Practical Anarchy Quotes

“In reality, it is not so much a stateless society that we fear, but rather a family-less and friendless society where we rock gently, hugging our useless truths to our chests; solitary, ostracized, alone, rejected, scorned, derided. The truth is a desert island, we fear, and so, as evolutionarily social animals, we join our corrupt circles in mocking and attacking the truth and resent those who tell the truth for revealing the corruption that formerly was only visible unconsciously – which is to say, largely invisible.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“However, to believe that some ancient and fantastical Jewish zombie died for their “sins,” and that they are trailed and judged by an omnipresent and invisible ghost, and that they need to eat and drink symbolic flesh and blood to commune with some universal and incorporeal mind – well, that takes an enormous amount of propaganda, bribery, and bullying. Religion is an entirely artificial “oppositional solution” to the question of existence and ethics. It must be repetitively and aggressively inflicted on children, because it scarcely comes naturally to them at all.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“Dear Valued Customer: Your cable bill is now increasing 5% per month. You cannot cancel your cable. Ever. You cannot reduce your bill in any way. If you turn off your cable, your bill will remain exactly the same. If you rip your cable out of the wall, your bill will remain exactly the same, with the exception that we will charge you for the damage. Your children will be unable to cancel your cable contract. Also, please note that we will be reducing our delivery of channels by approximately 1 every month. As we deliver fewer channels, you can anticipate that your bill will sharply increase. If you do not pay your bill on time, the ownership of your house will revert to us, and we will lock you in an undisclosed location, where you will be forced to do tech support, and where we will be unable to protect you from assault and rape. If you attempt to defend yourself when we come to take your house, we are fully authorized to gun you down. Sincerely, The Statist Cable Company”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“we must remember to compare a stateless society not to some perfect utopia, but rather to existing statist societies. Are people currently unjustly sent to prison? You bet. Are non-violent drug users jailed? Yes, by the millions. Do some people pretend to confess to less grievous crimes because they are threatened with terrifying sentences if they do not? Of course. Do the police manufacture evidence? Yes. Are policemen rewarded for preventing crimes, or obtaining convictions? The latter.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“However, DROs as a whole really need to keep track of people who have opted out of the entire DRO system, since those people have clearly signaled their intention to go rogue and live “off the grid.” Thus if you cancel your DRO insurance, your name goes into a database available to all DROs. If you sign up with another DRO, no problem, your name is taken out. However, if you do not sign up with any other DRO, red flags pop up all over the system. What happens then? Remember – there is no public property in a stateless society. If you’ve gone rogue, where are you going to go? You can’t take a bus – bus companies will not take rogues, because their DRO will require that they take only DRO-covered passengers, in case of injury or altercation. Want to fill up on gas? No luck, for the same reason. You can try hitchhiking, of course, which might work, but what happens when you get to your destination and try to rent a motel room? No DRO card, no luck. Want to sleep in the park? Parks are privately owned, so keep moving. Getting hungry? No groceries, no restaurants – no food! What are you going to do?”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“The entire point of a new theory is that it is unprecedented; the first man to invent a jet aircraft could scarcely submit examples of jet aircraft flying in the past.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“However, prejudice against anarchists – much like prejudice against atheists – is one of the last remaining acceptable bigotries in the world. We cannot judge any group negatively – except a group that relies on reason, evidence, and non-violence.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“To create a State and give it the power of life and death does not solve the problem of human evil. It merely transforms the shallow desire for easy property to the bottomless lust for political power.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“When it comes to government as it is – and all that government ever could be – we are never really talking about two sides of the table. You get a letter in the mail informing you that your property taxes are going to increase 5% – there is no negotiation; no one offers you an alternative; your opinion is not consulted beforehand, and your approval is not required afterwards, because if you do not pay the increased tax, you will, after a fairly lengthy sequence of letters and phone calls, end up without a house. It is certainly true that your local cable company may also send you a notice that they’re going to increase their charges by 5%, but that is still a negotiation! You can switch to satellite, or give up on cable and rent DVDs of movies or television shows, or reduce some of the extra features that you have, or just decide to get rid of your television and read and talk instead. None of these options are available with the government – with the government, you either pay them, give up your house, go to jail, or move to some other country, where the exact same process will start all over again.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“Invading a statist society is like grabbing the cages of a large number of trapped chickens – you get all of the eggs in perpetuity. Invading a stateless society is like taking a sprint at a flock of seagulls – all they do is scatter, and you get nothing, except perhaps some crap on your forehead.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy

“Very few men would agree to murder for payment – but very few men will condemn soldiers as murderers.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“The world will be free of the State when we finally see that the State is inferior to all of our personal and professional relationships. When we are completely used to thinking in terms of mutual advantage, the violent exploitation of the State will finally become clear to us, and it will fall away.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“In the statist paradigm, we listen only to God and obey His commandments. In the anarchist paradigm, God also listens to us, and we negotiate as equals.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“The story of the progress of human morals is almost entirely populated by people who did not live to see the world that they loved in their minds.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“If society gave everything that a poor person could possibly require in order to live comfortably, that would scarcely reduce the numbers of poor people, but would rather increase them considerably.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“Anarchists understand that the only valid and proven way to oppose human corruption is through voluntarism and competition – statists believe that the only way to oppose human corruption is to create a monopoly of violent power.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“And – are war criminals such as George Bush charged with their genocidal crimes? Of course not. They are given pensions and speaking tours.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“as long as the State exists, we shall always live with the terror of war.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“Very few people would openly say that they oppose rape, but support the rapists – however, when the same moral equation is redefined as a good, just about everyone says that they oppose the war, but support the troops.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future

“A Christian remains an atheist with regards to almost every god, but becomes an utter theist with regards to his own deity.”
― Stefan Molyneux, Practical Anarchy: The Freedom of the Future