Latest / The Junto Podcast / E25: The Value of Life: Reason, Virtue, and the Cost of Violence

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E25: The Value of Life: Reason, Virtue, and the Cost of Violence · The Junto Podcast

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Music.
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Hello, America. Welcome to the Junto Podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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I am your host, Edgar Mills. Thanks for joining us.
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Music.
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Hello, America. Welcome to episode 25, where we're going to talk today about the value of life.
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Yeah, and where do you derive your value from? I don't know,
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man. It's getting more and more gray out there every day.
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And yep, the recent events, the violence that we've seen recently is very disturbing for many people.
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It's disturbing for me. I mean, I'm not cold to the whole thing.
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I understand. I see what's going on.
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But I'm going to look at the value of life for some different perspectives.
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One, we're going to look at some of the more Stoic philosophy.
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If you guys listen to me and read my stuff, I reference the Stoics a lot.
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I think there's a lot of wisdom there. Then we're going to look at it from kind
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of libertarian ideals. I also reference libertarian ideals a lot.
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And then we're going to look at it from my own perspective, using some of my blogs.
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Some of the things I write and even some of the things we talk about on here,
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But I think I write a little more eloquently than I speak, and I think there's
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some good stuff in there that we need to revisit.
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So the value of life is...
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It has to be aligned with some kind of virtue, right, and reason.
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And I'm going to use this word reason throughout here today,
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and sometimes that bothers some people when you talk about reason,
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which I don't really understand that.
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But there's a lot of emotion-driven stuff going on out there.
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But the value of life, it's got to start with some kind of virtue.
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You've got to have some kind of value system.
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And you've got to have some kind of reason to apply that value to things.
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We need to feed our soul. And I'm not sure if the soul is strictly a religious construct.
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You know, I don't go into too much depth on all these other various religions,
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or even agnostics or even atheists.
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Do you believe in the concept of a soul even? I don't know.
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But our soul needs to be nourished.
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And our soul needs to seek out wisdom. We need justice in the world.
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We should have courage. And we should have temperance.
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And those things, among some others, depending on your belief system.
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But those things across all belief systems, that is what kind of gives life
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worth, our search for meaning.
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All right? And things like that, our search for meaning and our search to discover
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our own value and our place in society, what is our worth? What does it all mean?
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So every rational human walking this planet is deserving of a base level of
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respect, kind of regardless of any internal or external circumstances.
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Now, people do acts, people do things that degrade that deserving of respect for sure.
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But right now, just for this argument, right this moment, we're talking about
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rational humans who do not violate other people.
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Now, life's value is kind of grounded in, from the libertarian perspective,
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life's value is kind of grounded in self-ownership, individuality.
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You being the best person you can be.
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And then one of the biggest principles that you will find within the libertarian
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ideals or platform is the non-aggression principle.
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Life, everyone has a fundamental, foundational right to life, liberty, and property.
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But the first is life, right? You can't have anything else without having life.
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And based on those things, every individual, it says in our Constitution,
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all men are created equal.
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Every individual has equal value through natural rights.
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By virtue of being born, you have a natural set of rights.
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Some of you are going to carry on about well no no
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humans illegal and things like that we have circumstances and
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we'll apply those does everyone have a right
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just to be on american soil well that's that's a more nuanced argument we're
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talking about the value of life today no illegal alien who's who's irrational
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illegal just here illegally they don't there's no that's not a death sentence, is it?
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So they still have the right to life.
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They do have a right to liberty and property, but that's within the construct
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of each nation, isn't it?
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Each nation. I'm not just saying America, I'm saying other nations too.
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So anyway, I don't know how I jumped on immigration real quick,
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but that's just a hot topic these days.
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The libertarian, we do not initiate force on other people.
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We voluntarily cooperate with other people.
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We have a right to associate with who we choose.
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This is how you achieve a high-trust society, by treating everybody with a baseline respect.
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And I'm not saying believe the same way, folks. There's going to be vastly different
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points of view. There always have been. There always will be.
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Unfortunately, they always have led to violence, and they apparently still do.
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We haven't become more civilized, have we?
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We've amassed a bunch of regulations and laws, but we haven't really become
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more civilized because we still see barbaric shit going on all the time.
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From my perspective, good people, like I said, I write blogs.
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I've written one called Respect for Human Life.
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Again, it goes back to a baseline respect. Everyone deserves a baseline of respect.
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Now, people can lose that respect, no doubt.
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But at what point does that degradation of respect equal, oh,
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it's okay to murder that person? At what point?
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Think about that for a minute. never mind your group never mind your tribe never
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mind your activist associations if you individually were walking down the street
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and saw someone who you knew that you disagreed with,
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would you just walk up and and murder that person okay if you could get away with it would you,
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Yeah, everybody has a fear of consequences.
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That's why I said we've not become more civilized. We've just amassed more laws.
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And people have a fear of consequences to a degree.
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If you could get away with murder, would you? And look, good people.
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I've had this conversation with close people, close friends of mine.
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Now, if you could get away with deleting someone or a group of whoever.
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One, would you be able to live with yourself, right?
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That's what I'm getting at. Would you be able to, do you lack the,
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I don't even know what the word I'm looking for, compassion or empathy,
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that you would just be able to murder someone in cold blood?
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And then, furthermore, would it have an effect?
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Would it have the desired effect or would just more people pop up in support of.
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Now, oftentimes, and this goes for terrorism, this goes for a lot of things.
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You take one guy out, two guys pop up in his place.
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So is your idea of murder for the good of society, whatever you think that good
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is, is that going to solve the problem?
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Are you just happy enough destroying one life and taking, well,
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multiple lives, but taking one person off the planet and leaving his children
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fatherless? That's good enough for you?
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Is that what you desire?
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That's not in line with Stoic philosophies for sure, the libertarian ideals
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for sure, and definitely not mine.
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I did a podcast on the high trust society.
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And I discussed that America is
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no longer really can well our numbers are considerably lower I can tell you
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right now trusting the government is at an all-time low and that's fine who
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needs to trust the government anyway F those guys but we need to be able to
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trust each other good people,
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and I'll draw a silly little analogy it's small but we got a joke my son and
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I have a joke that if you obey traffic, traffic signals.
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Well, here, here's the scenario. It's the middle of the night, two in the morning.
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You're in the middle of Kansas. So everything's flat. You can see for miles in all directions.
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And you come to a crossroads with a stuck, with a red light.
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And there's not a vehicle coming. There's nothing out there.
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It's just you and the darkness and the grass or the wheat fields or whatever
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or the god dang uh wind turbines do you stop at the red light and wait for it to turn green.
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And we say if you do you're a statist just go
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through the red light all right now let's do
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another let's do another scenario you're in
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downtown at 12 30 in the afternoon and you're trying to drive to lunch for whatever
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reason you would decide to do that and there's a red light in front of the you
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know on peach tree and and 10th do you run the red light or do you wait for a damn red light.
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So the traffic signals, they're not a statist measure of control.
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Well, traffic cameras are for sure. But traffic signals and stop signs and yield
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signs and things like that, they're not a tool of the state to control you to
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say when and how you can drive necessarily.
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They are a communication tool. And everybody in our society who's rational and
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has some kind of baseline respect for other humans, they obey the traffic signals
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because that's what everyone expects.
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Now, you don't have to bend to everyone's expectation of you,
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but that's just a baseline,
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hey, if I don't stop at this red light, I may run over somebody crossing the
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road, or I may get T-boned by a goddamn T-mobile salesman.
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So it's communication, And it's nonverbal communication. It's written sometimes,
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but you know, sometimes all our signs, they have different meanings.
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Sometimes they're written a stop sign that says stop right on it.
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But we all know, we all take a test, and we all learn that basic communication.
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And generally speaking, we all abide by that basic communication.
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Now, that said, when you get on I-75 and you got some dude driving 53 miles
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per hour in the left lane, that's an a-hole move.
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Or you got people zipping in and out of traffic because they think whatever
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they're doing is more important than what you're doing.
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But but when you're dealing with traffic signals and
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and things yeah it's a form of communication
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and it's a common form of communication that we all understand so we all generally
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speaking abide by that i'd say most of us use our turn signals or our indicators
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when we change lanes or when we're going to turn now many of us don't and that's
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an asshole move you're not communicating with the rest of the world.
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You're just being selfish and arrogant or just mindless, whatever it is,
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whatever reason you're doing that.
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Now, that makes me irate inwardly, right?
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Inside my vehicle, that's where I, that's where I vent and I rage,
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but I'm not going to get out of
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the car and murder someone because they're doing a stupid, stupid thing.
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Yeah. So what about murder? What about cold-blooded murder in contrast to justified killing?
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Is there justified killing? Yeah. I've said it a million times and I'll say
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it again and I'll keep saying it.
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Some people on this planet need killing.
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It's not someone's just speaking their mind. It's not just someone of a different
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religion than mine who speaks with heavy rhetoric.
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I mean, who is someone I dislike immensely that I think is a frigging clown?
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Well, younger Louis Farrakhan. Yeah, I thought that guy was a he was a menace to society.
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I never once thought, man, if someone takes out Louis Farrakhan,
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the world would be a better place. It probably would be a better place to a degree.
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But his wife and kids probably wouldn't think that. His family wouldn't think that, you see.
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I have the ability to go one step further and go, oh yeah, this has an effect
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that is beyond just my line of thinking.
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The Stoics believe that Murder,
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For whatever reason, passion Or just a perceived injustice That it corrupts
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the soul And it disrupts And violates the kind of universal Order of things,
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Yeah It corrupts the soul It creates a darkness in the soul And to celebrate
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that Creates a darkness in the soul I don't care who you are,
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or what your belief system is, or what your freaking pronouns are,
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or what your freaking Sunday rituals or Saturday rituals are,
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as long as they don't hurt anyone else.
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It puts a hole in your soul. Even justified killing.
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So I had someone comment on a thing I did, I wrote,
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and they equated, well, if it's not okay, to a degree, I'm paraphrasing big
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style here, But if it's not okay to celebrate the death of a political opponent
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like Charlie Kirk, for instance,
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then it shouldn't be okay to celebrate the death of someone like Che Guevara, for instance.
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Now, I do a match every October called No Che Day on the anniversary of when
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Che Guevara got killed. Yeah.
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Talk about justified killing a little bit. Let's talk about war and incursions
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and acts of soldiers versus, you know, just individual civilians walking the streets every day.
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Che Guevara, for instance, was a murderer. He was a racist and homophobic,
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if you want to get into modern parlance, and he was a ruthless murderer. Ruthless murderer.
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He deserved to die, and he died on a battlefield. That's what soldiers do.
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Now, celebrating it, me saying, yeah, the world's a better place that he's dead,
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it's not me relishing in the loss of a life.
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It's me relishing in the degradation of the spread of communism.
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And I don't care what you think about, and I'm not going to go around murdering
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someone who's an American Communist party member, but it's a murderous,
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it's a murderous philosophy.
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It, by default, depends on death and suffering, and that's a fact.
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You can disregard history all you like. It's still a fact.
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So, yeah, you can't compare the murder of an innocent person.
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Now, we'll get to this in a.
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Self-defense, folks, self-defense is justified. In the moment...
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Justified. Now, three days later,
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and I'll point out the, what's the guy's name, Plachey or something like that,
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in the 80s, a kid had been raped by a man who got arrested, and they were,
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the marshals, I think, were transferring this guy, and it was in the airport,
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and this guy, I want to say his name was Gary Plachey,
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he was waiting, he was waiting by a bank of payphones.
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And for all you younger people, that payphones are hard line telephones that
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used to exist out in the wild where you would put change inside the machine
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and then you would be able to make a phone call. Yeah, it was a weird thing.
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Anyway, that every airport, every bus station, everybody had a whole big, huge bank of payphones.
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And this fellow waited as they walked this rapist by, you know, dad murdered him.
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The father of the kid that got raped murdered the rapist.
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And this was after trial and everything like that. He was seeking vengeance for sure.
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Arguably, the question is, was justice done? Well, arguably,
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I mean, the guy was convicted, so arguably justice was done.
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But that wasn't enough. The dad's emotions were guiding that vengeance.
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Now, conservatives usually applaud that. Liberals usually say,
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well, that, you know, that's not right.
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But it's funny how the reverse is true here now.
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So we lack, and this is in general and most things, we lack any consistency
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in our belief systems around here these days.
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We lack any consistency in our belief systems because they've been so fragmented
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and we don't know the foundations of our belief systems.
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A thing that feels good to us is good. And a thing that's feels good to the,
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to our enemy is bad, no matter what.
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And then if the tables turn, well, hypocrisy is not a thing anymore.
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Yeah. It's garbage. It's bullshit. Justified killing.
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Was, was that guy justified in killing the rapist? Well, he received a pretty
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light sentence over that.
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Yeah. He received a pretty light sentence, I think.
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And I want, I mean, really, I want to say something like community service,
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something like that, because everybody could kind of understand where he was coming from.
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Well, I don't know about everybody. I guess pedophiles were like,
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oh my God, this is egregious.
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Is it acceptable behavior to rape a child? I mean, it's not,
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right? So was that justified or not?
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It's hard to say. I had a conversation with a guy, and this guy runs a podcast
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that kind of leans pretty significantly left when it comes to things like this.
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Big supporter of the trans and gay community and things like that,
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which is normally considered leftist politics, if you want to throw politics into it.
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And we kind of had a disagreement over this whole Luigi Mangione situation.
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So, and we drove in a comparison with the, the, the plashé, the guy who murdered his son's rapist.
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And then the Mangione thing where Mangione murdered a CEO of a,
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of a, like a insurance, a health insurance company, United, I think, or something.
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And so what happened there is we, the comparison is a man physically raped another man's son.
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That was very demonstrable damage and
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and and pain and things like that and then on the other hand we have a ceo that
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nobody likes because he's a ceo of a big corporation and corporationy things
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are bad and who knows if the guy who got murdered was he a good human or not i don't know i don't.
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Denied claims. Well, every fucking insurance company on the planet denies claims all the time.
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That's a part of the business. Is it right, wrong, or otherwise?
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No, it's not right that insurance companies can choose to deny whatever based
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on whatever loophole, right? That's garbage, but that's a systematic problem.
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Did the CEO, who was a father and husband, deserve to be murdered?
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Well, this guy that I was telling you who runs the other podcast thought so.
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A vast number of his listeners and a significant number of American citizens
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out there, they lionized young Luigi for literal assassination,
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cold-blooded assassination.
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Walked up to the back behind this guy and put bullets in his head from behind even.
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Yeah. And he was lionized for that.
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And celebrated and then people shit talked to the guy who got killed whether
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that guy was a piece of shit or not whether charlie kirk was a piece of shit
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or not and arguably whether or not the uh the rapist who was a demonstrated
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piece of shit physically harmed someone else physically,
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harmed someone else were those murders okay well if you say one was and another
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wasn't you got a problem.
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Yep, you've got a problem. You're inconsistent in your process and your belief
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system. It's inconsistent.
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It's only based on emotion.
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Consistency matters, good people. It matters in all things. It matters in shooting.
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It matters in parenting.
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Yeah, it matters in all things.
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Consistency means your friends and society in general can trust you to not conform,
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but to be a member of a high trust society.
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I don't have to worry about sitting in front of you on a bus.
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That murderer who killed the Ukrainian girl, Ariana, he was consistent,
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but he was consistently dangerous.
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Yet politics and ideology allowed that guy to walk the streets long,
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long, long, long past times where he should have been locked away.
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Whether he had a mental problem or not, that's a systematic issue that's a system
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issue that's not an individual issue,
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that girl is just as dead whether that
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dude had mental issues or whether he was just an
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angry guy a racist or a gangster just trying to earn whatever it i want you
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people to understand this motive the only time motive matters is when being
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sentenced in court the rest of the time.
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It's irrelevant if someone approaches me
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in a dark alley with a knife in their hand i don't
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i don't care if his daddy loved him or not i don't
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care if he's on six different kind of behavioral meds
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it's irrelevant i'm going to be just as dead if he stabs me you see do you see
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the the difference there we don't motive matters after the fact the preemptive
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piece of this is not to go murder people you don't like,
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but I'm talking about self-defense right now. I'm talking about justified killing.
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Yeah, you don't have time to assess motive when somebody's trying to kill you.
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Yeah, you don't. Motive don't matter until sentencing.
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Now, in sentencing, once they're in the system and a judge looks at it,
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motive then does become an issue, right?
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Well, what was this This guy's motive who killed the girl in Charlotte?
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Well, the left is saying, well, he was mentally ill. He had issues.
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Okay, fair enough.
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The crime, right? There's no question about that. The crime was done. It's on video.
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So does his motive mean that he gets to go walk free like here in a couple of few weeks?
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Now I've heard they've already moved that guy from jail to a hospital, to a mental facility.
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Well, unless it's a facility for criminally insane people, he's going to get
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diagnosed. He's going to get some meds and he's going to go free.
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And then guess what? It'll happen again.
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This will be the 15th time probably he'll be set free. Now I'm just predicting. I don't know that.
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So the systemic issues are within the government operated systems because they
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don't either, either they don't distribute justice equally.
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The ones who carry on about injustice, they don't distribute justice equally. They do it with a bias.
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Yeah, they do it with a bias.
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There's justified killing, folks. There is. And I wrote to, and I think the
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night or the next day after the Charlie Kirk murder, I wrote a blog and I put out a thing on Facebook.
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And I said this And I've said this before Folks, I can't explain this to you
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any better than this If I can be on a declared battlefield In a declared war,
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And an Afghan or Pakistani or friggin' whoever,
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Is trying to kill me and shooting at me And I kill that person And inside,
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inside my heart, I have a brief moment of pain, of, I can't even call it pain,
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sorrow, because that person is somebody's son for sure,
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very likely somebody's father.
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And other than our simple belief system and other than the fact that the U.S.
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Has horrible foreign policy, I otherwise wouldn't have been standing,
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you know, at the border of Pakistan.
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I still mourn the loss of life. Terrorists are no terrorists.
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It's a loss of life.
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Now, if you're a tough guy and you want these thick neck freedom,
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freedom fighters, you know, and, you know, you're a pussy.
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Well, maybe I'm not. I mean, I've I've I've done plenty of combat and I've gotten
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in plenty of bar fights and I've done all the tough guy things.
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But even still, the loss of life is to be is to be regarded for a moment and considered. Thank you.
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Just a little bit, whatever the circumstances were. And maybe I am a pussy.
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Maybe I'm just getting too soft in my old age, but check this out.
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I don't like watching videos on YouTube or whatever the social media is when
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somebody, these dudes that like to climb the skyscrapers and do their selfies up on the top.
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And then because they're idiots, they fall to their death.
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I don't laugh at that. I don't think that's entertaining and I don't watch it.
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I just know they're out there.
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And I've seen a couple by, cause I, I usually scroll social media with the volume off.
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I'm just, I'm just getting visual input until I find a cool truck or motorcycle
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or, you know, some, some curvy lady or something, or I don't,
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I don't even listen with the volume off.
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I just scroll through looking for the things that, that they're going to catch
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my attention that I can follow up on, i.e. philosophers, i.e.
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Good art. So, yeah, so when I see people get hurt and like proper damaged,
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it makes me feel bad, man.
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I'm not a better person than anybody because of that. I'm just telling you, my soul is intact.
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And if your soul is intact, then you should grieve a little.
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You should regret that someone has been damaged or dead, regardless of your
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freaking political identity.
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Identity politics is killing us, good people. Identity politics is killing us.
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Because politics in general, whether it's all over the place,
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it's like a freaking virus.
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And it squeezes its way because of the politicians, by the way,
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and the activists who are all in, it squeezes its way into all aspects of life.
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And then what happens is one side of the aisle, well, one side particular likes
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to manipulate words and change definitions and make things so words become violence.
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And then they convince the masses, their masses, their followers,
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that this person said this thing.
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Therefore, that person wants to commit violence against you,
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Even though it never happened physically.
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Now you've got a mass of people walking around thinking every time someone says
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something contrary to their belief, that then they, that is a form of violence.
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And then what that does is that form of violence to them justifies self-defense.
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Well, not just verbal self-defense, but physical self-defense. Okay.
30:54
All I'll say about that is that if you cannot win on the battlefield of ideas
30:59
and you resort to violence, when no one has initiated violence on you,
31:04
you're just a criminal or just a political, whatever the frigging definition.
31:09
So I noticed, and I'm going to go ahead and say it's the hard left that likes
31:14
to manipulate definitions.
31:15
Well, guess what the hard right does?
31:17
They manipulate definitions too.
31:20
And so now everything for the next, for the near future, everything is going
31:25
to be political terrorism.
31:26
Yeah. And they're going to use political terrorism to probably violate the rights
31:32
of many people in response.
31:35
So congratulations on getting a response.
31:38
Because if there's anything we know about the current administration is that
31:42
there will be an overcorrection.
31:43
Not a subtle correction, but an overcorrection.
31:47
And all that's going to do is further divide and
31:52
then we're just going to be further and further and further divided yep and
31:56
oh by the way in the in the wake of the kirk murder they again in congress shot
32:04
down the release of the jeffrey epstein files while all the all the.
32:11
All the morning and then all that stuff was going on.
32:16
There's always a political angle, folks. Always. Don't buy the bullshit.
32:21
Don't believe the hype. Be a free thinker.
32:25
If you don't like Christian people, don't listen to Christian people.
32:29
If you're on a college campus that's most likely extremely liberal,
32:34
don't go to a rally for young conservatives.
32:39
Well, it's American to protest. Yeah, yeah, it is. For sure it is.
32:45
But it's un-American to assassinate your opponents, your political opponents,
32:52
your ideological opponents.
32:54
That's un-American, and I'll stand by it. I don't care what the CIA does.
32:59
They don't qualify. They don't qualify as American.
33:03
Non-aggression principle, that's the libertarian ideal.
33:06
Everybody has a right to life. Nobody has in the, with the exception of,
33:11
of physical self-defense, no one has a right to initiate force on anyone else.
33:17
Now, if you're one of these protesters, counter protesters, and you like to push the limits, right?
33:22
You like to get up in somebody's face without touching them. That's.
33:27
Violence by doing that. And you know you are, but then you're holding your hands
33:31
back like, oh, I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you.
33:33
It's like a brother and sister when he puts his finger right up to her face,
33:37
but she's not touching her, but her finger's right there.
33:40
You people, you emotionally immature humans who do things like that,
33:46
knowing good and well, it provokes.
33:48
And so now you're just testing the limits of someone's patience.
33:52
You're not making a political statement at all.
33:54
You're just being a child, testing limits.
33:58
Why push someone to their limits? Because look, check this out.
34:02
There's guys walking the earth right now. I'm one of them.
34:05
And I know, look, my whole circle of friends,
34:09
all my former teammates, if you did a thing like that, where you walked up and
34:15
got face to face and started spewing and your spittle was getting on my face,
34:23
yeah, you would catch it and you would catch a beaten, proper beaten.
34:28
Yeah. Yeah. There's still grown men out there.
34:31
I think it was Mike Tyson that said people getting too comfortable talking shit
34:35
on the internet because they never been punched in the face.
34:37
Well, I'm not promoting violence, folks. I'm just telling you,
34:41
you provoke violence and you'll get violence.
34:44
Now, all the lefties right now listening to this is going to So,
34:47
yes, Charlie Kirk provoked violence. No, he didn't.
34:53
Listen, do yourself a little experiment and go back and listen to actual,
34:59
you know, speeches that the guy makes.
35:02
He's been demonized and he's a good target.
35:06
But the Saul Alinsky rules for radicals apply.
35:09
He was pointed. He was isolated. He was used as a target.
35:15
Yeah, that was it. The Saul Alinsky's Rule for Radicals. I don't promote the book.
35:20
I'm just telling you, it's a good idea to know what the tactics are.
35:24
He didn't promote violence, folks.
35:26
And neither did the young Ukrainian girl on the Charlotte light rail.
35:32
She didn't provoke violence.
35:35
Neither did the CEO of United. He didn't provoke violence.
35:40
And what about the child rapist? Did he provoke violence?
35:45
Well, that's arguable He violated non-aggression principle For sure,
35:49
It's a violation of non-aggression principle To rape a little boy Yeah And it's
35:57
arguable that your son is an extension of you If anybody did any damage to my
36:02
children or grandchildren Yeah,
36:03
I'd be in jail for sure I'd go I would go destroy everybody involved,
36:10
On a rampage, you know, like proper Yeah.
36:15
Drives people to that, folks. Hyperbole drives, if you're one of these weak
36:20
body people that you like to use ideology as your strength because you're not strong, that's fine.
36:29
Don't get in anyone's face. Use your ideology.
36:33
Stand on ideals. Argue your case in a rational way.
36:40
At some point, here's what happens when you do that. Rational people on the
36:43
left and right When you just stand on your ideals and you argue your case At
36:49
some point you just agree to disagree,
36:51
Well, we have different value systems I believe this you believe that I'm not
36:57
going to change your mind.
36:58
You're not going to change mine Have a nice day. That's it folks.
37:03
Oh, that's so boring. That's so boring. I don't get to dress up and go be indignant in public,
37:09
and destroy things and and act a fool and let out all my primal aggressions
37:16
in this ritual of play pretend.
37:22
We need to get back to having some solid ethics, whatever the foundation is.
37:27
Mine are founded in Christianity.
37:29
My ethics and my values are founded in Christianity.
37:33
But check it out. People often call out the contradiction that I follow Ayn
37:38
Rand and the philosophy of objectivism.
37:42
Well, I've done a blog on it, juxtaposing objectivism to Christianity.
37:46
And guess what? The values hold. The only difference there is in the philosophy of objectivity,
37:53
you demand some kind of tangible proof of a thing, whereas in Christianity, it's based on faith.
38:02
But all the other values hold, people. They all hold.
38:06
Now, Christianity, you do things for altruistic reasons.
38:12
And in objectivity, you do things for sort of rational self-interest.
38:18
With the outcome being that if I do things for my rational self-interest,
38:23
I will then be a value to the people around me.
38:26
Whereas as a Christian, you do things for altruistic reasons.
38:30
Well, I need to be a good person so I can go to heaven.
38:33
Which, by the way, don't get you to heaven. You have to acknowledge and accept Jesus Christ.
38:38
But besides that, you do the deeds because people need help.
38:46
You get the same desired outcome both on both ways it's just how you get to
38:51
it where do you derive your values from if you don't believe in god where do
38:56
you derive your values from,
38:58
if you don't believe in rational self-interest if you just believe in pushing your agenda,
39:04
and you think it's okay to kill people who oppose your
39:08
agenda well well shit isn't that
39:11
fascism yeah i think it is i'm
39:14
pretty sure it is yeah yeah yeah
39:17
oh man hyperbole folks
39:20
it's getting us the the extremes is getting
39:23
us unchecked emotions seneca said unchecked emotions were or brief madness brief
39:32
madness yeah and i've seen this in action plenty of times hell i've i've i've
39:39
gone off on violent tirades before,
39:42
and it was madness because you can't think rationally.
39:46
You're so angry or you're so distraught or you're so sad, so much so that it
39:52
leads you to this outburst of whatever.
39:56
Well...
39:59
To carry on and then accepting that. And then that, that's how that distorts your ability to reason.
40:06
And that's how people are able to be radicalized so easily from the left and
40:10
the right because they don't have control of their own emotions.
40:14
Someone else will come along and take control of them for you and guide those to their own ends.
40:19
There's books written about that folks. that's what
40:22
the that's what case officers do yeah case
40:26
officers do that and your three-letter agencies
40:29
out there that are so that we love the government so much
40:32
you got three-letter agencies out there identifying people who have unchecked
40:37
emotions and who are easily radicalized because they don't have the ability
40:42
to reason for themselves yeah brief madness turns into long-term madness,
40:50
which turns into the ability to be manipulated for extreme ends.
40:57
Yeah, there's books on how to do that, how to manipulate people.
41:00
Manuals, I'm saying. Government manuals, folks.
41:04
It's not just a couple of bad apples in the basket.
41:11
It's doctrine how to do that.
41:14
We have to master our
41:17
own emotions that's what separates us
41:20
from the animals and the barbarians that's what
41:24
separates us from the savages is the ability to
41:28
control our own emotions and to think rationally through
41:31
even very heated problems these
41:35
unchecked emotions fuel they fuel they
41:38
are the they are the the the protein for
41:42
coercive ideologies and communism
41:46
folks i'll say is built on envy yeah
41:49
it's built on envy and that shit undermines your individual agency your inability
41:56
to control your emotions undermines your individual agency yeah and these friggin
42:02
these agencies who are not only putting out the propaganda,
42:08
not only fueling the fires of,
42:12
hatred between the various political factions.
42:18
But,
42:19
ideology does this. This political collectivism where we're right and everything
42:26
we do is virtuous, no matter what it is.
42:28
And they're wrong and everything they do is dangerous and evil.
42:32
You say that shit enough and you believe it. Next thing you know, murder is just okay.
42:36
And people celebrate it like a bunch of soulless savages. Let's see.
42:43
Yeah, none of this is in line with libertarian ideals, freedom of association, freedom of speech.
42:52
Good people don't, this is all leading down the road to, to put government controls
42:59
on our freedom of speech.
43:01
That's what's going on. And it's going to be in the name of our safety.
43:04
Yeah. That's what they, that's what they always do for you, for your safety.
43:09
They're going to save us from ourselves, folks. Watch and see.
43:12
And then when you want to these radicalized leftist groups, and then,
43:16
and next thing you know laws, law of unintended consequences is going to take over.
43:21
Next thing you know, we got laws restricting your freedom of speech because
43:25
right now it's in your favor, but pretty soon it won't be.
43:29
And then when it's not in your favor, it's in no one's favor, folks.
43:32
I said this, you believe in all freedom of speech or you believe in no freedom
43:36
of speech. Words are not violence.
43:40
Now, there's nuance there, folks. If I say, if I, on this podcast,
43:45
go out and tell, hey, if you're this group of people, go out today and do violence
43:52
against this group of people.
43:53
That, folks, is violent. That's inciting violence.
43:57
Yeah. And I'm pretty sure, you know, everybody tried to hem Donald Trump up
44:02
for that, right? For the January 6th thing.
44:05
So many questions around that. However, Yeah, the left was perfectly happy on that.
44:12
Donald Trump's inciting violence. I've heard Chuck Schumer and Maxine Waters
44:16
literally, literally make threats. Yeah.
44:23
Of course, the right gets a little bit in the uproar, but nobody starts talking
44:27
about restricting freedom of speech, generally speaking. No, that's not true.
44:32
The hardcore right-wing conservatives, they're happy to restrict freedom of
44:36
speech. as long as it's not their speech.
44:41
It comes back to this all the time. Imagine the worst law you can imagine, how it would affect you.
44:47
Or imagine the thing you want to do to your political enemies,
44:50
and you want to make it law. But then imagine that power be in the hands of the other guy.
44:55
There's a lack of folks. There's second and third and fourth order effects.
45:01
Anything you do, it's not in isolation, good people. It is not in isolation.
45:06
It has effects. It has effects on your immediate family, your immediate friends,
45:11
your immediate situation.
45:13
But then that shit's going to come back to bite you and it'll bite you hard.
45:16
And then you're going to be poopy because this wasn't supposed to happen. Yeah.
45:22
Non-aggression principle, freedom of speech, freedom of association.
45:26
Let's try to live that way.
45:30
I encourage you guys to read my blogs. I did one called, I hate mankind, but I love man.
45:37
What does that mean? That was a weird thing because I originally put that out
45:40
as I love mankind, but I hate, I hate people.
45:44
And then I had to think about that for a while. I hate mankind because mankind
45:49
puts us into a big group and the collective never makes the best decisions,
45:55
folks. The collective never makes the best decisions.
45:59
The individual makes the best decisions for themselves. Yeah.
46:04
In a collective, we demonize the others, whoever the others are.
46:10
And then we throw all these negative vibes and emotions out there.
46:15
And there's plenty of cultural factors involved here.
46:19
But those can be easily remedied, folks.
46:22
We don't have to resort to violence to live in harmony or even agree to disagree.
46:33
Cultural things that are going on because politics is a cultural thing.
46:38
But a good red flag is if it said something to invoke emotion,
46:44
extreme emotion, it's probably not good.
46:46
It's probably not good. Look at all your critical thinking card deck there and
46:53
figure out is this an emotional plea or is it rooted with fact?
46:59
It's just, is it facts being delivered kind of emotionally because people are emotional?
47:05
Or is it a flaming of emotions with the subterfuge of a fact?
47:12
Around here, folks, at the Junto podcast, we're all about self-improvement and
47:19
by improving yourself, improving your community.
47:23
And yes, success. Yes, if we can be successful, we can help other people to be successful.
47:30
And we can do this rationally. We can be emotional about a thing.
47:33
I'm emotional about my range.
47:35
Yeah, I had a very positive meeting yesterday, folks. Very positive meeting yesterday.
47:41
And I was happy. I was noticeably happy when I came home. And my wife said,
47:46
oh, that must have been a positive meeting. I said, yes, it was.
47:50
Yeah, we're emotional. We have emotions. I'm not telling you to suppress your emotions.
47:54
I'm telling you to check your emotions and think with logic and act on your
48:00
life. Don't act on your emotions, folks.
48:02
Even in your own marriage, even in your daily life, even with your children,
48:06
don't act on the emotion.
48:08
Unless it's to give your grandkid a big old hug. That's nice.
48:12
But don't act on your anger.
48:15
Give it a minute. Give it a few minutes.
48:18
Sometimes you might have to sleep on a thing. And then you get up and make a
48:22
rational decision about how to go forward.
48:24
It's just critical thinking, folks. It's just common sense. It's just a lot of things.
48:30
Get off your SSRIs. Get off of your mind-altering medications for a minute.
48:36
And some of you may need it. I don't know. I'm not very much for medications,
48:40
but go take some THC gummies. Chill the fuck out.
48:46
Be a person who contributes to a high-trust society so that we can all live
48:53
without having to look over our shoulder. Yeah.
48:58
Right, left, or otherwise, whatever your politics is, I encourage you to drop
49:05
your politics down about two notches on your list of priorities.
49:10
And I would also encourage the majority, well, not the majority,
49:14
a lot of you out there to knock your sexuality down a couple of notches on your list of priorities.
49:20
Build your identity around a broad scope of who you are, not one single point.
49:28
And if you're living your life like that, you need to get out and get some hobbies.
49:34
You know, venture out a little bit. Do something different. Be well-rounded.
49:40
Identity politics and building your identity on one aspect of your life.
49:46
I can't remember who said it, but it's very, I think it fits right here.
49:52
Now, he was talking in context of skills. but he
49:56
said damn I wish I knew who said he said
49:59
specialization is for bugs
50:02
humans everybody should be
50:05
well-rounded and have a little bit of experience in a lot of things now he was
50:11
referring to skill but I refer to culture keyhole in yourself or pigeonhole
50:16
yourself into one identity and one way of life and all things that don't support that are your enemy.
50:26
Is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.
50:30
Now I say I'm a Christian and I am, but I got, I use foul language pretty regularly.
50:35
It's ingrained in me. Just it's military life. Now I'm not going to blame military
50:39
life. It's not the excuse.
50:41
It's, it's, you know, it's a, it's a reason, but I don't, Yeah.
50:47
I know people that think, okay, they make effort not to use bad language.
50:53
I don't. I don't think it's that important. But I have Christians and they come
50:59
out and shoot with me. They know I use bad language.
51:02
Bad language is opposed to their Christianity, generally speaking. But.
51:11
They come out here to learn how to shoot guns, not to make sure that I fit their
51:15
version of whatever, whatever they believe I should be. Right.
51:19
You come out here and learn how to shoot guns. If I drop an F-bomb here and
51:23
there, or if I get a little passionate talking about some bullcrap CQB techniques or whatever.
51:31
Yeah, they take it and roll with it. And I make an effort to not use bad language
51:35
when I have most specifically women, but also Christians.
51:40
Definitely children. I will watch my words because children are a high priority for me.
51:46
Adults are not. If you can't take me saying a bad word because it seems distasteful.
51:53
Well, wait till you hear my transsexual midget jokes. You know what I'm saying?
51:57
So, yeah, folks, specialization is for bugs. Don't be a bug.
52:04
Venture out. Open your mind. Experience other things.
52:08
Live your life, not that you're either my friend or my enemy,
52:12
but that you are something I can learn from.
52:16
And look at everybody that way. I can learn something here from this person.
52:21
It may be a negative thing. It may be a positive thing. But you can learn from
52:24
everyone and every situation and everything, every culture.
52:29
You can learn something and take it and process it and then drive on.
52:34
Everything's not an extreme position. Everything is not an attack on your lifestyle.
52:41
Everything is not an attack on your position.
52:46
Process information at face value. Don't read into your own biases into it.
52:54
Just process it at face value.
52:57
That's it and that's all, folks. That's all I'm going to say on this.
53:00
I felt compelled to say things, something about the value of life.
53:07
And I'm sure 99% of you out there value life and, well, maybe not 99.
53:15
I know people that don't. There's psychopaths walking the street.
53:18
You know, I know, I know this.
53:20
But you should value life, good people. Value life. Open your mind.
53:26
It's not a you're either
53:29
my you either support me 100 or you're
53:32
my enemy that's not the way we do business that is not the way we do business
53:36
good people open your mind don't be a bug all right thanks for listening i love
53:43
you guys i appreciate you guys be good to each other have good manners go make a.
53:49
Music.