The
Rational Argumentator
Mr. Stolyarov's Views on Assorted Political, Economic, and Social Subjects
by Mr. G. Stolyarov II
Mr. Stolyarov is a right-leaning libertarian with strong preferences for ethical individualism and technology. Short labels, however, seldom suffice at describing an individual's worldview. Hopefully, the following list of viewpoints will serve to better illuminate many of Mr. Stolyarov's positions.
Abortion: Abortion as currently practiced is the murder of an innocent human being and thus needs to be outlawed in order to protect every person’s natural right to life. However, if it may be possible in the future to technologically decouple abortion from killing the fetus, then this will be a much more stable and convenient solution to the abortion debate.
Affirmative Action: Affirmative action is just another form of racism and is antithetical to judging people for their individual actions alone. Thus, all vestiges of affirmative action need to be eradicated through legal or social means.
Conscription: Conscription is murder by lottery – the vilest infringement of individual rights a government can undertake short of arbitrarily rounding up its citizens and shooting them. The government that drafts its young men into the military is more their enemy than any other government against whom they are supposed to fight.
Death: Death is the greatest tragedy of the human condition and is the enemy toward the obliteration of which as many resources as possible need to be directed. With recent advances in biotechnology and medicine, it may be possible to eliminate the inevitability of death within our lifetimes. To assist in this effort via any means possible is one of the highest moral imperatives.
Divorce: Divorce should be an option for individuals, but it needs to be consensual for all parties involved. Currently, no-fault divorce laws allow the party filing suit to unilaterally expropriate his or her spouse – which is a clear violation of individual rights. A divorce should only be granted in the event that all parties involved in a marriage – including the children produced by it – give their informed consent or if some evidence of physical or severe emotional abuse can be shown.
Education: Private, competitive, decentralized education directed by parents is best and ensures the highest possible quality and accountability while facilitating the intellectual heterogeneity necessary for a free society. Public schools are centers for collectivist indoctrination and breed conformity, blind obedience, and the spreading of today’s popular myths and scares. The use of technology, especially the Internet, has the potential for liberating individuals from the government-dominated education system and enable more people to become self-educated and truly skilled.
Environmentalism: Many of those who call themselves environmentalists are not in fact pro-environment but anti-man and oppose environmentally sound technologies that facilitate human flourishing. As such, Mr. Stolyarov is a staunch enemy of the mainstream environmentalist movement, though not of environmentally friendly technologies and methods. Indeed, some of the most environmentally friendly technologies – such as nuclear power and the crop modification made possible in the Green Agricultural Revolution – find their greatest opponents in the environmentalist movement.
Euthanasia: The “right to die” is incompatible with the right to live, as it entails a right to have somebody kill you. Legalizing assisted suicide will inevitably lead to a slippery slope of doctors killing patients without the patients’ consent or a patient’s family members having the power of life or death over him or her.
Global Warming: If it exists, global warming is entirely natural and not anthropogenic (man-made). The earth has been warmer than it is presently during multiple eras in its past, and carbon dioxide concentrations were likewise higher. No regulations or changes in human lifestyles are required to address global warming, and any proposed regulations would impose horrendous economic burdens and dramatically lower standards of living, especially in the Western world. The campaign to convince people that global warming is man-made is fundamentally dishonest and politically contrived; it has ignored statements by thousands of qualified scientists who believe that no crisis is imminent and has maligned “global warming deniers” to the point of suggesting that they be subjected to “Nuremberg-style trials.” The global warming alarmists are today’s equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition.
Guns: The right to bear arms is essential for protecting individuals from private crime and from abuses of power by governments. Any attempts at gun control will only increase the proliferation of crime and government tyranny.
Health Care: Government meddling in the health care industry since World War II has resulted in skyrocketing prices, stifling bureaucracy, and questionable quality of care. The solution is not more of the same, and nationalizing the health care system would only make matters much, much worse. Full privatization of the health care system is necessary to gradually alleviate its high costs and facilitate stronger direct doctor-patient relationships. Abolishing Medicare, Medicaid, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other government agencies and redistributive programs would be a good first step.
Homosexuality: The battle for gay rights is over, and gay rights have won. Mr. Stolyarov is a highly socially conservative heterosexual, but believes that homosexuals are people, too, and deserve identical legal protections to heterosexuals – as well as identical legal and social expectations. Special privileges for homosexuals are undesirable, but anti-sodomy laws must be repealed and civil unions broadened to enable homosexuals to have virtually all the de facto advantages of marriage. Moreover, homosexuals need to be treated with kindness and respect in their everyday lives. While there may be physical harms associated with some homosexual behaviors, this is no reason to abuse, insult, or persecute homosexuals as people – no more than the harms of smoking are a reason to be uncivil to smokers. Social conservatives would do well to abandon their attacks on homosexuality and focus on truly harmful behaviors, such as abortion.
Housing: When the prices of most consumer goods decline, most people recognize that this is a good thing – a sign that those goods are becoming more available to consumers. Mysteriously, when the prices of houses – a vital human necessity – decline, many people react with fear and desire a correction. The recent collapse of the housing bubble was, however, a wonderful phenomenon, as it will render housing more affordable to more people. Housing prices should be further decreased by removing the artificial scarcity in the supply of houses, caused by certain government interventions – including zoning laws, environmental laws, and eminent domain powers. If all of these restrictions are repealed, then enough housing will be built to enable every person to afford a high-quality home.
Immigration: Most immigrants coming into a country seek to improve their standards of living through honest work. This applies both to legal and illegal immigrants. Current immigration laws are so complicated and require horrendously long waiting periods of over a decade for a legal immigrant to become a naturalized citizen. Given this state of affairs, it is no wonder that so many otherwise decent and law-abiding people choose the illegal immigration route. To reduce illegal immigration, it is necessary to make legal immigration much easier, more straightforward, and less time-consuming. Removing illegal immigrants’ ability to be covered by social programs such as welfare, Medicare, and public education might also help to deter those immigrants who come into the country to live off of taxpayers.
Inflation: Inflation is worse than taxation. It takes not just a predetermined share of one’s income or consumption, but rather continually diminishes the value of the same holdings of money. Inflation forces most people to choose between either losing the value of their cash holdings or losing their money through risky speculation. It is nothing nobler than a stealth scheme to redistribute wealth from the hard-working to the politically connected. The natural, free-market trend in prices is a gentle deflation that enables most individuals to become gradually wealthier simply by doing their jobs well and practicing thrift in their spending.
Marriage: The permanent, monogamous union between a man and a woman is one of the most important institutions in human history and should not be done away with – even though it should not be forced on anyone and those who do not wish to participate in it have the right to pursue alternative arrangements. Marriage is not solely about love, and the stability, division of labor, and other long-term economic advantages it brings about should not be underestimated. Moreover, by establishing fixed and permanent sexual partnerships, marriage prevents the highly destructive competition for mates that prevails in primitive and animal societies.
Minimum Wage: The minimum wage is a price floor on labor and has the corresponding consequences of generating a surplus of labor – i.e., unemployment – especially for workers on the margin. The minimum wage contributes to creating a permanently poor underclass and prevents many individuals from working to learn the skills needed for them to advance in their careers. Accordingly, the minimum wage should be outlawed.
Racism: Racism is an uncultured, irrational, visceral loathing of people who do not look like oneself. It is a relic of the most savage ages of human history and has no scientific, moral, or empirical basis to it. All individuals need to be judged by their individual choices and actions, not by the color of their skin, their place of origin, or their ancestors’ deeds. If the very concepts of race and ethnicity were to disappear from this Earth, we would all be better off for it.
Religion: Mr. Stolyarov is a lifelong atheist who has thorough philosophical disagreements with virtually all religions, but does not hate any religion or its followers – many of whom are genuinely good people. He does, however, take issue with claims that religion is required for morality or that atheists cannot be moral people – because the facts of reality speak to the contrary. Socially and politically, Mr. Stolyarov champions tolerance of all non-coercive religious beliefs and will happily defend a religious minority whose rights and freedom of expression are being violated.
Taxes: Mr. Stolyarov does not believe that either death or taxes are inevitable. Taxation is a primitive, coercive, and brutal way of collecting revenue – and it was not always present historically. During half of its history, the
Technology: Technology gives human beings the ability to control their destinies and lead better lives, fulfilling not just their material ambitions but also their intellectual and emotional ones. Most social, political, and personal problems are due to the technological deficiencies of our age and will be solved in the future with sufficiently good tools – provided that governments do not restrict or regulate away technological progress.
Trade Barriers: All trade barriers – including tariffs, quotas, anti-dumping laws, and restrictions on the mobility of labor and capital – are impediments to free competition and individual choice. They favor the less efficient producers over the more efficient ones and create conditions for coercive monopolies and cartels to bully and dominate consumers. Accordingly, all trade barriers must be repealed.
War: War is one of the most destructive human endeavors, as it often results in indiscriminate killing and massive property damage – even when the original cause for which the war is fought was just. Mr. Stolyarov used to think that war has a place in human affairs, but only as a last resort after all other options have been expended. However, he has even rejected the legitimacy of war in these circumstances. (See his videos here and here about why he changed his mind.) The best justification for fighting a war is defense of one’s home, family, and property – but there are far better ways to retaliate against aggression of this sort, without the wanton destruction and suffering of innocents that war involves. In foreign policy, Mr. Stolyarov certainly considers non-interventionism preferable to hyper-interventionism. Furthermore, there are superior ways of eliminating hostile and tyrannical governments – such as assassinations, instigated coups, information wars, and letters of marque and reprisal. Total war as practiced in the 20th century is an abomination and kills many innocents who have harmed neither side. Every effort must be made to ensure that civilian casualties and property damage are avoided in wars and that wars only harm the governments engaged in them and the soldiers who actually fight them.
Women’s Rights: Women are people, too, and are entitled to the full control of their destinies as much as males. They should without question have the power to own property, vote, pursue careers of their choice, and seek fulfillment in their lives. They should not, however, receive special governmental privileges or affirmative action simply on account of their gender. Each woman is an individual and should be judged as an individual when she applies for a job or a place at an educational institution. Moreover, the presence of women’s rights and legal equality should not be taken as an imperative for women to reject their femininity or to pretend that no fundamental biological or emotional differences between males and females exist. These differences, rather, ought to be celebrated and the most should be made of the strengths of each gender. For women to try to act like males is not a manifestation of women’s liberation; rather, it is a manifestation of an undeserved inferiority complex.
G. Stolyarov II is an actuary, science fiction novelist, independent philosophical essayist, poet, amateur mathematician, composer, contributor to Enter Stage Right, Le Quebecois Libre, Rebirth of Reason, and the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Senior Writer for The Liberal Institute, and Editor-in-Chief of The Rational Argumentator, a magazine championing the principles of reason, rights, and progress. Mr. Stolyarov also publishes his articles on Associated Content to assist the spread of rational ideas. He holds the highest Clout Level (10) possible on Associated Content and is one of Associated Content's Page View Millionaires. Mr. Stolyarov also holds the designations of Associate in Reinsurance (ARe) and Associate in Insurance Services (AIS). Mr. Stolyarov has written a science fiction novel, Eden against the Colossus, a non-fiction treatise, A Rational Cosmology, and a play, Implied Consent. You can watch his YouTube Videos. Mr. Stolyarov can be contacted at gennadystolyarovii@yahoo.com.
This TRA feature has been edited in accordance with TRA's Statement of Policy.Learn about Mr. Stolyarov's novel, Eden against the Colossus, here.
Read Mr. Stolyarov's comprehensive treatise, A Rational Cosmology, explicating such terms as the universe, matter, space, time, sound, light, life, consciousness, and volition, here.