Walter Block vs Stefan Molyneux vs Ron Paul!
(Block’s article he is commenting on)
:EDIT:
Okay so I finally got all the way through this thing and had to mention a few things. Aside from the obvious straw man of asserting that Paul (or anyone else for that matter) purports to be able to turn the state virtuous, you have to especially love the part at 18:46 where he claims to admit wholeheartedly that Ron Paul has done more to spread the ideas of liberty…and then goes on to basically claim that his own work is somehow more important that what Ron Paul has done. Seriously. Watch how he does it. Such a clever narcissist.
Further evidenced at 21:13 when he compares himself to Socrates going into the marketplace and simultaneously gives Block a sideways dig by attacking the fact that he works at a state-sponsored university.
Then of course there’s the part at 21:59 where he claims to have “accepted the argument that IP rights are invalid”…when of course, as we’ve seen he evidently does believe in them in some form or fashion…
He’s a pretty good actor too. At 25:00 you really get a feel for it, along with another nice little straw man about Ron Paul being a savior.
And there’s another great little nugget at 30:05: Molyneux says “every sane, reasonable human being in the world accepts the non-aggression principle in personal relationships.” Why do I find this interesting? Because if you remember, not 15 minutes earlier when the man implied his work was more important to spreading liberty than what Ron Paul has done, he did so by asserting that he has “done a huge amount to promote the non-aggression principle in personal relationships”…and that doing so “does a lot more for one’s personal freedom and political freedom” than political campaigns (or whatever Ron Paul has done). Now, whether Molyneux is even more narcissistic than I thought, and actually believes his work is the reason that everyone accepts the NAP in personal relationships, I don’t know…but if he doesn’t actually believe that, one can only wonder why he believes his work in promoting something “every sane, reasonable human being in the world” already accepts, is more useful than everything Ron Paul has done.
So as a short recap: Molyneux first claims he would “perfectly, reasonably, and with a great deal of empirical evidence support the claim” that Ron Paul has “done far more than [Molyneux] will probably ever do in his life to support the spread of economic literacy.” Then he immediately moves to claim that his own work in promoting the non-aggression principle in personal relationships “does a lot more for one’s personal freedom and political freedom” than anything Ron Paul has done. Not 15 minutes later, Molyneux asserts that “every sane, reasonable human being in the world accepts the non-aggression principle in personal relationships”…quite literally admitting that the very thing he spends a great deal of his time promoting..the very thing that makes his own efforts so much more important and effective than Ron Paul’s…is something that every sane person already accepts.
This of course means either one of two things. Either Molyneux is narcissistic enough to believe his efforts are the reason every sane person accepts the very principle he promotes in the capacity he promotes it…or he’s narcissistic enough to believe that him spending his time promoting something every sane person already accepts is actually more impactful than everything Ron Paul has done. One can only wonder which it is, but I’m not quite sure it matters.
And just overall the way he throws in giggles on purpose, just for effect, as if to emphasize how right he supposedly is…just really irks me. It’s not like I think he actually practiced doing the video before he actually filmed it, but it’s still so “rehearsed”. His laughing, his facial expressions, his hemming and hawwing, the way he rubs his noes, the way pretends to be lost in thought after reading something and then all of a sudden jumps back into the moment and continues on…it’s basically a caricature he’s created and refined over hundreds (and probably thousands) of hours of doing videos and speeches and audios. I’m not saying he’s completely different in real life and only “gets into character” for the camera…I’m actually quite sure that’s actually how he behaves (at least most of the time). What I’m saying is it’s not as genuine and off-the-cuff and raw “I’m just a guy makin videos and accepting donations” as he’d have you believe. Case in point, the way he claims he hasn’t even read the article he is about to critique…right after he claims he has some criticisms. Seriously?
Don’t get me wrong, he’s definitely got the persona down quite well. I can almost feel the smug coming out my computer screen. But being good at portraying a jerkish personality doesn’t exactly endear me as a viewer when someone is trying to win my mind, as opposed to an Oscar.