A Deliberation on Nationalism

Transcript · May contain transcription errors · en

Are we are we are we live, Bill? We're live. We're live. All right. I think we're doing better than last time. Okay. So thank you everyone for coming here in person. We have a fantastic uh audience. We also have an online audience. Our first episode got a couple thousand views, and I think this is only going to keep growing because the reception for these has been really great. So we're here with Austin Peterson tonight. Thank you very much for coming. Thanks for having me. Thank you. So the way that this works, we're gonna run through 10 to 12 propositions. The audience has been surveyed in advance. I believe we got a couple hundred answers for these propositions. Austin and I will talk about them. The audience can give feedback. Only the people in the audience can get feedback. The in-person, not the online audience.

The in-person audience can give feedback, and that will also uh show up at the screen and help Austin and I keep the conversation moving, or let us know when one of us is being uh bull-hard idiot or whatever. Okay. So uh we'll get started and I'll let you uh kick it off. Our first proposition was nationalism is incompatible with individual liberty. Yeah, well, thanks for having me, Jeremy. This is a great opportunity. I love that we're an active movement here in New Hampshire. Congratulations, everyone, for being the most successful libertarian movement in the country. You've really distinguished yourselves. Uh even in in Missouri, where I'm from, when people talk about libertarians who are effective, uh, they talk about New Hampshire. So congratulations for your success thus far, and I wish you the best in the future.

Now, libertarian nationalism, people ask me what does this mean? What do you what do you mean when you describe yourself as libertarian nationalists? We talked about that. And I just think of it as libertarianism with the guts to actually govern. So I believe in everything that the libertarian tradition got right, which are things like property rights, individualism, limited government, the constitution. But I reject the part that I think is holding us back at this point in time, which we should discuss tonight. Things like the non-aggression principle. I think you know that doesn't stop Hamas. Right? You could go to Gaza right now and give them all a copy of Murray Rothbard, and that's not the non-aggression principle isn't going to stop them from committing acts of terrorism. Uh, I don't think open borders preserves liberty.

I I've always been someone who believed that there should be security protocols for ending the United States. And I actually I I became more closed borders because the more I studied and read and learned what open borders, I won't say apologists, but open borders activists stated they believed, they always said specifically in their uh political theory that it open borders doesn't mean just anyone can come to the United States. You can't come here to commit acts of terrorism, you can't come here to subvert our society, etc. And I thought, okay, well, then is that really open borders? I mean, what's so different about that that from like my own version of libertarianism? And after a while, I started to sort of like pull out this thread, the sweater, you know, and and start to put things together and realize that there wasn't really a coherent coherent theory behind open borders, other than perhaps what left-wing anarchists believe, which is truly no concept of a nation state whatsoever.

So I think a philosophy that refuses to defend civilization itself will be replaced by one that does. Um, and I think liberty needs a home. Certainly it's found a home in New Hampshire, and I want to defend that. I don't believe that nationalism is incompatible with individual liberty. I think that just like there are dozens of forms of libertarianism, there's minarchism, anarcho-capitalism, there's Georgism, uh, there uh there's Ayn Rand's objectivism. There are about a dozen different schools of thought amongst nationalists as well. So uh I don't believe that nationalism inherently is incompatible with individual liberty because I think that liberty didn't uh libertarianism didn't emerge from a vacuum, it emerged from a nation. Uh, and I also I really dislike that there is this resistance to embracing America's tradition of liberty because I look at the United States American nationalism as different from other forms of nationalism, because American nationalism to me intrinsically is tied up with the concept of liberty.

And I think it's a huge mistake to give up the American project to the authoritarians or the authoritarian nationalists or left-wing communists or socialists. And I think that it it's that is our birthright. The United States was a gift given to us from our ancestors and our heritage. And my ancestors specifically fought for this country in the American Revolution. And I think that we would be making a humongous mistake to walk away from the national project that our ancestors handed down to us. So I see American nationalism as intrinsically libertarian, where German nationalism, Japanese nationalism, is not. You do not the one thing that makes America unique, the one thing that makes America exceptional compared to Europe or other countries is that if you go to find a conservative meeting in the UK, there are no libertarians.

Conservatism in the United Kingdom has no libertarian aspects to it almost whatsoever. The thing that separates American nationalism from other forms of nationalism is our belief in individualism. We're cowboys. God, guns, gold, girls. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and so we I believe that we should, we as the libertarians should rise up, reclaim the American project for ourselves, place ourselves and our history at the center of the American project, and we should gradually exclude those who came to usurp the birthright that was handed to us, uh, and which is there waiting for us. It reminds me of the story of Jacob and Esau, and I see I see many libertarians who are gladly handing over the American national project to people who despise us, people who hate us, who call themselves Americans, who clearly have nothing in common with our founding fathers or with us and our ideals.

Well, that's a lot. That's great. We, I mean, uh, you know, I got I got professional PR training once, and they said when they first get to talk, you just say whatever you want uh and ignore whatever you're supposed to be talking about. Yeah. And uh yeah. So you just gotta get whole display. So uh no, I thought I I agree. I mean, we'll get to some areas where I might disagree with you, but I we're not here to go, I'm not gonna respond to everything you just said. Um uh I think this one, this one was kind of meant to be somewhat of a gimme. I think everyone in almost everyone in this room um is here because we believe in some degree uh uh in uh a nation. I don't I honestly don't even really understand how you take the other side of this. Are you are you like there's one gonna be one global culture and everyone's gonna be the same?

I mean, once people are different, you're gonna have areas with different culture, different languages, different practices, the and that's gonna start to look something like a nation. I think when people object to the idea of nationalism, it's usually because they're rolling other things into that idea. Uh, but we can have a nation where, well, that the shared culture that there's some of our shared practices are individual liberty and free markets and property and property rights. Um, and so you know, I think that as libertarians and pro-liberty people can object to a lot of nations that exist and how they behave, but I don't think that means we should be against the idea of a nation or wanting to be a part of a shared people or a shared culture, whether that's at the level of America, New Hampshire, or or any number of other scales.

Yeah, I think speaking of PR, I think that the word nationalism has gotten a bad rap because of white nationalism, and because it if you go to get an American school textbook from a public school, they will speak of nationalism as inherently a negative thing. Uh and there are people who believe in a post-national project. There are people who think that eventually one day, like like Karl Marx and others believe that we would all rise up and we would abolish our governments and that we would all live, you know, collectively in peace. But I don't see, I don't see even the most even the most based examples of anarcho-capitalism that you could look at from world history, whether it's the hoplite farmers of ancient Greece, they got taken over. If you look at uh Icelandic Ghidord, uh the Icelandic Vikings created a system that was very limited taxation, and they all got to choose their own leaders.

We haven't lasted as long as that system yet either, though. No, true, but they've lasted longer than us. But they were they were taken over. They were ultimately taken over. And then there was Zier of Africa. But uh again, taken over. There are still some c some aspects of law from the the days of the Zier of Africa. But e all of those experiments, they were taken over by a larger force because they were unable to defend their polity. Uh and libertarianism needs teeth. Let's take it to the next, let's get to the next topic because I think we're gonna cover some of this. All right. So in fact, we're getting into it right here with so national defense is a public good that necessitates payments from residents. I actually thought this one would be a little bit more divisive. You and I both agreed, and it looks like most of the audience agreed.

I I think I maybe cheated a little bit on that one, because I just said necessitates payments, and I didn't say taxation, so maybe I maybe I could. Well, it was like the rights question. So yeah. Uh so I mean, I uh I uh and because we were you were talking about national defense, you know, just in your in your answer there, and it's like I at at this like nations are real, war is real, like this stuff is real, and uh, you know, if your nation is going to exist, it's gonna have to defend itself. And if we're talking about defending itself in modernity, that's not I that's not gonna be a bunch of people, uh a purely voluntary force where people are bringing their guns from home. You know, I I can't I think I probably would have been disgusted with myself ten years ago if I could go back in time and then this that Austin would have heard what I'm about to say right now.

But I love living in a nuclear armed superpower. And and I'll tell you why, because now that I've I've become more worldly, and as I've as I've built relationships with libertarians around the world, libertarians around the world are not like libertarians in the United States. And I think that I've I've realized what our problem is. We have first world problems. So a first world problem, a good example of that, or what some people call a luxury beliefs, right? When it comes to foreign policy, we have something of a luxury belief because we sleep under the cloak of nuclear protection and the American military, which can defend American citizens uh at almost anywhere in the globe. Now, when I talk to my friends in Argentina, who are working with Javier Millet to spread his libertarian ideals, they remember the bombings of the 1990s, the AMIA bombings from uh that was from Iran's proxies.

And the Argentine libertarians are celebrating Trump's attack on Iran because they look at it as a payback for the f the intervention that Iran and Hezbollah committed in the 1990s to attack their citizens' civilians. They don't have the they don't have the capability to fight back. The United States actually has the capability to fight back. It's better to live in a country that can defend you than in a country that can't. And Javier Malay understands this. This is why Javier Malay on foreign policy, if you look at his foreign policy, he would be a neocon by by the standards of American libertarians. Because his foreign policy is pro-US, pro-Israel, pro-national defense. He's an anarcho-capitalist who's buying F 16s. He's not spending the money, though. You know, it's like it's a little he's he's right.

He's playing Argentinian policy. Well, like okay. Maybe I but national defense is a public good. I like it. It does necessitate payments from residents. So and I don't know what form of taxation you think is the most legitimate. I think some taxes are better and worse than others. I I think I probably wouldn't be so vociferous and outspoken a libertarian if government only stole money from me for the things like roads or national defense. But instead they use it to indoctrinate our kids in schools, it get involved in social policy. And there if Milton Friedman believed that this was a public good. The necessit I mean, was he a neocon? No, I think I think all libertarians actually tend to agree that national defense is a public good in the sense that I we can't exclude if I'm in the nation, I can't be excluded from receiving it.

And so I can free ride if you're paying for national defense. Like the Amish. And I don't. The Amish are f the butt against free riders. But I I still think you know, they don't pay the income tax. Well, they're also the most successful anarchists. They are the most, and that's a wonderful thing. And that experiment of anarcho-capitalism could only exist in the United States. There's no Amish in Iran. Uh so look, I think your point about how uh look even with the US military, I would argue overspending to a substantial degree. It's you know, eight percent of federal spending currently, or ten percent of federal spending currently. It's a contain, you know. So if imagine if we had um, you know, a defense that was half the size, and that was, you know, the majority of our tax money. Your tax bill would be, you know, one one twentieth of what apparently.

Um and that that certainly seems pretty good to me. Uh I think we should I I you know, I don't I think libertarians, and maybe I'm gonna be the LOL bird on the stage here compared to you, and that's fine if that's the role I'm gonna play. But I, you know, I I think we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that it is better when we do things voluntarily. So you know, even if we're gonna bite the bullet and say, look, um, you know, we have like national defense is a public good, we can't exclude people from getting it, and so yeah, that we're gonna charge a head tax or some really small tax to and we bite that bullet, we you know, we should still be avoiding that. That still comes with downsides. That still comes with this thing that can, you know, metastasize and grow and can you know waste our money and can we can have this you know misalignment between the military and the and the public and these kinds of things.

So, you know, I think I think I will bite the bullet and agree with this one as I did in my answer, but I think that we do have to at the same time, like we don't we don't want to become too rah-rah about it. We want to keep it small, and we also want to, when possible, find ways to do it that are more voluntary. I think we're gonna come back to this one, but to me, it is better if people volunteer for the military than are coerced. It is better if the military is like we could Apple could like be on the side of the bombs. Like we could take like Amazon could sponsor. No, no, I'm gonna I'm with you. But I mean, we do have that. I mean, Eric, I mean, Eric Prince, Blackwater, we have mercenaries, we have that. We have that's but that's funny. We don't we don't have voluntary warfare. Like we don't do we could we could say, oh, you oh, there's that many people that would, you know, wanna uh want to get involved in in these, you know, we crowded.

Libertarians love to cite Eisenhower's speech, his final speech, his send-off, his warning about the military industrial complex. We all I know that by heart. But don't forget he said we are compelled to create this. We didn't have a choice, in other words, but then to create the military industrial complex. And what was what would be the other option? If you didn't create a public-private partnership, right? If you didn't create the RAN Corporation, Boeing, Lockheed, Grumman, then what's the alternative? The government builds the planes, the bombs, the tanks? Or should private companies be the ones building the planes, the bombs, the tanks? We were forced to build the military industrial complex. The question is can we create a national security protocol that's like it's like having a dog?

You ever see a woman and she's walking a pit bull and she obviously has no capability of controlling that animal. And you just think to yourself, if that dog wanted to kill anybody, she couldn't stop it. Right. I I sometimes think of our national defense as like the woman with the put the pit bull, right? Maybe you need to like have something that you can actually manage or control or have an ability to control, right? So we have to have a national defense that can kill anything that moves, but that we can actually control it and ensure that, like Eisenhower warned that it doesn't disrupt our democratic processes. Alright. I let's let's keep it moving. Next topic. Okay. An individual has no right to a nation with a shared culture. We'll keep taking turns, so you can go first. Okay. Um so this one maybe is like a semantics question because when I read it, it says an individual has no right to a nation with a shared culture.

And like my definition of right is sort of like it's a mandatory and it has to be provided by uh everyone else has to respect your right. I wanted to, so I wanted to riff off of and I we were doing nationalism, not just culture, but Brian Kaplan has been who I have a lot of respect for, uh, accomplished economist, but a big open borders guy. And he uh recently wrote an e-book, uh, You Have No Right to Your Culture, and has been going around on uh on on this sort of subject. Uh and so I was it was a little this one was intended as a little bit of a wing to him. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think that I think that you do not have you probably don't have a right to anything that you can't defend. You probably don't have a right to anything that you can't defend. You can say you have a right all day long, but if you're sitting in a prison cell and you can't exercise it.

Well, so this gets semantic, but generally with the word right, I tend to take it as it's a sort of like a universalizable moral law. You don't have the right to murder me, you don't have the right to do these things. We're saying that no person. So when we're saying that you have some right to a nation with a shared culture, then I am entitled to some at least to some degree, and we can debate to what degree, but that would imply that I do, I am acting in a morally correct way. It is a moral universal that I can desire to live in a nation with a shared culture and can take actions to, you know, to be right uh affecting that. I think we have a legitimate interest in preserving our culture. And that culture is the culture that makes self-governance possible, meritocracy, right? For example, uh do you have a right to a meritocracy?

I don't, you know, again, I don't think so, but you have an interest in here here here's here's a way to crystallize it a little bit. Okay. Um so suppose that uh, you know uh a large company or uh some kind or just some person for some reason is uh through through voluntary means uh you're bringing in many people from some other place. And these could be Americans, these could be people from outside of America, uh, you know, but they're doing it. Well, you know, uh, you know, one actor in a community or in a state is doing it in such a way with uh your clear massive spillover to the surrounding area. And so all these people are saying, You're changing my culture, you're changing my place. You know, do they is that is that a legitimate complaint, or do they have no say whatsoever? Because it's that person?

Legitimate, yeah. That's his property, and the spillover effects. Well, but you didn't have the right, you know, you didn't have the right to uh to have any concerns about that. It's a it's a it's a legitimate concern. But the problem, of course, you know, the outliers in the situation are people are gonna say, Well, Epstein's Island is my culture, right? And therefore, I want to defend that, right? So, so the question is like it I remember when I went to Ellis Island because I was researching my ancestry with my family, we were very proud to see our our family name that uh on my father's side they came over in the early 1900s. And the first question, and this was when I was really toying with with Rothbardianism at the time, and I remember the uh they were asking the questions, they said the first question they asked before you came to the United States was, Are you an anarchist?

And I was kind of like, Oh shit. I was like, Oh no, I might not have made it into my country at that time. And then I started to read uh more anarchist theory, and I I realized that you know the legitimacy of of government is is government. Without getting into like a long diatribe, I do think we uh that it's a right to exclude. I do think we have a right to exclude. Uh and and and then we have a right to, just like the declaration of independence says, once we throw off these governors, we have a right to appoint new governors, and through our elected representatives, we have a right to vote to say that we wish to exclude people who are incompatible with our culture of self-governance. And I think we should. I think we should stand up and we should say this is what our culture is. And if you are, they say an anarchist, or let's say you're a communist, or you're uh a violent Islamist terrorist or a Somali pirate who wants to steal from this taxpayers in Minnesota at all, that we can exclude you for that reason.

So I think I think it's about a cultural, if there's a right to something, it's a right to exclude to some extent. That's right. And I actually think we we have uh one on that. Do you want to jump to could we could our producer jump to you have no right to uh uh nations have a right to exclude and we'll just do that one. Yeah, I think I mean I th I find these, I will say what as we're switching, I find these topics to be um no nations have a collective right to exclude. I assume I'm sorry, that was a um All good. So uh the uh so uh nationalism entails a so this one was pretty universal. Nationalism entails a collective right to exclude. So it sounds like there's not gonna be too much disagreement. You know, to me when the audience is pretty agreed, it's like why do they want to hear us just sit up here and like uh uh talking talk to each other about how great each other are?

But yeah, I mean, of course, like what I well, I mean what I mean, yeah. You can have an open borders nationally, where is this way there's a lot of things? I think where where is the actual controversy? Yeah, and the the controversy is the difference between the Anne Coulter nationalists and the Vivek Ramaswamy nationalists. So Anne Coulter Oh, I see, I see, I see, I see. But I mean Anne Coltered Kind, I guess. There is well Anne Coulter said she would never vote for V Vivek Ramaswamy because she doesn't see him as fully American, and she doesn't believe that his culture could assimilate to American values, and she would never vote for someone like that for president of the United States. So she's more of an ethnic nationalist. And I confess I'm not an ethnic nationalist. I would vote for Vivek Ramaswamy in a heartbeat.

Uh yeah, in a in a heartbeat. Uh it was actually Vivek Ramaswamy that inspired me to write the Libertarian Nationalist Manifesto because when he was running for president a couple of years ago, he described himself as a libertarian nationalist at the time. And I remember he was having that conversation with Ancultur, she said, I would never vote for you for president. And I said, Well, I would. And I think that and there was nobody out there sort of describing the sort of collective ideals of people who would vote for Vivek Ramaswamy. What is it that he believes? How why is he so why is why was Vivek Ramaswamy so compatible with Donald Trump and Trumpism? Many people who dislike Ramaswamy just say, oh, well, he's really just trying to latch on to MAGA. That's what they accuse me of, like just trying to, you know, suck up the power or anything like that.

But there was a there was a true compatibility between Vivek Ramaswamy and Donald Trump until right up until the Iowa caucuses. But when Vivek Ramaswamy described himself as a as a libertarian nationalist, but was sparring with Ann Coulter of that concept of nationalism, I realized that here was a whole like book opportunity, really, an opportunity to sort of describe these. And I I'm actually hoping tonight to get ideas from all of you who who are buying into these ideas of what you believe it is. But I think the right to exclude it is probably our most important right. And as a matter of fact, I'm probably more exclusionary now than I've ever been, because I started in this movement in 2008 as a Ron Paul libertarian, and I've actually, and I I I really hate saying this, but I I now disagree with the reasons for why I joined the libertarian movement in the first place.

I find myself in a very awkward position of defending libertarianism, but that I think I was wrong when I thought that the reason that we are attacked by Muslim extremists is because of our intervention overseas. And that was a because of my ignorance at the time, 20 years ago when I first started. But once I really started to dive into American history, I realized that there has been interventions, conflicts between what Thomas Jefferson called the Muhammadan world at the time, the Muslim world and Americans, since you know 250 years of American greatness, and we're still fighting those same Somali pirates. We're still fighting those same fights. And I don't believe, I don't believe that if we were to simply remove our pro our presence from the world, that people would suddenly find peaceful relations for us.

I've had, unfortunately, I've had too much violent in altercations with people who I never did anything or said anything to, who violated my NAP without and and I didn't intervene. I didn't start anything, but they started it. And uh, and I think that unfortunately that the non-aggression principle has gone from a very good idea to treat between individuals, and we've allowed we've allowed anarchists to define the non-aggression principle on a formal national and international level, and I think that that's really done a lot of damage, and it's really broken us apart because it's paralyzed us from acting, because even acts of self-defense become a non a violation of someone's non-aggression principle. So a right to exclude, we should exclude people who are anti-libertarian. I think we should we should exclude people yeah, thank you.

Isn't that like obvious? Why should we allow communists and isn't that? My friend Judge Department of the United States? And we used to be in agreement on everything and now we're kind of disagreeing on everything these days. And he believes in open borders, and he believes that if a violent terrorist wants to come to the United States, then the US government has no right to exclude them. I asked him specifically if someone wants to come and bomb the trade tower, the World Trade Tower again, and says, I'm not even bomb the tower, should the government rather than I'm sorry, but that that to me is that's just suicide. Without Machiavelli, without Sung Tzu, without a without a proper theory of war, without the capability of defending liberty, you won't have it. Because someone will take it from you.

We see it everywhere. Yeah, I think this one's kind of a given. It's like if a nation is going to maybe putting a given on the things proposition, but I think we're talking about I think um if if if you're gonna say the nation has something different about it, and and you want to maintain it over time to any degree, I mean if you don't just want to let it uh you know just completely uh you know melt to the lowest common denominator or float in the wind in whatever direction whoever comes, you obviously have to do this. I think we can disagree over like the degree to which it's necessary, but we can have nations that are more inclusive or more exclusive, but the idea that you would have no exclusivity at all. Uh and by the way, if our producer could cue up one of the ones related to ethnicity since we were talking about that and we can pivot.

Yeah, I think I think you just kind of you just kind of have to have to do this. And so I think that we can talk about some of these more interesting questions around well, uh, and I don't know if we have one on this, but we should talk about how would you do this I think that's a much more challenging question for um for some liberty minded people um but we're going to talk about uh you know does America prove uh that multi-ethnic civic nationalism is sustainable uh because I think this one is is very adjacent to the to the Vivek Ramaswamy and culture sort of question I think that it does America does prove prove that multi-ethnic civic nationalism is sustainable I guess the question is which ethnicity and at that point in time you're going to get you're going to piss people off the original American spare experiment Puritan Protestant Anglo men the the early American fight was whether or not German was going to be the English language it was going to be the national language.

So the ethnic strife at the time was between you know the English and the Germans and at the time of course the English won out. So but I think they worked out their problems. I mean in the in the civil war there was so much mixing so much ethnic mixing amongst the the Union soldiers I mean even though I think the Confederates eventually brought back black soldiers in at the end they were so desperate they realized that they're they're they were so exclusive to the point that they had destroyed themselves. They had they had retarded themselves literally because yes, yes there there's there's an evolutionary concept where sexual reproduction occurs. You have males and females, and then we share 50% of our DNA, and this gives us resistance to disease, right? And bacteria. This is a way for evolution sexual reproduction exists as a way for us to stave off diseases that are attacking us at all times.

But then there's asexual reproduction. When you have asexual reproduction, you're creating clones, and everybody has the same DNA. So what happens is that it's a lot easier for the viruses to come in and kill you. So I think that I think that, you know, ethnic mixing, I think can actually strengthen a society. Scottish, Irish, and English. I mean, if you ask an Irish how they feel about the British, they're going to have a very strong opinion of themselves as a su as an ethnic group. But if you ask an American Yeah, if you ask an American to tell the difference, they're gonna have a hard time telling the difference between an Irish or a Scottish or things like that. So I think some ethnicities are more compatible than others. And where you start to as soon as you start to delineate between them, then you get called a bigot and you get canceled.

So yeah, well, right, of course, right. Obviously, uh you could you can uh if we're using relatively narrowly scoped ethnicities, America's always been a multi ethnic nation. Uh I think of of course as we broaden that to larger groupings of ethnicity. I you know, I think this I think this one is like pretty unclear. Um I don't think, by the way, disagreeing with this means that you need to endorse uh, you know, complete ethno nationalism. It's like it's it this is just an experiment. And and America is substantially more uh ethnically mixed than it ever has been in its history. It does seem like there is more fraying along these lines, you know, than there was in the in the past. And and so I think it's uh I think is far from conclusive that that this sort of holds and lasts over time. I don't think the opposite of this is you can all you can only have a 100% you know homogenous West European nation, you can only have Anglos.

I think there is some evidence that small amounts of of different types of people uh you know can uh you know can be brought in that there are compatible people from elsewhere, but to have the confidence, I would just be a conservative about this, because to me you are playing with sort of civilization itself. And I optimistically would like, you know, I I do think I I want to believe and think there's some evidence that there's sort of being natural Americans everywhere, yeah, just at vastly different rates, vastly different rates depending on the places that we're talking about. Well, look, but but it's just it's just unclear. Like it's not it's not clear it like and look, I liked uh Vivek. We talked about Vivekan Cold, like I I like Vivek. I don't think at the same time that it's a given that you could have an America that was like 98% Indians, that that that that could ever be the same thing, even if you had all Vivek Indians.

No, but I mean if you're I mean you're collectivizing Indians entirely, and he is from the Brahmin class. I understand. So if so then maybe Brahmins only, but but but well, I mean, ask yourself this. When you when you do polling on like the Asian communities, for example, it's not they're not all a monolith, right? So the Vietnamese that came over af of the millions of uh Vietnamese that have settled in the United States are extremely capitalistic. Many of them embrace uh they're they're much more capitalistic than Africans who were brought here under slavery. And and so therefore, some ethnicities. Some of them, well, so I'm just using it as an example but but but but many, but but there are subsets of the of Asian populations that are more pro-free market pro-free trade pro-liberty than others and and even Chinese populations in the United States when when I ran for Senate and we did polling the Asian communities specifically were and again there's very small amount of them in Missouri so small sample size but they were extremely pro-Austin Peterson which we we thought was strange and I wanted to study more about that they weren't like pro any of the other Republican candidates so much it wasn't just oh he's a Republican we like him it was specifically Austin Peterson so I went down to the the Chinese market in Kansas City and started introducing myself and talking to these people and they're like no we are capitalists.

We believe in free markets and liberty and free trade and all that I was like uh oh well this is phenomenal and here's an ethnicity that is extremely compatible with the United States and and Vietnamese as well I mean nail salons phobars I mean there's certainly something within ethnicities that has a compatibility that you can gauge. Sure so I think there's a different question between you know you can you can have a country that shares your values and you invite some amount of Vietnamese people in uh you know versus you know you have a couple percent of Vietnamese or whatever versus you could have the same or similar outcomes with a population that was 80 to 90 percent vietnamese that the idea that it's just about the idea. Maybe maybe and I and I I just I think this is a much a much different uh claim and I just don't think it's I I I don't think it's proven like I again I find the idea I so I I oddly find that the nation that I want is is likely a mix of of both civic and some consideration of of ethnic nationalism until you can prove that, or unless you can prove that, uh, there that that the civic side of it isn't up.

I would just be careful because you haven't seen because you know, like for example, Asian cultures, I do believe they can be very capitalistic, but the values that I want are more than just capitalism and and free markets. So, for example, despite me saying that I want uh some homogene or some shared culture, that actually well, part of what that includes for me as part of a sharedness is an embracing of individualism, an embracing of of weirdness. One of the differences between Asian and European cultures, why they might be uh shared in intelligence, social respect, their shopping cart returners or whatever. Uh there is difference in in how much in how comfort they are and how comfortable they are with individualism, people expressing themselves, innovation, um, uh diversity in the in the sort of good sense when when uh you know people are exploring things in open-minded ways.

Um there's I think there's you know, and so would we get all of these things, all the things that created American dynamicism, exceptionalism. Would you get that if it was 80% Southeast Asian, even if they are still capitalist organized thought? I don't know. If we want to avoid controversy, let's talk about the Jews. I don't think you get America. I'm happy to bite the pull with Jews. Like, I think a couple percent of Jews, they're spicy, they add things to the mix. Would you get America if you had 80% Jews? I don't think you'd get America. You wouldn't have America without the Jews because Haim Solomon, the Jewish financier, was a reason that the American Revolution could happen. So thank you, Jews. But but I'll say but I'll say exactly. But I will say that uh largely Jews in the United States tend to lean left.

Largely Jews in the United States are not libertarian. They are they they don't, they're they're uh they're ethnic uh and Jews are an ethnicity and a religion, which confuses things. Um, but you know, those those questions, those cut, those questions kind of have to cut both ways. I mean, there is something authoritarian of the American tradition. Uh and only 10 years of the American experiment, I think we've not been at war. Right. So do they not have as much a claim to the the authoritarians who built this country as well? Do they not have as much a claim to this country as we do? I mean, we have to find a way to live in peace with people who don't share our values. And can the American experiment withstand people who don't share our values, who are not of our ethnicity, who disagree with us on these things?

Can we create a system that actually allows us to live in peace? I think the United States largely has. But um but for new people coming in, I think there needs to be a stronger national test. I think that's really the question. I think that I think and I think that you probably should have to pass that same test in order to vote. I think that the I think, and before you can vote, that if you want to if if you have to pass a citizenship to test to become an American and vote, you should have to pass a citizenship test, the same test to vote. And and then therein uh right there will probably be the great filter that you need. Yeah, I well, see, this is where it gets tricky, and this will pivot into the next one for this, and I guess I'll just go ahead and go first and and just we'll we'll just keep this all flowing.

A homogeneous culture is necessary for sustaining a uh free society. I agreed with this one. And again, as is it might be seem contradictory to my previous comments about tolerating some diversity of opinion and and and and perspective, but I think this is actually part of the homogenity that you uh need. Like what what my society can't tolerate if I want to maintain a free society is allowing a you know highly antisocial monoculture come in uh come in and sort of be uh subunit within it uh that then uh you know sort of grows and acts as as sort of like a parasite against against the larger whole. Uh and so I I think that you know I this is not I am not our when I say I agree with this, this is not me saying that uh we have to be um highly highly homogenous or um you know everyone has to be believe the same religion or everyone has to believe some of the same things, but we have to agree on certain fundamentals, and this implies some amount of homogeneity.

We do, but I mean, like, can't we allow for this experimentation within our national borders? I mean, it's just like with you know, we're going back to the Amish, again, they they have a homogenous culture, but they couldn't exist without us. They need us without the United, without the umbrella of protection that is provided, their homogeneous culture would not would not exist. Well, so right, so okay, the Amish is an interesting question. When they're you know, half a percent of your nation, it's like this is an interesting experiment. If the Amish were 20% of our nation, you know, or 30% of our nation, and I'll be honest, I'm not an expert at at the Amish, uh, you know, Al Amish and all the things that they uh you know believe, but but they're they're clearly have a vastly different culture.

And so if if the Amish, and I've by the way, I've seen some of the projections. I do believe we're gonna have like a 57% Amish America in the year 2176 or something like that. Uh these charts are crazy. Uh one of the they so like the Amish in terms of reproductive success are a very successful culture, but an Amish America would not be America. And so I suppose this is maybe quibbling, because maybe well, if the Amish are here, aren't we already not homogenous? And so to me, maybe this is more about to what degree you're tolerating, you know, heterogeneity and and extreme diversity. Because at a small scale, it's like, look, yeah, we can handle honestly if a quarter if if a half a percent of the population is actually communist or whatever, like we could you you'd be we'd be fine. Yeah. Like that's not the degree of the city.

Well, you talk about like these insular, these isolated communities. And you know, the the easiest example to look at that is like the Somalis of Minnesota, but there's also the Jews of Brooklyn, right? And and they create those same kinds of insular isolated communities and they try and enforce their own laws on the streets, right? Just like in in some communities, in Muslim communities in the United States, they'll try and enforce Sharia in the streets. And I can I I don't think that could be tolerated, but I tolerate it more from the Jews of Brooklyn because they're far less violent. Well, yeah, but they they're very disruptive. I just I don't look at them the same. The Jews of Brooklyn are very insular, very isolated, but they don't start shit. Okay. People would probably defend the people.

There's no giant Jewish daycare stealing billion millions of dollars from taxpayers. So I don't treat them the same. Even though they're they're both very insular. I I well they're Jews are better at paperwork. We don't know this. But there have been like the the the Jews have taken over some of these school districts and some of these local towns. Yeah. And um they put up like these like stanchions and things like that to like say this is like our territory. And like that's you have to wear certain uh uh clothing and things like that in the streets completely disagree. That's very disruptive. I mean, I and I think it would be better if these people were uh, you know, I give them their own nation. Like I well, that's just this is why it's time for this is why it's time for us to annex Cuba and Alberta and Greenland.

Uh look, our produce uh our producer's getting better. He's got us, he's kicked us to. There's nothing wrong with a nation enforcing an ethnic or religious monoculture. So certainly this has some overlap with the last question. I think you disagreed with this one. Yeah. Uh yeah, I disagree. No, we agreed. We both agreed. Well, says you disagree? Yeah, we both agreed. So there's nothing wrong with a nation enforcing, yeah. Maybe I just didn't understand it. So I tried to write the question so that people like that you get a bunch of agrees and disagrees so we don't get subject to agree bias in the I I'm I'm I'm challenged because I'm an outlier. I'm a I'm a minority of a minority in a minority, and I know that I I don't represent really any constituency because of my own very rare and uh beliefs.

I'm a secular humanist libertarian who thinks that people should be largely Christians, and that you know the Islamic communities in the United States should probably be proselytized and converted so that they can become more compatible with American values. And I think that there's probably uh that the crowd, or as Nietzsche would call it, the herd, that there's probably a herd morality for most people that they need to adhere to, and that there's probably a different set of rules for the elites of society, and there always have been. Uh, and I think that when you try and enforce an ethnic or religious monoculture, you have to realize that the elites are always going to be more atheistic. Uh they're not going to adhere to that. And and I mean, would I enforce it by law? No, but would I actively encourage Christians to proselytize and to and to um convert Islamists in this country?

Yeah, I would, because I think that that gets them I I want to move people closer to the libertarian ideal. Um and I do think a libertarianism ultimately is more of an elitist more theoretical than it is about America or even the nation that you might want to live in. I mean, if you endorse Israel, which I believe you have, I do. That's a country that wants a religious monoculture, right? That that's sort of. Oh yeah, I mean Muslims can vote and live and and uh Arabs, Arab Muslims live in in Israel and and practice uh their religion in Israel. It's not like it's uh they're not exclusionary to the sense that you have to be Jewish to live in Israel. I I think uh it's it's they're certainly not neutral on the subject. And I and I and you could if you don't like that as an example, you could look at plenty of other nations, like uh well let me we don't need to make it a question about Israel, although we do need to do that talk about that, yeah.

Uh uh well uh that's a whole show. Uh I I I I think you know, with this one, it's about this is just does a nation have a right to exist that does this? And to me, it's like if if an if a nation is my neighbor and it's a religious or an ethnic monoculture and it's it's not aggressing towards me, uh why do I why would I care, you know, it trades with me fine or whatever. Why would I care that it's an ethnic or religious monoculture? To me, na national legitimacy here to me, the nations generally do two or maybe three things that make them illegitimate or wrong to me. One is they don't let their people leave. You know, if you're not letting people leave your nation, that that feels very illegitimate to me. Um, the other is nations don't just keep things inside of their borders, right? They say, not not only does my you know religion apply inside of my nation, my religious beliefs apply outside of my nation, and that becomes much more of a problem.

And then the third thing is the nations don't let this is maybe adjacent to the first one, they don't let subpolities leave. So there's not only do they not let people leave, there's no ability for some portion of the nation to break off. I just I don't like monoculture because I think it leads to inbreeding. And my my problem with the monoculture concept is like I think it's good that we have Catholics and Protestants in this country because I see them as the tension between the two of them makes both of them stronger. Plus, when they're fighting with each other, they have less time to kill the rest of us. So, you know, me being a a secular humanist, I I'm never going to be bound by the laws of society because I will never obey them. I I will never obey the laws or the rules of society. I will always, I will always do what I want.

But if you try and enforce a religious monoculture, then you have to then you take the liberty of someone like myself. Well, no, if we're going to be better at that, you have laws that you would follow. It would. It would. I agree. I feel similar. Yeah. No, no, no. But I'd rather have lost it. I'm good. But here's the thing. Most people I think probably need it. Right? Look at the people who lined up to put on a mask. Look at the people who lined up to go do things during COVID-19. This is the herd mentality, right? So you have to create a system where those people can coexist and do so peacefully. And and with with the least amount of danger to the people like ourselves in society who who need to be able to live in a society who are not a monogram. I agree completely. I mean, in fact, in terms of this is a little bit off topic, but if liberty wants to be winning, one of the biggest things we need to be doing is doing a better job, giving the average person the uniform that they can put on and not trying to convince them to understand the nap or the philosophy.

Right, agreeable stuff. Yes, normies. Normy politics. Yes. Yeah. All right. We're we're pivoting. I'm liking the I'm liking the producer's just jumping on things. He's direct. He's in charge now. Nations may legitimately compel military or civic service from its citizens. We both had disagree on this one. Whose turn is it to go first? Go ahead. So I I'm I'm I'm close on this one because I think if you accept taxation or some form of it for national defense, you know, taxation already is conscription. It's conscription of labor. These are very adjacent kinds of concepts. I think we do want to go in a voluntary direction when possible. But if it's a given that you need service, I you know, I like directions that potentially segregate things, you know, sort of the the starship troopers model of your service guarantees uh citizenship.

Uh to me it's like uh, you know, I think uh I I wouldn't I because I I talked earlier about that right to exit. I think it would be wrong to say that someone born in America absolutely must serve as a soldier and defend their nation simply because they were born here. No, but if I say to that person, you have the right to leave, you have the right to be a non voting resident, or you have the right to be a citizen, at which point you have some commitments to your nation, this is a framework to me that is is is pretty morally acceptable and probably good. Yeah, well, Vivek Romoswame actually said that himself and he got jumped on because he says he thinks there might there should potentially be some kind of a national service. And if that means that you're picking up garbage in a park or something like that, then you know, so be it.

And you But is it optional or not? That's the to me, that's a lot of times when people say this, they don't mean optional. To me, it's like I I it's all about it. I think it's all about i the question is like is it an existential question? I think if if you're fighting for your actual existence, probably it's it's good. And if you're not, if you're like us and you don't you're not every war there what that you're fighting is pretty much a war of choice to a large extent, then no, you don't need compulsory military. And this is also that's you know that's a very good point because with a lot of these, I also think it's important, and this is a David Friedman criticism that he likes to make that is applicable to a lot of these, which is we have to compare the government and the results that we get, you know, not to some you know, theoretical situation.

And so if the reality is every time we've actually needed to conscript people, you know, it didn't seem to be it was for a war that ended up being not necessary, and anytime that we needed to fight a war, there were plenty of whaling people, that should be a pretty strong hint that you know we're not doing this, you know, the right kind of way. And so we have to compare, like, well, what happens, what's our track record of actually using conscription? I I like theoreticals, uh, because I think they're useful. And we're gonna have to be faced with a question soon of whether or not we're gonna colonize other planets, which is why I'm looking forward to talking about um expansion of our of our country. But if you are uh when humans eventually go to Mars, or say we go to Betelgeuse and we want to start to colonize other planets, um, what will be the form of government on the ship that goes from Earth to Beetlejuice?

Okay, will it be a military dictatorship? Will it be a democracy? What if everybody votes to blow up the ship? Right? So so in underneath that that theoretical scenario, will there be a compulsory service? Yeah. What about the people who didn't sign up to be on the ship because after fifty to seventy five years, you've lost the entire population of everyone who initially took off on the journey, and now you have all the children of those people, but you have to have a you have to have a military attache at the top who can actually run the ship, the people who are the experts who are going to run the ship, and then you have a civilian base of people that you're going to use to seed the population. This is what Silicon Valley is actually talking about right now. So under that scenario, would you compel service?

Probably. You have to. I think we are we we our governance models are just so bad. We haven't governance is just so underexplored because nations have been this sort of oligarchy that don't allow competition. There's been no innovation in the design of how human groups govern themselves in such a long time. Now, would what you just described be better than a pure democracy on that ship? I'd I'd say probably. Does that system have a whole bunch of flaws and risks and downsides? I think it does. And I I suspect, and I'm not saying I have a specific uh design that solves all these problems, but I suspect there's better designs out there than any of these things. Um that, you know, like America did as as well as it did, you know, with ideas that people came up with 300 years ago, and we're still riding along on those.

And it's like if we had the ability to rewrite things or adjust things, like think about all the mistakes that have been made, think about all the things you could do better. And so I I think that we um and we're now talking about it. Does the right does the red folks clue I mean if somebody wants to try and blow up the ship and they're a terrorist and they're going insane, do you have the right to blow them out of the airlock? I mean, you know, that's the death penalty. So at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, you know, are aren't we just a a ship floating in space? I mean, it's the same kind of situation. But uh, but a ship does have to be run as a military dictatorship. I think you need a strong executive. I don't know that you literally need, and that strong executive does need to have military authority, but I don't think that you necessarily need a military dictatorship.

I think there might be improvements that are possible beyond that. Yeah. You know, and we and I think that we should one of the forms that I think we haven't learned enough from uh is like libertarians understand that markets work. We've seen joint stock corporations uh as one of the best governing vehicles to be created, where incredible amounts of people are coordinating and working together in market-like ways without without coercion. And so it's like the movie Alien, they hated us, they hated the capitalists, so they created this Wayland Utain corporation where it was this evil billionaire, and and space was corporatized, and the whole reason that the alien bursts from everyone's chest is because these evil corporations wanted to use it for military defense. Now, it's obvious that these socialists hate and communists hate us, but I mean, if I were a private military contractor, I would absolutely want that biological weapon, and I absolutely would do anything to get it because if you're whether you're Palantir or whether you're And Earl, you're going to want a copy of that alien.

And so you have to ask yourself, you know, in a pure free market system, would we get Wayland Utani or would we get Elon Musk and his you know his libertarian space station approach? Quite likely that we might deal with more of the you know corporate asshole types. You know, pick the topic. Yeah, nuke it. Yeah. Only way to be sure. Nuke the planet from orbit, yeah. All right, we're back to one closer to 50-50 here with national defense justifies departing from free trade. We both agreed to this one. I don't I'll take this one first. I don't love this answer. I just think it's like implied uh that it what all the logic that you're accepting, once you've accepted the sort of like minarchist logic of well, we might we need national defense, all it's it's in the same way that it spills over it, it spills over on uh this one.

This I don't I don't love this one. I would still try to minimize it because I think markets work, free trade works, but it's like I I can't my I can't be completely agnostic about my nation's military capacity. I can't be completely agnostic about my nation's ability to you know to produce arms we shouldn't rely on China for our pharmaceuticals, right? If you you if you need if you need bombs and materials, those shouldn't be manufactured overseas. They should be made here, right? Pharmaceuticals you said yeah, we're we're very reliant on China for the case. How does that relate to national defense citizen? Well, we need to we need to, as a nation, collectively move our trade of pharmaceuticals away from China towards nations that are less hostile. Why are we buying pharmaceuticals from the same country that poisoned us with COVID-19?

Uh so I do think national defense justifies departing free trade, and so did Adam Smith. If you read Wealth of Nations. I'm just not following this argument because the national the classic argument to me is like, oh well, we can't like there actually is a difference if my nation is full of knowledge workers versus has factories because in a time of war the factories can be produced munitions, whereas my email jobs, you know, so there's positive externalities from the perspective of the nation. I do think I do think that there are I think modern exigencies. I think the the the founding fathers could have never had to deal with bulk you know hypersonic missiles and nuclear weapons, and that since there are new threats, they're going to have to be new theories in order how to counter these threats.

So I see the United States as you know being overly reliant on uh technology and pharmaceuticals from people who clearly wish us ill will. Um and I don't know what sort of, you know, I I'm not saying that it has to have tariffs or things like that. But I like the fact that Donald Trump is working to bring manufacturing of microchips to the United States. We invented those things. We should absolutely be able to manufacture those things here. But we should obviously go after the taxes and the regulations and the unions that makes it more difficult to produce things here in the United States, and that should be our primary focus. But I do think it is a problem that we relied on when we needed ventilators, when we needed masks, when we needed pharmaceuticals, that we had to buy them from the same power that inflicted us with the disease.

So I think that that's a that is a sense that is justifies departing from free trade. But otherwise, we should be doing what Donald Trump and Javier Malay are doing. Donald Trump has even said specifically he would drop all of the tariffs reciprocal reciprocally if they would drop theirs. He was right. And I wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all have the same relationship that Javier Malay and Donald Trump has with other countries. But the fact is is that those countries, they lay those trade policies on us and they they could they do currency manipulation. How many scams are coming out of China and Russia and Nigeria all the time? We're all paying for that, whether we like it or not. We're paying the cost of those scams in high in the form of higher fees at our banks for transactions and things like that, additional security.

Your banks are charging you higher fees because of those scams. So I mean there are there are hidden costs to trade that uh maybe the Cato Institute isn't going to bring up when they talk about these things. So we agreed on this one, but I think, yeah, your your scope here is is quite a bit broader than mine. If I if I were to give any considerations here, it would basically be along the argument. I'd potentially accept arguments about chips, AI, anything that's cutting edge, it's military related. The idea being that like there if there really is a difference to my if if if the most powerful AI companies are made are in my nation and they and they produce 100 billion dollars of revenue versus um you know there's a makeup company or food or uh there's uh sports companies or entertainment companies and they're producing a hundred billion dollars in revenue.

There really is a difference in my nation between those two things. The name the industry with military capacity has positive externalities to the benefits of my nation in terms of the defense of my nation. And so that's really the only consideration that I would potentially give here, because I do believe that one of the roles of government can potentially be to correct you know externalities. But when it comes to the production of other goods, of goods where I can't see any plausible national defense claim, and even here I would want to be careful. I just I I think that the pros I I'm generally very pro-free trade. I think the pros generally outweigh uh the cons. I think uh there is an infinite amount of labor that Americans can be doing, and we're all consumers. And so generally things being made in other countries that can be brought here, that's that's often very good for us.

Yeah, no, I agree. I I want to have a very large thing. I agree, but I yeah, and and I think like you said, it's important to be specific. But I mean, I do think that it that the Chinese communist government probably would use pharmaceuticals as like another way to introduce pathogens to the United States. I I do think that COVID-19 may have been uh an actual attack on the United States specifically. Um well, I'm I'm a little bit I suppose I'm a little bit more skeptical of of some of these, but I don't know for how much down the rabbit hole I want to I want to go down on these. Do what do we want to bounce to the bounce to the next topic? Yeah, let's go. I want to get everybody tired. Uh oh, I I like this one. This one, this one is teed up for you, also. I said I said we need to tee one up for Austin.

So the non-aggression principle is a sufficient foundation for defense policy. Go ahead, Jeremy. Go ahead. You're gonna give me this is like your topic. I know. I just I could talk for offering. I just I I disagreed for uh a simple reason. And this is one of my complaints about sort of the libertarian uh anti-war people who I like, like I don't like war. I would like there to be no wars. I don't understand how a nation can conduct can engage in a foreign conflict and adhere strictly to the nap. It just it it just seems i impossible. You know, um, and I think we should come as I I I wouldn't I'm not saying throw it away. Like, we don't want to hurt civilians, we want to hurt to the if we're ever in a conflict, hurt the government agents, hurt the bad guys, hurt the other soldiers. Uh but again, ideally go right to the top, go to the people.

Well do what Israel did and just give everybody a pager and blow them up. Okay, all right, sure. We can drill right down to everyone loves talking about Israel. It's everyone's favorite subject. Can't get enough of it. I mean, Thomas Jefferson was like he the thing about Jefferson that was so is so fascinating as a libertarian is that all of his words and his writings are so libertarian, but then when he became president of the United States, he was waging war, he was killing pirates, he was raising a military, he was starving the East Coast with his embargoes. Israel violates the NAP all the time. They kill a huge amount of innocent guys. That's my understanding is that a large amount of Gazans die who were innocents, who did nothing against Israel. Yeah. And so uh I know I've seen kind of like I've seen people argue about ratios, and the ratios aren't so far off from other foreign conflicts, but it doesn't, you're still endorsing the fact that the people who are not in the world.

Are the civilians in Nazi Germany who manufacture the tiger tank? Are they innocent? But why okay? I'm gonna do that. I mean, if you work in a factory and you're building a bomb and you're a civilian and you're not in the military, are you a legitimate target? Yes, you are. You're a civilian, but you're building a bomb. Okay, well, you're not in the government, you're not in the military, but you're building a bomb. Why does that but they that Israel could uh take other actions that would kill fewer innocent people? They could send them. I think they could, and I think they do. I think Israel's probably the best at killing exactly who they want to kill. I think what the United States can probably learn a lot from Israel. I think that we are probably so we are we are. I think no, I I think I think they do.

I think they are very targeted. Uh and I think the United States is actually very targeted in the way that they approach it. I but I think the creation of the drone missile was like one of the more libertarian acts because it wouldn't it be isn't it better that we have targeted weapon systems rather than rushing to nuclear weapons. We use nuclear weapons twice, now we've never had to use them again. And and and if you want to talk about like like destruction, like are there legitimate targets in war? Yes, right? And if we and are Israel and United States trying to get after those targets themselves, yes. Are the bad guys putting themselves in between the civilian? If you never ever can attack someone because they place themselves amongst civilians in order to get you to do it, then you'll be killed.

You'll be destroyed. You know, you will die. You you cannot allow them to use civilians as shields, and then claim the moral high ground because when you're acting in self-defense, that you cut that a civilian caught astray. Well, you're not that I did say disagree, because I ultimately I do agree with what you said, then I just don't see how in a lot of these situations you could feasibly conduct a war and adhere to a definition of that. You can't. But also, okay, I want to be careful because this is a pattern that's maybe played out with a couple of our answers, is I think it's a mistake for libertarians to go, oh well, I can't I can't adhere to I can't adhere to the NAP strictly in a foreign conflict. So therefore it doesn't matter. Like we don't want to we don't endorse that conclusion.

That we still it would still be better, you know, and I and I and I think it does matter. I think there is more cavalierness about killing innocent people from both the United States military and the Israel military, then I think the last time that libertarians came up with a war theory was in the 1100s. Like just war theory. Without a proper actual defensible theory that can defend yourself against Hamas or Hezbollah or against any of these violent groups that wish to destroy you. I mean, because the the government is violating our NAP every day. We just paid our income taxes on April 15th. We had our NAP violated. How are we fighting back? Are we fighting back with bombs and and missiles? No, you can't, right? Because when you when you don't have the power or the ability to fight back, you fight back in the way that terrorists fight back, right?

Which is passive resistance, guerrilla warfare, etc. etc. The non-aggression principle, I think, is a dead letter because war is being waged against you all of the time. Your NAP is constantly being violated. Right? And what what constitutes a level of aggression that justifies the use of retaliatory violent force? The black guy. I understands. He's probably seen violence. Hey, have you ever been punched in the face? Raise your hand if you've ever been punched in the face. Raise your hand if you've never been punched in the face. Oh, we found a new split. You found a new split question. I'll tell you, if you have never been punched in the face, you do not understand violence. You don't understand violence if you've never had a violent altercation, if you've never had a correction. The first time I ever got punched in the face was a really good wake-up call because I realized, wow, maybe next time I should strike first.

Alright, we're gonna do Fight Club in the parking lot. Okay. We don't need to do a poll here, but I would guess that the majority of people who hold to the nap in foreign policy have never been punched in the face. They don't understand violence. Alright, we're gonna keep it, we're gonna we're gonna keep it moving. This is my favorite one. This is the this is the most divisive one. I'm not just yeah, we live in American territorial expansion is a virtue worth reviving. I disagreed with this. And it's not because I don't think I think America's the greatest country in the world. So that's not I at the same time. I think we could do a lot better than America. And so the idea that I want to just make America more global. I I want I want competition with America. One of the things that America does that bothers me the most is it believes that its values hold worldwide.

And I think I while I do think American values are better than most of the rest of the world, I think this ultimately holds the world back because we don't see experimentation, we don't see new things. And so I took the disagree on this because I, even while having a mildly positive view of some um colonization and and uh expansion of sort of Western European or American values, I think that you know I I just don't I I don't want a global America. America is already too global. And so this idea that America should be uh, you know, focusing on, you know, America is a messed up country, and I I just don't I don't see feel like we need to be made. If you could live in a world and it was and it was a one world government, and it the government was the U.S. Constitution, and that was it, and the whole world was governed by it, or you could live in a world that was hundreds of governments and they were all governed like North Korea.

Would you rather live in the one world government that lives under the Constitution, or would you rather live in one of the North Koreas? Obviously, I would rather. Yeah, I don't think you get, I don't think you get a hundred North Koreas if you actually have a hundred. I don't I do I think naturally governments tend towards authoritarianism. I think if you think 100 North Koreans, I think we're going to expand. There's going to be expansion, new colonies will will open up. The moon is going to be uh contested territory. I think that we should make the moon a state, and it should be our state, and we should control it. And it's yeah, New Ham New Hampshire. I mean, I don't I don't I don't think New Hampshire should secede, but I think that we should I think that eventually I think Cuba should become an American state.

I think that Cuba it would there would be far less conflict. Uh the reason why Alexander Hamilton argued for the Constitution and for the state of the United States. And so and Alberta too. I think that Alberta should secede from Canada and become Alberta. I'll give you Alberta. Sure. I'll take Alberta. There we go. Yeah. Now there's something I can support. Now, if New Hampshire could start to like peel away through voting, you know, through districts, start to peel away like uh uh counties from Massachusetts that more lean towards if you can identify a county, well, wherever you can identify it, but for paying all right, wherever you could find it. All right, the crowds crowds get in rattles, we do also have to keep going. But then no, no, no. This is important, guys, because listen, you have guys, you have to live you you have to remember the founding fathers, the arguments in the Federalist Papers.

Alexander Hamilton specifically said that if the states were separate nations, then there would be more tension, they would be more willing to go to war with one another. That is a long history. When you have separate nation states, there is far more contentious. So the argument with creating the Constitution and doing away with the Articles of Confederation is that these states, more unified, being in one union, would be the more harmonious. So I see I see the United States acquiring Cuba as creating more harmony in in the Caribbean. I see Alberta expanding into the United States. Once we have more access to Alberta and oil, you have less need of it in the Middle East, right? Oil prices can go down. So American territory. Uh expansionism is an American libertarian aspect. Without American expansionism, without manifest destiny, if Thomas Jefferson had not disobeyed the Constitution, there would be no Missouri.

There would be no Louisiana Purchase. You have to do what's right. Okay, here's the hardest. You said one thing that kind of has a hardware disagree with this. Sure, I'll take Alberta. I think you're more debatable. The reason that I I disagree with that is you said I don't want America to like colonize. I'm like, no, I want a billionaire to do it. I not want private Americans to do it if it's not a good idea. Name one billionaire other than Elon you would want to start a country. Palmer Lucky, Palmer, like Andrew. Okay. Oh, look. Wayland, Utani. Okay, a lot of people, a lot of people don't know this, but Palmer Lucky has kept the private key to every drone he's ever made. He's the most sincerely plotting anarcho-capitalist to live in America. And one day he's gonna strike. Okay. You don't know that.

All right. Uh then we'll give Palmer Lucky back check that. His own colony. Yeah, yeah. Next to the state on the moon. Yeah. Alright, let's uh, this is our final question. It's a great one to end on. Uh libertarians should focus on improving America, not secession or exit. Go ahead. I keep going to go first. I disag so I disagree with this. Again, because I don't I don't see. If someone wants to offer me a path to fixing America, I guess I'm open minded, but I'm not seeing it. We're we're at a stage of sclerosis, and we are trapped in an existing system that has no shown zero ability to improve or fix itself. And when we see systems like this, what always happens is something new ends up being created that outcompetes the existing thing that has accumulated all of this rot. We have we have very few, if any, historical examples that you can point to where you've accumulated the amount of rot that the United States has and it it it it cleans itself up.

God bless you, Jeremy, you are so wrong. Watch your America, I want to make America great again. I think it's like and I'll tell you I'll tell you you should look at what the Supreme Court the other day uh did the other day with a less jaundiced eye because there are great victories for liberty that are occurring every day if you know where to look nowhere to find them. It's not all doom and gloom and I don't think that America is sclerotic. I do see I do see new opportunities for liberty growing. And I do see people you know not obeying the government all the time. I live in a in a state where where people very much they do do what's what we were talking about this the other day the question of you know are you supposed how do you build on a property you've got an hoa and and we were talking about this uh with a friend group the other day we well you just do it you don't ask it's like when uh the EPA said you can't you can't uh build on that property because there's some bird on it well you shoot it you shovel it and then you shut up and and that's that's truly American but I don't think you'll get more liberty with secession.

Uh certain I'm only for secession when it advances liberty. So I'm for the American secession I'm for the Albertan secession. I'm California secession. Yeah I think it's fine I think I think it's completely I think it's completely correct to be consequentialist about this stuff. But and I and I actually agree with you that uh people are too doomy. I do believe there have been positive things that have happened over the last couple of years, but none of the most fundamental things have changed. None. Even in this, what was supposed to be a you know, this is a generational election, there's a uh uh uh a red tide, we're gonna fix America, we're gonna clean things up. In terms of the fundamental route, like the script. You know what? The Aries chart in the world, awesome, is the percentage of national GDPs controlled by governments, and it is just a straight up line since the year 1900, and there's nothing that has happened that's all reverse.

Has your life improved? Has your life improved since you quit your job recently? You why did you quit your job? How? How were you able to do that? This is okay. So wait a minute. What just happened recently in your life and what was accomplished what did you accomplish? You've just been given a new layer of freedom. You just took a new level of freedom for yourself in this country. And how did you do it? I just left. I you left it, and but I mean what what gave you the the confidence that you could do so successfully? I did stuff that worked, and I you know more. This man has built a complete new life for himself. He has a new layer of freedom. He was just telling me about it because of artificial intelligence developed right here in the United States. He's probably the most cutting edge of AI, and I'm I'm like the cutting edge.

This guy is more bleeding edge than I am. This guy has taken the technology that was developed here in the United States and has created a new level of freedom for himself. My wife and I are a member of a group of people that there are we did the math the other day. There are maybe 30,000 Americans who get to live like my wife and I do. She works from home, she's a therapist. I work from home, I run the um my podcast and the For Liberty Network. We are both full-time parents in our home with our child. Never in history has there ever been a situation where a mother and a father can be at home. We have a level of freedom. I get up in the morning, I do my show, and then 9 a.m. rolls around, and then we go for a walk in the field while you guys are all clocking into your jobs. We go for a walk in the field in the sunlit field of the meadows with my beautiful little redheaded child.

I have a little level of freedom and power that my ancestors could have never expected. But what about the honors? But again, this is freedom. This is a freedom that has never existed. He has it, we have it, you can have it too. It makes no sense. You're crediting the like I agree. I I'm I I love innovation. I love that I'm not sure. But things have been improving. Things have gotten better in the United States. None of that has to do very little to none of that has anything to do with government policy, and none of these innovations are so it's like, cool, because we're innovating, we can handle like the amount of the amount of rock, the amount of money, the amount of resources that is being eaten by what is effectively bacteria or a virus that is inside. You're thinking about it all wrong.

Because you know, but the point is that's that's inevitable. It's just like war. That's inevitable. It will always be that way. But the question is where you die. But do you live so much? But do you live in a society where you can actually escape that, right? So I don't know if anybody plays civilization, but the Civilization 5, there was this famous quote where he says, the free market does give people a chance to escape the government. In other words, this technology gives us the chance to evade the government, to work around the government. So within the United States is the possibility. You say things haven't improved. If things haven't improved, I'd like to ask you questions about the decisions you're making for your own life. Because I have to wonder sometimes if this isn't a question of all the doomerism, is if this isn't a uh, isn't the consequences of your own actions and your own behavior and the lack of initiative?

I don't say you, but uh my the people in this room, if you show up, you're obviously a little uh step above. But for most people, they're problems of their own cause. If you are not taking advantage, if you are not following in this footsteps right here, if you're not taking an example from the people around you who are finding ways to be freedom, that's on you. Your initiative and your ability to be free and live free in this country is about whether you will take up the tools and work around those rigid government structures and those viruses and diseases and find a way to escape it. I I mostly I I I I don't I don't see how any I feel like all this is uh mostly stuff I agree with, but I don't see how it's central to this claim. I don't see how it's responsive to therefore we should improve America, and I think that we that could be doing much better than even this.

It's it's entrepreneurs and innovation that has allowed this stuff. That's fantastic, okay. But if we're if we are trying to aim as high as possible, and this idea that I I really don't like, I know that some libertarians like to do it, and I don't begrudge people because it's a fine choice for them in their lives. I don't want to be a dropout, I don't want to live in the shadows. I have the ability to do these things. I don't want to. I don't like you know, and maybe this is a difference between the two of us. I kind of like want to follow the rules. I break them, clearly, but it's because they're so bad. Like, I I would like there to be a set of rules that I could feel proud to follow, and uh, and not, you know, and yeah, well, I agree, and that's why I advocate for libertarian nationalism, because we I think we should improve what we have here, and I would like uh I wish I had a government that I would had laws and rules that I could respect.

But there are aspects of the American system that I do respect, you know, the Bill of Rights, and and I think that there are there are things worth preserving and saving. So when I say I'm a constitutionalist, I I speak to Judge Napolitano about this all the time. I'm a constitutionalist, but not the 16th Amendment. And not the 17th Amendment, right? So there's important caveats to that. I like I like the cherry pick, in other words. Okay. That's our last discussion topic. And I, if we want to do, if you want to do like a final word, yeah, yeah, please. Well, first of all, just the can I just say thank you very much. Thank you, Jeremy, for putting this on. So uh two two years ago I wrote a manifesto called the Libertarian Nationalist Manifesto, and it really was a call to arms. And I really am looking for allies because I do think we need collective action.

I I do think we need to concentrate concentrate our forces just like you have here in New Hampshire. Right. I I I I agree completely with your strategy, and and I I fully endorse what you guys are doing here. Um and I I know that it's a New Hampshire-based strategy, but I do think we need another states. I I was hoping to build up my institution, it's called the For Liberty Network, and that two to three years from now I would be able to invest in a PAC or a super PAC and start funding candidates who run on the the ideas in this manifesto. But last year I went and gave a speech to the Denver, Colorado, the Libertarian Party there, uh, and I told them, I was like, you should consider running as Republicans, run as a libertarian nationalist, run on these principles of outlined in the manifesto, and I thought nobody would do it, or maybe it would take me a few years to get going.

Well, there's a young man, his name's James Wiley, you should look him up, and he quit the Libertarian Party that day. He joined the Republican Party, he ran as a libertarian nationalist in the Republican Party. The people there who were in the GOP, these old foggies were like, who is this guy? He's amazing, he's got a lot of energy. And we always kind of there's a lot of Republicans who are like, I'm kind of a libertarian, but I'm just not like a crazy libertarian, you know. And they're all there waiting, they're waiting for you to go out there and to and to take up the mantle to pick up the torch and run with it. James Wiley quit the LP, ran as a Republican, ran as a libertarian nationalist on the ideals of my manifesto, and he is now the de facto nominee for the Colorado GOP for Secretary of State.

So he won. So you can win on these principles. So uh people were asking, where can I read the manifesto? Uh for Liberty Shop.com is our website where uh it has a blog. You can read the Libertarian Nationalist Manifesto there. And if you're interested in working with us, me and my wife, please come up and talk to us directly afterwards. You can if you want to just give us our contact information, you can take a picture of that QR code up there, guys, and then just drop your phone number and I'll give you a call next week if you want to work together to build this. But we have to work together like we did in the Ron Paul days because when we surge collectively, we win. We do, we get victories. We can accomplish things together. But when we are so individualistic and atomistic that we are not working together, and we build up our little kingdoms, then we're we can easily be overcome by barbarians.

So let's, I won't say nationalize, but let's let's let's work together collectively and pool our efforts and talents and resources. Uh and and if you believe in this in these ideas, if if you're compelled by what I've said tonight, um, please do uh give us your contact information and I will speak I'll answer any questions anybody has any time. I'm not afraid of of difficult questions and things like that. Uh I also want to let you know that I I brag about you guys all the time. Um I'm deeply inspired by what's happening here in New Hampshire. I know the challenges that you face, I see the victories that you win, and I'm deeply jealous. And while I can't while I can't live in New Hampshire because I have uh you know land and uh you know property and responsibilities, uh I do wish you the absolute best.

And long live New Hampshire, live free or die. Congratulations. All right. I'll I'll I'll keep it very uh uh short, Austin. I mean, uh thank you. Well, thank you for coming out. So thank you. Thank you. Did we clap Rossner? I I love optimists, I love people who try to do hard or impossible things because sometimes they succeed. I think you know, if if you fail to make America a libertarian nation in, I don't know, let's say five years, is that enough time? Uh you have to move here. Uh we'll give you like a time limit. All right, 10. 10. 10. All right, 10. I'll tell you, we'll take it. This is a this is a gener generational project, I think. Um so uh and I will say incredible place to uh raise a family, nothing else like it. That's one of those reasons. That's one of the things that also moved me away from that sort of oh, I can be free from the government because they don't know I exist.

Well, it's like but I want to be legible to all these other people, you know. Um anyway, uh uh this was great. Thank you so much to the audience for uh coming out. You guys are making these uh events a huge success, and thank you as well to the staff, to the people who are helping. Um our next event will be on Friday, May 15th with Robin Hansen on Cultural Drift. It's a really fascinating topic. We also may are likely to end up doing one on May 19th as well. I know that's really close to each other, but we had a speaker who happened to be in the area who we really wanted to uh get. And so we're likely to have events on both May 15th and May 19th. Uh whatever. Hey, it's more events in free sandwiches. So hopefully uh you can come out. Uh follow us for the people online. If you're still listening, make sure you're following the X account at Free State PTY, Free State Party, Free State Pty.

And then the YouTube channel is Free State Party. This will also be up on there afterwards. And uh if you're definitely if you're still listening to this point, you have to visit New Hampshire. Um this is called a contract when you hear someone say something out loud. That's a libertarians believe it. All right, thank you very much. All right, we're sticking around. We'll hang out for a little longer. Yeah.