Rebranding Liberty with ‘Live and Let Live’
A Gallup study collecting polls over the last 13 years estimates that 17 to 23% of Americans identify as libertarian. One-fifth of the population is not bad, but even that never seems to translate into meaningful progress at the ballot box. Furthermore, the idea of a “libertarian politician” still seems like an oxymoron.
Marc J. Victor is an attorney who has fought for his clients’ freedoms for decades, and is now turning his attention to a broader goal of building a global peace movement under the mantra of “ Live and Let Live.” His ideas are fundamentally libertarian, but the Live and Let Live Movement differs from the Libertarian Party in several key ways.
First, it is global-not national.
Second, it presents libertarian ideas in a way that should be agreeable to any reasonable person of principles. Rather than focusing on the arcane details of why the non-aggression principle passes moral and philosophical muster, Victor would prefer to let the principle speak for itself: just don’t hurt people, and don’t take their stuff. It’s what we all learned in Kindergarten, although the majority of people could use a friendly reminder.
What better substitute for the often-confusing “NAP” (non-aggression principle) than the “3LP” — the Live and Let Live Principle? Victor joined the show to talk about this urgently needed rebranding of liberty, and how the ideas of Live and Let Live are taking hold in small communities across the world.
TRANSCRIPT
Introducing the Live and Let Live Principle
Bob Zadek 00:13
What’s wrong with our political philosophy in America? Do we have any founding principles left? Are there principles we all can agree upon? The answer to that is emphatically “yes.” We have plenty of divisiveness and disagreement to go around today, but are there areas of common ground?
To help us nail down those principles, I’m happy to welcome you to the show this morning, Attorney Marc Victor who has committed his personal and professional life, to helping us find and promote those principles we all have in common.
I guarantee you will agree with almost everything that will be said on this show. Marc is the founder of the Live and Let Live movement. He is a practicing attorney in Arizona and his law firm does not have his name as most law firms do, but rather is known as Attorneys for Freedom. Marc, welcome to the show this morning.
Marc Victor 04:27
Hey, Bob, what a pleasure to be on your show. I certainly agree with every word you said.
Bob Zadek 04:34
Let’s start with the principles and then we will apply them so as to make this agreement simply go away.
Marc Victor 05:38
It is very important that we start from principle because if we can get agreement on the fundamental principle, then we have something that we can hook on to and we can reason from that principle. The principle that we’re talking about here goes by many different names — we call it “live and let live.” Like you say, who could disagree with that. The same exact principle has been called other things in different contexts. In fact, in the book I’m writing, I say that this principle could also be referred to as maybe the golden rule: Treat others how you would have them treat you. Or you might just simply say, “look, let’s agree to disagree — you’re in charge of you, and I’m in charge of me.
It begins with the notion that we’re all brothers and sisters. We’re all equal. Nobody’s in charge of anybody else. We all found ourselves here on the planet. We take the position, and I think all reasonable people do, that you own yourself. That body that you have, that’s your body. Now, of course, I’ll be quick to point out if we’re talking about minors or somebody who’s not competent, then that’s different. Assuming you’re a competent adult, then you should be in charge of not just your body, but the things that flow from that: your property that you’ve peacefully acquired, your money, which indeed is your property, and your time — this is your life, this is what you own. The principle is what we call Live and Let Live, the idea that you’re in charge of yourself.
The other very important concept that I think we libertarians forget to mention, and maybe we just assume that people understand and agree with, is that there are different kinds of rules in the world. There are legal rules. Then there are moral rules or ethical rules. These are qualitatively different types of rules. They’re important to understand the difference, because if you violate a legal rule, society says, “We’re going to do something to you, there’s going to be some kind of formal consequence for violating that rule.”
Moral rules are just as important. The difference is if you violate an ethical rule, or moral rule, people may not be happy with you, they can maybe shun you or refuse to do business with you. Society doesn’t put a formal consequence — we’re not going to lock you up and put you in jail or find you or something like that. We have to be very clear in our minds which type of rule we’re talking about.
When libertarians say things like, “I might find prostitution immoral. However, at the same time, I think it ought to be legal,” some think that’s in contradiction. Until people understand that this is not a statement that puts someone in a contradictory type of a position, then we’re not going to get anywhere. We got to be very clear about the difference between a legal rule and a moral rule.
Live and let live sounds great. I can hear the people already smirking out there. You say, “The devil’s in the details,” and of course, this is true. Everything has to be interpreted. Once you get agreement on this principle, the question now becomes, what the heck does this mean? First, if you’re being an aggressor — if you’re hitting somebody over the head — you’re certainly not acting in conformity with this principle of live and let live. We lawyers like to break that down as well.
What’s an aggressor? Somebody who initiates force against another person or their property rights — the person who commits an assault on another person or the thief who may take someone’s property without their permission — that’s being an aggressor. That violates the live and let live rule. Somebody who also uses fraud or coercion to separate somebody from their property, these things as well we put them in the aggressor category. Finally, the last category that I like to talk about here is the person who does something that places another person at what we like to call a substantial risk of injury or harm. If you can refrain from being an aggressor, then you should be left alone. If you do violate the live and let live principle, we should do everything we can to stop you from doing that. If you’ve already done it, we should give you a scrupulously fair trial to figure out if you did it or not. That’s basically the principle laid out simply as I can.
Applying the Principle to Concrete Policies: Social Security, Taxation, and Defense
Bob Zadek 11:18
Now let’s drill down. First important conclusion that comes from that principle is that it applies equally to the government as it does to the individual. Once we conclude that it is improper to take somebody’s property against their will at force, then we apply it and we say, what about the government? Let’s apply it to something tangible: Social Security. The government through taxation and force is taking our money, for the sole purpose of giving it to somebody else. One might then say, “Aha, Marc, I guess you’re against taxation, how does the government work?”
Marc, let’s just explain to our listeners how we can accept taxation.
I’ll start and then turn it over to you. There’s a very easy justification. It’s that governments are formed, if you accept founding principles, simply in order to help us be protected against those who would violate those principles. Once we accept the principles of live and let live, how do we enforce them? Do we just live in a jungle? We each can carry guns and armaments, and the mighty shall inherit the earth and all that, but that’s not the way we want to live. We appoint a government to protect our rights so we don’t have to do it ourselves. It’s an activity that you simply cannot do on an individual basis. You could but who wants to live in that society? Do we do it collectively through the government? The government has to have the wherewithal. The government has to be able to raise money and one would presume that everybody is willing more or less to put money into the pot for mutual protection. Nobody would really object to that.
Therefore, taxation is really giving money by consent to achieve a common good we all agree, which is to protect us. Now where it all breaks down: what if the government wants to tax you for another purpose like to run the Social Security Administration? Now, the principle is not to protect us, the principle is simply to give your money to somebody else. Now, taxation for that purpose fails. There is a rule for taxation, just like common defense against those who would do us harm from other countries.
Taxation certainly has a home now in the live and let live principle, but the government taking our money for another purpose doesn’t pass the test. Now, Marc, supplement, correct, or comment on how taxation, which in the first instance, we hear some people say taxation is theft, I say that’s wrong and simplistic. It’s only theft if we don’t consent. Of course, we consent by implication to having the government protect us from others. I invite you to supplement the application of the live and let live principle to our acknowledgement that it is appropriate for the government to collect our money for those common purposes.
Marc Victor 16:40
It’s important to maybe go slower through some of this material because I think it’s very important that people understand. For starters, some people will say, “Hey, Marc, you pulled a quick one here by saying there’s just this difference between legal and moral.” Even these ideas of not being an aggressor emanate from a moral concept, so it’s not really quite as clean as you say. I think there’s a very good criticism.
Really the law is what you might observe to be the least common denominator of moral systems. Find a morality that says it’s okay to punch somebody in the face or steal their property or something — I think you’d have a very hard time doing that. I like to say that the law really is what we might call the least common denominator of moral systems, which we can identify as the live and let live with principle. Don’t be an aggressor. Virtually all moral systems around the world that have been around any length of time out there.
It’s what reasonable people can agree on. In fact, it’s what it means to be reasonable. Reasonable means you can be reasoned with, which means we’re using words and not force.
I think that you started down a very good road, Bob, when you said this principle should apply to everybody. Look at these crazy notions that we have still lingering in 2021 — racism, and being upset with other people because of immutable characteristics. We have to get past this stuff if we’re ever going to get to a peaceful world. We should say, “Look, this live in the live principle, it applies to everybody.”
We don’t care what color your skin is or where you’re born, or what songs you sing, or who you love, or whether you’re male or female, or rich or poor, tall or short — whatever, it applies to everybody. Further than that, I think it’s very important to observe that it applies to people, even if we form a group. Bob, if you and I get together and we form some group, we don’t magically get the ability to start becoming an aggressor now and think that it’s okay to violate the rule.
We should also apply this to corporations. Why would we let a corporation off the hook? Why would we ever say it’s okay for a corporation to initiate force, fraud, coercion, or to do anything that puts others at substantial risks of harm? We shouldn’t be easy on corporations.
Governments are just larger groups. They didn’t just spring into existence. They’re actually agreements between competent adults to do different things. That’s what a government is. It’s critically important that we apply and hold to the exact same standards, all groups, all corporations and all governments.
Now the question of taxes, we should come to the table without a preconceived notion of how the issue should turn out. We should try to be as fair and honest and even handed about just simply applying the principle to the issue, no matter where it goes. We don’t want to violate the principle. I can already hear some of your listeners, Bob, saying, “Look, no, I don’t agree to spend my money on the government or anybody else protecting me.” You can try to say, “We have to force you into it.”
All reasonable people would agree to pay money to have a protection agency protecting them, but I can assure you from being a criminal defense lawyer for almost 30 years, you’ll always find somebody to disagree. If somebody wants to disagree, who am I to tell them that they can’t?
I think that people are in charge of themselves. If they want to defend themselves, they have every right to. Now the practical matter is, the vast majority of people are not going to say I want to take my personal defense into my own hands, so they hire somebody. This might be part of the agreement when they purchase property, like a homeowner’s association. I would expect that most homeowners associations, like they do now, have rules and say
“don’t paint your house purple.” They may also say things like, “We’ve agreed in this community to hire this what might be a government provider, but may also be a private provider.”
In fact, we can certainly observe goods and services are delivered best when they’re delivered by corporations or groups, or people who are competing with each other for our business and do not have a monopoly on the service or product. I expect that we probably would have competing agencies. We should be doing this now, Bob. I don’t know why people are so upset with different city police departments. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just simply renew a contract or fail to renew a contract and say, “We’re going to outsource the police protection in this city or state or community to a private company that has trained their officers to act differently than what you’re experiencing in your community.”
I don’t see any problem with that. People don’t want to pay for things. We certainly shouldn’t try to make them as this would violate our most basic rule.
Bob Zadek 22:44
Sorry, Marc, I just wanted to jump in for a moment. You mentioned competition. I have had a wonderful time doing more than one show on topics such as the Free Cities movement, such as Seasteading, where proponents of seasteading offer the opportunity to move easily from one independent government to another to shop for the government that most appeals to you. Freedom, in terms of what traditionally has been a governmental function, is one of my favorite topics. I’ve talked about it quite a bit with various guests over the years.
Taxation is obviously a hot button issue. There is always a lot of conversation that taxes are too high or too low. That conversation is constantly among us. I can never determine whether taxes are too high or too low because taxes cannot be too high or too low in the abstract. That is just not the issue. The issue is what are the taxes being used for. If taxes are being used to transfer money from one human being to another simply because the government feels that the recipient is more deserving of the payor’s money, that’s an improper use, and even taxes of $1 for that purpose are too high. Whereas taxes that are spent for our common defense, assuming the money is well spent, nobody can disagree with. The amount of taxes that are required to protect us can never be too high, so long as the money is well spent. The issue is never with taxation. It’s not theft. I disagree with those who say otherwise. It’s only theft if the taxes are used improperly. That’s my convenient little handy way to tell if taxes are too high. Just don’t focus on the amount, focus on what the money is spent for. That will always lead you to the right conclusion on taxation.
Taxation certainly has a home now in the live and let live principle, but the government taking our money for another purpose doesn’t pass the test. Now, Marc, supplement, correct, or comment on how taxation, which in the first instance, we hear some people say taxation is theft, I say that’s wrong and simplistic. It’s only theft if we don’t consent. Of course, we consent by implication to having the government protect us from others. I invite you to supplement the application of the live and let live principle to our acknowledgement that it is appropriate for the government to collect our money for those common purposes.
Second Amendment, Gun Control, and Live and Let Live
Bob Zadek 25:44
Now, Marc, you have spoken a lot just to show how the principle of live and let live gets applied to the very hard decisions we have to make collectively as a society. You have written and spoken a lot about the almost insoluble problem of gun control. Show us how the principle of how live and let live affects the debate on gun control.
Marc Victor 26:51
I apply the principle exactly the same way to all issues. For example, before we leave the tax question, I think it would be fair to say to me, the only question here is whether we are taking somebody’s money without their permission. If somebody says, “you don’t get to take my money without my permission.” I certainly agree with that. I don’t care what you are using it for. I don’t care if someone thinks it’s an appropriate or inappropriate amount, nobody gets to take somebody else’s money without their permission for any purpose. I think if we say otherwise, we’re pretending. We were just simply saying, “I think it’s a good purpose to use it for local police departments or national defense or something else or health care or who knows what.” I don’t get into that discussion about whether the purpose is appropriate, I only care about whether the owner of the money is agreeing to be separated from the money. If they are, it’s perfectly fine. If they’re not, it violates the rule and we shouldn’t do it.
The same way about guns. You can violate the principle with a gun; if you use a gun to hurt another person, you’re violating the rule. If you take their money with a gun, that’s called a robbery. That violates the rules. Those are obviously all the victim crimes involving guns or victim crimes, and they violate the rules. The only question left rarely, in my view, is, is there something about simply having a gun in your hand that violates the rule, and the aspect of the here I’m thinking about is putting another person at a substantial risk of harm. I think there are such circumstances, for example, somebody who has shown us through their past conduct that by simply having a gun in their hands, they are a substantial risk to another person. What type of a person is this? This is the violent felon. The person who has shown us through past experience that they continually violate the rules, do drive by shootings, for example. We can tell such a person, you don’t get to have a gun in your hand because you put everybody at risk of violating the rules for your past conduct. This doesn’t mean that magically, we’re going to waive one so they can never get it done. Of course, they can violate the rule.
The same can be said about murder. We have rules prohibiting murder in the law, and people still violate that, it doesn’t mean we do away with the law of murder. I think that that category is a category of people we can properly prohibit from having guns. I’ll also add a footnote here.
If you committed a bunch of drive-by shootings, and this was 20 years ago, and now you say, I’m no longer a substantial risk, I think you ought to have a right to try to make that case. If the local community says, this person’s no longer a risk, and they’re out of that category, I think there’s maybe two other categories here that make sense. One, a person who is not competent, your four year old child, or you’re somebody who is mentally ill and is not competent to have a gun in their hand. The reason that is the case is because their lack of competency with a gun in their hand causes them to be a substantial risk of harm to other people. We can tell them, for that reason, you can’t have a gun. In the final category, I think that there are certain weapons. We shouldn’t pretend that the 22 handgun is exactly the same type of weapon that we had when I was in the Marine Corps, automatic 50 caliber, tripod mounted, belt fed weapons, these are different types of weapons.
I think it’s certainly conceivable that one could make the case that if you’ve had no training at all, you don’t know which end around comes out, you don’t know how to store it, you don’t know what a safety is, having a firearm in your hands is a substantial risk to other people. I think it’s reasonable for people to say, do what you want but you don’t get to place other people at substantial risks of harm. The idea here is that if you’re not violating the principle, you should be allowed to do whatever you want. If you are violating the principle, we can do whatever we want to stop you from violating the principles. My personal opinion is irrelevant. If we want to live in a civilized society, in a just society, we have to use a principle that makes sense.
This common denominator of morality is that all reasonable people agree to this live and let live principle. What is a substantial risk or substantial threat to another person, this is something reasonable minds can disagree on. We don’t have to have a one size fits all approach. I think it’s very important that we agree on the principle and we analyze the principle correctly. Certainly, I could imagine one community saying for a .22 handgun, unless we think you’re some kind of a problem here, you should be able to have it. That’s the end of that. I could see another community saying that firearms are a deadly weapon, it’s a dangerous thing, so you have to get a class from somebody who’s qualified, like the NRA, or Gun Owners of America or some group like that, and show that you are competent with this weapon. Once you’ve done that, we’re satisfied that you’re not a substantial risk to another person. No problem. I think both of those rules could be very compatible in two different communities. Let’s use the local communities as competing labs of freedom, and let them compete. Let’s see what people are attracted to. I think probably both of those rules are compatible in a free society.
Bob Zadek 33:02
As Justice Brandeis has said, competing jurisdictions are “laboratories of innovation.” They are where policy gets experimented and one state will look upon another state’s successful failure and learn from it. One comment that you made about taxation is that it has to be with consent. Of course, you and I agree, but the term consent has to be drilled down just a bit lest we end up with anarchy. As we know as attorneys, consent is either expressed, “I consent,” or it is implied. It is assumed that one has consented even though you haven’t signed a document.
The core assumption in our country is that since everybody agrees that we have the right to our person and property, and we should not be harmed by somebody else. It is assumed that we consent to have the government protect those rights to avoid each having to protect the rights for itself. We just assume that when you are born in our country, you sign on to those very core rights and therefore your rights that money shouldn’t be taken from you without your consent, but consent is applied. That is one of the core principles of our country.
Lastly, you mentioned the Second Amendment. We’re not going to spend our time talking about the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. I just wanted to use that as a very very brief reminder. We do not have the rights of free speech, of free association, of assembly, and of worship, because they are given to us in the Constitution. No, that’s not the case. We have those rights because we are human. It is assumed by Marc and by Bob, and by most other people who have thought about it, that of course, we have those rights, because we are human. We are not given those rights by the government.
As is often stated, rights came first. Then there was a government to protect those rights. We did not have the right to bear arms, referred to as the Second Amendment, because we are given that right in the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is simply a reminder to government, remember, government, your citizens have these rights. In the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we remind the government, whatever other powers you have, you do not have the power to take away these rights. I want us all to leave this show remembering we have these rights, not because the government was generous enough to give them to us, but because we are human beings and we deserve the right to our property and the right to be unharmed by others.
Applying the Principle to Wealth Transfers
Bob Zadek 36:39
Now, Marc, another difficult issue which would be interesting to have you apply the live and let live principle is the progressives in America who feel passionately about things like health care, the right to shelter, the right to food, and so on. Progressives feel that everybody has rights to certain creature comforts. Therefore, given that they have these rights, it is appropriate for the government through taxation, and taking property by force, to satisfy these rights that others amongst us should have but don’t have what the progressives feel is enough. Speak to whether or not individuals who are lacking what I refer to as basic necessities have the right to these necessities. Do they deserve them? If these individuals do have the right to these, should Americans, other occupants of our country, be compelled to give up their property to satisfy those rights? In other words, apply the live and let live principle to the very broad policy of wealth transfer.
Marc Victor 38:33
I certainly agree with the idea that consent can be either expressed or implied. However, we don’t want to imply consent in a case where somebody can expressly refuse consent. The places where we might imply consent is a situation where somebody is unconscious. They’ve been maybe hit by a car and they’re in the street. You might say a reasonable person would consent to be taken to the hospital and be treated. Therefore, we might want to imply the consent there and say, you still got to pay that hospital bill because we couldn’t ask you. In the case of taxation, for personal security, you can ask.
Somebody and I will absolutely guarantee you, there will be people who say I expressly do not consent to having my money taken from me to even have it paid to the local police. If you intend to move past that and say, sorry, we won’t accept your expressed disagreement with this and we are taking your money anyway, then I think you’re in exactly the same camp with the progressives, who say, we also think you’ve implicitly agreed to help other people with their health care and their creature comforts, shelter and all of that. I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think anybody has a right to live at the expense of another person, no matter how important we think it is for them to consent to those things. This is the difference between a legal rule and a moral rule. I would say to my friends on the left, and this is where live and let live-ism departs a little bit from libertarianism. We do have some things to say about ethics. We call them aspirational values. We are definitely pushing aspirational values as ethics questions.
We would be against changing the law to put the aspirational values in the law, but we still want to push them. They’re still important, so we are trying to inspire people in our movement to act with things like tolerance and open mindedness and voluntary kindness. I’m going to come back to that to answer your question. Civility and justice and things that optimize human happiness are aspirational values. If you are asking me, should you take care of your fellow human being who is born in less fortunate circumstances? My answer is going to be yes, you should act with voluntary kindness. These are moral questions, though. So if you say, Marc, thanks for the advice, but I disagree with you, I prefer to use my money to go buy an expensive car or take a vacation or do whatever I want to do with it. They have every right to do that.
This might be a person who I maybe don’t want to associate with or say this person is cold hearted or something like that. This is entirely consistent with libertarianism. You can spend your money on anything you want, you can be a curmudgeon and say I refuse to help my neighbor, and that’s fine. The position of those in the Live and Let Live movement is you have every right to be closed minded, intolerant and uncivilized. You can do anything you like, as long as you don’t violate the basic principle, you should be left alone as a legal matter. As an ethics matter, you’re not really part of our movement. We’re trying to get you to peace. So I say to my friends on the left, you should help these people. Yes, I am concerned about people not having access to health care. I am concerned about people less fortunate not having shelter, food and all these things and education. However, I recognize them as ethics questions, not as legal questions. I don’t want to change the law to force people to help other people.
That’s not the role of the law. The role of the law is to enforce what we call the least common denominator of morality. The live and let live principle. In terms of your morality, that’s your choice. Morality is different. People have every right to act immoral and not help their fellow neighbors, they are just not acting consistently with the principles that we’re pushing in the live and let live movement. That’s why we are distinctive from the libertarian movement. If you want to think about it, you can think about libertarian movement plus adding some important aspirational values. That’s the difference between a movement that’s pushing freedom, like the libertarians, and a movement that’s pushing peace, like the live and let livers. Freedom is a necessary prerequisite. It’s not sufficient to get us to peace.
Bob Zadek 43:30
The word “should” has two very different meanings. Let me explain. This will show how much in agreement we are, Marc. Your movement, the Live and Let Live movement, is both a movement that describes the relationship of citizens and their government and what they should be compelled to do, and what government has the power, the moral right to compel them to do, but you also have as you have just explained a very important moral component. In other words, should either means “must,” as in you should pay taxes for common defense, that’s a should, and should has a moral component. If you are moral under first principles of live and let live, then consistent with that morality, you should give away some of your money voluntarily to help others and you should care about others. The word should either mean we encourage you to do it or we force you to do it.
Marc Victor 45:15
That’s how I break it down, Bob. I would break it down as follows. I use the word “must.” Here’s how I use the word must. You must comply with the live and let live principle whether you like it or not. You don’t get to be an aggressor. We tell the people who would commit, say, thefts or assaults or robbers or burglars. We don’t care about whether you agree with this or not. We’re not asking for your agreement nor are we seeking it. You do not get to be an aggressor. If you try to do that, we’re going to do everything we can possibly do. We’re going to use the force of law against you to get you to comply with the live and let live principle. That’s a must. Now I don’t feel bad about this because all I’m saying here is you must not be an aggressor. You don’t get to use force against people. You don’t get to use fraud against people. You don’t get to use coercion nor do you get to do anything that puts them at a substantial risk of harm. You must comply, whether you like it or not, and that’s the law. Everything about the law should be calibrated in that direction.
Then there is the should. We say in the Let and Let Live movement, you should use voluntary kindness towards other people. You should help your fellow human beings. You should be open minded and tolerant. We’re pushing all that stuff. That’s the crowd we’re looking for to join the Live and Let Live movement. We want to change the world and I don’t feel bad about shouting out to the world. Look, there are ways that we can act better towards each other and we ought to. We ought to act with these aspirational values. I don’t feel bad and I’ll defend them.
You should be civilized and open minded and tolerant but you don’t have to be and you have every right not to be. You can do whatever you like, so long as you don’t violate the principle of live and let live principle. We keep it really simple. There are things we do not argue about in the Live and Let Live movement. You are butting up against natural law, and a lot of libertarians believe that. We don’t take a position on that. However you get to live and let live, that’s your business, whether you get there from your religion, or natural law, or social contract or economics, whatever it is. If you get to live and let live principle, welcome. We don’t argue about how you get there, there is no need to argue about that. We don’t argue about the size of the government.
I don’t care if you want the government big or small or nonexistent. That’s your position. What we say is whatever your government does, like everybody else, and every other group and every other corporation, what it doesn’t get to do is to violate the live and let live principle. It can do anything else. We also don’t argue about capitalism or socialism, we don’t care. You can support any economic system you like so long as you don’t violate the rules. Free market capitalism, there’s nothing about that that the rule is violated, have fun all day long with that. Crony capitalism, the rule gets violated there. This is people giving money to politicians who then go to the government to get laws passed that favor or advantage one group over another. That’s coercion, so that violates the rules. Crony capitalism is out.
Voluntary socialism, if you want to put your money together and pull it and pay common bills together, have fun. This is voluntary, it doesn’t violate the rule. There is no reason for us to be all over the socialists if they want to get together and do it voluntarily. That doesn’t violate the rule, they should be left alone. The people who support involuntary socialism, which means we’re going to pool our money and pay for common bills and guys like Bob or Marc, or whoever is listening to this show, doesn’t want to participate in that, and we’re going to force them to participate in it, whether they like it or not, that violates the rule. We don’t need to get bogged down in arguments about whether socialism is better or capitalism is better. We don’t take a position on that.
There is no need to do that. We keep it simple. That applies to every person, every group, every corporation, every government. Start with the principle and don’t move past that principle until we get agreement because if you don’t get agreement on that principle, you got nothing. You got a mishmash of issues like the republicans have and like the democrats have that do not emanate from the principle. The good news is most reasonable people, or I’ll even go so far as to say all reasonable people, agree with the live and let live principle. We don’t need everybody, we just need more than we got now. We got enough. All we have to do is communicate the message in a simple effective way where we lead with that message and get people’s hearts and minds around that principle.
Bob Zadek 50:27
You commented that many people in public life do not have principles. They are just pragmatists who have a certain specific result they want to achieve, but with no governing principles. What you offer is what Reagan referred to is the “shining city on the hill,” the beacon, the principles. When I have conversations with progressives and with others, I always ask, what’s the principle that governs your opinion on a certain policy issue? Once you find the principles, you will find so much common agreement, and therefore you only disagree on how to achieve that result. Now Marc, how do people learn more about the Live and Let Live movement?
Marc Victor 51:35
Just go to liveandletlive.org. This movement hasn’t even kicked off yet. It doesn’t kick off until 2023. It’s early enough. If you want to be involved in this movement and be a mover and a shaker and start a chapter, you can donate, we’re a 501c3. There are lots of things for people to do. Follow the Peace Radicals podcast, you can get it from liveandletlive.org. At least sign up and be part of the movement and blast it around and let everybody know. We want to get some momentum before we kick this thing off in March of 2023.
Bob Zadek 52:08
Thank you so much, Marc. Thank you for your time. This is Bob Zadek. Please enjoy the podcast. Let us know how you feel. We are welcome to suggestions and please comment and rate us if you will. Thank you so much, Marc and thank you so much to my friends out there. I’ll be back again next Sunday. Please enjoy the rest of the weekend.
LINKS:
- About Attorneys For Freedom | Attorneys for Freedom Law Firm
- The Live and Let Live Movement (@PeaceMovement__) / Twitter
- The Peace Radicals on Apple Podcasts
Related Shows:
- Growing the Freedom Movement with Atlas Network CEO Brad Lips, April 24, 2016
