Stefan Molyneux’s Trump Support Rebutted

Forsaking his once vivacious disposition against political involvement, Stefan Molyneux is now one of the leading proponents of the Political Campaign of Donald Trump and the rise of the Alt-Right Political Movement.

He cites many generic reasons that could be applied to a wide variety of run-of-the-mill politicians such as, “he wants smaller government, he wants to repeal ObamaCare, he wants to lower corporate taxes, he wants to negotiate better Trade Deals, he wants to simplify the tax code and get rid of entire government agencies, etc.”

But none of this sets Donald Trump apart from any other politician in particular, certainly these things are not enough to rouse an ardent anarcho-capitalist into political involvement, especially one who viciously denounced Ron Paul supporters in the past as supporting the violent coercion of the State through their political action.

Looking into it further, there seem to be two primary reasons why Stefan Molyneux supports Donald Trump so orgasmically. These are 1) Donald Trump is not a professional politician and is taking no money from special interests, and 2) Donald Trump’s hard stance against immigration.

He is taking no money from special interest groups! That breaks the entire cycle! That’s why I roused myself back into political action after spitting on it for so many years…. he is not beholden to special interest groups, he has not carved up and sold off the future of the voting population in order to get in front of them to run in the first place, that’s new information, that’s a fact.

Donald Trump Is Himself A Special Interest Group

The “new information” that has Stefan so excited is that the cycle of Special Interest Groups buying off politicians for political favors has been broken by a Special Interest called Donald Trump itself getting into Political Power directly rather than indirectly.

As Donald Trump has said:

Look, I know the people that want something. I’ve been doing this all my life. I’ve been a very big contributor to many, many people on all sides for many, many years, I don’t want lobbyists. I don’t want special interests.

Donald Trump is himself a Special Interest that has been lobbying and paying politicians for favors “all his life.” Now he wants to get into power and he wants to be beholden to no one but himself.

Presumably every Special Interest group wishes there were some way to have only their interests attended to and no one else’s. How much would need to be donated to completely buy off a politician so that they are “your guy” in Washington exclusively?

The answer for Donald Trump is over $100 million.

What are his interests? Stefan seems to believe Donald Trump has the American people’s best interests at heart, and seeks only to make the country “better.” What is clear is that Trump is genuinely fearful of Islamic and Mexican immigration into the country, which must be a considerable motivational factor. He also seems genuinely concerned about China, our Trade Deals, and as builder of large things, really wants to build the wall.

Those are legitimate motivations, but I think Frederic Hayek identified an even deeper motivational factor in The Road To Serfdom which must also apply to Donald Trump:

There is thus in the positions of power little to attract those who hold moral beliefs of the kind which in the past have guided the European peoples, little which could compensate for the distastefulness of many of the particular tasks, and little opportunity to gratify any more idealistic desires, to recompense for the undeniable risk, the sacrifice of most of the pleasures of private life and of personal independence which the posts of great responsibility involve. The only tastes which are satisfied are the taste for power as such, the pleasure of being obeyed and of being part of a well-functioning and immensely powerful machine to which everything else must give way.

I therefore do not find Trump’s refusal to accept donations from Special Interest Groups and lobbyists, or his decision to spend over $100 million on his campaign, or the fact that he is not a professional politician at all to be a convincing reason to abandon voluntarist and Libertarian principles and support a Statist who promises to “cut back” on Statism.

It’s not like Trump is a regular guy from main street who is getting put in the seat of power, this is a billionaire who’s been lobbying and schmoozing with politicians to gain political favors his entire life, and now he won’t need favors, he’ll be acting in his own interests from the seat of power himself. That’s not encouraging, and that’s not what I would call “breaking the cycle.”

Instead of many Special Interests abusing the power of the State, now we will have just one: Donald Trump

Fear Does Not Trump Principles Mr. Molyneux

Stefan’s Argument Against Immigration:

Immigration + Welfare + government schools + social housing + food stamps + ObamaCare… all this, it is a giant government program. The movement of people across borders is a giant government program.

Rebuttal: By limiting immigration, you protect and legitimize the Welfare State.

I agree that you cannot have open borders and a Welfare State at the same time. The moment you allow the Welfare State to come about, you have already necessitated the building of walls and the limiting of immigration at some point in the future in order to keep it going.

The solution to a problem caused by government intervention is never more government intervention.

The solution to the problem caused by the creation of the Welfare State is not to build a wall and limit immigration so that the Welfare State can sustain itself. The Solution is to get rid of the Welfare State. I don’t see how Stefan doesn’t see this.

The Welfare State and Strong Border Control go hand in hand. The democrats aren’t going to secure the borders, and the republicans aren’t going to create the welfare state, so they cooperate and fulfill their step along the ladder that leads to Totalitarianism one at a time, while keeping up the facade that they are working against each other.

By supporting the Border Control, you protect the Welfare State and safeguard it.

Stefan continues:

Let’s say you have a big potluck dinner, everyone is supposed to bring a dish, and ten people come and don’t bring a dish, and just take. Well are they stealing from you? Well kind of in a way because they are supposed to bring food to the potluck dinner, and all they are doing is coming and taking and not contributing anything. Well, I don’t want people who aren’t contributing to my potluck dinner to come to my potluck dinner.

Question: Is the initiation of force justified because someone might initiate force in the future?

In order to reach his conclusion, Stefan must assume that immigrants will not work, will not contribute, and will just sit on Welfare programs. And he must just assume they will all vote Democrats. And must just assume that they will subvert Western Values and commit violence, therefore he argues we must initiate force to PREVENT them from initiating force against us based on these assumptions.

It is quite the leap to go from, “the initiation of force is the core evil in the world,” to, “we must initiate force against others to prevent them from possibly initiating force against us.”

Following Stefan’s logic, we should preemptively strike Iran right now because they might initiate force against us in the future.

To correct Stefan’s analogy: You are forced at gunpoint to go to a big potluck dinner and bring a dish or else you will be shot, ten people you don’t know want to get in, you don’t know if they are going to bring a dish or not, you assume they are not going to bring a dish, so you take the gun that is pointed at your head, point it at their heads, and tell them if they take one more step you will shoot them in the forehead.

As Bastiat so beautifully said:

“The injustice that society contains, instead of being rooted out of it, is generalized.”

Question #2: If it can be conclusively shown that black males statistically commit more crime than others, would it be justified to lock up all black males because the total amount of violence will go down?

Stefan is arguing that many or most of the immigrants will come here and commit crime and sit on welfare and not contribute anything, therefore we should initiate the force of the State against them to prevent them from coming here and doing those things preemptively.

That is the same as arguing that many or most black males will initiate force against others, therefore we should initiate force against them to prevent them from committing crime preemptively.

The same logic that Stefan is using to justify Trump’s immigration policy can be used to justify every Statist program that has ever existed.

Some people with guns are going to do bad things, therefore the State needs the power to violently disarm everybody, even people that haven’t done anything wrong.

Some people will get addicted to drugs and harm themselves and others therefore we are going to violently cage anybody we catch with this substance, even those who have not harmed themselves or others.

Some immigrants will commit crime, vote democrat, and sit on welfare without contributing, therefore we are going to initiate violence against anyone who tries to cross the border, even those who didn’t or wouldn’t do any of those things.

Conclusion: Stefan Is Purposefully Perpetuating Institutionalized Violence Out Of Fear

If Stefan truly believes that the initiation of the use of force is the core evil in the world, and he understands that the State is an effect of the moral beliefs of society, then he knows that by advocating justifications for violence or the initiation of force he is knowingly participating in actively creating the world that enslaves us. Actively and purposefully. There is no other conclusion.

Statism always seduces people into throwing away their principles through fear. Donald Trump has touched on a substantive fear by focusing on immigration, and thus justified a Statist solution which includes preemptive initiations of force, and Stefan is all in.

I am not all that concerned that people support Trump, it is to be expected, what really concerns me is that a charismatic and persuasive voice of great influential power that once worked day and night to make the world more free, is now working day and night to make the world less free.

In the same way: I don’t fret that there are racist bigots in the world, it’s an inevitable percentage of society and I’ve come to terms with that, but if I saw Martin Luther King Jr. himself at a 7-Eleven screaming racist slurs at the white cashier, or advocating the enslavement of white people, I’d be not just concerned, but baffled and profoundly disillusioned.

• KG