This is Episode 286 played as a Flash Back Friday show where Jason Hartman welcomes Adam Kokesh, an American libertarian and potential 2020 presidential candidate. Kokesh introduces his platform a “new American revolution” and talks about plans announced on an “orderly dissolution of the federal government.” Jason and Adam discuss libertarianism and whether or not we will ever see a dissolution of the federal government.
Announcer 0:00
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Jason Hartman 0:25
Welcome to the holistic survival show with Jason Hartman. The economic storm brewing around the world is set to spill into all aspects of our lives. Are you prepared? Where are you going to turn for the critical life skills necessary to survive and prosper? The holistic survival show is your family’s insurance for a better life. Jason will teach you to think independently to understand threats and how to create the ultimate action plan. sudden change or worst case scenario. You’ll be ready Welcome to ballistic survival your key resource for protecting the people, places and profits you care about in uncertain times. Ladies and gentlemen, your host, Jason Hartman. It’s my pleasure to welcome Adam Koch cash to the show. He is the 2020 Yes, you heard me right. 2020, Libertarian Party candidate for president of the United States. He’s an activist, a radio host and the best selling author of the book freedom. Adam, welcome. How are you? Hey, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. It’s good to have you on the show. So do we really need government for anything at all?
Adam Kokesh 1:38
Well, depends on how you define we and need if you are the elites, the super class the extremely rich and society well, then you certainly need government to keep the plebes in line to keep the common folk, exploited and oppressed and fighting amongst each other. You need government to make war so you can kill off Have people and make lots of money. You need governments so that you can have a police state to keep people obedient. And you need a government so that you can steal from people in the name of taxation. So in that sense, absolutely. Government is necessary if you want to run a violent racket, which is pretty much the definition of government. But when you talk about wish humanity, we have a peace loving people of the world, we who just want to make the world a better place and help our fellow human beings. Of course not we do not need violence and government is coercion and violence. Everything it does, is either by force or backed up by the threat of force by coercion. And it’s almost like a law of physics or any other scientific law. In human relations. Those that are free of violence and coercion are always more conducive to human happiness than relationships where there is violence or the threat of violence present.
Jason Hartman 2:54
Okay, so I agree with you and I love the I sense a bit of sarcasm in there. And I love that. But you know, wouldn’t we just decay into this state of lawlessness and anarchy? I mean, look at Somalia. They basically have no government and it’s a disaster. I don’t want to live there. What do you say?
Adam Kokesh 3:14
Well, actually part of the problem in Somalia is they have very many competing governments, little tribal warlords and religious courts that are competing and use the word anarchy, wouldn’t it be anarchy without government? Well, it depends on how you define the word because there are two definitions and they’re kind of opposite each other which is really somewhat deliberate by those who have slandered or or distorted the word to serve their purposes because by its true meaning, anarchy means no rulers that no one ruling or owning or trying to control other human beings with violence. And if you mean the other definition, anarchy as in chaos and disorder, and disharmony, well, then that’s what government is government is an Our key government is chaos and disorder and violence. And that’s what you get instead when you interrupt the natural, spontaneous order of human beings who are capable of interacting peacefully in their best interests, and supplant that with a violent central coercive monopoly. So if you say we, you know, without government while you’re saying without violence, so by definition, things will be more peaceful in Somalia, where you say, and you rightly say that there are lots of competing governments, wouldn’t that just naturally spring up because there will always be people who are power hungry, who tried to gain an advantage over another? Isn’t that what a court system and a police forces for? Well, that’s supposed to be for? I’ll put it that way. Right, you know, to keep the playing field level. So everybody has an equal opportunity and an equal chance to thrive and no one can step on another. Well, that’s the great lie behind government when the reality is that it exists to serve us. answers. And you might make the case that you know, having one slave owner instead of multiple slave owners fighting over you would make for more peace or you could be a well kept slave in that situation, sir. But what we have in government is a centrally controlled monopoly on violence. And when you say well, if we get rid of that we might get more government it might come back there will always be people. That’s that’s certainly a potential that needs to be examined. But that’s kind of like telling your doctor when he says, Okay, look, you’ve got cancer, we’re going to cut it out with very easy procedure. It’s a very easy cancer, we’re gonna cut it out and you’re going to be fine. No more cancer, you wouldn’t tell the doctor. Well hold on a second. I don’t really want you to take my cancer out because you know, it might come back. Like no you get rid of the cancer one undoubtedly as soon as you possibly can. It is a threat to your health, it is a threat to your If eliminated, but on the possibility that we eliminate governance and it would have to come about with a change in paradigm people embracing universal non violence would be required to have a fully stateless society. But when we get to that point, in order for someone to form a new government, or to try to control and exploit other people violence, they generally need cooperation and other people to buy into this, you know, one psychopath on his own, threatening you with a gun trying to take your wallet or half your income every day is soon gonna be killed and isolated and put out of society. But if he has Congress and an IRS and laws backing him up, well, then he’s gonna get rewarded handsomely for his psychopathic behavior. But in order for a stateless society to produce a new state, that is for a new violent monopoly to come up, after government has been elected needed, there has to be someone convincing lots of people around them to get a new government. And you can imagine we eliminate government, we eliminate war, we eliminate the police state and we have all these new peaceful, harmonious ways of interacting and achieving the legitimate functions. That’s what’s used as an excuse for all of its legitimate functions, then this person would have to get up and say, Hey, everybody, remember when we had wars, remember when we killed people at random? Remember when we had the police state? Remember when you guys had to pay those protection racket people, the mafioso calling themselves governments? Wasn’t that wonderful. Let’s do that again. And I imagine in that scenario, that person is going to get shouted down pretty darn fast. And I’m really not too concerned about it, if we do this properly. And by that I mean, localization, decentralization of power, taking governments apart from the top down, and ensuring that there is a peaceful transition that shows people the more local power is and of course, the ultimate destination of this process would be to take it down to the divine individual with no state whatsoever, the better and happier we all will be. And that’s something that it’s very easy to demonstrate even using current examples. But if we can do this where there is a critical mass of the population who understands why they’re happier and why everyone is better off, then I don’t think we’ll have any problems moving forward from there without any major steps backwards.
Jason Hartman 8:28
So if you ran the country, then how would you do this? You know, I’ve often said if I were president, I would just somehow try to cut the size of government by about 10% per year for seven years. And things would just why not? A lot better? Well, because I wouldn’t be president for 10 years. I’d only be president for eight.
Adam Kokesh 8:54
Eight. Yeah. Well, if you only get to be president for eight, you better do 12 and a half percent, no doubt
Jason Hartman 9:00
I think I don’t think, you know, look at, you know, I don’t go that far in terms of being a libertarian. I believe that my friend Dan Sullivan has been on the show a few times. He’s a business coach and business speaker and consultant. And he has said, in any 10 storey government building, if you just eliminate everybody above the fourth floor, most of us like the government, we can see, we like having the police we like having the fire department. We like having some basic services. Those aren’t real problematic. The problem comes what do you what do you like about
Adam Kokesh 9:34
Sorry, I’m just gonna ask What do you like about the police? Is it how they enforce victimless crime laws, how they help the state enforce taxation rules, how they do the will of politicians instead of serving the people
Jason Hartman 9:45
you know, you can you can say all that. No, I don’t like any of those things. But I like the fact that the police protect me and they protect my home and my property they do.
Adam Kokesh 9:54
Where do you Where do you live because everywhere that I live where they have to leave, they just show up afterward. And right reporters stop any crimes or prevent, you know, they don’t provide any, like actual protection services, you know, when they’re patrolling out on the street, they’re enforcing traffic laws, which are just an excuse to steal more money for politicians and hunting down people who are committing victimless crimes, which is criminal. I mean, the police are criminal when they’re doing that.
Jason Hartman 10:21
I don’t completely agree with you there because sometimes when police patrol, they prevent crimes by their presence, okay. And also, they prevent a
Adam Kokesh 10:31
hold on I just
Jason Hartman 10:33
finished let me just finish my thought for a second. Okay, you can answer I’ll give you a dime. Okay, don’t worry. And they also prevent crime, because people are in fear of police. I believe that if we didn’t have police and we didn’t have courts, that people would rape and pillage, okay. And those aren’t victimless crimes. They don’t do that. Well, at least most people don’t do that because they are in fear of the repercussions. Is that not a fear? statement. Are you saying that if it was loose that you would go out raping and pillaging or you know someone who would do this? I don’t know who I know that might do it. I don’t think I would do it. But human history has definitely proven that people have trouble living peaceably together. Right? Usually those people are called soldiers and cops who use violence against innocent people. So what you’re talking about is primarily government here. Listen, I you’re not gonna get any disagreement with me that government is the problem. A lot of times in the police can be very brutal. There’s no question about that.
Adam Kokesh 11:34
They also do. You’re right, that we need public safety services, and we want dispute resolution services and Justice Services. So how do we do that? Well, peacefully, of course, with cooperation, not with violence. I mean, let me ask you a more fundamental question. When is it okay to use violence against someone who’s acting peacefully and simply exercising their rights on their property?
Jason Hartman 11:55
As long as they’re not interfering with anybody else? Nobody. Never. Of course, not.
Adam Kokesh 12:00
Then government can’t exist because government is based on taxation and taxation is theft. That’s, you know, using force against someone who’s who’s acting peacefully. Hey, I agree.
Jason Hartman 12:10
Most, most people, most people say that they don’t understand that, that if you don’t pay your taxes, you will be looking down the barrel of a gun. Okay, I totally get it. Listen, I’m a huge iron Rand reader. I have followed her stuff for many, many years. And I completely understand and agree with that. I’m just saying, I’m talking about the mechanics of how you really do this. I’ve interviewed a lot of libertarians on my shows over the years. And I just want to get down to the brass tacks mechanics, because everybody, including myself, always has like there are three things that they don’t want to give up and they want government to provide. So how would you provide say, like you say, the public safety services, right, the substitute for the police? How would you do that?
Adam Kokesh 12:55
Well, first of all, what we’re talking about is preventing violence. Spray we’re talking about we want to minimize the violence. Okay, yes. And theft. Okay. Well, that being said, if you talk about theft, I mean, if you look at the amount of stuff that happens in the world today, 99.99% of it is done by government in the form of taxation. So you want to eliminate that, bam, you get rid of government, you’ve gotten rid of at least 99% of the best in the world. If you want to talk about violence, about 90% of the violence in the world, you look at the wars and the police state, and all the enforcement of government, about 90% of the violence of the world is done in the name of government, and of the remaining 10%. About 90% of that is caused by government indirectly through the war on poverty and the war on drugs and the restrictions on economic freedom to drive people to desperation, get ready government right away, bam, you got rid of about 99% of the crime. Now of the remaining crimes in the world. You’ve got crimes or violence. At least you’ve got crimes of passion and crimes of motive, right crimes of passion, no institution is going to do anything about if someone loses their cool and decides to be violent against someone, unless you have an immediate security presence right there. No institutional framework is going to limit that, except in the sense with crimes of incentive where you can so disincentivize crimes that even crimes of passion are disincentivize. By appropriate justice. Remember, punishment is hurting someone for doing something that you didn’t like, whereas justice is making the victims whole and protecting your community. So for crimes of incentive, this is where private protection services would clearly do a far, far better job than government and today, with a government system with a monopoly on Justice Services dispute resolution services, what you end up with is the same problems with any monopoly services which are inadequate on accessible misdirected and not accountable to the people they’re supposedly serving. So it actually encourages petty crimes among poor people to have a justice system that makes it inaccessible to people. If you have something stolen from you a bike, your houses burglar, you know, like you don’t have any legitimate recourse in the current justice system, you can call the police and they’ll write a report. But even if they catch the guy and in my case, I had a motorcycle stone that I bought when I got back from my deployment from Volusion 2004. And I got the guy who stole it got caught by the police was held accountable in the courts for the $6,000 restitution damage claim that I got against him. But what did I get? Nothing, because the government spent 10s of thousands of dollars dealing with this guy incarcerating him trying to move them around. And as a result, I was punished twice as a taxpayer and as a victim of this individual theft and on top of the Government says. So what we have is a system here that is really failing us. What we should have is a system that is more accessible, more equitable, and better able to deal with all of the petty crimes and incentive in a way that holds people accountable. Obviously, under today’s government system, we have a terrible lack of accountability. And people are allowed to get away with all kinds of crimes, as long as they can hire lawyers, as long as they can buy off the politicians and get their laws passed in their favor. I mean, it is a disaster. And the reason is, you have a monopoly, I want competition. And the way that we achieve this is a lot easier than you might think. I don’t want a revolution. I want an evolution. What we can do is take government apart from the top down the centralized power back to our communities, and when it gets down to the community level, that’s where you can build up the free market, non violent, non coercive systems that actually will displace government and render it fully obsolete.
Jason Hartman 17:01
Okay, so you’ve probably heard the saying that you can’t hear the dogs that don’t bark. Right. Have you heard very familiar with that idea? Yeah.
Adam Kokesh 17:10
So I agree with you that government does commit most of the violence in the world, you know, with their war machine and so forth. I couldn’t agree more. I totally agree with you. I just want you to understand that. But what happens is that when you create this vacuum, if government were to disappear, yes, the wars would diminish dramatically. Okay. I’m not advocate. That’s why I’m not advocating for an immediate disillusion of everything. I want government to be localized, and to have a gradual transition where it’s displaced slowly, as we come up with the peaceful solutions that render it obsolete. No, you and you’re right there is the potential of a power vacuum. If you don’t have the paradigm shift first. If not enough, people understand that we need to give up our attachments to violence. We need to give up. Well, violence gets me welfare. Well, violence gets me roads. Well, violence gets me protection. Well, violence gets me pretty politicians on television, know if it’s done by violence is bad for humanity. And we all have to understand that we need to give up our attachments to that violence.
Jason Hartman 18:17
Okay, what Haven’t I asked you that maybe you just want to share with the audience.
Adam Kokesh 18:22
I’m preparing to run for president in 2020 on a platform of the immediate dissolution of the entire United States federal government right now. We are in Illinois on a 60 stop in two months, exploratory tour going all over the country. And so far, the response and enthusiasm has been incredible. We’ve been getting averaging over 15 signups at every location and people who want to be volunteers for the campaign, who want to be delegates for us in the libertarian nominating process. And the platform here is extremely simple. We’re going to have one executive order that It is written out in advance that details to the greatest extent possible, what we can do in advance at least, the process of dissolving the federal government in a peaceful, orderly manner, and making the 50 states, the highest government authorities and land. So we would have department heads appointed as custodians, you wouldn’t have a secretary of defense, you would have a custodian of the Department of Defense whose job would be to deal with those resources in an orderly way, sell what we can and return to the states what would be appropriate. And I would no longer be president after signing this one executive order. I tell people I’m running for not President of the United States, because I would, upon signing this order become custodian of the government of the United States of America. And the only power that I would retain would be the ability to appoint or replace department heads as necessary for carrying out a pre renamed process.
Jason Hartman 20:00
There still would be there still would be a federal government and they quote united unquote, states, right? It would not, it would not make the states individual, well, then the United States would basically disappear. And there be 50 countries essentially. Right.
Adam Kokesh 20:14
Right. And we could go back to just being America and back on our way to be the land of the free the home of the brave and a beacon to the world, leading the way forward for humanity.
Jason Hartman 20:24
So it would be 50 separate states 50 separate countries, basically. Right. 30 separate governments. Yes. Yes. Okay. And no federal government whatsoever. Wow. That is a radical idea.
Adam Kokesh 20:39
I mean, when you say that the founders were wrong and say, No,
Jason Hartman 20:42
I don’t think they will run with the founders. The original intent was that the government would do very limited things, you know, secure the blessings of liberty, you know, blah, blah, blah, promote the general welfare that’s been blown way out of proportion. I mean, it’s the idea that they provide the national defense See, we have the idea of a national country. Okay. It wasn’t a bunch of separate states in their eyes. So you’re not in line with the original intent then.
Adam Kokesh 21:10
Right? I mean, are you saying that they were wrong about the system being appropriate for the population that was written for? Because if that’s the case, if the founders were right about that, as big as a country is, we should definitely have split up a long time ago. So that, you know, single government was overseeing too many people. But I think the most important thing that the founders were right about, that they were against a standing army, and really this is the only significant objection we’ve had to this platform is don’t we need a military to keep us safe. But there’s a reason the founders were against a standing army. They knew that a military was the monopoly government version of the free market answer to the fence, which was the militia. And the fact is that having a military makes us less faith. You have to understand, wars are not fought between countries. They’re fought by government’s using violence to expand their protection rackets. And when you tell your government, please tax me, please rule me, please subject me to your monopoly protection services, that makes you a really juicy target for another government that would come in and govern you. And if someone had to start from scratch at this point, it would probably take him a couple hundred years before they could get to the point of screwing over the American people as thoroughly as we are being screwed today, where the average American works for government half the year. So the greatest defense for our country is that would be beautiful. The original intent of the founding fathers was never to have full time politicians. Oh, my God, that’s the biggest monster ever. Right? Yeah. And, and the greatest defense for any country, or any area is a population that refuses to govern by anyone. You give up liberty for security, you get neither. And if you want to do one thing to make this country safer, and I can tell you this from my experience, because just like with any monopoly, you have The same problems with the military monopoly, and the adventurism that I was a part of in collusion, I saw, we were making enemies faster than we could kill them. And if you want to agree one thing to make America safer, the single most important thing is to eliminate the United States military.
Jason Hartman 23:17
Well, okay, so wouldn’t Putin come in and take Texas’s oil then or weigh you know, whatever state had, you know, a bunch of resources that someone else wanted, whether it be North Korea or Russia or whomever? Wouldn’t they just come in and take it because, you know, I mean, well, we were our militia with a few ak 40 sevens and AR ar 15. You know, they wouldn’t be able to fight off another government. I mean, the other governments aren’t gonna go away with their huge weapon systems. You know, you’re not going to have a militia of a bunch of guys in Texas being able to fight them off.
Adam Kokesh 23:55
You know what I’ve no Yamamoto said about not wanting to invade. I know
Jason Hartman 23:59
300 a gun behind every blade of grass,
Adam Kokesh 24:02
or rifle behind every blade of grass and if you care, but that was that out.
Jason Hartman 24:09
Now it’s different.
Adam Kokesh 24:10
It’s different with hair about defense in order to preserve human life, then what you want is the far more efficient, effective free market answer of the guerrilla militia defense, less of our people will die compared to theirs. If we do not line up our men in silly costumes and make it really easy to kill them, the guerrilla militia defense is far more effective and it’s a more effective deterrent. Unless
Jason Hartman 24:40
you’re an empire. It is May I may just interrupt you for a moment. You are absolutely right. When you’re dealing with other guerrilla militias, or other armies with infantry, but you’re wrong when it comes to someone dropping a neutron bomb. Japan didn’t know that existed
Adam Kokesh 24:57
yet in World War Two. Okay. I agree with you, but it just it’s a different world. I mean, isn’t that a fair statement? Right? No. And actually, that makes things better for us the fact that it’s a different world and more high tech and more connected, because the people of Russia aren’t going to support an aggressive action against a peaceful people. They only do that when you give them a government to be violent and give them an excuse to go after someone else. So one of the benefits of eliminating the government is that we immediately become twice as rich. I mean, almost literally, every American is making twice as much money. And that’s nothing to say, for all of the kind of economic opportunities you know, the dogs that don’t bark that had been squandered and squashed by government regulation. businesses that don’t exist, jobs that don’t exist, opportunities that don’t exist, because of government taxes and regulation. So if we make this standard, I should say when America decides to leave the world forward in freedom once again, we are immediately going to be so much more prosperous. The people of Russia are gonna go, Hey, what’s going on over there? Oh, they got rid of their government? Gee, it’s going really well for them. We should do the same thing to
Jason Hartman 26:11
john Yes.
Adam Kokesh 26:13
They’re not going to be so angry at the American people that they’re going to go, Hey, Russian government, you know, you’re holding us back, you should go and hold back the American people to know they are going to be angry with their government, and they are going to stop doing the government thing themselves and they are going to join us in freedom. This is the rest of the world is generally follow the trends of the American Revolution.
Jason Hartman 26:36
Right. Yeah, very interesting, very interesting
Adam Kokesh 26:38
thoughts and discussion, Adam, give out your website and tell people where they can follow you and learn more and potentially support your campaign if they’re interested. I appreciate that. And I wrote a book when I was in town, which is ironically now banned in US jails and prisons, called freedom. And it’s 100 pages. It’s a free three hour audio book. It’s free in every digital format. possible, including the audiobook on the freedom line.com, or the freedom line.com. And you can find my youtube channel there where we just hit 200,000 subscribers and 60 million views. You can find me on social media sign up for my email list. And if you join the forums there, you can sign up to represent your county, if your county hasn’t already been claimed by someone else, or if you want to get involved with the campaign at the central national level, with everything that we’re doing right now to organize volunteers to organize delegates for 2018 and 2020. And really, you know, Jason, I think what’s really beautiful about this platform is how it has the potential to bring people together without even making them give up their attachment to violence. If you’re a liberal, you live in a liberal state. You’re a conservative you live in a conservative state voted governing Yeah. What would you rather be governed locally where you you you have a Have your voice and your vote counting or by someone in some far off capital. And I think the answer there is pretty obvious to most Americans. So localizations D centralizing power, bringing it back to the communities and eventually down to the individual. That’s what’s going to bring people together because every human being is a libertarian. They might not have all figured it out yet, but they’re all libertarian because they all are independent consciousnesses that have desires and a will. And that will wants to be respected. Every human being at some level wants to be free, wants to live in peace and harmony with their fellow human beings. And it is only the fear of government that leads us to fall for its protection that good So anyway, all that the freedom line, calm the freedom line.com
Jason Hartman 28:46
excellent stuff. Excellent stuff. Adam, thank you so much for joining us and telling us about your very interesting ideas. Good luck to you.
Adam Kokesh 28:55
My pleasure. Thank you, sir.
Jason Hartman 28:58
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