 It's no good when you can't hear the speaker, I guess, if he has something to say. Maybe I do, so I'll try to speak out loud. Practical actions and demonstrations, the student rebellion. My name is Christian Jurgels, and that was the topic I'm supposed to say something on. My background, I started with politics just four years ago in a small student organization in Stockholm called the Free Moderate Students. Well, moderation was not really the leading word when I was there, but the reason the name is Free Moderate Students is that the single conservative liberal party in Sweden is called the Moderates, and this organization was kind of a part of it. Nowadays I work with something called the Freedom Front, and this is explained in this little book with an independent combat unit struggling for individual freedom and capitalism. Well, my English tells me that a combat unit is kind of like Rambo running around with machine guns. We don't do that, we work very peaceful, but we of course fight for capitalism and individual freedom. What we did within this student organization is that we started some actions involving breaking the law. That's not very difficult in Sweden, there are many laws to be broken, but still I think that what I'm going to say here is useful and the same will probably be used in all countries because the Swedish welfare state is not so different from, for example, the US or the Great Britain. As a student organization we thought maybe we should do something a little provocative like students always have done, starting a radio station was a good idea because, well of course freedom of speech is important and in Sweden we have all those laws that decided only the states can start radio stations. That was our big goal for this autumn session when I started as the head of this organization. The radio station was the big thing, but during the summer when the students were out of Stockholm we had to do something also. So we thought we open a bar in the street in Stockholm because maybe you have seen Stockholm, you heard about it, a lot of tourists and we have some large streets where there are no cars and fine, we did it. We started the bar a Saturday afternoon. We just put a table on the street and with a little cloth roof on it and we started selling. But it doesn't sound like very much and it wasn't, but still it was because beer and wine is something a little secret in Sweden and to combine politics with alcohol is very, very no-no. So media was there covering up and the state television thank you, state television, the state radio, all the big news programs and the big newspapers were there and it was a big thing. All of a sudden there were those moderate students standing on the street selling alcohol. They were breaking the law, we were breaking the law. And since this conservative party, the moderates, not at all known for libertarian ideas in media this connection between the big conservative party and their small student organization was very nice to blow up. And there we stood telling everyone that it's okay to break the law. Fine, we do it because the law is not just. The state does not have the right to decide whether we sell alcohol or not. We don't force anyone, it is actually not a crime. This really made an influence on the Swedish debate for a short while. When we started the radio station a few months later, which was the big thing and of course alcoholic laws, okay I don't like them but freedom of speech is somewhat more important, it is even more important. But that was almost forgotten. No one, well a few media followed it up but not much. But those two things made this moderate party become very furious. They didn't like it at all. Breaking the law in Sweden is not very good and doing it within this conservative party is even worse. And what happens maybe all of you or some of you know how an organization works. Here we were five, six people that really wanted to do something and to fight for the ideas. But at the same time there were all of those others, no-no people that wanted peace within the party and within the organization. And as I understand those of you working within the Libertarian Party for example in the US has also always gotten those problems that people want different things. Parties and organizations in that way are counterproductive. So we started the freedom front or I did together with a couple of other guys that really felt for Libertarian ideas. And the freedom front then is not a party, it's just an organization which tries to influence people, which tries to take part in the debate and really show people what we believe in and what is right. For example now we started a pub or a big pub in Stockholm or a party local. It's probably as big as this place, 300 square meters and of course it's illegal. You cannot sell beer in your own home in Sweden and it is not ever allowed to sell beer in a place after three o'clock at night. But young people, party people, they want to drink beer after three o'clock at night. In Stockholm they do at least. So right now we have for every Friday, Saturday three or four hundred persons partying in the freedom front's locals in Stockholm. This spring there was a police ration and then there was another one. What we had done was only this, we sold beer. Thirty policemen coming down with guns, with dogs, ten cars standing, police cars, police vans standing outside because we were selling beer. Okay, fine. They took me and some other guys to the police station for hearings and all that. And we were released. Okay, we kept on going of course. We kept on going the next Friday and the next Saturday and they were there again. Same thing. They're in an inner, I wait to the police station and I mean my thing is always to say nothing. Okay, you want to ask me questions? Fine, I'm not answering. I can tell you my name, my date of birth, but that's all. And that makes the police furious because they don't get anything out of me and they don't get anything out of the others. And we have what we call a direct democratic organization of this pub which means that we have no leader and we have no one that stands above anyone else. That means that every person that is a member of this pub is actually on the highest level. So they cannot find anyone who is actually responsible. And they can't do anything. We keep on doing this. We still have the pub going. We had 400 people there Friday and as many Saturday and it's huge parties. And maybe, I mean to focus only on alcohol sounds a little strange or stupid and of course with the pub we do that. But we get people there that are interested in ideas. If we get 2,000 people through this local every month of course those that are interested in ideas get to know us and get to read books. And I would say that is what is important by with breaking laws and by acting and working libertarian without the party system without from outside and don't go into the party system is very important because to get acceptance from those that set the agenda for tomorrow then you will not ever be successful if you stand on the same place as all those other politicians. The problem of course with breaking law is whether you have the right. Is it right to break the law? I would turn it the other way around and say that as a libertarian you cannot do anything but break the law in a country like Sweden or in a country like the US or Great Britain or anywhere else. Because we will not be reliable if we don't. Because what does it mean to say that people have rights? What is the meaning? Of course the meaning is that the state or the majority does not have the right to interfere with our lives or with our rights. And if we actually believe that it is wrong when the state steals or when the state uses force against peaceful people then the logical connection is that we cannot follow the laws. And it is a very important part, maybe the most important part of the libertarian work today to tell people that they do not have to follow the laws and the rules of the state. Because you can't say, oh gosh, they steal our money and they take our children and put them in this disgusting government school, socialist school and just accept it. You can't do that. It's not reliable. And you can't say many people, many politicians, so-called liberal or conservative politicians, say that oh the humans are socialized and just accept it. You can't do that. It's not reliable. And you can't say we have no freedom of speech. In Sweden we have a big debate right now on this freedom of speech thing with radio stations and TV stations. But still the total political establishment, they accept the law as it is and those so-called libertarians seem to do the same. There are two parts of breaking the law that are important. It is self-defense and it is as a political matter to use civil disobedience in trying to convince people. And the goal of course is to make people lose their respect for the state and to understand that they as human beings, as individuals have human rights. But the problem is that almost always there is no one telling people that they actually have their rights and there is no one telling people that the state doesn't have their rights and there is even fewer that show this and live this way in their political and their private life. But that is important. It is very important. Of course you always have those nose people telling that you cannot break the law for different reasons. And one is this idea of how to work politically. We have to be, we have to seem respectful because we have to convince people in the parliament. We have to convince people working in the political parties that freedom, individual liberty is the right thing. And then we can't go out there in the street breaking the laws. That's not acting respectful. And those nose people, they say that it's chaos and anarchy. No one will believe that this is a sound idea if you act in that way. And I say bullshit. Because it is never and cannot be our thing to convince the whole political system or even a part of it that the ideas are right. We have to start in a different way. The people that change the mentality of people the way to think in a society is never politicians it's not political organizations, it's not my freedom front and it's not the libertarian party or whatever. It is different persons, individuals like actors like musicians, authors, cultural people those are the ones that change mentality in society and we can only reach to those people by standing beside the political system and doing what we actually believe in. Then some say, no you cannot break the laws. Maybe sometimes you can find like in Nazi Germany or so an example where you could break the law. But in general no. Because then you lose the respect for the important laws and if you think that people should follow some of the laws you cannot yourself break others. That's really really stupid. Because what are those other laws? They are disrespect. They are the opposite of respect. And since what this person says is that we have to respect each other we have to respect each other's property and life and therefore we cannot break the laws that don't respect life and property. This argument I would say is really out in the blue. In Sweden we have had a debate recently on moral debt I think. I'm not sure of the word but moral school, moral debt. Who is responsible for what has happened in Sweden? And who is responsible for what happened in the Eastern Europe? Who is responsible for communism and socialism? And they have been putting through all those authors and other musicians that really were Marxists and believed in those ideas and praised the communist China because it was so great. And in Sweden the same thing. All those authors and other people that really believed in communism or socialism. And the problem then is of course they are responsible. All those people are responsible for what happened because they believed in those ideas. But all of those, what about us? Those that sat in the parliament saying no. We shouldn't vote for that law. We shouldn't steal people's money. But still accepting it. Those are in my point of view morally more responsible because they accepted the system and they let the laws through. So what I would recommend is to leave the political parties and to leave the system and to work from outside. And to act on the free market, the really free market of ideas where you don't have to look in that side and the other side and to listen what other people think. And you shouldn't moderate. You should do exactly what you believe in and show it within the political life of yourselves and within the private lives of yourselves. And that is breaking laws and showing people that they have the right to break laws because they have the right to their own lives. Thank you. Question, please. Suggested people who are younger than you are who do not really know the difference between doing that. And I'll ask this question to you because we are youngsters here. Okay. Well, young people always are a problem and you cannot solve it with the state at all. I mean, if your kids go out and do stupid things, you're responsible and you are the one that should know what is right and what is wrong. But the important thing is that everyone knows what is right and what is wrong in their personal life. And probably most young people, when they do something that is not good, they are aware that they're doing wrong. So I actually don't see the problem. I've met the argument many times that people shouldn't be able to understand what laws are good and what laws are bad. But people aren't that stupid. And we have within our culture this very deeply rooted knowledge of what the human rights are. So I'd say that that problem is not very big. Yes, Aynar, please. I think that you were first. Okay. I was wondering whether you were your strategy for promoting freedom is one that, you know, why you seem to rely on campaigns and doing spectacular things and generally making amuses of yourself. Making amuses. Amuses. Amuses. I mean, making all sorts of trouble. It might be amusing. And news. Yes, of course, you do all this to attract attention. But all in all, it means you have to do things that you would not otherwise do. You do it to create an effect. And I'm wondering whether this really leads you to really adopting a fairly unnatural approach. The reason I say that is that I've seen the rising importance of flash campaigns in politics. An often-commoning member of the youth part of the progress process in Norway recently had his photograph taken in the nude in front of the Oslo town hall for no other purpose, of course, to gain attention. So I wonder whether you have reflections on the pitfalls of making a public nuisance of yourself. Well, of course, as I said, I believe that there are two parts of civil disobedience. It's self-defense on one hand and a very effective way to participate in the political debate, on the other hand. And of course, you'll do things that you wouldn't do normally. And I think all of us do. Those working intellectually would probably be doing something more useful if we already had a free society. Many of us. Those of us working with trying to break down the arguments from the socialists, we would do something else. But this leads me to another thing. Of course, I still think to stand nude outside of the parliament, I don't really understand the point. Okay, Norway is a little strange that way. So you have all your moral and rather much Christian laws. And I guess it's forbidden to be nude in Oslo or so, but that was not the thing, I guess. But it is very important to get a message through at the same time. I mean, that is the reason why I break the law. And that's why I can't see really the point of standing nude in front of the parliament. I saw a problem when I started, or after a while, when we had done the radio station, the bar in the street thing, and another couple of other smaller things. I was considered a political clown, just a stupid guy breaking the law because he thought it was funny. And you always have to balance so that you really get the ideas through. And when you break the laws, if you get the effect that media covers it, what you can get out of it in second hand is to use the interest that the first action has created among people by writing articles, by publishing books or booklets. And we have done that a lot. We are giving out our magazine, New Liberal and the Neoliberal, or so, Libertarian. And we are publishing this booklet that says in here, Are You Stupid? Just to show people and to show journalists and commenting journalists that there are two parts. There are the ideas that are very strong and that we believe in. And there are the actions, too. Please. Do you still have the radio station? No. The radio station, what happened was that we started the station on Friday. And we were sending for like six hours. And then we quit, went home and got back on Saturday. Started sending. And, well, there were always all people calling on the phone and saying that great, go on and so. All of a sudden, my sister who was listening to this radio station called and said, now it's gone. The signal, we can't hear anything. Okay, so I hung the phone up and immediately someone else rang and it was a neighbor from the other side of the street. This was a rather tall house in the old town of Stockholm. And we had the antenna on top of the roof. And this neighbor calling said that oh, now there's someone out on the roof. So I think it's, now it's gone. Now they'll kick you out of the air. So I was really furious. There was someone actually up on the roof ruining our antenna. So I ran out of the door and there were at the same time from the next door three really big guys coming out dressed in tie. Well, they were from the Special Force. The Stockholm Police Special Force. Those that deal with terrorists and really bad stuff. So what they had done was that they cut the antenna off on the roof. And then when I got out, they took my keys and unlocked the door and went down there and they handcuffed me to the stairway. They took all our things away. And we are still waiting for the trial because as I usually say that the law system in Sweden, the justice system is socialized also. So it takes a lot of time. This was many years now. But also in Sweden we have a system where if one person breaks the law many times they try to take it all at once. So since we keep on doing new stupid things they have to get a new date for... In other words, if you keep on breaking law all the time you will never come to trial. It's been that way until now. I don't know if I do break real laws I guess they'll have a little more hurry. Any now. Thank you. I want to follow up your question. I think that you've agreed a little bit too easy saying that people know what are justals and unjustals. But the problem is that you know that we are breaking laws but the problem being a martyr also is that the great personal problems that you might not be aware of when you're sitting at the freedom of France in the morning, discussing whether we should sell liquor and we should resist a graph or something like that for someone who is seven years old and who's very impressed with this movement it might be sharp when he's actually facing his parents and saying hey, I've got a two month sentence because I'm resisting the graph. And I would like to ask you don't you consider this a moral problem, a moral dilemma sometimes to actually advocate to young people that they should be martyrs without telling them what the actual consequences might be even if in the long run it has to do with facts. The other ones are sacrificing at this moment and they're young ones and we often don't know what they're doing. That's my first question for your question. The second thing, I think she's discussing, I've been discussing it with Krishna yesterday five years ago it was very easy to shock people simply by being libertarian. It was very easy to get the invitations to ordinary parties, like you mentioned and just sit down and tell them what you thought because that shock them someone who's against taxes someone who likes legalized rights someone standing up against a graph things like that that doesn't shock people in order because we've had a very, very positive development in society. I'm a bit too optimistic but I think that everyone, almost everyone is some sort of libertarian today even if you don't always see the work of invitations. Nobody actually against liberty anymore. And what I want to ask you is and think that this is a great problem for us when we in some way have to change the strategy, is it too wide inside of this either in an intellectual way it's not to tell people why they've got rights because everyone believes they've got rights today they don't surprise him, wait a second that he has rights to life, liberty so forth or you could try the law-breaking method instead to elaborate a bit on this problem as society has developed and has changed the third thing you mentioned in your another organization named KF Massive which was and is the only libertarian organization for students so I thought the KD had a freedom front but also the new liberal was that we should fill the vacuum of a libertarian organization for non-students then according to the program your speech is called the student about it does this mean that the freedom front is competing with FMSF for students as well or do you try to fill the vacuum for non-students because that's right? Yeah, we compete with FMSF on engaging the students very much we do but still I would say that the most important thing is that those that believe in the political party system they can join the FMSF those that don't believe in it they can join the freedom front and those that want to get a good place to make a career within the moderate party I think FMSF is great very annoying set of me there were two more questions here try to answer of course some years ago it was very very interesting to listen to those strange people that said so stupid things that no one ever could believe in and it's not that extreme anymore but still I think that you're totally wrong when you say that our new goal could be to prove intellectually why people actually have rights since they already know that they do because people don't people don't know that they have rights people 99% still believe that they have a moral duty to follow the laws that the majority decides they believe in in the right of the many to rule a country and to rule their lives too and of course it's more difficult and you have to work in to some extent in other ways but I still believe that the civil disobedience works fine and it's a good thing to do to combine it to try to convince people that they should not pay taxes and that they have no moral duty to pay taxes and that they should try to get a what you call it job on the black market so you can keep your money out of the state that is very controversial in Sweden and the thing is that we have to try to to get through in media and just tell people those things I still think that is the main the main thing we should do young people 17 year old and we tell them to not join to not accept the the draft or so well if the state tries to use a 17 year old in the military force and try to use him by force I think that person probably also is capable of deciding of himself and the important part is that this question leads to where a kid is starts to get grown up and when the parents don't have the the right to decide over the kid anymore and so on and that's another problem but still I think that it's rather up-blown and it's not very important in this discussion No, I don't find a moral dilemma at all not at all Do you agree with the tax laws and do you break the tax laws and if you do what are the consequences and if not what do you think they would be if you did disobey the tax law? Well I break them as much as I can and I tell people to do the same the problem is that you're not a very good freedom fighter from within four walls I mean from prison you can't do very much and you always have to to measure pros and cons Does that mean you think they would more strongly enforce the tax laws than they do the radio and they drinking beer or something like that? To some extent, yes if I was caught with not having paid taxes and refusing to pay them even after getting caught they will put me in prison for sure and it's so stupid I refuse to make my declaration of income declaration and what they did is that they just guess how much I probably could have had as an income So now I've got some 55,000 Kroners that I'm supposed to pay in tax that I owe the state and the thing is I didn't even earn any money that year I was just working with the FMSF or FMS and the Freedom Front and it didn't earn a nickel and also the problem is what I do then is that when I work, if I get a proper work the state will be there and grab the money before I even get it so it's really a tough problem to keep your own money and what I do now then of course is that I have created a system where I the little money I earn straight so it doesn't go through the state and they're breaking the laws and they the only enforcement is giving you paperwork saying you owe them more No, those are two different things The money I earn that the state doesn't know they don't know and they have tough time finding it out but when they do know or when they do think that I did have an income and I just refused to declare how much an income I had then they just grab a figure and try to well they've already taken some from my bank account that I had forgotten there so the state came and took it and that's what happens So you still owe them money? Yes, but it's so stupid I just hate all those papers and it really makes me feel bad to declare how much I earned and fill in those stupid forms so I didn't do it for that reason and it turned out not so good and therefore I have a guy who knows law and all this who tries to help me to get out on the good way because you cannot in Sweden you cannot get successfully out of such a thing I was very interested in your bar which plays very industrial noise music by the way and I like that but with respect to the educational aspects of the situation how much do you feel the ideas are being transmitted to the casual person who comes in and are you specifically trying to make a big effort a medium effort or just a very relaxed effort and what do you think the effects are on the average person who just wants there to drink after three Well, both things of course when they come there after three o'clock they've been out since ten and they're very drunk we have problems convincing them but still they start discussions and that's okay they buy books sometimes and of course we try to use to some extent the walls to get information through and blow up quotations and so on but the most important thing the thing I believe is that those people understand what we stand for just because we do it and those of them that are interested in ideas they get a positive feeling from the beginning Have you contacted or gotten in contact with any artists or musicians or authors from this bar who have indicated to you that they were interested in those ideas because I think you earlier comments about the artists and the culture molding people are very pertinent A lot A lot and I mean young people young journalists for example they mostly work with I mean they don't decide very much on the magazines or in the newspapers today but they go there and they know us and they know what we stand for and they believe that it's right and that it's good and in 10 or 15 years those guys will be in a deciding position in the media authors yes and musicians we have had several which are called concerts or musicians playing there so it works that way About taxation knowing that you're not an anarchist or a failure of some limited state I'm not sure they have a problem I haven't seen any reasonable example of how you can finance a state without its taxation or influence with people's liberty and obviously if you haven't had a state you have to have taxation and then you have more problems if you're in favor of human rights all the way how can you unite that with taxation first and secondly if you're in favor of taxation basically this then should be a good law the level of taxation is very high but obviously if you're in favor of a state fighting over taxes you have to consider that law as being good on a basic level absolutely not absolutely not maybe I can say that okay 2% tax to pay for those things that cannot be arranged on the market but that does not ever make me having a duty to pay taxes that actually are used to decide my own choices or that are used to enforce different morals or so on other people and also you can see you can view this in a what you call it pragmatical in a pragmatical way that the state and the political system almost always tries to widen its sphere and they do that all the time until they come to a point where it's not possible for them anymore and a very effective way to make that point on a better place to make it earlier is civil disobedience and refusing to pay taxes so that's my answer 2% taxation is also my relation to the right property and if you're in favor of that it's likely that's not your view let us sort of why do I have to pay 2% 2% of my income in tax because do you think there are certain institutes that are not produced on the market we published a book called the vision of a civilized society and we declared that in future we would not like there to be any taxes at all because of course all taxes are violating people's rights yeah please please well with respect to financing the state one of the key things that the state does is enforce contracts and you can in fact consider the user fee on every contract as a fee for the enforcement and as user fee might be say 10% of the value of your contract with an employer such that when you have a contract that's enforceable by this enforcement agency you have to agree to give 10% of your income from the employer that is enforceable now that might be similar to the tax but if you don't pay that you don't have to but if you don't pay you don't have to agree and you might consider a situation like that in a hypothetical sense form a very real sense and walk into the juice and I think that there are ways to have contracts essentially I would call an enforcement man as an essential part of the government without strict taxes but you can also have voluntary taxes or those are attributions to government contributions the other problem I can enforce my contract should be forbidden to enforce contracts with other international states do you violate the right for liberty with the right to have a company enforcing a contract you can't in some sense you violate people's rights or the favor of rights all the way you are going to violate them by having a state and I don't think it's right or wrong but I think it's a problem if you are for natural rights you can't be a favor in any natural rights they are still an enforcement mechanism and at some level you are going to have enforcement mechanisms disagreeing with other enforcement mechanisms and it's going to be a final enforcement mechanism and that final enforcement mechanism might as well be called a state because you and your enforcement mechanism are in a disagreement with me and my enforcement mechanism so if we come to some higher level of enforcement mechanism where we arbitrate and decide on agreement and if we don't agree and we don't agree and we are going to fight over it then how fight or there is some final enforcement mechanism that says this is the solution for you two and we this final enforcement mechanism we are going to impose it and I think it's not how it is to make realistic sense but I think there are opportunities for government services to be totally user free and they are probably not taxed per se