Chinese Entrepreneur Explains Why Democracy Blows And China's "Meritocracy" is Superior In Almost Every Way [Video]
It's a standard assumption in the West: As a society progresses, it eventually becomes a capitalist, multi-party democracy. Right? Eric X. Li, a Chinese investor and political scientist, begs to differ. In this provocative, boundary-pushing talk, he asks his audience to consider that there's more than one way to run a successful modern nation.
A venture ... (more) Is it moral to take someone else's property by force?
If not, how then can you have a government?
All governments are funded through extortion, the extortionists simply relabel their extortion as "taxes" and claim the "right" to extort people because other people "voted for them to do it," or because they have some "divine right to rule."
It's all backwards savagery which should have gone extinct ages ago, nonetheless our entire world is run by these extortionists and the general slave-public submits to their masters, for the most part, without question.
That said, this talk is still quite interesting, and Mr. Li makes a stirring case that some tax-farmers are better than others. Of course, just because one ruling system is bad doesn't make another one "good," only less bad, on that issue he is fundamentally in error. - Chris |
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Just Another Marijuana Bust in AlbertaThe other day a 34-year old man from Edmonton was busted for driving a van full of marijuana. The RCMP pulled him over on Highway 1 near Canmore; they found over 300 pounds of product. Now the man is out on bail, but set to go to trial tomorrow. Meanwhile marijuana consumers are facing higher prices and the RCMP are getting paid to do something anti-social. I can think of three reasons why this otherwise forgettable news item should be getting front-page coverage.
First: All d... (more)
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Lew Rockwell vs Government Parasite
Lew Rockwell is on the Ron Smith Show, when he gets a call from a parasitic bureaucrat who is unhappy with Lew's ideas.
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Human Livestock Management! - Stefan Molyneux on the Nomad Capitalist Report
Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, discusses human livestock management on the Nomad Capitalist Report.
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Prison Abolition is Practical In California, prisoners are fighting back against appalling human rights violations. Their hunger strike is into its third week, with nearly 1,000 inmates still participating. When the strike began, 30,000 prisoners refused meals. The prisoners are striking against long term solitary confinement, a punishment recognized as a form of torture by sources as diverse as the UN, John McCain, and Amnesty International. In California, it is often used to punish inmates suspected of being gang members... (more)
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U.S. Refused Italy's Extradition Request for Convicted Ex-CIA ChiefAfter an Italian court convicted ex-CIA Cief Robert Seldon Lady on a kidnapping charge in Milan, it requested his extradition from Panama. Panama being a vassal state of the U.S. sent him back to the U.S., which by this means thwarted or refused Italy’s extradition request. See here and here. The bad guys in the CIA can get away with crimes. The good guys like Edward Snowden are supposed to come back an... (more)
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The Joys of Living"What are you complaining about all the time?" people sometimes ask me. "I'm just about as free as I want to be."
Here's the problem. How can we really know what we want if we've never had it before? The less free we are, the less we know what freedom feels like and how it shapes who we are. The more dependent on government we become, the less we crave independence. This is why it is important to find literature that takes us out of our present moment and introduces us to differen... (more)
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Inside the Mind of a Progressive ActivistBecause I’m lonely and pathetic, I read articles about the latest Anthony Weiner scandal. In this article which uncovers the latest female recipient of Weiner’s photos of his genitals, Buzzfeed included a list of heroes posted by the young woman, who is a Progressive activist, on one of her social media accounts. Her #1 hero is Obama and her #5 hero is Julian Assange.
She ... (more)
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Larken Rose Explains the Real Meaning of "National Security"
As often as politicians and talking heads talk about "national security," most Americans have no idea what they're really discussing.
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The Political Class and the CounteroffensiveThat Edward Snowden has put the whole political, corporate, and governing class in a bind. With his revelations that a heretofore obscure agency has long been collecting all data on our digital lives, Snowden very plainly blew up the whole perception that government is somehow of, by, and for the people. The picture he paints is a government straight out of a dystopian novel.
For a few weeks, the ruling class hoped the whole thing would just go away. Maybe the NSA could continue t... (more)
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The U.S. Is a Failed State: Dissolve ItAmerica is a very sick patient with a curable cancer that, if left alone, will cause death. The cancer is the Union or the state known as the U.S.A. More commonly, the Union and the U.S.A. are referred to as the U.S. government, the federal government or simply the government. It is the body established by the Constitution that administers the powers described in that Constitution. Phasing out and dissolving the U.S. government, which can be done by constitutional means, will remove the cancer a... (more)
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The State is Not Great
While the so-called "New Atheists" are spending their energies warning of the violence that is justified by religious belief, they miss the most dangerous, the most irrational, and the most pervasive religion on the planet: statism. Modern-day government is a god and statism is a religion that is responsible for 260,000,000 deaths in the last century alone. Join us today on... (more)
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"Thanks for Your Service?""There is no higher calling than service in our Armed Forces." ~ George W. Bush
The debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid." ~ Harry S. Truman
The idea that U.S. military personnel are serving the country just by virtue of being in the military is so ingrained in American thinking that being in the military is simply referred to as being in "the service."
Callers to some radio shows who identify them... (more)
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The War on Terror Is a War on American FreedomIn the aftermath of 9/11, President George W. Bush guided the Patriot Act through Congress, unilaterally expanded surveillance of Americans, amplified executive detention authority and took other dramatic measures that shifted the balance between liberty and government power significantly, in the name of national security.
After the initial Patriot Act was passed, many Democrats perceived the growing threat to civil liberties and started to have misgivings. Now, five years into th... (more)
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The Truth About Racial Profiling: George Zimmerman vs. Trayvon Martin
Stefan Molyneux breaks down the fundamental truth about racial profiling by looking at the George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin situation.
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All True Journalism is AdversarialThomas Jefferson famously said that he would prefer to have a newspaper without a government over having a government without a newspaper. Unfortunately, those running the contemporary news media see themselves as allies to, or appendages of, government, rather than principled and indispensable antagonists to it.
One small but telling example is offered by The Monitor, a daily newspaper in McAllen, Texas. Last spring, the Monitor learned that the McAllen city government was negoti... (more)
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The Zimmerman Case: Untold Truths
Who was responsible for Trayvon Martin's death? Jan Helfeld weighs in.
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After The Verdict: George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin
Stefan Molyneux responds to questions and criticisms regarding the George Zimmerman trial and Trayvon Martin situation.
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The Murderous Socialist Alchemy called "War"As the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan is drawn down, the Pentagon is preparing to demolish a huge operations center that was built for the Marines.
The facility, which is located in the country’s Helmand Province, cost at least $34 million to construct. Sprawling across the ble... (more)
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Conservative Blind Spots on SnowdenIn their haste to condemn Edward Snowden for revealing the NSA's massive secret spy scheme on the American people, conservatives are rushing to point out how the countries that Snowden is considering for asylum -- e.g., Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua -- are themselves not exactly bastions of freedom. They are countries in which there is socialism, interventionism, regulation, censorship, and, yes, even secret surveillance of people's activity.
But conservatives are missing some... (more)
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Support the Egyptian Uprising and Go to JailFor any American tempted to support the violent uprising against the Egyptian military coup, you might want to think twice because if you exhort Egyptians to violently overthrow the military tyranny under which they are suffering, you will be arrested, prosecuted, and incarcerated at the hands of the U.S. government.
That's what happened to a New York lawyer named Lynne Stewart. She read a note to the press that was construed as exhorting Egyptian radicals to rise up and violently... (more)
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Greenwald's Courage Can Be Contagious. So Can Fear. Choose.On June 28, the Guardian (UK) reporter Glenn Greenwald delivered a speech at a Socialist Convention in Chicago. He opened by thanking the conference organizers for allowing him to participate when “I wasn’t going to be able to actually physically come to the United States. Instead, he spoke “from the comfort of [his] little Skype prison. Which...is actually definitely pr... (more)
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The State: Always the Accuser, Never the DefendantJessica Nelson and Philemon Ellis were killed instantly when a car driven by Eddy Bustos blind-sided them at an intersection in Ogden, Utah. Bustos, who was trying to elude a police officer, plowed his vehicle into Nelson’s car at nearly 80 miles per hour.
Bustos would be sent to prison for manslaughter. Ogden City officials would quite thoughtfully find a way to cut the victims in for a share of the blame for the incident as a... (more)
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Who is this that "Makes Nations Tremble"?“What kind of a man is he that he makes the whole nation tremble?”
Those words were spoken by a waitress in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, during the visit of Barack Obama to the city. Mr. Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush, had gone to the Tanzanian capital to commemorate the 15th anniversary of a terrorist bombing at the U.S. embassy. This event inflicted all of the disruptions and inconveniences that attend every presidential visit, as security personnel – including grim-f... (more)
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