Presentation of the Thomas Paine Institute

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, 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.

Thank you.

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 free

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.

Now 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 and 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.

Yes, we think so.

What historical lessons can guide us in planning and creating a pre 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 livestreaming 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

audiobooks and so on.

And Kevin, could you say a little short

comment on that? You said it ten years time in making some

reflections, some thoughts about this, your work here.

Well, it's just that and Kevin and Alex.

Yeah, yeah.

We started in 2014 with the Prometheus

connection, and the latest publication that we have is the to begin the world over again.

And that's 2024.

So that's where the ten years comes from.

It seems like a lot longer, Alex, doesn't it? But in other sense, it seems like just

yesterday everything has been going so fast.

But yeah, it was a great ten years.

And we look forward to another ten and another ten after that.

And Kevin, in a way, it's good that it's 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 good.

And then you will get real that you have also a bit further here in the

presentation about real money in a modern way, backed in different ways.

And that's Satouches.

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.

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 Munn versus 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 or who issued that Supreme Court?

I know you weren't around back then, but.

Yeah, no, no, I had.

I can look it up real quick.

Yeah, go on, Alex, if you want.

To, but go ahead.

And I will also have another question.

Who is the public?

And what about the smallest minority individual?

Yes, that's right.

Yeah.

Very good questions.

It's a. It's why those terms like public interest and public welfare were

contradict to rand.

She said they're 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 coal.

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.

And Kevin, could you give a little short description?

Who is Prometheus?

Prometheus, the great, great myth of ancient Greece.

It's probably the most famous myth of all time.

And he's the symbol of defiance, defiance to the gods, defiance to authority.

And he's 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 Duluvre.

It's just very, very widespread image, and it

represents the spirit of America's founding, which was reason based defiance.

Prometheus was the first simp.

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 gave and brought it to mankind and dispel 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

conversation that we had with you, Kevin, because you're returning guests.

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, 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 changes 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 decline 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

systems.

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 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.

Why was the formation of the constitution?

Yeah, yeah, 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?

I would.

It sure does.

I would totally agree with that.

Yeah.

Ayn Rand is absolutely a world historical figure, and she truly was a

revolution.

We were lucky.

We were so lucky to be living at the time when she was alive.

That's true.

That's what I've often felt that.

And believed that.

Yes.

Yeah.

Happy to be alive when she was around.

Yeah, yeah, I do, too.

Go ahead, Alex, whenever you're ready.

Yeah. Kevin and I were fortunate enough to go to some early lectures and hearing rand

and going to the Boston seminars where she spoke.

Wow.

A 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.

Philosophies lived 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.

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, possible path forward.

The novel portrays one potential approach to creating a free synth on.

Now, in our novel, we defined 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 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.

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 socio economic

system.

To paraphrase the words of a famous communist

agitator and revolutionary, revolutionary.

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

Freedom's champions.

We will create a free society.

To this end, we call it the Thomas Paine 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.

So, 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 in 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.

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 Gouverneur 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 in, you know, with some of the founders.

You know, 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 continue 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 many, you know, they've written

extensively about how to, 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 hopeful, even unwealthy people.

Even poor capitalists.

Well, we're all soldiers in this fight.

That's right.

I've met some of these wealthy people, and I think they could be instrumental in

helping us find territory.

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, 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 bigger 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.

For example, what's happening in Argentina

with the advent of Javier Lille, 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 that 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 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.

I've only recently heard the constant constitution described this way as the laissez

faire constitution.

I had never heard that until, like, the last

four or five months.

Is that what has.

Has it been known that since its inception or I. Oh, no, constitution.

Oh, we got that from someone who's living today.

Great.

A great intellectual by the name of Bradley

Thompson.

Aha.

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.

I don't know.

No, that's the.

Both Alex and I read Bradley Thompson as.

Through so many others.

Yeah. 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 not.

I don't think they're the foundation.

I hope I'm wrong, because I've seen some of

the, you know, the syllabus, and there's.

Of course, you have to study Marx, you have to

study Kant.

You have to study those.

Those intellectuals.

I'll use that term loosely, but.

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 that 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, there was another loophole

that got exploited.

And today we just have this monstrous,

horrifying Leviathan of education that's just indoctrination, not education.

Right.

Yep.

And, you know, the recent riots at universities supporting the terrorists and

Hamas and Hezbollah are clear indication to where bad ideas lead to.

Right.

Right. Now, again, I think Miss Rand commented on John Dewey as being one of the

villains, I guess.

But unfortunately, he, again, he is one of the

standard bearers of today's education.

But, yes.

Well, you know, he headed up the educational department at Columbia University,

so his ideas became widely known because Columbia University's teaching college 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, very clearly and concisely.

And in his book, why Johnny still can't read, write, do math, that book.

Yes, we quote from that to some extent in the.

In the latest book.

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

Anything else to add?

Yeah, we will definitely do a, as I said, follow up office.

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 are, you know, we're launching a marketing campaign to recruit objectivists to

work with us.

We need people with expertise in management,

recruiting, finance, etcetera.

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.

That's great.

And could you then repeat the URL of a website?

Yeah, our website is Thomas Paine institute.com.

thomaspain institute.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, I want to, I see here on the slide here, too.

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.

And if you want to support this podcast, the secular foxhole, you could send a booster

gram, a digital telegram with a donation of satouches.

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 incoming

transaction financial transactions of satoshis.

So this is 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.

Yeah.

Thank you, Thomas Paine.

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 technology, Martin, that you're so skilled in the.

It's really.

It's really a wonderful, wonderful stuff.

Yeah, we really appreciate it, guys.

And you're welcome.

Thanks again for your generous support in different ways and for coming here on the

show.

And 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.