the first six or whatever You know she should get on the jury So that that'd be one change I would make to the to the jury system And that would also help with the jury notification problem because they they of course disqualify you if you Say you're aware of the right to nullify I know it's you have the pamphlet. It's like get out of this courtroom, right? All right. Um, let's move on Michael dano, he's awesome. I love this guy. He wants me to ask you, you know, given the uh, the martial law police state down in in boston What's what's the possibility of this just continuing, you know, I personally believe That you know, you're just gonna continue to see status and grow and grow and grow for years and years and years I don't think we're anywhere close to a free society or even like on the on the bull trap of you know, so um, when I'm when I'm That's what I'm trying to say is do you see this police state? And that the way that martial law was enforced in boston becoming the norm for other regions inside of uh, not only america But the rest of the world obviously it already happens in a lot of places in the rest of the world But what about specifically america? I may not be as pessimistic or as I don't know say paranoid is a lot of my fellow libertarians. I mean, I hate the state Um, I hate what it does to us. I think in some ways it's getting worse in some ways It's getting better not the state but society right um, and I think Maybe that's the way it's always been. I think there's always a balance or at least in our western Tradition there's always been a balance um So I'm very nervous about The state getting worse in some ways taxes going up Uh inflation skyrocketing the police state getting worse the constitution Being increasingly disregarded more war. Yeah, yeah a war, but I'm also hopeful that um Um, I mean there's more libertarians than ever. There's more people aware than ever of the Problems with having a completely totalitarian and centralized economy. You know mesas used to say Like how can you tell whether you have a free economy? And I think he had a like a He said basically you have a stock market a functioning stock market. So it's kind of like a a rough test, right? a rule of thumb and Another one of my friends, um, I think it was tim swanson said the other day to me um He lives in china right now and he says, you know, you can tell if you have an essentially free or an essentially Kind of police state a kind of society by whether or not you can get on facebook without using a VPN Okay, and in china you have to Quite often use a virtual private network and some encryption You basically have to break the law to go on facebook And here we don't have to so in a sense There's a certain tradition of freedom of speech and even some randians used to say this they said that It's not time to fight physically yet So long as we have freedom of speech because as long as we have freedom of speech You can at least say and protest what the government's doing But when they when they stop freedom of speech, then you have nothing you have no alternative But to physically fight now, of course they can ratchet it up They can increase taxes and controls and seriously in a fascist like manner so that they gradually do that anyway but to be honest my hope is And i'm i'm trying not to be a polyana But my hope is that the technology and the free market Are so Have so much possibility and can keep growing In ways that are unpredictable to the state and will allow people to um I mean look technology helps the government And it helps the people. I think it helps the people more at least nowadays. I think the internet has helped the people More than it's helped the state And the state's always way behind right so i'm hoping that i mean look if they would have known that The internet the internet would have turned into what it's turned into and cell phones and smartphones and and and video cameras They would have outlawed it a long time ago, but now it's probably too late Yeah, so that's my hope Um, so i'm cautiously optimistic. I don't think we'll get to a point for a long time that we've won or that we've totally lost Um, I think it's going to be a balance for a long time and hopefully During that time prosperity will keep increasing Unfortunately, the state will have more to parasite off of and have more resources to fight its wars and to put people in Cages for smoking marijuana and cocaine um But people can also find ways to live flourishing good lives Despite the unfortunate background cost of the state Right, so i'm cautiously optimistic and hopeful in the liberty movement and in technology And free market the power free markets Yeah, well, you know technological advancement got us out of the malthusian trap But at the same time it gave government a name mom and i you know hydrogen bomb, so you know I'm feeling on that, you know Well, in fact, let's take this to the next step Uh, if we're going to use this on maybe the side I don't know which side if you like these things or not cryptocurrencies bitcoin Like when that's technological advancement technically and it's a way to avoid taxation You know, obviously we have the industrial use argument and all the rest of that stuff which you could argue frs Have what do you mean the industrial the industrial use argument? Well, like the idea that money has to come from commodity. Exactly. You know, i'm just going over that argument Um, but you know and obviously bitcoins value Technically it's if you want to call it intrinsic industrial use value Uh, because nothing that is real intrinsic value, but I know what they're meaning industrial use when they say that It's technically zero, right? So technically the price could fall to zero tomorrow People aren't using it to turn bitcoins into, uh, you know connectors on cables to to increase conductivity, right? So I mean, they don't have a user for jewelry At the same time bitcoins can help you avoid taxation and save money To at the same time. So what I want to hear your old bitcoin light coin thing In fact, somebody here who was it? Adam, I want to give his name right Deistor hoft, please. I hope I got that right. He actually asked He wants to hear your short term and long term beliefs for bitcoin and light coin And also, um, you know, are you a fan of them? I'm definitely a fan. Uh, I I do not consider myself to be an expert on this. I it's one thing I'm trying to learn about I I know several people who know a lot more than me about it like peter serda Jeff tucker even Vj boy a patty coin swinkles friends of mine all Um, I've been learning about it reading about it. It's complicated. I mean, I have an electrical engineering degree And I'm still trying to understand exactly what happens with the The scheme of bitcoin, but so far as I understand it. I think the inventor of it if it's one inventor Um, is a complete genius and what he's come up with Um, so so first of all, I understand what you're saying about intrinsic value But the thing about traditional views of money is it's not that it has intrinsic value. It has a non monetary value So gold was a commodity that had a commodity value like in a barter economy It had some value. That's the mesis regression theorems like imagine gold having a use For jewelry or industrial uses or ornamentation And so then it's because of its properties malleability. It's not too plentiful not too rare, etc People started using it as an indirect Medium of exchange and then it became in general use that's money a general generally used medium of exchange Um, I have honestly I've never quite believed that that is a proof that that's the only way money can arise In fact, I don't believe it. I mean, maybe I can be convinced of it But I see no reason it has to be that way and in fact What people think of as money now is fiat say us dollars, which are not They have no non monetary value either. They have no commodity value Now they came from a gold system. So there's a regression kind of Calls all history historical path you could trace back but dollars could Call to zero value tomorrow too. I guess I mean, it's just the federal government that makes them The most popular thing around because they impose sales taxes on well, you know, here's one thing every time I talk about this People will say well, technically the u.s Or any foreign or fiat currency is has an intrinsic value in that you have to pay taxes in it So that you have to get those dollar bills to pay the taxes in it But then I argue well, what if we switch over to because you know like bitcoins like a commodity currency It's kind of like a mixture. So what if everybody switched over to bitcoin? Well, then nobody would have a foreign and then it would have no Industrial use, you know regression theorem argument. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think another problem that is I mean look theoretically ever since I think gold I if I recall the history in the 30s rosa belt Outlawed gold clauses and contracts, but I think Oh, there was some time later in the 70s or something that they were re legalized So there's nothing preventing you from having from like doing your transactions Denominated in gold So you theoretically could just use gold throughout the year and then convert the gold into the the current fair market value of dollars to pay your taxes if you wanted to There's nothing preventing you from doing that So here's what I'm thinking about bitcoin. I'm not sure bitcoin ever would have originated if not for the state because One of the main purposes is anonymity right from the from government regulation controls taxation Outlawing of certain acts like pornography and gambling online gambling this kind of stuff So I'm not sure that there ever would have been a need on a free market for a bitcoin to even emerge But the government has created that need and given that that need is there and given that it has emerged um I think it's a type of money already. I don't think it's the only money But you know the dollar's not the only money either. There's francs and I mean this right now francs. There's one. There's euros and the yen and The rules etc so I am cautiously optimistic I had but one reason I'm not the best person to ask about this. I had a bet with my friend vj About this. I bet a year ago. Well at nine months ago. I bet him that bitcoin would crash and my My bet was not because I think it's it can't be a money It was I thought the government would crack down on it and ruin it or that people would predict that was going to happen And so then they would lose face and they wouldn't use it So I bet him I don't remember how much but I ended up Paying off early. I said listen. I'm gonna lose this bet. So Let me give you Tell you what can I get can I pay you with a discount of a pay you early? I'm gonna lose in three months. He said yeah, give me give me three bitcoins So I had to go buy the bitcoins and By the time I gave them to him it was worth more than the original bet because they'd gone up so much So I lost the bet actually but it wasn't because I'm against them and it wasn't because I think they can't be money It was just because of skepticism About the state. I'm still I've still skeptical. I think that they become too popular and threaten the dollar The government would take out all stops to try to stop it Um, whether they can succeed or not. I don't know and maybe they'll be too late So I'm cautiously optimistic. I I have some bitcoins right now Let me put it that way just as a hedge against the future So I think they have I think there it's I think it could it could replace paypal and visa and mastercard and credit cards as at least as a decentralized costless anonymous payment system Or very low cost payment system. So it has the potential to do that plus I think I've heard that bitcoin could be extended for other uses so it could be used uh for tracking title to property real property or even movable property watches and cars um stock who owns stock in a company that could be used to Let you have anonymous ownership interest in a company Um or at least a better tracking system So it's got lots of uses because the only reason we call it money is because it's called bitcoin That's just the name that was slapped on it But it's just like a little it's just a ledger. It's just a correlation system. Yeah correlate anything So I think it's fascinating and I I'm watching it Cautiously optimistically. I think it's good anything that threatens the state is uh is is something I'm in favor of Yeah, and it's market cap right now. I think it's around 1.7 billion dollars Which when you think about you know as far as wealth in the united states, it's like 0.008 Of the wealth So that just gives you an idea of how much uh room bitcoin does have to grow and and adopt You know into the uh permeated into society really Let's move on Franklin, uh, nikolam valterius wants me to ask you actually she has a statement. She says it's been a few years Since you spoke with Stefan since you spoke with Stefan mollin knew about uh, his children's Montessori education I'm kind of I don't know too much about the scenario. So you might have to fill me in too What are his thoughts now and uh, what your thoughts now and would you encourage other peaceful parents to have their children Be Montessori educated and do you have any articles talking about the subject? Okay, good question. Um, I think it was a couple of years ago. Stefan mollin. You did um a series of interviews with people I think he talked to me David Friedman who was a so-called unschooler He talked with me more about Montessori and hold on. Hold on. You're telling me David Friedman's an unschooler Yeah Are you serious? Well, he has told he underscored his son Patrick Friedman apparently wow and his other Child, well, do you mean homeschool or unschooled unschooled? So it's homeschooling, but like with no curriculum or something. I'm not an unschooler. So yeah, yeah good, um and so I did write an article on the rockwell.com. It's on my website stephenconsella.com. It's on Montessori and peaceful Well, I didn't call it peaceful parenting at the time that's sort of a A name that's I've become more aware of in the intervening years. In fact, I saw stephen mollin knew About two a month or two ago at this uh conference. We both spoke at in nagadotius, texas. It's on my blog one of my recent podcasts is called Um It was my speech on lock it was a conference called liberty in the pines and at the panel discussion With jeff tucker me stephen and um three other people There was a lot of intense interest in the audience They kept asking over and over again peaceful parenting and this kind of stuff So this thing is caught on people are interested in it my view is I think it's a little bit unfortunate that Most the the libertarians who are interested in peaceful parenting Don't know much about montessori because it's almost like they're reinventing the wheel They're doing a lot of things sort of by intuition or rediscovery That montessori figured out a hundred years ago, right? She was she believed in the way to You know Fix our problems for the future is exactly what mollin knew talks about which is you have to train a new New generation of children who are going to grow up and they're going to come the next leaders Um in in peace and volunteerism that kind of stuff You know, I've I've got a something in my article about this Um, but she had a systematic way and also they also had a uh, by the way, ian rand used to promote montessori heavily Which is one reason I steered clear of it originally because I was I used to be a randian, you know, I still am in some ways and I was childless and a student so I didn't really pay much attention to I didn't give a damn about education techniques of children because I was 25 year old smartass but I had this vague idea that it was just some weird kooky oddball education system that the randians like so by the time I I had Children I there was a Montessori school around where I lived and I I thought that's what those weird randians like But I looked into it and I started falling in love with it because it's so rational and it's so oriented on the kid And to me, it's just a perfect blend. I love Montessori at least am I that's the original um Italian european version sort of like the catholics versus the protestants Gotcha, it is because in in america the um, there was this hit piece done in the 20s 1920s By some guy who had it out for Montessori and everyone sort of bought it and it fell into disfavor here And later on it was it was exposed as sort of just a crock of a crock But by then the damage had been done. So there was basically no movement here So people that were interested in it this woman named nancy rambush went to europe and she fell in love with it And she wanted to so she started the american Montessori society because it was She had to do it on her own here. So you had this sort of But she came up with her own americanized version of the rules So that's what happened over here and now am I is coming back So I'd say the majority of schools over here are am s But some are am I and I from what I've seen I like it better Although both are pretty good. The problem is it's not really regulated by any central organization So you have a lot of so-called Montessori schools. They just call themselves Montessori, but they have almost no Regardless background of training whatsoever. So you've got to do your research make sure they're either am s or am I Certified so I do like it. I'm not opposed to homeschooling. I think that's fine I do believe in the division of labor. So I tend to think that Uh Hiring trained teachers is better, but I know a lot of unschoolers and homeschoolers Uh, don't agree on that. But anyway, that's my take on it. I do. I do think it's they're both great though Yeah, good stuff. Uh, one last question. I'll let you go after that. Sorry All right, and you know, you and I we kind of had this discussion earlier speaking of which mr. Winsall Anyway, that was some good stuff. I heard You'll be lies. Yeah, I'm not a nice guy. Don't worry. Don't worry about it. Nice. Sorry I got you Yeah, well, you know, I guess that's his real name. You know, he's got so many aliases Nothing really matters as far as aliases go. He can call himself, you know, Santa Claus for all I care but um, you know We we're talking about copyrights You are having a debate with him about intellectual property, right patents and stuff like that And and somebody wanted me to kind of hammer away the the point because you know, more people need to hear this stuff Uh, Daniel Rothschild actually and it's not the Rothschilds like you're thinking Anyway, um, his name's Daniel Rothschild. He's just a regular guy He wanted me to reiterate that he um, he says he's not a cigar chopper He's got one of the international making conspiracy guys or whatever Just a regular guy Yeah, like like it matters who if he has a top hat or not But anyway, he was he was wanting to know about the difference between uh, how Rothbard identified patents and copyrights You try to get this point across to winzel Hopefully now on this show, you'll have a little bit more even keel kind of a a chance and opportunity to explain What Rothbard really was trying to get at there because there is like a duality world Which is hard to understand for most people. I can see it and I want to add in after you But you know, can you explain kind of how Rothbard? Go ahead. Good. I'll let you Yeah, I'm not in a rush by the way, so don't don't feel rushed. Um, so First of all, I've got an um I've got a blog post i'm working on where i'm going to kind of go into This a little bit more detail Um, and um, I posted the other day if you go to c4sif.org Just search for Rothbard and copyright or something. He published an article So here's what I think. First of all, I'm not sure why it matters what Rothbard believed because We shouldn't make arguments with authority. Now, of course, he's a great Probably the greatest libertarian figure. So it matters what he thought was of interest and maybe we can learn something from him But um, if he if it turns out he was for What we would call a type of copyright or IP that he was just wrong And then we can analyze why he was wrong and where he made a mistake Um, I think he was a little ambiguous in what he said. I think he took a stab at it. Um, I think There's different ways to interpret what he said one way is that he was basically talking about some kind of contract And then he analyzed in very brief detail what would happen to third parties because he he realized that That merely having a contract between two people is not sufficient to get you something similar to Modern patent or copyright right those systems have to be what we call in rim property rights good against the world That's good against third parties if it only binds people that sign a contract It's not a full property right And so he was he tried to come up with a suggestion or one suggestion of a way That you could have a private contract that would somehow Uh limit what third parties could do with the information they somehow got From the second guy to the contract. So that was his argument. I think what he was arguing there Was wrong, but let me say this in the I think it was in the 60s. Um When he first started writing on On ip he had a very lucid and clear Argument against most ip including patents. He argued that patents distort research and innovation At best they they incentivize one type of rnd at the expense of another Because what you can get a patent on would be a practical application of an idea like gizmo But you couldn't get a patent on the abstract ideas So you're going to have relatively less rnd going to this and we're going to this so it just distorts and scoos the economy So he recognized that and he also recognized that it was a monopoly grant by the state Right and then he He wrote this stuff about this country. He called a contractual copyright and common law copyright Um, I don't look I think people even now are confused by this Let me briefly explain this copyright uh That we think of now is a purely a creature of statute and it emerged from the statute of an 1709 basically back in england Um, there was a doctrine called common law copyright But that had nothing to do with modern copyright Or with the statute of and or with what rothbard himself called common I actually don't know what he was talking about when he said common law copyright I think what he meant was Some kind of right to prevent a copy based in a contract. I think that's what he meant but The original common law copyright was almost Like what we call trade secret down You know again, this is inside baseball But if you're going to have strong opinions on these things and be in favor of it You got to know what you're talking about and a trade secret is a way of preventing information from spreading Beyond a small group of people if you take reasonable steps to keep it secret So even if the information is about to go public you can stop third parties from disseminating the information Which is by the way is why I'm against trade secret law too I think it's totally unlibertarian as well because third parties again Never agreed to any contract But it's limited to that narrow situation common law copyright was similar It was based upon the idea that let's say you have an unpublished manuscript For a novel in or a book in your drawer and someone takes it and they they're about to go publish it Well, you can get the courts to stop them from publishing it because it's not yet published But once it becomes widely published it's too late to put the genie back in the bottle So the original idea of common law copyright Like the idea of trade secret never can be used against already public information However, it became public So it's got nothing to do with the basis of modern copyright or even Rothbard's contractual copyright idea so He he's first wrote against patents He took an admirable stance and he reversed some good stuff on that Then he he kind of had some thoughts on how maybe you could have a contract That could bind third parties in the ethics of liberty And then this piece you can find on my website. He published in like 1984 In the libertarian forum where he he starts talking about these All these copyright cases happening because people are starting to use dcrs to record broadcast signals So he's got to look at this afresh in the and he admits he's a technological Ignorance he doesn't know much about technology and he's wondering and he says it seems to me if you broadcast the signal You're letting it go out into the public and you have no complaints of people copy it So he's you can see he's moving in the right direction And then in 1988 or 80. I think it was 88 hunterman hoppa came over here to study under him for 10 years And Rothbard and hoppa and david gordon and lilin jager Were on a panel together at the mesas institute and someone asked I think hoppa They said What do you think about ownership of knowledge? Which by the way is the assumption rockvard uses in his ethics of liberty argument He assumes that ownership knowledge can be owned, which is why the third party is bound by this contract That's I think the mistake he made if that's what he meant And hoppa gets asked this question straight on now. This is on a panel sitting next to rockvard and hoppa just right away says Knowledge can't be owned You can use it to guide your actions, but once it gets other people learn it They can use it as they see fit too. So he basically gave a flat-out Rothbardian Misesian praxeological anti-ip answer just intuitively because he saw clearly Of the role that knowledge plays in human action. It's not a scarce means of action. It's knowledge that guides us Now to my mind, I mean rockvard sitting right next to him didn't object You know what I mean? So you can see the trajectory. I've talked to Hans about this He believes I believe that if rockvard had lived past 95 when the internet began right There's almost no doubt in my mind that he would have corrected his sort of attempt to Salvage a little bit of copyright with his ethics of liberty argument And he would have agreed of course copyright and patent are completely Unlibertarian and can't be justified But even if that's not correct, then he would have been wrong. So that's my view Yeah, no thought police needed, huh? Yeah, no, but I think it's good and so I'm going to have a piece analyzing this in more detail But if you just look at that rockvard 1984 libertarian forum argument, you'll see the direction the anti copyright direction he was going in Yeah, good stuff Stefan it's been a great show man. I'm gonna have you back on real soon I want to give you a chance to obviously give some plugs and maybe some websites If you have some events coming up, whatever you want to say go for it Uh, no events coming up right now But I'm blogging on the libertarian standard. That's my group blog libertarianstandard.com And I also blog on ip and information and innovation related areas on c4 sif.org and also I have a podcast which is you know, roughly weekly On stefanconcella.com is called Concella on Liberty Yeah, beautiful. Good stuff. Well, I'm gonna have you back on hopefully within the next month or two How's that sound? I enjoyed it. I'd be happy to awesome. But I appreciate it man. Have a good night. Thanks. You too. Good night Guys, thank you guys so much for checking out triple v as you know I'm going to have binstone coming up tomorrow and chris can't well on saturday And I have the whole calendar over on voluntary virtues.com So if you guys want click on in the little description section below and you guys can go check out my schedule Obviously, if you have any questions you want me to ask one of my interviewees A question go ahead and leave me a message over at shanklin mike at yahoo.com or you can find me on facebook Uh, there's not too many michael shanklin. So it shouldn't be too hard to find me And that's pretty much it for tonight guys. I appreciate all your time and thank you guys so much for checking out Triple v. I'll talk to you guys probably tomorrow. I hope