Freedomain with Stefan Molyneux

As the Federal Government braced itself for a possible shutdown due to approaching the debt ceiling limit - John Boehner and Washington political class found another way to stick it to the American people.

The Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 was passed by both the House and the Senate this week and will result in at least $85 billion in spending increases over the next three fiscal years. Most importantly it will suspend the current $18.1 trillion debt limit through March 15th, 2017.

This essentially gives President Barack Obama a blank check for future spending and removes lawmakers constitutional power to control borrowing of the federal government. Hey Founding Fathers! You wanted checks and balances - well too damn bad! We got some votes to buy!

The fiercely debated issue of Gun Control strongly divides Democrats and Republicans in the United States of America. The Second Amendment becomes a hot topic of conversation whenever a shooting makes the national news and tempers flare across the political spectrum. This presentation presents the available evidence regarding gun prevalence, gun homicides, gun control laws and much more in an attempt to get to the bottom of this complicated issue. What is the Truth About Gun Control?

The sources and methodology behind this research is available at: http://www.fdrurl.com/gun-control

In virtually every sport in which they are given opportunity to compete, people of African descent dominate. East Africans own every distance running record. Professional sports in the Americas are dominated by men and women of West African descent. Why have blacks come to dominate sports? Are they somehow physically better? And why are we so uncomfortable when we discuss this?

Jon Entine is founder of Genetic Literacy Project and author of seven books, including Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We are Afraid to Talk About It. Get the book here: http://www.fdrurl.com/taboo-book

For more from Jon Entine please check out: http://www.jonentine.com and http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org

Freedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.fdrurl.com/donate

Question 1: [1:51] - My question concerns two subjects: bureaucracy and moral luck. The first is self-evident. We all have had to deal with the frustration - and, at times, terror - of dealing with bureaucracy and the mindset that both causes it and is caused by it, even if the bureaucracy might have been created with "best intentions." Moral luck is more difficult, because the definition is that a moral agent might sometimes not be responsible for their actions because of circumstances beyond their control. What are your thoughts about the relationship between the two?

Question 2: [48:30] - Sometimes, grey areas in life seem to point to the fact that it is much more effective to bend, and adapt to the environment than it is to insist on voicing hard, rational philosophical conclusions. Given the fact that most people recoil, lash out, and ostracized you for bringing up most philosophical topics or rational conclusions, is there a philosophical framework general enough to resolve all of the instances of sticking to principle/self vs adapting to others opinions that may not be rational or philosophical?

Question 3: [1:54:28] - I signed an apartment lease with a girlfriend, giving her an extremely favorable rent split. Shortly after moving in together, we broke up, initiated by her, and she proceeded to treat me poorly for about 14 months. I, being unassertive, never really attempted to renegotiate the split. She made it clear during that period that she was willing to lie to me and take advantage of me. Upon her moving out, I chose to keep half her security deposit, because I couldn't stomach the idea of giving her any more money. I still cannot decide if this was a moral choice, and I was hoping to get Stefan's weigh-in.

Question: "I’m skeptical of anyone who says with absolute certainty that A is directly responsible for B. There are far too many variables to say for certain whether spanking a child for their misbehavior impacts the child adversely. Correlation does not equal causation. Just as one should be skeptical of the “wage gap” between men and women, etc. Advocating something because you believe it can be admirable, but using flawed studies and statistics doesn’t make you right. "

The Facts About Spanking
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONNRfflggBg

Peaceful Parenting Series: Raising Children Without Aggression
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMNj_r5bccUwZY7RCZnS2e5-vjaA7wSNw

The Primordial Violence: Spanking Children, Psychological Development, Violence, and Crime by Murray Strauss
http://www.fdrurl.com/MurrayStraus

Freedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.fdrurl.com/donate

Stefan Molyneux explains why he was wrong about socialism - and how philosophy can assist in identifying flaws in arguments and ideology through empiricism.

Freedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.fdrurl.com/donate

Question 1: [2:13] - My question - as it always has been - is why. Given the way the world is now - why is it my responsibility to show people the truth and to urge them to think? Should we not just escape their tyrannical house of cards and let people learn the insanity of their delusions through experience? Should these people, who have done so much wrong in the world with the 'best intentions' not be liable for their actions - or should we feel sympathy for them because they simply, like sheep, do not think and never have?

Question 2: [59:25] - In overcoming maladaptive patterns of behavior, how can one distinguish between the absence of confidence arising from being unsuccessful in completely overcoming these patterns over the long-term (taking action and succeeding), versus low-confidence due to lack of insight in an unknown, but important area (you don’t know what you don’t know)?

Question 3: [1:40:39] - I have a serious problem. Whenever I complete an amount of work for some project, I feel a brief high of achievement followed by a sense of purposelessness like my life has no meaning - even though I intellectually understand that it does - and this keeps me from starting anything new for a while. How do I overcome this feeling of purposelessness more quickly?

So I felt a strange reluctance to work on Canadian electoral politics over the 78 day political Iditarod mad race to the frozen power centers of the far north. It's not so much that Canadian politics are boring, more that, without nearly as much of the constant race-baiting that occurs in American politics, the political strategies up here are just so relentlessly predictable.

For those outside of Canada, there are three major parties – the oxymoronic Progressive Conservatives, the semi-Marxist National Democratic Party, and the Liberals, who are willing to take on whatever shape they need to in order to sneak-pick the marble doors of power.

Politics is so unsightly because it is so false. This gruesome parade of selfish self-deception is repulsive to observe. Unless your idea of a good time is to go to a seedy bar and watch all the drunks pompously denying their addictions, it's best to keep a safe distance from this contagion.

Canada is a pretty nice place to live, all things considered. Every few years there is an orgy of wild lying and false promises, which is necessary to survive the self-destructive system we have all inherited - at least for those who don't want to consider real change - but we can live well, and tend our crops, despite this intermittent swarm of superficial brain locusts that always arrive hungry, and always leave empty.

One of the most controversial questions in the discussion of both legal and illegal immigrants has been around their consumption of welfare. A recent independently verified report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) has answered that question - and the results are incredibly shocking.

The report by Dr. Steven Camarota titled “Welfare Use by Immigrant and Native Households” which analyzed welfare usage using the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data.

The major welfare programs covered in this report include Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Women Infants and Children food program (WIC), free or subsidized school lunch, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) - more commonly known as food stamps, and public housing or rent subsidies.

What is the truth about Immigrants and welfare usage? What does this mean for the future of the United States of America?

Sources
http://cis.org/Welfare-Use-Immigrant-Native-Households
http://cis.org/sites/cis.org/files/camarota-welfare-final.pdf
https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/yearbook/2000/Yearbook2000.pdf

Freedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.fdrurl.com/donate

Question 1: [1:30] - Stefan often talks about how the first six months of a relationship are mostly about lust. What steps can be taken within the first months to ensure that the relationships foundation is actually based on virtue and reason - and not simply feelings which might change? How do I know when to commit given that you could possibly find somebody better down the road?

Question 2: [1:18:43] - I was always told that work is a right. I grew up in a middle class home where both parents worked but both also had plenty of time for their family – one was a teacher and the other had a 9-5 government job. I enjoyed an international career in my field the last seven years, but a little over a month ago - before finding your show - I began to question my choices and decided to take a year off to reexamine my goals. My desire to return to the traditional sense of work force started to dwindle and I began facing questions about the ethics, morals and validity of my probable decision. Is it morally wrong to stop working when so many people are struggling to find a job? Is work a right or an obligation?

Question 3: [1:41:26] - Should I pursue a relationship with a woman I feel is good, but motivated to be so by faith and religion instead of logic and reason? Are the two compatible?