6/19/20 Pete Quinones: The Monopoly on Violence

Scott Horton 0:10
All right, shall welcome and Scott Horton show. I am the director of the libertarian Institute editorial director of anti war calm, author of the book fool’s errand, time to end the war in Afghanistan. And I’ve recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at scotthorton.org dot org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed full archive is also available@youtube.com slash Scott Horton show. Aren’t you guys on the line? I’ve got Pete Quinones. And he is the managing editor of the libertarian Institute. He also put out the books that kids are not all right. And freedom through mean dumb and he is one of the producers of this new documentary. I think you’ll really like It’s called the monopoly on violence. Welcome back to the show Pete How you doing?

Pete Quinones 1:07
Good to be with you, Scott and doing well.

Scott Horton 1:09
Pete I don’t think you’ve written any blog entries about the movie or articles kind of explaining debuting the movie for the institute since it came out.

Pete Quinones 1:19
What I’m waiting to do is the version of it that we put on YouTube has some has some flaws in it, audio level here and there. But it was just one of those things where everything that was happening in the world with the riots and everything we were just like, let’s get this out there and see what people think we’ve only had like 10 people, including yourself, say anything about you know what was in it, and you know, and or audio levels, or maybe a vocal gets clipped somewhere. So what out I was gonna wait until we’re prepping it. Now to upload to Amazon and when you upload it to Amazon, it has to be perfect. So that’s what we’re doing right now we’re re recording a couple of the narration parts. And then we’re going to send it to a guy who is going to professional audio guy who is going to level everything out the sound is going to be perfect. And then that’s what I was gonna start talking about it on the inside.

Scott Horton 2:21
Okay, so it’s, it’s open. The store is open now, but it’s the grand opening is coming up here, and that’s when we’re going to make a real big deal about it. Okay.

Pete Quinones 2:30
Yeah, that that. That’s actually a really good analogy.

Scott Horton 2:34
All right, good. Yeah. So let me read a little bit here from the description on YouTube. It says, This is our crowdfunded documentary about anarchism in the state, featuring interviews with James C. Scott, David Friedman, Michael humor. Scott Horton M. Stephan Kinsella, Max borders, Thaddeus Russell, Tom woods, Walter. Block ron paul Joseph Salerno How do you say is it made Tori mastery mastery? Judge Napolitano, Bob Murphy, Mark Thornton Ryan McMakin. Oh my goodness it’s all of my friends and people that I look up to and other people to a great group of libertarians and then it goes on to when you say many more you really mean it. It is quite a list of people who are featured in here. And so yeah, it’s great as almost an overview of who are the libertarians at this time in history and what’s their position on things he knows there’s a it’s a good sort of thermometer I guess of of our entire movement in one way. But there’s a point to it all. And so why don’t you take us through it a little bit. I mean, not step by step by step but just kind of overall dramatically. What Isn’t that you’re trying to do here? What is it that you succeeded in putting together here?

Pete Quinones 4:05
Well, I’ve been calling myself an anarchist for a long time, and especially in the current climate. When you say that you’re an anarchist, people think that you’re throwing bricks through Starbucks Windows, or, you know, you’re trying to set yourself up as a warlord in Seattle or something like that. And we just wanted to show people, the classical schools of anarchism And now, we have a section where we go back 3000 years and talk about thinkers who talked about anarchism talked about no rulers, we bring it up to the present day talk about some people in the colonies who had anarchist thoughts then when you start getting into the 1800s is when you really start you start getting into production and Bakun in and Benjamin Tucker people like that and then up into the 20th century with, obviously rothbard and yeah, everyone, when we talk about left anarchism, we talk about right anarchism, we talk about anarchism without adjectives, even max Turner who was, you know, like a individualist anarchists. We just wanted to present people with the alternative view the scholarly view of anarchism, where you’re watching a documentary, and the people who are being interviewed are professors, and lawyers, and people who wrote books on foreign policy to see that. Now these aren’t like lunatic looking, you know, Black Bloc wearing masks anarchists. Now, these are people who are deadly serious, who believe that the free market can not only cover toilet paper and food Backing cover security and even national security. That was our goal. It was to just give people an overview of what we believe. And I think as of an hour ago, we had, we’re almost at 54,000 views on YouTube in almost three weeks now. So people are watching it. A lot of people have said they’ve watched it two or three times and they send it to their parents, they send it to their family and say, you know, all that crazy stuff that I’m always talking about, well, these people can tell the story a whole lot better than I can. And, yeah, it’s working out pretty good so far.

Scott Horton 6:42
Yeah, that’s great. Man. You know, I always said that. Not that I practice what I preach here, but I always thought that the Lew Rockwell approach of saying, the most radical thing, the honest truth, but stating it in a very radical way, but with that, very Calm and professional, professorial economists type monotone voice that goes with the bow tie and everything that of course, Harry Truman was a terrible monster. And you know, and it’s just it’s just sounds so true when he says it, you just know it’s true when he says it that this guy that people revere, there’s nothing to revere there. And it starts with an Of course, which goes a long way. And it’s just the tone of voice and the mannerism and everything behind it. And also, it’s true about Truman, the butcher of Asia, as a sort of Neale Hurston call them. But that’s absolutely the right approach, you know, for getting this kind of thing of crosses. You know, Allen Bach, I think, was in my very first interview that I did on the weekend interview show in 2003, where I asked Alan box Are you anarchist or what? And he goes, Yeah, you know, kind of waver. I’m right on the line, sort of, but Jesus, pretty clear to me who it is that really causes the most violence in society. And it’s those who say that they’re here to protect us, you know, and you can’t get a more sober and professional individual than Alan Bach. You know, he’s no bomb thrower. He’s just a truth teller. And so, I don’t know if I fit in your documentary very well, in that sense. But surely, most of the people that you interview do and I think, you know, they do get that point across, in again, that Ron Paul he in way that here’s license for you to go ahead and take a radical position because it comes from someone who’s very moderate and serious in their tone.

Pete Quinones 8:53
Yeah, and it wasn’t only anarchism that we talked about. We talked about many anarchism and Dr. Pol talked about secession. And, you know, he even stated he said, Yeah, I lean more towards secession being the peaceful kind, which when you hear him say that it’s like, well, maybe he may believe in, in violence secession if it has to come to that everything and that’s not what an anarchist would talk about. But Dr. Pol, so it doesn’t call himself an anarchist. But we had sections where we were going to talk about the solutions that some people believe that there were solutions through the state, and just being able to really have those people up there who, you know, like Bob Murphy, I mean, you look at Bob Murphy, and you just, you don’t see Oh, that guy’s obviously an anarchist and everything. I mean, he just looks like a professor. And it’s

Scott Horton 10:00
No, and the substance is there, too. It’s not like we’re sitting here just trying with a gimmick, trying to pull a wool over somebody’s eyes or something. And these guys are talking some real substance about, you know, history and, you know, the kind of definitional sort of conceptual framework that everyone else just takes for granted and doesn’t even really consider about where do these government’s come from, and why do we put up with them anyway? And so, yeah, it ain’t just the tone. It’s the real science they’re dropping to throughout this thing.

Yeah. And we had jamesy Scott, who wrote the book against the grain in the book, The Art of not being governed, and he is a he teaches at Yale anthropology and we knew that we wanted to get him actually flew back across the country to get the interview with him because one of my producers moved to Oregon in the middle of all this. He had to come go across the Country twice. In order to get him on, we tried to get David graeber, who is an anthropologist, but sort of more of on the left side. But we had him nailed down and then some things happened and just communication stopped. But you know, having somebody like James Scott, who basically covers the first seven, eight minutes of the movie, I mean, this is a, this is an 80 year old man, and 80 year old professor who’s talking about the history of the states and is talking about how well how do we know? How do you know when a state starts becoming totalitarian and overbearing? Well, they start instituting, instituting taxes on a regular basis. And when you hear that coming from someone like someone like him, it’s just, it’s mind blowing, you know, to just to realize that, wait a minute, there are people out there who are serious people who teach at Yale who believe that society can function without a monopoly on force and violence. And that was really, that that’s the message of the whole movie is the fact that the state is a monopoly on force and violence, and that we can do better. Right? And the society can do better than me this way. Yeah. And I think it came out really well, because like I said, it’s pretty much we’ve had a couple people say, you know, they didn’t like it and everything like that, but I mean, it’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen. I mean, it’s an hour and 45 minutes.

3000 likes 36 dislikes on YouTube right now. So that’s not so bad of a ratio. I don’t think

that’s a pretty good. That’s actually an excellent ratio for YouTube. But the I have

a major complaint here though. Where’s Sheldon Richmond?

Well, I mean, we’ll have to go get Sheldon Richmond. And you know, in our Saw and everything and we just ran out of money. We mean, there were people that we wanted to get in Southern California, and we just ran out of money. So, I mean, we have 30 people in the documentary right now. I think the only person that I would have taken money out of my pocket if he would have said yes to get Chris to go and fly and record would have been Chomsky. But Chomsky said, No,

or Bob Higgs, man. Well,

he I asked him to come on my podcast, and he says, Sorry, I’m retired. Yeah. Well, let’s ask him for a very

long time. He wouldn’t do interviews at all. And then for a very long time after that, my show was the only show that he would do. Because everybody else was so lousy at interviewing him, he thought, and then now he won’t even do my show anymore, either. So

Pete Quinones 13:49
yeah, he says, I miss the

Scott Horton 13:52
guy. I mean, he’s really the very best one of us, I think, but

Oh, yeah. He’s the maybe the greatest celebrity Living libertarian right now, but a lot of people will argue, who wants to start arguing over that?

Yeah. Well, you know, I’m right now I’m working on editing Shelton’s book, his new one. It’s a collection of essays that he’s written over the years. It’s called what social animals owe to each other. And, man, it’s great. It’s so great. You know,

it’s so underrated

libertarianism and human nature and economics and natural rights and it’s everything that you’d want it to be man, so good.

So underrated. Sheldon is such a great thinker.

Yeah. So chapter two will be an interview of Sheldon Richmond, a monopoly on violence part two, Sheldon and Bob Higgs.

Pete Quinones 14:47
Well, the way we’ve done it the way we’ve done it is this with this vast overview, so now we’re going to start breaking it down into subjects that are in the movie, so Sorry that

Scott Horton 15:00
my part sucks, man, I really wish I’d done a better job.

Pete Quinones 15:04
I think

Scott Horton 15:05
I, I really know now what I would have said instead, you know what I mean, if I had had a better idea of where I fit in the movie and what I was supposed to what part I was supposed to play there, could I at least I wrapped it up well at the end with so therefore they suck and we don’t need him or something. So it was it ended along the theme of what you were saying, but it could have been constructed so much better. So yeah, sorry.

Well, you also have to remember, this is the first documentary we’ve done. So we’re putting together questions for different people. And we know that there are certain subjects that we have to hit. But really, we’re just rookies at this. So when you watch the whole thing, and you watch it in its totality, and you see how everything was framed, how it was set up from the beginning, and how it progress aggresses through, then, you know, that’s Chris, who is a rookie director and rookie editor. Just take, you know, taking the transcripts of the interviews and look into what questions we asked and saying, Okay, this is how we’re going to do it. I mean, that the original transcript that I got was three hours long. Now we had to, we had to chop that up and there was a whole, I mean, there was one whole section on one subject that just hit the floor, and it just, we took it right out of there.

So one whole subject of what I hit the floor

was the subject it was on argumentation ethics. So yeah, you have natural, you know, some people argue natural law and then hapa came up with this argumentation ethics, and then we just decided, we’re not going to really hit natural law or argumentation ethics, we’ll just concentrate on certain subjects. So we had that whole sub, and that’ll be on the bonus features for the blu ray and I think we’re gonna upload a whole bunch of bonus features to Amazon, too. So, yeah, the Um, but yeah, I mean, it’s, I mean, we’re rookies at this. So, you know, I read Chris looked at everything that you did your whole interview and he’s like, Okay, this this part works perfectly with

definitely should have cut the rest of that he did cut I agree with that much.

Well, the what? And that is available right now on YouTube. Your whole interview is actually up on YouTube.

Oh, the whole thing is, yeah, well, it must be severely edited. It was totally unusable and just raw form. I know you didn’t post that.

Well, yeah. Chris edited at all and everything.

Oh, I hope it’s severely edited. Even for the long version. Don’t tell me it’s just on edited.

Pete Quinones 17:41
Oh, no, no, I mean, he

Scott Horton 17:44
just one thing I remember too was it was a Friday. It was like the end of the day on a Friday. And I had done like 10 interviews and was completely wasted out of it by then. was terrible. I was terrible. And it was I know exactly what would have said, I don’t see it on here. Thank goodness, it’s not there yet. But I know what I would have said I would have set it up a lot better about how they just like with all government programs on national security, they have an incentive to fail and create crises, because they’re the only ones who can solve the crisis they created because of their monopoly and that kind of thing. And then, for example, look at the way they did this, this and that, and then what I what I did say about the war on terrorism, there would have fit, but it just would have been a lot better if I had introduced it as a case study in how government fails upwards. You know what I mean? I didn’t really introduce it that way, or frame it that way until I just at the very end, I said, and so that’s why we don’t need them, which was like, pulling my parachute at the very last second so that it wasn’t completely meaningless. Anyway, I hope everybody likes that part a lot.

Yeah, well, I mean, Daniel did a I think Daniel did a good lead in for you. Yeah, that that a lot. I think the whole section on foreign policy, starting with Salerno and then I think it went into Klein, then it’s a Daniel and then you finished it up. I think that whole section worked out very well.

So I will as soon as I’m done interviewing you here, I’ll watch this and cringe myself to death. How terrible I was. And

there was one section of me in the documentary that I had them take out because I was cringing so hard on myself. I was like, Alright, take this out, because I really can’t get rid of that. I can’t I can’t look at that. I

i embarrassed really easy for an extrovert, man. I just it is what it is. But so anyway, Hey, you know what? As bad as it was, and as kind of tangential and all over the places it was, at least I’m always right about everything. It’s not like I was screwing up myself. Details over which terrorists Obama was backing in Syria or whatever it was all right, it was just not constructed Well, for the purpose it was serving to my liking, but anyway, but I don’t want to sit here and talk bad about the movie other than my own self, because there’s so much great stuff in there and so many great libertarians with so much great stuff to say in there. So, back on the optimistic and positive note, why don’t you tell me about some more of your favorite interviews that you guys got for this thing?

Pete Quinones 20:31
Well, Judge Napolitano was we had no idea that we could actually interview him. Most of these interviews were done at Lisa’s University, because I knew that that was the one place that we could get because everybody’s going to be there that week. So we set up over there for like four days recording, and every Mrs. University judge nap is there. So one day I’m just like, man, we got to get a judge nap in this If we can, so he hasn’t, they give him an office when he’s there, went down to the office said, Hey, we’re doing a documentary and when asked me some questions about the founding, will you come down? And he’s like, I need a half hour and there’s this. There’s this just gonna conflict with Fox at all. It will compete with Fox. And I’m like, No, not at all. It’s like, Sure. So we got him in there. And it was awesome. There’s we didn’t use it, but there’s a great he does a great take on waco in there. And there’s a great part that he talks about the Articles of Confederation. And but which didn’t. These are things that didn’t make it into it. That’ll be in the bonus features and everything. So judge nap of course was amazing. I think Jeff diced is fantastic in every part. I mean, he’s, he may be in it more than anyone else as far as runtime goes and Everything he just nailed and his first appearance in it where he’s just talking about how absurd it is government is where they’re like the judges have their own criminality. So they not only have monopoly on force and violence, but then they get to judge themselves on it. And that was great. And our buddy Dave Smith, Dave, just so good. Present so well, just so smooth, and he just nailed everything. We released the full footage of our interview with him. And I watched the full interview footage and we used more than half, but we used almost all of it that he had. And so, you know, Dave talking about Minar schism is great. And then Dave also does this thing where he he quotes Tom woods where Tom Woods has this thing of talking about how absurd public schooling is and he’s like, so you go to school and there’s, you know, the schools are sponsored by Walmart and all and you go into the classroom and all the pictures of the CEOs of Walmart are on the wall. And there’s all these tales about it. Why? Oh, the first CEO of Walmart never told a lie and everything like that. And then he was like, then you have a whole he says, you have a whole society that favors Walmart. And it’s like, well, why? That’s because kids are being propagandize from the time they can talk. And it was just such in Dave just nails it, you know, I mean, I hate the fact that I just did like the whole thing. But you know, he presented so much better than I did. But yeah, Jeff diced and Dave Smith. I mean, they just really nailed it and Ryan McMakin, right having right, Ryan McMakin, we weren’t even scheduled to interview him. I just asked him to come up there, because he was at niece’s University and his son, can you sit and answer some questions and I just took questions. From the I was asking other people, and we ended up using his answers because it also when you’re doing a documentary, the way somebody talks that they talk in a really good cadence, and they talks, they talk fast, a little a little fast. It helps keeping the documentary going. Yeah. You know, somebody who talks slower, it’s gonna, you know, it’ll, it’ll drag and they’ll just be a little bit of bring it down a little bit and take the take the energy out of it a little bit. So, yeah, those guys. They did fantastic. I mean, they, they really just nailed their parts and couldn’t be happier and Peter Klein to Peter Klein talking about the importance of the entrepreneur in society that was just he just nailed that. So well. Peter Klein’s another guy who’s like, made for documentaries, where he just talks about Just fast enough, and he’s quick, and he doesn’t pause a lot. Yeah. And, and our buddy Mark Thornton, too. I mean, every I mean, really? I mean, I can’t say enough about just how well everybody did. And how they answered the questions and how just yeah, it’s just like I could really couldn’t be happier with it.

Scott Horton 25:28
Man, you’re gonna have to get some kind of post production special effects on my hairline here. This is just an atrocity. It’s like the war in Somalia or something. My my hair. Just Sorry, I know yours is way worse. But still, that doesn’t mean that. Hey, no, it’s just I’m watching this and I’m just thinking, My God. Everyone watching this must be thinking, what a terrible hairline this poor bastard has the whole time and not even hear a word. I’m saying. And then I know I do have it on mute. That’s probably why But no, still. They will. They’ll mute it. And then they’ll just look at my hairline and be like, God, that guy should just shave his head and give it up and stop trying to pretend.

Yeah, you’re, well, they definitely are now that they’re listening. That’s exactly what they’re gonna do, man.

Anyway, I don’t care about anything else. But that, that really gets me now I’m just gonna

[ADS]

anyway. Um, no, it is great other than the the me parts I hope you don’t publish the whole interview anywhere. But otherwise it is so great. And you know you have David Friedman in there too, which I really like the guy that wrote the machinery of freedom and machinery of freedom era, Milton Friedman’s son, and so what does he talk about? I forget now does he kind of give a structural case for how anarchist society could work.

He talks about just government and he reiterated a little bit of what dice was talking about how government is just has no accountability, that they can just pretty much do what they want. And then there’s another time where he that heats Talks where he talks about, about rights. And he uses this really wild scenario to say, we, we believe so much in property rights. But you know, just maybe just maybe there can be situations where we don’t, we can’t be completely strict on property rights. And he comes up with an outrageous scenario that I’ll I’ll let people let people watch it so that they can, they can get it. But I was just thinking of another person who just really nailed it. And especially in the beginning, when we start talking about education was Thaddeus Russell.

Oh, yeah, he’s great in this.

Yeah. I mean, he really kills it in this and his. There’s a whole section where he talks about government schooling, and I’m

channeling john Taylor Gatto for us there.

Yeah. By the time he gets if you get to the end of And you’re not questioning government being in charge of schools you’re just it’s not time yet you know, revisit it in six months and see what you think because he really really nails it and then towards the end when talking about just how people really how it’s inherent in people to be rebels and rebel you know he brings up like 80s movies where all the john Hughes movies were you know Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or it’s just we’re gonna go against the authority and all these movies that go against authority and everything and I just that is one of those guys I can I can just listen to him talk and every time I have my my show, I wait.

No. So what’s his point there about the movies?

Then we’re, we have a natural we have a natural rebellious streak. Oh, it’s authority. Yeah,

I was gonna say cuz that’s part of john Taylor Gatto. His thing is that they Really divide the smart kids by the teacher’s pet Hillary Clinton straight a first row kids, but then the other smart kids who aren’t so compliant, that they really emphasize being cool. So that we will all use bad words and sit at the back of the class and not dress respectable, not talk respectable, and therefore, we’ll make sure that we never have any power and influence. Because we and you know, we think we’re rebelling, but really, it’s a channel that’s made for us in inside that same Prussian style school system, to channel us away from power and influence. If we’re the Nair do well types, but the capable ones, you know, which makes sense. And I knew he was talking about me when he said that, but what is what is?

Well, I have one of my oldest closest friends is a teacher and he openly admits that every year there’s maybe three or four kids that he said He’s that he can actually reach, you know, and that are really actually interested in. Yeah, they will get more of his individual attention. And he’ll give to the, you know, the kids that don’t want to be there. And I mean, I think that that’s the problem when it comes to public schooling. Yeah, is that they have to be there when, you know, a lot of kids can be 14 or 15 years old, and they should be apprenticing on a job site somewhere, learn, you know, learning a skill or learning how to code or something like that.

So learning how to have the imagination to decide for themselves what they want to learn and what they want to do.

Yeah, that should be from the youngest age. Really? Yeah.

Well, man, I gotta tell you, you and your guys to you took on a major project here and sure looks like you got it done. Can’t wait to see the final draft of it. But the current version is great. It’s The monopoly on violence. It’s on YouTube right now. It’s stateless productions is the name of the channel. They’re on YouTube. And you can see the full interviews of Tom woods, and Dave Smith and match story there as well. And as well as the entire thing. And so please do everybody check that out. And thanks again. Pete got anything else I should have mentioned?

Pete Quinones 33:25
Yeah, um, if our website is themonopolyofviolence.com, Oh, God, there is a free download in 720 P of the movie there. And right right next to that there’s also a donation button so we’re not charging for the 720. But if you want to donate something, there’s a PayPal link. There’s crypto addresses, right?

Scott Horton 33:45
And like you were talking about earlier, you guys have this as an ongoing project to get it completely tightened up all the way to put out on Amazon and iTunes and all those things right?

Pete Quinones 33:56
Yeah, and and Netflix, but we’re gonna get it on Amazon. Get a buzz on Amazon before we send it to Netflix because Netflix will be out and that’s the monopoly on violence calm. And we also have a 4k version of what’s on YouTube for $10 but the link there’s a link to the YouTube video right there and the monopoly on violence calm so if you don’t want to go search in YouTube, just go to monopoly the monopoly on violence calm and it’ll link you to a link to YouTube right there.

Scott Horton 34:27
Killer man. All right, well, great work again and tell the other guys who worked on it that I said that too, if you want, okay. But I mean that to praise everybody’s work here. Great job, everybody. And, and thank you again for your time.

Pete Quinones 34:42
No problem, man. Thanks a lot, Scott.

Scott Horton 34:44
All right, you guys. That is Pete Jonas. He is my partner over there at the libertarian Institute, managing editor there and co producer of the monopoly on violence which you can find at themonopoliesOnviolence.com, The Scott Horton show, Antiwar Radio can be heard on kpfk 90.7 FM in LA, APSradio.com antiwar.com ScottHorton.org and libertarianinstitute.org