Hi Richard,

This is an interesting discussion, thanks for engaging and sharing your views and challenging my thinking. You have a very interesting and impressive background. You are discussing many different areas, all of which I’m interested in and I’m hoping to learn more from this conversation.

I myself come from the USSR (what is now Ukraine). I came to the US when I was 20 years old. Having come from a totalitarian country with sophisticated propaganda, which still required violence and enforcement in order to sustain the regime, I’m fascinated by how much more sophisticated the Western propaganda has become. I believe that the narratives constructed by the machine are targeting our subconscious brain in the same way advertisement does.

There was a famous bard, Visotsky, in the USSR who was a real patriot. When he finally ended up in Western Europe, he walked into a supermarket and puked on the spot. This one view of abundance in a moment revealed that his entire life and most treasured believes were based on lies.

As you’d expect, I come from an atheist background. However, after exploring this topic through a number of sources, I’ve come to believe the opposite. I’m convinced that we are a part of a much bigger world, which we refer to as God. I think one advantage I had reading the sacred texts was that I had no one to “interpret” them for me, so I avoided the religious dogma surrounding the truth. But nothing substitutes your personal experience of interacting with the world outside of our physical materialistic reality. Think of what the experience of stepping out of Plato’s cave would feel like.

I am definitely biased against any statist systems given my background. My life in the “free” world only re-enforced my views. I can’t think of any task that the state has ever done a better job at than the private section. Not in theory, but empirically.

I used to live in NJ where the highest crime was in the areas that the egalitarian worldview was supposed to help: Camden, Newark, etc. At the same time, my middle class suburb was full of cops busy giving away speeding tickets. If we could get our tax money back to buy our own security, this would have created a huge market competing on value and price.

I had to take my son out of the public school system after 2nd grade, because the system was failing him. The local Montessori school allowed him to catch up and thrive in one year! Their cost per student is cheaper than the public school’s. Again, if we could get our taxes back I can’t imagine the variety and quality of schools that the private market would provide.

I know that you’ve read Hoppe and are aware of his views that any state service can be replaced by the market, so I’m curious to understand where I’m going wrong with this thinking.

I’ll address your other topics later, I have to go and split some wood to get ready for our winter (I’m just south of Alberta)!