October is here and falling temperatures are bringing big savings. Get the phone you want with free activation all month long on post-paid service. That's up to a $30 savings per life. Better service, bigger savings. That's today's Appalachian Wireless. We identified one individual that may be infected with hepatitis A. Our medical staff took blood and it was confirmed that he has hepatitis A. And at that point what we did is we quarantined that individual. We went back, we researched any inmates that had been in his path over the last several weeks and we're going to be giving them the hepatitis A shot and vaccinating them. It was my goal to keep it out of the jail. But with so many people coming in and out of the jail and the way it's contracted, it's about impossible. I will continue the steps that we've implemented several months ago and hopefully this will be the only case.


Let me begin then by quoting a passage that I have quoted several times here before. The quote from Ross Bard, my teacher and mentor. He said at some article, libertarianism is logically consistent with almost any attitude toward culture, society, religion or moral principle. In strict logic libertarian political doctrine can be severed from all other considerations. Logically one can be and indeed most libertarians in fact are hedonists, libertines, immoralists, militant enemies of religion in general and Christianity in particular and still be consistent adherent of libertarian politics. In fact in strict logic one can be a consistent devotee of property rights politically and be a butcher, a scamster, a petty crook and a racketeer in practice as all too many libertarians turn out to be. Strictly logically one can do all these things but psychologically, sociologically and in practice it simply doesn't work this way. Now a considerable part of my writings in recent years has been concerned with this very last half sentence of this quote of Ross Bard's and its implications. Central to the libertarian doctrine are the ideas of private property, of original appropriation and its transfer and the corresponding principle of non-aggression. And indeed it can be safely stated that recognition of these ideas and principles is a necessary requirement of human society, of people living together and cooperating with one another in peace. Just as certainty or just as certainly however recognition and adherence to these ideas and principles is not sufficient to make for conviviality that is for friendly, neighborly and communal relations among men. For this, as Edmund Berg emphasized, manners are actually more important than any law. More specifically than manners typically associated with so-called bourgeois morality of responsibility, conscientiousness, truthfulness, honesty and chivalry, respect and helpfulness, foresight, courage, self-discipline, moderation and reliability. There is no need to say much more on this subject since I have extensively written on it elsewhere except to add this, with my view regarding the utmost importance of bourgeois morality to be combined with libertarian law to make for convivial living. I will nearly attained the position of one of the most prominent contemporary right or realistic libertarians and as such became a favorite enemy not just of leftists and greens in general but especially and in particular also of the so-called left progressive or bleeding hard libertarians. That is of those folks who propagate such liberating messages as anything peaceful goes. Any lifestyle, the more abnormal it is, the better including one might wonder such peaceful activities as pedophilia, necrophilia and incest. Restend the other motto, respect no authority, not of fathers, not of mothers nor anyone better or superior to oneself. And the next liberating message, live and let live. That is never discriminate for any reason against anyone or exclude anyone for any conceivable reason whatsoever. No, this is what many libertarians indeed believe and I must say addressing here also my little audience. I do little word games with Sophie. They are called opera jokes and they go like water is very dry and the air is very wet. Ice cream is very hot and fire is very cold. And then Sophie said, no, that's not true. So that's my opinion to these liberating messages.  To their great dismay, a large and growing contingent of libertarian mind that people have in the meantime come to recognize that it is actually they who have brought the libertarian doctrine into increasing disrepute and that only a radical break with them and a rightward turn to realism can restore libertarianism to intellectual respectability. Which brings me to the topic of this speech. This rightward turn to realism has also led me to a reassessment of intellectual history and a reevaluation of its various protagonists. More specifically, it has drawn my attention to the work of Karl Ludwig von Halle and the discovery of Halle as a precursor of right-right wing libertarianism. The effect of the most radical form of it that is of a private law society. I shall not say anything about the biography of Karl Ludwig von Halle. If you look at Wikipedia, you find it immediately is very short because he's not considered to be an important person anymore. So you don't have to have a large entry. Let me only say this, that Halle was born in 1768 and died in 1854. He comes from a prominent family in Bern, from a noble family. He left Switzerland, in Bern in particular, in 1798 when Napoleon invaded Switzerland and went to various places in Germany. He also spent some time in Vienna in 1806. He returned to Bern because then the Napoleonic stuff was all over. In 1820, he converted to Catholicism which caused some sort of scandal in Bern because Bern was very much a Protestant place. He went then to Paris, worked in various diplomatic functions and positions. In 1830, when in France the July revolution broke out, then he left France and returned to Zollertorn, which is a Catholic place in Switzerland. That's all I want to say about his biography. As I said, you can easily look it up. Halle was once famous, but today elicits hardly more than antiquarian interests. He is occasionally still mentioned and claimed by conservative writers as one of their own, but generally dismissed even by them as an ultra-reactionary that is long since outdated by the development of modern political philosophy and the realities of the modern state. And indeed, Halle was not just an outspoken opponent of the French Revolution and of Napoleon. He considered them the ultimate catastrophic outcome of fundamentally wrong ideas propagated and spread by political philosophers since about the 17th century. In his view, after some highly promising beginnings with Hugo Grosius, who was charged by Halle with only a few minor confusions, Halle diagnosed by and large nothing but intellectual decline, starting to mention here only the most prominent and still well-known people, starting with Hobbes, continuing through Locke, Pufendorf, and culminating with Montesquieu, Rousseau, and also Kant. Not Kant, the epistemologist, but Kant, the political philosopher. He considered them all as confused and dangerous ideologues with their notion of a social contract. And I will come to the idea of the social contract and what's wrong with it in a little while. Dismissed then by most of his contemporaries and practically all moderns as an arch enemy of the glorious Enlightenment project. Indeed, Halle typically referred to the Enlightenment philosophers depreciatingly as sophists. Halle came under additional fire also by the great Hegel. Hegel presented Halle as an unabashed advocate of accrued power naturalism. That is of arbitrary rule by the powerful and mighty. Completely false and deceptively is this because in Halle's main work there's a long chapter on the very limitations of power and a following chapter on the right of resistance and in particular the right to self-defense and self-justice that must appear to contemporary ears nothing short of revolutionary. Pretty much the same idea that David Durr presented here at the very end how he solves this problem. Before this background relating to the history of ideas I shall now attempt to present Halle as a radical libertarian. That is to the best of my knowledge this has never been done before. In general, although his own work is massive in volume the literature on Halle especially since the second half of the 20th century is rather slim. It mostly comes from conservative sides and as most conservative thought is typically weak on analytical rigor and in any case completely unfamiliar with modern libertarianism at least that is my impression serving the literature a bit. Libertarians on the other hand have systematically neglected Halle owing most likely to his reputation as a reactionary conservative with a notable pre-delection for princely or monarchical rule which is also has been an asma for a long time until my democracy book. Now while at first then my attempt at a reconstruction of Halle as a radical libertarian is hopefully not the last in fact I hope that my little speech here will entice other right-minded libertarians to likewise take a closer look at Halle notwithstanding the fact that Halle's prose is often somewhat tiresome, laborious and long-winded. I should mention that many of his works in the 19th century were also translated into French, Italian, Spanish and so forth so it's by no means the only Germans that can study him. So I hope for more people just doing this especially since my own concern here is exclusive with the first volume of Halle's main six-volume treaties presenting only the most basic principle of his social philosophy and being rather brief and sketchy even in this task. Now encountering Halle's central thesis for the very first time that the existence of states is in accordance with natural law and divine law that states are necessary and universal social institutions that they are manifestations of an unchanging human nature and that they have as such always existed and will always exist many contemporary libertarians and especially of course the most radical one will initially be taken aback. Doesn't this sound rather statist and how can one nonetheless claim Halle to be a libertarian? But this puzzle is immediately resolved however once it is realized that Halle's definition of a state differs fundamentally from the modern Weberian definition of the state as a territorial monopolist of violence and ultimate decision-making. Or more precisely Halle categorically distinguishes between a natural state as part of a natural social order and an artificial state that is the alleged outcome of a so-called social contract that stands in systematic violation against divine law. And now you will see the difference in a few minutes. Now according to Halle, natural states arise spontaneously or organically that is naturally out of the inexorable fact of human inequality out of the fact that there are strong and weak, wise and foolish, diligent and lazy, acquisitive and dull, rich and resourceful and poor and dependent people. The inevitable result of these inequalities is a hierarchical, vertical structure of each and every human society with a more or less complex mutually beneficial system of dependencies and servitudes on the one hand and corresponding freedoms and liberties on the other. Of course Halle is not familiar with the Ricardian law of association which provides a proof of how a superior, better or more productive person and an inferior, less productive and less talented person can nonetheless cooperate with each other to their mutual benefit. But he has this insight quite clear. He says that both benefit from their mutual cooperation and he anticipates this fundamental insight of Ricardo. He recognizes the natural tendency of the weak to seek help and assistance from the stronger and of the foolish and dull to consult and ask the wiser for knowledge and advice. And yet he also sees the benefits provided to the strong and the wise by their inferior or subordinate vows, vessels, servants, clients, pupils and students. And he concludes from this observation that there exists a natural tendency in all of human society for what he calls the mighty to rule the weak to their mutual advantage. Now according to Halle the mutual advantages or non-injurious character of the natural vertical or hierarchical structure of each and every human society is best exemplified by the institution of a family which also provides the prototype of what he calls then a natural state. Each family member, father, mother and child is subject to the same universal law and entitled to the same rights belonging to every human person to be free from aggression by another person. Halle terms this law the absolute private law. Their association is voluntary. You see in the institution of the family all ingredients of a society. There is a vertical structure. There is contract division of labor and there is cooperation. There are customary elements involved in it. And there is love involved in it as far as children are concerned for instance. So the association is voluntary and mutual beneficial although never altogether contractual but most definitely in the case of all children of course plain natural or customary and affected also by an element of love. The equality of father, mother and child in terms of absolute private law and the voluntary character of their relationships does not imply that they are also equals in regard to what Halle terms social private law which he considers the least worked out but most important part of private law. Rather the father was a mother in metrolineal societies. He mentions that explicitly. He's not when we talk about the father. The mother can do the same thing. So the father or the mother as the owner of the common household enjoy of course more liberties regarding household matters than the children do. The father is the head of the household whereas mother and children are typically dependents. No one at least at the dawn of human civilizations ranks above the father as the head of the household. He is the household's sovereign and sovereignty I'll come to that a little bit later and sovereignty or sovereign rule according to Halle that is a defining characteristic of a state. So the family is so to speak the first example of what a state is like. To be sure even as a sovereign ruler of his household the father cannot justifiably do whatever he pleases. Apart from abstaining from aggression against other family members he is bound by social private law to honor certain contractual or customary obligations vis-a-vis the mother and the child different as they may be in both cases and the neglect of these duties vis-a-vis his dependents would release these from their service obligations toward him. On the other hand however any neglect of duties on the part of mother or child would entitle the father more far reaching and consequential to exclude or expel them from his household whereby he would assert his sovereignty that he exercises over his household. Now whether as a result of natural developments or the result of the sovereign's abuse of power and the dependents exercise of the right of resistance then this if you will original position of a natural vertical order exemplified by a family is bound to change and change again over time continuously bringing about new and more complex types of dependencies and corresponding liberties expanding while restricting the range of a sovereign's rule and making erstwhile sovereigns lose their sovereignty and former dependents become sovereigns. The children and subsequently their children for instance may leave the parental household and strike out on their own presumably they thereby gain liberties that they previously did not enjoy but they may settle on land owned by their fathers keep working in their fathers business or otherwise keep relying on their ongoing assistance. Hence even if the children's liberties may have significantly increased they are not sovereigns regarding their newly founded separate households but remain as renters or employees a sovereign's dependents. By the same token the sovereign as a result of this development gains a greater number of dependents all the while his direct control of each of them is successively diminished by the interposition of a steadily growing number of intermediate authorities and their respective liberties or alternatively the children strike out on their own and establish another separate household completely independent of the original one. Thus a new sovereign head of a household is created which is in Hala's estimation another state with its own dependents standing in a purely extra social relationship with other sovereigns. Thus his relationship with other sovereigns is regulated then exclusive by absolute private law or synonymously with this by the law of nations or in the libertarian lingo by the non-aggression principle. As well just as established sovereigns or states may increase their number of dependents or new sovereigns may come into existence so established states may also lose their erstwhile dependents in that these break away from them break their ties with their former rulers and become independent or attach themselves to another sovereign or they may lose their former sovereignty altogether and become instead dependents by going broke and being taken over by another sovereign or some former upstart dependent for instance. Now the picture of a natural social order emerging from Hala's writings then is this relations between people can be of two types extra social relations and social relations extra social relations exist between people who have nothing to do with each other who stand side by side independent of each other as equals as one man to another man either in peaceful coexistence or else at war with each other yet while much attention has been paid by political philosophers to such relations as they exist for instance between various independent kings states or nations but also between one individual Hans in Germany and another individual Franz in Austria who have otherwise nothing to do with each other these extra social relations are certainly part of a natural social order but they are neither the original nor the primary or dominant and most characteristic or most interesting part of a natural order rather extra social relations only emerge out of prior social relations in the case families break away then only out of prior social relations can extra social relations emerge it is through the separation of these originally socially connected individuals into different households or families then that extra social relations between people come into existence thus in every social order exceeding the size of a single family then people stand or find themselves always in both extra social relations and social relations to other people now as far as social relations are concerned then they all have their natural origin in some mutual benefit arising or expected to arise from them or rather the inability of satisfying certain needs or attaining certain comforts in isolation and without the cooperation with others and there exist three types of social relations that a person may enter for one, people can be associated with each other as equals such as brothers or sisters or as members of a club with a common interest or common interest groups according to Halla however this is the empirically least frequent type or form of social relations far more common instead is it for people to enter into a social relation with others either as a master or a ruler or else as a servant or dependent the examples that he offers are plentiful the father or the mother versus the child there is a landlord versus a tenant there is an employer versus the employee there is a producer versus the consumer there is a general versus the officer there is the officer versus the soldier the master versus the apprentice the teacher versus the student the doctor versus the patient the restaurant the patron and the benefactor versus the beneficiary and the beggar and so forth there is always an unequal role that they play some so to speak the superior the other is the inferior regarding these various forms of rulership and dependency of superior and inferior status Halla emphasizes again and again the natural mutually advantageous character the various rulers did not impose their rulership on their corresponding dependence nor did the various dependence elevate and appoint their corresponding rulers to their superior position the rulers did not receive their status as rulers from the ruled but they had it and occupied it on account of their own talents and achievements nor did any of the various dependence lose any of their freedoms or liberties on account of their dependency but they were dependence either by nature such as the case with children or on account of their own voluntary choice so as to satisfy needs or wants that would be otherwise unattainable as Halla sums it up the inferiors do not give anything to their superior and he in turn does not take anything away from them but they help and use each other both acting within their own respective rights equal regarding their inborn natural rights and unequal in regard to their acquired rights do they both exercise their right for freedom in accordance with their own free will and to the best of their abilities now of course Halla is fully aware of the fact that every relationship between ruler and ruled can be dissolved if it is no longer mutually beneficial the consumer may turn to become a producer the soldier can turn into a general the student can become another teacher the patient can become a doctor and so forth as well a former consumer may become a producer and the producer become a consumer the soldier can become a general and the general can become a soldier the student can become a teacher and the teacher can become a student the patient can become a doctor and the doctor can become a patient but what never changes owing to the natural inequality of all men is a distinction between rulers and superiors and ruled or inferiors and the fact that in each and every type of social relationship it is always the ruler who contributes most to social wellbeing and is a promoter of social advancement as well Halla points out two more interrelated features characteristic of a natural social order which of great importance for its internal stability for one he notes that practically no one no ruler and no ruled are exclusively ruler or ruled and the person is familiar with and has learned to exercise both of these rules that is both of the rules of ruler and of the ruled if only in different contexts or under different circumstances the ruling father may also be a dependent tenant the ruling head of a football club and may be also a dependent employee may also be a ruling employer a doctor or a lawyer a patient or a client and a ruling teacher of students the officer may rule his soldiers and at the same time he may be ruled by a general who is in turn subject to the rule of his landlord so all people learn to act in both rules sometimes superior in a certain interaction sometimes they are the inferior secondly and notwithstanding this intricate inter-mixture of the roles of ruler and ruled however there is in every sizable society also a natural tendency towards social stratification that is the emergence of a ruling upper class of people enjoying greater liberties and comforts having lower class of people with lesser liberties and greater dependencies naturally with all social relations being mutually beneficial there exist upward and downward mobility but the stratification in upper and lower social classes itself is to be taken as a natural constant on the one end of the extreme who are heads of households and at the same time major landowners owners of farms, factories and firms of mansions and rental properties people who employ hundreds or even thousands of employees of advisors, teachers, lawyers, doctors managers, security guards, cooks, maids and servants and on the other extreme there are day laborers vagabonds, beggars or the recipients of arms and in between these two extremes and there exist countless gradations ceaseless fluctuations regarding the social status of different people and the corresponding extent of liberties or dependencies enjoyed or willingly sought and accepted by them now of course Hala does not deny that hierarchical order can be skewed or distorted by violence, conquest and usurpation and at the conclusion of my talk I will discuss the reasons and Hala thinks of them as fundamentally intellectual errors that are the source of any lasting and enduring rather than merely temporary distortions and he recognizes that these distortions have become particularly frequent and dramatic in recent times however the natural state of affairs according to Hala is ruled off and by the Mahdi era he calls Mahdi as not only just physical power just the superior people that is to say the top and the higher ranks of the social hierarchy that is the members of the upper class are typically occupied and made up of the best and most accomplished people that is those endowed with the greatest talents and the highest achievements and it is precisely their status as better more talented, more accomplished and more successful that persuades and leads the lesser talented the less accomplished people the less successful people to attach themselves to these more successful people as their dependents because to attach oneself to attach oneself instead to be a dependent and ruled by someone who is considered to be inferior or of lesser accomplishment is simply unnatural and any such relationship in Hala's view should if it ever comes into existence and would almost invariably lead to strife, resistance or rebellion in distinct contrast a person's voluntary dependency comes most naturally and easy the higher the rank or status of one's ruler because the greater and more accomplished the ruler the better and more securely can once satisfy one's own ends and needs thus in peacetime for instance writes Hala when one's central concern is to live and live comfortably people naturally turn to the wealthiest and most noble of people for assistance during war on the other hand when people's main concern is to be protected from aggression and destruction they will naturally subject themselves to the rule of the bravest and most cunning of people and occasionally, rarely enough when big questions rise to the rank of contentious social issues that is fundamental questions regarding right or wrong, true and false people will look out for the wisest of people and voluntarily subject themselves to the authority indeed notes Hala the natural law or principle that the superior will rule and exercise authority over the inferior and the inferior recognizes and accepts such relationship as natural and a matter of course holds also in this field of games and sports fame, honor, trophies and prizes are invariably bestowed or rewarded to the winner, to the champions while the losers however reluctantly and maybe enviously cannot but help to accept their defeat as well this very law or principle of social stratification as Hala emphasizes over and over again provides at the same time the best assurance of social stability and protection against social strife and unrest, the stability of every society that is the peaceful, tranquil and convivial association of men is always threatened from two sides on the one hand by the envy of the have-nots, visa-visals who have something and on the other hand by the abuse of power by the powerful yet envy by the have-nots even if it cannot never be entirely eradicated, this envy is minimized or moderated to the very extent that the position of the have rests on superior talent or achievement, indeed the greater and more apparent the superiority of the have, the less and more attenuated the have-nots envy or resentment becomes and as far as the abuse of power by the mighty is concerned, this too can never be entirely ruled out of course but the more their position of power rests on their superior talent and achievement and their authority and status is voluntarily acknowledged and accepted by others the less reason is therefore powerful to abuse, offend or injure anyone to the contrary the more reason for them to act noble, to be generous, visa-visal less powerful and powerless so as to maintain and secure their position now before the backdrop of these considerations regarding the natural rule of the mighty over the weak and the stratification of people into upper and lower social classes and the central importance in particular of the members of the former class for the maintenance of social stability and so forth, Hala then proceeds with his exposition of his doctrine of the natural state now from the very outset it should be recorded that Hala's understanding and definition of a natural state is entirely different from what the moderns have come to understand and mean by the term Hala's concept of the state corresponds to its pre-modern usage that is the meaning it had throughout most of the middle ages hence his label by contemporaries as an alter a reactionary that is attached to him the natural physical basis of all states according to Hala is land that is the ownership of contiguous or discontiguous pieces of ground land the owner and hence the ruler of this land may be an individual person that is a prince, a king, an emperor, a czar a sultan, a shah, a khan or whatever it is and the state is hence referred to as a princely state or else the owner is an association or cooperation of several individuals like of senators such as in Rome of doges such as in Venice or Eidgenossen or confederates such as in Switzerland and the state is this state is then referred to as a republican state or a republic in any case however whether ruled by a prince or by some cooperative every state and every state ruler is subject to the same private law as any other lesser property owner and person the difference between a state and the ruler of a state and other people and their property as Hala repeatedly emphasizes is not a categorical one but merely one of degree a princess direct rule extends only to his own property just as in the case of every other person and his property and as I will show shortly it is only in regard to this self administration of one's own property that there exists a somewhat little difference between a prince and everyone else only with regard to how you can deal with your own property give a small difference between prince I'll come to this in a second in any case as a private law subject a prince does not rule over other people and their property except in so far as these have voluntarily attached themselves to the prince and entered into some sort of relationship with him to better satisfy their own needs hence in distinct contrast to the modern state a prince may not unilaterally pass legislative decrees or impose taxes on other people and their property rather whatever dependencies or servitudes there may exist vis-a-vis a prince they vary from one dependent to another I have certain relationships with that guy you have different types of relationships with that guy he can tell you this but he cannot tell me this he can to me tell me this and you can tell you something else because we have different types of contractual relationships with him rather whatever dependencies or servitudes there may exist vis-a-vis the prince then vary from one dependent to another and in any case they are all voluntarily accepted and may be dissolved once they are no longer mutually beneficial and Hala adds some illuminating terminological observations to further clarify the status of a prince as a mere private law subject he says the most appropriate way to refer to the status of a prince or king then is to identify him simply as a head of a particular household such as the head of the house of the bourbonen of the house of Habsburg of the house of Hohenzollern or the house of Wittelsbach this is just family properties that they have appropriate and already slightly misleading is it to refer to them instead as a king of France or the king of Austria Prussia or Bavaria because this insinuates falsely in Hala's view that they are something like the owners of all of France of all of Austria all of Bavaria and so forth and completely misguided is it to call them the government of France, Austria, Prussia or Bavaria as if they were merely the employees of the French, Austrian, Prussian and Bavarian population they rule over no one in this sense they only have their own property princes or in the case of republics senators, doges and so forth because of these upper social classes of course but it is not the size of their land holdings or the number of their people the number of directly or indirectly dependence on them that makes them a state indeed there may exist people who own more land, who employ more people and whose income and wealth exceeds that of the prince senator or doge and yet who do not qualify as heads of a state as a matter of fact as also already mentioned before at the fictitious beginning of mankind of a single family unit as a prototype of a state as that demonstrates mere size according to Hala got essentially nothing to do with the question what a social relationship or position qualifies as a state in fact and especially noteworthy Hala even expresses a strong preference for a multiplicity of small principalities or republics very much along the lines of my own call for Europe of thousands of Liechtenstein rather than one unified EU for instance against the possibility of abuse on the part of the powerful so what then according to Hala is it that distinguishes the head or the heads of a state whether big or small from all other persons and their property it is not as I have already mentioned that a prince or an association of senators would never stand or find himself in a position of inferiority no one in society based on division of labor is exempt from the sobering experience of being sometimes the dumber one, the one who needs advice or so even the greatest of kings need doctors and counselors and must bow to their superior authority for instance rather summed up in just one word what makes for a head of state is just as I mentioned before sovereignty, he who is entirely free to make decisions regarding his person and his property because there is no one person ranking above him to whom he owes any justification and is subject to no one else's authority either by virtue of customs or contract and who can accordingly do or not do with his property whatever he pleases without having to answer to anyone except to God and the eternal law, that's how I formalize it he only he qualifies as a head of state and by contrast then everyone who is someone else's dependent or whose property is subject to some sort of servitude such as every vessel lessee, employee, tenant, renter, debtor for instance does not qualify as a state regardless of how big, mighty, wealthy or influential he otherwise might be as Hala admits and indeed repeatedly emphasizes however dependence comes in degrees and the difference between a sovereign and a dependent is by no means a difference like the difference between day and night a dependency might be so light as to be hardly noticeable a dependent may be even command more resources than a sovereign ruler and their different rank or status may boil down to no more than a difference in prominence and prestige now from Hala's definition of a head of state as a private law subject distinguished from every other person merely by the sovereignty of his rule over his own property then follows his categorical rejection of the by now dominant alternative definition of a state as a protection agency and a provider of justice for Hala states as states are essentially nothing else than a private enterprise and as such they have no common function or common purpose it is not to say that they have no purpose every social institution and relationship does have a purpose but they have no common purpose but rather a variety or a multitude of different private persons because they are just nothing else but private firms so to speak and this holds for states as well the purpose and function of a state then is to afford and allow its head a good social life according to his own varying and changing conception of what constitutes a good and nice life most emphatically however states cannot be defined as protection agencies or justice providers according to Hala because the task and the right to protect one's own person and property that is to act according to the principles of natural law as laid down by God applies equally to everyone and to all social institutions and to all social relations and hence cannot be considered unique to states everyone can defend himself everyone is in charge of providing justice to promote and defend justice is equally at the same time also the ineliable right and obligation even of the lowliest of persons that ties back to what I said before about his view about self-justice and self-defense everyone has the same right when it comes to self-defense and providing justice as anybody else also now this brings me then to the concluding section of my speech now at this point the subtitle of Halas Magnum Opus may be record as it's called a theory of natural social order contrasted to the chimera of the artificial civil state now what I have so far presented is the first positive part of this work that is what Hala considers the natural outcome of people living together everywhere and at all times this natural order is not claimed to be perfect of course nothing in human affairs is perfect but it is the best possible arrangement to preserve all natural human liberties to best satisfy everyone's needs changing circumstances and of course like all human institutions it is subject to the possibility of abuse but within this framework it is also the best provision for the means and provides the means and measures to prevent, to combat, to avoid or to evade any such abuse now as should be completely obvious by now however Hala's natural social order and natural state has nothing whatsoever to do with modern society and the modern state that we are all only too familiar with, the modern state and the modern society cannot even be considered as an example and a consequence of Hala's state turned rogue rather the modern state and society which Hala writing some 200 years ago terms the artificial state of the modern artificial civil society and recognizes as in the making by then already since the 17th century this modern state is something entirely different beast, entirely of a completely different nature the successive transformation and the ultimate replacement of the natural order and natural state and one artificial one is the result in Hala's view of a fundamental intellectual error relentlessly promoted in various slightly different but always essentially identical versions by countless social contract theories to this day indeed the result in Hala's view of an intellectual error and a faulty theory of the grandest proportion a theory that Hala remarks so patently false from beginning to end as to be almost laughable a chimera so devoid of common sense and detached from the reality that only an intellectual, a sophist in Hala's terminology could invent it and yet a theory that would literally turn the world upside down that would transform lowly servants into rulers of princes and children into masters of their parents and that would be destructive of all of human liberties and the theory as summarized by Hala this social contract theory you have all heard it boils down to four propositions first one originally in the state of nature mankind had lived outside of any social relations that is in exclusively extra social relations side by side with each other and in a state of complete freedom and equality second proposition however in this state of affairs the natural human rights and liberties were not secure third statement hence people associated with each other and delegated the power to arrange for and assure general all around protection and security to one or several people among them and the fourth proposition through this institution of the state then it comes to God as a result of a contract the freedom of each individual would be better and more securely safeguarded and protected than before so following Hala I shall now my final test take up each of these propositions in turn and demonstrate in all due brevity the utter absurdity of the entire doctrine and its manifold internal contradictions and the disastrous consequences following from its acceptance the first proposition that we all lived in extra social relationships and premise of the theory must already be rejected as mere fiction or fake without any factual basis whatsoever never has anything like a state of nature as depicted by social contract theorist existed anywhere never has anyone ever lived entirely outside of social relations if he did we would not even need a language as a means of communication and if we do use a language this proves the existence of social relationships with others indeed as has already been mentioned social relations as exemplified by the institution of the family precede extra social relations which can only come about by the breakaway of people from their original social institution of a family no one has ever lived throughout his entire life in a state of affairs characterized by complete freedom and equality rather from the very outset the state of human nature is characterized by unequal liberties and inequalities by rulers and ruled by masters and dependents children and mothers and children such inequalities are not the result or outcome of previous contracts or agreements or require contracts or agreements for their explanation or their justification a father does not become a father because the kid signed a contract with the father said I make you a contract and vice versa to the contrary these inequalities precede or contracts and agreements and provide the natural basis and justification for all mutually beneficial agreed upon and contracted upon social relations and associations now the analysis of the second proposition does not fare much better even critics of the social contract theory often slide by almost uncommented however as Halarist perceptively points out it too gets things completely upside down and puts a card before the horse true enough the potential danger coming from some person C or the fear of an attack by C may help A and B tie together form a coalition but the association of A and B is not based on insecurity or fear rather it is a result of mutual trust or even love between A and B A and B do not fear each other or believe their rights to be endangered or infringed upon by their association but to the very contrary A and B love each other and associate for this reason fear and mistrust are reasons not to associate but to distance and to separate oneself from others to assert instead as Hobbes does for instance that social relations emerge out of a state of affairs of universal fear out of a war of all against all a bellum or contra onness is simply absurd as well contra all social contract theories as in particular the natural and mutual attraction and association of the sexist demonstrates once again human cooperation based on trust and love precedes all conflict and war and human cooperation is always possible always available and capable again not only but as satisfactorily as humanly possible of dealing also with such extraordinary extra or antisocial events such as war and conflict and so forth which brings me to the third proposition and with that to the very height of absurdity and it is here with Halla's criticism of this thesis in particular where any still lingering about the status of the author of a massive work concerned with the restoration of the theory of the state that is a title of his main work should finally be laid to rest and Halla's status as a radical libertarian in modern lingo as an anarcho capitalist would be firmly cemented because here 200 years ago Halla advances practically every single argument also leveled against the legitimacy of the modern state by contemporary libertarianism and libertarians in the tradition of Rosepart to begin with it is noted that there exists no record whatsoever as anything resembling a contract as imagined by social contract theories has ever been concluded anywhere and Halla immediately cuts to the heart of the matter as to why this is so and why any such contract is simply inconceivable in the state of nature he writes everyone for his protection and security could rely on his own powers and means of self-defense or he could choose someone more powerful than himself and equipped with more or better means of protection and attach himself at a mutually agreed upon terms to such a person as a vessel or servant and he could terminate and leave any such association and return to defensive self-sufficiency or attach himself to another presumably better protector why then Halla wonders would anyone consider it an improvement if he could no longer choose his own protector and mode of protection but such a decision were made instead by others the so-called people how is that supposed to be freedom he asks more specifically the mention of the people provides the keyword for an entire barrage of embarrassing follow-up questions who are these people who supposedly delegate their powers to the state and its heads so as to then assure all of their security and protection is it everyone who can breeze and if not why not is it the entire world population that makes up the people or are there different people and how then to draw the border lines and determine who does and does not belong to this people or that people and what about the fact that there are constantly people dying and being born a contract can bind only those who actually concluded it and hence must not the contract be continuously renewed and redesigned then whenever a newborn enters the scene moreover why would the head of a household or a prince for instance agree that the children or his servants should have an equal say in the selection of their joint ruler or overlord and if they didn't have such a say would this not imply that some previously harmonious mutually beneficial relationship between parents and children for instance or between a prince and his servants would thereby become increasingly infected with tension and strife likewise regardless of who is considered and counted as a member of the people it is inconceivable that all of them unanimously would agree on who should be their overlord and if that is not the case which can be taken as a certainty how can this contract still be considered binding also on those disagreeing or dissenting and does this not imply then that the entire complex network of harmonious relations characteristic of a natural social order will be distorted or destroyed and be replaced by a system of rival or even hostile parties and partisanship affecting and infecting every nuke and cranny of the social fabric still the questions do not stop whoever is appointed by one party of the people as their supreme protector of all parties then that may impose his will on everyone supporters and dissenters alike how far reaching are his competences what constraints any are put on his actions are people still allowed to protect and defend themselves against injurious or wrongful actions by others may people still bear arms or build fortresses may a father still smack his son for gross misconduct may an employer still dismiss his employee for negligent behavior may a landlord still expel a delinquent tenant from his property or ban others from entry or must everyone disarm and any and all of these potential conflicts come under the purview of the state surely there is no unanimous answer to be expected to these questions however what can be asserted with certainty is that the interposition of the state in any of such matters is an infringement of natural law a violation of private property rights and an arbitrary restriction of human liberty that is the very opposite of the alleged purpose of the institution of the state last but not least there remains still one more unanswerable question to reveal once more the total muddle and confusion of the social contract theory whoever is appointed by the part by some part not all there is no unanimity whoever is appointed by a part of the people to be supposedly the entire all peoples employee and the security provider and protector for all of them this person or this group of person they need resources to do so he needs manpower, material goods and it is his employer the employer of the leaders of the state are the people it is his employers, the people who must provide the leaders of the state with all that with some means to do the job but how much money, personnel and protective gear is necessary to do the job among the people is supposed to contribute what part of the total surely it is impossible to ever reach a unanimous agreement on this question certainly the head of the state to whom all powers had allegedly been delegated would ask for ever more resources arguing that the more resources he had at his disposal the more security he could provide but why would anyone who had not voluntarily chosen this person as his protector who deemed himself capable of providing for his own security and who regarded his alleged protectors as less than impartial as a partisan or even as a dangerous foe why would he hand over any of his money or other property to him so as to be wasted or even used to oppress him and rob him of ever more of his own property harmonious relations and voluntary services and payments would be replaced by coercion, serfdom and taxes and coercion, serfdom and taxes then would be used for ever more future coercion, serfdom and taxes the Bellum Omnium Contra Omnus then that did not exist in the state of nature it is actually only brought about by the artificial state and it is continuously incited and promoted by the state so as to steadily expand its own powers at the expense of the increasing loss of all private liberties and this horrendous state of affairs then that we owe to the propaganda the relentless intellectual claptrap of the social contract series this is what we are supposed to consider the new and improved human freedom and liberty, what a cruel joke thank you very much


Welcome to the After Hours podcast, hosted by Harry Haas and James Friedlender, presented by My Investing Club. What's going on guys? We're back with another episode of the After Hours podcast. Today we have a very special guest. We have a low-high trader, Austin, who is a previous person we've had on. He's one of my favorite mods in the group, so I'm glad to have him back. So thank you for coming back on, man. Yeah, man, of course. I didn't know that I was going to be having a meeting with Tom Holland today. I wish I was Tom Holland, dudes, and they are not as fun. But so I guess today it's kind of an interesting one because the market has kind of sucked as far as long-buyers traders go. I wouldn't even say it's been amazing for short. It's easier for short.  So I kind of, Harry had the idea of kind of talking about this and how you're handling it because you're obviously one of the more long-buyers guys. You've mentioned it before, how hard it is right now. I'm mentally dealing with this like day to day. So you kind of want to get into that, like how you're dealing with it. I mean, this is a long drought, or it feels like it. Maybe it's not. I don't know. It feels long for me. So how have you been dealing with all this crap?  It's pretty garbage. And I feel like a lot of people are struggling. And the first thing I wanted to say is if you're mostly a long-buyers trader and you are struggling, the reason why I'm so open about it is to let people know that you're not alone.   It's just that there is a certain lack of the kind of continuation opportunities that day traders tend to have adapted towards. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, as far as for me, it's been, I think that as far as the day ones go, the day ones are like pretty jobby, like untradable on day ones.  And for me, it's really been a lot of these, kind of like multi-day runners or a lot of found setups like that. But if we're not getting quality day one trades, that makes it harder as far as the multi-day runners go because if we're not getting good day one trades with a lot of volume and that people aren't kind of buying and paying attention to, it makes it a lot harder for things to bounce. And like last week, I believe we got, we're recording this on January 21st, 2022. And last week we got like, we got S-FEV as a runner, which I got. And that was one that was kind of, it popped up on day one, didn't really die, didn't really die. And then on Friday, it ran. And then it was TKAT, which both just kind of flew out of the gates. That was more of a stock that had to do with like NFTs and stuff like that. But I mean, it's really been slim pickings. And it's not like there isn't loans. Like when you look at the market as a whole, there are going to be stocks that went up on the day, like in the NASDAQ or in wherever, but as far as the good quality loan setups go, it's like once in a while, at least once a week you used to get like a day two trap where it would go kind of like red to green and like squeeze early shorts out on like day two. But those it seems have been completely eliminated. And so it's like, okay, what are we really left with? The only play that has really been half assing for me. And like, I don't know if you trade these types of setups or setups when we have like a day one and it's like beaten down and then we get that bounce day. I've been trading a little bit of those and that's been kind of working out for me a little bit. But as far as day one goes, like if you're trying to trade something like Nuro where we would just kind of like pop out and then just like stuff that's completely untradeable. Like I was looking at that for me and I was like, fuck, I can't trade this. And as far as the top of the range goes when you have these setups where we go and we kind of make a high and we consolidate underneath that high for a little bit and then we try and break that high again in order to continue and go higher like Austin was talking about the top of the range is almost all gone. So if the top of the range has been put in top of the mindset, the odds of us breaking that top in this market are like very few to none. So it has been very, very, very difficult as far as those types of trades go as well. And it's really been just blowing out or it's been saving shorts to be honest.  Like there's been a lot of bad habits, I think as we go. Well, dude, in this market too, it's like, well, first of all, I feel like this drought's been a long time. And like, I don't know, I feel like we've been joking about it so long like now it's not a joke anymore.  And it's like, lately I feel like we're in this market where I've been ranting about this a lot is like everyone could short and hold at the open. And most things have been like pretty much fading. It's almost like an impossible to lose as a short. And like, I guess it's a long by, like guys, how do you both like handle seeing shorts make easy money for like these periods of times? Like we all know eventually we're gonna hit that runner we think we hope, but how do you deal with that? Like seeing people make money, make money, make money. And like the, it's gotta be a mental toll watching your setups not really come. So I guess like Austin, how do you handle that? And like, how do you kind of keep yourself grounded?  Like we definitely had our fun time 2020, you know, like 2020 it like, I almost felt bad. I felt like I was kind of squeezing everybody. The market takes turns, but I will say this on that. Like you just gotta remain resilient.    And you know, when that clock hits your number, that's why it's so important that you don't just blow off steam.  Like that's the thing about being a trader and especially a long trader right now is you have to hold, hold on, hold on to your patience, never lose it, never just be like, eff it, I'm just gonna buy this, I'm not selling it. Like you can't do that. Like you can't have an, you know, like Harry had one a long time, but you can't have an, I don't care moment, right? And we've all had them, but that's what you really have to focus on not letting go is not letting go of the patience. And it, like, we just, like we have a 200% runner today, like it will happen, right? It really will happen. Yeah, and I think as far as that goes for me, I think for me, as far as like long it goes, and this probably can go for a lot of people, but it's like that first trade really sets the tone.  So I've really been focusing on in this kind of market and just, you know, even in, see when the market's in your favor and you get a little bit sloppy, that type of, you know, situation can really put you in a dark place when the market kind of switches over, right? Like if I was sloppy chasing the highs on every long and somehow getting bailed out, I would have blown up in this market. So I think it's really just saying to yourself, okay, you know, that first trade is going to set the tone for me. So I'm not going to average down on a broken stock or I'm not going to chase something, you know, after it's already kind of ran and I'm just pulling it up super, super late. I'm going to be patient and wait for the types of plates that I usually focus on. And that's what can really kind of help you a lot more and in my opinion, you know, it's that first trade, you know, like if you're first trade is you chasing into a major resistance level, like nine times out of 10, that's probably going to reject. And then if you kind of keep holding that and keep holding that and then maybe even average down and average down more or like, I don't really average down, I just cut it.  Just, you know, be very, very patient with that first trade and your day can go a lot better than, you know, not being patient. And almost once you kind of have that first bad trade you kind of get in like a drunken state where it's like, oh, I can do another one. And then that one doesn't work.   You know, and that's how those types of situations can get started. So I mean, for me, I try and be proactive and just really, really kind of trans out the tone early. I feel like, I feel like for shorts it's funny. Like I feel like short buys guys never really have like droughts either. It's like, cause there's always opportunity.  So it's like, I guess I've never really had to deal with that. And I think that's just what makes it makes longing that much harder. That's why I really do think it's 10 times harder to be a successful long buys guy.  Cause once things actually start moving I think people forget how violent like some of these moves will actually be. Yeah, that's something I really want to touch on is that when I first started to become a longer I was like, why would I like when I first started trading the market and this should be a really good bit. The market really does go in cycles and wherever you start to join trading you don't know yet, but you're joining in a cycle. And that's why whenever you first start trading you start making money because it's so obvious and you only know that the cycle that you're in and once you join use everything looks like you only see things through one lens and you look at it and you say dude, I see that stuff is fading.  Like I just started, I'm just banking money. And, but you don't know that you're in a cycle that's exactly working for what you just learned. And this is, and that's what happened to me and I started and everything dude it was a lot lower volume but stuff would pop it would do like a little like stuff were kind of new not new but like, I mean, they were much more obvious and less frequent. So when a stuff happened it was a little bit more rare now we have stuff every day, but we see this stuff oh, then it would tank, right? So you short it and make money easy. But then I started looking after a little bit I started once I started getting squeezed a little bit I started really focusing on charts I did some deep study on some charts and just on the simplest way I could see this I would look at a chart and I would just look at the green candles versus the red candles. Oh, did we lose James? No, I'm still here. Okay, yeah, I would look at the green candles and I would look at the red candles and I would look at all of these charts and the green candles on the chart just zoom out and like look at the chart the green candles, the green movements were so much bigger than the red ones. You know, like it would fade, fade, fade, fade, fade but you know and so that would be like a loser as a long but the ones that went up, I mean we're talking two, three, four, five, six dollars like I mean these would really run. And I feel like a lot of people that are coming into trading this year or even in 2021 they're looking at charts and they're like, wow, everything just goes down, huh? Right, and that's the cycle we're in, right? And that's, I guess that's the warning to new shorts that it's not always as good. And for long, you just gotta recognize, you know take a look at all the charts for the week and I do that every time I do a webinar I go through all the charts to see if they're bullish or bearish and I really, I feel like that helps me really gain a sense like what did the charts look like? What did the green bushes look like? What did the red ones look at? And that really gives me an idea of the sense of it. Yeah, it's so funny you just said that some guy just wrote that this is his most profitable month in the last 12 trailing months. Just in main chat right now, I'm just reading that. And yeah, the market goes in cycles and you do have to be careful. This is a very, very, I feel like easy time for shorts to make money. Just like longing, we had our fun with COVID. It was very easy.  Like, and you see your, I mean for me I'm not pissed when I see shorts making money because I'm not blowing up, right? So I'm not going to be pissed if I'm not blowing up or taking some massive losses because as far as what James kind of went back and said where he's like, I feel like it's really hard for loans to make money. If James just had like the experience of longing that like we have someone like James could walk in every single morning and make money, right?  But when you have like a couple of years under your belt of just looking for the same thing every day in the same edge, it does get easier, right? And I think as far as short it goes like every single long trader, the more time you long the more I think easier it gets to become a short as well because you know those trap areas and you know those types of areas where they're just looking to hunt for loans and they're just looking to kind of hunt for short stops or squeeze shorts out. And so as a long trader, you really need to kind of gauge that supply and demand as well. So it's like we're almost like short traders but we're not, you know, where we know where the best opportunities are to short is and, you know, for example, we're both noticing that the top of the range is not really working in this market, right? Well, top of the range. Yeah, like what is stopping us for fucking, you know going short there or something like that, right? And I have. Right? So I mean, we know where the areas are and you know, I think just as far as like trading goes everyone kind of knows the general areas where you can make money. But I mean, if you're not disciplined in order to kind of follow that that's where you're going to kind of get in trouble. And I think just. I think I guess it's just like, I guess it's just like something that Austin actually told me one time and like I feel like it's really true right now too is like there are just some markets where like you just can't use your big size. You can't use size, you can't like push and like you like go for it. And like this market right now is a long like this has to be it. I mean, you try to size on anything. No, you just you just lose and like for a short like I think it's, I think it's like a good market. I mean, obviously you can size up shorting in this market too. Cause it's a lot of, it's a lot of things just like fading off and it's just become a lot easier to identify your risk levels. But yeah, I mean, I think that's probably what keeps you guys so like smart is like, you said all the time, I was just like, this isn't it. This isn't the market. I'm going to go in guns blazing because my setups aren't there and they're not working. So I think everybody needs to kind of remember that as well. It's just, you know, sometimes it's just not there. Well, yeah, that's the thing is like right now as a short you have like, you have like, if someone's going to punch you, you have a door behind you. If you're going to get punched as a short, like in this market, you're going to have a door. Like there's going to be selling pressure at your back. So even if you do have to cover, you're going to be fine. As a long it's like, I don't, we don't have that back door right now. So like we can't aggressively size because then it's going to be a scramble for who gets to get out when everyone wants to get out at the same time. Cause there's no, there's no, we don't have that bid behind us because then we have no liquidity to get out. Yeah, everyone's too afraid, right? All of the long liquidity is too afraid. And yeah, and so I wrote some things down cause I, my, my, my brain is going there's a lot I want to get off here. But yeah, like, like James, like you've only been out short ever. And because like innately, like when you get into trading it's a lot easier to be a short just because you, because you get to see the first part of the chart happen and then you get to react to the first part of the chart and it's normally down.  Let me tell you this, longs do that too. No longs know if the stock's going to pop before it pops, right? So basically every retail long needs to be some form of continuation trader. Cause we're, unless we're a pumper unless we have inside information, which we don't it's really hard to know what's going to pop before it pops.  You know, we wait for something to pop and then we wait for a bid to hold, right? That's innately what we do. Something pops and then we wait for support to form and for that support to be stronger than the supply. What I've noticed that the three I've made three adaptations that I've done for myself in this market. The first thing is like Harry said, I recognize the day one stocks, the day one stocks, they have so much volume but it doesn't go anywhere. The upper part of the range is capped on those. It basically just becomes an algo trap. Any day one stock that's the hot chick of the day that is a hot chick just to absorb all of the hopeful longs and that's an algo trap. So I try to avoid that one or trade that one small and I messed up on neuro the other week.  I think this is going to be the day one that works. I was wrong. I tried to guess early but I've normally been avoiding the day ones because those are just straight algo traps are going to go. They're going to be choppy. They're going to hold up just so that longs keep buying and it's not going anywhere. The upper part of the range, it's not breaking that high. I've also changed the second change I've made is I'm not really looking for squeezes anymore. The longs that I'm looking for are near kind of just support. Like I'll buy when there is support but I'm not looking for it to break high a day. I'm just looking, you know, I think it's going to bounce here. So I've kind of eliminated a lot of going for squeezes which for me kind of defeats the purpose of longing which is why I've kind of started the short a little bit too. But I go for less squeezes. So I go for more support buys as opposed to a squeeze-based trade. And the third adaptation is I just walk. I just walk sooner. I don't press on. Normally, like if I'm up nice on the day I might continue to try to trade a little bit in the afternoon. Maybe there's an afternoon squeeze. Maybe I can double my money. I don't even try now. I just walk early. I get green on the day and I walk. How do you determine like when that market cycle changes? Like because like I'm not as curious because like I see a runner and then I'm like, oh, I wonder if this is going to change the sentiment. Like how many days or how many times do you need to see something happen before you're like, all right, the market sentiments changed. Now it's okay to chase a little bit more.  Like how do you even figure that out? Because I still know how to do that in you. So think of it as a bucket of strength. I just want the bucket to be full. It could happen from one runner. It could be one runner that goes up 2000% or it could be 10 runners that go 200%. You know what I'm saying? Or it could be five runners that go 400%, right? Just do the math on like the bucket is 200% of strength or something. And it's not like I don't have a bucket. I don't keep track.  I need to see enough strength in the market. And ideally it's more than one. Like 10, 200% runners is a lot better than one 2000% runner, obviously. You know, but I just want to see an amount of strength and there really is no gauge, but the second accounts start blowing up. The second as a short, if I would be fearful of a stock breaking high a day, that's when I know it's time to press. Right now, like if something breaks high a day as a short, I'm still like, yeah, but it'll probably stuff. But as a short, if a stock goes up to high a day and I'm like, maybe, like, I'm not sure actually. Like this one actually kind of looks scary. I already know it's time to press. The second there's the fear, I know it's time to press because that's for a short, you know, as a short, the scariest thing is holding through a high a day push that could hold up. Oh yeah, yep. I think as far as that goes for me too, the way I like to kind of do it is I kind of do it in like two parts, but it's all in my head. Like I don't track market strike, you know, on like Excel or anything like that. Number one is like, our stocks giving back their gains at the end of the day. That is a big kind of tell for me, is the market.  That tells you what type of market we're in. Yeah, that was insanely weak when it gave everything back. That showed such weakness. Oh yeah, I think that really showed a lot of kind of like holes in the market. And I think another thing that I look for is like, okay, so let's say we get that first runner. We get that runner that everyone is like, we're gonna line it up. The next day, is it only that runner that people are still paying attention to? Or is it like other runners that people are now saying, wow, this is strong, wow, this is strong?  But everyone's trying to kind of anticipate, it was that day that we got to, what was that stock? It was like PHUN or something like that, or not PHUN, but it started with a P or something like that. And it went from like $2 to like $14 or whatever. Like after DWAC, like after DWAC went, and all these stocks were really, really, really strong, right? And you woke up after that DWAC move happened, and every single stock was strong. You could take a broken stock and make money as a long trader. You could take a hot chip stock and make money as a long trader. That to me is a really, really strong market. When everything is just going up and people are like, wow, we had that stock that those Twitter guys were in, that was going up. We had that, I remember that day so completely where I had missed kind of like the big hot chip because I had been so trained to say, okay, I'm avoiding this. I had gotten in the habit of saying, I'm avoiding this one because like I was expecting that kind of, we weren't going to be able to break the top of the range.  But when we do get a kind of strong market or a strong stock that kind of lights it back up again, don't be afraid to go back and press those hot chips. Don't be afraid to go back and press those broken stocks a bit more than you usually would. Don't be afraid to, right?  So it's like, we're so conditioned right now to not trading the day ones as a long trader, right? Like you tried it with Nero, didn't really work out.  But if let's say this afternoon, we get this 1,000% runner and the next day we see a bunch of stocks up.   So that would be my advice to anyone who's struggling right now and who's like, I'm not touching the day ones. I'm not touching anything. I'm just going to sit it out and wait it out.   Everyone is saying that's crazy. We had other stocks that were running after D-LAC went, right?  Don't be a, don't, you know, don't, I don't need to know what to say on this podcast if we're like, you know what I'm thinking. Don't be a pansy, bro. Because those times pay for this time, right? Those times are going to pay for this patient time. Like this is why you're being patient. Yeah, right. Exactly, that's what we're waiting for.  Yeah. I think, I mean, as we're coming up on kind of like the 30 minute mark, I mean, I think you guys kind of gave like a really good kind of basis of like as a long, like what you need to be doing in like the slow times and like the markets like this. And I guess like, I mean, I guess we don't, I'm trying to think of like a good ending question because I guess what I'm wondering for the last kind of bit here is like, you know, how do you know to take advantage or like when things happen, you take advantage of the hot times. Like you put yourself in a position where it's so important that when your market's in your right like zone, that's when you're pressing. That's when you're pushing stuff down. And have you guys like over the years been able to recognize that more and more and like actually been able to press the gas or have you missed it? Because like for years, like I kind of missed like a lot of big opportunities like that. I missed first red days. I missed like strong like good shorting opportunities because I was afraid. Like, were you guys able to do that right away or is it hard for you to kind of do that? I think I'll leave it to Austin. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. So dude, that every single year, because the life market goes in cycle, it's like every year you get one or two chances and it really just takes that much time, right? Because cycles last a few months at a time. And so, after every cycle, you can always do something better and you're always gonna be like, I didn't do that perfectly. I could have done this. I could have did this on this player. Man, you look back and I'm like, oh dude, on RKDA I could have went this much size or I could have added here or on D-Wack I could have done this. It's like, or I should have not been afraid to just buy into that strength or attempt to get that black swan. You know what I'm saying?  You're always gonna have after every cycle you're gonna look back and see like what you could have done and you're probably gonna get better on the next cycle. Like you're probably gonna get a little bit better and make a little bit of those changes but you can only improve so much at a time. But yeah, when it does hit that time, I have gotten better. I have gotten better. I add almost to the point of being recklessly sometimes into strength and you guys have probably seen those charts of mine. Like, but and when they work they pay for all the times they don't. So like, I mean, I've gotten really aggressive on adding strength. I've gotten, you know, I've gotten aggressive on growing more size. I've got aggressive by like not just selling on the first pop like, you know when that hallmark gets here, you know work on really letting that extend like, you know I mean, if I've got like, if I got like 10,000 shares every 50 cents I every 50 cents I wait is another five grand, right? So I mean, just wait if I can get one more halt up, you know, it's, you know like there's just different ways that you can improve each time whether it's being a little bit more patient on the exit being a little bit more aggressive with the size, maybe adding right as that stuff that, you know it might stuff and then hold and then, you know, holding through that one extra and being able or bailing it and having the guts to be like, no, this is the hot market it's stuff me, but then it felt I'm going to get back in it's all that stuff, you know that, you know each that's what being aggressive is all about and like you just, you know you just get better, you just work on it every second. Yeah, I really like that.


Greetings friends! This is Survival Doc. Today we're going to talk about making my favorite fermented beverage and that is Kefir. Now Kefir is so much easier to make than yogurt. With yogurt you have to heat the milk up to 110 degrees and you've got to keep it at that temperature throughout the process. With Kefir you don't have to do that. You can make it at room temperature. Basically what you do is you just take your milk, you add the Kefir starter which are the Kefir granules, you let it sit on your countertop and what I do is I cover it with a band with a cloth like a handkerchief just so we can get air to it and so any pressure that builds up can be released. Alright but you just leave it on your countertop as long as you want to leave it. You can check it along the way to see it gets stronger and longer you leave it there. The temperature has something to do with it. The warmer it is, the faster it will ferment. But typically in a day or a couple of days if it's fairly cool, maybe three or four days even if it's really cool and you want some strong Kefir. Alright I always start with raw milk. The Kefir I make right now I'm using with raw goat's milk because goat's milk is available right now. I buy it from a local farmer and by the way on the subject of raw milk is opposed to pasteurized milk. If you can ever get raw whole milk that is the milk whether it's cow's milk or goat's milk always get raw milk. It is much healthier for you than the pasteurized junk. It is much safer for you. The raw milk contains beneficial bacteria itself. It won't go bad. Raw milk won't go bad. You can just leave it out on your countertop. It'll turn into yogurt. It'll turn into kefir. It'll turn into some kind of fermented product because it already contains the good bacteria.  It's gonna go bad.  That is a result of the lobbying of the dairy industry because the practices of the large dairy practices, the large dairy factories, their practices were so unclean that their milk had to be pasteurized just to kill all the bad bacteria that gets in it due to their their factory run process. Alright so then the dairy products, the dairy companies knew that they could not compete with raw milk. So their solution was to require raw milk producers to pasteurize their product so that they would be on equal footing with the large dairy producers. But anyway I'll start with raw milk, raw cow's milk, raw goat's milk. Today I'm gonna be using raw goat's milk. I buy it in half gallon jars. All I do is just add the granules, let it sit on my countertop, becomes kefir, then I strain it, remove the granules, save them for the next time, and then I enjoy the kefir. Now you can sweeten it if you want to. I just drink it straight. I like it straight. You can sometimes I'll pour it over a fruit, sliced bananas or something like that. But usually I'll just drink it straight. Now kefir contains very, very, very beneficial bacteria, more so than yogurt. The primary bacteria in kefir is L-ruderi or Lactobacillus ruderi, which is far more healthier for you than the primary bacteria of yogurt, which is Lactobacillus acidophilus and others. But so for that reason, kefir is much healthier for you. And these fermented products, what they do is they help establish the beneficial bacteria in your intestinal tract, which is so important. And what we're learning, what we've learned over the years, and we're learning more and more, is just how important to your health it is to have a healthy biological mix of beneficial bacteria in your intestinal tract. Okay. Here, basically I bought I buy half a gallon of ghost milk. All right, this kefir is done here. If you'll notice it, there is some separation between the whey and the kefir. And what I'll do when I get ready to use this is I'll just shake it up real good to mix this all together. And then it stays in the refrigerator. It stays all mixed together. Then I'll pour this through a sieve in order to remove the granules to use next time. And then I just drink this product here. I take the granules and I put them in a little jar of just milk. In this case, raw ghost milk again. And then I just keep this in the refrigerator like this until the next time I need it. But the raw milk will keep the granules alive. And you can also take this and put this in your freezer and freeze it. What happens over time is your granules will grow, they'll get larger and larger very slowly over time. All right. And what you can do at some point is you can divide your granules. And when you do share them with a friend so that they can make kefir too, or take some of your granules, put them in a jar, make sure it's a freezer safe jar, which this is not. But in a freezer safe jar with some milk, let it freeze in your freezer, and then you'll always have some granules to fall back on. This is the sieve that I use to remove the granules from the kefir. This is found to be just the right size to allow the kefir to go through. The kefir is kind of thick. You don't want to use a sieve that's too fine. But this will save your granules. I'm going to demonstrate that now. Okay, I'm working with a half gallon of kefir here. All right. So I want to strain it into a container. This is an eight cup measuring cup. Here's my strainer fits there perfectly. All right, here's my container of milk. I'm going to put the granules in here. All right, as you can see here, what I simply have is a canning band holding on a handkerchief. Alright, now what I'm going to do is I'm going to shake this up. And by the way, if you leave your kefir too long, what you end up with is a product on top that is that is a type of cheese. And it's also delicious. I'm going to shake this up real good. There we go. Actually, let this one go longer than what I usually does. You do usually this shakes up a lot easier than this. It mixes up a lot easier. But I let this go a long time. And so really, it's a real thick on the top. And what I have is a product that's kind of like a cheese. The good thing about these making these fermented products like this is they just don't go bad. You know, they'll just turn into something else. So I got a big chunk here. Usually, I do not have a big chunk here. But apparently, I'm going to be dealing with something like cheese. Okay, the clear liquid is way. Alright, then what I do is I just shake this through here. Till I get my granules out. Okay, again, what ended up with this time was cheese and not really kefir. This right here is kefir drink this just like this. This right here is a cheese more more of a cheese product. And problem with doing this is it makes it a little harder to find your granules.  I'll put this on my salads or or whatnot. Actually, I can't find the granules in here. And maybe that's a good reason to have the the spare starter. I believe I've done this before though. And I believe what happened is when I was using my cheese that ended up I did end up finding the granules in here. The difference between the granules is the granules are kind of a gelatin consistency kind of a jelly jelly type mass. Okay, well, I'm not going to find my granules in there right now. Ordinarily when I make this and I'll make another video showing the process when I don't let it go so far. Ordinarily what I do is I shake this through and everything goes through except the granules. I end up with nice kefir right here. Alright, this is nice key for here is just contains more way. And which is the semi clear liquid. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take this is pour it back in the jar. Oh without hopefully without wasting so much of it. And I'll drink this. This is a very, very healthy drink. This is very good kefir. It's just a little bit thinner. Because a lot of my milk product turned into this cheese. I'll put this in another jar. And I'll use this cheese on my salads and whatnot. So it's going to show you here how to make kefir basically went over the whole process. Unfortunately, this kefir was not exact didn't turn out exactly the way that I had planned. And so what I ended up with is cheese, cheese and kefir. But I'll make another video next batch I'll make I'll stop a little bit sooner. This has been sitting here for several days. And actually, we've been having some real cool temperatures. It's been taken several days to make kefir. And what happened over the last week is we have some increase in temperatures has been a lot warmer. And so my kefir made a lot quicker. And my key was when I started seeing that separating like that, that at that point, I should have stopped it, shaken it up and strained it out to get my granules. When you get your granules out, you just put them in a jar of milk, put them in the refrigerator or freezer, and you're ready to go for the next time. In the meantime, enjoy drinking your kefir. Okay, in my promise to show you how to make kefir. After all, this is not a video about making goat cheese. I fished out some of the granules in that cheese. And I used them with some fresh raw goats milk to make kefir. It's been sitting on my countertop for a couple of days. As you can see, there's the separation of the whey and the other dairy products in here, which is usual when you're making kefir. So what I'll do first of all, shake that up. Okay, here I have this time a one liter or one quart measuring cup, my usual strainer that I use to remove kefir granules, because this is a smaller container. I'll shake this up to make this liquefied as much as possible. Ooh, a little pressure. Then I'll pour this into the strainer. This is what you typically come up with. I'll shake the kefir through. And what I have left is the granules. Let me get a close up of that. These are the granules. They're different from the other material that strain through. All right. In that they're kind of a jelly type mass. So I'll save these. And this is my starter to use next time. And here I have my finished kefir the way it should be. And it is some kind of good. This is perfect kefir the way that I like it. Now so don't confuse my kefir with milk. I typically will write a K on the lead for kefir M for milk. Here's the milk where I store my granules. So what I'll do is I'll just add my granules this milk, put this in the refrigerator or freezer. If you freeze it, you don't want to fill this too full because milk like water expands when it's frozen. So if you feel it's about half full, it'll freeze without busting the jar or you can use a regular freezing jar, which is like tapered rather than have a shoulder. It is tapered. Anyway, so to make kefir next time, all I have to do is just get me some more milk, add the granules to the milk, let it sit on the countertop, and it becomes kefir. So easy to make much easier than yogurt or anything else that I've made. This is survival back reminding you be prepared or be prepared to be pleased.