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The Fall of Stefan Molyneux. Can There Be a Recovery? Part 1

Published: Oct. 9, 2015, 3:16 a.m.

Wes Bertrand joins me to discuss a couple emails he recently sent to Stefan Molyneux and Mike DeMarco from Freedomain Radio. Those emails are reprinted below:

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From: Wes Bertrand
Subject: Ominous parallels
Date: September 4, 2015 at 8:41:45 PM EDT
To: Michael DeMarco

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Hello, Michael, and by extension, Stefan. I\\u2019ve appreciated the many helpful and insightful messages FDR has sent its listeners and viewers over the years. Thank you for all the time and effort you\\u2019ve expended to inspire individuals in so many enriching and enlightened ways. Though this is not a fan email, I hope you note the vital significance of it, so that your show is able to gain more respect from those who value truth. Basically, I\\u2019m writing to express my grave concerns about the ideas that have been promoted on your podcast, particularly in this episode:
FDR3052 Donald Trump\\u2019s Immigration Plan: An Honest Conversation
http://cdn.freedomainradio.com/FDR_3052_Trump_Immigration.mp3

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I realize that both of you believe in the efficacy and morality of free markets instead of tyranny, which in the past have been articulated extensively. So, your advocacy of Trump\\u2019s anti-immigration views and his overall anti-economic agenda (which Jeffrey covered with sufficient clarity here: https://tucker.liberty.me/trumpism-the-ideology/ ) runs noticeably discordant. This particular topic of policing statist \\u201cborders" really hits home with me, despite not being an \\u201cillegal\\u201d person (one must be privy to The Anatomy Of Slavespeak - http://www.mind-trek.com/reports/tl07a.htm ). In 2009 I was detained (with threat of being gunned down) by the so-called U.S. border patrol for about 6 hours with my Indonesian friend Siska, who had a student visa, just not with her at the time since we were going to photograph wild flowers, so her sister was ordered to drive for hours to deliver her paperwork to us in the desert of Ocotillo, CA on her behalf. The papers her sister brought were insufficient for our captors, however. Had it not been for a bureaucratic paperwork glitch, she would have been deported that day (through no fault of her own). It might come as a surprise to you that we weren\\u2019t crossing any statist borders. The jackboots in southern California were running a check point approximately 12 miles inside the arbitrary statist line in the sand (still present here - https://goo.gl/maps/Y4Bj0 ), which I recounted in this episode of Complete Liberty Podcast:
Episode 63 - Freedom to travel, reside, and work without government, where property rights are respected -> link

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When I heard Stefan read Trump\'s proposed policy of actually building a physical wall from California to Texas (the ultimate police-state boondoggle, aside from the insane NSA data mining process) in order to supposedly keep out Mexicans, as well as any Americans like myself desiring free travel, I waited for some sign of objective, critical philosophical analysis from him. Tragically, there was none, and I\\u2019m still waiting to hear it. Instead, I heard various economic fallacies about \\u201cillegals\\u201d harming the economy for \\u201ccitizens" amidst the domestic ills of welfare statism. I encourage you to process your fears and concerns with the principles of voluntaryism (honoring individuals and markets, strictly disavowing governmental methods) as well as more evidence; Benjamin Powell has done a lot of freedom-oriented work in this realm - http://www.independent.org/aboutus/person_detail.asp?id=1023 .

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I\\u2019m puzzled about why you did not explicitly note the massive contradictions and intolerable harm involved in playing politics too, i.e., granting any legitimacy to the enforcement of statist \\u201claws\\u201d\\u2014since no one has ANY right to such a rights-violating process. Not to explicitly and consistently denounce statist policies (i.e., aggression) is not to be philosophical. It\\u2019s a massive contradiction to say that, in the absence of a free market, we need to engage in the coercive, political means; such pragmatism only perpetuates rights-violations. The really odd thing is that I suspect you know that a paradigm shift in the philosophy of a society cannot happen with more advocacy of the political status quo (collectivistic, in-group/out-group, tax-fed, law-enforcing, welfare-statist thinking).

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As you know, many of the podcasters in the liberty community viewed your initiation of the DMCA take-down process on YouTube as being pro-IP and, thus, a major departure from your previously voluntaryist moorings. I disagreed with that position too, because it violated property rights, as well as Stefan\\u2019s previously stated beliefs against IP. Yet, the gravity of your recent choice to promote the totalitarian fascist agendas of Trump overshadows this (as does endorsing the costly, coercive strategies of the spurious \\u201cfreedom club,\\u201d via the collectivistic abstraction of "Western civilization\\u201d). This strikes me as eerily similar to the intellectual inception of Nazi Germany\\u2014definitely no joke. Trump\\u2019s views are the epitome of populism, nationalism, and mob mentality, based on contradictions, fear, distrust, and aggression. There are ominous parallels in our culture to those of Nazi Germany (as Peikoff outlined decades ago: link ), which were evidenced at the end of your episode regarding a survey of Americans\\u2019 confused views on immigration.

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from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324577904578557352244619768
"Their theses were often focused on racial and biological studies within populations, particularly where German minorities lived. The controversial borders that were drawn after 1919 in countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia rankled many of them.\\u201d

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from http://www.slate.com
"Hitler, the suitable ruffian, could never have done it on his own. He could never have done it with all his party. He needed a climate of belief\\u2014the belief that Weimar was a problem requiring a solution. Having solved it, he was free to answer his version of the Jewish Question\\u2014the question that the intellectuals had fooled with on paper. Only the madmen among them had ever thought it needed to be answered with fire. But the sane ones had helped open the door for the avenger that the madmen had dreamed of.\\u201d

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wikipedia link

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Please let me know if you want to discuss these matters either in public or private. Understanding and promoting the principles of true freedom mean a great deal in an age of philosophical confusion and psychological unawareness.

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Thank you for your time and consideration, Wes

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p.s., I have a lengthy list of notes I\\u2019ve taken over the last year concerning various other ideas conveyed by FDR, because they diverge from logic and sound evidence in places, so clarification is needed. The issue above takes precedence for now, however.

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From: Wes Bertrand
Subject: Fwd: Ominous parallels
Date: September 24, 2015 at 3:37:12 PM EDT
To: Michael DeMarco
Cc: Chris Stefanick

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Hi again, Michael. It\\u2019s been nearly three weeks since I sent the email below to you, and I\\u2019ve gotten no reply. Am I correct in assuming that you and Stefan do not want to have a conversation about this disturbing and confusing trend in FDR\\u2019s message these days? I want you to know that there is still the possibility to reverse course, make amends, and engage in restorative justice with your listeners who seek philosophical rigor and objectivity. As I see it, that is the only way you can regain credibility as a philosophy show, which I\\u2019d like to see you do. If you believe that I\\u2019ve somehow misinterpreted your present views, then let\\u2019s have a discussion about it (again, in private or on your call-in show).

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A few days after I sent this first email, I was waylaid by armed enforcers of the so-called U.S. border, while driving back from Ottawa (visited some dear voluntaryist friends there). After asking a litany of intrusive questions, which seems to be their primary tax-fed \\u201cjob,\\u201d they demanded that I stay in their building while they proceeded to search every nook and cranny of my vehicle, including all my personal possessions, which took the better part of an hour; I was also personally searched. It was a complete violation of property rights, and when I conveyed this simple truth to them, among other liberty-oriented statements, they of course provided rationalizations in place of valid arguments\\u2014the mainstay of humans who are trying to downplay the significance of massive contradictions. If I had defended my person and property from their aggressive actions, I would have been murdered. This is the nature of \\u201cborder enforcement\\u201d: individuals are harassed, suffer, and even die as a consequence.

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You know, Stefan used to not give disclaimers or caveats in his shows (like you\'ve done on the ones that cheerlead for Trump), because he adhered to the principles of voluntaryism. Here\\u2019s an example (from over eight years ago) of the person who the liberty community admired, when he recognized the profound significance of the individual (based on reason, volition, and life-giving values) rather than the collective (based on spurious notions of race, genes, \\u201cethnicity,\\u201d etc.):
link

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I\\u2019ve Cd\\u2019d my friend Chris in this correspondence, because I plan on reading my email below that I sent you and Stefan (who also apparently un-contacted me on Skype) as well as sharing related thoughts on his Choice Conversations Podcast, when we record in about a week. We will also post Stef\'s \\u201cImmigration And Empathy\\u201d episode in order to show the stark contrast between promoting sound principles and deviating from them. If you take it off your server, I can put it in my Complete Liberty Podcast feed, since these ideas matter so much\\u2014individuals matter so much!

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Regards,
Wes

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Find more from Wes here: http://completeliberty.com/

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Also mentioned in the show:

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Stef addresses his future self:
http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/619/immigration-and-empathy
http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/620/immigration-part-2