 Free Talk Live's live Sunday edition. Give us a call at 855-450-3. That's 855-453-733. And this, Stephanie, Stephanie, and Mark here with you. Sorry, Stephanie. That's okay. You know, this is supposed to be our very first show on Xtreme XM. Now, as I understand it, we were actually on last week. We got a call from Xtreme XM. So this is... Last week was pretty extreme. And, you know, I was looking through the lineup of Xtreme XM, and it does seem to be pretty extreme. You know, some of... In the radio business, sort of what's considered extreme at times is some guys, usually overweight fellow sitting in a studio talking about boobs. That's what oftentimes in radio is extreme. Now I don't see that happening here on Xtreme XM's lineup necessarily, but, you know, some guy called Bubba the Love, Bubba the Seaman Soaker, he's out there, he's talking about boobs and all that stuff, and that's what they call Xtreme Talk. Well, unlike them, we are in good shape, and we only sometimes talk about boobs. Sometimes. But, you know, to me, Xtreme Talk, let's see, you know, that's not Xtreme. You can hear somebody talk about boobs anywhere. Oh, yeah. Which you can't... It's commonplace. So, what is truly extreme is, say, an intellectual property lawyer that wants to do away with all intellectual property law, and that's what we have today with Stefan Konsella. Stefan? I'm here, Bart. Say something extreme for me. Well, I'm extremely fond of liberty and property rights, if that's extreme nowadays. So, is my intro accurate? You want to get rid of intellectual property law? Yeah, and it's not as extreme as you might think. I mean, I'm sure there are income tax attorneys out there who defend people from the IRS who would prefer there to be no income tax, but so long as there is one, there need to be income tax lawyers. But, yeah, yeah, I've been a patent lawyer for about 18 years, and I've come to the view that the patent system and the copyright system should not be reformed. They should be completely abolished. They're basically an affront to liberty and property rights. So how do you make a living with holding that view? Well, it's only a small part of my job now, and I try to help my client defend themselves from the patent system, which is unfortunately necessary, similar to how a tax attorney helps their clients defend themselves from the state and the IRS. Very cool. Now, to try to explain to me what, first off, why you hold this view. Yeah, let's start with that. Why do you hold this view? I mean, a lot of people would say things like, well, we've got to have patents. If we didn't have patents, people wouldn't invent this. Nobody would invent anything. Right? Yeah, and I think in a way it's a sign of a kind of a respect for property rights because we've been told that patent and copyright to mention only the two most prominent of the types of what's called intellectual property now, the others being trade secret and trademark and other things. But we've been told that these are types of intellectual property. And of course, if we're a capitalist and Westerners and Americans and even libertarians and we're in favor of property rights, then we have to be in favor of all types of property rights. But if you go back and reexamine this and you don't take your lessons from the state about what we libertarians and free market and liberty-loving people regard as individual freedom and property rights, then you will see that we've been told a bill of good. Really patent and copyright are nothing but protectionists to mercantilist type measures that protect people from competition. They originated in state grants of monopoly favoritism and censorship. And they've been democratized and industrialized. And the label, intellectual property was slapped on them about 100 years ago to help sell this idea to the people because they sort of had a suspicion about these monopolies the state was granting. Yeah, it's interesting, Stefan, how I think if you say to most people, should certain companies have a monopoly privilege that's enforced by the government, they will say, well, no, of course not. That sounds like communism or something. But when you think about intellectual property so-called, that's really what it is. Yeah. And if you ask people, should companies be protected from competition, or when you enter the market with a given product or service, should people be free to compete with you? They would say, well, they should be free to compete with you. Now, how long do patents go on, Stefan? Patents last about, well, they last 20 years from the date you filed them. But they don't come into force until they issue. And that takes about two or three years. So roughly 18, 17 years of term for each patent. And then once it's expired, it can't be renewed. So the person who invented the paperclip is not getting residuals off that, right? Correct. But what you can do is you can come up with improvements during the term of the patent and keep filing these incremental improvements. And they, you know, people find tricks to extend the life of it. And in the drug case, the FDA sort of, you know, the standard libertarian defense is that the government persecutes big businesses. But in reality, the FDA, although it does impose big costs on the pharmaceutical industry, it really protects them from competition. And it basically gives them another monopoly on top of the patent monopoly. So, you know, when your patent expires, then they can go to the FDA and try to get the FDA to prevent generics from getting a substitute drug right away because, you know, so the FDA sort of adds on to the monopoly of the, of the patent monopoly. So how long do copyrights last? I mean, it's my understanding that like the sunny bono law is like life plus 99 or something crazy like that. Well, yeah. So what's interesting is originally patent and copyright both lasted about 14 years. And if you study the history of this, the way they came up with this term, which is completely arbitrary, well, let's say you have a guild type system and you have a an apprentice. And what's the term of an apprentice? It was apparently about seven years. So they said, well, we need to give you protection from competition for about two of your apprentice terms. So to give you time to train them in your method before you start having competition arise. I mean, it's a totally nutty idea. But gradually that 14 years has been extended over time to the point now where copyright lasts right now for about it depends on whether it's an individual authoring it or whether it's what's called a work for hire. Okay. If it's a work for hire, and it's actually the author is the corporation that employs the person that is legally the author. I think it's like 120 years or something like that. Well, it's actually the longer of 95 years from the date of publication or 120 years from the date of creation, something like that. So roughly 120 years. I've heard the reason I've heard the reason they don't sing happy birthday at restaurants is because happy birthday is copyrighted by somebody. And therefore you cannot sing it at a, you know, sort of for a commercial purpose. Is this so? That's my understanding as well. That's why you will see it sometimes in movies, you know, big movies where they can afford to pay off the the heirs of the happy happy birthday song originator. But sometimes you're going to, you know, Ben again, there's something they'll be singing this happy birthday birthday, right? There's something like that. They'll sing some knockoff of happy birthday because they don't want to pay to sing happy birthday. And that makes perfectly good sense that they wouldn't want to pay. But it's amazing that this song is so ubiquitous, sung by everybody. It's so much a part of our culture. Not that I think that this really matters matters with any song. As far as I'm concerned, they could they could, at Ben again, they could sing Dreamweaver to you. And it shouldn't matter. But the, you know, my body lies over the ocean or Mozart's Arias or something. I don't even know if I'm pronouncing that properly. If they were if they were to sing those, that's completely OK. Like, for instance, the Baby Einstein videos that are out are put to classical music. I'll bet that's not because they believe classical music makes kids smarter. I'll bet it's because there's no copyright law on that. And this is an example that everybody can relate to, Mark. But I mean, just think of some of the less obvious examples of how intellectual property law harms people. Stefan was mentioning earlier about drugs and how companies are really not free to improve upon existing drugs and make subtle tweaks to maybe the formulation or the chemical structure so that they have less side effects or that they're better or cheaper or whatever. And sometimes even the process by which things are produced is patented. And so it really creates more expensive drugs for patients who need them. Stefan. Yeah, that's completely accurate. And on the Baby Einstein thing, I believe that the songs they use are free from copyright. But I do believe that they had to pay the Einstein estate for the right to use the trademark. The name. Hold the line, Stefan. Free Talk Live 855-450-Free. 5's live Sunday edition. It's Mark with you and Stephanie. 855-450-Free. 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Let's go straight back into Stefan Canceli here. Stefan, can you hear me? Yeah, I'm here. Excellent. Now we've been talking about intellectual property law and since you are a patent attorney, you're a great guy to talk to about it. And you have you have an unusual stand likely for for patent attorneys, which is that you believe that all intellectual property should be abolished. So it is unusual. I mean, I have come across over the years, a few patent attorneys who are who have my views, maybe not quite extreme, but a few. But I mean, I'd say it's 99% are in favor. But it's interesting. I mean, most of the people I meet, they don't even care to debate it. They're not they're not even interested in the in the political issue. I mean, if you say you're against the patent system, then they just, you know, move on to the next guy, the cocktail party, they really don't care. They're like, they're like IRS employees, they don't want to debate the income tax system, you know, you know, this is a huge issue on our show, pre talk live, we've been doing free talk live since 2002. And whenever the intellectual property laws come up, it really, it sparks a lot of interest where the rubber meets the road for most people is often sort of downloads of songs on the internet. I mean, right? Well, popular opinion says that those, you know, shouldn't be people shouldn't be thrown in jail for those right. And oh, you think that popular opinion thinks that those are somewhere. Well, like practically, practically speaking, people will do it. But they'll still call it stealing or pirating or something like that. There's a little bit of a, you know, disconnect there. Yeah, some kind of guilt where and but when when they have these lawsuits against these people, some of it, sometimes it's $100,000 per song. They seem to always take the single mothers to I mean, whenever, whenever I buy a song, it's 99 cents. I mean, that's what it should be. You should be able to punish somebody for more than something's worth or if the author wants to give it away for free, the artist, they often do, Stephen. Well, there was a study done by a law professor, John Tehranian, which I have on my website and a year or two ago, and he sort of said, look, let's look at the average activities of a typical web savvy person, not really a pirate from Sweden or something. But, you know, what we all do every day, we copy pictures, email things to people, rip a few songs or maybe rip a few of our CDs. And he calculated, and this is literally not even an exaggeration that every individual that's an average person using this kind of technology theoretically acquires 4.5 billion dollars of liability every year for what they do. 4.5 billion. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, per person. So even imagine that. Of course, that's because these penalties are statutory and they're there. I actually don't understand why someone hasn't come up yet with an Eighth Amendment, you know, cruel and unusual punishment. It seems like it. Yeah, I mean, it's even if you're gonna have copyright law, like you say 99 cents a song or something reasonable, but not a million or a billion dollars and 99 years in jail. It doesn't make any sense to me. Why do you think those? Why do you think the punishments are so harsh, Stefan? I think it's like the drug war. I think this is becoming a losing war. And so the drug war, they just keep increasing the penalties, even though they don't really do any good, but they fall harshly and disproportionately on some people like, you know, certain black cultures with the crack cocaine or whatever, you know, they just these things are, they're basically not natural law laws. They're malum, prohibit them not malum and say we would call it not natural law. They're just artificial laws. The government does like to pick on the people who are the most vulnerable in society, I have to say from observation. I have a question for it for Stefan. There are some people who claim to be libertarians are interested in freedom, who think that intellectual property law is good or is a necessity or is an actual expression of respect for property rights. And I kind of wonder, I think that maybe they're welcome to call in at 855-450 free if you want to talk to Stefan, Stefan about it. I think that sometimes, you know, often when they're presented with creative solutions to how artists and producers of content would make money in a world where there was no intellectual property, and maybe some of the arguments about why intellectual property hurts people. Sometimes they can be persuaded that maybe it's not as good as they thought it was, and it's not even actually a correct expression of property rights respect. But what do you think about, what do you have to say to them, Stefan? I'm curious. I think that a lot of them will modulate their tone when they, I mean, they're doing it over time anyway. I think that they have been sold a bill of goods. I mean, Ayn Rand was a big influence on libertarians. Yes. And she was in favor of intellectual property, and it was in the American Constitution. And most libertarians think that America was sort of a proto-libertarian example or paradise, and not paradise, but, you know, like a good, a good attempt at it. And so they've been, they've been sold this bill of goods, just like the rest of the world, that it's a type of property right. And they also believe that if you attack intellectual property rights, you're some kind of anti-intellectual, and you're saying that the intellect is not important, and that, you know, people that are artists or creators or inventors or engineers are not as important as, you know, whoever else can make a, make a buck in the market. I used to be, I used to be one of these guys, a libertarian who believed in intellectual property laws. And for me, I had to peel the onion over time. The first question I had to ask myself is, well, these laws are completely arbitrary. I mean, patents last for, what'd you say, 18 years or something like that. And copyrights last for 125, but it used to be 50. And, you know, it just changes over time. One has to ask, you know, what, how is it that great musicians like Mozart existed in the 17th century or 16th, 18th century or whatever. And we're not, and getting rid of intellectual property law today would destroy great musicians when it wasn't that way. And at the same time, shouldn't the inventor of the wheel be, you know, we all are progeny likely of this, this great man who or woman who invented the wheel, shouldn't we all be getting little checks from everybody who uses wheels? I mean, money should be flying everywhere. What's that? We all love the wheel. Indeed. The wheel is great. We should pay for this intellectual property. Free talk live. Free talk live 855-453. That's the toll free call in line for our live Sunday show. It's Mark with you and Stephanie and that's a toll free line is sponsored by Sickle CAI again. It's 855-450-3733. And we've been talking to Stefan Kinsella about intellectual property law. And let's go back to Stefan. Now, Stefan, I've got this, this question for you. And this was one of the things that kind of stumped me on intellectual property before I came over to, came over to your side on the issue, which is that I think that I think that most intellectual property laws contrary to freedom. And I think most people really do believe this. They know that the copyright laws and the patent laws in this country are messed up. They tend to believe, well, we need something. And I now believe that we don't really need anything that you'll find innovation is best protected and innovation is best served by not having intellectual property. But for instance, what if somebody makes a bubbly brown soda, slaps a red and white label on it and calls it Coca-Cola and uses it in the script of that? I mean, and I purchased this beverage. And in fact, it's not Coca-Cola, but it tastes like kale and cabbage mixed up. Well, okay, so your, your, your hypo or your example illustrates, you'll hear libertarians and others, they're very confused about intellectual property because there's at least four types and they're very specialized, right? So they mix up trademark and patent and copyright and trade secret and also fraud and defamation law and other things all the time. And they'll use one argument for the other and then, you know, so it gets really confusing. It gets murky, sure. Yeah. So the example you gave, I mean, I think there's, there's two aspects to it. One is the trade secret aspect and Coca Cola, of course, makes their, their product under largely a trade secret. They just keep the ingredient secret. All the delicious bubbly brown beverage. Yeah, but if you look at Snopes or something, apparently the actual formula has been known for a while. Okay. But, you know, in reality, you know, competitors like Pepsi or RC or whatever, you know, some guy competing with another company that's legitimate, they're not going to want to just duplicate what the other guys doing. They're going to want to have their own name on it. They want to say why they're better, et cetera. So they're not going to want to duplicate it. I mean, they might have a cola, but they're not going to duplicate it. Right. Now, on the fraud issue, like if you just call it Coca Cola and it's not Coca Cola, I mean, you really don't need intellectual property law for that. You just need fraud law. I mean, if you deceive consumers about who you are and where the product came from, you're going to get sued left and right and you're never really going to be anyone other than a fly-by-night operator. I mean, it's hard to imagine a large company that grows to success driven by some entrepreneur who is proud and driven and he puts a fake name on it and keeps getting class action lawsuits and things for fraud and things like this. Right. It just couldn't work. Yeah. So this is part of the confusion about IP. People think it's fraud and it's really got almost nothing to do with plagiarism or fraud. It's really an attempt to stop people from competing even when there's no fraud and even when there's no plagiarism. Now, I think that the two areas that really gave me some problems initially and one of them is completely out of ignorance. I don't really know anything about, you know, say the making of drugs and things like that. But it seems really important to make drugs. So people's lives depend on it. We should give drug manufacturers every opportunity to make money and that there's a long R&D cycle and all these other things that one of the facts about the R&D cycle, as I understand it, is that it takes hundreds of billions of dollars to get through the FDA process. So if that was removed, then, you know, the drug companies would cost so much to market, they wouldn't need to protect their their R&D quite so much. So you would see companies, you know, they'd be competing more in things like that. And the fact is that the drug companies just a few decades ago weren't using intellectual property is the bludgeon that they are using it as now. And that's what it's really become. You know, they what do they call them copyright trolls or something like that when it comes to that's just buy up all these patents or file all these patents and then sue companies. And it's really just a shell company, right? Is that right, Stefan? It is. The patent troll situation is a little bit different than the than the pharmaceutical case. The pharmaceutical case. It's getting close. It is close, of course, because let me put it this way. I think here's the best way to look at the pharmaceutical case. People hold this out all the time as this is the best case, best utilitarian case for patents. You'd have to have it, etc. Well, if it's just a monetary issue, if you think about the cost the state imposes on these companies in the first place through regulations, through the FDA process, through taxes, etc. Just imagine lifting, you know, half of those regulations then these pharmaceutical companies would have much more wealth to invest in R&D in the first place. So you would need to give them an artificial patent monopoly to make a little extra profit in the first place. Government created a problem and then they tried to solve it. Imagine that. This is what the government does. You know, they cause a problem. It's like the welfare system, right? They cause unemployment and impoverishment. And then they say, well, we have to have a government safety net to help all these people, including giving them employment in the army, which once you join, you can't leave. So basically, they say we have a volunteer army now, but it's not really volunteer because they force people into it because of impoverishment. And then they can't leave. So we still have an involuntary army in a way. And I was just going to say that the other the other thing that kind of stumped me on intellectual property were blockbuster movies. It costs a lot of money to produce a big movie. And somehow I guess I just didn't. I thought it would kill the blockbuster movie industry by getting rid of intellectual property. And now what do you have to say to that? Well, there may be a few artifacts of society that were used to down that could not survive in a free society. Blockbuster movies may be one of them. I don't think so actually, because you can always show these movies in the theater and make make a large profit from showing them just because you don't make a profit on the second, third, fourth level of the rights after the movie gets leaked, etc. It's not relevant. You just have to cover your cost. So it's possible. But, you know, again, if you reduced the taxes on these companies and the people, we'd have so much more wealth in the first place. And it's hard to say we can justify censorship because we want blockbuster movies. I mean, imagine Thomas Jefferson and Madison framing these provisions in the Constitution. I realize Jefferson wasn't part of that process, but he was the first patent commissioner. I mean, what they have said, the government has justified in giving these monopoly privileges so that we can have blockbuster Hollywood movies. I mean, that's the one thing we're used for, you know, for propaganda by the government against the Soviets, etc. And one wonders if the whole movie industry has become as big and as it is simply because of copyright law as it exists. I mean, do we really, you know, society is creating, say, and I don't want who to target here, Tom Hanks. They're creating these actors, Dustin Hoffman's, these actors who are incredibly skilled at their trade. But do I mean, you know, what would life be like if that guy made sort of the same amount as a doctor makes? I mean, he'd still have a great living. He'd still be practicing his trade in an excellent way. He just, you know, there just wouldn't be the Paris Hilton's of the world that are sort of famous for being famous, you know, this kind of and think of how many actors are in the business because they love acting. I mean, a lot, the vast majority of them make a pittance, right? And they stay in that profession. The same with novelists and literature, of course, I mean, most of them never made a lot of money and they still don't. The studios make the money and all the great literature of history and art and and music was made not because of a monopoly privilege granted by the state, but because of love of it or passion for it or some other music. And there's actually studies out there about this to show this, but, you know, basically the only two large cases for IP is Hollywood blockbusters and the pharmaceutical industry. So you would think that if you were really sincere and honest, you would say, let's get rid of patent and copyright except for blockbuster movies and and pharmaceutical drugs, but they don't do that. They use this as an example for a general intellectual property, right? Yeah, which makes no sense whatsoever. I'd like to point out that sort of in the world that you're talking about, if I were to go out on the street and hawk, you know, movies, I'm trying to think of a big one, Captain America. I just saw that in the theaters. If I were to hawk Captain America DVDs that were printed up to look just like the DVDs that the Captain America, that whatever, I don't know, Sony pictures, I think it was, that whatever the movie company was that put Captain America out, Marvel Marvel movies that I would be defrauding the person to whom I'm selling. And those people could bring suit against me. So I'm still sort of breaking the law or agreement in society in the same in that same way. Absolutely. And so, you know, if you know what you're getting and you're okay with the cheaper version that's a knockoff, that's one thing. Let's talk about knockoffs when we get back. Free talk live. Free talk live 855-453. If you've got any calls and questions for Stefan Concella, he is available to you for this segment. And before we go on, are the rich getting richer and the poor getting poor? No. Go to learn liberty.org slash FTL and see a video by Steve Horowitz that shows that the rich are getting richer and so are the poor. Find out what income mobility is. Find it all out at learn liberty.org slash FTL. When you're there, check out the Liberty Academy link on the right hand side of the page. It's a course for people who want free, online, continue education and rights, economics, philosophy and liberty. It's learn liberty.org slash FTL. When you watch these videos, share them with your friends, share them on your Facebook. They're awesome. Learn liberty.org. Yep. Great stuff. Very concise. And while you're on the internet, you should go to shrine.freetalklive.com to check out the shrine of female listeners. It's a bunch of ladies who have taken the time to send in their pictures to show that not just men listen to talk radio, it's women too. And sometimes they even host the show. Excellent. Stefan Concella, patent attorney, are you with us? I'm back. Yeah. Okay. So I guess I have a question about we were talking about intellectual property and how people can be duped into buying things that are not what they expect them to be. But, you know, I have seen, I've heard such things as say sunglasses that are not they look like that they're made to look exactly like sunglasses that are 10 times their price. You mean jokelys? Jokelys, right? Folklies, these kind of things. You know, I mean, they have the big O on the side. I mean, they're made precisely like these other things. They don't have the quality level and that much is clear. And I think that largely people don't think they're getting real Oakley's when they pay right $10 for knockoff Oakley's or this is true with handbags and all kinds of things. How tell me your perspective on this because it befuddles me. So, so, so let's say, let's take a simple example first, like, you know, you want to buy Colgate or Crust toothpaste, you typically go down to a Kroger grocery store and they have a reputation and, you know, if they're carrying, you know, counterfeit Colgate or Crust that's actually fake and you can't tell the difference, then, then you're going to stop patronizing that store. So you can see a natural market mechanism for people to verify the source of goods, you know, that you want to make sure you're getting what was being represented. Now, in the case you're describing, which is similar to the, you know, the $20 Rolex watches on the corner and the, and the, you know, the $30 Louis Vuitton bag. I can't believe I didn't mention that. Absolutely. But I mean, in these cases, the customer knows what they're getting, I believe they're not being defrauded. They actually want the Keeper product and this is fine. So there's no fraud there. See, I focus on patent copyright because in those cases, there's almost no redeeming feature. But there is no redeeming feature of these. They're monopolies. There's no fraud. There's no plagiarism. There's no trade secret violation, et cetera. But in the case of, in the case of trade trade mark, you could justify a part of it because in some cases, the consumer will be defrauded. But again, as I said, that could be covered by fraud law. Yeah. But in the case you described, there's really no consumer fraud. And, and, and the, the market can take care of that aspect of it. Gotcha. Let's go to, let's take a call here. We've got Ben in Wisconsin calling in from XM. Ben, Ben, can you hear me? Ben going once. Bored up. I am not getting any audio from Ben. We've been trying to get a hold of him. Mark, let me mention one thing you might not have heard of with respect to what you just mentioned. About a year ago, there was a case where Omega or Omega or Amiga as James Vaughn pronounces it, you know, the watch company, they were selling these watches in Bolivia or some South American country for like, you know, a thousand dollars and they were selling them in the U.S. for two thousand dollars because of geographic you know, price discrimination. Yeah, this happens. Yeah. Now, they're all legitimate watches, but someone said, hey, let's, let's have arbitrage. So they, they would Costco actually hired some guy to go buy them down in halfway or wherever it was. Yeah. And they were selling them for a little bit less than the retail price here, but they made a big profit because they're, you know, Costco sold them cheaper down there. So what Costco did was they put a globe logo on the back of the watch that was a unique logo, which was copyrighted. And then they sued Costco for copyright infringement. The watch company did for selling them in the U.S. and Costco said, well, you sold the watches, your watch is not a copyright infringement because of what's called the first sale doctrine, which means you can only stop the first sale of the item, then you can resell a book or whatever. Right. Well, the court said, well, the first sale wasn't in the United States, so it doesn't count. So they could actually stop that sale. And this was last year. And at the time, some people, including myself, said the problem with this is they could jeopardize libraries, which are loaning out books, which were bought overseas. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Or resell of books on Amazon or eBay, which were bought overseas. And just about two weeks ago, another case came out where there's a grad student who lived in the U.S. He came from, I can't remember the country, some foreign country. And Wiley, which is a publisher, sells cheaper copies of these textbooks overseas. And they put them on cheaper paper. So he was getting his family to ship them overseas over to the U.S. And he resold them over here and he made about a million bucks. Also, over a few years. Wow. And then Wiley sued him for copyright infringement. And just last week, the court said, well, the first sale doctrine doesn't apply because it wasn't first sold in the U.S. So he had he he lost six hundred thousand dollars in a suit because he sold books that Wiley sold in this foreign country that weren't intended for sale here. So this is how copyright and patent law can be used as a as a barrier to free trade. It's a barrier to trade and it's a barrier to innovation. Let's go back to Ben. We've got him on the line here. Ben. Yes. OK. Your question. Yes, your question or common please. Right. That in regards to intellectual property, I am a, you know, freelance landscape photographer. And from what I'm able to, I shouldn't have any copyright to what it is that I produce. Stefan, is that correct? Yes, I do think that's correct. And that's because you shouldn't if you decide to make information available to the public, then you've made that public. There's really no difference between information about, you know, how how how tall you are or your personal life or anything you want to reveal. If you want to sell a mousetrap well, there's nothing creative about how tall I am. But if I bring my talents to bear and you see this picture and you decide that that's something that you'd like to have in your house or in order to, you know, promote your product or service. Why should you just then be able to list that off the internet and employ that without any remuneration to me? Well, I think the basic reason is because it doesn't take anything from you that you own. It doesn't take from you the pattern of information. It doesn't take your property. Basically, it's this is what is in human society is about. Now, this is how I look at it. Humans learn from each other. We all build on and draw on the body of knowledge that we've learned. We all base our actions on things that we learn from others. When we compete with other people, we see what they do. We emulate it. Maybe maybe we do it better. Maybe we do it worse. There's nothing wrong with learning, which would be my motivation to produce this. I've got now I'm driving back from a self assigned shoot. I have over two thousand dollars in expenses and over a week away from my home. And I'm going to produce this just to what educates you to better your life. Well, then I've been. Can I interrupt? I would I would think that it would be if someone used your photos and if they gave you credit, which they should do if they're polite person, you know, it would be a great way to promote your work. And maybe you would get more contracts out of that. Well, I mean, if I'm not getting paid for it anyway, I mean, if it's if it's free to anyone, well, hey, nobody said nobody said you shouldn't get paid. I think Stefan can address that, right? I mean, look, Ben, you have to say that when people are used to a certain way of doing business because the government system allows and then they get used to that way of doing business. But you can't say that the function of government is to allow you to make landscape photographs. I mean, it's not the function of government to make sure that we can have enough landscape photographs. No, but it is the function of government to protect what it is that I've invested to produce to make your life more enjoyable or in order to promote. Let me jump in on that, Ben. My question is, you know, what arbitrary period of time am I obligated to respect that? I mean, can I not then reproduce the Mona Lisa or the cave drawings and cons or any of these other things? That's legislative and I mean it is legislative. It absolutely is. It's a group of people who are sitting down and saying, yeah, I think 125 years is good. What do you think, Jim? I don't know. Give me a million dollars. I'll think about it. And that's how they do it. Exactly. And I appreciate the call. We got to go to the top of the hour free talk live. We're going to hold Stefan Cancella over. There's just too much demand. So, Stefan, if you if you would be so kind as to hold through, we've got about eight minutes. The market has spoken free talk live here. Free talk live 855450 free. That's the sacred toll free call in line 8554503733. You can give us a call right now. We're talking to Stefan Cancella about he's an he's a patent attorney. We're talking about intellectual property and how he would like to see it abolished. This is free talk live. We are live on a Sunday evening. So, if you're hearing us on the radio or XM, you can call in at 8554503 and talk to us about Stefan Cancella. And then once we're once we're done with Stefan, we'll go on to talk about whatever. Stefan, are you there? Can you hear me? I'm here, Mark. Excellent. Now, Stefan, you had a question for for Stefan, and I wanted to make sure that you get a chance to ask out. Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. So, Stefan, I am a student right now, but I'm pursuing an MD and a PhD. I'm in school grad graduate school. And the reason why I wanted to do that program was so that I could discover new new cures for diseases. And I'm I think a lot about intellectual property as it relates to drugs and pharmaceuticals and cures and stuff. And I've decided that it would be very difficult for me to work in this industry because it's just so heavily regulated and so involved with the FDA and even gets government funding. And and of course, the intellectual property is another aspect to it. But you know, I've I've spent some time thinking about how I could make money at this. If I found something that could cure a disease, how could I do like a like a something that would prevent me from getting sued by other people like like something I could release into the public domain, but not have other people patent my thing and then sue me for using it? Is that possible? Can you talk about options that would allow me to do that? That's a it's a good question. It's interesting. I mean, it's a blend of practicality and ethics. I mean, ethically, I sympathize with you. It's difficult in some industries to totally shun patents, etc. If you want to be part of the game, you know. But there are actually some emerging models based upon sort of the GPL license or the open source or the CC model. Right. In fact, just a couple of days ago, I wrote a blog post something I've been brainstorming about for years. And I call the Patent Defense League. And when I posted this, someone told me there's two law professors in California and Berkeley who are working on what they call the defensive patent license, which is similar to what I proposed. And the basic idea is that people that want to have an open source type culture could somehow dedicate their patent rights to some common pool, which could be used to among the pool. So they would agree not to use to each other, etc. My idea is a little bit broader. It's basically, you know, imagine 1000 small companies coming together and they say, listen, we're going to enter into this agreement where every one of our patents will be available to other members to use defensively against anyone that sues us just defensively. And to my mind, this is the only legitimate prop purpose of patents as a libertarian, which is why I help my company pursue them. If someone sues me, I can sue them back. And by the way, as an aside, with respect to your question, you could publish your ideas. You could make them public right away. And once you make something public in a reliable way where you can verify that it was made public, then at that point in time that serves as prior art, which would prevent anyone else from patenting in that idea in the future. You know, but the problem is, I mean, that's not foolproof. I mean, it's not easy to do that. Right. And someone else could already have co-invented that at the same time a year before or made the same time and have a patent pending. That's not a foolproof way. Well, I have to say that I really like the idea of open source medicine, you know, things that could make drugs a lot cheaper and more available to patients who might need them. And maybe even things that, I don't know, could be easily produced. And so there could be a lot of different generics. I think it's emerging. It's emerging as a norm, not only as a legal thing. I mean, if you think about, like just Ethernet as an example, Ethernet, someone persuaded, I forgot the company, Xerox, I think it was, or someone to make Ethernet open source so it was adopted, right? And the PC itself is spread because it was open source. And now we have Linux and things like this and the GNU and things like this. So things actually take off when they are open. And if you make it private, you can kill it unless you have the link source of an Apple behind it, which Apple has the support of IP behind them, which is maybe one reason Apple is so successful. I love Apple. I'm an Apple guy. But But the idea of suing your customers, it's just doesn't seem compatible. Yeah, exactly. I want to get to Kurt. I want to get to another call here real quick if we could. Kurt in New Hampshire. Kurt. Yes, sir. Hi. Good evening. All as well. Another another Sunday show. I wanted to talk about that aren't the photographer who called saying if he put so much effort into this investment to make this photograph, doesn't it deserve to be protected? But that's just the labor theory of value being restated. Yes. If I make a huge investment in writing, say the great American novel and I take 20 years and nobody likes it. I don't make any money. So right, there's no I can't go to the government and say excuse me, but nobody bought this. It's I need money. Well, I think his concern is that the people will use the pictures and then and then he won't be like them and but they won't compensate him. And I can see that this is the case. If somebody sees a beautiful picture on the internet and wants, you know, wants to have that picture or whatever, I can see that. But he can also write sample or he can write his name and logo across it kind of in that that watermark way or he can make a low resolution version publicly available. And then maybe people would pay for a really high resolution or pay for his prints that he signed and produced. I mean, there's lots of ways that an artist can make money off of something. And you know, I think it was particularly important to highlight the fact that if somebody does use one of his photographs in whatever way, it's not preventing him from using the same photograph. He can still sell it to other people, put it on his website. They haven't taken anything away from him. And so the fact that somebody will use a picture doesn't mean that they would actually be willing to pay for a picture. So the fact that I listen to the radio and I'm listening to crazy train one more time doesn't mean that I would be willing to go out and buy crazy train or even if I'm singing along, doesn't mean I'd be willing to go out and buy crazy train. I promise you, I'm never going in my life to buy crazy train. Right? So it's not it's not as if playing it on the radio is taking away business from Massey Osborn, right, Mark? He actually gets a little spiff every time. People spend, people spend a lot of money on classical music. They do and people perform classical music. And there are entire orchestras that perform classical music. Yet that music is completely in the public domain. The last the recording from 1912 that was the absolute perfect recording was supposed to have destroyed the music industry because once there was one good recording, no one would ever do it again. And yet that's not what's happened. People replay the same music over and over. There are new interpretations, variations on the theme. We sued Paganini for doing variations on a theme by Beethoven or whatever. And so many things were supposed to be the so many things were supposed to be the killers of the last television was going to kill movies. Talkies were going to kill silent films. And maybe maybe that maybe there's argument for time. VCR is a track tape. They all are threats to radio supposed to have been dead decades ago. I mean, right? The photographer could do exactly what the painters of the old old days did when there was no copyright. And that's do things by contract. If he's if his eye is really so good, someone's going to come to him and say, we want a great picture of our corporate headquarters for our logo. Can you go get one for us? Exactly. And putting his work out there for free, putting his work out there for free. He'll be getting business because he's good at it. And that's the point. And willing to do the work. I mean, because there's people that are good, that are difficult as heck to work with. So you there's several different ways. I mean, there's customer service and all these other things. I really appreciate the call. Stephen, do you have comments on that? Yeah, I mean, I think that his I think he's right about the labor theory of value. I don't want to get too obstruous here, but I think that does inform a lot of this reasoning. But basically, the job of any artistic or creative person is not really fundamentally different than any entrepreneur in the market. Every entrepreneur has to say, I'm going to produce this product of this service. Can I make a profit on it? And they always realize there are free rider costs. There are there are costs of exclusion. Yeah, let me let me give an example. The driving theaters originally in the US, which were popular in the 50s, etc. They had loud speakers. And so people would sit on the hills nearby and they would listen and watch for free. So they came up with the little speakers you had to pay for right next to the cars. That's the cost of exclusion and they made it work. That's the job of every entrepreneur. Makes sense. Stephen, would you like to continue for another segment? Be happy, kid. Great. I want to ask about baking. Baking recipes. Recipes. Gotcha. Free talk live 855-450-FREE. Free talk live 855-450-FREE. That's the say called toll free call in line 855-450-3733. For those of you without little letters on your telephone, telephones. Stephanie, please tell me about how people can find out more news about free talk live. Well, they can go to news dot free talk live dot com to get emailed updates. Follow us on Twitter and friend us on Facebook. Excellent. If you're looking for camping, hunting or shooting gear, man venture outpost carries knives, ammunition, scopes, binoculars, laser sites, tactical flashlights, fish finders and boating equipment, man venture out and much more. By the way, name brands down to you know, more low cost versions, man venture outpost dot com, their family owned and members in good standing, the better business bureau. Some prices are so low they can't even be mentioned on the air. You can get an additional 5% off with coupon code FTL. Get it quick. Get it from man venture outpost dot com. Don't forget to use coupon code FTL. Stefan Kinsella. I'm here. Now we have been picking your brain about intellectual property and people should be able to read more about what you're talking about. Where can they go to get all your elucidation on these ideas? They go to my C four. That's the number four. S I F dot org center for the study of innovative freedom C four s I F dot org center for the study of innovation. What is it? Center for the study of innovative freedom, innovative freedom. I like that. It does sound good. Let's go to, you know, before we go on with asking you more questions, we got another call here. Let's go to Daryl in Texas. Daryl. Hey, I wanted to talk about the sunglasses real quick, then get the copyright. We talked about Jocely's Well, the Oakleys, the Jocely, and pretty much every other name brand sunglasses and even the knock off brand are pretty much all made by one company. Yeah, I've heard this before. What's it called? I believe Sotica Laxotica link on Stephanie's Facebook. OK, well, not the whole world. You can see that. Well, not everybody can see that right now, but, you know, you can show Mark that way, you know, figure out how it's actually pronounced. But I wanted to talk about copyright and I'm pretty sure that Ben is a fan of Creative Commons. Stefan, are you a fan of Creative Commons? Yeah, I think Creative Commons is a great thing. Of course, GNU and Creative Commons could not exist without copyright in the first place because these are licenses, right? And license is the right to you're granting some information to do something, but people don't need permission to do something unless the law otherwise stops them. So without copyright, all these licenses would just disappear. Darrell, would that go for the creators endorsed mark and copy heart that Nina Paley has come up with? No, actually, I know Nina Paley. She's on the board of the C4SIF that I mentioned earlier. She's a friend of mine. She's great. And the creator endorsed mark relies upon fraud or trademark. It does not rely upon copyright. So that actually could survive in a copyright and patent free world as could copy heart, which is, I think, Eric, Eric Johnson's idea, if I'm not mistaken, it's just the idea that you put a mark on your product saying, please tell people who came up with this, you know, share the love. You know, I think I think people respond to this. People want the the manufacturers of some people, especially especially if a person who invented or made a product is kind enough to give it away for free and maybe have a freemium business model or something. I think people will want to reciprocate that kindness by giving them credit for their work. And that's all that a lot of inventors are after. Darrell, thank you for the call. I think that it's going to require some change in the world. I don't think that the Barbara Streisand's of the world would be able to survive this change. For instance, people who, you know, make it on just the recordings of their music and then go live in a big mansion and are never heard from again. I think that musicians likely would have to perform. And I think most musicians want to do that. Don't most of them make most of their money off of live performances and things like t-shirt sales and things like that. At some point, they make more money just sitting around and playing golf. Stephanie. Yeah, I think they do. I mean, who is the singer of the original Happy Birthday song you guys mentioned earlier? Yeah, nobody knows. There's some air sitting in a house and we're collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe millions every year because of the song Happy Birthday. Right. And if one would have to ask oneself how many airs are there and how many people, productive people are really taken out of society and just put to, you know, put out there for other people to milk their money from them or whatever it is that they're doing. You know, I mean, these people may have been really creative people that would have added something to society, but the very fact that they were given stipends of hundreds of a hundred or two hundred or a million dollars a year just takes them out of the out of play. Yeah, that's not really well, we all I think we also have to realize that the government always distorts society. I mean, causes a distorting effect and the fact that, you know, people go into innovating in certain areas because they can have patents over that, but they can't get patents in other areas like mathematical algorithms causes a distortion and the whole industry of research and development. Right. And the same thing with music and creative creative works. And how many companies would have would never, you know, are never existing just because the costs to get all these patents and to pay patent lawyers are so prohibitively expensive. I mean, I've heard of companies, you know, startup biotech companies that have spent all of their venture capital startup funds on just paying IP lawyers. And yeah, we didn't get a chance to get into this, but one one result of the patent system is that larger companies can afford the lawyers and all these things. And so they basically cross license with each other or they don't see each other because they're afraid to get counter sued for patents. But the smaller companies and the individuals cannot afford to even get into the market. So basically the effect of patent law is to create oligopoly small areas of concentrated in the drug industry and the in the music industry and the smartphone industry. All these areas. I mean, think of Apple and a rim and Microsoft. I mean, basically they have a monopoly because a small guy cannot help cannot Microsoft Google just spent twelve point five billion dollars to acquire the assets of Motorola mobility primarily for the patents. So at least six or ten billion dollars billion just like two weeks ago, just to acquire 17,000 patents so they could end off lawsuits from Apple and Microsoft and others. That's such a graceful, tragic. Yeah, they're paying that for pieces of paper. And once the point is no small company could ever hope to do that. So that's what happens is the lawyers, even even when they're just these patent trolls or from these big companies, the lawyers that that that come down upon these little guys that that are just trying to innovate and do something, you know, they they can't even defend themselves. They never get the opportunity to defend themselves because defending themselves costs a heck of a lot more than the several hundred thousand dollars it does to just settle at which point their company may very well just go out of business rather than pay. I mean, this happened to me in fact. Of course, and not only that, you have these people say, well, let's fix the system by making it loser pays. But that wouldn't fix anything either because let's say you're a small company and a big company sues you for copyright, maybe a copyright troll like Wright Haven or or a patent troll like intellectual ventures or legal laws. They sue you for patent or copyright infringement. Let's say you're in the right. Even if you're on the right, you can't afford $3 million either way. Yeah Yeah. It costs three million to get in the right. And Stephen live Sunday edition. It's Mark and Stephanie. Give us a call at 855-450-3733. That's the Sequel Toll Free call-in line. You can call in and talk about anything you want. We just had Stefan Kinsella on. If you want to hear that interview, you can get it. It'll be available this evening at FreetalkLive.com, where, well, we have how many, what, five years worth of audio available at archives.freetalklive.com, Stephanie? Oh, definitely. Yep. MP3 archives actually go back to 2006. All for free. What more could you ask for? What show does that for you? I mean, come on. I can't think of a single one. Who loves you? It's at FreetalkLive. At FreetalkLive, we talk about investing in gold and silver on a pretty regular basis, either as a hedge against inflation and investment, barter currency. But we've teamed up with Midas Resources to offer you some really great rates on some hand-picked gold and silver pieces. Everybody on the radio is selling gold right now. The trick is, find pieces, you know, whether they're coins or bullion or whatever they are, find them that are comparable to other ones. So you can compare us and shop. If you can't compare us and shop, just going to sell you anything at any rate. You've got to buy low so you can sell high. Before you buy, go to gold.freetalklive.com. Check the rates there. Compare them to other places. I think you'll find that these are the best rates on the internet that you can get from one of the major retailers. It's gold.freetalklive.com. Now, Stephanie, you've got a story that says that buying Chinese benefits Americans. Yes. And this is... This is ludicrous. Well, if you go to a Tea Party rally, like this article says, then they'll probably be saying buy American and kind of using these emotional appeals to try to get people to do that. Sure. Manufacturing is great for the country, right? You can't have an economy without manufacturing, we're told. That's what they say, but when you look a little bit deeper into the principles involved, then you'll find out that that's not actually so. It makes you wonder how people that don't manufacture things actually have households. I mean, how do they have personal economies if they're not manufacturing things? I mean, you don't manufacture anything, do you? No. You offer a service. Yeah, I'm a talk radio host, right? That and basically slave labor for the medical community until they give you your M.D., right? Exactly. Yeah. So tell me. So this article is from thedigitaljournal.com and says, a new study released by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, interesting, I didn't know that they did studies, but apparently they do. They've got plenty of money. Shows that when Americans buy products labeled made in China, 55 cents on the dollar goes to people in the United States. Now, I've always said this. I mean, once it gets here, it has to be driven around by Americans, it has to be sold by Americans, it has to be loaded by Americans, it has to be all kinds of things that happen. Precisely. Americans have to do this. Yeah, and oftentimes products that are manufactured, frankly, Americans don't want to do that work, especially for the pay that's involved, right? You know, so there are some manufacturing things that are done in the United States, like cars, certainly you can't really ship houses, the big ticket things. Isn't it funny that like, isn't it Toyotas are, as a percentage of the cost of the car, more of the car is made in America than is Ford? Oftentimes, you'll find the Fords made in Mexico and Canada and things like that too. Yeah. And these are realities. I mean, it sounds American, but is it that much more American? Well, and I always wonder about things. When people have these emotional appeals, oh, buy American, you're doing a good thing, you're being patriotic. The general consensus, the common sense is usually not common and often not sense. I mean, you've got to look in deeper, you've got to use critical thinking. And I think... Well, that's exactly it. It's like, if it were such a good idea, if it made sense to buy things that were made in America all the time, then people wouldn't need to use these emotional arguments to try to convince people to buy American. Can you buy a toaster that is made in America? I haven't been in the toaster market lately. I don't think you can. I mean, there's so many things that aren't made in the United States. There are some things. You can still get some bicycles that are made in the United States, but a lot of things just aren't manufactured over here at all. Well, and how do you know? I mean, products will often have stamped on them things like made in the USA, but how do you really verify that? And is it 100 percent? I think if you care, you will find one of these third party certifiers that will certify something is made in America in some way or another. They'll have a stamp on it that will certify. And I think that I would trust those people if they're likely, if they're making them stamped, they care enough about these things, you can you can delve even further. I'm sure there's competing stamps that say made in America. But this is this is a way to to tell third party certification. Yeah, well, it's a selling point for a lot of things, but should it be? I mean, for me, I don't know. I don't know either. And I think that, you know, people I like buying locally. But I don't know that buying in America really matters. I mean, one question I would have is I live closer to Toronto than I live to Miami. So is something manufactured in Miami? I mean, aren't I buying local by buying the Toronto thing? Or I live actually probably closer to Montreal than I live to Toronto. I mean, so these fellows that speak French over there make it making something, should I buy them? I mean, if geography is what matters, then probably can't get strawberries in the middle of December that are grown in Toronto, but you might be able to get them grown from California. Indeed. I mean, there's just some things that it makes sense not to buy local, especially seasonal things like that. And, you know, I think that people buy things because they want to increase their standard of living, right? And they want to live a good life that fulfills all their things that they want. And, you know, if I can make someone better off who lives in China or who lives in Canada or Germany or wherever, that's great. You know, they made a product that I liked and wanted to buy so they should get money. If I can buy one bunch of bananas that was grown locally, which doesn't make much sense in New Hampshire. You know, if I can buy one bunch of bananas for the cost, that would be two bunch of bunches of bananas that were grown in, say, Brazil, but transported and sold and American businesses where fifty five cents on that dollar goes to American people. I mean, you know, how I shouldn't I do what benefits me and benefits my family? Isn't that the first order of business? The fact that it's lower prices every day, you know, and these are these are important ways that you can help you and yours. I'm not saying I buy all my food locally because I care about the morality of how my food is manufactured. And I'm concerned about big agribusiness and their effect on the environment. It is easier to keep an eye on your foods when you buy from local producers, that's for sure. Indeed. But I'm saying why is it why is it bad to buy from someone in another country? Isn't it a voluntary exchange? Why is it better to buy from an American? It just seems like nationalism or even racism, frankly, to me. It can be. I mean, you know, certainly Americans come in all colors, but some people will. Yeah, ethnocentrism is they do. But like, why are they better? Why should you patronize them just because they were born in a country? I guess the idea the idea is maybe underlying it all is the taxes that person pays on what you buy, then go back to benefit you and yours in your community, which, you know, I live in a state that's a, you know, they there shouldn't be taxes and taxes. Taxes or money is money stolen by the government. But, you know, the state that I live in pays money in. It doesn't get money out. Some states, you know, get money out of the government. You know, why should I be dying to make sure that some other state gets money? Indeed. So I'm going to just go on and read the punch line of this article. It says the truth from the study, according to the study, is that buying from China actually benefits Americans more than the Chinese. According to this study, a majority of the products labeled main in China goes to people in businesses in the United States. In fact, 55 percent of the cost of the product goes to services provided in the United States like transportation, rent, salaries of sales paper, sorry, salespeople, profits for shareholders and marketing of the product. And, you know, I just wonder what people think about that. That's a lot of, you know, it's more the money on products made in China go to Americans than Chinese. And it's interesting because another finding of this study was that the average take for Americans from imports from other nations is 36 cents on the dollar compared to 55 cents when the product comes from China. So for some reason, you know, either the cost of products from China is lower to begin with and it gets marked up more when it goes to the US. I see. Or something like that. It doesn't speculate as to why. But for some reason, China, Chinese goods are particularly efficient at enriching Americans. Maybe there's no fair trade stuff going on in China. I wonder if the fair trade stuff throws off the formula for coming from other countries. That's a great question. Voluntarily pay more for, say, coffee or sugar or something like that, basically to give to people that are part of this fair trade thing. And I guess exclude the people, you know, the poor farmers who aren't. Yeah. Well, another thing is fair trade encourages people to get into that market, whereas maybe there are too many bananas already and the price is low for that reason. Free talk live eight five five four five zero three eight fifty five four fifty three. That's the Seigl toll free call in line eight five five four five zero three seven three three. And what is Seigl CAI, you ask? Well, it's a company that I do know the answer because Seigl is awesome. They do something new in the area of collections. They do collections early outbilling and purchase charged off receivables. And they treat your clients with respect, unlike some of those other collections companies. So if you want to keep your clients and collect your money, too, you should check out Seigl CAI. They have a banner on free talk live dot com and it's the top banner. And by the way, the principal over there, Jason Osborne, really thinks the Stephanie is a great co-host. So there you go. Thank you, Jason. I think you're a great everything economist person. He is a professor type economist fellow. Very smart guy. Yeah, indeed. Let's go to John in Illinois. John. Hey, Mark and Stephanie, how's it going? All's well. Can I do it for you? I just wanted to bring up a couple of days ago I was on a podcast and I listened to it today and you were covering child correction, you know, if the child was the road, what do you do kind of thing? And just to give you some background, I am a parent, so I don't think you can dismiss me on not having any children. OK, good. And a 23 year old. Thank goodness. Just wanted to ask you, I'm sure you do, but do you believe in the nonaggression action? Do I believe in the nonaggressive? Yeah, sure, that that is that I do not believe that one should use force to initiate force to achieve political or social goals. OK, and when you disappoint child, that you know, in the case where they're they're in fiscal danger and you and you want to get their attention immediately. Is the purpose of that to keep them from doing the act or is it to somehow condition them to if they do something that you don't like, that that you're going to give them some physical correction? I think it's conditioning. And here's why I don't think that it does any good to grab a child who has run out and run, you know, run halfway out of the road, you know, beat their butt because they didn't get run over by the car. You managed to stop them. Whatever the scenario was, things turned out OK. Beating their butt doesn't do anything about what occurred. I think what it the intention is of parents. And by the way, I have never spanked my son, Jack, but I do understand why, you know, I kind of understand why some parents might choose to do this. And the the reason would be that, look, you can't run away when mommy and daddy say, don't run, stop, you know, in a parking lot. It might be one thing or another in different locations. Certain behavior is acceptable in some areas where it is not acceptable in others. And some some behavior is, in fact, dangerous. At the same time, when anytime you're you're correct in a child being to ask yourself, am I doing this because I'm frustrated or I'm angry at the action? Yeah, sure. Or am I am I doing this to try to correct the behavior? Am I being rational and sensible? I think that's yeah, that's absolutely what parents should be addressing themselves. And I'm wondering, oh, this is, you know, this is a question I've had for years is I'm wondering, is there a rational reason to be able to spank? And I don't know that one can use philosophically, use the nonaggression principle in this area, because I think that to some extent, functionally, I am the slave owner of my child. Now, you know, I don't know. Obviously, you can never truly own someone in that you can't, you know, make them speak. I can't move my vocal cords and make my son speak. He owns himself in that way. And a parent's goals, generally the parents that I've met, generally their goals are to raise a functional, intelligent child that loves them and will care about them as life goes on. Well, I don't think that sounds like a master slave relationship. No, but I'm just saying that functionally, there are some. I have to use aggressive force on my child every single day. And by that, I mean, if he doesn't want to get his diaper changed. And often he doesn't. I have to do that for his well being. He can't run around with feces in his, you know, next to his skin because it makes it sensitive and raw and red and it can harm him. But he doesn't know any different. So I actually do use force. Well, I think it's talking what kind of force I've changed diapers to mark. And, you know, I may not have children of my own, but I have changed many diapers in my life and some of it has been under force. Well, I think that there's a difference between there's a big difference between restraining a child, so maybe they don't fall off a changing table or something or, you know, catching up with them so that you can, you're able to change their diaper and hitting them. There's a huge difference. And I would, I would say that the former is, you know, restraining them or maybe removing them from a dangerous situation, which is what you're doing when you change the diaper is different. That all, you know, John started this out with the non-aggression principle. And I really like to approach it from this angle. And as long as we're clear that everybody here is using force, then we're clear. Now, the question is, what kind of force and what kind of force is appropriate? I don't I don't think that restraining a child or removing them from a situation is force. I don't think it's restraining me means you own me, Stephanie. If you decide, Mark, you're not leaving this room. I mean, when when those guys in prison, the prison guards didn't let me out, they did it because they believe they owned me. Well, that's true. That's true. So I just do you think it's a different degree, though? If you're absolutely about to get someone's freedom of movement versus about degrees. Yes, Jack's freedom of movement is restricted. When I say he can't go out that door, he can't go out that door. And I'm going to physically prevent him from going out. Now, the question is, what does he think when I paddle him on the bottom? And I haven't. But what would he think? For one, he would think it was a very serious thing that we had just gone across, just dealt with, because it's never happened before. Where did this come from? But, you know, I mean, I guess that's what often parents will say. This is effective. Well, don't you think, Mark, that if you are a parent and you're responsible for Jack's safety, right? I don't like the term. I don't know that I am responsible for Jack's safety. The question is, you don't believe I own Jack, right? No, no, then how am I responsible for him? Well, you're responsible in that you have a fiduciary responsibility to him, since you've agreed to raise him up. How did I agree to it? You had sex with your wife. Wait a second, so you're saying that abortion is not a woman's choice? I mean, you've got a lot of issues you guys are throwing around here. But if I don't own Jack, I've got no responsibility for him. I should be able to leave the door open and let him go wherever he wants. The door is open. And if he's in the grid to raise him, then you have been gone already. And you're you're the fact that I can't change my mind today. John, if I can't change my mind today, then Jack owns me. Well, you can't change it. You're daily agreeing to raise him. Indeed, I do. I want to. I'm excited to. I don't think anyone's disputing that. But, you know, I mean, let's bring this back on track, Mark. I want to ask you something. The track is, do I, you know, do I have a master's servant relationship with my child to some extent as time goes by? No, no, no, no. The fiduciary responsibility. What is a fiduciary responsibility? I mean, I mean, you're considering his, his best interest when you take actions for him. I do. And you act in his as a responsible adult to try to keep him on the right path. You don't do that in a way like you're angry at him or you want to hurt him. You're doing that for his best interest. But you have a relationship with him. One could spank and do that, right? I know. What? That's not that's your that's your opinion. But what could ask one could one could spank a child's bottom and still be fitting into this definition you're talking about, you know, of trying to raise a child in their best interest and all that, right? Well, ask yourself, what benefit does that serve the child that you struck him on the on the behind? I guess that what, you know, and I have to, I have to look at this from the situation of not having done it, but I would say that what that what people would say is it's effective. The child remembers this activity and I remember some of the spankings I got from 30 years ago. You get, you get his attention by that. Is that what you're saying? No, I think it's to drive home a particularly important lesson. And I would say that for me, the only appropriate time to use that lesson that I can come up with is sort of a life or death situation where you're where you're substituting a small amount of pain for something that might very well be a great deal of pain or injury or death. Okay, so if you're talking about substitution, why not come up with a substitute behavior that lets Jack know that you're serious, like you slam a book on the table. Every time you see the book being slam on the table, he knows this is serious. But isn't that doesn't that's, you know, I mean, it's scaring him right? It's scaring the child any better than spanking them. I mean, isn't this the same thing? I think they're both trying to get his attention and let him know. Hey, I just, I just plopped my hat here. That means this is serious. Okay, I have a question that I think a big tub of water and just dump it over his head. He'd probably remember that too. You're going to water board. It's freaking weird. Okay, Mark, I have something I would like to a point I would like to raise. I think that, you know, even if you consider something like restricting someone's freedom of movement, restraining a child, you know, maybe so they don't run out into the street. If you consider that force, would you consider anything else? Right. Sure. But I mean, wouldn't you think that, wouldn't you think that if you're raising a child, if you're interacting with a child and if you, if you have to use something that you consider force, wouldn't you want to use the least amount of force that you could? I want to do what's most effective for the child in the sense in the long run, the thing that's better for best for them. I don't want to cause them in a kind of mental pain. And this is why I generally err on the side of discretion. Yeah. John, do you have more? Not sure that we've covered it all, but thanks. Do you have more? I have a 17 year old and a 23 year old, you know, and I've tried these techniques and I've gone all different ways about it. Treetalk Live, Live Sunday Show. It's Mark and Stephanie. Give us a call at 855-450-3733. We've been talking about here in the last segment or so is corporal punishment and relationships between children and parents. This is, well, this is the show that you can call in and talk about what you want to talk about. Doug in Minnesota appears as though he wants to talk about spanking too. Hear me? Hey. Hey, nice to talk to you again. It's good to talk to you, Doug. Oh, is this the Doug, the smoothie Doug? Yes, smoothie by Doug. Doug is smoothie. That's right. It was, yeah, cool. Hey, Mark, you said something just recently on the break before the break that made me start thinking about my past and my parents were spankers. Your parents were spankers. OK, sorry to hear that, Doug. Yeah, yeah, I am too, actually, because I am now a non spanking convert. How many how many times did they spank is what I want to know, Doug? Because I this is a huge gamut. You know, it's many times people who don't spank choose to put people into categories of spankers or non spankers. But I think that it's more important also to talk about how many times you were spanked. That's another thing I was thinking about. And caveat, I don't have kids here. But I, you know. But everybody was a child at one point, Doug, and that counts. I think your I think your thoughts matter. I also think that there's a practical application that goes into being being apparent. But I'm interested in what you have to say. Yeah, I was spanked rarely. I just don't know for sure. I would say something like maybe a couple times a year. OK. It had to have been something pretty serious. I think, but maybe it was more often often, I'll ask my mom. But I remember she doesn't remember either. I don't know. I'll ask her. I'll bet she doesn't. I don't know. Yeah. Here's something that you said, though. You said one of the things in the last college brought up, Mark, you thought that people spanked to make a point, you know, to train the kid that what you did was dangerous, wrong. I want to get your attention about this. Not just wrong, but dangerous. Is it dangerous? If you want my ad, you want me to advocate anything. And I'm not saying I do. I'm just thinking about this. Is if I were to advocate anything, I would advocate it to use this training to prevent situations that, you know, may occur that are deadly. But at the same time, Mark, you haven't used it so far. I haven't needed to. At this point, I have never needed to employ that tool. I hope never to need to employ that tool. It is not going to be something that I pull out immediately. I can assure you of that. Right. And here's the thing that got me thinking. I began to think about this all the time I was spanked. And it must have been many over my lifetime. I can't remember why or any of them. Sure, Doug, I completely believe that because when kids are scared, that's all they can focus on is the fear. And what they learn is to be fearful. They don't learn a lesson or not to do something or to do something. They just learn to fear the person that's hitting them. And so that's one reason it's not effective. Another is that every research that has been done on this has shown, one, kids who are hit to have more likelihood of becoming violent themselves with other kids. That research is only on children that are spanked often. Is that that same? I don't know about that. I mean, I think it's spanking is extremely common. Seventy to ninety percent of parents across all socioeconomic groups do it regularly and often. And this is where the violent study that I saw was children that were spanked. I think it was four to five times a week. So you're talking about somebody who's really wailing on that kid. And Doug, the point I'd like to make is spanking is really only intended to be effective for a short period of time. By the time you were twelve, you could probably figure out how to cross the street. Whereas, you know, your parent may have been trying to teach you at three. You don't run away from me in the parking lot because it's deadly. Right. And the point that I would like to make about that is that how are they ever supposed to learn how to reason if nobody tries and nobody is patient with them and teaches them? If how are they supposed to reason if their head is turned into a watermelon, a smushed melon? Well, how are they supposed to reason if their brain is turned to a stop sign by one or two spankings? I don't know that I'd like to see the study like the you know, I'd like to see the study that says one spanking turns children into Jeffrey Dahmer, and I don't think it's out there. Well, no, it is not. But when a kid is hit, when they're being faced with physical violence, they feel fear. They get a fight or flight response and kids who are spanked often and hit often. And of course, it's a continuum from seldom to often. You know, they're that inhibits brain development because they constantly feel scared and they they don't develop those critical thinking skills. I want to tell you my experience and it's strange and Mark, you brought up something. You said, I bet by the time you were 12, you learn how to cross the street. My last spanking, I had already gone through puberty and my dad spank me and it was embarrassing and shameful. And I was nervous and like Twittery. And I, you know, and he insisted on the spanking. I must have done something pretty bad. I have no idea what it was. But I was a young man and so I think he might be right. The thing was this shame, this embarrassment of having my bare butt spanked by my dad when I had pubic hair. Yeah, I got I've got to say that it doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense to me and that that does seem to me sort of domination activity where, hey, this is my house. I make the rules around here. It's always domination, no matter what age the kid is. It is domination in the sense that I don't. I demand my child's obedience when it comes to deadly situations because I know that he doesn't have the cognitive abilities today and now to be able to handle these things. I talked to him on a regular basis. We just talked today about why daddy was going to let him watch the show that he wanted to watch rather than watching the show that I was watching because normally I wouldn't do that. But I felt that in the circumstances that that made sense to let him watch blues clues about some guy who spends most all of his time at his house talking to his dog and his imaginary talking plates and stuff, you know, as opposed to what I was watching at the time, because I just felt like it was a better so I attempt to do these things. But there are times I feel that one needs to communicate quickly. Hopefully I don't run across these situations or I come up with other ways to do it because I think there are better punishments. Well, Mark, one of these things that I've heard is that no extrinsic motivations that you should not use extrinsic motivations at all. And if you take away timeouts and spankings and what is a parent left with as a tool? Well, lots of things. And the most important thing is connecting with a child and trying to understand what they're feeling and what they need because kids do need things and they have emotional and psychological needs that aren't just things like food and water and, you know, getting understanding those and understanding the needs that are present in yourself as a parent are key to connect making that connection with your child. Done. Were you used were timeouts used on you? I don't think they were. I don't remember my parents in timeouts. Were stickers and, you know, other little prizes used for motivations for you? Yes. Do you remember what they were used for? They were pretty darn good. They're good parents, you know, they spank once in a while. The benefits thing, do you mean the carrots, not the stick? The carrot versus the stick, yeah. Well, I remember one of it was school work and, you know, money for grades. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, it's really. But you don't remember what you learned, earned the grade for. This is the point that I'm making is people often don't remember crap from their childhood. Well, one of the reasons for that is that, you know, I Yes, people sometimes don't remember things from their childhood, but Doug did remember being hit. He remembered being hit, but he didn't remember why he was hit. He doesn't remember why he got the stickers necessarily either. Yeah, one more thing before I go here, I want to bring this up because this is pretty fascinating and I think that's a good thing. Stern, conservative, psychology talk show host Dr. Laura, she said, do not spank your kids. Instead, do this when they're about to do something bad and hurt themselves, you want to get a point to cross, you grab them by the arm, not to hurt them, and you pull them close to your face, and you get in their face, and you are very angry and sternly not yelling us, you know, but just say, do not do that and explain why, but that alone will start a kid and they're that will, you know, almost almost like spanking in a way. No, yeah, Doug, that is that is almost like spanking because you're scaring the hell out of the kid. And I don't know that that's much better. Honestly, I think Doug, Doug, I just want to say before you go, Doug, I'm really sorry that that happened to you that all the spankings and, you know, the thing with your dad, and I'm glad that you're thinking about it now and you've made a conscious decision not to be a hitter free talk live 855 450 free. That's the sacred toll free call in line. Let me tell you about the Free State project real quick. Stephanie, I are both movers for the Free State project. It is a movement to get 20,000 Liberty loving individuals. You know, we're not going to stop at 20,000. So okay, once we get to that point, people will want to move here way beyond 20,000. It's a movement to concentrate people who believe in the ideas of liberty, the idea that government should at its very maximum protect life, liberty and property all to one state so that we can work on making that happen by concentration of our voices amongst the community through political action in some cases, through civil action in other cases, through media, these kind of things. You can be involved. Go to free state project.org. It's free state project.org. We have been talking about discipline, I guess, amongst parents and children. Let's go to God, try this name here. Uka Arlene? Youkara. Youkara? This is Youkara-Leen here. Is there any chance it's Youkara-Leen? No. Okay, it's Youkara. Calling from Michigan. That part I can get. Close enough. It's not Michigan? Missouri? Yes. Okay, I think the abbreviation from Missouri is M-O and perhaps the board up put down the wrong abbreviation. So, what you want to talk about, Kara? I'd like to continue child discipline. Okay. And I just, I really have to say I do not agree with some of the things that people have been saying. Okay, what make your point? Okay, well, first of all, as a child, I was thanked and I am not sorry for it. I am very glad. And it was something that my mother, she did discipline me. Now, I did also have a father who was abusive, but they were very, they were two very different things that I can distinguish between you. And I do have to say as a mother, I do discipline my children. And by discipline, you mean spank? At times? Yeah, I kind of wish people would just call it what it is which is hitting. I think that, you know, there's, there's motor vehicles. Some of those motor vehicles are trucks. Some of those motor vehicles are cars. Some of those motor vehicles are motorcycles. So spanking specifies what activity we're talking about. Well, people are what, what you mean when you say spanking is you mean that you paddle a child on the butt either with your hand or an object, right? Yeah. Okay. You know, it's when people use these euphemisms, people have called in on the subject numerous times and they've said, Oh, a little pat on the butt or a little smack on the fanny, depending, depending on the size of the child, you really a pat really might not be too far from the truth. I mean, I can deliver one heck of a blow, but I wouldn't deliver that blow on my three year old to the level that I could. So, right. But the point of the spank is to scare them, right? And to show, and to extensively teach them a lesson, right? And so it has to be forceful, forceful enough to hurt them and scare them. It's not about scaring them. No, ma'am, you have it all wrong. Oh, I have it all wrong. If you are doing it for that reason, then you are not doing it for the correct reason. What's the correct reason? Okay. Well, now I'm not speaking for all Christians here, so I don't want people to know if they're against it and look at Christianity as a stereotype and look against them in the wrong light. Okay. Let me guess, you're going to spank your children to make them godly. This is what we heard last week. Make them godly. Yes. This is what somebody said last week. And to cleanse their conscience. Cleanse their conscience. Let her talk. I'm interested in this. I've never heard of the constant cleansing spanking, so please. Okay. Well, first of all, I do not believe a child should be spanked for something that they don't know what they're doing. There's a difference between training and there's a difference between spanking. If a child knows that they are doing wrong and they willfully do it anyway, that is when the disciplinary action of spanking comes into action. And how do you know if they know that they're doing it wrong or doing something wrong? Do you have children? I don't have children. I can tell you, I've seen Jack look me right in the eye and do what it is that he's not supposed to do. Well, I, you know, I, is he testing? Is he seeing whether I'm going to be consistent? I don't know what he does and why he does it. And I willful, I see, it seems to me he's testing the boundaries. Thank you. That's, that's my exact point when they know. And when you know that they know, if you're guessing that they know, that's probably not the best time to do it. You know, the whole point of it, when your child knows that they're doing wrong and I remember as a child, I mean, I actually have memories from the age of three, you, when you do something wrong, you do feel bad about it. So why does a parent need to, why does a parent supposedly need to hit a child if the child does feel bad when they do something wrong? Yukara, are you supposed to pat them on the back and say, oh, it's okay. I know you did wrong, but there's, there's nothing bad about that. Or are you supposed to take action? I mean, when a child is wrong, sitting them in the corner, does that not do the same thing? Or are you saying that that's the only kind that we're allowed to do? Well, sometimes when I'm not saying you're allowed or not allowed to do anything, you're a sovereign individual. But, you know, sometimes when a child does something that hurts themselves, then they, they have a consequence, right? When they stick their finger in a socket, they might get zapped, you know? And so they experience a consequence. And sometimes when they do something that hurts someone else, they feel bad. What if it's just something that they're not supposed to do? They feel that guilt, they feel that shame. Then it may be an arbitrary thing. And, you know, I think guilt and shame, guilt and shame are, are not at all. You didn't even hear what I was saying. But go on, make your point. And then I wanted, I would like to ask you a question. All right. Myself as a Christian, when I have a guilty conscience, quite frankly, I have had God. And this is spiritually speaking, not in a literal physical sense, but I have God, I've had God flat out turn me over his knee and spank me. I mean, honestly. Do you believe in self-flagellation? I believe in what? Flagellation. Self-flagellation. That's the only time in flagellation you can do, right? I think you can, you can hit someone else. Do you believe in self-flagellation, which is beating yourself in order to, you know, atone for sins? You believe in sending someone to jail when they do something wrong? I... Unless there's a victim? No. Right. I mean, if there are danger to society, I do. Okay. When someone does something wrong, they are supposed to get in trouble for that, right? You know, you... This isn't the question I was asking, Yukara. Actually, I think you misunderstood my question. Do you believe in, this is a Christian concept, at least a portion, partially Christian, sex of Christians do this, which is beat themselves for sin. So when they do something wrong? I don't agree with that now. Okay. I was just wondering, I mean, you know, it sounds like you might be going down that road and I was interested. This is a, it's an unusual aspect. Monks in the dark ages used to wear hair shirts because the world is supposed to be suffering. So Yukara, I have a question I would like to ask you. Are you aware that all the research that's been done on spanking has shown that children who are hit are more likely to be violent with other children and have problems with brain development. They have lower IQ. They have trouble with critical thinking because of all this fear and constant activation of the fight or flight response. If you, if you knew that those things were true, would you still advocate spanking? I believe you're speaking of abuse. I don't believe you're actually talking about spanking because when a parent does something in anger, that will come across to the child as anger and that will cause mental damage and that will cause problems. I don't see how you could be violent with a kid in love. Thank you for the call. Free talk live 55453. That's the sacred toll free call in line 855-450-3733. How big is the debt crisis? Really? Prepare to be dumbfounded. Go to learn liberty dot org slash FTL and see Anthony Davies explanation of the magnitude of the US debt as the camera pans out over this minute long video and the the bar graphs continue to rise. You will be stunned by the US debt in comparison to other numbers and what's causing the US debt. It's a little over a minute long, but you'll be amazed and share this video with your friends. Email it to people. Put it on Facebook. Share it on your Facebook so other folks can see it. When you're there, check out the Liberty Academy link on the right hand side. It's course for people who want free online, continue education, economics, philosophy, liberty and rights. Learn liberty dot org slash FTL. And did you know that you can help out free talk live for just three dollars a month? Amp dot free talk live dot com is the place to go. If you would like to find out more about that opportunity and get perks. Perks. Everybody wants to see perks perk with sits. I would like to say something about the last call. Yukara, I believe was her name. It's it really saddens me when people desperately try to defend their parents who have hurt them. And you know, nobody wants to admit that they were hurt. You know, nobody wants to admit that something bad happened. But there's a part of yourself or the person, you know, every person who was hurt by their parents that needs empathy and needs to speak up and and be recognized. And I think this this whole concept of spanking and punishing kids is extremely relevant to liberty. And here's why. Or I can tell you after this call if you want, Mark, I know you're anxious to get to that. Yeah, fine. That's fine. We'll take David in New Hampshire. David. Good evening. How do you? I was going to ask Stephanie something. Sure. How do you explain the many people that don't think spanking is quite as bad as you think it is. And many of the people like you've mentioned somebody mentioned a 70 percent number. 70 to 90 percent of parents hit their kids. That's the number that I've seen most recently. Right. And if if if if they spank, how do you explain like kids that grown up and say and and and are saying are somewhat to an extent saying it was it wasn't that bad. Well, I think that a lot of people are in denial and like I just said, nobody wants to admit that they had something bad happen to them. And it's really difficult to face up to that that aspect and maybe acknowledge that, hey, this wasn't the best thing. Somebody might have made a mistake here. A lot of people don't don't want to say that, but it's really important because only by connecting with that aspect of of yourself, your child's self, is can you can you really reconcile those things that happened and become a healthier person? Well, I'd say that for myself. Maybe I wasn't such a good kid sometimes. I mean, really not a good kid. And that. Might have been the reason why it happened. Oh, OK. Like, well, David, when I say like a lot of people, I'm like a lot of people, there's like a world of difference between getting an occasional spanking when you're really, really, really bad. And and then and like like people have said, you know, getting hit all the time, regular abuse. Yeah, of course, David, of course, there's a continuum there, but it doesn't make the the lower end of the continuum good or acceptable or right. I mean, I think that violence against children is wrong and we should apply moral principles universally. And if we wouldn't say it's right or OK to hit another adult or an old person, even if they don't have the same cognitive skills as us, if we if they don't do what we say, then it's not OK to hit a child if we don't do if they don't do what we say. And you know, you said you mentioned that you were bad as a kid, David. I don't know what happened or what you did. But, you know, so often when people say that kids are bad, they're often just not being obedient to their parents. And sometimes maybe they are doing something that that hurts someone else or something like that. But, you know, often kids repeat what they see in their environment. And so I think it's incumbent upon parents to look within themselves and see if maybe that's occurring. Also their Stockholm syndrome. I mean, I mean, I'm not saying that that's what occurs with spanking. I don't know. I don't feel that I feel that maybe some judgment could have been used differently in some of the spanking incidences as a child. But I don't feel unloved. I don't feel like my parents have done something horrifying or anything like that. Well, no, and they can still love you syndrome does exist. And people do have affinity for people who do terrible things to them. David, we have a bunch of calls. I appreciate yours. Let's go to. Let's go to Ed in Tennessee. Ed. How are you gentlemen and lady done? Just fine. Hey, yeah, I definitely back you up, Stephanie, on this because I got a little little saying I made up. Use your brain, not your hand. I like that. Why do we want all this control? Because when I reared my son and as he got older, you know, that as a teenage years, they want to smart off and all. When they smart off to me, I'd say, man, I wish y'all didn't have your own brain and mouth, but what you do and I'm certainly going to let you use it. So, you know, I'm really libertarian in that sense, but and spanking does lead to like a lot of sexual problems, like you were talking about stepping in about more aggression. And I think we'll look at it as secondhand smoke now. But and like I want to ask parents out there, why do you want to hit a child? Think about that. What are you doing? You're hitting another person. Yes. And, you know, they and they're a lot smarter than what you think. It's definitely you may know more of the facts on that, but you remember the story about the mother that led her eight, nine or 10 year old child, make it home, make it. He made it. Oh, he rode the bus by himself. And she was the subway to everything and everybody freaked out on that. She was called the worst mother in America. Hey, they did a special on that of mothers all around the world. Free range kids like in Africa and all they get to get around the fires. They don't just helicopter them, you know, nonstop. And they make it. Yeah. But hey, Mark, this is something I'd like to tell you and Stephanie both. I read a real good article and listen to this. If you think genes don't affect how people behave, consider this fact. If you're a carry of a particular set of genes, the probability that you will commit a violent crime is four times as high as it would be if you lack those genes. But it's rare like to commit robbery. But it's rare. Five times likely commit aggravated assault. Ninety eight percent of those on death row have these genes. Well, that's and I wouldn't think 90 percent of the people on death row were guilty, frankly. Right. But that doesn't mean everybody who has those genes is going to be on death row. It's more than they did the crime that they were doing. What it's saying is you don't have so much free will as you think. Sure. Yeah. Do you remember the Charles Whitman story? The guy in Texas that climbed the tower that killed all those people years back? No. Yes. What he wrote. What? Well, he climbed the tower. He knew he was changing. He even wrote stuff saying what is going on with me and guess what they found out? He left a note saying doing autopsy on my brain and guess what they discovered? He had a brain tumor. Humor pushing on a certain area in the brain and it made him do what he did. Yeah. Interesting. And that's been proven now. So you see what I'm saying? Yeah. We don't have as much free will. So quit hitting these kids. Thank you, Ed. Children. Thank you. Thank you very much. Enjoy your show. Ed, thanks. You know, it's true that things like genes, I mean, we can't be totally deterministic. Of course, people have a choice, you know, especially when they're given a choice, right? And given a choice to act in a moral manner, right? You know, people do have a choice, but genes have a huge influence on how people behave. And things like brain tumors can severely affect people's personality. So what does a parent do if they've got one of these bad kids? I mean, if that's that's the claim here, right? These genes make one bad. Well, if their kid has a brain tumor, then they take the child to a doctor. I don't know that you're going to know that your child has a tumor. They didn't they didn't know what this fella. I mean, well, sure. But if I don't think Ed was saying that those genes make people bad, I think he was saying, especially if someone has these genes, they may be predisposed, especially if they have a bad home environment to commit crimes later on in life. Indeed. So it does the genes don't make them bad. Free talk live 855-450-FREE. Free talk live. It's the show about your calls, but we've got so many of them. I'm not giving out the number. Stephanie, tell me about the shop.freetalklive.com. Yep. Is if you go to that place, shop.freetalklive.com, you can enter Amazon through Free Talk Lives portal and help support Free Talk Live. Effortlessly, they will get a little spiff of whatever you buy and the price is the same for you. If you smoke cigarettes, you know at some point they're going to kill you. You've probably thought about trying the e-cigarette. It's a healthier option. 22,000 times healthier. And here's a great offer from vaporsmiths.com. Vaporsmiths makes one of the best vaporizers on the market. It allows you to get a full hit as opposed to some of these weaker ones that, you know, just kind of half hits and it's no fun at all. You don't want one. You're already start saving money because e-cigarettes are significantly cheaper than those taxed cigarettes. No kidding. Yep. You can get a free starter kit from vaporsmiths.com and free shipping with the purchase of 40-quarter cardemizers. That's what they call the little things that hold the nicotine and coupon code FTL. Use coupon code FTL. Buy 40 cardemizers. Get a free starter kit and free shipping on orders of $60 or more. You can call 8552GetVapor. Go to vaporsmiths.com. 8552GetVapor or vaporsmiths.com. Let's go to Jim in Idaho. Jim? Jim, can you hear me? If you're talking to Jim in Indiana, yes, I can. OK. Sorry. Both start with I. I'm I will talk about my early life. OK. I was born an obstinate child. My mother encouraged it. So did she do she do the same with my sister? She encouraged obstants. Yes. OK. We never got spanked by my mother. OK. My mother died when I was five. Sorry to hear that. Oh, sorry. My grandmother had to start to raise me. My grandmother was running a business. She put me right in school first grade. A four room schoolhouse in Appalachia. So I assume that they had corporal punishment in the school. They did, but they never corporal punished me. Oh, that's great. I did not do anything terrible, except that I did not want to be there. And I refused to speak to the teacher for the whole year. Wow. And I think that's interesting. Both my grandmothers and one uncle were at the school trying to get things straight. And I would not acknowledge the necessity of me speaking to that teacher. Well, it sounds like your mother, you know, encouraged critical thinking, you know, and not just following orders blindly or submitting to arbitrary authority. So that sounds pretty cool. You could stretch it out that way. And every every child is an individual and needs to be handled as an individual. That much is that's the God's honest truth. Jim from Indiana, thank you for the call. You know, children, every child does need to be raised differently. Let's go to people. People are individuals and children are people. I think we had two gyms in Indiana. What what are the chances of that we should get some kind of prize, Jim? Yes, you're talking the other thing, Jim from Indiana. OK, OK, now I'm going to say the other thing I'm going to support spanking and I'm going to do it with some facts because you guys are really missing the boat on it. Mr. Hyman, who started this whole argument against spanking and was on Montel Williams and a lot of things. Wait, wait, wait, who's Mr. Hyman? I don't know. I've never heard of a Hyman and I don't support spanking. I know what a Hyman is. Well, it's a body part. He opposes. He opposes spanking. And on an on a right. But I I suppose I oppose spanking, too. And I've never heard this guy. So there's a philosophical reason to not spanking. But you're also making claims that every research you've told one of the callers. And this is what inspired Do a search. Do a Google search. I did. You told the caller that all the research says that all the spanking is bad, but you're not doing your research out of Berkeley, California, one of the biggest supporters out of Berkeley University who were a Bowman, a big supporter, anti spanking supporter. She did a research study, one of the largest studies done and actually found the results were in opposition what she anticipated. She thought they would support because the only biggest thing she did is she separated the abusive treatment that kids were receiving from spanking. Jim, Jim, it's all abuse. Jim, it's abuse. Some of it's worse than others. I disagree with this entirely. Stephanie, the two people have called that have said that they've both been abused and spanked and they said they know the difference. And I don't think that it's fair to call it the same thing. You don't think it's abusive to hit someone? I'd really like to hear what Jim has to say as far as this research goes. Tell me about the research, Jim, because we really, we're on a time schedule here. I understand that. The research, and that's on time to talk quickly, because there's tons of information, and unfortunately, they can't get out quickly enough. The simple fact is this. If you spank, there are guidelines. And if you were to have guidelines with spanking, you do not use a closed hand, for example. You only use an open hand. You use a spanking. If you spank the child, I don't need spanking instructions. You don't need instructions. You're going to give me a study. I don't want instructions on how to spank your kid. Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, these guidelines and under bombage research, when people use guidelines like this, are you still there? Yep. OK, when people use guidelines like this and did not do stuff that actually was abusive, abusive being hitting a child when you hurt, that's abusive. If you hit a child once and it hurt you, you can guarantee you just abused that child. OK, so, Jim, there's a fine line what is it, bombing, you said? between whatever you're describing and you know what, there's a moral argument as well as a research argument. And, you know, you're talking about one study that. Moral argument goes along with operant conditions, simple, basic research, simple, basic, analytic behavior. Right, and there's a lot of research that shows operant conditioning is harmful to children as well. And if you if you'd allow me to let you know, get get this out here. Hitting is force. Spanking is hitting. And I don't think that anyone would agree that it's OK to hit another adult or to hit an older person or to even hit a newborn baby. You know, I got to let you go. What is the name of this? Tell me about the study, Jim. What's the name of the study? The study was done. I don't have just tell me. Tell me a fact. One fact, bombing. If you look up Bob, B-A-U-M, something like that, it starts like that. Do a Google search. If you type in Google Spanking, Berkeley, you'll come up with them. Thank you. If you want to desperately justify your mistake in this study. I think that the studies you've been quoting have been studies on a great deal of spanking in a short period of time. And I just don't think those are fair entirely. Let's go to Rick in Michigan. Rick, can you hear me? Yep. Hi. Great to be on. I really appreciate this. Quick, quick. I believe that there's a fine line between discipline and abuse discipline. I mean, you need to be calmed down. You need to not be mad at your child. You need to know what you're gonna say to your child. Abuse is from being mad and spanking out of anger. See, a lot of people have brought this point up, but it seems very incompatible to me to say that someone could hit a child and not have any anger in their mind at the same time. You're hitting someone else. If my child was standing on the edge of something high and wasn't looking, was going to fall, I would grab her and get her attention, explain to her why she was going to be in trouble. That is being stern, a fatherly voice, a strong voice, stern something that's going to snap. Wake her up. And would you hit her? No, no. Okay. She was two years old. I just swatted her on the bottom, but that was to get her attention and I gave her much love, much love after that. And I'll tell you what, I haven't had to discipline her like that ever since. Yeah, I don't think there's ever a case where anybody has to. That just removes the responsibility from the individual for their actions saying that I have to do something. Oh, the kid made me do it. No, you always have a choice. And there are many parents out there who have chosen to raise their kids without hitting them. And we have heard from some of them tonight and you know what, they're fine. They're good for it. And that's why I say that there should be discipline but not in a physical way. A lack of discipline can be just as bad as physical abuse because the child will grow up without any kind of boundaries or... And what do you mean when you say discipline? Discipline? Timeout, yelling, that kind of thing? It's a wake up call. You get their attention and you look at them and you explain to them, this is what you're doing that can hurt you. Either you can maybe going to hurt yourself physically or even in a way that when you get older it can affect your life. Well, I think we heard from Hannah earlier this week. As the adult that you were, well, I feel that God left me responsible to raise my child, to teach my child how to live and not get hurt. And I think that it's great that you haven't hit and I commend you for that. I know it can be really difficult to be a parent. It's the hardest job in the world. And they often don't get enough credit. But if you take the time to educate yourself about discipline you may find that it can be harmful to a child just as hitting can be. And as we heard from Hannah earlier in this week connecting with a child is really a better long run strategy for helping them learn. Thank you for the call, Rick. I wanna talk about this real quick. But you're talking about educate yourself on discipline. The fact is, there are so many other topics out there. My wife has read many parenting books at this point and we are not convinced on this subject in one shape or another. You can educate yourself into a corner in so many different ways. It's like so many people out there that say, you don't agree with me, you need to get educated. And I think there's a lot of different studies out there. Well, everybody has to find their own way. And Mark, I'm glad that you care about Jack enough to learn about this thing. And I think that you're doing a great job. Free talk live.