Aphorisms in Honor of Liberty, Part Ten (21m) – Episode 463

Episode 463 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following aphorisms written by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski: “A ‘guaranteed profit’ is something akin to a riskless danger.”; “A fool believes that liberty comes from participation in power. A person of reason knows that it comes from dissipation of power.”; “A libertarian does not oppose the welfare state because he does not care about the poor, but because he cares about them too much to believe they deserve being caught in the web of lies, empty promises, perpetual dependence, hate-mongering, and cultural degradation created by self-serving, power-hungry crooks.”; “It takes a common thug to commit injustice, but it takes an exceptional thug to call it ‘social justice’.”; “Collectivism: the practice of exploiting humans in the name of humankind.”; and “All delusions aside, personal development consists in little more than scrubbing oneself clean of endless layers of folly.”

Aphorisms in Honor of Liberty, Part Nine (24m) – Episode 441

Episode 441 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following aphorisms written by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski: “A good economist believes that the ones best suited to deal with the problem of scarcity are entrepreneurs. A bad economist believes that it’s the economists.”; “A fool believes that individual liberty can be established by means of political power. A person of reason believes that political power can be abolished by means of individual liberty.”; “A ‘just tax’ is something akin to an ‘affectionate rape’.”; “If the best thing you can say about something is that it is a “necessary evil”, then it is as obviously evil as it is unnecessary.”; “Border: the geographical expression of tribal parochialism.”; “A wise person is someone who is grateful for being called a fool when he’s wrong, indifferent to being called a fool when he’s right, embarrassed at being called a sage when he’s right, and troubled by being called a sage when he’s wrong.”

Aphorisms in Honor of Liberty, Part Eight (28m) – Episode 418

Episode 418 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following aphorisms written by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski: “A good economist believes that his role is to improve the public’s understanding of the market. A bad economist believes that his role is to improve the market’s understanding of the public.”; “A democratic state is a device whereby everyone gets a chance to assert his nuisance value on a social scale.”; “A foolish environmentalist wants to save nature from the greed of the market by exposing it to the tragedy of the commons. A smart environmentalist wants to save nature from the tragedy of the commons by exposing it to the greed of the market.”; “Happiness without liberty is no more possible than wisdom without knowledge.”; “Believing that the state can promote culture is like believing that putting a gun to someone’s head is a gentleman’s offer.”; “A utopian believes in changing human nature. A realist believes in unleashing its potential.”

Aphorisms in Honor of Liberty, Part Seven (27m) – Episode 402

Episode 402 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following aphorisms written by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski: “A fool deplores the fact that automation destroys jobs. A person of reason delights in the fact that it makes jobs less automatic.”; “A democratic statist is someone who believes that individual liberty consists in participation in the process of collective self-enslavement.”; “A foolish egalitarian wants to empower the state to prevent the market from making the rich richer. A smart egalitarian wants to empower the market to prevent the state from keeping the poor poor.”; “Happiness is the state of letting go of all expectations while keeping the ability to wonder.”; “Aphorism: the precarious middle ground between brief banality and condensed obscurity.”; “A technocrat is someone too dull to be an inventor, too technically inept to be a scientist, too reality-averse to be an entrepreneur, and too power-hungry to be a consultant.”

Aphorisms in Honor of Liberty, Part Six (25m) – Episode 385

Episode 385 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following aphorisms written by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski: “A fool believes that the market makes profits corrupting. A person of reason knows that it makes corruption unprofitable.”; “A democratic state is a device for feeding off society by pitting it against itself.”; “A fool finds intolerable the inequality of wealth between the capitalist and the laborer. A person of reason finds intolerable the inequality of rights between the state and the individual.”; “Happiness is the ability to stay intrinsically motivated to exist.”; “Aesthetic maturity is the ability to deliberately ignore the fashionable without turning it into a fashion statement.”; “A successful prediction is a mental journey to the least impossible of the future worlds.”

Aphorisms in Honor of Liberty, Part Five (27m) – Episode 370

Episode 370 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following aphorisms written by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski: “A fool believes in designing markets. A person of reason believes in marketing designs.”; “A consistent freedom lover is an anarchist in the making.”; “A fool deplores the fact that without the state, the poor would be at the mercy of individual charity. A person of reason delights in the fact that without the state, the poor wouldn’t be at the mercy of institutional violence.”; “Happiness: fulfillment without boredom.”; “A nationalist is someone who praises domestic illusions out of fear of confronting foreign realities.”; “A seeming ontological nihilist believes that nothing really exists. A real ontological nihilist believes that nothing only seems to exist.”

Aphorisms in Honor of Liberty, Part Four (24m) – Episode 347

Episode 334 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following aphorisms written by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski: “A businessman calls himself boss, but his goal is to serve others. A politician calls himself servant, but his goal is to boss others.”; “A collectivist in a libertarian society may be an odd duck, but an individualist in a statist society can only be a milk cow.”; “A fool complains about the lack of equality of opportunity. A person of reason appreciates the abundance of diversity of opportunity.”; “Fulfillment: the frame of mind in which success is neither a process nor an event, but a state of being.”; “A libertarian boor is a possibility, but a statist gentleman is a contradiction.”; “A scientist believes that science is a source of knowledge. A pseudoscientist believes that science is the source of knowledge.”

Aphorisms in Honor of Liberty, Part Three (31m) – Episode 334

Episode 334 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following aphorisms written by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski: “A bad economist believes that prices should be policed by the state. A good economist believes that police should be priced by the market.”; “A barbarian believes that liberty erodes community. A civilized person knows that liberty creates community.”; “A fool believes that taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. A person of reason knows that a civilized society is the price we pay for taxes.”; “Bad may be less bad than worse, but that doesn’t make it any better.”; “A fool believes that the way to destroy culture is to commercialize it. A person of reason knows that it is to subsidize it.”; “A little knowledge makes one believe that he knows everything. Some knowledge makes one afraid of how little he knows. A lot of knowledge makes one accept that he knows nothing.”

Aphorisms in Honor of Liberty, Part Two (26m) – Episode 320

Episode 320 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following aphorisms written by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski: “A bad economist believes that pay can be legislated. A good economist believes that legislation can be paid for.”; “A barbarian believes in the benevolence of power. A civilized person believes in the power of benevolence.”; “A fool believes that people are free when they are all equal. A person of reason believes that people are equal when they are all free.”; “Achieving peace of mind is the dual task of becoming aware of the extent of stupidity in the world and resolving not to contribute to it by refusing to dwell on it.”; “A fool believes that a ban can eliminate debauchery. A person of reason knows that it can increase its attraction.”; “A fool believes that uncertainty infects human life with the misery of fear. A person of reason knows that it imbues human life with the benefit of choice.”

Aphorisms in Honor of Liberty, Part One (20m) – Episode 309

Episode 309 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following aphorisms written by Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski: “A bad economist believes that he knows what to do to make the world prosperous. A good economist believes that he knows what to do to let the world make itself prosperous.”; “A barbarian believes in coercion as a means to establish cooperation. A civilized person believes in cooperation as a means to eliminate coercion.”; “A civilized person believes that what matters is not whether wealth is equally distributed, but whether it is justly acquired. A barbarian believes that the latter depends on the former.”; “Achieving peace of mind is the dual process of maximizing self-awareness and minimizing self-consciousness.”; “A commercial culture is a tautology. A political culture is an oxymoron.”; and “A civilized person uses reason to evaluate his instincts. A barbarian uses reason to justify his instincts.”