EP85: Are Americans Brainwashed Into Submission? - Gracearchy with Jim Babka

Americans are captives, conditioned to love their captors. Most Americans even get their own bodies confused on this matter, operating under the myth that they are the rulers of this country. That's an old fairy tale. That's why this episode of Gracearchy is titled "Are Americans Brainwashed Into Submission?" The concepts we covered match some of our Zero Aggression Project "Mental Levers" especially the one on... Stockholm Syndrome. This installment also features plain, blunt talk about... ...borders. ...the U.S. civic religion. ...how little your vote matters. ...how you don't even have choices about who governs you. Positive Rights, Positive Evil What is a right? Are healthcare, housing, food, and clean water rights? Recently, I had a conversation with a man who thinks that anyone who doesn't believe we have the collective duty to provide these things is... EVIL! That's backward. These items require someone to labor for their production. This next part is very, very crucially important... What is the funding mechanism? Donations or free-will purchases? Great. Taxes? Terrible. So I led this man through a thought-exercises. Instead of moral arguments, I focused on the practical ones. Positive rights are terrible products! And that involved a discussion of the following concepts... - The extraordinary overreaction that companies go through to protect their customers, while the State passes the buck and embraces inaction. You'll want to steal my arguments about Flint Water and safety caps! - The truth about government budgets. - The double-barrel question that exposes how little the state moralist cares. And all of this led to the following profound insight: "You have more power as a customer than you do as a citizen." And that, coincidentally, is another ZAP Mental Lever. Of course, it would be wrong to conclude that you and I are opposed to solving social problems. That's why, I concluded by offering five graceful rules to do much, much better at social spending without resorting to the evil of positive rights. TIMELINE 0:00 Theme 0:43 Stockholm Syndrome for the State 5:14 Straining for a social contract 8:38 We did NOT create this government 9:54 The truth about Borders 15:12 The civic religion 17:04 Proofs You are not the government 18:22 You don't staff the government 22:09 You don't even have a choice 25:14 Natural Rights vs... 26:57 The invention of positive rights 30:57 Who will deliver the water? 32:43 Consumers are smarter than voters 34:43 Companies fail but the State cannot 35:44 The revenue model matters 36:38 Companies over-respond 43:11 What have you done, personally? 44:01 Who has way more power than a voter? 46:00 Five rules for better social spending Bill Protzmann is your moderator. ZERO AGGRESSION PROJECT - https://zeroaggressionproject.org/ - is our sponsor. The views expressed are exclusively those of the participants, and not necessarily those of the board, staff, or supporters of the Zero Aggression Project. Thank you to Randy Garbin for our amazing thumbnails: http://randygarbin.com/ We are grateful to Sergio at https://www.youtube.com/@KeysofMoonMusic for our intro theme. ► https://www.patreon.com/user?u=10500501 or you can purchase his music on BandCamp: ► https://keysofmoon.bandcamp.com/ ► If you have any questions please feel free to write to Sergio at: serjo.de.lua.music@gmail.com Be grace-full to each other.