When I was in seventh grade, even I would say I was racist. I had moved from a place where there were few “black” people (and where I liked the ones I knew and never gave it a second thought) to a place far away, where there were lots of them. And at school, they ganged up on me and treated me really badly. For the first time in my life, this made me actually notice them and their apparent differences, and categorize them based on that.
Tag: slavery
Jim Powell: Greatest Emancipations, How the West Abolished Slavery (1h10m)
This episode features a lecture by historian Jim Powell from 2011. For thousands of years, slavery went unchallenged in principle. Then in a single century, slavery was abolished and more than seven million slaves were freed throughout the Western hemisphere. The scope and speed of this transformation make it one of the most amazing feats in modern history. Powell concisely illuminates the beginnings of the abolitionist movement, then proceeds through the processes, the battles, the final victory of emancipation, and the incredible impact of its aftermath. Ultimately, Powell argues, the more violence was involved in the emancipation process, the worse the outcomes were, making a provocative case for peaceful antislavery struggles.
ARK3 Returns, Pessimism, US Capitol Building, & Bureaucratic Character (1h3m) – Episode 456
Episode 456 welcomes back Alex R. Knight III to the podcast to chat with Skyler on the following topics: pessimism about the future of America; the display of dominance by the corrupt left over Trump for 4 years; the press revealing their strong leftist bias by going silent now that the Presidency is in Democratic hands; Twitter as Establishment, not radical left; Stefan Molyneux; the justice in destroying the US Capitol building (a monument to slavery and continual oppression); a thought experiment on acquitting an unpopular defendant even when widespread riots are guaranteed; politicians and bureaucrats being put under oath and having their claims cross-examined; the fact that government actors have no skin in the game of interfering with our lives; the character flaw that is allowing yourself to assume authority over others without liability (immunity); talking to cops about why they became cops and seeing how far they’ve been corrupted away from those probably noble reasons; normalizing adult drug use, such as is Dr. Carl Hart on Rogan and Reason podcasts; and more.
Lysander Spooner: The Forgotten History of the Man Who Started the First Private Post Office
Lysander Spooner is an important – and not exactly obscure – figure in the history of the liberty movement. He’s an idiosyncratic figure from the 19th century with no small cheerleading section in the 21st century. A bit of a throwback to a very different time, Spooner was a champion of the labor movement and was even a member of the First International at a time when socialists and anarchists coexisted peacefully within that movement.
What is Money?
The word “money” comes from the Latin moneta, which is where coins of precious metal were made and stored. Precious metals naturally rose to the top of money markets because they are scarce, long-lasting, and valued by weight. Gold in particular became the standard for money because it is uniquely suited to serve the purposes of money.
Rights vs. Imaginary “Rights”
All real rights are “negative rights”– no one has the right to get in the way of anyone exercising them. But that sounds so… negative. It’s accurate but unfortunate.
It would be better to call them “real rights”, or even just “rights”.
“Positive right…
Being Normal
I’ve always been weird, but at this point in my life I feel like I understand non-weird people quite well. If you’re still baffled, my weird friends, one simple principle captures most of what you need to know.
Dennis P. Returns, Libertarian Persuasion, & Free State New Hampshire (1h11m) – Episode 411
Episode 411 welcomes back Dennis Pratt to chat with Skyler on the following topics: the shutdown of Rodger Paxton’s Pax Libertas Productions; his multi-year career writing thoughtful answers to libertarian questions on Quora; New Hampshire’s Free State Project; life and politics in NH; how the locals are responding to the influx of libertarians to NH; what taxes are levied in NH; his involvement in building community centers for NH residents; why all economic regulations are a type of hidden tax; libertarianism as a paradigm shift; respecting cultural diversity among libertarians; slavery reparations as federal land divestments; why everyone is owed reparations by government for its many crimes; the dangers of cultivating and maintaining victimhood mentality; Porcfest, freedom festival; Joe Biden on the minimum wage; and more.
Why People Espouse Anarchy
WHY PEOPLE ESPOUSE THE STATE: Because they believe that anarchy won’t work or because they are evil.
Radical Woke Feminism, Socialism, & Wizard’s Twelfth Rule (22m) – Episode 392
Episode 392 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: his status as a racist rapist according to racial wokeness and radical feminism; why socialism, or anything besides free market capitalism, is a form of slavery; continuation of the Wizard’s Rules mini-series, Wizard’s Twelfth Rule: “You can destroy those who speak the truth, but you cannot destroy the truth itself.”