RPF0181-Politics_in_Finance_WITH_NEW

00:00:00.000 | The LA Kings Holiday Pack is back! The perfect gift for the hockey fan in your life. A three-game

00:00:05.040 | pack starts at just $159 and includes a holiday blanket. Buy today and you'll receive an additional

00:00:10.720 | game for free. Don't miss out. Visit lakings.com/holiday today.

00:00:15.280 | Hey Radicals, this is Josh Rascheitz. The show you're about to listen to that you've just

00:00:18.960 | downloaded was kind of an interesting show, a different show. And the feedback from it,

00:00:23.520 | a lot of people hated it and very violent in their feedback about how it was just a terrible show.

00:00:29.040 | So that's fine. I'm going to leave it here as an existent show for you. But I thought it might be

00:00:36.560 | helpful at least. Maybe I wasn't clear when introducing it. Maybe I should have done it

00:00:40.400 | differently. If you want to hear me go back and forth on whatever, listen to episode 183 and

00:00:44.640 | you'll hear me kind of questioning. Maybe I don't know if I did it effectively or not. But

00:00:48.160 | just a quick intro for you. The number one question I'm trying to answer is I'm trying

00:00:52.640 | to demonstrate the long ranging impact of certain worldviews and certain long ranging goals and the

00:01:02.960 | impact on society. There are many things that are happening in modern life that are part of just a

00:01:09.440 | long term plan. And oftentimes, however, and a lot of them are related to finance, and I want to get

00:01:14.320 | into a lot of those financial issues. But the first question that you have to face with financial

00:01:18.720 | issues is how on earth do I actually figure out what's going on? The problem is most of the long

00:01:24.480 | range things have gone far beyond my lifetime, my own lifetime. And so it's hard for me to look at

00:01:29.360 | a financial issue and say, "Well, here's what's happened in 1931 and here's how that's played out

00:01:33.600 | over the last almost 100 years." It's hard for me. There are a bunch of financial things that I

00:01:37.600 | could do. And it's hard to see because the financial stuff is boring, it's impenetrable,

00:01:41.840 | you can never actually see it unless you look carefully for the clues. So I wanted to convey

00:01:48.640 | this thought to you. And as I thought about it, I thought, "Why don't I use social issues?" Because

00:01:54.480 | social issues are not generally based upon the analysis of a pie chart or the analysis of a

00:01:59.120 | balance sheet of a country or the analysis of a trade deal. All that stuff has detailed numbers

00:02:04.480 | and most people put them to sleep. Social issues are things that we all have opinions on and that

00:02:10.000 | we all look at and say, "Ah, here, I know what's going on," or "Here's what I think should happen."

00:02:16.000 | Now, most of us, we all disagree with each other, but the point is social issues happen.

00:02:20.160 | And you're going to hear me in this show talk about social issues. And I guess what was

00:02:24.560 | frustrating to me is I tried to present this in the most straightforward way possible, and still,

00:02:30.320 | most people hated it. But I tried to do this fairly and as objectively as I could. So I read

00:02:36.640 | an extensive amount from some specific documents. And my purpose in reading these documents was,

00:02:43.120 | A, to fairly present the position, since I'm generally in opposition to much of the position,

00:02:48.320 | trying to fairly present it, trying to present it to you in a way that didn't involve me just

00:02:52.240 | twisting it and pulling things out of context. And I said, "Well, I'll do this in a straightforward

00:02:56.000 | way." And then to just simply give you some information so that you can look in the day

00:03:00.320 | and time in which we live and see what's happening and see how it's happening. Because in decades to

00:03:08.800 | come, we've got a lot of work to do with specific financial things. Now, the almost universal

00:03:15.200 | feedback from this show is that it just didn't do its job and made more people angry than I

00:03:19.280 | guess that it helped. So I guess it was a failure from that perspective. But if you listen through

00:03:23.360 | those years, my hope is that you'll at least give it a shot and you'll learn something. Feel free to

00:03:29.040 | disagree with me. If you want to hear some more additional comment from me, listen to 183 after

00:03:33.200 | the show before you get mad and write me an email. But feel free to disagree with me. That's no big

00:03:37.360 | deal. I just want you to be aware of some information that for me was incredibly helpful.

00:03:41.440 | And as you'll hear that develop in this show. The only other comment I make real quick is simply

00:03:46.080 | that this show I've marked it as explicit because A, it deals with very adult topics. It deals with

00:03:50.880 | very unpleasant topics that we don't generally like to talk about. These are not topics that

00:03:55.520 | are mainstream in American society and American discourse. They're things that are distasteful

00:04:01.280 | to most of us. And we don't quite know how to deal with them. We don't quite know how to deal with

00:04:04.960 | the history and we don't quite know how to deal with the future. We're all caught in this question

00:04:09.120 | of how do we integrate these things in these facts of life and what's right and what's wrong. And this

00:04:13.520 | is very emotionally charged. You'll also hear some words that are quite ugly. Just to be clear,

00:04:20.800 | because I thought it was clear, they're not my words. I'm just reading from specific documents

00:04:25.600 | from a specific position point. So don't get mad at me about the words that are used. I decided

00:04:29.920 | that it was more important for me not to try to censor the documents that I'm reading from

00:04:34.720 | but rather just to present them without comment in a fair and objective way. So there's your warning.

00:04:40.320 | Enjoy the show. I hope you gain from it. If you feel frustrated by it, fine. Feel free to skip it.

00:04:46.480 | It doesn't matter. I mean, it does matter. I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think it mattered.

00:04:50.160 | But there's the warning to it. So hopefully, you'll have a better listening experience than

00:04:54.560 | the majority of the people who heard it when it first came out. Thanks so much for listening.

00:04:57.680 | Talk to you soon. Do you gain direct monetary and other value to your life from radical personal

00:05:04.480 | finance? Would you like to continue to be able to listen to the show without the interruption

00:05:10.320 | of advertisements? If so, I'd ask you to consider going to radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron

00:05:18.960 | and supporting the show directly. I've created a number of benefit packages to incentivize you

00:05:22.880 | to do so. All the details can be found at radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron.

00:05:29.360 | Today, let's talk about the intersection of politics, religion, philosophy, and finance.

00:05:37.440 | And here's the case I'm going to make to you. We actually need more politics, religion, philosophy,

00:05:45.200 | and ethics in finance, not less. Give me a shot and let's see if you agree with me at the end

00:05:50.880 | of today's show. Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast. My name is Joshua Sheets,

00:06:10.960 | and I'm your host. Today, I bring you episode 181. And that's quite a provocative statement,

00:06:18.640 | why we need more politics, religion, and philosophy in finance. It goes directly against

00:06:24.800 | some of the feedback that I hear on the show. But I'll bet if you give me some time today,

00:06:30.160 | I might be able to convince you of my point. I'll be interested to hear what you say.

00:06:33.920 | I like to pay careful attention to the reviews that I get on the show. And I get some reviews

00:06:44.160 | publicly on the iTunes reviews. And thank you for those of you who leave those. I get some reviews

00:06:48.080 | in other places on the web. And thank you to those of you who leave reviews there. In fact,

00:06:51.440 | if you haven't done that, please do that. That means a lot. It helps a lot. It's not the only

00:06:56.720 | thing that makes a difference in public rankings, but it is a big thing that makes a difference in

00:07:00.400 | public rankings, which is why you'll often hear podcasters request those reviews. And thank you

00:07:05.200 | for those of you who do it. Some of you might want to wait until after hearing today's show,

00:07:09.040 | so you can leave me a nasty review, which that's fine, too. But I like to read those reviews. And

00:07:14.240 | I also pay attention to a lot of the email feedback that I get from listeners, email feedback,

00:07:19.680 | social media feedback, etc. And one of the themes that I sometimes hear is that, "Well, I like

00:07:26.320 | Joshua's stuff. I like his content, but he gets into politics a little bit too much." And this

00:07:32.400 | can be a real double-edged sword. If I were a beautiful, brilliant marketer, I would actually

00:07:37.040 | focus on always being political or always being specialized. And the reason for that is it

00:07:44.000 | allows a controversy is good for selling ideas and selling things. And then it brings around you

00:07:50.720 | the people who are kind of the true believers, so to speak. This is why you have such polarized

00:07:56.080 | opinions oftentimes in national media. People aren't looking for consensus or ways to work

00:08:00.960 | together. They're looking to be intentionally offensive. Because attention, all attention is

00:08:06.800 | good attention. That's often what you see in today's modern world. This is why you see

00:08:11.600 | many times celebrities will just be so off the wall, just so extreme with their personalities.

00:08:18.160 | And instead of acting like a normal person, they just take on this extreme persona, well,

00:08:23.200 | extreme selves in so many ways. Well, I actually don't do that myself, partly because I don't like

00:08:30.960 | controversy. I'm an introvert and I'm a peace lover. I really like to just get along with

00:08:36.800 | people and not, you know, I don't like to be offensive. I don't like to be difficult. I

00:08:43.280 | personally am far happier just, you know, getting along with everyone going with the flow.

00:08:47.280 | Unfortunately, or fortunately, whatever, I find myself in the position of sometimes taking stands

00:08:52.800 | against certain things that I believe are wrong. And I also believe that there comes a time in

00:08:57.200 | your life when you've got to take a stand for what's right. So much evil has happened throughout

00:09:01.760 | history when people haven't taken a stand for what's right. Sometimes that comes in as politics,

00:09:08.000 | sometimes that comes in as religion, sometimes that comes in as ethics. And I've just simply

00:09:12.800 | made the commitment to myself that I wasn't going to stand aside and go with the flow.

00:09:18.800 | I was going to just simply be me. And those of you who know me or who have ever had the chance to

00:09:25.520 | talk to me, I mean, any of you listen to the show at this point know who I am. I'm very clear. I'm

00:09:30.240 | the same person all the time, or at least I try to be. Maybe sometimes I make mistakes, but it's

00:09:34.400 | important to me to be a consistent person. So the question comes into when you bring in politics,

00:09:41.760 | do I bring it in too much? So some of the reviews that I have gotten from time to time on iTunes

00:09:46.320 | say, you know, "I like Joshua, but he gets into politics too much," which is a fair review. A

00:09:49.840 | public forum like that is your opportunity as a listener to leave a review of any kind that you

00:09:54.960 | like. What surprises me, I haven't gotten the review of too much religion. And since I often

00:10:02.800 | talk about Christianity, I often talk about biblical principles, I often talk about those

00:10:07.680 | types of things, that surprises me, because usually I would expect more negative feedback

00:10:11.680 | on religion. We in our modern U.S. American culture are more okay with talking about politics

00:10:17.200 | than we are with talking about religion. But I'm sure those reviews will come, and that's fine.

00:10:21.520 | But I haven't gotten many comments about that, but I got a lot of comments about politics.

00:10:25.120 | And I've been wanting to do this show for a little while, and I have some questions that

00:10:31.760 | I'll actually be – one of them I'll be covering on tomorrow's show – that bring out the need for

00:10:37.040 | me to release this episode as a standalone episode. Because here's my conviction. You cannot

00:10:44.560 | disconnect politics, religion, or philosophy from your finances. It is not possible to do.

00:10:53.840 | Simply not possible to do. And I'm going to make that case and I'm going to describe to you my

00:10:58.640 | reasons, but it's not possible to do. You might like to blunder along thinking that, "Well,

00:11:04.960 | I can just talk about finance and not talk about politics and religion and philosophy," but

00:11:09.520 | it's not possible. Our lives are fully integrated in every way. It's not possible.

00:11:16.960 | Let me give you a few examples. All of you who are listening to this show are in some way or

00:11:23.600 | another working. You're paying taxes. And your taxes are funding the state. Some of you, that's

00:11:31.760 | the United States of America. Some of you, that is the state of Germany or the state of England or

00:11:36.960 | Great Britain or the state of Australia. But you're working and you're paying taxes and your

00:11:41.600 | taxes are funding the state. And you have some type of relationship with the state. Perhaps you are

00:11:47.360 | poor and so you are a recipient of the state. Perhaps you are not poor and so you're a donor

00:11:53.440 | to the state. Well, what that actually means if you're a recipient of the state is you're not a

00:11:57.760 | recipient of the state. There's no such thing as a state. There's just your fellow citizens.

00:12:01.200 | And so what happens is a man with a badge and a gun comes and proverbially speaking,

00:12:07.200 | sticks that gun in the ribs of a lot of your fellow citizens and says, "Give us your money."

00:12:12.480 | Then that man decides that the money is going to come to you. That's what tax is.

00:12:17.920 | So it's either coming to you or coming from you, but that's how it works.

00:12:21.760 | So you can't be disconnected with that system. You're either paying in or you're getting money

00:12:27.600 | out. And politics influence tax and many other aspects of life. I'm going to just go with tax

00:12:34.080 | for a moment and just show a couple of examples, but we'll talk about this and how this affects

00:12:40.000 | every area of life. In my state, the state of Florida, yesterday, Monday, April 20 was Tax

00:12:45.360 | Freedom Day. Nationally, it's April 24th, this Friday. April 24th is Tax Freedom Day.

00:12:52.080 | What that means is that according to the Tax Foundation, which I will put a link to their

00:12:57.760 | article on this topic in the show notes, but according to the Tax Foundation on a national

00:13:01.520 | basis from January 1 to April 24 in the United States of America, you have been working for this

00:13:07.200 | first four months to pay your taxes. So after this Friday, for the rest of the year now,

00:13:15.120 | you can finally go ahead and put a little bit of money into your pocket. And you can go ahead and

00:13:19.120 | start to put a little bit of money into your own personal support, the food that you eat,

00:13:24.240 | the clothing that your family needs, the housing to cover your head. And then perhaps you might be

00:13:29.520 | able to save a little bit of it. Now, I hope that you listening to the show that your Tax Freedom

00:13:34.560 | Day was much sooner than April 24. I hope that I've been able to teach you enough to be able to

00:13:39.200 | move that day up substantially. But on a national basis, that's the calculation.

00:13:44.400 | So just think about that for a moment. Think back to the first of January

00:13:48.960 | and how much you've worked since then. Where were you on New Year's Day 2015?

00:13:53.920 | Or where were you whenever you're listening to this podcast? And think about the last four months

00:14:00.080 | of work, almost five months. The last months of work have been used purely to pay various taxes.

00:14:08.000 | As a nation in the United States of America, we collectively pay more for taxes than we do on

00:14:13.600 | food, clothing, and housing combined. In some other nations where listeners are listening to

00:14:20.240 | the show, it's far higher. The US tax burden is, depending on your place in society, is actually

00:14:29.040 | relatively low on an international scale. Now, here's what's even worse. According to the Tax

00:14:37.680 | Foundation, if you include federal borrowing in the Tax Freedom Day number to represent future

00:14:42.960 | taxes owed that simply are being borrowed for, then instead of April 24 being your Tax Freedom

00:14:48.400 | Day, that goes out to May 8 of borrowing. Now, they at the Tax Foundation don't include these

00:14:55.760 | numbers, but I say if we included the cost of the unfunded liabilities of the federal social

00:15:02.240 | programs of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, my guess is that you would probably

00:15:07.520 | not be earning any money for yourself after Uncle Sam extracts his pound of flesh from your side.

00:15:13.680 | Now, I don't know what the actual number is on that. That's just a guess. But when you compare

00:15:18.640 | the current $18.2 trillion of official debt outstanding with the over $200 trillion of

00:15:26.960 | unfunded costs of these programs, then you'll see the long-term problem. So politics matter.

00:15:33.200 | They matter big time. So I can teach you individually how to avoid some of that tax

00:15:42.640 | burden. I can also teach you how to evade that tax burden. But we focus primarily on this show

00:15:48.960 | about avoiding the tax burden. But you also need to look at the core problem and say, "What is it

00:15:54.320 | in our society which allows this to happen?" Because you see, depending on your system of

00:15:58.880 | ethics or your system of philosophy or your system of religion or essentially your worldview,

00:16:05.920 | you should or should not be doing anything that I teach you. Think about it. If you see paying

00:16:12.480 | tax as something that's a moral social good and you're avoiding paying extra tax when you could

00:16:18.320 | pay less, maybe you're compromising your system of ethics. Personally, I'm not compromising mine

00:16:27.680 | because I view the majority of taxation as theft. And so I'm minimizing the theft from my pocket

00:16:32.480 | and from your pocket. I'm sticking up for you and for me. But many people don't see taxation as

00:16:37.760 | theft. Now, I would need to qualify that statement. I'm not going to go into detail there because the

00:16:43.280 | discussion is what level of taxation is theft. Big conversation, not for today. But you should

00:16:48.800 | think through that for yourself and develop a worldview on that issue. I get personally,

00:16:56.480 | I'm sure quite shocking to those of you who regularly listen to the show, but I get very

00:16:59.440 | frustrated when people try to say, "Well, I'm going to go ahead and increase taxes on everybody

00:17:05.920 | else, but I haven't voluntarily paid any extra for mine." I think that in the same way that the

00:17:13.840 | political campaigns are waged to say to a presidential nominee or whomever, "Release

00:17:18.560 | your tax returns." I think anytime anybody is making a statement of saying, "We should provide

00:17:23.920 | an additional level of taxation," then we should ask for that person to demonstrate their voluntary

00:17:27.840 | contributions to the US Treasury. But that goes back to my worldview and my system of ethics,

00:17:34.720 | and that's extremely unpopular. Now, what's interesting is let's just stick with the core

00:17:39.840 | aspects of the core CFP board five financial planning areas. And let's think about how a

00:17:46.880 | system of ethics and a system and a philosophy or a religion would play a role in each of these

00:17:53.120 | areas. What about insurance planning? With insurance planning, let's talk about life

00:17:59.360 | insurance. I've been doing this life insurance series. I maintain that you have a moral

00:18:05.040 | obligation to care for your family, and one effective way to do that is through the use of

00:18:09.600 | insurance products. That's my personal opinion at the moment. But what if your worldview doesn't

00:18:18.880 | place any particular emphasis on the role of the family? What if instead your worldview places an

00:18:24.560 | emphasis on the role of society and you say, "Well, it's not my responsibility to provide for

00:18:30.800 | my family. Rather, it's society's responsibility to provide for my family." Incidentally, this is

00:18:36.880 | exactly what the US American Society has decided. Although you're encouraged to buy life insurance,

00:18:43.280 | theoretically, the Social Security Administration has a widows and orphans benefit where if you

00:18:50.240 | have attained a currently or fully insured status with the Social Security Administration

00:18:54.880 | and you die, your qualifying widows and qualifying orphans will receive money from the state.

00:19:01.760 | That's money that all of your fellow citizens have chipped in and are continuing to pay in

00:19:07.200 | to provide and support your family. What about something like insurance, other aspects of

00:19:13.920 | insurance, health insurance? In the US, there was a major debate over the last few years about

00:19:18.960 | health insurance and about the role that health insurance has and it's deemed to be a societal

00:19:24.160 | need. The United Nations deems it a fundamental human right. Is that true? What about if we get

00:19:34.000 | into the aspects of investing? Are you investing in a way that is in line with your morality and

00:19:43.360 | your ethics and your general philosophy? I don't think I've mentioned this on the show but oddly,

00:19:51.520 | I've hinted at it in months past when I was wrestling with the decision but I no longer,

00:19:56.720 | at this moment anyway, I no longer own any publicly traded securities. The reason that I no longer

00:20:03.120 | own any publicly traded securities is I decided that I cannot stand to have blood money in my

00:20:09.840 | account. Since the predominant way that in the past I have invested my money is through the use

00:20:18.720 | of mutual funds, I have no ability over that fund manager to choose and select their investments.

00:20:24.960 | I'm simply not willing to stand by anymore and profit from the evil that many of these

00:20:30.960 | corporations are perpetrating on the world. I don't necessarily expect you to agree with my

00:20:38.880 | statement but I got to the point where I simply could not own and I could not profit from the

00:20:44.480 | activities of some of these corporations. Many of the major corporations in the Fortune 500,

00:20:50.960 | the largest corporations in the United States of America are involved in what I consider to be pure

00:20:56.160 | evil. Although for – let's see. So I'm almost 30 and I started investing in mutual funds at 18.

00:21:02.000 | So for the past 12 years, that has not bothered me. At this point, it has come to bother me and

00:21:09.280 | I can no longer do it. So I'm now in the process of formulating a new personal investment plan for

00:21:15.680 | my funds and my family's funds that will permit that. That will permit – that will allow for

00:21:25.120 | the moral issues that I have with many of the large corporations and their actions.

00:21:29.840 | What about you? How are you investing your money?

00:21:33.680 | What about tax? We covered tax. What about estate planning? That's another area,

00:21:40.320 | a key area of planning for the CFP board's subject areas. The topic of estate planning,

00:21:47.680 | who says that you have the right to leave your money behind to the person to whom you desire

00:21:52.080 | to leave it to. Why not have all assets that are remaining at the point of death confiscated?

00:21:57.120 | We do that to rich people. That's why we have estate taxes and I can share with you several

00:22:03.120 | books that would strongly advocate for an increasing level of federal estate taxes.

00:22:07.520 | The idea is we've got to keep the money out of the hands of large families and we've got to move

00:22:13.280 | the money into the society in general. So that's the whole fundamental – and it's a moral argument,

00:22:19.360 | moral premise of why we need an egalitarian society.

00:22:23.040 | Now, I would maintain that it's not somebody else's responsibility what

00:22:29.520 | happens with your money when you die. That's due to my worldview.

00:22:33.520 | What's your view on that subject? You can't get away from having a view. You have a view.

00:22:42.880 | Just the challenge is that most of us have not effectively articulated

00:22:47.920 | that viewpoint. You have to effectively articulate your viewpoint to understand what you believe.

00:22:55.280 | I'll skip the other areas of the CFP board's topic areas and I meant to mention

00:23:01.760 | at the beginning of the show – I am 18 minutes in. This is going to be a long show

00:23:06.720 | and I fully expect that. But I'm going to deal with it in one individual episode that

00:23:12.560 | is comprehensive rather than breaking it apart. It's important that you get this as an overall

00:23:18.480 | theme. But this is going to be a long show. If you look at the philosophy that's behind each

00:23:24.720 | of these things, you have to then look at what are the actions. So for example, the reason we

00:23:29.360 | need more politics is you start studying politics and you find that – well, wait a second. This

00:23:34.000 | politician is on one side saying we need to use taxes to extract more wealth from the rich. But

00:23:41.040 | then you look and you realize that the fundamental tactic and tool used by the rich to control

00:23:45.600 | society is the use of a tax-exempt foundation and that all they need to do is make a 100%

00:23:51.200 | contribution to a tax-exempt foundation and they can continue to control the public discourse,

00:23:56.720 | continue to control policy from far beyond the grave. Yet now it's completely done out of the

00:24:03.040 | tax space. I'll teach you how to do that and I'll expose that. I'm just briefly covering it today.

00:24:09.920 | You've got to see through and actually understand. Then you've got to take that and line it up with

00:24:14.320 | your worldview. Now, I'm a total amateur on all of these things. I'm an amateur on worldviews. I'm an

00:24:18.960 | amateur on philosophy. I'm just an interested student and there may be things that I say in

00:24:26.800 | today's show that are simply wrong. Feel free to come by and correct me. I'd be happy to learn.

00:24:30.640 | But here's why – here's my philosophy that I have on the show, especially when questions are

00:24:37.200 | asked of me, which is usually where these topics come in. I believe never answer a question that

00:24:42.960 | isn't asked of you. I've found in my lifetime that it's foolish for me to spend any time answering

00:24:47.920 | people's questions if they're not asking them. Very few people ask me in common life about

00:24:54.320 | anything related to financial planning. It might be surprising, but how many of you ask people that

00:24:58.560 | are knowledgeable in your life specific questions? Very few people ask me and I never answer

00:25:03.360 | financial planning questions unless I'm asked. But when I'm asked a question, I believe always

00:25:08.800 | answer the actual question that's asked of you and answer it in a clear and direct manner. I think we

00:25:16.080 | should always answer the questions that are asked of us and we should actually focus on what is

00:25:20.160 | most effective. We should point out when people are asking an unfocused question, are asking a

00:25:27.280 | question that won't actually solve their problem. An example would be this. "Joshua, what should I

00:25:31.680 | invest my 401(k) in?" That's usually a bad question because if I answered it directly and just said,

00:25:38.080 | "Well, you should invest your 401(k) in a broadly built portfolio of publicly traded companies.

00:25:42.400 | Here are some mutual funds. Let me talk to you about expense ratios," I'm probably shortchanging

00:25:46.240 | the person. So that's why we back up to the fundamental question of why do you have a 401(k).

00:25:52.800 | What are your long-term financial goals? Where are you today? What are your overall best

00:25:57.040 | investment opportunities? What is your overall plan to wealth? So I don't answer the question

00:26:02.160 | of what should I invest my 401(k) in because the times that I have answered the question,

00:26:05.520 | and I'll probably do it again against my own better judgment, then often the person blindly

00:26:09.840 | does what I say and they never actually achieve their goal. They just have a little bit of money

00:26:13.840 | in their 401(k) and it may or may not be invested in an ideal manner, but it never achieves the

00:26:19.280 | goal of retirement and that's where most people are in our society. They're completely flat broke

00:26:23.600 | at 65 with maybe $30,000 piled up in a 401(k) that was intelligently invested, but they never sat

00:26:29.280 | down and actually built a retirement plan. So many of you who are listening in this audience

00:26:34.800 | enjoy it when I clarify that on specific financial topics, but many people get upset at me when

00:26:40.560 | the topics go into politics or religion, but it's the same philosophy that I have in every area of

00:26:44.400 | life. Ask the question that's actually being asked and focus on the solution that actually

00:26:50.480 | makes the difference. So, example, when I talk about college, it's not the idea that college is

00:26:56.400 | bad. The problem is the idea that college is simply not a magic ticket to the good life of

00:27:02.640 | your student. So the core idea that leads to wealth and worldly success is having a deep love

00:27:09.120 | of education and frankly learning to be an autodidact, a self-learner. So we can cultivate

00:27:14.400 | that with college or without. So let's stop focusing on all the nonsense about the college

00:27:20.560 | argument that happens in our debate and focus on education. Well, wait a second. If you focus

00:27:24.560 | on education, then you got to back up and say, "Well, why do so many people who are going to

00:27:28.960 | college not actually care about education?" So then you got to break apart the schooling system

00:27:35.040 | as I've done on the show and all of a sudden you find out that the purpose of school has never been

00:27:39.120 | about education but about societal control and about indoctrination. Huh. Well, now we can

00:27:44.320 | actually focus on something that's a little bit more effective and we can stop wasting time and

00:27:48.800 | years of focus and effort on schooling and we can focus on education. It's a radically different

00:27:55.120 | approach, but it's also more effective. So today I want to talk to you about worldview.

00:28:07.680 | I want to ask you, what is your worldview?

00:28:09.680 | Now, this is not something that most people in modern US American society are accustomed to

00:28:16.400 | discussing. It's possible – I come from a biblical Christian worldview. That's the worldview

00:28:23.440 | that I've built for myself. But it's possible that maybe if you come from a religious background

00:28:29.440 | or from a Christian background, you might be slightly more accustomed to discussing it than

00:28:33.840 | some other people simply because you're used to being on the fringe of society. So that's my

00:28:38.480 | experience. I'm comfortable being on the fringe of society. I'm comfortable with debate because

00:28:42.960 | most of the opinions and the viewpoints that I hold are in the vast minority of mainstream society.

00:28:47.120 | So I'm comfortable with it. So I always discuss worldview, but many people are not comfortable

00:28:52.160 | and they haven't searched out a worldview. Now, what is a worldview? Here's the Wikipedia

00:28:57.760 | definition. "A comprehensive worldview is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual

00:29:03.920 | or society encompassing the entirety of the individual or society's knowledge and point of

00:29:09.600 | view. A worldview can include natural philosophy, fundamental, existential, and normative postulates

00:29:16.240 | or themes, values, emotions, and ethics." Basically, a worldview is how do you see the world?

00:29:24.240 | What are the lenses that are on your face that when you look at a bit of data and look at a

00:29:28.400 | little bit of information, how do you see that? All worldviews are in the process of being developed,

00:29:34.720 | changed, modified, adapted. I'm constantly in the process of clarifying my own worldview,

00:29:40.960 | testing assumptions, throwing out things that are wrong.

00:29:43.360 | There have been massive changes in my life over the past decade. Again, I'm almost 30.

00:29:52.000 | I wasn't born again as a Christian until I was in my junior year of college. That was when I was 20.

00:29:57.040 | So I basically had 10 years to try to build a consistent worldview that's based on biblical

00:30:05.440 | truth. That's not an easy process. It requires you going through and looking at various beliefs

00:30:13.040 | that you have and testing them. It's certainly not over. It's just, I'm just getting started.

00:30:21.600 | But the process of going through and building and developing a worldview is incredibly important.

00:30:26.880 | You have to do it for yourself. Now, I'm actually not going to talk much today about

00:30:33.200 | a biblical Christian worldview. That is the worldview that I hold to and maintain,

00:30:38.400 | and there are many reasons for some of which I've covered in the past shows, but it's the only one

00:30:43.200 | that I've found to be intellectually defensible. So you'll consistently hear me reference it

00:30:47.520 | throughout the course of the show. But I'm not actually going to talk about it today,

00:30:51.920 | because that's what I talk about a lot of the other times. But I am going to give you a foil

00:30:58.480 | for it, what I often think about, that in my mind I can continually go back and forth and I compare

00:31:04.160 | a biblical Christian worldview with a secular humanist worldview.

00:31:07.360 | So that's usually the comparison that you'll hear me describe. And most of you listening,

00:31:17.120 | my guess, is most of you hold to a worldview of secular humanism.

00:31:22.800 | Now, you may or may not have adopted this consciously, so I'm going to talk about it.

00:31:27.760 | Because once you understand the differences between these two worldviews, and there are

00:31:32.320 | many other worldviews, this is just for me, these are the two worldviews that I'm most familiar with,

00:31:36.800 | because we have the predominant worldview in the US American culture of secular humanism,

00:31:40.960 | and then my own worldview of biblical Christianity, and I'm not familiar with every single aspect. I

00:31:46.560 | don't know how a Hindu, someone coming from a Hindu worldview, would say, "Well, my religion

00:31:52.960 | applies to the situation. I'm not an expert on that. It is not a major factor in my life around

00:31:58.640 | me. I'm not surrounded by Hindus. If I were, I would spend a lot more time focusing on understanding

00:32:04.000 | what the worldview is from that perspective." I don't think about Sufism. I don't know any people

00:32:09.120 | who practice the Sufi religion, so I just don't think about it much. But I do think about secular

00:32:15.440 | humanism and biblical Christianity. So, I'll share with you a little bit, because if you

00:32:22.800 | understand the worldview of secular humanism, it will start to make sense. You'll start to

00:32:27.120 | understand a lot more of the things that are happening in the world around us and in our

00:32:33.440 | society and culture at large. Let's start with the definition. According to Wikipedia,

00:32:41.120 | "The philosophy of secular humanism embraces human reason, ethics, and philosophical naturalism

00:32:48.560 | while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis

00:32:54.240 | of morality and decision-making. Secular humanism posits that human beings are capable of being

00:33:00.640 | ethical and moral without religion or a god." One of the leading humanist organizations is

00:33:09.120 | called the American Humanist Association, and their motto is "Good without a God."

00:33:13.840 | Now, I'm going to read you the Humanist Manifesto from 1973. The first humanist manifesto that they

00:33:19.680 | published was actually in 1933, which is interesting, because if you trace the development

00:33:24.080 | of the secular humanist worldview, you find that it was substantially slowed by World War II.

00:33:30.400 | So, they published their first manifesto in 1933, the second manifesto in 1973, and then a third one

00:33:38.000 | in 2003. The uniqueness of those dates is that there's 40 years in between.

00:33:43.600 | Now, the third one is actually the shortest, but I'm going to read you the second one,

00:33:49.120 | because once you understand what the Humanist Manifesto of 1973 says, then you'll be able to

00:33:54.080 | look at society at large, and you'll be able to look at the culture around you, and you'll be

00:33:57.120 | able to look at your daily newspaper or daily yahoo.com, wherever you intake your news, and

00:34:01.760 | you'll be able to understand what's happening in society around.

00:34:06.400 | And I also want you to think about applying this as a system of ethics to financial questions,

00:34:12.320 | because this is the background of the system of ethics that is, for the most part, being applied

00:34:17.760 | to financial topics. I'll read this to you in its entirety. I may or may not comment. It's going to

00:34:25.840 | take a little bit of time, but just think about this. And again, if you agree with this worldview,

00:34:29.920 | great. Hopefully, you've read this before. If you have this worldview, hopefully, you've read it.

00:34:33.360 | It's about as sad as, I mean, it's like, if you haven't read this, but you hold to a secular

00:34:38.560 | humanist worldview, that's about as sad as many Christians who, it's also sad, and it's very true,

00:34:42.640 | many Christians who say, "I'm a Christian and never bothered to open a Bible and see what the

00:34:46.160 | Bible actually says about what is Christianity." On all worldviews, there are bastardizations of

00:34:53.040 | the worldview and various interpretations, and some of them are worth arguing about, and some

00:34:57.200 | of them are just plain ignorant. But if you don't agree with this worldview, then let me ask you

00:35:01.120 | why not. So I'll share this with you. Now, again, as I read this, I want you to hold three things

00:35:08.000 | in your mind. Number one, I'm reading you the Manifesto from 1973, not the one from 2003,

00:35:13.120 | which is shorter. And the reason is I want you to see what has changed from 1973 until 2015 when

00:35:19.680 | this is being recorded. Number two, pay attention to the general themes of this, and then think

00:35:26.720 | about the general themes of the stories and the news and the articles and all of the debate

00:35:31.040 | happening in the world. And number three, pay attention to its impact on finance, especially

00:35:37.920 | on personal finance. So here we go. First, in the best sense, there's a little bit of preamble,

00:35:47.200 | but this launches right into the actual text that is outlining the ideas. The best sense

00:35:54.720 | outlining the ideas. First, in the best sense, religion may inspire dedication to the highest

00:36:00.960 | ethical ideals. The cultivation of moral devotion and creative imagination is an expression of

00:36:06.480 | genuine spiritual experience and aspiration. We believe, however, that traditional dogmatic or

00:36:13.920 | authoritarian religions that place revelation, God, ritual, or creed above human needs and experience

00:36:21.040 | do a disservice to the human species. Any account of nature should pass the tests of

00:36:26.320 | scientific evidence in our judgment. The dogmas and myths of traditional religions do not do so.

00:36:33.120 | Even at this late date in human history, certain elementary facts based upon the critical use of

00:36:39.120 | scientific reason have to be restated. We find insufficient evidence for belief in the existence

00:36:45.280 | of a supernatural. It is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of survival and

00:36:50.320 | fulfillment of the human race. As non-theists, we begin with humans, not God. Nature, not deity.

00:36:59.840 | Nature may indeed be broader and deeper than we now know. Any new discoveries, however,

00:37:06.480 | will but enlarge our knowledge of the natural. Some humanists believe we should reinterpret

00:37:12.800 | traditional religions and reinvest them with meanings appropriate to the current situation.

00:37:18.240 | Such redefinitions, however, often perpetuate old dependencies and escapisms. They easily become

00:37:24.880 | obscurantist, impeding the free use of the intellect. We need, instead, radically new

00:37:31.360 | human purposes and goals. We appreciate the need to preserve the best ethical teachings in the

00:37:36.880 | religious traditions of humankind, many of which we share in common. But we reject those features

00:37:42.960 | of traditional religious morality that deny humans a full appreciation of their own potentialities

00:37:47.920 | and responsibilities. Traditional religions often offer solace to humans, but as often,

00:37:54.160 | they inhibit humans from helping themselves or experiencing their full potentialities.

00:37:58.960 | Such institutions, creeds, and rituals often impede the will to serve others.

00:38:04.800 | Too often, traditional faiths encourage dependence rather than independence,

00:38:10.800 | obedience rather than affirmation, fear rather than courage. More recently, they have generated

00:38:17.840 | concerned social action, with many signs of relevance appearing in the wake of the "God

00:38:23.840 | is Dead" theologies. But we can discover no divine purpose or providence for the human species.

00:38:29.440 | While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become.

00:38:36.080 | No deity will save us. We must save ourselves.

00:38:42.720 | Second, promises of immortal salvation or fear of eternal damnation are both illusory

00:38:48.400 | and harmful. They distract humans from present concerns, from self-actualization, and from

00:38:54.560 | rectifying social injustices. Modern science discredits such historic concepts as the "ghost

00:39:02.000 | in the machine" and the "separable soul." Rather, science affirms that the human species is an

00:39:09.120 | emergence from natural evolutionary forces. As far as we know, the total personality is a

00:39:15.120 | function of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context. There is no

00:39:21.120 | credible evidence that life survives the death of the body. We continue to exist in our progeny

00:39:26.640 | and in the way that our lives have influenced others in our culture.

00:39:29.840 | Traditional religions are surely not the only obstacles to human progress.

00:39:35.920 | Other ideologies also impede human advance. Some forms of political doctrine, for instance,

00:39:42.000 | function religiously, reflecting the worst features of orthodoxy and authoritarianism,

00:39:47.440 | especially when they sacrifice individuals on the altar of utopian promises.

00:39:51.520 | Purely economic and political viewpoints, whether capitalist or communist,

00:39:56.800 | often function as religious and ideological dogma. Although humans undoubtedly need economic

00:40:05.280 | and political goals, they also need creative values by which to live.

00:40:09.520 | Ethics Third, we affirm that moral values derive

00:40:15.760 | their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational, needing no theological

00:40:24.640 | or ideological sanction. Ethics stem from human need and interest. To deny this distorts the whole

00:40:32.320 | basis of life. Human life has meaning because we create and develop our futures. Happiness and the

00:40:40.480 | creative realization of human needs and desires, individually and in shared enjoyment, are

00:40:47.280 | continuous themes of humanism. We strive for the good life, here and now. The goal is to pursue

00:40:55.600 | life's enrichment despite debasing forces of vulgarization, commercialization, and dehumanization.

00:41:02.560 | Fourth, reason and intelligence are the most effective instruments that humankind possesses.

00:41:10.160 | There is no substitute. Neither faith nor passion suffices in itself. The controlled use of

00:41:18.640 | scientific methods, which have transformed the natural and social sciences since the Renaissance,

00:41:24.640 | must be extended further in the solution of human problems. But reason must be tempered by humility,

00:41:31.200 | since no group has a monopoly of wisdom or virtue. Nor is there any guarantee that all problems can

00:41:38.240 | be solved or all questions answered. Yet critical intelligence, infused by a sense of human caring,

00:41:46.400 | is the best method that humanity has for resolving problems. Reason should be balanced

00:41:52.320 | with compassion and empathy, and the whole person fulfilled. Thus, we are not advocating the use of

00:41:59.200 | scientific intelligence independent of or in opposition to emotion, for we believe in the

00:42:05.200 | cultivation of feeling and love. As science pushes back the boundary of the known, humankind's sense

00:42:13.120 | of wonder is continually renewed, and art, poetry, and music find their places along with religion

00:42:20.400 | and ethics. The Individual Fifth, the preciousness and dignity of the individual person is a central

00:42:28.560 | humanist value. Individuals should be encouraged to realize their own creative talents and desires.

00:42:34.720 | We reject all religious, ideological, or moral codes that denigrate the individual,

00:42:42.000 | suppress freedom, dull intellect, dehumanize personality. We believe in maximum individual

00:42:49.360 | autonomy, consonant with social responsibility. Although science can account for the causes of

00:42:55.680 | behavior, the possibilities of individual freedom of choice exist in human life and should be

00:43:01.920 | increased. Sixth, in the area of sexuality, we believe that intolerant attitudes, often cultivated

00:43:10.880 | by orthodox religions and puritanical cultures, unduly repress sexual conduct. The right to birth

00:43:19.120 | control, abortion, and divorce should be recognized. While we do not approve of exploitive,

00:43:25.520 | denigrating forms of sexual expression, neither do we wish to prohibit by law or social sanction

00:43:32.880 | sexual behavior between consenting adults. The many varieties of sexual exploration should not

00:43:39.280 | in themselves be considered evil. Without countenancing mindless permissiveness or

00:43:44.720 | unbridled promiscuity, a civilized society should be a tolerant one. Short of harming others or

00:43:51.360 | compelling them to do likewise, individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities

00:43:56.960 | and pursue their lifestyles as they desire. We wish to cultivate the development of a

00:44:01.920 | responsible attitude toward sexuality, in which humans are not exploited as sexual objects,

00:44:07.840 | and in which intimacy, sensitivity, respect, and honesty in interpersonal relations are encouraged.

00:44:15.200 | Moral education for children and adults is an important way of developing awareness and

00:44:21.440 | sexual maturity. Democratic Society

00:44:25.040 | Seventh, to enhance freedom and dignity, the individual must experience a full range of

00:44:30.480 | civil liberties in all societies. This includes freedom of speech and the press, political

00:44:36.480 | democracy, the legal right of opposition to governmental policies, fair judicial process,

00:44:42.880 | religious liberty, freedom of association, and artistic, scientific, and cultural freedom.

00:44:49.520 | It also includes a recognition of an individual's right to die with dignity, euthanasia,

00:44:56.960 | and the right to suicide. We oppose the increasing invasion of privacy by whatever means

00:45:02.960 | in both totalitarian and democratic societies. We would safeguard, extend, and implement the

00:45:10.000 | principles of human freedom evolved from the Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights, the Rights of Man,

00:45:16.640 | and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eighth, we are committed to an open and democratic

00:45:24.160 | society. We must extend participatory democracy in its true sense to the economy, the school,

00:45:30.960 | the family, the workplace, and voluntary associations. Decision-making must be

00:45:36.640 | decentralized to include widespread involvement of people at all levels, social, political,

00:45:43.280 | and economic. All persons should have a voice in developing the values and goals that determine

00:45:48.800 | their lives. Institutions should be responsive to express desires and needs. The conditions of work,

00:45:55.520 | education, devotion, and play should be humanized. Alienating forces should be modified or eradicated,

00:46:03.680 | and bureaucratic structures should be held to a minimum. People are more important than decalogues,

00:46:09.920 | rules, proscriptions, or regulations. Ninth, the separation of church and state and the separation

00:46:18.080 | of ideology and state are imperatives. The state should encourage maximum freedom for different

00:46:24.400 | moral, political, religious, and social values in society. It should not favor any particular

00:46:30.720 | religious bodies through the use of public monies, nor espouse a single ideology and function thereby

00:46:37.040 | as an instrument of propaganda or oppression, particularly against dissenters. Tenth,

00:46:43.840 | humane societies should evaluate economic systems not by rhetoric or ideology, but by whether or not

00:46:51.280 | they increase economic well-being for all individuals and groups, minimize poverty and

00:46:56.800 | hardship, increase the sum of human satisfaction, and enhance the quality of life. Hence, the door

00:47:03.920 | is open to alternative economic systems. We need to democratize the economy and judge it by its

00:47:10.240 | responsiveness to human needs, testing results in terms of the common good. Eleventh, the principle

00:47:17.600 | of moral equality must be furthered through elimination of all discrimination based upon race,

00:47:22.880 | religion, sex, age, or national origin. This means equality of opportunity and recognition of talent

00:47:30.800 | and merit. Individuals should be encouraged to contribute to their own betterment.

00:47:35.440 | If unable, then society should provide means to satisfy their basic economic, health, and cultural

00:47:41.120 | needs, including, wherever resources make possible, a minimum guaranteed annual income. We are concerned

00:47:48.560 | for the welfare of the aged, the infirm, the disadvantaged, and also for the outcasts,

00:47:54.720 | the mentally retarded, abandoned, or abused children, the handicapped, prisoners, and addicts,

00:48:01.520 | for all who are neglected or ignored by society. Practicing humanists should make it their vocation

00:48:08.000 | to humanize personal relations. We believe in the right to universal education. Everyone has a right

00:48:15.760 | to the cultural opportunity to fulfill his or her unique capacities and talents. The schools

00:48:23.200 | should foster satisfying and productive living. They should be open at all levels to any and all.

00:48:29.200 | The achievement of excellence should be encouraged. Innovative and experimental forms of education are

00:48:34.720 | to be welcomed. The energy and idealism of the young deserve to be appreciated and channeled

00:48:41.040 | to constructive purposes. We deplore racial, religious, ethnic, or class antagonisms.

00:48:48.240 | Although we believe in cultural diversity and encourage racial and ethnic pride, we reject

00:48:54.240 | separations which promote alienation and set people and groups against each other. We envision an

00:49:00.640 | integrated community where people have a maximum opportunity for free and voluntary association.

00:49:06.080 | We are critical of sexism or sexual chauvinism, male or female. We believe in equal rights for

00:49:13.680 | both women and men to fulfill their unique careers and potentialities as they see fit,

00:49:18.960 | free of invidious discrimination. World Community.

00:49:24.400 | Twelfth, we deplore the division of humankind on nationalistic grounds. We have reached a

00:49:30.640 | turning point in human history where the best option is to transcend the limits of national

00:49:35.680 | sovereignty and to move toward the building of a world community in which all sectors of the

00:49:41.120 | human family can participate. Thus, we look to the development of a system of world law and a world

00:49:47.440 | order based upon transnational federal government. This would appreciate cultural pluralism and

00:49:53.440 | diversity. It would not exclude pride in national origins and accomplishments, nor the handling of

00:49:59.280 | regional problems on a regional basis. Human progress, however, can no longer be achieved

00:50:04.400 | by focusing on one section of the world, western or eastern, developed or undeveloped. For the

00:50:10.880 | first time in human history, no part of humankind can be isolated from any other. Each person's

00:50:16.640 | future is in some way linked to all. We thus reaffirm a commitment to the building of world

00:50:22.640 | community, at the same time recognizing that this commits us to some hard choices.

00:50:27.840 | Thirteenth, the world community must renounce the resort to violence and force as a method of

00:50:35.040 | solving international disputes. We believe in the peaceful adjudication of differences by

00:50:40.240 | international courts and by the development of the arts of negotiation and compromise.

00:50:46.240 | War is obsolete. So is the use of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. It is a

00:50:52.480 | planetary imperative to reduce the level of military expenditures and turn these savings

00:50:58.080 | to peaceful and people-oriented uses. Fourteenth, the world community must engage

00:51:04.720 | in cooperative planning concerning the use of rapidly depleting resources. The planet Earth

00:51:10.880 | must be considered a single ecosystem. Ecological damage, resource depletion, and "excessive

00:51:17.440 | population growth" must be checked by international concord. The cultivation and conservation of

00:51:24.400 | nature is a moral value. We should perceive ourselves as integral to the sources of our

00:51:29.600 | being in nature. We must free our world from needless pollution and waste, responsibly

00:51:35.600 | guarding and creating wealth, both natural and human. Exploitation of natural resources,

00:51:42.240 | uncurbed by social conscience, must end. Fifteenth, the problems of economic growth

00:51:49.200 | and development can no longer be resolved by one nation alone. They are worldwide in scope.

00:51:54.640 | It is the moral obligation of the developed nations to provide, through an international

00:52:00.000 | authority that safeguards human rights, massive technical, agricultural, medical, and economic

00:52:06.800 | assistance, including birth control techniques, to the developing portions of the world—excuse

00:52:12.320 | me, developing portions of the globe. World poverty must cease. Hence, extreme disproportions

00:52:19.280 | in wealth, income, and economic growth should be reduced on a worldwide basis.

00:52:26.560 | Sixteenth, technology is a vital key to human progress and development. We deplore any

00:52:32.560 | neo-romantic efforts to condemn indiscriminately all technology and science, or to counsel retreat

00:52:38.640 | from its further extension and use for the good of humankind. We would resist any moves to censor

00:52:44.560 | basic scientific research on moral, political, or social grounds. Technology must, however,

00:52:51.360 | be carefully judged by the consequences of its use. Harmful and destructive changes should be

00:52:57.280 | avoided. We are particularly disturbed when technology and bureaucracy control, manipulate,

00:53:04.000 | or modify human beings without their consent. Technological feasibility does not imply social

00:53:10.480 | or cultural desirability. Seventeenth, we must expand communication and transportation across

00:53:18.320 | frontiers. Travel restrictions must cease. The world must be open to diverse political,

00:53:25.360 | ideological, and moral viewpoints, and evolve a worldwide system of television and radio for

00:53:31.200 | information and education. We thus call for full international cooperation in culture,

00:53:37.440 | science, the arts, and technology across ideological borders. We must learn to live

00:53:44.000 | openly together, or we shall perish together. Humanity as a whole. In closing, the world

00:53:52.560 | cannot wait for a reconciliation of competing political or economic systems to solve its

00:53:57.680 | problems. These are the times for men and women of goodwill to further the building of a peaceful

00:54:03.040 | and prosperous world. We urge that parochial loyalties and inflexible moral and religious

00:54:08.960 | ideologies be transcended. We urge recognition of the common humanity of all people. We further

00:54:16.560 | urge the use of reason and compassion to produce the kind of world we want, a world in which peace,

00:54:23.440 | prosperity, freedom, and happiness are widely shared. Let us not abandon that vision in despair

00:54:29.760 | or cowardice. We are responsible for what we are or will be. Let us work together for a humane

00:54:36.960 | world by means commensurate with humane ends. Destructive ideological differences among

00:54:42.480 | communism, capitalism, socialism, conservatism, liberalism, and radicalism should be overcome.

00:54:48.720 | Let us call for an end to terror and hatred. We will survive and prosper only in a world of

00:54:55.520 | shared humane values. We can initiate new directions for humankind. Ancient rivalries

00:55:01.040 | can be superseded by broad-based cooperative efforts. The commitment to tolerance,

00:55:05.920 | understanding, and peaceful negotiation does not necessitate acquiescence to the status quo,

00:55:11.840 | nor the damning up of dynamic and revolutionary forces. The true revolution is occurring and can

00:55:18.000 | continue in countless nonviolent adjustments. But this entails the willingness to step forward onto

00:55:24.080 | new and expanding plateaus. At the present juncture of history, commitment to all humankind

00:55:29.520 | is the highest commitment of which we are capable. It transcends the narrow allegiances of church,

00:55:35.200 | state, party, class, or race in moving toward a wider vision of human potentiality.

00:55:41.360 | What more daring a goal for humankind than for each person to become, in ideal as well as practice,

00:55:49.280 | a citizen of a world community? It is a classical vision. We can now give it new vitality.

00:55:55.680 | Humanism, thus interpreted, is a moral force that has time on its side. We believe that humankind

00:56:03.040 | has the potential, intelligence, goodwill, and cooperative skill to implement this commitment

00:56:10.080 | in the decades ahead. Again, that's Humanist Manifesto Number Two, published in 1973.

00:56:17.840 | Now, I read you the second—that document instead of the Humanist Manifesto Number Three

00:56:25.840 | for a couple of reasons. Feel free to go and read Humanist Manifesto Number Three. That one was

00:56:30.400 | six pages. The Humanist Manifesto Number Three is just over one page, much smaller and shorter.

00:56:37.280 | But this philosophy has developed and emerged over time with changes. But it's important that

00:56:43.680 | you understand that was what was set out in 1973. Now, think back—and I'll post a link in the show

00:56:50.240 | notes so you can read it—but think back or take time when you're in front of a computer and you

00:56:54.960 | can look through and look at each of the issues that are promoted in that document.

00:57:00.240 | Many of the ideas and ideals set forth in that document have been achieved.

00:57:05.840 | Many. Not all. All of them are in progress, but many of them have been achieved. The growth of

00:57:14.320 | the international community, the establishment of an international court, the—I won't go

00:57:20.240 | through them. You go through them and do a little bit of homework. So if that's your worldview,

00:57:24.400 | you should be happy and proud of that to be read. If that's not your worldview,

00:57:27.680 | why is it not your worldview? Now, why do I go into worldview to such an extent?

00:57:35.760 | Well, it's impossible to be neutral on your worldview. There is no neutrality at all.

00:57:41.120 | It is not possible for that worldview to be consistent in any way, shape, or form by any

00:57:48.640 | person of, for example, Christian faith. I don't know about every religion. Perhaps some religions

00:57:52.800 | of the world could concede with that. But it is impossible for a Christian to go along with

00:57:59.040 | secular humanism as a viable worldview. And thus, we get into the current war of worldviews that

00:58:06.960 | exists in our culture. Now, interestingly, it exists at every aspect of culture. For example,

00:58:13.440 | the first humanist manifesto from 1933 didn't necessarily use the term "secular humanism,"

00:58:18.560 | but rather used the term in the manifesto of "religious humanism." But specifically in that

00:58:23.920 | document stated that, "We are convinced that the time has passed for theism, deism, modernism,

00:58:30.400 | and the several varieties of new thought." And many of the original signers of the manifesto

00:58:34.720 | from 1933 were involved with so-called churches. Primarily, they were liberal Unitarian churches.

00:58:40.960 | But you can see then in the transition 40 years later to secular humanism.

00:58:47.840 | Now, unfortunately, most people haven't consciously gone through, constructed, and adopted a worldview

00:58:52.960 | for themselves. Most of us have been indoctrinated by the government school system in our country of

00:58:57.840 | origin. In the United States, the takeover of the government school system is almost 100%

00:59:03.280 | complete and has been for many, many decades. The school system in the United States is almost

00:59:08.160 | entirely secular humanist in its approach. There's a famous, famous quote that's bandied

00:59:12.640 | about in these debates. I'll cite it simply as an illustration of my point, but it's probably the

00:59:16.640 | most famous quote in these, quoted thousands of times in this war. It's from a 1983 essay by a

00:59:21.840 | humanist named John Dunphy. And this essay was titled "A Religion for a New Age." But one

00:59:26.560 | specific quote he wrote is this, "I am convinced that the battle for humankind's future must be

00:59:32.640 | waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role

00:59:38.960 | as proselytizers of a new faith, a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark

00:59:44.720 | of what theologians call divinity in every human being. The classroom must and will become an arena

00:59:51.920 | of conflict between the old and new, the rotting corpse of Christianity together with all its

00:59:57.600 | adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent with the promise of a world

01:00:03.440 | in which the never real is the real. The new faith of humanity is the new faith of the

01:00:08.800 | realized Christian ideal of love thy neighbor will finally be achieved." That's just one

01:00:16.160 | illustrative quote that's incredibly famous that gives the background of the US government school

01:00:21.920 | system. And again, the war in that arena has been, in my opinion, convincingly won by the secular

01:00:26.640 | humanists. The problem is that in the post-school culture, the war is not won. The battle lines are

01:00:32.960 | still drawn because there are enough artifacts of a, in the United States, a biblical Christian

01:00:38.080 | worldview that you see the battle happening in modern culture. So unless you've consciously

01:00:45.520 | constructed a worldview for yourself, you're left with this confusing potpourri of opinions.

01:00:49.840 | And these opinions touch every aspect of your life. Every story you see on the news

01:00:55.200 | is argued based on worldview. Every decision is based on worldview. And we're all engaged

01:01:02.480 | in the struggle for the supremacy of our own unique worldview. So how do you approach this

01:01:10.720 | and apply this to a system of ethics? Well, with the mindset of secular humanism, then your major

01:01:18.000 | guiding principles are twofold. Your personal happiness is one consideration. And then there's

01:01:24.480 | a more general concept of collective human rights and collective human dignity.

01:01:30.880 | Now, you need to understand that these two things might or might not be at odds, and you have to

01:01:38.160 | pick, depending on your flavor of secular humanism, you have to pick which one is more important.

01:01:44.080 | Let's talk about personal happiness for just a moment. You need to carefully understand the

01:01:50.800 | marked difference between worldviews and the concept of personal happiness. Within the secular

01:01:55.920 | humanist worldview, personal happiness is a primary motivator. In a biblical Christian worldview,

01:02:03.120 | happiness is not relevant. Christians, in fact, are promised a lifetime of suffering and persecution.

01:02:09.200 | In fact, in our worldview, if you're not suffering persecution, you're probably out of line with what

01:02:13.920 | the Bible actually teaches. You see this throughout the world today, because the largest and most

01:02:20.160 | popular movements labeled as Christianity are selling happiness in this lifetime and holiness

01:02:28.080 | in the next. That's not biblical. It's a popular message that leads to the personal enrichment and

01:02:34.160 | popularization of preachers and teachers, but it's not biblical. The Bible teaches holiness

01:02:40.080 | in this lifetime, or righteousness would be a word that maybe would be easier to access than

01:02:44.720 | the word holiness. Holiness in this lifetime and happiness in the next. So there's a major

01:02:51.200 | difference. You'll often hear this emerge in my answering of questions, that I will always

01:02:55.920 | discount the role of personal happiness in answering the question of what you should do

01:03:00.560 | and emphasize the need to live righteously, because that's consistent with my worldview.

01:03:09.760 | You must do that in my worldview. But that's directly at odds with the secular humanist

01:03:15.760 | worldview that teaches personal happiness as triumph. Now, what about community ethics? This

01:03:23.760 | one is interesting because the secular humanist system of ethics assumes a dignity of human life,

01:03:27.760 | but there's no background or proof for it. The best proof that can come up with is almost a

01:03:33.040 | corporate sense of altruism, a sense of community spirit, kind of an evolved community spirit that

01:03:38.640 | somehow if human beings have evolved, then they've learned that this serves their common good.

01:03:44.240 | But the problem is when you remove God from the equation, man is accident,

01:03:48.640 | happenstance. And problematically, we're all engaged in the primal survival of the fittest war.

01:03:58.240 | Now, it's whitewashed, but that's the underlying philosophy. And so this provides justification

01:04:08.320 | for many evil things. And by the way, I lay plenty of blame at those who argue for evil

01:04:14.400 | under the banner of God, Christian duty. Many evil things have been

01:04:20.320 | perpetuated on people in the name of God. That's what's so sad.

01:04:25.440 | But there is actually a cogent and well-developed system of thought and a system of ethics behind

01:04:32.480 | the philosophy of secular humanism. The problem is that it's very difficult to find people who

01:04:38.240 | are actually willing to be clear in their thoughts and convey the system of ethics accurately.

01:04:44.320 | In my study, most people who publicly represent this viewpoint in the system of ethics

01:04:50.640 | are, in my opinion, cowards because they don't declare their actual system of thinking.

01:04:55.680 | Now, you say, "Cowards? That's a strong allegation." And anytime somebody makes a statement

01:05:02.240 | like that, you should ask for proof. And I'll share a little bit of – although I wouldn't

01:05:09.280 | necessarily call it proof. I'll share a little bit of evidence with you in just a moment.

01:05:12.320 | But let me tie this back in again to finance because almost everything in that secular

01:05:20.880 | humanist manifesto connects back to some aspect of finance. For example, there's a massive push

01:05:28.080 | towards an internationalization of global systems of government. Well, how is that funded?

01:05:33.520 | It's funded with your dollars or your pounds or your euros or your Australian dollars or your – I

01:05:41.920 | don't know – shekels, your lira – well, not lira anymore. That one is – your yen, your yuan,

01:05:48.320 | your renminbi. That's what funds it. That's what funds the global systems of government.

01:05:55.680 | And you and I are the ones who fund the global systems of control.

01:05:58.960 | You and I are the ones who participate in modern monetary systems. You and I are the ones who

01:06:04.080 | participate in the central banking system. You and I are the ones who participate in

01:06:08.000 | public equity markets. So we have a responsibility in it. But the problem is, at least for me,

01:06:16.720 | is I've tried to study the influence of these things on finance, that the history and the

01:06:22.000 | research always seem so distant. It's hard to wrap my mind around. And in the world of finance,

01:06:28.240 | there are plenty of theories and plenty of theories of conspiracy and control and manipulation. But

01:06:33.360 | trying to sort out fact from fiction is incredibly challenging to me. Simple example. I don't have

01:06:40.320 | any clue what the actual impact was of the abolishment of the gold standard on American

01:06:46.240 | society because I wasn't there. And it's very difficult for me to actually conceive of the long

01:06:51.280 | reaching arc of history. It's very tough for me to understand how our populations moved,

01:06:56.880 | how our populations controlled, how do people exert influence and psychological influence over

01:07:04.240 | a society. That has been a major challenge for me to actually put together

01:07:10.960 | until I found something that was actually within my lifetime. That's what I'm going to share with

01:07:19.040 | you next. If you want to understand the way that psychological and sociological battles

01:07:25.520 | are waged and won, frankly, then the best example that I have ever come up with – and if you know

01:07:33.360 | of a better one, tell me. I'd like to study it. But the best example that I've ever come up with

01:07:38.080 | is to look at the promotion of homosexual culture in the broader US American culture.

01:07:46.240 | I believe that no matter which side of this issue you personally stand on, you should be very

01:07:52.320 | interested in this battle. Now, the current battle in US American society is over the concept of

01:07:58.160 | homosexual marriage. It's my best guess that this June, the Supreme Court will release a ruling

01:08:04.640 | which will effectively overturn the last few remaining state bans on the concept of homosexual

01:08:10.800 | marriage. This has been a major influence in financial planning because traditionally in

01:08:17.040 | financial planning, there was an area of specialty of working with same-sex couples and there was a

01:08:21.840 | unique area of planning because of the lack of continuity in the laws for same-sex couples versus

01:08:27.680 | heterosexual couples. So there was a unique area of study. This will be changing. My best guess in

01:08:34.720 | June, I don't see any way that the court will not rule on the side of striking down these state

01:08:39.520 | bans. I could be wrong. We'll see. It would be interesting to find out. But that ruling that

01:08:44.160 | is expected this June will be a major, major milestone in the promotion of the homosexual

01:08:49.920 | lifestyle in modern culture. The reason that I'm highlighting this issue is because it's one of the

01:08:55.920 | fastest massive cultural changes that I'm aware of. One of the most fundamental transformations

01:09:02.560 | of a culture has occurred within my lifetime and I'm not yet 30. Here's how fast the actual legal

01:09:09.360 | transition has occurred. Reading from Wikipedia, "In the 1950s, all states had some form of law

01:09:16.960 | criminalizing sodomy," interrupting Wikipedia, sodomy referring to homosexual sex, but there

01:09:22.640 | are various definitions of that. But it's a general term that has different legal definitions

01:09:27.280 | depending on the jurisdiction that you're in, primarily understood to be homosexual sex,

01:09:31.200 | especially among males. "In the 1950s, all states had some form of law criminalizing sodomy.

01:09:36.960 | And in 1986, the United States Supreme Court ruled that nothing in the United States Constitution

01:09:42.880 | bars a state from prohibiting sodomy." I was born in 1985. "1986, the United States Supreme Court

01:09:50.240 | ruled that nothing in the United States Constitution bars a state from prohibiting sodomy.

01:09:54.000 | However, state legislators and state courts had started to repeal or overturn their sodomy laws,

01:10:01.040 | beginning with Illinois in 1961. And thus, in 2003, only 10 states had laws prohibiting all

01:10:09.040 | sodomy, with penalties ranging from one to 15 years imprisonment. Additionally, four other

01:10:15.280 | states had laws that specifically prohibited same-sex sodomy. On June 26, 2003, the U.S.

01:10:24.080 | Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision in Lawrence v. Texas, struck down the Texas same-sex sodomy law

01:10:30.960 | ruling that this private sexual conduct is protected by the liberty rights implicit in the

01:10:36.240 | due process clause of the United States Constitution, with Sandra Day O'Connor's concurring

01:10:40.880 | opinion arguing that they violated equal protection. This decision invalidated all state sodomy laws

01:10:48.160 | insofar as they applied to non-commercial conduct in private between consenting civilians and

01:10:54.640 | overruled its 1986 ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick, which upheld Georgia's sodomy law.

01:11:00.960 | Now, if you want to actually understand the strategy behind cultural change, then you need

01:11:04.640 | to study this movement. And we're going to start with an essay that I'm going to read you called

01:11:08.880 | The Overhauling of Straight America, and then a subsequent book which was entitled After the Ball,

01:11:14.960 | How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the '90s. That book was published in 1989

01:11:21.360 | by two men, one named Marshall Kirk and one named Hunter Madsen, both men brilliant in their

01:11:27.040 | respective fields of study. Kirk was a researcher in neuropsychiatry, a logician, a poet, and a

01:11:33.120 | genealogist. And Madsen was an expert in public persuasion tactics and social marketing, and he

01:11:38.880 | designed commercial advertising on Madison Avenue. Both men were Harvard graduates.

01:11:43.360 | Now, I have not yet read After the Ball. It's hard to find, and it costs basically $50 to $100

01:11:50.400 | to buy a used copy of it online, and I haven't been willing to pay the $50 to $100 to buy it.

01:11:55.200 | Incidentally, if any of you own a copy of the book, I'd like to read the actual book. So feel

01:12:00.560 | free to get in touch with me, email me or contact me, and you can send it to me, and I'll read it

01:12:04.240 | and send it back. But I've read enough detailed outlines with extensive quotations from the book

01:12:09.760 | that I feel confident they have an accurate understanding of the content. And I've read

01:12:14.080 | enough critiques and analysis of it that I feel like I understand what's in the book. But again,

01:12:19.120 | there could be something that I don't know in that. But you can get the gist of it by reading

01:12:24.800 | the original essay called The Overhauling of Straight America, which is what I'm going to read

01:12:28.080 | you, because this essay clearly lays out the plan for this transformation of culture.

01:12:34.000 | And I want you to be aware of the language and of the plan, because you've got to – depending

01:12:41.360 | on your worldview, again, if you are on the side that promotes homosexual culture and modern

01:12:46.080 | culture, then you should be referencing this as a major milestone of massive success of societal

01:12:52.400 | transformation. And if you're on the opposite side of the issue, then you should be understanding

01:12:57.920 | this to understand the war of ideas and how it's waged. And the reason that I'm using this in a

01:13:05.600 | podcast on finance is you need to understand how culture works, because the same type of plan

01:13:13.440 | is being laid out over a longer period of time on many significant issues.

01:13:22.240 | And that's what we're constantly working through as individual people,

01:13:24.960 | individual citizens, trying to figure out what's happening in our own

01:13:29.280 | jurisdictions of government, what's actually happening with the various agendas that are

01:13:36.320 | being waged in which we are pawns, we are useful pawns on a chessboard.

01:13:41.040 | So as I read this, pay careful attention to your memory of the past, say, 20 years,

01:13:50.160 | and how this strategy has been affected in the culture in which you've been a participant.

01:13:55.360 | This essay was published in November 1987 in Guide magazine. It's entitled The Overhauling

01:14:03.680 | of Straight America. The byline here is Marshall Kirk. And in this article, it was – Hunter Madsen

01:14:09.680 | went by the pen name of Erastus Pill. The first order of business is desensitization of the

01:14:16.640 | American public concerning gays and gay rights. To desensitize the public is to help it view

01:14:22.080 | homosexuality with indifference instead of with keen emotion. Ideally, we would have straights

01:14:28.160 | register differences in sexual preference the way they register different tastes for ice cream

01:14:33.200 | or sports games. She likes strawberry and I like vanilla. He follows baseball and I follow football.

01:14:39.680 | No big deal. At least in the beginning, we are seeking public desensitization and nothing more.

01:14:46.160 | We do not need and cannot expect a full appreciation or understanding of homosexuality

01:14:52.560 | from the average American. You can forget about trying to persuade the masses that homosexuality

01:14:57.440 | is a good thing. But if only you can get them to think that it is just another thing with a shrug

01:15:02.480 | of their shoulders, then your battle for legal and social rights is virtually won. And to get

01:15:08.240 | to the shoulder shrug stage, gays as a class must cease to appear mysterious, alien, loathsome,

01:15:16.480 | and contrary. A large-scale media campaign will be required in order to change the image of gays

01:15:22.640 | in America. And any campaign to accomplish this turnaround should do six things. One,

01:15:28.800 | talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible. The principle behind this

01:15:35.520 | advice is simple. Almost any behavior begins to look normal if you are exposed to enough of it at

01:15:40.960 | close quarters and among your acquaintances. The acceptability of the new behavior will ultimately

01:15:46.400 | hinge on the number of one's fellows doing it or accepting it. One may be offended by its novelty

01:15:52.800 | at first. Many in times past were momentarily scandalized by streaking, eating goldfish,

01:15:59.280 | and premarital sex. But as long as Joe Six-Pack feels little pressure to perform likewise,

01:16:05.600 | and as long as the behavior in question presents little threat to his physical and financial

01:16:09.600 | security, he soon gets used to it and life goes on. The skeptic may still shake his head and think,

01:16:16.800 | "People are crazy these days," but over time his objections are likely to become more reflective,

01:16:22.720 | more philosophical, less emotional. The way to benumb raw sensitivities about homosexuality

01:16:30.880 | is to have a lot of people talk a great deal about the subject in a neutral or supportive way.

01:16:34.960 | Open and frank talk makes the subject seem less furtive, alien, and sinful, more above board.

01:16:43.200 | Constant talk builds the impression that public opinion is at least divided on the subject,

01:16:48.880 | and that a sizable segment accepts or even practices homosexuality. Even rancorous debates

01:16:55.760 | between opponents and defenders serve the purpose of desensitization so long as respectable gays

01:17:02.240 | are front and center to make their own pitch. The main thing is to talk about gayness until

01:17:07.280 | the issue becomes thoroughly tiresome. And when we say talk about homosexuality, we mean just that.

01:17:13.280 | In the early stages of any campaign to reach straight America, the masses should not be

01:17:18.000 | shocked and repelled by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the imagery

01:17:24.080 | of sex should be downplayed, and gay rights should be reduced to an abstract social question as much

01:17:31.120 | as possible. First, let the camel get his nose inside the tent. Only later, his unsightly derriere.

01:17:39.120 | Where we talk is important. The visual media, film, and television are plainly the most powerful

01:17:46.240 | image makers in Western civilization. The average American household watches over seven hours of TV

01:17:51.760 | daily. Those hours open up a gateway into the private world of straights, through which a

01:17:57.520 | Trojan horse might be passed. As far as desensitization is concerned, the medium is the

01:18:03.440 | message of normalcy. So far, gay Hollywood has provided our best covert weapon in the battle to

01:18:09.920 | desensitize the mainstream. Bit by bit over the past 10 years, gay characters and gay themes have

01:18:16.720 | been introduced into TV programs and films, though often this has been done to achieve comedic and

01:18:21.680 | ridiculous effects. On the whole, the impact has been encouraging. The prime time presentation of

01:18:28.240 | consenting adults on a major network in 1985 is but one high-water mark in favorable media exposure

01:18:34.880 | of gay issues. But this should be just the beginning of a major publicity blitz by gay America.

01:18:42.000 | Would a desensitizing campaign of open and sustained talk about gay issues reach every

01:18:48.400 | rabid opponent of homosexuality? Of course not. While public opinion is one primary source of

01:18:54.160 | mainstream values, religious authority is the other. When conservative churches condemn gays,

01:19:00.400 | there are only two things we can do to confound the homophobia of true believers. First, we can

01:19:06.160 | use talk to muddy the moral waters. This means publicizing support for gays by more moderate

01:19:12.000 | churches, raising theological objections of our own about conservative interpretations of biblical

01:19:17.360 | teachings, and exposing hatred and inconsistency. Second, we can undermine the moral authority of

01:19:24.640 | homophobic churches by portraying them as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step with

01:19:30.320 | the times and with the latest findings of psychology. Against the mighty pull of institutional

01:19:35.600 | religion, one must set the mightier draw of science and public opinion, the shield and

01:19:41.920 | sword of that accursed "secular humanism." Such an unholy alliance has worked well against churches

01:19:48.160 | before on such topics as divorce and abortion. With enough open talk about the prevalence and

01:19:56.240 | acceptability of homosexuality, that alliance can work again here. Two, portray gays as victims,

01:20:04.640 | not as aggressive challengers. In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be cast as

01:20:11.280 | victims in need of protection, so the straights will be inclined by reflex to assume the role

01:20:17.120 | of protector. If gays are presented instead as a strong and prideful tribe promoting a rigidly

01:20:23.520 | nonconformist and deviant lifestyle, they are more likely to be seen as a public menace that

01:20:28.400 | justifies resistance and oppression. For that reason, we must forego the temptation to strut

01:20:34.160 | our gay pride publicly when it conflicts with the gay victim image, and we must walk the fine line

01:20:40.880 | between impressing straights with our great numbers on the one hand and sparking their

01:20:45.280 | hostile paranoia there all around us on the other. A media campaign to promote the gay victim image

01:20:52.560 | should make use of symbols which reduce the mainstream's sense of threat, which lower its

01:20:57.680 | guard and which enhance the plausibility of victimization. In practical terms, this means

01:21:03.280 | that jaunty mustachioed musclemen would keep very low profile in gay commercials and other public

01:21:08.960 | presentations, while sympathetic figures of nice young people, old people, and attractive women

01:21:14.880 | would be featured. It almost goes without saying that groups on the farthest margin of acceptability

01:21:20.480 | such as NAMBLA, editor's note, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, must play no part at all

01:21:27.920 | in such a campaign. Suspected child molesters will never look like victims. Now, there are two

01:21:34.240 | different messages about the gay victim that are worth communicating. First, the mainstream should

01:21:39.200 | be told that gays are victims of fate, in the sense that most never had a choice to accept or

01:21:45.920 | reject their sexual preference. The message must read, "As far as gays can tell, they were born gay,

01:21:52.080 | just as you were born heterosexual or white or black or bright or athletic. Nobody ever tricked

01:21:58.160 | or seduced them. They never made a choice and are not morally blameworthy. What they do isn't

01:22:04.320 | willfully contrary. It's only natural for them. This twist of fate could as easily have happened

01:22:09.280 | to you." Straight viewers must be able to identify with gays as victims. Mr. and Mrs. Public must be

01:22:17.760 | given no extra excuses to say, "They are not like us." To this end, the persons featured in the

01:22:24.320 | public campaign should be decent and upright, appealing and admirable by straight standards,

01:22:30.080 | completely unexceptionable in appearance. In a word, they should be indistinguishable from the

01:22:35.680 | straights we would like to reach. To return to the terms we have used in previous articles,

01:22:41.200 | spokesmen for our cause must be R-type straight gays rather than Q-type homosexuals on display.

01:22:48.400 | Only under such conditions will the message be read correctly. These folks are victims of a fate

01:22:54.320 | that could have happened to me. By the way, we realize that many gays will question an advertising

01:23:01.040 | technique, which might threaten to make homosexuality look like some dreadful disease,

01:23:06.640 | which strikes fated victims. But the plain fact is that the gay community is weak and must

01:23:13.600 | manipulate the powers of the weak, including the play for sympathy. In any case, we compensate for

01:23:20.640 | the negative aspects of this gay victim appeal under principle four below. The second message

01:23:26.480 | would portray gays as victims of society. The straight majority does not recognize the suffering

01:23:32.560 | it brings to the lives of gays and must be shown. Graphic pictures of brutalized gays,

01:23:38.880 | dramatizations of job and housing insecurity, loss of child custody and public humiliation,

01:23:45.200 | and the dismal list goes on. "In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be cast as victims

01:23:52.480 | in need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to assume the role of protector."

01:23:58.960 | Three, give protectors a just cause. A media campaign that casts gays as society's victims

01:24:10.960 | and encourages straights to be their protectors must make it easier for those to respond,

01:24:16.640 | to assert, and explain their new protectiveness. Few straight women, and even fewer straight men,

01:24:23.760 | will want to defend homosexuality boldly as such. Most would rather attach their awakened

01:24:29.920 | protective impulse to some principle of justice or law, to some general desire for consistent

01:24:36.240 | and fair treatment in society. Our campaign should not demand direct support for homosexual practices,

01:24:43.120 | should instead take anti-discrimination as its theme, the right to free speech, freedom of

01:24:49.040 | beliefs, freedom of association, due process, and equal protection of laws. These should be

01:24:54.320 | the concerns brought to mind by our campaign. It is especially important for the gay movement to

01:25:00.480 | hitch its cause to accepted standards of law and justice because its straight supporters must have

01:25:06.880 | at hand a cogent reply to the moral arguments of its enemies. The homophobes clothe their emotional

01:25:14.000 | revulsion in the daunting robes of religious dogma, so defenders of gay rights must be ready

01:25:20.720 | to counter dogma with principle. Four, make gays look good. In order to make a gay victim

01:25:29.600 | sympathetic to straights, you have to portray him as every man. But an additional theme of the

01:25:35.280 | campaign should be more aggressive and upbeat to offset the increasingly bad press that these times

01:25:41.920 | have brought to homosexual men and women. The campaign should paint gays as superior pillars

01:25:47.680 | of society. Yes, yes, we know, this trick is so old it creaks. Other minorities use it all the

01:25:54.000 | time in ads that announce proudly, "Did you know that this great man or woman was blank?" But the

01:26:02.480 | message is vital for all those straights who still picture gays as queer people, shadowy, lonesome,

01:26:08.960 | fail, drunken, suicidal, child-snatching misfits. The honor roll of prominent gay or bisexual men

01:26:15.920 | and women is truly eye-popping. From Socrates to Shakespeare, from Alexander the Great to Alexander

01:26:21.840 | Hamilton, from Michelangelo to Walt Whitman, from Sappho to Gertrude Stein, the list is old hat to

01:26:30.000 | us, but shocking news to heterosexual America. In no time, a skillful and clever media campaign

01:26:36.880 | could have the gay community looking like the veritable fairy godmother to Western civilization.

01:26:41.440 | Along the same lines, we shouldn't overlook the celebrity endorsement. The celebrities can be

01:26:47.120 | straight—God bless you, Ed Asner, wherever you are—or gay. 5. Make the victimizers look bad.

01:26:55.360 | At a later stage of the media campaign for gay rights, long after other gay ads have become

01:27:01.440 | commonplace, it will be time to get tough with remaining opponents. To be blunt, they must be

01:27:08.480 | vilified. This will be all the more necessary because by that time, the entrenched enemy will

01:27:14.240 | have quadrupled its output of vitriol and disinformation. Our goal is here is twofold.

01:27:22.160 | First, we seek to replace the mainstream's self-righteous pride about its homophobia

01:27:28.000 | with shame and guilt. Second, we intend to make the anti-gays look so nasty that average Americans

01:27:35.440 | will want to disassociate themselves from such types. The public should be shown images of

01:27:42.960 | ranting homophobes whose secondary traits and beliefs disgust Middle America. These images

01:27:48.960 | might include the Ku Klux Klan demanding that gays be burned alive or castrated, bigoted Southern

01:27:54.640 | ministers drooling with hysterical hatred to a degree that looks both comical and deranged,

01:28:00.480 | menacing punks, thugs, and convicts speaking coolly about the "fags" they have killed or would like

01:28:06.720 | to kill, a tour of Nazi concentration camps where homosexuals were tortured and gassed.

01:28:12.960 | A campaign to vilify the victimizers is going to enrage our most fervid enemies, of course.

01:28:18.400 | But what else can we say? The shoe fits, and we should make them try it on for size,

01:28:25.440 | with all of America watching. Six, solicit funds. The buck stops here.

01:28:32.240 | Any massive campaign of this kind would require unprecedented expenditures for months or even

01:28:38.960 | years, an unprecedented fundraising drive. Effective advertising is a costly proposition.

01:28:45.600 | Several million dollars would get the ball rolling. There are 10 to 15 million primarily

01:28:50.000 | homosexual adults in this country. If each one of them donated just two dollars to the campaign,

01:28:55.440 | its war chest would actually rival that of its most vocal enemies. And because those gays not

01:29:00.720 | supporting families usually have more discretionary income than average, they could afford to

01:29:05.360 | contribute much more. "We intend to make the anti-gays look so nasty that average Americans

01:29:12.880 | will want to dissociate themselves from such types." But would they? Or is the gay community

01:29:21.600 | as feckless, selfish, uncommitted, and short-sighted as its critics claim? We will never know unless

01:29:28.320 | the new campaign simultaneously launches a concerted nationwide appeal for funding support

01:29:34.080 | from both known and anonymous donors. The appeal should be directed both at gays and at straights

01:29:41.040 | who care about social justice. In the beginning, for reasons to be explained in a moment,

01:29:47.200 | the appeal for funds may have to be launched exclusively through the gay press, national

01:29:52.480 | magazines, local newspapers, flyers at bars, notices in glossy skin magazines. Funds could

01:29:59.040 | also come through the outreach of local gay organizations on campuses and in metropolitan

01:30:03.840 | areas. Eventually, donations would be solicited directly alongside advertisements in the major

01:30:09.520 | straight media. There would be no parallel to such an effort in the history of the gay community

01:30:14.560 | in America. If it failed to generate the needed capital to get started, there would be little

01:30:19.760 | hope for the campaign and little hope for major progress toward gay rights in the near future.

01:30:26.080 | For the moment, let us suppose that gays could see how donations would greatly serve their

01:30:31.120 | long-term interest and that sufficient funds could be raised. An heroic assumption.

01:30:36.720 | Getting on the air, or you can't get there from here. Without access to TV, radio, and the

01:30:44.640 | mainstream press, there will be no campaign. This is a tricky problem because many impresarios of

01:30:51.120 | the media simply refuse to accept what they call "issue advertising." Persuasive advertising can

01:30:56.880 | provoke a storm of resentment from the public and from sponsors, which is bad for business.

01:31:01.920 | The courts have confirmed the broadcaster's right to refuse any "issue advertising" he dislikes.

01:31:08.080 | What exactly constitutes "issue advertising"? It evidently does not include platitudinous appeals

01:31:14.880 | to the virtues of family unity, courtesy of the Mormons. Neither does it include tirades against

01:31:20.080 | perfidious Albion courtesy of Lyndon LaRouche. Neither does it include reminders that "a mind

01:31:28.400 | is a terrible thing to waste" courtesy of the United Negro College Fund. Neither does it include

01:31:34.000 | religious shows which condemn gay sinners. Neither does it include condemnations of nuclear war or

01:31:39.920 | race discrimination, at least not in Massachusetts. Some guys get all the breaks. What "issue

01:31:45.760 | advertising" does include these days is almost any communique presented openly by a homosexual

01:31:51.840 | organization. The words "gay" and "homosexual" are considered controversial whenever they appear.

01:31:59.120 | Because most straightforward appeals are impossible, the National Gay Task Force has

01:32:05.360 | had to cultivate quiet backroom liaisons with broadcast companies and newsrooms in order to

01:32:11.200 | make sure that issues important to the gay community receive some coverage. But such an

01:32:15.920 | arrangement is hardly ideal, of course, because it means that the gay community's image is controlled

01:32:20.960 | by the latest news event instead of by careful design. And recently, most of the news about gays

01:32:27.360 | has been negative. So what can be done to crash the gates of the major media? Several things,

01:32:34.000 | advanced in several stages. Start with the fine print. Newspapers and magazines may

01:32:40.800 | very well be hungrier for gay advertising dollars than television and radio are, and the cost of

01:32:47.120 | ads in print is generally lower. But remember that the press, for the most part, is only read by

01:32:52.320 | better-educated Americans, many of who are already more accepting of homosexuality in any case.

01:32:57.920 | So to get more impact for our dollars, we should skip the New Republic and new left review readers

01:33:03.600 | and head for Time, People, and The National Enquirer. Of course, the gay community may have

01:33:09.520 | to establish itself as a regular advertising presence in more sophisticated forums first

01:33:14.320 | before it is accepted into the mass press. While we're storming the battlements with salvos of ink,

01:33:22.320 | we should also warm the mainstream up a bit with a subtle national campaign on highway billboards.

01:33:28.960 | In simple bold print on dark backgrounds, a series of unobjectionable messages should be introduced.

01:33:38.080 | "In Russia, they tell you what to be. In America, we have the freedom to be ourselves

01:33:46.560 | and to be the best." Or, "People helping instead of hating, that's what America is all about."

01:33:54.320 | And so on. Each sign will tap patriotic sentiment. Each message will drill a seemingly agreeable

01:34:02.000 | proposition into mainstream heads, a public service message suited to our purposes. And,

01:34:08.720 | if heir owners will permit it, each billboard will be signed in slightly smaller letters,

01:34:13.680 | courtesy of the National Gay Task Force, to build positive associations and get the public used to

01:34:18.880 | seeing such sponsorship. Visual Stage 1. You Really Ought to Be in Pictures

01:34:26.560 | As for television and radio, a more elaborate plan may be needed to break the ice. For openers,

01:34:33.200 | naturally, we must continue to encourage the appearance of favorable gay characters in films

01:34:38.240 | and TV shows. Daytime talk shows also remain a useful avenue for exposure. But to speed things

01:34:45.200 | up, we might consider a bold stratagem to gain media attention. The scheme we have in mind would

01:34:52.000 | require careful preparations, yet it would save expense even while it elevated the visibility

01:34:56.960 | and stature of the gay movement overnight. Well before the next elections for national office,

01:35:02.880 | we might lay careful plans to run symbolic gay candidates for every high political office in

01:35:08.800 | this country. Such plans would have to deal somehow with the tricky problem of inducing

01:35:14.640 | gays and straights to sign enough endorsement petitions to get us on the ballot. Our 50 to

01:35:21.360 | 250 candidates would participate in such debates as they could, run gay-themed advertisements

01:35:28.240 | coordinated at our national headquarters, and demand equal time on the air. They could then

01:35:33.840 | graciously pull out of the races before the actual elections, while formally endorsing more viable

01:35:39.760 | straight contenders. With malicious humor, perhaps, in some states, we could endorse our most rabid

01:35:45.920 | opponents. It is essential not to ask people actually to vote "yay" or "nay" on the gay

01:35:52.320 | issue at this early stage. Such action would end up committing most to the "nay" position,

01:35:58.160 | and would only tally huge and visible defeats for our cause. Through such a political campaign,

01:36:04.240 | the mainstream would get over the initial shock of seeing gay ads, and the acceptability of such

01:36:09.280 | ads would be fortified by the most creditable context possible. And all this would be accomplished

01:36:15.520 | before non-electoral advertising was attempted by the gay community. During the campaign,

01:36:21.360 | all hell would break loose, but if we behaved courageously and respectable, our drive would

01:36:26.800 | gain legitimacy in and case, and might even become a cause celebre. It's probably pronounced a cause

01:36:36.560 | celebre. If all went as planned, the somewhat desensitized public and the major networks

01:36:42.400 | themselves would be "readied" for the next step of our program.

01:36:45.920 | Visual Stage 2. Peekaboo Advertising. At this point, the gay community has its foot in the door,

01:36:53.440 | and it is time to ask the networks to accept gay sponsorship of certain ads and shows. Timing is

01:37:01.760 | critical. The request must be made immediately after our national political ads disappear.

01:37:08.320 | Failing that, we should request sponsorship the next time one of the networks struts its

01:37:13.120 | broad-mindedness by televising a film or show with gay characters or themes. If they wish to look

01:37:19.520 | consistent instead of hypocritical, we'll have them on the spot. But the networks would still

01:37:24.720 | be forced to say no unless we made their resistance look patently unreasonable and

01:37:30.800 | possibly illegal. We'd do just that by proposing "gay ads" patterned exactly after those currently

01:37:39.280 | sponsored by the Mormons and others. As usual, viewers would be treated to squeak-clean skits

01:37:46.000 | on the importance of family harmony and understanding. This time, the narrator would

01:37:50.240 | end by saying "this message was brought to you by the National Gay Task Force." All very quiet

01:37:57.760 | and subdued. Remember, exposure is everything, and the medium is the message. "Exposure is

01:38:07.520 | everything and the medium is the message." The gay community should join forces with other civil

01:38:12.720 | liberties groups of respectable caste to promote bland messages about America the melting pot,

01:38:19.520 | always ending with an explicit reference to the task force of some other gay organization.

01:38:25.920 | Making the best of a bad situation, we can also propose sympathetic media appeals for gifts and

01:38:32.320 | donations to fund AIDS research. If Jerry Lewis and the March of Dimes can do it, so can we.

01:38:38.560 | Our next indirect step will be to advertise locally on behalf of support groups peripheral

01:38:44.880 | to the gay community. Frowsy straight moms and dads announcing phone numbers and meeting times for

01:38:50.800 | parents of gays or similar gatherings. Can't you just see how such ads now presented between

01:38:56.880 | messages from the disabled vets and the postal workers union?

01:39:07.360 | Visual Stage 3. Roll out the big guns. By this point, our salami tactics will have carved out,

01:39:17.040 | slice by slice, a large portion of access to the mainstream media. So what then? It would

01:39:23.040 | finally be time to bring gay ads out of the closet. The messages of such ads should directly

01:39:28.800 | address lingering public fears about homosexuals as loathsome and contrary aliens. For example,

01:39:35.360 | the following are possible formats for TV or radio commercials designed to chip away at chronic

01:39:40.560 | misperceptions. Format A for Familiarization. The Testimonial. To make gays seem less mysterious,

01:39:48.560 | present a series of short spots featuring the boy or girl next door, fresh and appealing,

01:39:53.920 | or warm and lovable grandma/grandpa types. Seated in homey surroundings, they respond to an off-camera

01:40:00.400 | interviewer with assurance, good nature, and charm. Their comments bring out three social facts.

01:40:07.920 | 1. There is someone special in their life, a long-term relationship. To stress gay stability,

01:40:13.600 | monogamy, and commitment. 2. Their families are very important to them and are supportive of them.

01:40:19.680 | To stress that gays are not anti-family and that families need not be anti-gay. 3. As far as they

01:40:26.480 | can remember, they have always been gay and were probably born gay. They certainly never decided

01:40:31.680 | on a preference one way or the other, stressing that gays are doing what is natural for them and

01:40:36.000 | are not being willfully contrary. The subjects should be interviewed alone, not with their

01:40:41.120 | lovers or children, for to include others in the picture would unwisely raise disturbing questions

01:40:46.560 | about the complexities of gay social relations, which these commercials could not explain.

01:40:51.600 | It is best instead to take one thing at a time. Format B for Positive Associations. The Celebrity

01:40:58.560 | Spot. While it might be useful to present celebrity endorsements by currently popular gay

01:41:03.600 | figures and straight sympathizers, Johnny Mathis, Marlo Thomas, the homophobia climate of America

01:41:09.440 | would make such brash endorsements unlikely in the near future. So early celebrity spots will

01:41:15.120 | instead identify historical gay or bisexual personalities who are illustrious and dignified

01:41:21.120 | and dead. The ads could be sardonic and indirect. For example, over regal music and a portrait or

01:41:29.120 | two, a narrator might announce simply, "Michelangelo, an art class. Tchaikovsky, a music

01:41:35.360 | class. Tennessee Williams, a drama class," etc. Format C for Victim Sympathy. Our Campaign to Stop

01:41:43.520 | Child Abuse. As we said earlier, there are many ways to portray gays as victims of discrimination,

01:41:49.840 | images of brutality, tales of job loss and family separation, and so on. But we think something like

01:41:55.840 | the following 30-second commercials would get to the heart of the matter best of all.

01:41:59.440 | The camera slowly moves in on a middle-class teenager sitting alone in his semi-darkened

01:42:04.800 | bedroom. The boy is pleasing and unexceptional in appearance, except that he has been roughed up

01:42:10.400 | and is staring silently, pensively, with evident distress. As the camera gradually focuses in on

01:42:17.120 | his face, a narrator comments, "It will happen to one in every ten sons. As he grows up, he will

01:42:23.760 | realize that he feels differently about things than most of his friends. If he lets it show,

01:42:29.040 | he'll be an outsider, made fun of, humiliated, attacked. If he confides in his parents,

01:42:35.120 | they may throw him out of the house, onto the streets. Some will say he is anti-family.

01:42:40.560 | Nobody will let him be himself. So he will have to hide from his friends, his family,

01:42:47.840 | and that's hard. It's tough enough to be a kid these days, but to be the one in ten."

01:42:53.360 | A message from the National Gay Task Force. What is nice about such an ad is that it would

01:42:58.160 | economically portray gays as innocent and vulnerable, victimized and misunderstood,

01:43:03.840 | surprisingly numerous, yet not menacing. It also renders the anti-family charge absurd and

01:43:11.200 | hypocritical. Format D for identification with victims, the old switcheroo. The mainstream will

01:43:18.080 | identify better with the plight of gays if straights can, once in a while, walk a mile in

01:43:23.360 | gay shoes. A humorous television or radio ad to help them do this might involve a brief animated

01:43:28.480 | or dramatized scenario as follows. The camera approaches the mighty oak door of the boss's

01:43:33.840 | office, which swings open, and the camera, which represents you, the viewer, enters the room.

01:43:38.320 | Behind the oversized desk sits a fat and scowling old curmudgeon chomping on a cigar.

01:43:44.160 | He looks up at the camera, i.e. at the viewer and snarls, "So it's you, Smithers. Well, you're fired."

01:43:49.600 | The voice of a younger man is heard to reply with astonishment, "B-b-b-but Mr. Thornburg,

01:43:54.000 | I've been with your company for ten years. I thought you liked my work."

01:43:56.800 | The boss responds with a tone of disgust, "Yes, yes, Smithers, your work is quite adequate,

01:44:02.720 | but I've heard rumors that you've been seen around town with some kind of girlfriend.

01:44:07.120 | A girlfriend. Frankly, I'm shocked. We're not about to start hiring any heterosexuals in this

01:44:11.840 | company. Now get out." The younger man speaks once more, "But boss, that's just not fair.

01:44:16.960 | What if it were you?" The boss glowers back as the camera pulls quickly out of the room and the big

01:44:22.320 | door slams shut. Printed on the door, a message from the National Gay Task Force.

01:44:27.120 | One can easily imagine similar episodes involving housing or other discrimination.

01:44:32.560 | Format E for vilification of victimizers, "Damn the torpedoes." We have already indicated some

01:44:38.720 | of the images which might be damaging to the homophobic vendetta. Ranting and hateful religious

01:44:43.840 | extremists, neo-Nazis, and Ku Klux Klansmen made to look evil and ridiculous. Hardly a difficult

01:44:50.320 | task. These images should be combined with those of their gay victims by a method propagandists

01:44:57.600 | call the bracket technique. For example, for a few seconds, an unctuous, beady-eyed Southern

01:45:03.600 | preacher is seen pounding the pulpit in rage about those "those sick, abominable creatures."

01:45:09.200 | While his tirade continues over the soundtrack, the picture switches to pathetic photos of gays

01:45:15.040 | who look decent, harmless, and likable. And then we cut back to the poisonous face of the preacher

01:45:20.080 | and so forth. The contrast speaks for itself. The effect is devastating. "It would portray gays as

01:45:28.560 | innocent and vulnerable, victimized and misunderstood, surprisingly numerous, yet not

01:45:33.440 | menacing." Format F for funds, SOS. Alongside or during these other persuasive advertisements,

01:45:42.480 | we would have to solicit donation so that the campaign might continue. Direct appeals from

01:45:47.840 | celebrities, preferably living, preferable living ones, thank you, might be useful here. All appeals

01:45:54.480 | must stress that money can be given anonymously, e.g. via money orders, and that all donations are

01:46:00.640 | confidential. "We can't help unless you help," and all that. The time is now. We have sketched

01:46:07.840 | out here a blueprint for transforming the social values of straight America. At the core of our

01:46:12.880 | program is a media campaign to change the way the average citizen views homosexuality. It is quite

01:46:18.320 | easy to fall in fault with such a campaign. We have tried to be practical and specific here,

01:46:23.200 | but the proposals may still have a visionary sheen. There are 100 reasons why the campaign

01:46:29.120 | could not be done or would be risky, but there are at least 20 million good reasons why some

01:46:34.320 | such program must be tried in the coming years. The welfare and happiness of every gay man and

01:46:39.600 | woman in this country demand it. As the last large, legally oppressed minority in American society,

01:46:46.480 | it is high time that gays took effective measures to rejoin the mainstream in pride and strength.

01:46:52.000 | We believe that, like it or not, such a campaign is the only way of doing so anytime soon.

01:46:57.120 | And let us repeat, time may be running out. The AIDS epidemic is sparking anger and fear

01:47:06.320 | in the heartland of straight America. As the virus leaks out of homosexual circles and into

01:47:11.360 | the rest of society, we need have no illusions about who is receiving the blame. The 10 years

01:47:17.520 | ahead may decide for the next 40 whether gays claim their liberty and equality or are driven

01:47:23.760 | back once again as America's cast of detested untouchables. It's more than a quip. Speak now,

01:47:32.320 | or forever hold your peace. That's the close of the article, again, published November 1987.

01:47:40.400 | Now, there's a reason why I read you that article. That is the most effective social movement in

01:47:48.400 | modern society that I'm aware of. And there you have – so 1987 would be 27 years ago.

01:47:56.480 | There you have the blueprint that was laid out 27 years ago. And I expect in a couple of months

01:48:06.560 | that the US Supreme Court will overturn the final homosexual marriage bans in American society.

01:48:13.760 | The reason why I've emphasized that and I'm presenting it to you – I presented it to you

01:48:18.560 | without comment, not a single stop, not a single – everything that you just heard was presented

01:48:23.440 | without comment. You need to understand the movement and how people desire to move in

01:48:29.200 | different causes and effects, in different situations. Because although that – the

01:48:37.440 | homosexual movement is on the periphery of finance, the real only – the only application to the world

01:48:43.600 | of finance would be in changing the role of financial planning for homosexual couples.

01:48:47.840 | That's a role that's changing. But that's on the periphery of finance. But it's an example

01:48:54.400 | of social movements, planned social movements and propaganda and how those function in modern

01:49:01.920 | society. Once you understand the tactics and tools of propaganda, then you might be able to

01:49:09.760 | develop some deeper critical thinking skills to protect yourself against

01:49:14.480 | the ways that they are used against you in financial topics.

01:49:20.080 | So there's one thing that wasn't covered in there that I think is important from the

01:49:24.480 | subsequent book of that article. That article is essentially the outline of the book. But then

01:49:28.320 | they developed it into the book After the Ball, How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of

01:49:31.920 | the Gays in the 1990s. That one I believe was published in 1989 if memory is correct.

01:49:36.640 | So I'm going to read you a couple of short sections. It's a large book. I will link to this

01:49:42.480 | – these notes. There's a system of notes that I found on a website. It's a PDF that I found on

01:49:47.040 | a website called comingoutstraight.com. It was compiled by a man named Richard Cohen.

01:49:51.200 | And these notes are his in-detailed notes from the book After the Ball. But I want to pull some

01:49:58.640 | lessons from this because this is the one thing that's missing in the article that was in the book.

01:50:02.000 | First, from page two of his notes, page 10 and 11 of the book, he quotes this. "Homosexuality must

01:50:09.600 | be" – and these are not direct quotes. These are – because I'm not sure in his notes exactly what's

01:50:16.240 | a direct quote and what's not. So these are accurate but I don't want you to believe that

01:50:20.640 | these are direct quotes because I'm not sure if they are or not. I don't have the book.

01:50:24.080 | "Homosexuality needs to be portrayed as either a one permanent condition or two temporary problem

01:50:29.440 | that can be fixed or can be portrayed as either – homosexuality portrayed as either a one permanent

01:50:36.080 | condition or two temporary problem that can be fixed. This distinction between problem and

01:50:40.480 | condition is crucial to the way straights think about homosexuality. A problem has a solution.

01:50:45.920 | A condition doesn't need to be fixed. It is simply an aspect of life that must be accommodated.

01:50:51.200 | It requires permanent tolerance and you must come to terms with it psychologically,

01:50:55.280 | practically, and morally. Must change public opinion from problem to condition." That's

01:51:00.320 | from pages 10 to 11. If you think about that, that's the concept of – I pull from that a

01:51:05.520 | concept called framing where anytime you can frame the debate in a subject, then you're going to

01:51:12.000 | basically present the options and you're going to be the one who is in control of the different

01:51:17.440 | potential options. In many ways, I'm doing that on my show right now. I'm the one who is framing

01:51:22.320 | this discussion. I'm choosing the topics that I am presenting to you. I'm choosing the information

01:51:29.600 | that I'm presenting to you and I'm essentially presenting one side or the other. I am using the

01:51:35.840 | dichotomy of contrasting and worldviews and I do this on the show. I'm presenting to you.

01:51:41.280 | The contrast between biblical Christianity and secular humanism. And so I'm basically using that

01:51:46.640 | debate. But you need to be careful anytime you are considering a subject because not all subjects are

01:51:52.800 | either one or the other. Now in this case, the homosexual movement and the homosexual activists

01:51:58.960 | have succeeded completely in framing that debate. Is it a problem or is it a condition? And

01:52:06.960 | essentially, they have hammered on that theme over the past 30 years of the public relations campaign

01:52:13.040 | until it's commonly accepted in society and almost every aspect of society with a few

01:52:18.080 | small groups that believe differently that homosexuality is an inborn characteristic.

01:52:23.680 | That it's not based upon external factors. And there are very few, very broadly criticized

01:52:31.200 | segments of society that don't hold to that claim. But the mainstream view is that homosexuality is

01:52:40.560 | an inborn, unchangeable problem. That perception was not always thus. That perception has been

01:52:47.680 | changed over the last 30 years based upon the success of this outline, this guide for changing

01:52:54.800 | the perception of Americans and the success of these authors with designing their plan.

01:52:59.840 | Now the one thing that was covered in the book that I want to read from these notes here

01:53:03.920 | is what do you do when the conversation happens? This is important because as you think back over

01:53:10.960 | the last three years of your observation of public – excuse me, 30 years of your observation of

01:53:15.120 | public media, you should be able to understand and look and see various things – various aspects of

01:53:22.800 | this happening. And it's important to know as these authors put it here what their strategy was.

01:53:29.760 | And this is specifically under I think they're chapter 16 or they're section 16 where it's how

01:53:36.400 | to halt, derail and/or reverse the engine of prejudice. That's how they – this is the tools

01:53:41.920 | they give in the book for how to overcome prejudice and bigotry toward homosexuals.

01:53:48.240 | And these are the techniques. These are the same techniques that are applied in financial spaces

01:53:53.200 | and financial spheres. But I don't have an equivalent campaign that – or at least with

01:53:59.520 | public documents that I can point to because these things go much farther than our generational

01:54:04.320 | lifetime. But you need to learn to be able to insulate yourself and protect yourself from the

01:54:07.920 | propaganda. So I'm reading here from page seven of these notes that are compiled and these are

01:54:13.440 | this man Richard Cohen's notes pulled together of this book. So quote from page 146 of the book,

01:54:22.800 | "First you get your foot in the door by being as similar as possible. Then and only then when your

01:54:29.200 | one little difference is finally accepted, can you start dragging in your other peculiarities

01:54:34.080 | one by one. You hammer in the wedge narrow end first. As the saying goes, allow the camel's

01:54:41.520 | nose beneath your tent and his whole body will soon follow." How to halt, derail and/or reverse

01:54:49.280 | the engine of prejudice. Step one, desensitization. Prejudice is an alerting signal. Warns tribal

01:54:56.640 | mammals that a potential alien mammal is in the vicinity and should be fought or fled.

01:55:00.560 | Two things can happen. One, strong or weak stimulus. Fight it or flee from it. And two,

01:55:06.480 | low-grade stimulus. Don't take action against it. Irrelevancy. Get used to it.

01:55:10.640 | If homosexuals present themselves as different and threatening, then straights go on alert and

01:55:16.080 | fight against them. To desensitize straights, homosexuals inundate them with conscious flood

01:55:21.200 | of homosexual-related advertising, presented in the least offensive fashion. If straights can't

01:55:26.160 | shut the shower off, they may at least eventually get used to being wet. Stage two, jamming.

01:55:32.160 | Insertion of incompatible emotion into the preexisting system, like sprinkling sand into

01:55:37.040 | a pocket watch. Jamming is more active and aggressive than desensitization. Jamming uses

01:55:42.560 | the rules of associative conditioning. When two things are repeatedly juxtaposed,

01:55:47.440 | one's feelings about one thing are transferred to the other, and direct emotional modeling,

01:55:52.240 | the inborn tendency of human beings to feel what they perceive others to be feeling.

01:55:56.400 | Consequent internal confusion has two effects. Unpleasant or emotional dissonance will tend to

01:56:03.200 | result in an alteration of previous beliefs and feelings, so as to resolve the internal conflict.

01:56:08.800 | And second, the internal dissonance will tend to inhibit overexpression of the prejudicial emotion,

01:56:14.480 | which is in itself useful and relieving. All normal people feel shame when they perceive

01:56:20.000 | that they are not thinking, feeling, or acting like one of the pack. The trick is to get the

01:56:24.720 | bigot into the position of feeling a conflicting twinge of shame, along with his reward,

01:56:30.240 | whenever his homo-hatred surfaces, so that his reward will be diluted or spoiled.

01:56:36.240 | Quick note from Joshua here. This next paragraph has a few unpleasant words. I'm going to read

01:56:40.080 | them directly, but if you need to skip forward 30 seconds to skip a few unpleasant words for

01:56:44.560 | your children, duly noted. Next, "Propagandistic advertising can depict homophobic and homo-hating

01:56:52.800 | bigots as crude loudmouths and assholes, people who say not only 'faggot' but 'nigger,' 'kike,'

01:56:58.960 | and other shameful epithets who are 'not Christian.' It can show them being criticized,

01:57:04.880 | hated, shunned. It can depict homosexuals experiencing horrific suffering as the

01:57:09.680 | direct result of homo-hatred, suffering of which even most bigots would be ashamed to be the cause.

01:57:15.120 | It can, in short, link homo-hating bigotry with all sorts of attributes the bigot would be ashamed

01:57:21.040 | to possess, and with social consequences he would find unpleasant and scary. The attack,

01:57:26.480 | therefore, is on self-image and on the pleasure in hating. When our ads show a bigot, just like

01:57:32.720 | the members of the target audience, being criticized, hated, and shunned, we make use of

01:57:37.200 | direct emotional modeling as well. Remember, a bigot seeks approval and liking from his crowd.

01:57:43.360 | When he sees someone like himself being disapproved of and disliked by ordinary Joes,

01:57:48.480 | direct emotional modeling ensures that he will feel just what they feel and transfer it to himself.

01:57:53.680 | This wrinkle effectively elicits shame and doubt, jamming any pleasure he might normally feel.

01:58:00.480 | In a very real sense, every time a bigot sees such things, he is unlearning a little bit of

01:58:04.960 | the lessons of prejudice taught him by his parents and peers. Effective jamming is achieved without

01:58:10.800 | reference to facts, logic, or proof. Through repeated infrological emotional conditioning,

01:58:18.800 | his bigotry can be alloyed in exactly the same way, whether he is conscious of the attack or not.

01:58:25.040 | Indeed, the more he is distracted by any incidental, even specious, surface arguments,

01:58:30.240 | the less conscious he'll be of the true nature of the process, which is all to the good.

01:58:34.560 | I'm going to read that paragraph again because it's important that you understand this,

01:58:39.520 | especially as related to financial topics. "The effective jamming is achieved without

01:58:44.960 | reference to facts, logic, or proof. Through repeated infrological emotional conditioning,

01:58:51.600 | his bigotry can be alloyed in exactly the same way, whether he is conscious of the attack or not.

01:58:58.480 | Indeed, the more he is distracted by any incidental, even specious, surface arguments,

01:59:03.680 | the less conscious he'll be of the true nature of the process, which is all to the good. In short,

01:59:10.000 | jamming succeeds insofar as it inserts even a slight frision of doubt and shame into the

01:59:16.000 | previously unalloyed self-righteous pleasure. You need massive public exposure of the message

01:59:23.360 | to succeed." And then stage three, the first stage was desensitization. Stage two is jamming,

01:59:29.040 | and stage three here is conversion. "Desensitization aims at lowering the intensity of

01:59:34.640 | anti-homosexual emotional reactions to a level approximating sheer indifference. Jamming attempts

01:59:40.720 | to blockade or counteract the rewarding 'pride and prejudice' by attaching to homo-hatred a

01:59:47.200 | pre-existing and punishing sense of shame in being a bigot, a horse's ass, and a beater and

01:59:53.120 | murderer. Both of these techniques are preludes to our highest, though necessarily very long-range

01:59:59.280 | goal, which is conversion. Conversion of the average American's emotions, mind, and will

02:00:06.320 | through a planned psychological attack in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media.

02:00:12.400 | We mean subverting the mechanism of prejudice to our own ends, using the very process that made

02:00:19.280 | America hate us to turn their hatred into warm regard, whether they like it or not.

02:00:25.040 | If desensitization lets the watch run down and jamming throws sand in the works,

02:00:30.560 | conversion reverses the spring so that the hands run backward. In conversion, the bigot who holds

02:00:37.360 | a very negative stereotypic picture is repeatedly exposed to literal picture and label pairs

02:00:43.520 | in magazines and on billboards and TV of homosexuals, explicitly labeled as such,

02:00:49.040 | who not only don't look like his picture of homosexuals, but are carefully selected to look

02:00:54.080 | either like the bigot and his friends or like any of his other stereotypes of all right guys,

02:00:59.360 | the kind of people he already likes and admires. This image must, of necessity, be carefully

02:01:05.680 | tailored to be free of absolutely every element of the widely held stereotypes of how faggots look,

02:01:11.920 | dress, and sound. He or she must not be too well or fashionably dressed, must not be too handsome,

02:01:18.720 | that is, mustn't look like a model or well-groomed. The image must be that of an icon or normality.

02:01:25.760 | A good beginning would be to take a long look at Coors Beer and Three Musketeers candy commercials.

02:01:30.800 | Subsequent ads can branch out from that solid basis to include really adorable athletic teenagers,

02:01:36.720 | kindly grandmothers, avuncular policemen ad infinitum. But it makes no difference that the

02:01:43.360 | ads are lies, not to us, because we're using them to ethically good effect, to counter negative

02:01:52.080 | stereotypes that are every bit as much lies and far more wicked ones, not be bigots, because the

02:01:59.520 | ads will have their effect on them whether they believe them or not. I need to read that paragraph

02:02:05.520 | again to emphasize it. But it makes no difference that the ads are lies, not to us, because we're

02:02:12.800 | using them to ethically good effect, to counter negative stereotypes that are every bit as much

02:02:18.400 | lies and far more wicked ones, not be bigots, because the ads will have their effect on them

02:02:24.400 | whether they believe them or not. When a bigot is presented with an image of the sort of person of

02:02:29.840 | whom he already has a positive stereotype, he experiences an involuntary rush of positive

02:02:36.080 | emotion, of good feeling. He's been conditioned to experience it. But here the good picture has

02:02:42.640 | the bad label, homosexual. The ad may say something rather like "Buregaard Smith,

02:02:47.760 | beer drinker, good old boy, pillar of the community, 100% American, and homosexual as a

02:02:53.120 | mongoose." The bigot will feel two incompatible emotions, a good response to the picture, a bad

02:03:00.240 | response to the label. At worst, the two will cancel one another, and we will have successfully

02:03:06.160 | jammed as above. At best, associative conditioning will, to however small an extent, transfer the

02:03:13.920 | positive emotion associated with the picture to the label itself, not immediately replacing the

02:03:19.120 | negative response, but definitely weakening it. You may wonder why the transfer wouldn't proceed

02:03:25.120 | in the opposite direction. The reason is simple. Pictures are stronger than words and evoke

02:03:30.720 | emotional responses more powerfully. The bigot is presented with an actual picture. Its label will

02:03:36.560 | evoke in his mind his own stereotypic picture. What he sees in his mind's eye will be weaker

02:03:41.760 | than what he actually sees in front of him with the eyes in his face. The more carefully selected

02:03:46.560 | the advertising image is to reflect his ideal of the sort of person who just couldn't be homosexual,

02:03:52.480 | the more effective it will be. Moreover, he will, by virtue of logical necessity,

02:03:57.840 | see the positive picture in the ad before it can arouse his negative picture, and first

02:04:02.720 | impressions have an advantage over second. In conversion, we mimic the natural process

02:04:09.440 | of stereotype learning with the following effect. We take the bigot's good feelings about all right

02:04:15.600 | guys and attach them to the label "gay," either weakening or eventually replacing his bad feelings

02:04:22.000 | toward the label and the prior stereotype. Understanding direct emotional modeling,

02:04:28.160 | you'll readily foresee its application to conversion. Whereas in jamming, the target is

02:04:33.840 | shown a bigot being rejected by his crowd for his prejudice against homosexuals, in conversion,

02:04:40.400 | the target is shown his crowd actually associating with homosexuals in good fellowship.

02:04:45.120 | Once again, it's very difficult for the average person, who by nature and training almost

02:04:51.760 | invariably feels what he sees his fellows feeling, not to respond in this knee-jerk fashion to a

02:04:58.320 | sufficiently calculated advertisement. In a way, most advertisement is founded upon an answer of

02:05:04.640 | "yes, definitely." To Mother's sarcastic question, I suppose if all the other kids jumped off a

02:05:09.680 | bridge and killed themselves, you would too? Success depends on flooding the media, and that

02:05:17.680 | in turn means money, man hours, and unifying the homosexual community for a concerted effort.

02:05:26.320 | Pay attention to this section here. Learn from Madison Avenue to roll out the big guns.

02:05:32.960 | Homosexuals must launch a large-scale campaign. We've called it the "waging peace campaign" to

02:05:38.400 | reach straights through the mainstream media. We're talking about propaganda. The term propaganda

02:05:45.200 | applies to any deliberate attempt to persuade the masses via public communications media.

02:05:49.840 | Its function is not to perpetrate, but to propagate. To propagate, that is, to spread

02:05:57.360 | new ideas and feelings or reinforce old ones, which may themselves be either evil or good

02:06:03.840 | depending on their purpose and effect. The purpose and effect of pro-gay propaganda

02:06:09.040 | is to promote a climate of increased tolerance for homosexuals.

02:06:12.880 | Three characteristics distinguish propaganda from other modes of communication and contribute to its

02:06:20.480 | sinister reputation. 1. Relies on emotional manipulation through desensitization, jamming,

02:06:29.920 | and conversion. 2. Use lies. And 3. Subjective and one-sided. Tell our side of the story as

02:06:40.960 | movingly as possible. In the battle for hearts and minds, effective propaganda knows enough to

02:06:46.160 | put its best foot forward. This is what our own media campaign must do. We must train leaders,

02:06:54.720 | national workshops for full acceptance in America, begin a national positive images campaign.

02:07:00.560 | Recognition is dawning that anti-gay discrimination begins, like war, in the minds of men and must be

02:07:08.240 | stopped there with the help of propaganda. The principal goal of the campaign is to gain

02:07:13.840 | tolerance and acceptance by the straight community. Show in the media that homosexual community lives

02:07:19.520 | by an ethical code in order to achieve our goal of tolerance and acceptance. Publicly come out to

02:07:27.520 | desensitize, jam, and convert straight America. Jamming means interrupting the smooth workings of

02:07:34.640 | bigotry by inducing inconsistent feelings in the bigot. Extreme bigots become less confident that

02:07:41.840 | their incitements will generate applause and are further inhibited by the majority of mild bigots,

02:07:47.360 | who now become uneasy that a fagslur might provoke an unpleasant scene.

02:07:51.040 | Once these dynamics get going, displays of homo hatred suddenly become off color and boorish.

02:07:56.800 | Thus, when homosexuals come out, they help transform the social climate from one that

02:08:01.840 | supports prejudice to one that shuts homo haters up. Coming out is critical catalyst for the all

02:08:08.080 | important conversion process. To make straights actually like and accept homosexuals as a group,

02:08:14.240 | enabling straights to identify with them, coming out is the key to sociopolitical empowerment,

02:08:20.000 | the ability of the gay community to control its own destiny.

02:08:23.520 | The coming out process is too slow, so we also need a national media campaign.

02:08:29.040 | After meeting enough likable homosexuals on TV, Jane Doe may begin to feel she knows homosexuals

02:08:34.560 | as a group, even if none has ever introduced himself to her personally. Thwart bigotry.

02:08:41.120 | Carefully crafted, repeatedly displayed mass media images of homosexuals could conceivably

02:08:47.040 | do even more to reverse negative stereotypes than could the incremental coming out of one

02:08:51.760 | person to another. The wide range of favorably sanitized images that might be shown in the media

02:08:58.160 | could eventually have a far more positive impact on the homosexual stereotype than could exposure

02:09:04.000 | to homosexual friends. Since straights will otherwise generalize a suboptimal impression

02:09:09.040 | of gays from the idiosyncratic admixture of good and bad traits possessed by their one or two

02:09:13.840 | homosexual acquaintances. Portray only the most favorable side of gays, thereby counterbalancing

02:09:19.440 | the already unfairly negative stereotype in the public's mind. The media campaign will work well

02:09:25.440 | in tandem with the everyone comes out strategy because it is actually a catalyst to coming out.

02:09:30.640 | And the final, well, excuse me, the final part of this section here.

02:09:35.440 | There are two different avenues to gay liberation. Education, i.e. propaganda, and politics.

02:09:41.200 | Politicians must be responsive to public sentiment on sensational issues if they value their careers.

02:09:47.600 | But this often happens in politics, especially on the homosexual issue where, as Yeasts would say,

02:09:52.880 | "The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

02:09:57.120 | Our political success would be greatly advanced by media campaign conducted prior to

02:10:03.040 | or simultaneously with political initiatives. And then I'm skipping a section here and I've

02:10:09.840 | got one more page here of skipping to a different principle. And again, if you'd like to read these

02:10:14.720 | notes, what I'm trying to point out to you is how there can be a concerted propaganda pressure

02:10:22.480 | to adjust public sentiment and public opinion. And this will apply directly to many financial topics.

02:10:28.240 | But here are a couple of additional things. So from page 12 of these notes, which are pulling

02:10:34.320 | from pages, page 178 of After the Ball, is under a principle called keep talking where you need to

02:10:40.640 | keep discussing all of these issues continually until people get desensitized to them.

02:10:45.840 | Quote, "In the early stages of the campaign, the public should not be shocked and repelled

02:10:52.240 | by premature exposure to homosexual behavior itself. Instead, the imagery of sex per se should

02:10:58.640 | be downplayed and the issue of gay rights reduced as far as possible to an abstract social question."

02:11:04.960 | Close quote. That was from page 178. Quote, "As it happens, the AIDS epidemic, ever a course and

02:11:10.960 | boon for the gay movement, provides ample opportunity to emphasize the civil rights

02:11:15.840 | and discrimination side of things. But unfortunately, it also permits our enemies to

02:11:19.920 | draw attention to gay sex habits that provoke revulsion." Close quote from page 178.

02:11:25.360 | Accused religious people, quote, "Gays can use talk to muddy the moral waters, that is,

02:11:31.520 | to undercut the rationalizations that justify religious bigotry and to jam some of its psychic

02:11:37.760 | rewards. Portray such institutions as antiquated backwaters, badly out of step with the times and

02:11:43.840 | with the latest findings of psychology." It's from page 179. Finally, some quotes from the

02:11:51.520 | author's principle five, which is to portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers. Quote,

02:11:57.120 | "Gays must be portrayed as victims in need of protection. So the straights will be inclined

02:12:01.680 | by reflex to adopt the role of protector. If gays present themselves instead as a strong

02:12:06.880 | and arrogant tribe promoting a defiantly nonconformist lifestyle, they are most likely

02:12:11.520 | to be seen as a public menace that warrants resistance and oppression." From page 183.

02:12:16.160 | Key point, quote, "The purpose of victim imagery is to make straights feel very uncomfortable.

02:12:22.880 | That is to jam with shame the self-righteous pride that would ordinarily accompany and reward

02:12:27.520 | their anti-gay belligerence and to lay the groundwork for the process of conversion by

02:12:32.160 | helping straights identify with gays and sympathize with their underdog status." Close quote from page

02:12:37.280 | 183. Quote, "Persons featured in media campaigns should be wholesome and admirable by straight

02:12:43.120 | standards and completely unexceptional in appearance. In a word, they should be indistinguishable from

02:12:48.000 | the straights we'd like to reach." Close quote, 183. Quote, "Conventional young people, middle-aged

02:12:53.920 | women, and older folks of all races would be featured, not to mention the parents and straight

02:12:58.320 | friends of gays. One could also argue that lesbians should be featured more prominently

02:13:03.040 | than gay men in the early stages of the media campaign." Close quote from 183 to 184.

02:13:07.840 | Finally here, two different messages about gay victims. The public persuaded that gays are

02:13:13.360 | victims of circumstance, that they no more choose their sexual orientation than they did, say,

02:13:18.560 | their height, skin color, talents, or limitations. Quote, "To suggest in public that homosexuality

02:13:24.720 | might be chosen is to open the can of worms labeled 'moral choice' and 'sin' and give the

02:13:30.880 | religious intransigence a stick to beat us with. Straights must be taught that it is as natural for

02:13:37.600 | some persons to be homosexual as it is for others to be heterosexual. Wickedness and seduction have

02:13:44.080 | nothing to do with it, and since no choice is involved, gayness can be no more blameworthy than

02:13:49.360 | straightness. In fact, it is simply a matter of the odds, one in ten, as to who turns out gay and who's

02:13:55.840 | straight. Each heterosexual must be led to realize that he might easily have been born homosexual

02:14:01.600 | himself." Page 184. "Gays should be portrayed as victims of prejudice. Straights don't fully

02:14:08.720 | realize the suffering they bring upon gays and must be shown graphic pictures of brutalized gays,

02:14:14.880 | dramatizations of job and housing insecurity, loss of child custody, public humiliation, etc." Page 184.

02:14:23.920 | Finally, this section, "Help straights become homosexual protectors, play for sympathy and

02:14:28.400 | tolerance, march if you must, but don't parade. Look good for the camera and newspaper. Look

02:14:34.000 | ordinary, not disenfranchised drag queens, bull dykes, exotic elements of the gay community.

02:14:39.040 | Desensitization works gradually or not at all." Page 186. If you look at that content and you

02:14:48.400 | clearly understand the tools and methodologies used, and you use that combined with some study

02:14:58.240 | of logic and logical fallacies, and then you start looking at the world around you,

02:15:03.440 | I believe you'll be able to see through a lot of the propaganda because propaganda is not only used

02:15:09.600 | in the furtherance of the homosexual movement. It's used in every area of life. It's used in tons

02:15:16.320 | and tons of aspects of finance. And we're going to get into many more of those aspects in future

02:15:24.080 | episodes. The challenge is simply that I sometimes struggle with knowing how to work through things.

02:15:32.240 | I find information, some of which I brought on the show and some of which I'll bring in the

02:15:37.040 | future, but I find information and you struggle and you say, "Wow, can this be true? Is this true?

02:15:42.400 | How does this work?" The biggest, probably the most immediately apparent one where I've connected

02:15:48.320 | this with actual financial topics is the discussion of retirement. Well, that makes a big difference

02:15:53.520 | in your life, how you view retirement planning. It makes a big difference. So it's difficult and

02:16:01.680 | challenging to work through this with the financial aspects because most of this stuff goes far beyond

02:16:06.400 | my lifetime, probably far beyond your lifetime. But we, as a radical personal finance community,

02:16:13.120 | we need to continue to develop our critical thinking skills. And we need to continually

02:16:18.480 | develop our knowledge and our research skills. And we need to look at the society around us and

02:16:26.560 | hone our skills of discernment to understand what's actually happening in society around us.

02:16:34.640 | When I finally was able to look at those documents that I just read to you in detail,

02:16:40.320 | and I was able to understand the tools and the tactics presented by Kirk and Madsen on

02:16:46.880 | how they planned, brilliantly planned to achieve their objective. And then I thought back over the

02:16:55.840 | course of my lifetime and I thought through all the different things that I've been exposed to,

02:17:00.560 | TV programs, the debates, the social commentary, the newspaper articles, the personal conversations.

02:17:06.720 | I just thought, I can see every single one of their tactics applied to modern society.

02:17:12.480 | And it has led to an almost absolute complete transformation of modern society.

02:17:19.600 | It's incredible. It's incredible the power of propaganda techniques.

02:17:25.600 | Now, those techniques can be used and employed for good or for bad.

02:17:28.720 | And your perspective on good and bad will be driven by your worldview,

02:17:34.400 | which is why you need to spend a lot of time thinking about it and constructing it. It's

02:17:40.560 | very easy to see these techniques in modern social issues. I'll give you an example. Take the

02:17:48.720 | discussion very clearly presented by Kirk and Madsen on leading with the camel's nose,

02:17:56.240 | just leading with the simple camel's nose. Look at a modern social issue that is constantly in

02:18:03.840 | the forefront of societal debate, for example, abortion. So in our modern, in 2015, the battle

02:18:11.840 | in our society in general is over abortion in general. So we're at the stage in the discussion

02:18:17.280 | where we publicly argue about the ethics of killing a preborn baby, but we argue about it

02:18:22.320 | whether or not it's right because it's conceived because of rape or incest. We don't really argue

02:18:28.000 | about the uglier side of abortion, which is the concept of, "This baby is simply inconvenient to

02:18:33.520 | me," abortions. We don't argue about the possibility of sex-selective abortion, like is somewhat common

02:18:39.440 | in China as a result of their one-child policy. We don't know about the fact that in China,

02:18:43.760 | there are unmarked vans with sonograph equipment to offer illegal gender identification ultrasounds

02:18:49.200 | to pregnant mothers so they can determine the gender of their baby prior to birth.

02:18:53.840 | We certainly don't talk about disability-selective abortion. We don't talk about the fact that

02:18:58.240 | 90% of the babies that are diagnosed with Down syndrome via fetal genetic testing are ultimately

02:19:03.200 | aborted and killed. It's not polite to bring that up in our society. It's too graphic, too grating.

02:19:09.520 | It's not a polite conversation. We certainly would never talk about the massive disparity

02:19:14.560 | in race among abortion. We wouldn't talk about the massive number of black babies that are

02:19:19.920 | aborted. In a culture of featuring the hashtag of #BlackLivesMatter,

02:19:25.360 | we talk about police brutality, and we should, but we don't dare talk about the fact that the

02:19:33.040 | number one killer of black lives in the United States is abortion. It's fascinating. If you

02:19:37.760 | total up all the causes of death for blacks in the United States for HIV, homicide, diabetes,

02:19:42.480 | accidents, cancer, and heart disease, you wind up with 285,522 annual deaths. In the meantime,

02:19:49.360 | 363,000, almost 80,000 more, 360,000 more babies, excuse me, 363,000 total babies were aborted.

02:20:00.160 | That's a worldview issue. So you got to think about and understand your worldview and your

02:20:07.280 | ethical framework, and you need to effectively articulate it for yourself, for your family,

02:20:11.440 | and for your community. Neutrality is not an option. You cannot be neutral on it.

02:20:17.600 | On a situation like that, most people, the lie of the abortion propaganda is that you can be neutral.

02:20:25.360 | And this is where we go back to the topic of cowardice. I have a very difficult time

02:20:33.200 | having effective conversations with people who are vaguely religious and with people who are

02:20:38.880 | vaguely humanist. I personally prefer you to understand your worldview clearly and advocate

02:20:45.120 | confidently for your positions. Now, obviously, we're all in the process of assembling and

02:20:50.080 | disassembling and repairing and adjusting and modifying our respective worldviews. No matter

02:20:54.640 | where you are as a person in your life's development, you're effectively constantly

02:20:58.560 | adjusting to new information, new content, new learning. I get that. That's the whole point of

02:21:03.440 | why I'm trying to do this show, to help you and give you information so that you can understand

02:21:10.240 | what you believe and why. But in order to do that, somebody needs to be clear about what they believe

02:21:16.880 | and why. I'm not scared of a good debate. I hope you aren't either. A good debate is useful, but

02:21:24.480 | we can't lie to each other about what our positions are and have an effective debate.

02:21:29.040 | And that's what makes me so angry about much of modern-day propaganda. And this show – I'm

02:21:36.960 | hoping that I'm clear with my content here. This show is not about finance. This show is about

02:21:42.080 | propaganda and worldview and systems and codes of morality and ethics. And then for the forthcoming

02:21:49.040 | future of this show, we're going to apply it to financial topics. But you need this background of

02:21:53.840 | how do we think about worldview. The debate is important as long as we effectively articulate

02:21:59.040 | our position and our framework and our worldview, and as long as we're consistent with it.

02:22:04.800 | Let me give you an example. Let me tell you about a man that I admire. The man is named Peter Singer.

02:22:10.640 | Now, the reason that I admire him is simply because he's not a coward

02:22:15.360 | and he's intellectually consistent. I can hardly imagine somebody who is farther away from me

02:22:23.680 | on a continuum of issues, especially social issues. But at least he's consistent with his

02:22:29.280 | own philosophy. So that way I can actually understand and articulate his philosophy.

02:22:34.480 | He says what he believes. He doesn't hide behind ridiculous propaganda marketing messages. He says

02:22:40.640 | what he believes so that I can actually think about that and say, "Hmm, do I believe what he says?

02:22:46.240 | Do I believe what I say? Or do I believe somewhere in the middle?" And I can wrestle with my worldview

02:22:51.840 | and I can wrestle with my issues. Let me give you some examples from his Wikipedia article.

02:22:56.720 | So this is from Wikipedia. "Peter Albert David Singer, born 6th of July 1946, is an Australian

02:23:03.280 | moral philosopher. He is currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University

02:23:09.600 | and a Laureate Professor at the Center for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the

02:23:14.880 | University of Melbourne. He specializes in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a

02:23:20.080 | secular utilitarian perspective." Interestingly, he's not a secular humanist. He's a secular

02:23:26.000 | utilitarian. I'll clarify that in a moment, but to continue on, he's close enough for the discussion

02:23:29.920 | for right now. "He is known in particular for his book Animal Liberation, 1975, a canonical text in

02:23:36.400 | animal rights and liberation theory. For most of his career, he supported preference utilitarianism,

02:23:42.080 | but in his later years became a classical or hedonistic utilitarian when co-authoring

02:23:47.200 | The Point of View of the Universe with Catarzyna de Lazari-Radek. On two occasions, Singer served

02:23:52.880 | as Chair of the Philosophy Department at Monash University, where he founded its Center for Human

02:23:57.920 | Bioethics. In 1996, he stood unsuccessfully as a Greens candidate for the Australian Senate.

02:24:04.080 | In 2004, he was recognized as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian

02:24:09.360 | Humanist Societies, and in June 2012 was named a Companion of the Order of Australia for his

02:24:14.640 | services to philosophy and bioethics. He serves on the Advisory Board of Incentives for Global Health,

02:24:20.400 | the NGO formed to develop the Health Impact Fund proposal. He has voted one of Australia's 10 most

02:24:25.760 | influential public intellectuals in 2006. Singer currently serves on the Advisory Board of Academic

02:24:31.760 | Stand Against Poverty." We'll get to that in a moment. Now, let's talk about some of his ideas.

02:24:35.760 | This is important, and here's a man who's not a coward, who's actually consistent with his

02:24:41.200 | philosophy, consistent with his moral, ethical, and intellectual framework, and applies it. Here

02:24:46.160 | are some of his positions directly from his Wikipedia page. Applied Ethics. "Singer's most

02:24:51.680 | comprehensive work, Practical Ethics, from 1979, analyzes in detail why and how living beings'

02:24:57.680 | interests should be weighed. His principle of equal consideration of interests does not dictate

02:25:02.960 | equal treatment of all those with interests, since different interests warrant different treatment.

02:25:08.720 | All have an interest in avoiding pain, for instance, but relatively few have an interest

02:25:12.880 | in cultivating their abilities. Not only does his principle justify different treatment for

02:25:17.760 | different interests, but it allows different treatment for the same interest when diminishing

02:25:21.920 | marginal utility is a factor. For example, this approach would privilege a starving person's

02:25:27.120 | interest in food over the same interest of someone who is only slightly hungry.

02:25:31.200 | Among the more important human interests are those in avoiding pain, in developing one's

02:25:36.400 | abilities, in satisfying basic needs for food and shelter, in enjoying warm, personal relationships,

02:25:42.880 | in being free to pursue one's projects without interference and many others.

02:25:46.720 | The fundamental interest that entitles a being to equal consideration is the capacity for suffering

02:25:53.360 | and/or enjoyment or happiness." That's important. "Singer holds that a being's interest should

02:25:58.800 | always be weighed according to that being's concrete properties. He favors a journey model

02:26:04.720 | of life, which measures the wrongness of taking a life by the degree to which doing so frustrates a

02:26:10.800 | life journey's goals. The journey model is tolerant of some frustrated desire and explains why persons

02:26:17.920 | who have embarked on their journeys are not replaceable. Only a personal interest in continuing

02:26:23.200 | to live brings the journey model into play. This model also explains the priority that Singer

02:26:29.200 | attaches to interests over trivial desires and pleasures. Singer's ideas require the concept of

02:26:35.440 | an impartial standpoint from which to compare interests. He has wavered about whether the

02:26:39.920 | precise aim is the total amount of satisfied interests or the most satisfied interests

02:26:45.200 | among those beings who already exist prior to the decision making. The second edition of Practical

02:26:51.120 | Ethics disavows the first edition's suggestion that the total and prior existence views should

02:26:55.440 | be combined. The second edition asserts that the preference satisfaction utilitarianism

02:27:00.800 | incorporating the journey model applies without invoking the first edition's suggestions about

02:27:06.320 | the total view. The details are fuzzy, however, and Singer admits that he is not entirely satisfied

02:27:11.360 | with his treatment. Ethical conduct is justifiable by reasons that go beyond prudence to something

02:27:19.040 | bigger than the individual, addressing a larger audience. Singer thinks this going beyond identifies

02:27:25.760 | moral reasons as somehow universal, specifically in the adjunction to "love thy neighbor as thyself"

02:27:33.600 | interpreted by him as demanding that one give the same weight to the interests of others as one

02:27:39.600 | gives to one's own interests. This universalizing step, which Singer traces from Kant to Hare,

02:27:46.240 | is crucial and sets him apart from those moral theorists from Hobbes to David Gauthier

02:27:51.680 | who tie morality to prudence. Universalization leads directly to utilitarianism, Singer argues,

02:27:58.000 | on the strength of the thought that one's own interests cannot count for more than the interests

02:28:02.800 | of others. Taking these into account, one must weigh them up and adopt the course of action that

02:28:08.640 | is most likely to maximize the interests of those affected. Utilitarianism has been arrived at.

02:28:15.280 | Singer's universalizing step applies to interests without reference to who has them,

02:28:20.160 | whereas a Kantian's applies to the judgments of rational agents in Kant's Kingdom of Ends,

02:28:25.520 | or Rawls' original position, etc. Singer regards Kantian universalization as unjust to animals.

02:28:31.600 | As for the Hobbesians, Singer attempts a response in the final chapter of Practical Ethics,

02:28:37.040 | arguing that self-interested reasons support adoption of the moral point of view, such as

02:28:41.200 | the paradox of hedonism, which counts—okay, I'm going to quit now. So the point is that here is

02:28:47.200 | Peter Singer, and he's saying, "Here is my worldview." He's not a secular humanist,

02:28:53.840 | but he's close enough. I'll cover that in a moment. "Here's my worldview, and here's its

02:28:57.360 | application, and it's clear and it's consistent. You should think about it and see if you agree

02:29:05.120 | with it. I don't, but you should." Now, remember I just talked about abortion, and I said,

02:29:11.600 | "Speak clearly on the issue." The problem is that we in our modern era are engaged in a constant

02:29:18.320 | war of propaganda for minds, and we've been so crippled by our inability to actually think

02:29:23.760 | and to think critically about the underlying worldviews and philosophies

02:29:29.520 | that we argue about whether or not we should abort babies that are due to incest and rape.

02:29:35.360 | Instead of talking about abortion as a moral agreement. So here is Singer's position on

02:29:40.560 | abortion. In Singer's view, the central argument against abortion may be stated as the following

02:29:45.600 | syllogism. "It is wrong to kill an innocent human being. A human fetus is an innocent human being.

02:29:51.440 | Therefore, it is wrong to kill a human fetus." In his book, "Rethinking Life and Death," as well as

02:29:56.400 | in "Practical Ethics," Singer asserts that if we take the premises at face value, the argument is

02:30:01.600 | deductively valid. Singer comments that defenders of abortion attack the second premise, suggesting

02:30:07.360 | that the fetus becomes a human or alive at some point after conception. However, Singer finds this

02:30:13.280 | argument flawed in that human development is a gradual process, and it is nearly impossible to

02:30:18.480 | mark a particular moment in time as the moment at which life begins. Singer's argument for abortion

02:30:23.920 | differs from many other proponents of abortion, then, rather than attacking the second premise

02:30:28.560 | of the anti-abortion argument, Singer attacks the first premise, denying that it is necessarily wrong

02:30:34.080 | to take innocent human life. Notice that. Denying that it is necessarily wrong to take innocent

02:30:40.560 | human life. The argument that a fetus is not alive is a resort to a convenient fiction that turns an

02:30:47.200 | evidently living being into one that legally is not alive. Instead of accepting such fictions,

02:30:52.720 | we should recognize that the fact that a being is human and alive does not in itself tell us

02:30:58.320 | whether it is wrong to take that being's life. Singer states that arguments for or against

02:31:03.600 | abortion should be based on utilitarian calculation, which compares the preferences of a woman against

02:31:10.560 | the preferences of the fetus. In his view, a preference is anything sought to be obtained

02:31:16.320 | or avoided. All forms of benefit or harm caused to a being correspond directly with the satisfaction

02:31:22.640 | or frustration of one or more of its preferences. Since the capacity to achieve the sensations of

02:31:27.920 | suffering or satisfaction is a prerequisite to having any preferences at all, add a fetus

02:31:33.120 | up to around 18 weeks, says Singer, who has no capacity to suffer or feel satisfaction.

02:31:38.720 | It is not possible for such a fetus to hold any preferences at all. In a utilitarian calculation,

02:31:44.080 | there is nothing to weigh against a woman's preferences to have an abortion. Therefore,

02:31:48.640 | abortion is morally permissible. Singer's book, Rethinking Life or Death, The Collapse of Our

02:31:55.200 | Traditional Ethics, offer further examination of the ethical dilemmas concerning the advances of

02:31:59.200 | medicine. He covers the value of human life and the quality of life ethics in addition to abortion

02:32:03.520 | and other controversial ethical questions. So do you see why this is important? I believe that

02:32:10.320 | argument is a valid argument between, as an example, the biblical Christian worldview

02:32:16.880 | and the secular humanist worldview. That's a consistent argument. His preference utilitarian

02:32:22.960 | argument makes far more sense than arguing over rape and incest. But that doesn't work in popular

02:32:29.280 | society. So we have to engage in propaganda instead of actually arguing the reality of it.

02:32:35.360 | This is why in 2012, in the Journal of Medical Ethics, a philosopher and a bioethicist jointly

02:32:43.760 | proposed that infanticide be legalized, calling it after-birth abortion and claiming that both

02:32:50.640 | the fetus and the newborn are potential persons. That's also from a separate Wikipedia article on

02:32:57.040 | infanticide. That would be consistent with a different worldview. There's nothing magical

02:33:03.520 | that happens at birth as far as the baby, except the first breath. But a baby that's prior to birth

02:33:11.440 | and a baby that's at birth, they're practically the same thing. They just haven't come out.

02:33:14.800 | So you have all these arguments in the United States that are based upon these different

02:33:20.000 | worldviews, but very few people are clear about it. Let's talk about euthanasia and let's hear

02:33:25.680 | what Singer says on this, euthanasia and infanticide. Consistent with his general ethical

02:33:30.240 | theory, Singer holds that the right to life is essentially tied to a being's capacity to hold

02:33:34.960 | preferences, which in turn is essentially tied to a being's capacity to feel pain and pleasure.

02:33:41.200 | Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that newborns lack the essential

02:33:45.600 | characteristics of personhood, rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness, and therefore

02:33:51.680 | killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person. That is a being who wants to

02:33:56.160 | go on living. Let's talk about a couple other social issues and then we're going to get into

02:34:01.600 | how this applies to world poverty, because we can apply exactly the same mindset and philosophy

02:34:07.600 | to something like world poverty. Speciesism. Published in 1975, Animal Liberation has been

02:34:14.640 | cited as a formative influence on leaders of the modern animal liberation movement.

02:34:19.200 | The central argument of the book is an expansion of the utilitarian idea that the greatest good

02:34:24.240 | or the greatest number is the only measure of good or ethical behavior. Singer believes that

02:34:29.840 | there is no reason not to apply this to other animals, arguing that the boundary between human

02:34:34.880 | and animal is completely arbitrary. There are more differences between a grape ape, great ape,

02:34:40.880 | and an oyster, for example, than between a human and a great ape, and yet the former two are lumped

02:34:46.080 | together as animals whilst we are human. In particular, he argues that while animals show

02:34:51.840 | lower intelligence than the average human, many severely intellectually challenged humans show

02:34:56.720 | equally diminished, if not lower, mental capacity, and that some animals have displayed signs of

02:35:01.840 | intelligence sometimes on par with that of human children. Singer therefore argues intelligence

02:35:06.960 | does not provide a basis for providing non-human animals any less consideration than such

02:35:11.520 | intellectually challenged humans. He popularized the term speciesism. That is a consistent

02:35:18.160 | worldview. If you believe that human beings are the result of accidental biological process,

02:35:25.280 | then speciesism is a rational social justice issue for you to argue for. As much as racism and ageism

02:35:36.720 | and bigotry, you should be arguing for speciesism. Have you ever thought about that?

02:35:43.120 | Now, obviously, I don't expect any of you to agree with Peter Singer. There's always people

02:35:50.080 | in every movement with whom we all disagree. I could sit and argue with tons of Christian

02:35:55.360 | theologians left and right, but I'm saying, have you thought your worldview through?

02:36:00.240 | His worldview is fairly extreme, but I think it's consistent. He goes on and talks about personism,

02:36:08.720 | and that's what he prefers over and above the concept of secular humanism. What about something

02:36:16.160 | like bestiality, sex between humans and animals? In a 2001 review of Midas Decker's Dearest Pet

02:36:22.720 | on bestiality, Singer argues that sexual activities between humans and animals that result in harm to

02:36:28.240 | the animal should remain illegal, but that "sex with animals does not always involve cruelty"

02:36:34.480 | and that "mutually satisfying activities" of a sexual nature may sometimes occur between humans

02:36:41.200 | and animals, and that writer Otto Sojka would condone such activities. That's a consistent

02:36:48.480 | scenario because if you believe in evolutionary biology and you believe that human beings are only

02:36:53.920 | just slightly more of farther along in their evolutionary stage than animals, then why would

02:37:00.320 | you be repulsed by the idea of bestiality? Why is it illegal in all 50 United States? I think it's

02:37:05.600 | illegal in all 50 United States. Why is it illegal at all? That's an important worldview issue for you

02:37:11.920 | to think about. Don't just skip past it because you're unfamiliar with it. I'm not arguing for

02:37:15.920 | the extreme. I'm illustrating a consistent application of a worldview. Now, let's apply

02:37:22.640 | this to financial issues. What would Singer's response be to world poverty? Because remember,

02:37:28.640 | you and I are involved in this. If you're a US American taxpayer, the US government takes some

02:37:36.880 | amount of your money and sends it overseas to fight world poverty. The US government takes some

02:37:42.560 | amount of your money and sends it back into our society to deal with US-based poverty.

02:37:47.600 | How would Singer discuss this? Well, in Famine, Affluence, and Morality, one of Singer's best-known

02:37:53.920 | philosophical essays, he argues that some people living in abundance while others starve is morally

02:37:59.920 | indefensible. Singer proposes that anyone able to help the poor should donate part of their income

02:38:06.240 | to aid poverty relief and similar efforts. Singer reasons that when one is already living comfortably,

02:38:13.600 | a further purchase to increase comfort will lack the same moral importance as saving another

02:38:18.480 | person's life. Singer himself reports that he donates around 33% of his salary to a variety

02:38:25.120 | of cost-effective charities, and he is a member of Giving What We Can, an international society for

02:38:31.120 | the promotion of poverty relief inspired by Singer's arguments. In Rich and Poor, the version

02:38:37.040 | of the aforementioned article that appears in the second edition of Practical Ethics, his main

02:38:41.760 | argument is presented as follows. "If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything

02:38:46.960 | of comparable significance, we ought to do it. Absolute poverty is bad. There is some poverty

02:38:53.200 | we can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance. Therefore,

02:38:58.560 | we ought to prevent some absolute poverty." Singer's most recent book, The Life You Can Save,

02:39:04.720 | makes the argument that it is a clear-cut moral imperative for citizens of developed countries

02:39:09.520 | to give more to charitable causes that help the poor. While Singer acknowledges that there are

02:39:14.480 | problems with ensuring that money goes where it is most needed and that it is used effectively,

02:39:19.280 | he does not think that these practical difficulties undermine his original conclusion,

02:39:23.840 | that people should make a much greater effort to reduce poverty.

02:39:26.560 | Now, to wrap this up, oh, one more important back on the social aspect that I want to comment on,

02:39:37.200 | and then we'll be wrapped up. But obviously, Singer's just one person. He doesn't, again,

02:39:41.760 | he doesn't speak for the majority of secular humanists any more than the Westboro Baptist

02:39:46.480 | Church or the Pope speak for Christians. Every sociological grouping has factions.

02:39:51.840 | Now, interestingly, I promised to mention, he doesn't actually call himself a secular humanist.

02:39:57.840 | From Wikipedia, "Although he has expressed admiration for many of the values promoted by

02:40:01.040 | secular humanism, Singer believes to be incomplete and promotes a preference utilitarian view he

02:40:06.000 | calls personism instead." So I won't go into preference utilitarianism or personism any

02:40:11.200 | further. But feel free to spend some time on Wikipedia and you should be able to easily

02:40:14.400 | understand them. My point with all of this is that you need to watch carefully the transitions in

02:40:20.720 | society because they will affect you. And my reason for going into in depth the background

02:40:26.400 | of the homosexual movement is so that you can understand the tools and tactics and strategies

02:40:32.160 | that were part of that movement and apply them and watch them being applied to other social and

02:40:40.480 | financial movements and political movements. I want to read you one more essay that was quite

02:40:46.960 | in the news back in October 2014 in the New York Times. I'm reading these things to you. I hope you

02:40:53.840 | can at least appreciate whether you agree with my perspective or not. I hope you can at least

02:40:57.440 | appreciate that I'm trying to present these to you as comprehensive pieces of evidence that stand

02:41:04.720 | on their own. I'm not necessarily trying to make a commentary on them. I am commenting on them,

02:41:12.320 | but I'm not trying to tear them apart necessarily. I'm trying to present them to you and allow you

02:41:16.800 | to consider them. So I hope that's helpful to you. But I want to read you an essay from the New York

02:41:21.840 | Times. This is relatively short, from October 6, 2014, titled Pedophilia, a Disorder, Not a Crime

02:41:29.360 | by Margot Kaplan. Think back to your first childhood crush. Maybe it was a classmate or

02:41:35.520 | a friend next door. Most likely through school and into adulthood, your affections continue to focus

02:41:40.800 | on others in your approximate age group. But imagine if they did not. By some estimates,

02:41:45.840 | 1% of the male population continues long after puberty to find themselves attracted to

02:41:50.400 | prepubescent children. These people are living with pedophilia, a sexual attraction to prepubescence

02:41:56.400 | that often constitutes a mental illness. Unfortunately, our laws are failing them and

02:42:01.040 | consequently ignoring opportunities to prevent child abuse. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

02:42:06.400 | of Mental Disorders defines pedophilia as an intense and recurrent sexual interest in prepubescent

02:42:11.600 | children and a disorder if it causes a person "marked distress or interpersonal difficulty"

02:42:19.200 | or if the person "acts on his interests." Yet our laws ignore pedophilia until after the

02:42:25.040 | commission of a sexual offense, emphasizing punishment, not prevention. Part of this failure

02:42:31.280 | stems from the misconception that pedophilia is the same as child molestation. One can live with

02:42:36.640 | pedophilia and not act on it. Sites like Virtuous Pedophiles provide support for pedophiles who do

02:42:43.200 | not molest children and believe that sex with children is wrong. It is not that these individuals

02:42:49.120 | are inactive or non-practicing pedophiles, but rather that pedophilia is a status and not an act.

02:42:56.960 | In fact, research shows about half of all child molesters are not sexually attracted to their

02:43:02.560 | victims. A second misconception is that pedophilia is a choice. Recent research, while often limited

02:43:09.680 | to sex offenders because of the stigma of pedophilia, suggests that the disorder may have

02:43:14.480 | neurological origins. Pedophilia could result from a failure in the brain to identify which

02:43:20.160 | environmental stimuli should provoke a sexual response. MRIs of sex offenders with pedophilia

02:43:26.320 | show fewer of the neural pathways known as white matter in their brains. Men with pedophilia are

02:43:31.680 | three times more likely to be left-handed or ambidextrous, a finding that strongly suggests

02:43:36.720 | a neurological cause. Some findings also suggest that disturbances in neurodevelopment in utero

02:43:42.960 | or early childhood increase the risk of pedophilia. Studies have also shown that men

02:43:48.320 | with pedophilia have, on average, lower scores on tests of visual spatial ability and verbal memory.

02:43:54.320 | The Virtuous Pedophiles website is full of testimonials of people who vow never to touch a

02:43:59.120 | child and yet live in terror. They must hide their disorder from everyone they know or risk losing

02:44:05.200 | educational and job opportunities and face the prospect of harassment and even violence. Many

02:44:11.120 | feel isolated. Some contemplate suicide. The psychologist Jesse Bering, author of "Perv,

02:44:17.360 | the Sexual Deviant in All of Us," writes that people with pedophilia "aren't living their lives

02:44:22.640 | in the closet. They're eternally hunkered down in a panic room." While treatment cannot eliminate a

02:44:28.640 | pedophile's sexual interests, a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and medication

02:44:33.760 | can help him to manage urges and avoid committing crimes. But the reason we don't know enough about

02:44:39.360 | effective treatment is because research has usually been limited to those who have committed

02:44:43.280 | crimes. Our current law is inconsistent and irrational. For example, federal law in 20

02:44:49.920 | states allow courts to issue a civil order committing a sex offender, particularly one

02:44:54.000 | with a diagnosis of pedophilia, to a mental health facility immediately after the completion of a

02:44:58.880 | sentence under standards that are much more lax than for ordinary civil commitment for people

02:45:03.840 | with mental illness. And yet when it comes to public policies that might help people with

02:45:07.760 | pedophilia to come forward and seek treatment before they offend, the law omits pedophilia

02:45:12.160 | from protection. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation

02:45:17.760 | Act of 1973 prohibit discrimination against otherwise qualified individuals with mental

02:45:22.800 | disabilities in areas such as employment, education, and medical care. Congress, however,

02:45:28.160 | explicitly excluded pedophilia from protection under these two crucial laws. It's time to revisit

02:45:33.760 | these categorical exclusions. Without legal protection, a pedophile cannot risk seeking

02:45:38.560 | treatment or disclosing his status to anyone for support. He could lose his job and future job

02:45:44.720 | prospects if he is seen at a group therapy session, asks for a reasonable accommodation

02:45:49.360 | to take medication or see a psychiatrist, or requests a limit in his interaction with children.

02:45:54.320 | Isolating individuals from appropriate employment and treatment only increases their risks of

02:45:58.720 | committing a crime. There is no question that the extension of civil rights protections to

02:46:03.440 | people with pedophilia must be weighed against the health and safety needs of others, especially

02:46:08.560 | kids. It stands to reason that a pedophile should not be hired as a grade school teacher.

02:46:12.800 | Both the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act contain exemptions for people who are not otherwise

02:46:18.960 | qualified for a job or who pose "a direct threat to the health and safety of others" that can't be

02:46:23.920 | eliminated by a reasonable accommodation. This is why employers don't have to hire blind bus drivers

02:46:29.200 | or mentally unstable security guards. The direct threat analysis rejects the idea that the employers

02:46:34.480 | can rely on generalizations. They must assess the specific case and rely on evidence, not

02:46:40.160 | presuppositions. Those who worry that employers would be compelled to hire dangerous pedophiles

02:46:44.960 | should look to HIV case law, where for years courts were highly conservative,

02:46:49.040 | erring on the side of finding a direct threat. Even into the late 1990s, when medical authorities

02:46:55.040 | were in agreement that people with HIV could work safely in, for example, food services.

02:46:59.760 | Removing the pedophile exclusion would not undermine criminal justice or its role in

02:47:03.680 | responding to child abuse. It would not make it easier, for example, for someone accused of child

02:47:08.240 | molestation to plead not guilty by reason of insanity. A pedophile should be held responsible

02:47:13.680 | for his conduct, but not for the underlying attraction. Arguing for the rights of scorned

02:47:19.280 | and misunderstood groups is never popular, particularly when they are associated with

02:47:23.280 | real harm. But the fact that pedophilia is so despised is precisely why our responses to it

02:47:29.680 | in criminal justice and mental health have been so inconsistent and counterproductive.

02:47:35.280 | Acknowledging that pedophiles have a mental disorder and removing the obstacles to their

02:47:39.920 | coming forward and seeking help is not only the right thing to do, but it would also advance

02:47:44.880 | efforts to protect children from harm. Margo Kaplan is an assistant professor

02:47:50.080 | at Rutgers School of Law in Camden, New Jersey. Interesting, huh? So what do you think? Do you

02:47:56.160 | agree with it? Now, I'll make one point here, and I'll make a couple of points.

02:48:02.400 | And depending on your worldview, you... Again, I'm grossly generalizing. But depending on your

02:48:09.760 | worldview, you may see this as, "Finally, it's time to help other people." Or you may see this

02:48:16.960 | as, "I can't believe it." Me personally, what I notice about it is that this essay makes a big

02:48:24.880 | difference between sexual attraction and the sexual act. Now, the homosexual movement would

02:48:33.920 | deny that in their movement, but here Margo talks about personal responsibility. And the only

02:48:41.520 | commentary I'll give on the question is that, interestingly, Margo Kaplan and I agree. Now,

02:48:48.560 | I don't know what her perspective is. I don't know if she would agree with the Christian teaching on

02:48:52.560 | sexual attraction or not. But in the Christian teaching on sexual attraction, sexual attraction

02:48:57.680 | happens. But you're responsible for your actions. So I have sexual attraction to women other than

02:49:05.520 | my wife. I am responsible to not act on that attraction. But the key is, the question is,

02:49:12.480 | you have to look at this, and you have to watch this over coming decades. Is this a discussion,

02:49:16.400 | and is this kind of just the camel's nose under the tent? Or is this a... And is that what she's

02:49:24.560 | promoting? Where it's a movement to the interaction of sexual relations with minors? Or what is it?

02:49:32.560 | You have to deal with it in your worldview. If you're interested, go and you can read the

02:49:37.280 | North American Man-Boy Love Association website, which vigorously... Which goes much farther than

02:49:44.160 | Margo Kaplan does, and vigorously defends the right of minors to have... Minor children,

02:49:48.400 | especially boys, to have sexual relations with men, adult men. There's nothing new about any

02:49:54.320 | of this. If you study history, you start to find that all of these issues have been around forever.

02:49:59.440 | If you study Greek and Roman societies, you find that pederasty was an integral part of their

02:50:03.520 | society. I'll read you one last thing on this, just on this in case you're not aware, because

02:50:10.720 | most people have never studied this. But what is pederasty? Okay, from Wikipedia. "Pederasty

02:50:16.880 | is a usually erotic homosexual relationship between an adult male and a pubescent or

02:50:21.280 | adolescent male. The word pederasty derives from Greek for the love of boys, a compound derived

02:50:27.920 | from pei, peis, which is child or boy, and erastes, which is lover. In French, however,

02:50:33.760 | pederasty has been used as a synonym for homosexuality between adult males. Historically,

02:50:40.320 | pederasty has existed as a variety of customs and practices within different cultures. The status of

02:50:46.000 | pederasty has changed over the course of history, at times considered an ideal and at other times a

02:50:51.680 | crime. In the history of Europe, its most structured cultural manifestation was Athenian

02:50:56.720 | pederasty and became most prominent in the 6th century BC. Greek pederasty's various forms were

02:51:04.240 | the subject of philosophic debates, in which the purely carnal type was unfavorably compared with

02:51:09.360 | erotic friendships and moderate forms. Anthropologists proposed three subdivisions of

02:51:14.160 | homosexuality as age-structured, egalitarian, and gender-structured. Pederasty is the archetypal

02:51:20.080 | example of male age-structured homosexuality. Geoffrey Gorer and others distinguished pederasty

02:51:25.520 | from pedophilia, which he defined as a separate, fourth type that he described as "grossly

02:51:31.840 | pathological in all societies of which we have record." According to Gorer, the main characteristic

02:51:37.440 | of homosexual pederasty is the age difference, either of generation or age group between the

02:51:42.160 | partners. In his study of native cultures, pederasty appears typically as a passing stage in

02:51:47.360 | which the adolescent is the beloved of an older male, remains as such until he reaches a certain

02:51:52.320 | development threshold, after which he in turn takes on an adolescent beloved of his own.

02:51:57.040 | This model is judged by Gorer as "socially viable," i.e., not likely to give rise to

02:52:02.320 | psychological discomfort or neuroses for all or most males. He adds that in many societies,

02:52:07.600 | pederasty has been the main subject of the arts and the main source of tender and elevated emotions.

02:52:12.560 | Pederastic practices have been utilized for the purpose of coming-of-age rituals,

02:52:17.600 | the acquisition of virility and manly virtue, education and development of military skill and

02:52:22.480 | ethics. These were often paralleled by the commercial use of boys for sexual gratification,

02:52:27.600 | going so far as enslavement and castration. The evanescent beauty of adolescent boys has been a

02:52:32.560 | topos in poetry and art, from classical times to the Middle East, the Near East and Central Asia,

02:52:38.320 | Imperial China, pre-modern Japan, and the European Renaissance and into modern times.

02:52:44.880 | What is the age range? Some modern observers restrict the age of the younger partner to

02:52:49.040 | "generally between 12 and 17," though historically the spread was somewhat greater.

02:52:56.240 | The younger partner must, in some sense, not be fully mature. This could include young men

02:53:01.680 | in their late teens or early twenties. While relationships in ancient Greece involved boys

02:53:06.400 | from 12 to about 17 or 18, in Renaissance Italy they typically involved boys between 14 and 19,

02:53:12.960 | and in Japan the younger member ranged in age from 11 to about 19.

02:53:17.040 | I'm done with the social issue commentary. I'm appealing to social issues because they often

02:53:26.480 | evoke a more emotional response in our hearts and in our minds. I believe that if you've listened

02:53:33.040 | to this entire thing, you probably have found a number of points of agreement with something I've

02:53:38.320 | said and a number of points of disagreement with something I've said. Why? Why do you agree or

02:53:45.920 | disagree? You need to understand that and you need to be able to articulate it. You cannot divorce

02:53:54.640 | your worldview from these social issues. If you believe that pederasty was an improper social

02:54:03.200 | practice, which was practiced throughout much of human history, why? And if you believe that it was

02:54:09.520 | not, why not? If you articulate your worldview and you can clearly understand it, that worldview will

02:54:18.080 | have application to almost everything in finance. Here's some things that come to the top of my

02:54:28.000 | mind. Should I pay taxes? What's an appropriate rate of taxation or amount of taxation to pay?

02:54:33.760 | Should it be voluntary or involuntary? What should we do with the tax money? Should we

02:54:37.680 | subsidize farmers? Should we subsidize certain organizations that have a tax exemption? Should

02:54:41.680 | we support needy families? Should we support specific companies or industries with the tax

02:54:45.920 | money? Do we have a societal obligation to support the poor and provide a guaranteed income, as the

02:54:50.320 | humanist manifesto number two states? Do we have a societal obligation to take from the rich because

02:54:55.280 | they have more than is needed for their utilitarian uses, as Peter Singer says? Should we finance

02:55:00.320 | health insurance the way that we do with Medicaid and Medicare? Should we transition from the system

02:55:04.480 | that we have in the US government and the US economy from the transition of voluntary, so-called,

02:55:09.360 | but forced voluntary insurance to a system of corporate insurance? Should we incentivize certain

02:55:15.040 | courses of action through the tax code, like saving for retirement or buying houses? How should

02:55:19.200 | we run a monetary system? Who should be allowed to create monetary? What should be our monetary

02:55:24.080 | policy and why? What should be our fiscal policy and why? Should there be privacy in your financial

02:55:28.560 | transactions? Should bankruptcy be permitted? Under what conditions? Who should be permitted

02:55:32.880 | to discharge their debts? Should certain assets be protected from bankruptcy? Should we confiscate

02:55:37.680 | the assets of criminals? Should we pay money to keep people in prison for the rest of their life,

02:55:41.680 | or should we execute all criminals? Or should we have shortened criminal sentences, no execution,

02:55:48.720 | like they have what was in Denmark, where the guy that killed was a 70-something people and

02:55:52.400 | the maximum prison sentence is 24 years, I think, something like that? We all have to have and

02:55:59.200 | develop a coherent, cogent, logical, reasonable, and rational system of thinking. We need a system

02:56:07.120 | of ethics and morality that can be applied to each question that we face. My own system is incomplete,

02:56:13.920 | and I dare say yours is too. I'm developing that. But don't listen to my show for what you agree

02:56:20.480 | with or what you disagree with. Be challenged by what I say and take it back and consider your own

02:56:26.320 | thoughts. I'll tell you, and this is not meant to be offensive to those of you who have written

02:56:31.520 | this to me, but just simply as a point of commentary, I know that this is a social nicety,

02:56:37.520 | but I'll tell you one of the things that bugs me.

02:56:40.160 | When people write to me and say, "I don't agree with everything you say,"

02:56:45.200 | of course you don't agree with everything I say. I probably don't agree with everything I say,

02:56:50.320 | myself. Sometimes I'll express a thought and then wait to see if it's challenged.

02:56:55.600 | Now, I don't do that very much on the show here because I don't think that's practical. I try to

02:57:00.480 | only speak about topics that I feel confident in, that I feel I know something about.

02:57:04.160 | But I'm not interested in agreement or disagreement. I often talk with my wife or with my

02:57:10.000 | friends and share something I'm thinking, and we're looking for a challenge. That's what we

02:57:14.800 | need is we need to be challenged. You're welcome to disagree with me. It doesn't bother me a bit.

02:57:20.160 | I probably disagree with something I said a year ago, because we're all in this process of

02:57:24.960 | clarifying and formulating a worldview. If you find trouble in disagreeing with me on something,

02:57:32.400 | ask yourself why, and ask if that isn't a little bit of social conditioning,

02:57:36.400 | that instead of being taught to educate yourself, which is a process of going and searching for

02:57:40.560 | things that are true, that you've been schooled, which means you've been told what is true.

02:57:48.640 | I welcome disagreement. It doesn't bother me. I just beg of you one thing. Don't hide behind

02:57:54.720 | cowardice and political popularity. In my opinion, Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen were manipulative

02:58:00.880 | cowards. They would not say they were. They would say we were doing what was effective.

02:58:07.040 | But I despise what they did. Now, unfortunately, their worldview allows and permits them to do

02:58:14.320 | what they did, allows them to hide behind the nose of the camel going under the tent so that

02:58:20.320 | we can get the whole thing under there. I despise that. My worldview doesn't allow me to do that.

02:58:26.240 | Now, that's a chink in my armor. But if you like listening to the show, it's probably because,

02:58:31.760 | well, one of the factors, there's no way in the world that someone could listen to what is 180

02:58:35.520 | episodes of the show like some of you have if you didn't appreciate somebody being clear.

02:58:40.320 | In their worldview, the ends justify the means. In mine, they don't.

02:58:45.360 | I'll never hide behind unpopular ideas and lie to you about, well, this is unpopular. Truth should

02:58:54.080 | stand on its own. It may be unpopular. But for me, I prefer to be unpopular and stand on the side of

02:58:59.760 | truth than to be popular and to be a liar. Of course, you're free to choose your own path.

02:59:07.440 | So I'm going to continue over the course of this show to work on exposing and understanding the

02:59:11.120 | ideas that affect finance. Some of these things are very simple. Some of the things are so

02:59:16.800 | incredibly complex that I cannot seem to wrap my head around them. Sometimes you'll hear me say

02:59:21.280 | something I'm very confident in. Sometimes you'll hear me say something that I'm still working out.

02:59:25.840 | When I say in the disclaimer that I play on every show that feel free to come by and correct me,

02:59:34.160 | I mean it. And my goal is that those of you who are listening will value this type of approach

02:59:41.120 | and that together we can continue on to create a better future. That's ultimately

02:59:50.000 | one of the things that will ally someone like me, a biblical Christian,

02:59:56.080 | with a secular humanist, is that we're all working to create a different future. We have

03:00:01.200 | radically different worldviews on how that's done. We in many ways have similar goals.

03:00:06.080 | So I'll keep on doing my job to expose and understand the ideas that affect finance.

03:00:13.360 | Hope this is a useful show for you to clarify and understand the importance of worldview.

03:00:19.040 | I thought a lot about this show. I don't know whether it was successful or not. I know that

03:00:23.760 | I took a risk with going into such unusual subjects. If it was ineffective, feel free to

03:00:29.920 | just toss it aside as ineffective. But as I learn and become a better teacher,

03:00:34.320 | I see constantly every day financial propaganda. It's absurd. And so much of it is the nose under

03:00:44.480 | the tent analogy. And as I've looked and looked and looked over the years to try to figure out

03:00:50.000 | how can I demonstrate or where can I see, first of all, is this the nose under the tent? Because

03:00:54.240 | what happens is when you see the camel nose come under the tent and you say to the people in the

03:00:57.840 | tent, "Look, there's a camel nose. The coal camel's coming in. He wants to get into the tent."

03:01:01.200 | Then people often say, "Are you kidding? Come on, that's a camel nose. It's just a tiny little

03:01:06.480 | thing." And so in so much of past history, I've struggled to see and understand actually in my

03:01:14.000 | life. And when I found those documents and that book and the resources on the homosexual movement,

03:01:21.680 | I for the first time was able to see in my lifetime, my short lifetime, the development

03:01:27.040 | of an idea and the massive transformation of society. It's incredible, incredible.

03:01:31.840 | So now I've taken those lessons that I've learned from studying, how did they do it?

03:01:37.840 | How did Kirk and Madsen set it out? What was their plan? Now you apply it to banking. You apply it

03:01:45.600 | to monetary systems. You apply it to government. You apply it to taxes. You apply it to progressivism.

03:01:54.240 | You apply it to libertarianism. And I can start to see

03:01:58.640 | the impact. And that for me has been helpful. That's why I took this approach.

03:02:06.000 | So if it seems disconnected, that's just due to my poor lack of skill as a teacher. But I'm trying,

03:02:13.680 | these are such deeply held beliefs and very few of us have assessed them and worked them out in a

03:02:21.520 | way that is consistent. And so this is my best effort at it. And I'd love your feedback. If you

03:02:28.160 | thought this was at least provocative and useful, I'd love your feedback. If you hated it, I'm happy

03:02:32.800 | to hear from you. I'm learning as we go and trying to learn how to more effectively present and teach

03:02:37.920 | things. But I try, with this show, I'm trying to address things that I've always hated. I always

03:02:43.920 | hate when people misrepresent their opponent's philosophy. So that's why I read so extensively

03:02:52.080 | from those essays and from the manifesto and from the essay by Kirk and Madsen. I don't like people

03:02:58.640 | to misrepresent me. I'd rather they hear it in totality. And so then you can understand. But

03:03:04.480 | that's unusual in today's soundbite culture. So I recognize that I'm taking a risk and very few

03:03:08.560 | people actually listen to this, but at least you have a little bit more accurate information.

03:03:14.080 | I'm not gonna tell you what to think, but think. That's good. That'll be my new tagline. I don't

03:03:23.040 | tell you what to think, but think critically and comprehensively, and we'll all learn together.

03:03:28.480 | That's it for today's show. I thank you very much for listening. Another three hour show,

03:03:32.160 | but at least this one, I don't feel like I rambled around. I feel like I was just going to accurately

03:03:36.240 | present my different perspectives and viewpoints. So if this was beneficial for you, I'd be happy to

03:03:45.120 | hear from you. RadicalPersonalFinance.com/patron. And you know what? Today with it being show,

03:03:49.840 | I'm gonna pull the music out and let's start the disclaimer and I'm out of here. Cheers, y'all.

03:03:52.640 | Thank you for listening to today's show. If you'd like to contact me personally,

03:03:56.880 | my email address is joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com. You can also connect with the show on

03:04:03.440 | Twitter @radicalpf and at facebook.com/radicalpersonalfinance. This show is intended

03:04:10.800 | to provide entertainment, education, and financial enlightenment, but your situation is unique and I

03:04:18.560 | cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing anything about you. Please, develop a team

03:04:26.000 | of professional advisors who you find to be caring, competent, and trustworthy, and consult them

03:04:34.160 | because they are the ones who can understand your specific needs, your specific goals,

03:04:41.200 | and provide specific answers to your questions. I've done my absolute best to be clear and

03:04:47.360 | accurate in today's show, but I'm one person and I make mistakes. If you spot a mistake in something

03:04:53.280 | I've said, please help me by coming to the show page and commenting so we can all-

03:04:58.240 | Get the perfect gift for the wine lover in your life at wineenthusiast.com.

03:05:02.640 | Personalized wine openers? Wineenthusiast.com.

03:05:06.400 | Cheese boards? Wineenthusiast.com.

03:05:10.800 | Glassware? Wineenthusiast.com.

03:05:14.000 | A 500-bottle wine fridge? Yep. Wine enthusi- you get the picture.

03:05:18.800 | Find the best prices on the perfect wine gift for you, I mean,

03:05:22.000 | for someone special this year. At Wine Enthusiast, we bring wine to life.

RPF0181-Politics_in_Finance_WITH_NEW_INTRO