Arguments from pragmatism fail to convince because people refuse to believe studies and statistics, and arguments from principle fail because they are too abstract for people to grasp. How, then, does one argue for liberty?
Stefan Molyneux argues that it’s time for libertarians to stop playing defense and go on the offensive when arguing “freedom versus coercion.” He presented his argument at the 2009 New Hampshire Liberty Forum on March 8. [Note: Due to a serious oversight on my part, this video was uploaded with the rest of the videos from the forum but not published. I regret the oversight.]
“What we do as individuals is we fight evil,” Molyneux said. “One of the great challenges with fighting evil is you can’t fight evil. The reason you can’t fight evil is that the moment people see that it’s evil, it loses its power. . . . What we fight is evil that people think is good.”
Molyneux is the host of the controversial Freedomain Radio podcast and Web forum, which promotes “personal and political freedom.” Freedomain Radio received criticism in the UK last year after an 18-year-old Briton who frequented the forum separated himself from his parents.
The video includes the closing ceremonies from the 2009 New Hampshire Liberty Forum, the annual conference of the Free State Project. The Free State Project aims to have 20,000 or more activists move to New Hampshire to reduce the intrusiveness and oppression of government.
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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Join the members of the Liberty Conspiracy as they discuss issues ranging from the "Incorporation Doctrine" and gun rights, to the NBA, to protests conducted at military funerals, protests that are being challenged by government, and which will be heard by the philosopher kings in the U.S. Supreme Court.
When neoconservative Ben Stein accused Congressman Ron Paul of being antisemitic for merely wanting to ask WHY Islamic terrorists want to attack the civilians living under western governments that have meddled in the Mideast, the members of the Conspiracy could not sit by silently.
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Mark Jaquith
Aug 24, 2009
I’ve been trying to figure out a way to explain the concept that every state action is coercive to the unenlightened, and have found it difficult to get them to follow the argument. This is a great angle of attack. Definitely going to use this.
Joel Laramee
Aug 27, 2009
I have yet to find a more dazzling contemporary thinker/speaker than Molyneux. (Disclaimer: he and Michael Badnarik are the only speakers I’ve seen in person so far.) Now that I see that another “bleeding heart liberal” has found him helpful, I’m thinking that maybe he is particularly useful for convincing liberals to abandon government, and then to solidify their confidence after the initial conversion. Actually, in my case it’s more the latter– I didn’t read any of his stuff (or see him in person!!! I did! On the Drexel U. campus on July 5) until well after my “conversion” in early April of this year.
I particularly like his bold wresting of morality out of the hands of the (state-sanctioned) religious establishment, in Universally Preferable Behaviour: A Rational Theory of Secular Ethics. The PDF is available for free on freedomain.com.
Krof
Nov 11, 2009
Thank you for a fair analysis. The internet seems to be clogged with what looks like fake grassroots threads about how Stefan is making their kids run away and skip college and whatnot.