Bill Whittle on Free Market Revolution
Bill Whittle had some very nice things to say about Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government.
“This latest one by Yaron [Brook] and Don [Watkins], Free Market Revolution, is a very, very readable book about applying completely free market principles to society . . . .
“It’s only after I read [Free Market Revolution] that I began to realize just how far away from freedom we are in this country. . . . When you read the book you begin to realize how all of these problems, from the housing crisis to the Federal Reserve, to inflation, to the entitlement spending–all of this stuff really is all the fault of government intervention. [The authors] really spell out the evils and how mechanically these evils work. . . .
“Not many of these books I read that I just go ‘Wow’ but that book just made me go ‘Wow’ a lot.”
Here’s the entire segment. His comments on the book start about 3:40.
4 Comments to “Bill Whittle on Free Market Revolution”
Bill raised a good question for libertarians and objectivists: what happens if the guy next door plays his music too loud? Because it’s hard to see that as the initiation of force against somebody or somebody’s property. Any thought?
Well, you can go over to your neighbour and ask them not to play music too loud at certain times (when you need to sleep), and then if they keep on playing music during said times, you can just take them to court for violating your individual rights by causing harm to your brain/body with lack of sleep caused by said neighbour’s loud music.
You don’t need government determining, with a very broad brush, what times of day people can make loud noises, what decibels are acceptable/unacceptable, etc.
I’ll give you an example of why this broad brush approach is bad: I remember when I was working night shifts, I’d go to work at 10.30pm and leave at 7.30am, meaning that during the day I’d have to sleep - But according to the British government, the times when I need to sleep are the times when people are permitted to play loud music, and even if I went over to said neighbour to complain, they’d just tell me it’s legal to play music during the daytime, and that I should go take a hike.
Loud music and everything else that is a matter of preference, can all be controlled by CC&Rs (Conditions, Covenants, and Restrictions.) These are things that neighbors agree to do, and to refrain from doing, and the agreements can vary from one neighborhood to another. What we need is Property Owner’s Associations for all parcels of real estate, and privatize all improper laws (convert them to CC&Rs) or abolish them.
I watched this earlier in the week, and I thought that Bill was a little bit swayed by Objectivist arguments against the morality of altruism. . . although given his previous videos where he’d talked about Objectivism and altruism, I think he’ll continue to be a hard nut to crack when it comes to said morality, largely because he’s a Christian and has automatised a lot of that morality into his thinking.