Presentation of the Thomas Paine Institute
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Good afternoon, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to episode 89 of the Secular Foxhole podcast. Today we have two guests with a quite intriguing presentation. Alex Blyer and Kevin Osborne are here to discuss the Thomas Paine Institute and their other project, which I'll let them...

start off with. Alex, are you ready? Yes. Thank you, Blair, and thank you, Martin, for inviting us to share our presentation with your audience. Kevin and I have been good friends since our graduate days at the City University of New York. We were in the PhD program in philosophy. In this presentation, we're going to discuss the factors that made it possible for the American colonists to form a free society.

And we're going to raise the question of do those conditions exist today and can we form a full social system? Sounds good. Kevin, you want to say a few words? No, keep going, Alex. I got distracted here for a minute. I was losing my camera. Oh, no. I'm all set. Go ahead. Okay, so our goal is to kickstart a revolution to create a free society. Okay.

And we are live also, for your information. Okay. So these questions form the background for our discussion today. Is it really possible, for a fresh start, is it really possible to form a free society? So with us in spirit are Thomas Paine and Ayn Rand. Starting in January of 1776,

Thomas Paine's pamphlet, Common Sense, was read by the colonists in taverns and in other social gatherings. Paine famously wrote, we have it in our power to begin the world over again. It became the theme and the leitmotif of the American Revolution. Turning to Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand ushered in a philosophical revolution that rivals both John Locke and Aristotle.

In our view, she challenged us to begin the world over again. She also made it possible. She also made it possible, as you'll see as we go through this, we think. So what historical lessons can guide us in planning and creating a free society? These are the issues we explore in this presentation. We believe that without paying attention to history and history's lessons, we think it's too late.

So our answer to these questions and our ideas evolved over a period of years. Ten years. Yep. So in the Prometheus Connection, we explored the essential historical factors that led to America's rise and decline. At the end, we hinted at the possibility of creating a totally free society. So then we followed this up with the Prometheus Frontier, in which we projected a path

to create a totally free society. Based on the ideas in the Prometheus Frontier, we wrote the essay To Begin the World Over Again. In this essay, we spelled out the conditions that existed in the 17th century that made it possible to create a free society.

The conditions required to create a free society are explored in this essay and in this presentation. Alex? Yes, go on, Martin. I will comment also that we will include in the show notes here, we are doing this live stream on video, and in the audio you will also be able to see in the show notes links

to these essays and the books and the audio books and so on. And, uh, Kevin, could you say a little short comment on that? You said it 10 years time in making some, some reflections, some thoughts about this, your work here and, and, uh, well, well, it's just that Alex. Yeah. Yeah. We started in 2014 with the Prometheus, uh, connection. And, um, the latest publication that we have is the, uh,

to begin the world over again, and that's 2024. So that's where the 10 years comes from. It seems like a lot longer, Alex, doesn't it? And in another sense, it seems like just yesterday, everything has been going so fast. But yeah, it was a great 10 years. And we look forward to another 10 and another 10 after that.

And Kevin, in a way, it's good that you've taken this time because you have this booklet on your website. And I will propose that you will add that on a site called truefans.fm that are working according to value to value. And then readers and supporters could say how much they value this booklet. You bet. That would be great.

And then you will get real, but you have also a bit further here in the presentation about real money in a modern way, backed in different ways. And that's Satoshi's. That's a small part of a Bitcoin, but we'll come back to that. So please continue, Alex. Thanks. So, you know, from our perspective, we're fortunate to have Ayn Rand's political philosophy, which

She validated the principle of individual rights and its essential role in a free capitalist society. And of course, as we now know, a fully integrated philosophy is essential to defend capitalism. So we believe that regulations tend to proliferate, that bureaucrats tend to resist deregulation because it can put them out of a job.

The current freedom movement is based on incremental positive change. But rolling back regulations, we believe, is a good thing, but we don't think it will lead to a free society. And this, we believe, is the first lesson of history that we need to pay attention to. As regulations proliferate,

An ineffectual regulation is typically followed by another regulation to supposedly fix the first ill-conceived regulation. Regulations tend to operate in a ratchet effect, encroaching on our freedoms. So how did this start? We believe that a major starting point was the Supreme Court decision of Lund v. Illinois

This decision famously said that any property clothed with a public interest is subject to government regulation and control. This opened the floodgates. Yeah, there's no business in the world

That isn't clothed with a public interest of some kind. So it was a giveaway. The fact that we have the public interest mentioned in the Constitution the way it is, public interest, the general welfare and phrases like that, it's really a setup for the government, an invitation basically for the government to intervene in the economy. And as we'll see, that's exactly what happened.

Just a minor question, if I may, real quick. Who was the chief justice who issued that Supreme Court decision? I know you weren't around back then, but... Yeah, no, no, I had... I can look it up real quick. Okay, go on, Alex, if you want to. But go ahead. And I will also have another question. Who is the public judge?

And what about the smallest minority of the individual? Yes, that's right. That's a very good question. It's why those terms like public interest and public welfare were contradicted to Rand. She said there are contradictions in the Constitution. They contradict freedom, in other words, freedom of the individual. So we believe that the lure of free money and benefits builds fiscal constituencies that keep voting for more regulations.

to enable the government to steal from Peter to pay Paul. Now, we believe that the preponderance of evidence is that regulations cannot be rolled back. They tend to become permanent. So, what historical lessons can guide us? The answer can be found in the story of America's rise and decline that we explored in the Prometheus Connection.

Kevin, could you give a little, a short description? Who is Prometheus? Ah, Prometheus, the great myth of ancient Greece. It's probably the most famous myth of all time. He's the symbol of defiance, defiance to the gods, defiance to authority.

And the introduction of the Prometheus Connection surveys the extent and the power of that myth throughout history. It's seen throughout the world, many countries, probably most countries.

And the statues are in Rockefeller Center in New York. They're in the Louvre. It's just very, very widespread, a great image. And it represents the spirit of America's founding, which was reason-based defiance and

Prometheus was a great symbol for that because what he did was he stole the fire of the gods, the fire that is believed to be the fire of reason. And he stole it and brought it to mankind and dispelled the darkness that prevailed before that time. So it's a wonderful myth.

It is, and now it's to protect the fire and keep it going. And we will also include in the show notes the conversation that we had with you, Kevin, because you're a returning guest. So please continue, Alex. Okay. Well, in America's rise, individual rights were protected in our founding documents. Consequently, we became the world's superpower in what we call hard defense.

However, our self-defense, our philosophy and culture are in serious decline. We plan to use Rand's political philosophy to improve on these documents and laws. So what were the key steps in America's decline? So we believe that the essential...

factors, the laws that were put in place were, first of all, the 1877 Munn v. Illinois Supreme Court decision. Shortly following that, in 1887, we had the Interstate Commerce Act to regulate business. And then in 1890, we had the Sherman Antitrust Act under which we believe a company can be sued by the government for virtually anything it does.

Of course, in 1913, we had the establishment of the Federal Reserve to control money in our country. And the famous 16th Amendment, the income tax, came into effect in 1913. And ever since then, taxes have been increasing. Well, we wanted to point to another interesting factor in the erosion of the power, the erosion of the balance of power between the states and the federal government.

The Civil War was a critical event in American history. It led to the necessary end of slavery and improvement of freedom for all Americans. However, it also changed the balance of power between the federal government and the states. The states have little control now over the ever-growing power of the federal government.

They can't secede from the Union if they wanted to create a free society. So in essence, we believe America's rise was due to freedom and its declaring was due to coercive laws and regulations. So the great tragedy of America, we believe the essential factor, one of the essential factors was driven by bad philosophy in our government-controlled educational system.

America's educational system has been corrupted from top to bottom by bad ideas. This fueled America's decline. Alex, could you also point out the date there of the year 1784? What are you referring to there? You had that in a parenthesis, the year 1784, so when it was an important year.

I think 1784 was the – oh, did you say – oh, I'm not sure what you're referring to. 1784 was the formation of the Constitution. Yeah. Let me throw something in and see if both of you gentlemen agree. I myself have long held when the last of the founders passed away, America has been intellectually unguarded ever since until Ayn Rand.

Does that make sense to you? It sure does. I would totally agree with that. Ayn Rand is absolutely a world historical figure, and she truly was a revolution. We were so lucky to be living at the time when she was alive. That's true. That's why I've often felt that and believed that, yes. Happy to be alive when she was around, yeah. Yeah.

Go ahead, Alex, whenever you're ready. Yeah, Kevin and I were fortunate enough to go to some early lectures in hearing and going to the Boston seminars where she spoke. Wow. The Ford Hall Forum? Yeah, Ford Hall Forum. Yep, yep. I went there many times.

So just going on with our presentation, we believe that America's documents were works of genius. But as we now know, without a fully integrated philosophy, society can be undermined by bad ideas. Philosophy sits in the background, shaping society's values and actions. And so we believe that the loopholes and vague ideas in our founding documents led to a decline in our liberties.

America's founders failed to explicitly define core political principles of rights and the sole role of government to protect our rights. They also made compromises to their principles to get the Constitution ratified. Of course, the Civil War was the tragic result of their compromise on the issue of slavery.

So we believe that John Locke's philosophy did not give them all the intellectual ammunition they needed to back up the Constitution. Still, they came pretty far. Yeah. Well, we're still reaping the benefits. Yes, we are. Of their Constitution and the Bill of Rights. So what are the essential conditions of history that we keep alluding to?

Our analysis of history has led us to conclude that philosophy, territory, defense, human and fiscal resources were essential in the formation of the United States. The colonists were able to form a free society with the philosophy of the Enlightenment by capturing the territory of the 13 colonies with their intransigent resolve and allies and the help of their great intellectuals.

So, are these conditions still necessary? Yes, of course. We believe absolutely. So, in these five conditions, of course, we believe that philosophy is the most important. Some might argue that we're halfway there. However, the relative importance of these conditions is impossible to assess.

In our fictional novel, The Promethean Frontier, we gave a possible answer, a possible path forward. The novel portrays one potential approach to creating a free society. Now, in our novel, we define a declaration of freedom, and we believe it's critical. It's a critical part

of the free society that we wrote about. The Declaration of Freedom is in three parts. It's modeled after Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. Of course, we incorporated key elements of objectivism's political philosophy, including rights, the role of government, and so on. We made the case for a new start and declared our goal as capitalism in the framework of a constitutional republic. In our novel,

And in our approach, we incorporate our declaration of freedom in our new constitution. So why a new place? Again, we believe there's a mistaken premise in the current freedom movement that incremental change will bring about a free society. We believe that ratcheting government coercion, government regulations make a reversal virtually impossible. I see.

So Ayn Rand's philosophy is revolutionary and it inspires us. It explained the reasons for America's decline and it gives us the essential ideas to support a free capitalist socioeconomic system. To paraphrase the words of a famous communist agitator and revolutionary, we are the ones we've been waiting for.

freedom's champions. We will create a free society. To this end, we've formed the Juan Espain Institute to create a new free society. And paraphrasing Thomas Paine, our rallying cry is that we have it in our power to start the world over again, this time from scratch and in a new place. And get it right. And get it right. Very good. That's cool.

Question becomes why form a new organization? What's our uniqueness? And we believe that it's in our goal to establish a free constitutional republic and a new place. This is critical. Second, that our sole focus is overcoming the challenges to our goal. So these are our next steps. So the question is, are you up to the challenge? If so, contact us on our website,

Send us your email address, your name and email address, and lend us your moral support. Now we open it up for discussion. Thank you, Alex. That was great. Thank you very much. Thomas Paine was the one who suggested the Declaration or a Declaration. Is that correct? I think so. Yes. Yes, he did. Early in 1776, January or February, he suggested

Wait a minute. What was the question again? He was the one who suggested a Declaration of Independence. Thomas Paine was the original. Thomas Paine, right. And Jefferson picked up on it. And within a matter of months, half a year, he had created the Declaration of Independence.

Well, give our audience a short bio then of Thomas Paine. I know he wrote Common Sense in the age of reason, I believe. Thomas Paine continued to write pamphlets and articles that motivated the colonists to fight the war. Unfortunately, towards the end of his life, he went back to England and he got into all kinds of trouble. And he actually died as a pauper.

Unfortunately. And there were other people in the revolution, like Governor Morris, Robert Morris. He was instrumental in helping to finance the food and clothing for the American colonial army. He was very wealthy. After the revolution,

He believed that there were great opportunities in land. So he got involved in extensive land speculation out west. And as a consequence, he actually went bankrupt. And he actually died a poor man. So there's a lot of irony with some of the founders. Many of the founders were really worried that the Constitution would not hold.

So there was a lot of debate, a lot of debate about many issues at that time.

And we will also include that in the show notes because, Blair, we have had guests on our show talking about Thomas Paine also in the past. So that's really interesting about this positive character. I would ask you, Kevin and Alex, about these five different areas. They're looking forward a bit now. You said the philosophy was a yes. Human resource we have. Fiscal resources also.

Of course, if you get the support and continuous support, and then real estate is in so-and-so, and then the defense also. Could you talk a little bit more about that, Kevin and Alex? Obviously, we have the philosophy of Ayn Rand to guide us, and it's so revolutionary and so powerful.

You know, that's incredibly vital to starting a free society. In terms of intellectuals, human resources, we have many, many new intellectuals who've written extensively about how to form greater freedoms in our country. We also have many, many extremely wealthy people who would welcome

welcome living in a free society so we're hopefully even poor capitalists well we're we're we're all soldiers in this that's right i've met some of these wealthy people and um

I think they could be instrumental in helping us find territory. You know, they could possibly carve out some area that we could get a 99-year lease on and establish a free society using our principles of freedom. And we believe that if such a society were formed, you know, just like Hong Kong became...

a tremendously successful pro-free market capitalist society. We believe that if we formed a free economic area that people would flock to it. Not just billionaires, but people who want freedom. Do you think the biggest chance is in the United States of America as an American spirit, but other places in the world? Or do you see other

opportunities and places in the world? I think it's going to need to be in a different place where there's a modicum of support or allies. So for example, what's happening in Argentina with the advent of Javier Lillet, who's very pro-free market,

If we could buy some land or lease some land in Argentina and have his support, that would help with defense. One of the approaches to defense is to have countries as allies that basically want freedom or want to see freedom succeed in some location.

And there will be a follow-up then. Have you reached out to the American Capitalist Party? We know some of the members. And we have had one on our show, Blair. Yeah, I know. Andy Bernstein. Yes, I think he's written parts of the material on the website. So, yeah. Yes. Yeah, listen, gentlemen, I've got a few questions from your latest pamphlet, if I may. Sure, sure.

I've only recently heard the Constitution described this way as the laissez-faire Constitution. I had never heard that until like the last four or five months. Has it been known that since its inception or the laissez-faire Constitution? Oh, we got that from someone who's living today, a great intellectual by the name of Bradley Thompson. Aha. That's right. Okay.

Yeah. He is fantastic. And I had never heard it before. Bradley Thompson's use of it. But Alex, maybe you have. I don't know. No, that's the truth. Both Alex and I read Bradley Thompson as do so many others. Professor Thompson heads up Capitalist Institute at Clemson University. Yes. And

There's about 15 people there who are teaching courses for young people, courses on capitalism, using Rand's philosophy. So that's a very encouraging sign. Well, I think her ideas are an aspect of that entire course, but I don't think they're the foundation. I hope I'm wrong, because I've seen some of the syllabus. Of course, you have to study Marx, you have to study Kant, you have to study...

Those intellectuals, I'll use that term loosely, because you have to, quote, know your enemy. But yes, he is such an eloquent writer about America's founding era. Yeah. Yes, he is. Fabulous. Let me see what else I might have for you. Oh, wait a sec. I think that you agree with me.

Even though the founders thought that government should have a role in education, I think in the beginning it was largely private. So I think, again, that was another loophole that got exploited. And today we just have this monstrous, horrifying Leviathan of education that's just indoctrination, not education. Right.

And, you know, the recent riots at universities supporting the terrorists in Hamas and Hezbollah are clear indication to where bad ideas lead to. Right. Again, I think Ms. Rand commented on John Dewey as being one of the villains, I guess.

But unfortunately, again, he is one of the standard bearers of today's education. Yes. Well, he headed up the educational department at Columbia University. So his idea became widely known because Columbia University's teaching system

is where people go to get educated and then they go all over the country promoting these ideas. Yeah, and Andy Bernstein brought that up very clearly and concisely in his book, Why Johnny Still Can't Read, Write, Do Math, that book. Yes, yeah. We quote from that to some extent in the latest book. Okay, okay.

All right. Martin, you have anything else to add? Gentlemen?

Anything else there? We will definitely do, as I said, a follow-up of this. And what will be the call to action here, the next step to the viewer here on the live and listener of the audio and also the program? We're launching a marketing campaign to recruit objectivists to work with us. We need people with expertise in management, recruiting, finance, etc.,

So we're going to be reaching out more and more to communities that favor freedom. And we hope to create a virtual community of people dedicated to these goals. That's great. And could you then repeat the URL of a website? Yeah, our website is thomaspaininstitute.com. thomaspaininstitute.com.

And it's in construction at this time still. Yeah. Yeah. Good work on the construction. And that's great. Getting close.

Very good. Okay. And I want to, I see here on the slide here, I will describe that for the listeners in future, when you talk about the territory, a free area and a potential currency, a gold-backed stable cyber coin using blockchain software. And that's already available called Bitcoin. If you want to support this podcast, the Secular Foxhole, you could send a boostogram, a digital telegram,

with the donation of Satoshis. And if you take one Bitcoin and divide it 100 million times, you get the Satoshi. And I have started my own hub or node. So there you could have outgoing or incoming transaction, financial transactions of Satoshis. So this is the future. That's pretty interesting.

So I think we are in the right time in a way and we should thank the founding fathers and others, Rand especially of course, and your work here and that you have been able to present that in this great way. So please, Alex and Kevin, what's your...

ending, wrap up your thoughts about this for the future? Well, I wanted to end with a quote from Thomas Paine. Please do. And the quote is, these are the times that try men's souls.

The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country. But he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. Yet we may have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

So we endure. I think that's great, Alex. It is great, Alex. Thank you for that. Thank you, Thomas Bain.

And thank you, Martin and Blair, for having us on. I mean, this venue is so great. And you're so generous in getting us ready for this and using this technology. It's our pleasure. Martin, that you're so skilled in. It's really wonderful stuff. Yeah, we really appreciate it, guys. Thanks.

You're welcome. Thanks again for your generous support in different ways and for coming here on the show. It will be a follow-up, that's for sure. Okay, to be continued, guys. Thank you. That's right, to be continued. Sounds wonderful. Okay, well, Martin, that's a wrap. Yeah. Thanks for visiting with us in the foxhole today, guys. Thank you.