Robert Tracinski - The Objectivist Case for "Democracy"

Speaker 0 00:00:00 Today, Rob will be discussing the objective case for democracy. Um, a discussion on what is prop, what is the proper justification for representative government and the consent of the governed and is democracy the right word for it. Um, and, uh, you know, in the spirit of, uh, objectivity, I guess you're gonna be doing, uh, the opposite view next week. So, uh, again, I wanna encourage everyone to share the room and, um, also wanna note that Rob and our other scholars will be speaking during the day, um, on objectiveism and futurism at our gala in Malibu, October 6th, honoring Michael sailor. Uh, Rob, thanks for being here. What is the objective case for democracy? Speaker 1 00:00:50 Okay. So first I wanna start take that last question that I mentioned in the little blurb last issue in there. I wanna take that first, which is what, so when I say the case for democracy, what I mean is the case for representative government, for the idea that we vote for our leaders and our leaders have to stand for reelection and, and free elections. Speaker 0 00:01:26 Yeah. I wasn't sure if it was just me. Can you hear Rob? Speaker 2 00:01:29 Nope. Rob Speaker 1 00:01:31 Both have similar systems that, you know, Speaker 2 00:01:34 So Rob, we, you might need to rewind a bit cause we, we, we lost you right after you just said, um, that the idea that, um, we vote for our leaders and they stand reelection, but we missed you after that. Speaker 1 00:01:48 Okay. So, uh, is it better now? Yes. Yeah. I had the walk like five feet over and I get better reception here, the, uh, democracy. So the, what I'm <inaudible> Speaker 0 00:02:04 Went out again Speaker 1 00:02:06 And Speaker 0 00:02:08 See Speaker 1 00:02:08 That's better. Okay. Answer to the people, uh, in free elections. So we have a chance them accountable to like what you did. Um, and we're gonna get rid we're somebody we like, right? This is the idea that the, the people are ultimately are in charge. They can hire and find their leaders as they see fit. And that's the idea of representative government. And like I said, there's, there's different ways for having people answered to the, at the ballot box. The American system has a particular way of doing it, which I think is very well, is a very good system overall and particularly well suited to us in our situation, the way our, our country came into existence. The fact that we have separate states, all that kind of thing, our system is very well designed for us. Other countries in the world have different systems that have different aspects. Speaker 1 00:03:00 They have all of that, that doesn't, you know, the there's different. Some of the systems are better, some are worse, but the main issue is the idea that the, the leaders answer to the people at election time. So I'm, I'm defending that, but let me talk about this issue of the terminology is that democracy. So there's a certain sort of pedantic argument and I'm usually a sucker for the pedantic argument. I really, you know, I'm the guy who said, well, actually liberalism means, you know, a pro freedom and classical liberalism was a free for a pro free market idea. And it was really the, the 20th century, uh, welfare status who came along and sold the term. I'm all favor of that. I'm still doing that. I'm not giving up on that one. I think it's a little on the use of the term democracy in a, in a broader sense to mean simply, you know, to mean simply representative government. Speaker 1 00:03:53 Now, democracy also has the sense, uh, and this is what I'm gonna cover next week when I do the case against democracy, democracy, all sense in meaning among other things, an unlimited majority rule. So that's the idea that yeah, the majority should be able to do whatever it wants it should to, uh, you know, it's, it's, uh, was it, uh, uh, um, uh, Senator desert, two men in a desert island voting to cook and eat. The third is the old way of saying it that, you know, whoever 51% of the people to vote for something, they should be able to do whatever they like. And there's no limits on it, no protections for, uh, for, um, a large majority. All right. So it's know why would democracy, why is democracy not? I was convinced of this was actually looking back at the history of party. Speaker 1 00:04:49 So today's democratic party is very much democratic in that bad sense of, you know, the sense I'm not defending, which is the majoritarian aspect. There's actually a, uh, uh, an oped, a really awful oped in the New York times about a week ago, uh, by a, you know, a professor, a law professor at Harvard and a law professor El. So these are guys who really gotta know better, uh, basically advocating the idea we should. We should, instead of arguing over who has the constitution on our side, we should scrap the constitution altogether and we should just, everything should just be decided by majority rule. Now, the, the really bizarre part about this is they were doing this in response to some of the recent Supreme court rulings, including the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe versus Wade and all the Dobbs decision does is it turns its sense abortion back to be decided by the majority. Speaker 1 00:05:42 So, you know, majority rule unlimited majority rule is what the anti-abortion side wants on the state level. And so these guys are somehow as an answer to that, they're going to say we should have unlimited majority rule. So it's, it's, it's ridiculous. These guys really ought, ought to know better, but the modern democratic party is much more democratic in that sense, but going back on the history of how they came to be known as the democratic party, well, in the early 19th century, before they sort of shortened the name to just be the democratic party, they were the democratic Republican party. And before that they were the Republican party and their leaders were Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and James Monroe, those guys. Right. Uh, so, um, it wasn't until, uh, sometime in the, uh, in the Jackson administration that the democratic part came to be emphasized. Speaker 1 00:06:32 And I thought, oh, well, that's something add in that Rob route. Uh, but I found out that actually the first time that, that the Republican accept the description of themselves as democratic is, um, was in the 1790s when the Federalists, the Hamiltonian guys, those, those scoundrels, uh, began to use democratic as a pejorative against them say, well, you're, you know, you're basically your firm mob rule. Uh, you're for the, the rule of the holy unwashed masses against, you know, the better men that ought to have more power. Very Hamilton was very much of an elitist that way. Um, and, uh, the, uh, the, that the Republicans and including Jefferson and Madison, and those guys adopted democratic as saying, yes, we are democratic. We are for ruled by the people. So they sort of, they sort of accepted, they didn't accept it pejorative. They accepted it as, so I've always heard the founders rejected the term democratic to apply to themselves. Speaker 1 00:07:38 I've discovered that's not quite true now, but they accepted democratic in the very literal sense, derived from the original Greek, the original Greek is democracy is the most. And CRO basically means rule by the people. Well, that's a very general term rule by the people can have, you know, different. It, it doesn't necessarily mean unlimited authoritarianism. It can simply mean representative government. It can mean, well, what Hamilton himself said. I think in one of the Federalist papers where he says, he's talking about the house of representatives and he says here, the people governed through their representatives. Uh, so it's the idea that the people govern that the government is accountable to the people. So I've grown to sort of rele a little bit on this term democracy and accept it. Now, I, I would not, I never use democracy without in, in a, in at least not, never, never in a positive sense without the crucial modifier of liberal democracy. Speaker 1 00:08:35 And that has come to be, I think the standard term youth today by people who want to defend what I think is, you know, the right approach to government, they say liberal democracy. So it's emphasizing, you know, that re it's somewhat redundant, but it's emphasizing the idea that, um, uh, that, that it's, you know, it's a system of voting, but with the, the, the proviso that this has to be liberal democracy liberal in the sense of, uh, in the original sense, the classical liberal sense of be this is a free society. So the people rule, the majority folk goes, except that there are protections for the rights, uh, of individuals. And I think that's the, the liberal democracy has come to be the standard term often used somewhat in exactly, but the standard term to refer to that idea. So I, I will defend democracy with that proviso saying, I'm defending a liberal democracy and we have to understand liberal means pro freedom. Speaker 1 00:09:36 Now there's a great quote. I'm gonna dig this up. Um, tomorrow there's a great quote, Ross actually, lemme dig it up now. Uh, I have it ready to hand somewhere here. There's a great quote, uh, to the effect of, by a social scientist, to the effect that, uh, think gonna be is Juda, scar, uh, wrote this, and I'm not familiar with much of her work, but I'm gonna have to check it out because she wrote about how, uh, democracy liberalism are. See if I get this term right here. I think I have the quote. There we go. Here's the quote, liberalism is monogamously faithfully and permanently married to democracy, but it is a marriage of convenience. Oh, I love this quote. I think it captures something, which is that the purpose of democracy is that it's necessary to protect liberalism that's who go hand in hand and you can't really separate them. Speaker 1 00:10:30 But at the same time, democracy is just a means to an end, right? The purpose of having a demo of a, of a dual democracy is not to have the majority get its way, the purpose of having of giving power to the majority and giving vote to, and, and letting people vote on their leaders. The purpose of that is to defend Liberty, right, is to create the best environment in which Liberty can flourish. So it's the idea that it's a marriage convenience of convenience in the sense that it's just a means to an end, right? The democracy already vote. Uh, the ballot box is to the end of creating a free society, but the idea that it's monogamous faithful and permanent, meaning that you really, you there's no other way to achieve this goal. There's no other way. There's no other system in which you can in over the long term in which you can defend, uh, a, you, you could maintain a free society without having voting and, uh, uh, without giving, uh, the majority of the right to, to make decisions. Speaker 1 00:11:34 All right. So I think it's a great quote. However, I wanna little bit of more of an argument that there is a little love in this marriage, right? There is a little love and affection in this marriage. There is something that, that bonds, uh, liberalism and democracy together more than just a marriage convenience. So there's when I, when I bring a quote, iron Rand wrote very little the, about politics, you know, you think of her as, oh, she had a lot to say about politics. She wrote very little about politics in the sense of the actual mechanics, the mechanisms of politics. She's had a lot of great things about the constitution in a very general way, but she didn't talk a lot about voting and what we would call democracy. Uh, I found, and to my knowledge, correct me if anybody knows anything else, but to my knowledge, there's only one passage where she really is this, but I think it's a fascinating one. Speaker 1 00:12:30 So this, a, an article she wrote, I think, in the early seventies called representation without authorization. And here's the passage, the theory of representative government rests on the principle. That man is a rational being. I E that he is able to perceive the facts of reality to evaluate them, to form rational judgments, to make his own choices and to bear responsibility for the course of his life. Politically, this principle is implemented by a man's right to choose his own agents. I E those whom he authorizes to represent him in the government of his country to represent him in this context means to represent his views in terms of political principles, thus, the government of a free society derives, its just powers from the consent of the governed. And that's a quote of course, from the declar declaration of independence and that she said that she goes on as a corroboration of the link between man's rational faculty and a representative form of government observe that those who are demonstrably or physiologically incapable of rational judgment cannot recognize exercise the right to vote. Speaker 1 00:13:36 So she says children don't vote because they've not acquired the knowledge necessary to form a rational judgment on political issues and neither do the feebleminded or the insane who have lost or never developed their rational faculty. Then she has the possession of a rational, rational faculty does not guarantee that a man will use it only that he is able to use it and is there for responsible for his actions. All right. So this is the idea that the, the, the love that we find here in the marriage between liberalism and democracy is this idea spec for the rational mind. And so I, I think that's a crucial thing that the premise of representative government, uh, so there's something, you know, and, uh, Locke John Locke and the founding fathers used the terminology that objectives don't like to use because it, it was encrusted with all sorts of later, uh, a later agenda, which is the term equality, right? Speaker 1 00:14:31 The natural equality of man, all men are created equal. Now in the said that they didn't mean egalitarianism. They didn't mean that everybody should, should be equal in every aspect of life. Everyone should be, have, have an equal share of wealth and equal share of respect and equal share of influence, etcetera. They don't, they didn't mean this sort of leveling egalitarianism that, uh, recognizes as in talent, they talked about there being a natural aristocracy and the differences of talent being recognized in a free society. Now, obviously since then, the term equality was encrusted with that egalitarianism, this idea that, you know, everyone should have equal outcomes on everything, regardless of the actual differences in, in talent or ambition or hard work or whatever. But I think we should, uh, the, the issue of equality applies here, which is that when the founders at all men are created equal, what they meant is everyone has an equal ability to think and to choose and to, and to, and to draw, make his own opinions, an equal ability and responsibility to direct his own life. Speaker 1 00:15:33 So what's E what's equal among men is their possession of irrational faculty, their ability to make decisions about their life. And therefore, if they're all equal, if no man has some greater mental capacity, uh, some different mental capacity from what everybody else has, then we should all, when it comes to deciding how, uh, how government is, how the government should be run, we should all, you know, have an equal voice. We should all have an equal vote. There is no claim that one person can say that. Well, I really know what's true. And I really know what's going on. And the rest of you are, you know, I'm the philosopher king who really knows what's going on. And the rest of you are incapable of thinking and seeing, right? So that's the natural equality. It's the equality of equal possession of the rational faculty. That, that is the, that is the thing at the basis of both of liberalism equal possession of the rational faculty means we each have the ability to direct the course of her own life and make our own decisions. Speaker 1 00:16:33 And then equal possession of the rational faculty also means we all have an equal claim to have a say in how the government is run and, and what it's, what it's going to do. All right. Now there's one other aspect of that that I wanna draw out, which is some I think is, is relatively new. I can make a claim to have coined the term, this a particular term to describe it. Although I think there's some, some recent thinkers who've developed this a little bit more particularly. Um, there's a, a book called the constitution of knowledge that just came out recently by Jonathan Roche in which he developed this idea to a slightly larger extent that I did, but I call my name for it is epistemological madism. And it's the idea that in addition to being the idea that all people are, think they're able to make their own decisions they're able and how their lives are run. Speaker 1 00:17:25 The other case for democracy for representative government is the idea that in requiring leaders to go out and, you know, votes, uh, and, and, and get of the voters, you are inherently necessarily making EV subjecting every issue to rational debate that if you have, if you wanna go out and get your agenda passed, you have to go out and actually convince a large number of people. And James, I, I call it Madisonian because Matt James Madison wrote in, in the Federalist number 10, one of his most famous, uh, entries in the Federalist papers, he wrote about how this would help, uh, solve the problem of faction. Cause if you have a large country, uh, a large and diverse country and people voting from all different regions in different areas, in different walks of life, it would be harder for a small group or cabal or faction of men to get control of that and pursue their own interest at the expense of everybody else. Speaker 1 00:18:30 You know, it would be harder for them to get, get, to get control of the levers of government and use it to exploit other people because they have to convince so many different people to get on board with their agenda and epistemological manism is taking that idea and saying that, you know, what's going on here is if you have to go out and convince a whole bunch of different people with different backgrounds, different biases, different prejudices, then you have to come up with better, more rational arguments. So representative government, by requiring you to go out and convince a very large number of people of anything you want to get done gives reason a leg up in political debate. It gives reason of voice. You have to go out and come up with some re some, uh, um, argument for your position. Some argument for the action you want to take. Speaker 1 00:19:19 That's more than just, I want to do it, or don't you hate those other people. Let's go get them, right? So you have to come up with an something that's universal, something that stands up to logical scrutiny, something that will withstand public debate. So I think that's the other bit of love that we find in this marriage between liberalism and democracy, which is that the very process of requiring of, of having to go get the approval of voters and of facing the dis of facing the, you know, the possibility of being thrown out by the voters requires anybody who's who's who's, um, pursuing a political agenda, requires 'em to go out and convince a large number of people out in the society. And our whole system breaks down when people stop trying to convince other people, which is, I think a lot of what's been happening, uh, recently. Speaker 1 00:20:08 And we could talk about that in the discussion. So that's where I wanna try to find the, the, the love in the marriage between, uh, the, the there's this monogamous permanent faithful marriage between democracy and liberalism. And I'm trying to find where the love is in that relationship. And I think it comes from the love comes from that recognition of the rational capacity of the individual person, and also in the fact that representative government by its very nature, throws every question, open to debate and discussion and persuasion and gives reason, uh, a leg up. Um, and in, in giving reason a leg up, it's also going to help protect the rights of minorities and, and stop, uh, or at least make it harder for a, a, a faction of, of people with a certain prejudice to trample over the rights of others. All right. So that's my sort of spiel on this and I wanna open up for discussion now. Speaker 0 00:21:02 Good. Uh, I think you made a pretty good case. Um, let's, uh, David, uh, David Kelly, uh, our Atlas society founders joining us on stage. Did you have a question for Rob? Speaker 3 00:21:17 No, I'm sorry. I, uh, joined late because I was on another call, so I'm gonna, uh, mute myself and, uh, Speaker 0 00:21:28 Okay. Speaker 3 00:21:28 The topic is very interesting to me. I have things to say about it, but I, I don't know what Rob said. So <laugh>, I'm kinda at a loss so far. Speaker 0 00:21:35 That's fair. Maybe we'll get you in later and, uh, okay. We encourage people to raise your hands. I've got some questions, um, that, um, you know, I wanted to bring up, I mean, I'm, I'm happy to have that discussion now about how things have changed. And, and sometimes, you know, I think the, maybe the rise of populism is because people don't feel like they're they're, um, elected representatives are listening to them. Speaker 1 00:22:04 Okay. That's a good point. Um, well, I think what's happened is, has been a tendency, I think, on both sides, uh, now to go to what I call 50 plus one, uh, politics. So, you know, just think about this. When was the last time we had a true legitimate landslide election, um, uh, and I think the last one was 1984 with Reagan. Uh, and that was an election where, you know, you had somebody who I think Reagan got like 54 or 56% of the vote. It was a, you know, pretty, it was a real solid, substantial majority, and it wasn't just one of these. Okay. You know, like it wasn't like 2016, right. Where the winner got 45% of the vote and the loser got 48%, nobody broke 50%. And it's only cuz of the slight weirdness of the, of the electoral college that the, the person with, you know, they both had under 50% and the person with a little bit more under 50% won because of the weirdness of the electoral college. Speaker 1 00:23:05 And I think that was a symptom that 2016 result was a symptom of both sides have, have sort of developed this politics of play to your base, go to your go faction. And this is what Madison would've call factionalism go to your 20 or 30% of the population who is fanatically committed to you and, and loyal to you and to your, or, or to your agenda, go to them, whip them up, get them to go out and vote, get them to go out and get very active in politics, you know, get them all doing the right hashtags on Twitter and rely on that to put you over the top, um, rather, and, and, and ignore them. And, and, you know, basically it's okay to, uh, to not try to reach across and, and get people who are undecided in the middle, ignore the independent voters, um, and, you know, present them with this, you know, hope the independent voters hate the other person more than they hate you. Speaker 1 00:24:02 So they'll vote for you reluctantly. And that's sort of how our elections have worked for the last two. Last two elections are pretty much worked like that. Joe Biden won because people hated Donald Trump. I mean, there's, it's not because there were a lot of people who love Joe Biden. It was because they hated Donald Trump. And so I think what's happened is on for the democratic party. They've got this, you know, sort of upper middle class college related, educated, woke, progressive base, and they have very much a strategy, just go a hundred percent to them, get them to go for you, you know, to vote for you at a solid block. And maybe that'll be enough to put you over. And now Donald Trump sort of brought in the politics of go to the rural, uh, blue collar, uh, cultural populist kind of, you know, uh, people who hate the elites in Washington and DC hope that their hatred of the elites is enough to put you over. Speaker 1 00:24:54 And it's this, this, you know, and I think that's part of the reason why a lot of people don't feel represented is that, you know, Hillary Clinton was not trying to appeal to anyone. The quote unquote red states are in the rural areas or anybody who, you know, who was in on that side. But at the same time, Donald Trump, wasn't really trying to appeal to, um, uh, to people who might be open to him in the, in the, you know, the educated people in the educated, suburban moms kind of thing, demographic, he wasn't really trying to appeal to that either. So you have each side re retreating to its faction and not trying to make an argument that would be convincing to anybody outside that faction. Speaker 0 00:25:35 That's interesting. Speaker 1 00:25:37 Um, and, and I, I just one thing to add that I've, I've banged this drum before with you. Cause I know we go back and forth on this that I think that's the problem with this quote with this so-called populism that we have right now is often the populism means I'm going to appeal to real Americans and real Americans mean people in my little faction of 20 or 30%. Right. So populism is often a fake appeal to the majority when it's actually not, you know, it's, it's about hatred elites, but it's not really an appeal to the majority it's appeal to your faction. Speaker 0 00:26:09 But I mean, you were saying that, I mean, these candidates are still ultimately getting in the high forties. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a significant part of the population. Speaker 1 00:26:18 Well, I think, but for love of that candidate, they're voting cuz the other person seems worse. Speaker 0 00:26:25 Yeah. Speaker 1 00:26:26 I'm sure that was the case for Hillary and I, and it's also definitely the case for Donald in 2000 that people hated him more than they, you know, they voted because they just wanted to get rid of him. Not because they thought Joe Biden was, you know, the next Abraham Lincoln. Speaker 0 00:26:41 Sure. Um, well, uh, we've got some people coming to the stage. I'll defer to them. Lawrence, thanks for joining us. Speaker 4 00:26:49 Hello. Hello. Uh, so kind of on that same point, Earl, I wanna get your opinion. So you know, a, a common enough saying it's not a good one, but a common enough saying is, you know, oh, both sides are bad. And so I don't vote at all. Or, you know, there, there seems to be an issue in a society and a system that requires, uh, you know, you to represent, to vote and to do some sort of, uh, have your voice, be heard to an extent and be represented. You gotta participate to some extent, but some people feel disaffected or their vote doesn't matter. How can we try to revitalize, I guess like this civic participation, if so essential. Speaker 1 00:27:31 Yeah. That's a, that's a great question. Now I do wanna say, you know, in answering that question, I, I answering that, that objection. I want to emphasize both sides are bad. That part is totally true. You should, there's this whole, uh, online, they call this both sides and it's supposed to be terrible, terrible, terrible that you would say both sides are all are bad. You know? Cause that shows you're a moral coward or whatever, but both sides are bad if you don't want me to say that, make your side less bad, right. Make your sides less terrible at it. Maybe I won't say that both sides are bad, but both sides are in fact bad. We, we have a de you know, our system is the, our whole political debate is based on the wrong principles to begin with. Right? So we've, we've basically thrown out the concept of individual rights as the foundation of government. Speaker 1 00:28:17 And we have a context between different factions to see which faction should be in charge. And so when you have that, of course, both sides are gonna be bad, cuz both sides basically have the agenda. My faction, my cultural with its cultural or economic biases or whatever they want, my faction should rule. And your faction should be disinter disin and your, your factions should be shut out. And neither one has the idea that no, we should all have equal rights as individuals and government should just protect those. So both sides have to be bad. Given the, the foundations of the political debate we have today now often obviously sometimes, you know, you do have to make a decision. Sometimes, you know, one candidate really is worse than the other candidate. Uh, although if that's not true, you don't have to vote. But people who be who become very sort of dissatisfied and disgruntled and say, well, I don't vote cuz most Aren the same. Speaker 1 00:29:12 I think a lot of those, a lot of that comes from the fact that they're getting involved too late in the process that there are primaries you can vote in where that hopefully will help you get a better, um, a better result in whatever party you think is gonna be closer to you. And more to the point everything's been nationalized and federalized in, in our current system, right? So everybody focuses obsessively on what's the latest national political news. What's the latest, latest. Uh, and, and they really focus on the presidential elections. What's, you know, who's gonna be running against each other in 2024. They don't. And they oftentimes have no idea like who is your local state Senator or state representative? Who's your who's in charge of your school board? Like the one thing I like about Ron DeSantis, um, is that he's been leading this effort to get PE to get his voters, not just to turn out in Florida for the governor's election, but he got them to turn out at a bunch of school board, mean the people, he got this to out or a bunch of religious church ladies who are probably gonna try to ban a bunch of books, but he has the raise. Speaker 1 00:30:21 He has the right idea to theEnd. Don't complain about political correctness in this abstract general way. Go find out who's running on your school board, election, appallingly, few people actually vote in any of these elections. And that's why you get crazy people, uh, getting into office in them. Uh, also the same thing. I remember seeing somebody put online some, you know, uh, I think in Portland, some school board meeting where they were debating some change to the textbooks and it was all this political correctness or wokeness Runamok. And the thing that jumped out at me is there's like a dozen people at the meeting, right? So the reason why this wokeness and this political correctness, the reason why absolutely crazy things happen at school board meetings is because nobody's there. And so one of the things, the first things you could do to, to make a difference in politics is be the, be the 13th guy who shows up at the school board meeting and has something to say and says, wait a minute, this idea you have, it's terrible. Speaker 1 00:31:23 And, uh, you know, maybe, uh, there were these, uh, was it a year or so? Uh, these, I think it was last. Um, no, I think it was early this year. I'm getting my tire chronology. I think it was early this year in, in San Francisco. They had the recall election for the, for the, the school board in San Francisco. And it was a bunch of just ordinary people who got fed up with the mismanagement because of COVID and because of political correctness, the mismanagement of the school board in San Francisco, and they put together a recall election and they got, they got the people voted out of office and, and better people probably slightly better, but you know, better. This is an example of the sort of political action you should be doing instead of saying, oh, well, you know, I, I didn't pay attention for four years and now there's a big national presidential election and I don't like the options. Well, there's a lot of other things you can do way before it gets to that things that are closer to home things where you can have a bigger impact Speaker 5 00:32:22 Showing Speaker 0 00:32:23 Up there's half the battle. Yep. Chris, thanks for joining us. Speaker 5 00:32:30 Um, yeah. Um, I, I, I think, uh, Scott, so I, I, I might be both my own, uh, head here, but, um, yeah, I I'm thinking the stateism from the left, stateism from the right. And also, um, I'm wondering whether in, in, in terms of people voting, I, I, I, I know this is controversial and this, this isn't, this isn't original, um, uh, thing I'm saying, but, um, in, in the us, is, is it 18? Speaker 1 00:33:23 Yes. Speaker 5 00:33:25 Is, is it 18 and over? Okay. Yeah. That that's like it is in the UK. So, um, I'm just wondering whether some people should be allowed to vote. Like if, if, if they lack, um, critical thinking skills and I, I know this sounds fascist <laugh> Speaker 1 00:33:51 So, you know, I, I think that's an interesting question though, is that, but Speaker 5 00:33:54 There's, Speaker 1 00:33:55 There, there is a history on this though. There's two histories on this that I think mark, at least that are relevant, which is early on, you know, in the first 50 to a hundred years of the, uh, of, of, of the existence of America, the vote often was restricted and I was restricted to, uh, male property owners over, you know, over the, oftentimes over the age of 21, right? So there was an age restriction, there was the, the, the only men could vote and there was a property requirement. You had to own a certain amount of property. And that's especially true in a very mobile society. In the early in its early years was extremely, people were moving from one place to another, at high rates of speed. They were, you know, settling in the cities and the east coast and then leaving for the frontier. Speaker 1 00:34:45 And so the property requirement had a certain logic to it. Like you have to actually live here. You have to be, you have to have a stake in the community in order to be able to have a sand on, but it was also a way to sort of, you know, let's keep out the rebel out the poor. Um, and, uh, you know, I, I think in a society as a society becomes wealthier and more urbanized that can't be maintained because, you know, if you have a large city with millions of inhabitants, most of whom are renters and they don't own property. Well then disenfranchising large numbers of totally respectable, uh, uh, educated, you know, well off people that you can't, that can't be maintained as a political system. And of course, you know, over the long term, you know, you can't maintain the idea that you're going to keep women from voting. Speaker 1 00:35:31 And, you know, the, the history on age restrictions of voting was that the, the limit from 21 to 18, before that individual states were allowed to decide, and they had different cutoffs, but the, I think the 26th amendment said it has to be 18 and above, you know, you don't have option. It has to be 18 and above. And that came during the period of the, the Vietnam war when we were drafting a bunch of 18 year olds and sending them off to fight in a war. And there was sort of an irrefutable logic to that argument of like, if you can draft me and put my life on the line, <laugh>, you know, in a, in a war that the politicians are voting, that, that your politicians have decided we need to fight, then you need to give me the right to vote and, and have some say over what those politicians are doing. Speaker 1 00:36:18 And I think that there was kind of irrefutable logic to that now. So the, the history is there used to be more restrictions. And I know that's also the case in the UK that there used to be more restrictions. And there was a series of reforms that gave more people that you know, of that enfranchised a larger number of people. You can sort of see the logic of the restrictions. It's like, let's, let's have it be sober, responsible people who are a permanent part of the community have a permanent stake in it. And not just the rebel. And, you know, they were really concerned, especially in the early years of the, of the, of the Republic, you know, representative government was a totally new and untried was a fairly new and untried thing. They had this whole history of ancient Rome and ancient Greece where you had, you know, democracy went off the rails, cuz there was, there was unlimited democracy and people, you know, were induced to vote basically for whoever would give them bread and circus or support, whoever would give them bread and circuses. Speaker 1 00:37:11 There was this concern. If you give everybody vote is gonna be pandemonium and anarchy and property rights, won't be safe. I think, you know, that proved to be an exaggerated fear, but you know, there wasn't a certain logic saying let's have a sober, responsible people with permanent, you know, uh, uh, stake in the community, have them have the vote. The one negative part of this though is sometimes those restrictions were used basically to disenfranchise people extremely unjustly. So, uh, especially in America with the history of slavery and of segregation that the property restrictions and poll taxes, like you have to pay money in order to have the right to vote. Well, that was meant that was put in place in Southern states because they knew that no, that, that hardly any black person would be able to, to, to scrape up that amount of money. Speaker 1 00:38:01 You know, they it's immediately post-slavery, they were all very poor they're, you know, as you've taken the poor sharecroppers and these people, you don't want voting because you wanna be able to keep them oppressed and keep them in a state of submission. So you come up with an excuse restriction that doesn't seem like it's targeted at them, but it's totally targeted at them. And same thing with like they had literacy tests and the literacy tests were made in such a way designed in such a way that, you know, people who, again, under slavery had been literally they were, they were, it was illegal to teach them how to read. And then so you, you free them and you make them citizens, but then you put a literacy test and you know, these people that we, we refuse to allow to how we're gonna be literate in order to vote well, it's obvious what the, what the goal there is. Speaker 1 00:38:46 It's it's, you know, the, the, the goal is not literacy. The goal is I wanna exclude this particular group of people. So that's part of the history in America of how we got rid of all different restrictions. Um, you know, I'd be open to putting some of them back without that context, but, uh, you know, that's the reason why it's kind of a nine to, to, to, uh, that's the reason why those things were gotten rid of in the first place and why it's not, we're not likely to go back to that. Um, the one thing I have advocated for though is raising the voting age, uh, uh, to 21 back to 21, uh, because yeah, that, you know, it's, it's, it should be at an age where most people have actually gone are actually starting to go out and go get jobs and, you know, contribute and pay taxes and understand how the world works and, and be actually taking care of their own independent lives rather than being in this sort of extended adolescence that a lot of people are in up, up through college. I think it would get better results, but like I said, I, you know, precisely because I Speaker 5 00:39:48 Help Speaker 1 00:39:48 My side is not gonna happen. Speaker 5 00:39:51 I, I totally agree on that point. Um, um, I'll go, I'll go one step further. And those is kind of, uh, Speaker 0 00:40:00 Quickly, I wanna give the others a chance. Speaker 5 00:40:04 I, I think only, uh, Objectivists should, should be allowed to vote Speaker 1 00:40:10 Who should be allowed to vote Speaker 0 00:40:12 Ask? Speaker 1 00:40:16 Well, I don't know. I dunno, I've had a lot of, there's a wide variety of political views of an objective. I'm not, I'm sort of jaded in my, in, in the discussions I've had with some other objectives that I not always find that I don't find that they're always more astute than the general public when it comes to, uh, deciding on candidates. <laugh> Speaker 0 00:40:34 Well, good. Uh, thank you for that. Uh, Joshua, thanks for joining us. Do you have a question for Rob? Speaker 6 00:40:43 Uh, yeah. You know, I, I appreciate you guys giving me the opportunity to, uh, get, I love Atlas. I love Anne ran, you know, read much of her work. Um, you know, I would say my view differs slightly just a little bit because, you know, in regards to government entirely and every one of government's, you know, different functions, the levers of government, whatever the case may be, there's always a contradiction and it's in legitimately everything. For example, when they say consent of the governed, that is a contradiction in itself, because if I'm already governed, how can I give consent? It's impossible when they say that you pay taxes, you don't pay taxes, they take taxes, that's not voluntary. And you know, the very essence of the whole thing entirely is what gives anyone moral justification to vote and effect how one who didn't vote for what they want should live their life. How can you explain that? You know, and I love Anne ran, you know, she, she was magnificent one of the biggest philosophical giants, but I could never understand her take on, you know, government and politics. So, you know, I guess my question is can anyone, you know, explicitly give, you know, a specific reason on why government needs to exist? And can anyone give me an example of, you know, a foundational form of limited government that remained limited and did not, you know, become monstrous or expand? Speaker 1 00:42:11 Okay. A couple good questions there. Now let me ask you this. Joshua would be what exactly, Speaker 6 00:42:18 I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. Can you repeat that? Speaker 1 00:42:19 Uh, so yeah, I, I got some good answers to what you said, but my, my first question though, is your alternative to, that would be what exactly Speaker 6 00:42:29 Anarchism. Speaker 1 00:42:31 Okay. So, uh, here, I'm gonna go to, to, to Winston Churchill who described the democracy as the, uh, the, the, uh, was it the worst system of government ever created ex the worst system of government, except for all the others that have been tried? Uh, so, you know, democracy, this is the part about how democracy is in a love, a marriage of convenience with, uh, or liberals is in a marriage of convenience with democracy. That is that, you know, it is always, there's always an inherent tension. This is the case I'm gonna make next week about this, the tensions between majority vote and freedom, because of exactly what you said, how is it that somebody else gets to make a choice that affects how government acts towards me? How does somebody else get a choice to make, to, to recognize or not recognize my rights? Speaker 1 00:43:21 They shouldn't have that choice, but then the question becomes what's the alternative. So anarchy is a system that has been tried. It's been tried many times. It, it it's usually been tried by default because a government collapses and there's no government left, you know, so, and, and the, the examples are not great. You know, the examples are places like Somalia. Uh, the examples are usually watch words for chaos and, and dist and much greater attacks on individual rights than happens under a democracy. So you're right. That limited governments tend not to say limited over periods of time. They tend to try to grab more and more power, and yet you would still be way better off in America in, uh, in, in, even in Western Europe, you know, places that are more regulated in some respects than we are, um, or Canada, you know, which is more regulated than we are. Speaker 1 00:44:16 You'd be way better off in one of those countries. Uh, in terms of the total sum of your secure, your personal security and security for your rights, you'd be way better off there than you would be in a system of anarchy, at least in form that that has ever actually existed that I can think of. So, you know, I think there are people who come about, I've known an anarch Liber, uh, libertarian anarchists. Who've come up with sort of like, well, I can imagine this ideal society where you don't really have a state, but everything works perfectly. I don't see how that's gonna happen because, you know, without a government, the whole purpose of government is the Levi idea, right? The idea that, that you, as one person protecting your own rights are weak. Anybody can, you know, any, any two other people can gang you and, um, uh, uh, can gang up on and overpower you and take what you have. Speaker 1 00:45:10 It's only by banding together with other people, uh, to become, you know, that, and, and becoming a large group of people who are the most powerful force in a society that you can then say, you know, have, have that you can then have that security and that protection. Uh, now the Levi Leviathan, then they become, tends to become, then becomes a monster. I mean, the term Levi Levi referred to as sea monster, it tends to become a monster. And the whole sort of arch of political science and political philosophy is how do you create this thing? That's big enough to protect your rights, but still keep it, you know, but not make it so powerful. You could no longer control it, right? That's the whole, that's the whole trick of creating a functioning liberal democracy, but it's still better. That's a better thing. And, and there's a more of a track record of actually achieving that to some extent than there is for going through a state of anarchy and having a situation where, you know, any two people who are stronger than you can gang up and, and take everything you have. That's my short answer to that. Speaker 6 00:46:16 Yeah. Yeah. And I, I definitely heard, and I, I, you know, I, I definitely see where you're coming from, but, you know, when you say to prevent another gang from taking what I have, you know, the solution that you're putting forward is to essentially form another gang, to prevent a gang from taking your stuff. You have to join the gang of government, but, you know, I've read history and I can't really find any examples of anarchist societies committing mass atrocities. I have found plenty of examples of governments, regardless of the government ideological label. Nazi-ism theism, whatever the case may be, who have invertedly and most definitely committed atrocities. So I'm just curious if anyone can point me to any, you know, historical facts on anarchist societies committing heinous and monstrous crimes against their fellow men. Speaker 1 00:47:02 Well, what I'd say is, first of all, there are very few anarchist societies that ever existed. It's a unstable is an unstable system. Cause it's just waiting for somebody to come Speaker 6 00:47:09 Take over. Yeah. That's, that's what I struggle with. So how can the claim be made that it's an unstable society if you know, none virtually ever existed Speaker 1 00:47:18 Well, and I would also say there have been anarchic systems like Somalia, and what happens is mass merger, Justin exist in the sense of, you know, Joe Stalin comes line, Andros everybody up and puts in the go ULA mass murder tends to, or actually the, the closest you get to it today is there are societies which have very weak and ineffective governments. And so you have VI you have, uh, organized crime and vigilantism that fills the, uh, in vigilantism that fills the gap. So like the Brazilian faves or Somalia, places like that, where what we know happens is when you don't have a government that's effective, what happens is you have organized crime, you have literal gangs that come together, you have individual crime, just, you know, freelance criminals on their own operating with relative impunity, you get very high levels of crime and victimization, and you get vigilante groups that then, you know, engage in the rough justice of, you know, we, we, we think you sold something, so we're gonna cut off your hand or, or, or whatever it is and creating their own victims that way. So like I said, I, I don't, I'm not buying that, that anarchism is a better alternative, especially when we do have a liberal democracy has a track record. It doesn't have a perfect track record. It takes more power than it ought to have, but it leaves people, the freest, I think they've ever been in all of human history, uh, E even today. But that I think that we should probably move on, uh, with the remaining time we have to, if there's a something else somebody wants to bring up. Speaker 0 00:48:49 Yeah. And, uh, it's a fascinating topic. Hopefully we'll get into it in the future, but JP, thank you for joining us. Do you have a question? Speaker 7 00:48:57 Thank you, Scott. This is a, um, a, um, a, a, an, an issue that I, I have been discussing, uh, on Twitter today, just now, actually. And I think, um, it's, it's something that I really grapple with. I don't, I, I, I, I find, uh, very few justifications for democracy as it is conceived and implemented because it's, uh, to me, it's, uh, it's the lack of education and the lack of citizen and the, the suppression of all of that from the, from the, from the, from the education and from the, even the tabletop discussions where it's considered taboo and, and many things, uh, tend to create societies that are completely, uh, self, uh, indulged and, uh, without any even understanding of how their government works yet, they are rehabilitated to, to vote. So I would second, uh, CTS, um, <laugh> original, uh, that something needs to change. Uh, and, uh, if there's anything that you could point to any movements or any, any, uh, foundation sort of thing, tanks that, that are proposing, uh, the redesign of democracy, I mean, Republican democracies, um, for research, I would appreciate it. Speaker 1 00:50:33 Right. So, so my question here is gonna be, is there an alternative you have in mind in terms, uh, are you just casting about for ideas? Is there an alternative you have in mind as something as used to democracy? Well, Speaker 7 00:50:44 Something better strengthening, you know, the education CISM and, and under giving, giving even high school students more, more, uh, education on, on how their government works, what the separation OFS means and, and stuff like that. And Speaker 1 00:51:02 AB absolutely. I think all that is, is definitely necessary. I mean, you know, Jay Leno used to do a Jay walking segment that he did, uh, probably you remember this where he'd go on out of the streets of, of Los Angeles or, um, I think it was at Hollywood or someplace like that. And he'd stop these, you know, young people. I say young people, they were like in their twenties, but, you know, I'm an old curmudgeon. Um, he'd stopped these young people walking down the street and ask them like the most basic questions and they wouldn't know the answers. Uh, and so there's clearly, you know, our educational system is failing to give people extremely basic education. Um, that said, I think a lot of the worst damage to going on to our democracy right now, or to our, to a liberal democracy, the worst damage to a free society and institutions of free society, the worst damages coming from the most educated people. Speaker 1 00:51:51 So the case, I mean, Jefferson sort of, I, you know, Jefferson Thomas Jefferson had the idea, yes, we need to have education. It's really important. He, he founded the university of Virginia. He did these efforts to create more, um, uh, education at the lower level in Virginia, uh, during his lifetime. Uh, he did a lot of things to promote education cause he thought, yes, we need to have an educated populist if we're gonna keep a free society. But the problem we have right now is that, you know, if you go off to, to get the highest level of this education, you go get a PhD, you're going to kind of really terrible anti-free ideas. So I think the biggest be done. And he, and you said, are there any organizations? Well, the biggest thing that can be done is to promote a new appreciation and understanding of proli ideas among the highly educated and in the elite institutions and among people who are already aware and engaged in debating in politics, uh, because those are the people who need it more than just the ignorant masses, the ignorant masses, don't go, don't go vote as a general rule. Speaker 1 00:52:54 Right. They stay home <laugh> uh, so it's the people who are engaged and involved in politics who are ruining it. Uh, uh, and I think, you know, if you wanna talk about organization, that's doing, that'd be something like the Atlas society that's out promoting iron Rand's ideas pro out, promoting proli ideas as against the, either the politically correct ones on the right on the left or the nationalist populist ones, uh, that are anti individualist. And anti-free on the right. So I think that's, that's what needs to be done first is, is you need to have a reform and renewal Liberty of enlightenment era pro Liberty ideas among the intellectual elites. And not just among the, the average person. I like it. David, did Speaker 3 00:53:42 You something, go ahead. Yeah. I just wanna jump in here. I'm sorry, Rob. I missed the first part of your talk and, um, forgive me if I'm duplicating things, but I wanna bring a philosophical perspective to this. Um, if we have a government and, uh, to Josh point about anarchism, um, you know, I would suggest searching the ATLA side side for anarchism and government. And, um, we have many, many things published on that that may, may be informative, may be persuasive or not, but still assuming we have a government, um, which is a unitary, you know, framework for, uh, imposing defending rights, imposing a, a set of laws. Um, then the issue of democracy is this Speaker 3 00:54:36 In with private organizations like grocery stores, I can go to Safeway. If I don't like them, I can go to giant. If I don't like them, I go to whole foods or whatever, but if there's only one government, I don't have a choice. I can't take my business elsewhere. That's the anarchist ideal. And I don't think it works, but if, uh, so given that all of us are recruited in as citizens of single government, it seems as if we should all have some say in how it operates now, how it operates as a, um, what its function is. Speaker 3 00:55:15 It has a function just as grocery stores do or insurance companies or whatever its function is to protect rights and that's reflected in the constitution so that we can't just vote anything, but within the realm of what kind, what the, what the, um, perspective of rights allows, we should be able to vote on how to implement that. I, I think that's the basic argument for democracy. Now. I, a lot of discussions so far that I've heard is, uh, about the failures of are the, you know, the downsides of voting today, which I totally agree with. And, uh, there are a lot of issues we could raise about, uh, that, and that I'm inclined to agree with about raising the, um, criteria, you know, making them a little more restrictive about who gets the vote, who doesn't, but, um, still, I don't think we can escape democracy or Republican democracy philosophically, um, if we have a single government. Yeah. So I'll leave it there. Rob, if I'm, I'm sorry if I repeated anything you said, but, um, no, Speaker 1 00:56:29 That the, yeah, no, that's fine. That's fine, David. And, and the point I was adding to that is that the process of democracy, the idea that you have to, that the politics go to the vote, they have to, you have to have people debating and discussing and, uh, convincing people in order to get them to vote one way or versus voting another, the fact that people have to go up to that kind of scrutiny and make arguments and engage in persuasion, you know, the goal, the basic goal problem of government as is that one about how, you know you have to create something that's large enough and powerful enough to protect your right, not making it so large and powerful that it gets out of your control and becomes a monster that comes to oppress you. Right? Uh, the it's a, a statement that George Washington supposedly said, probably didn't say, but he should have said it, which is government. Like fire is a dangerous, fearful master, Speaker 1 00:57:23 But, but it's a, you know, cuz this is the day, day and age where people lift their houses with fire, right. And it was often the case you, your a lamp would fall and you'd set your house on fire, right. It was a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Uh, so this is the problem you have to have. It does large enough to protect you, but not so large, you gets outta your control. Well, the best way to do that is to make sure that everything that government does be subject to this process of contentious discussion and debate and returning back to the voters and, and the, the, the politicians have to explain themselves every two to four years, depending on, on what the position they're in. And, uh, and if people don't like it, they can, we don't like you get outta here. Uh, that is the best way. Speaker 1 00:58:07 And, and historically I think the most effective way of creating a government that get out of our control now when the people themselves lose sight of the concept of individual rights, right? When, when the people themselves lose their vigilance, that isn't going to solve all, you know, the mere fact of democracy, isn't going to solve all of your problems, but it's still even today when the advocates of individual rights and of, of a, of a totally free society are very small minority. It gives us way more power than we would have. You know, if we were in a monarchy, right, or, or some system where it was ruled by a faction. And if you are, if the people in that faction, if you don't have the ear or the people in that faction, you're just out, you're out in the cold, nobody listens to you. We would, advocates of individual rights would be way worse off. So I think we we're, we're better off, more influenced under cars, our current system now than we would under any other system, even in a system, even though, you know, the system has fallen off from what it was, uh, in, in some respects, it's fallen off from what it was in the founder's time, because the, the general population does not have the same regard for the philosophy of individual rights. Speaker 3 00:59:20 What Speaker 5 00:59:20 Would you say, Rob? What would you say, Rob? We're Speaker 0 00:59:24 Really at the Speaker 1 00:59:24 End. Yeah. I take this one last thing. What is it? Speaker 5 00:59:28 Um, I'm, I'm sorry to, to kind of interject, but, um, um, what would you say about the people who vote for kind of the wrong kind of people? Because they're just not rationally minded. Speaker 1 00:59:49 Oh, those people are terrible Speaker 5 00:59:50 And then everyone, everyone else has to suffer. Speaker 1 00:59:54 <laugh> right. Well, the problem is that, you know, you can't create a system of any system you create that says, oh, only the rational people with vote is gonna be subject to being taken over by somebody. Who's gonna say, well, only rational people, rational, only rational people would support me. And you know, you can't rational means anybody who has the ability to be rational. And if we want people to be rational, we have to advocate for reason and make that a cultural ideal. You can't solve that in the political system. That's what I guess may ultimate answer. All right. So I think we're done though. Uh, uh, Scott probably wants to wrap up. Speaker 0 01:00:26 Yes. Thank you. It was a great discussion. Um, big events at the ATLA society, uh, tomorrow at 5:00 PM Eastern well known actor, and objectiveist mark Pellegrino scheduled to be on the ATLA society asks should be a good one. Uh, Thursday at 4:00 PM. Eastern back here on clubhouse, senior scholar, Richard Salzman will be discussing inflation, essence cause and cure. And as pinned above Friday, September 2nd, as Atlas shrug day from the recurring date in her novel, the Atlas society's having a big hour long celebration on zoom at 3:00 PM. Eastern, uh, scholars, staff, donors, fans, we'll be sharing stories. It'll be a lot of fun. Uh, we've also got our gala coming up on October 6th in Malibu, honoring Michael sailor. We're gonna have panels with the scholars during the day. And, uh, we just hope to see you with all, uh, these events and, uh, really good conversation today. Thanks a lot, everyone. Thanks. Speaker 1 01:01:22 Thanks everyone.