Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to "This is Health, Wealth, and the Pursuit of Happiness" your source for insightful discussions with economist and author, Dr. Murray Sabrin. Join us as we challenge convention, expand minds, and pursue truth.
Murray Sabrin (00:02.292)
Welcome to Wealth, Health, and the Pursuit of Happiness. I'm Murray Sabrin, B A A, Ph D. There's No BS in My Background, Never Has Been and Never Will Be. On this podcast, we explore the ideas, people, and principles that shape healthier lives, greater prosperity, and human flourishing. In each episode, we'll challenge conventional wisdom on healthcare, economics, politics, and personal freedom so you can think independently, make better decisions.
And pursue your happiness. Thanks for joining us today. Today is Tuesday, August 11th, 2026. And what better guest to discuss the pursuit of happiness than today's guest, Mark J. Victor? Mark is the founder and owner of the Attorneys for Freedom Law Firm, which was established as a pro-Freedom Law Firm in 1997. He's a certified criminal specialist by the Arizona Board of Legal Specialization and is admitted to the bar in Arizona and Hawaii.
Mark has it such an extensive essay. I'm just going to highlight a few of the things because if we were to go through his whole bio, we'd be here for the next 30 to 45 minutes. Mark's clients have been throughout the country. He's represented clients in felony cases, including first and second degree murder, sex cases, gun related self-defense cases, major drug cases, and complex white collar cases. So we'll talk a little bit about his experience in the courtroom.
In addition, he's been a longtime freedom activist, and he's speaking to audience across Arizona, where he's lives now with and has his law firm. And he talks about these issues from a very practical point of view. And he is the author of a brand new book, Live and Let Live. And we're going to do a deep dive into the principles of that book and then apply them to how we can have a better world, how you can pursue your happiness in a world where you can exercise.
Your free voluntary choices. And so it gives me great pleasure to welcome Mark Victor to Health, Wealth and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Marc J. Victor (02:09.192)
Thanks so much for that introduction. It's such a pleasure and an honor to be on your podcast. I've been a big fan for a long time. And so it's a big deal for me to get to talk to you on your podcast. So thanks for having me.
Murray Sabrin (02:22.227)
Well, thanks, Mark, because when I heard you speak several weeks ago, I said what you're articulating is exactly what we're trying to do with this podcast is to help people have better lives. From the health perspective, we've had some great guests on on health issues. We've had some people talk about money issues, how to improve their income and wealth, reduce their taxes. And in in this case, we're gonna talk about the pursuit of happiness.
And the theme of your book. So why don't you spend a few minutes giving us some overview of why you wrote the book and what are the key themes of the book?
Marc J. Victor (02:59.128)
Yeah, thanks for that. well, I guess really for me, it all starts in law school. I was very, very lucky. I went to Southwestern University and I went there because they had a special two-year program, and it really attracted professors who were sort of out-of-the-box thinkers. And one of them was Butler Schaefer, who some people will know is a is a big longtime freedom activist, was very involved with Amurray Rothbard and Ayn Rand, and sort of had his own.
ideas about freedom, but I, you know, I walked in probably a typical conservative young law student who thought he knew everything about the world. And Butler sort of blew me away. I mean Butler presented this idea that he he he was bold enough to state he thought we could have a productive, peaceful and free and prosperous society.
without anybody forcing anybody else to do anything they didn't want to do. And that was sort of a radical idea. And so I confronted him quite a bit in his office hours after class. And I was constantly thinking up these types of questions. You know, they all started kind of the same way. Hey, if the government didn't do this or that, you know, we'd have this huge problem. And I'd lay out this big problem and he would always say something like, Yeah, market sounds like a big problem. And then he'd pause.
And I and I thought, well, that's it. And then he would give me a couple of seconds to kind of stew in my my victory of really busting his philosophy. Then he said something completely unexpected. He said, What do you think would happen next? And I just never thought about that. I mean, there was this problem, and I it never occurred to me that people in the market would start doing things to solve this problem. And so now I'm, you know, thinking on my feet, I said, Well, probably that. And he would say, What happens after that? And I would say,
Well, probably this. Then he would say, What happens next? And I would say, wow, I I get it now. Wow, that was really interesting. I never thought that far down the line. And we went through a series of these kinds of questions. I would go back home and talk to my friends and say, Yeah, this guy gave me this and it sounds like a good suit, but what about this problem? Here's one we really can't solve with just voluntary cooperation. We gotta force people to do something. And so each one of these things, I
Marc J. Victor (05:21.582)
You know, I learned he he never answered one of his things was I don't answer any questions. He was really big believer in the Socratic method. He he said, I create chaos in the mind and let you kick it around for a little while. Well, I came out of law school on fire as a pro-freedom guy. And I remember going to a libertarian party meeting and they were talking about school vouchers. And I said, School vouchers, wow, you guys are wimps. I want to, you know, we should have a complete separation.
Of school and state. I was this really radical freedom guy. And I was the guy that you would meet, and I would say lots of radical things the second I met you to get your head to explode. And that was fun for a while, but I found out it wasn't really effective, right? I mean, we weren't, even though I was a hundred percent convinced that freedom was really the answer and and could get us to prosperity and could get people who felt differently about how to live in the world.
A way for them to live together in in really our highest level of freedom, peace, and prosperity. I mean, what a nice bonus that freedom brings the highest level of prosperity. But I but I s noticed over the years we weren't we were not really making a lot of progress, right? The freedom crowd was not really advancing very well. Even freedom candidates would run as Republicans to make any kind of progress, and it started bothering me.
But why aren't we making progress? Why aren't we getting our ideas in a out in a way that they can be understood and accepted by people in the world? So I started revamping my talks on freedom and I started talking about professionalism. We just need to be more professional. Let's not start with meth should be legal and things like that. and it caught on a little bit, but not so much. And so I remember writing an article many years ago, and I was trying to explain.
You this principle that we call the non-aggression principle, which nobody in the gun community understood. I was speaking to the gun community, I was doing gun shows, and I would talk about non-aggression. And the first thing out of their mouths was, No, no, no, I believe in self-defense. And I would say, Well, that's not what I'm ta no, no, the self-defense is okay. But I noticed I'm starting with the wind. I'm I'm going against the wind. And you know, as a criminal defense lawyer, you know you want the wind in your sails, right? They teach you when you cross-examine.
Marc J. Victor (07:44.547)
Get them start answering yes. Your name is Murray Sabin Sabrin, right? Yes. And you live here, yes. And you do this, yes. And then on and on and on. And get get them get the ship moving in the right direction. And so I thought we need we really need to revamp how we explain this stuff. And it occurred to me that what was missing from the freedom crowd, we we had a lot of good things to say about sort of reformatting the law.
And this was really my backyard. I you know, again, I've been a criminal defense attorney now since 1994. And I'm a junkie. I love not just criminal law. I'll talk about any area you of law you want to talk about. I'm fascinated by the law. But what was missing from this analysis was a moral principle, right? No, who's talking about morality today? And the second you you talk about it, it's almost like you've touched the third rail. because we don't all agree on morality.
But it occurred to me that just because we don't all agree on all aspects of morality doesn't mean that there's not some basic area of morality that decent people agree on. And so this really grew into two different principles: one a legal principle and one a moral principle. And as I started explaining this in the world, when I used the phrase live and let live, people said, well, I agree with that. That makes great sense. And I thought,
There really isn't a better slogan that I could think of that more accurately explains what I'm really trying to say. I'm not trying to tell you how to live. That's your decision. but I don't want to be told how to live either. I'm happy to have a discussion about it. But at the end of the day, the buck stops with me. I get to decide how to live, and you get to decide how you live. And I wanted to opt.
Murray Sabrin (09:29.371)
Isn't that isn't that Mark, isn't that an a just an another way of saying, do unto others as you would have others do unto you, the golden rule?
Marc J. Victor (09:39.383)
It's exactly that. In fact, there are many ways of saying this across many different cultures. In fact, in my book, I lay out many different ways that we say the same thing because this is just intuitively correct across cultures. Like who am I to claim that I have some right to tell you how to live and enforce my views on you? I don't claim any such right. It makes me sick to my stomach to even think about that. And nor do I want to be told by other
competent adults who, by the way, may have very good ideas, and so I remain open-minded to everything anybody has to suggest to me, but I don't want to be told that I have to run my life in a certain way. And so the question is always, where do you draw the line here? At what point do I live my life in a way where now I'm infringing on someone else's right to live their life the way they want to live their life? And the the answer here.
Is a word we use called aggression. And I define that in a very careful way. In fact, in my book I call it a term of art. And what that means is that word means something special. And I I sort of define that. I spent a long time in my book talking about what exactly is an aggression. And a shorthanded way of saying this is all of the victim crimes in our criminal justice system. If you drew a line around all of the victim crimes, you know, all the old school stuff.
Like theft and rape and murder and assault and trespass, those kinds of things, all of that in fraud has to fit within the definition of aggression. And so I drew a careful like a lawyer would do it, I drew a careful line around the definition of aggression. And we said this is the legal principle. Nobody should be allowed to aggress against anybody else, because indeed this is the point at which you are now taking control of somebody else's life.
And very importantly, because people, you know, Mari, when I say this on an individual level, people generally agree. I mean, who thinks it's okay to punch somebody in the face? But then I sort of baby step it. I say, well, what if we formed a little group? What if me and you and somebody else we kind of got together? Do you think it would be okay for us to aggress? And I think sometimes people think to themselves, why would that be okay? I mean, just because we form this little group, and so they say, I don't I don't think so. And so what if it was a bigger group?
Marc J. Victor (12:03.458)
What if we were an organiz an official organization or maybe a corporation and they say, well, of course not. And then of course I make the ultimate leap here to the government. And you know, this is not really brilliant here. I mean, either you think governments pop out of thin air and they exist without us creating them, or you think we create the government. And if we create the government, then
We have to delegate rights to that government. And if I, as an individual, don't have the right to aggress, I can't delegate that right to the government to aggress. And so I like to say we hold everybody and every group and corporation and government to exactly the same standard, no exceptions. We're always against aggression.
Murray Sabrin (12:49.243)
Mark, this sounds very familiar to a booklet I read, and I'm sure you read it also. I read it almost fi fift more than fifty years ago, Frederick Bassiat's classic monograph, The Law, where he says government is the collective right of self-defense, not offense. And the more I hear what you're saying and gone through your some of the literature that you've written, it seems that this is an update of what
Some of the classical writers of the 19th century, 18th century, even the 20th century have have presented to us that we human beings have this moat around us called ourselves, and that no one can infringe around that moat, and that if everyone followed that, including government officials, we would have a more peaceful and more prosperous world. Is is that basically your take on this?
Marc J. Victor (13:44.313)
I mean, people don't read Bastiat today because it's, you know, his name is confusing in French Revolution. It was written a long time ago and he talks about legalized plunder, but he was right about all of that. And so he people should read Bastiat, but they're not going to. And so we need to present this in a way that they actually could hear and understand. And if there's one thing that I have a talent on.
It's trying to make it simple. Like that's what we criminal defense lawyers do. When I serve it up to the jury, I want to make it simple. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, here's what you gotta decide on right here. Here's what this case is really about. You don't need all this other stuff. Here's what it is. And so we we simplify it as much as we can. There's one legal principle. We say don't aggress. It applies to everybody, all groups, even the government, there's no exceptions.
Whoever aggresses first is in the wrong. And if you're aggressing, you're acting illegally. And if you're not aggressing, then you are acting legally. But that can't be the end of the discussion. Because part of the reason our society has gone off the rails, in my opinion, is because we're just not talking about morality. And we need to say some things. And here you gotta be very careful, Murray, because
I don't want to go too far because if we go too far, we're going to disagree on things because nobody, you know, there is not one morality that everybody agrees on. But there are some things that I would say all reasonable people agree on. And so, you know, it's funny, we started with this saying, be a good human, because that's very popular and people think about this and time seems very non-controversial. But then we said if we're going to say something to the world.
Let's try to say something big. Let's really try to inspire people to step up and really bring the best versions of them forward. So we we sort of updated that to be an excellent human. And what we mean by that is again, I don't think this is controversial, but how about you act with the highest of character in everything that you do? And you know, you bring the best version of yourself forward. And can we be civilized? Like we can.
Marc J. Victor (15:54.723)
Disagree on things, but do we have to call each other names and yell and scream and swear? And can we s can we disagree in agreeable ways? And can we work on building, dare I say, high levels of trust with other human beings? I mean, look, if you care about living a good life, this is all about relationships with other people. And those are all about building high trust relationships. So why is this controversial? So
Murray Sabrin (16:19.933)
Let me let me just interject something, Mark. Something I learned a long, long time ago. And that is if you don't lie, you can never be called a liar.
Marc J. Victor (16:29.176)
That's right. That's right. And so I endeavor and I I ran a a test on this at my law firm here many years ago. I said, you know what? I'm gonna start running the highest character place I can possibly run. And I use a phrase from the Marine Corps that I borrowed, which is being relentlessly and ferociously committed to excellence. I said, I'm gonna hire people who are about high character and I'll train them to do the job. And you know what?
This made all the difference at my law firm. I didn't sacrifice making money at all. Yeah, sometimes in the short term I might make a little less. I could have maybe fudged it a little and made more money by doing something not perfectly high character. But in the long run, I make more money by acting with high character because I build high levels of trust. And now we can trade all more more times. People refer my law firm. So
We added this moral principle, which is completely voluntary. And this is really critical for people to understand the difference between a legal rule. A legal rule is you got to follow it whether you like it or not, whether you're aware of it or not, whether you voted on it or not. That's what the law means. You are forced to follow it in a moral principle, which is totally voluntary. And so that's the important thing to understand between those two types of rules. So what we demand.
Is that people don't aggress. What we try to encourage and inspire is that people act as you know high character and excellent humans. But if you don't, if I can't convince you here, if you say, no, Mark, I I like to act with low character and I inspire low levels of trust and I'm uncivilized and you know I'm closed-minded and all these various things, fine. Just don't aggress. You're not really part of our group because we're trying to do something big in the world.
but you are entitled to act with low character so long as you don't cross that fire line of aggression, because we have absolutely no tolerance for aggression.
Murray Sabrin (18:30.461)
This is terrific. A great overview of your book. Now, is your book available already on Amazon and other locations?
Marc J. Victor (18:38.976)
Well, we're just tweaking a few things on the cover right now and putting a few final blurbs on the back, and then should be available actually any day now. I'm expecting to get word that this is available for purchase on Amazon. But I will say there are two other versions of the book as well, because look, there's an eight page read that's about a ten minute read for people who just don't like to sit down and read things. It gives them a nice little thirty thousand foot overview.
And then there's the forty-nine page version, which is about an hour of a read that gives you more than ten thousand flyby. But for the people who watch this podcast, the really bright crowd who really want to get into the weeds and say, Mark, look, this sounds great. but have you thought about how this applies to, you know, abortion or guns or immigration or what about taxes, Mark, or things like that, or animal rights, like the hard issues. I put twenty-five of those very difficult issues.
And I just simply applied those two rules as faithfully as I as faithfully as I could across those 25 issues. And that turns out to a almost a 500-page read. and maybe it's the reference book. And you know, there are some people who have already read it from cover to cover and said that, Mark, this is really comprehensive because this can't be a pie in the sky thing. We have to have answers about how this applies to the issues of the day and
How we could implement this and how we could transition from where we are now, which is, to be fair, a bit of a mess, to something more resembling a society in the world that's based on this live and let live idea. So all of those are packed into the book. And I really love that you talk about health. I talk about inner peace in the book, and I've got a lot to say about health, and we're very much aligned on this. I think the project of being an excellent human.
especially when you get up in years, try to pass a few lessons on so people can live their best lives. That includes being healthy, that includes an internal sense of inner peace, that includes making money and keeping money and just living good lives, raising kids. I did a little section about parenting in there because I don't think we can fix the world unless we help each other be better parents as well. So there's a lot packed into it, it fits very nicely.
Marc J. Victor (21:00.329)
with what you said at the very beginning of this podcast in terms of what your goals are.
Murray Sabrin (21:04.969)
Great. Let's go into a few of the hot button issues that are all over the internet, all over the news every single day, and that is the rise of socialist ideas in this country. What would you say to the people who are making big noises that we need to have bigger government for health care and other issues, like the mayor of New York City, AOC, Bernie Sanders, what would you say to them about what they want to accomplish and what the principles that you outline in your book?
Marc J. Victor (21:33.785)
Well, I would love to have that conversation first of all. So let's talk about Mayor Mam Dami. And I'm gonna assume for purposes of this hypothetical discussion with him, that this is a guy who's act acting in good faith. He thinks that he's trying to actually improve things in New York. Not that he's a bad faith guy and just wants power and things like that, which is what happens at the top of the food chain in a socialist society in any event. But so I would say, first of all, I would call him brother. I would say, hey brother.
You know, you and I have very similar goals. We would like to see a world where people are educated and people get health care, and you know, the poorest of people, the unfortunate ones, they are helped out in society and everybody gets to live their best life. And I would lay all of that out. And I would say you and I really are on the same page. The only difference between us is
I don't want to force anybody to do anything to get there. You think we have to force people to do things to get there. What if I could show you that we could accomplish those exact same goals without violating this rule on aggression? Give me a chance to try to convince you into that. Now, if I can show him that, I'm off to a great start. If he if he instead says, Look, Mark, I just love socialism. I'm a very big fan of socialism.
Then I would also be very kind here as well. And I would say, look, mayor, if you want to be a socialist, I have absolutely no problem with that whatsoever. In fact, I don't even take a position on socialism or capitalism. You have every right to live in any economic system you prefer. And so if you and people like you want to get together and pull your funds into a common bucket and pay common bills out of that bucket,
I have absolutely no reason to object to that. So, what I would call voluntary socialism, more power to your friend. But if what you want to do is drag somebody who doesn't want to be part of that system into that system and say, you have to participate in it, whether you like it or not, I would single that one thing out and say, here's the one thing that I'm against, which is aggression. And you are now aggressing.
Marc J. Victor (23:55.066)
But I would hold capitalism to exactly the same standard. I would say if you don't like capitalism and you don't want to participate in the market economy, you absolutely should remain free to not trade with anybody you want. You don't have to buy anything or sell anything. I'm also against crony capitalism because that involves aggression, right? If the government says, here's a license and only this company can operate and this company can't operate, I would say, hold on.
That's aggression, right? You're stopping people from trading when they want to trade. So I'm very fair to both sides. And you might notice this approach is very different than people might expect. You might have expected me to come out and explain that capitalism is so much better than socialism and it's what raises standards of living. But I don't need to make that argument. I only need to make the argument that aggression is wrong. So where does this leave us? It leaves us with voluntary socialism, no problem.
It leaves us with free market capitalism, no problem. And it outlaws involuntary socialism, which is exactly what we want to say, not because of economic curves or any history or any of that, just because it involves aggression. And it also outlaws all the things that they don't like about capitalism. Because I've noticed, and I would say this to my brother, the mayor at Mandami, every time you talk about capitalism.
What I hear is crony capitalism. And I'm a I join you in your dislike of that aggression filled system called crony capitalism. So I'm against that as well. And I, Murray, would be perfectly happy if people in society chose to try out socialism on their own, as long as they don't drag me into it. And in fact, look, if you can convince me that it's in my interest to join it, make I'm listening to your arguments.
But I don't want to force anybody to do anything. And so at the end of that conversation, I would say, now, Mayor, Mayor, I'm gonna pledge to never force anybody to do anything that they don't want to do. The only thing is nobody gets to aggress. Unless you think it's okay to aggress, I'm against that. Do you join me in being against that? And do you join me in not forcing anybody to do anything? And I'm very confident he's probably gonna say, No, Mark.
Marc J. Victor (26:18.731)
I want to force people to do things they don't want to do. And then, of course, from there I would say, well, why would you want to do that? And by the way, you should recognize that if you want to do that, other people want to do that too. And they've got different ideas about how we should live. So now you are in this endless fight between one group and another group. Let's call them the right and the left. And each of them is fighting to cram their way of life down the throat of the other.
And when one party gets in, they sign a bunch of executive orders and then they nullify a bunch of executive orders and they chair for a little while for four years or maybe eight years, and then the pendulum swings back and the other side gets in. Guys like you and I, Murray, have been watching this trend forever. We've seen it enough, right? One minute the Republicans are the saviors, the next minute the Democrats are the saviors. I want to get off that hamster treadmill.
Murray Sabrin (26:49.672)
Yeah.
Murray Sabrin (27:04.073)
Mm.
Marc J. Victor (27:13.325)
And I want to defend the rights of people to live in ways that I personally might find immoral or unhealthy or unwise or not in their own long term self interest. I will defend your right to live in ways that I don't think you should live, just like in the speech area, right? I'll defend your right to say things with which I completely disagree. Why wouldn't I defend your right to live in ways?
That I don't agree with. Well, I still may try to persuade you to live in other ways. But if I can't do that, if I can't defend your right to live in ways peacefully that I disagree, I can't ask you to defend my right to live in ways that you think I shouldn't live in. And that's where we're trying to bring the people on the left and the people on the right together. Now, again, maybe not the extremes who want to aggress.
But can we talk to those old school Ronald Reagan, maybe George Bush Republicans, and those old school, maybe John F. Kennedy, maybe even Bill Clinton Democrats, you know, the group that says, I really like that phrase, live and let live. I want to live my life, and I'm willing to let other people live their lives in ways I don't particularly love, so long as they don't aggress. And I think we got the vast majority of people on our side. We just need to
Get them together, unify the people on the left and the right, so we can then say, Look, we're gonna outlaw aggression, whether you like it or not. We're not even asking for your permission here. I don't feel bad telling the thief you don't get to steal, or the rapist you don't get to rape, and that they protest by saying, I did never agreed not to rape or steal. That doesn't get me anywhere. I say, Too bad. As long as I can stop you, I will.
And if we add to that, you get a fair trial and due process when you are accused of aggressing. Because we can't we can't ignore this point, right? If somebody accuses you of violating the one rule we care about, this rule that says no aggressing, you have to get a fair trial, which includes what we call due process here in the United States. And if you don't get that, then I'm out. But we champion that as well. You're right.
Marc J. Victor (29:27.935)
to not be aggressed against includes your right to a fair trial if you are accused of aggressive.
Murray Sabrin (29:34.723)
Mark, let's go into some two at least two other issues given the time that we have. What about the really big issue that is probably the most anti-non aggression act that can happen, and that is war? So how would how would your principles apply to what's going on in I Iran, Ukraine, and Gaza?
Marc J. Victor (29:59.504)
Well, I think this is very big question. So I I don't think we'll be able to cover everything I have to say on these issues. But what I would say here is we should recognize something very important. we don't have a shared set of facts today, right? Because everybody's living in this echo chamber and people are getting fed certain versions of facts. And so I think we need to acknowledge that there are good people on both sides of these questions.
And they're operating on different sets of facts. So I would say some general things about these types of issues. First off, I don't care what side of a border you are living on. If you are a non-aggressor, you have every right to not be aggressed against. And to the extent you are aggressed against by anyone, that isn't that is a wrong that I feel strongly about, regardless of whether you live on the Israel side or the Palestine side or whether you're Jewish or Muslim.
If you're peaceful, you have every right to not be aggressed against. now I think that there probably is pretty clear there was a group of bad guys on one side who came in and invaded and aggressed against a group of innocent people. I think that was pretty clearly an aggression and that was wrong, right? The people they aggressed against were at a music festival. they were not posing a substantial risk of a of an aggression or anything along those lines. So we can identify that as a wrong and
The people on that side have a right to get their hostages back and they have a right to defend themselves against future aggressions like that. But anytime, even on an individual level, when somebody has an a legal right to self-defense, you never get to use more force than is reasonably necessary to repel that threat. Now, is Israel using more force here? Maybe. To the extent that they are, they're in the wrong.
To the extent that they're not, they're perfectly fine. You have the added factor here that one side appears to be using innocent hostages to shield their operations to continue to aggress. And so if you believe, and I technically I do believe this is the case, if one side is using innocent hostages to protect their ability to aggress, then
Marc J. Victor (32:20.909)
I think the other side still has an obligation to do everything within their power to minimize the loss of innocent life. And to the extent they don't do that, they are aggressing. But if an innocent life is taken in that circumstance, I mean this would be like Murray, me taking an innocent person as a shield, pulling out my gun and start firing at you. You have a right to fire back at me, and if you can hit me without injuring the innocent person, I think you've you've done the best thing you can do.
but if it turns out you injured the innocent person in the process, that is my fault for taking the innocent hostage, not your fault for doing the best you can to defend yourself. Now, I I take no position on exactly what's happening here because I'm not on the ground and I don't know. I don't know whether Israel is using more force than is reasonably necessary. I don't know if they're using the least amount of force, I don't know if they're trying to minimize.
Civilian casualties or not. But those are that's the framework I would use to analyze the question. Both both sides have an independent right to be left alone and to live however they want. Neither side gets to aggress against the other. And to the extent, and again, this is probably a mixed bag, right? There's never a case where one side is absolutely correct and the other side is absolutely incorrect. There are probably aggressions on both sides here. And I will say this also.
I have some friends that are trying to sort out the underlying problem of who owns the property. Okay, because we can't figure out who's aggressing until we know who owns the property. This applies to all instances of aggression. And that's a really hard question here, right? Because as I listen to the debates on both sides, one side wants to go back 10,000 years and talk about what's built, you know, what ruins is at the bottom, and then sort of try to use a group.
analysis, this group owned this property and then the descendants of this group. I have a lot of trouble with that because I look if we could figure out what was absolutely just here, who's the true owner of the property, I'd be in favor of that. But I don't think we have the records or the data that we really need to figure out who's the actual true owner of that property. So I think we need to get to peace. So in this case, for me personally, I would value getting to peace
Marc J. Victor (34:45.987)
Higher than I would value getting to the absolute what's the just result. Sometimes you just have to say, look, you guys own that property, you guys own this property, we're gonna have peace. Nobody's gonna aggress against anybody. And that, of course, is a two-state solution. And it might be the best solution there. You might just have to impose, as fair as you can be, a two-state solution. And then I would be in favor.
Of a of a global force that said, you know what, we're gonna make sure both sides don't aggress against the other and somehow get peace. Now I will point out if you had a live and let live government, you wouldn't even have to worry about this because both sides could live however they wanted, and it wouldn't matter who was the governing force. The only reason we care about the governing force is because these are not live and let live governments. If it was a live and let live government, then heck.
Murray Sabrin (35:24.243)
Right, right.
Marc J. Victor (35:38.798)
Live however you like, just don't aggress against anybody, and that's truly how you get to peace. So I think what we need to do is win the hearts and minds of as many people as we can to say, you know what, it's time that we put down some of these ancient feuds and we we move towards peace. And if we're gonna get rough justice here, we're not gonna get perfect justice, and sometimes that's the best you can get. You know, we have a saying in the law that hard cases make bad law, and that's true.
Murray Sabrin (36:05.907)
Mm-hmm.
Marc J. Victor (36:07.011)
And I think this is a hard case. And I think we have to just somehow say, look, these are going to be the owners of the property going forward. We're not going to be able to sort this out perfectly. There is going to be some injustice. As Billy Joel said, we didn't start the fire. This fire was burning long before we showed up. And we need to come up with a solution, especially as the weapons get bigger and stronger, and more people are at risk of being drawn into these conflicts. We have to get to peace.
As quickly as possible.
Murray Sabrin (36:37.673)
Well speaking about peace, let's l leave with some of the with the intractable issue since last year, and that is the US assault on Iran. Was that justified under the live and let live principle?
Marc J. Victor (36:53.647)
Well, again, you're dealing with a a circumstance here where you're not you're not starting with a live and let live principle. You're starting with a military that is funded by taxation, and that's already a problem, right? So imagine we had a military that was not funded by taxation, that was sort of a voluntary military. Well, look, there are bad guys around the world that do bad things and aggress against other people. For example, my wife is from a country called Myanmar, used to be known as Burma.
And by all accounts, a bad guy rolled in there and arrested all the civilians and threw them in jail and it's now a military dictatorship. Should the United States military get involved in that? The answer is no, not unless there's an actual imminent threat coming from that government. And I don't think anybody argues that. But does that mean that I couldn't go over there if I wanted to help defend those people or send money over there to help defend those people or s or pay other people?
To go over there and defend those people. That's the way you find out whether foreign intervention makes sense. it's if people want to dip into their own wallets and pay for that themselves. A lot of people might and might not. So at the end of the day, if the justification is the government in Iran mowed down tens of thousands of peaceful protesters and we want to go defend those people and whack the aggressors.
Do that with your own money. You are free to go over there yourself. You are free to fund things. You are free to send people with guns to help defend the people being aggressed upon. So that's one justification, which I would call the defense of a third party. And that that would not justify the United States military going to Iran under these circumstances. But there's a different justification that was sort of put out there in a very muddled kind of way by the by President Trump, which was
Essentially, there is something about what's going on in Iran, i.e., they're getting very close to a nuclear weapon, and we believe that they can use that. If they're aggressors, they will use that against us. Okay, well, to the extent that this is true, and I don't get the intelligence report, so I don't know exactly what's true. But to the extent that you believe an aggressor is about to get a weapon that they intend to use against you, that's going to cause a huge amount of harm.
Marc J. Victor (39:16.931)
You are justified on that basis to go in there and defend yourself. Now, Trump did that when he bombed them, and then immediately after the bombs fell, he came on TV and said we've completely disabled their ability to build a nuclear weapon. And I thought that was the end of it. Then we heard, No, there's still a threat over there. I I don't know. If there is still a threat over there and if you believe
That these people with these weapons are aggressors and they are intending to use them against us, then it makes sense to take those weapons out of the hands of the aggressors in the same exact way that the drunk guy with a gun who's in the restaurant and he's waving it around with his finger on the trigger, we don't have to wait until that person starts accidentally and recklessly killing people. We can tackle the person and take the firearm out of their hands. But whether the facts amount to that situation.
is something I stop short of making a judgment on because I don't know what the facts are. If you gave me the facts, if we talked about this in a hypothetical situation, I could give you a very clear answer. It's always going to be the same. Whoever is aggressing is in the wrong, and you always have a right to stop a person from aggressing.
Murray Sabrin (40:31.333)
Excellent. Mark, there are so many more issues that we can cover. Unfortunately, we don't have enough time to do that. We'll have to have you back when your book is published, so we can dive into some of these other issues which are eating at the core of people's pursuit of happiness. You can see this in the poll after poll after poll. People are unhappy with the Congress, they're unhappy with the president, they're unhappy with big institutions, big tech. And so the list goes on and on. And the question is why? And I think you've
You've sort of distilled this into your book, a very long book, but you said there are two other versions, smaller versions that people can get a hand hold of. How do how can they get a hold of those smaller versions of live and let live?
Marc J. Victor (41:15.801)
Well, everything is gonna be available on our website, which is just live and let live dot org. So people should go there to stay in touch with everything. They can get everything there, they can contact me there. There's a plethora of tons of information there. But Mari, one thing I would say is, you know, people can be upset about the current state of affairs in the world, and I know a lot of people are, but you can also look at this as a great opportunity. I look at it as a great opportunity for the first time in my life.
I think people might be interested in listening to listening to a different approach. Let's try something new. What we've been doing hasn't worked, and it's only creating more of a polarized society. Live and let live is an attempt to put something new out there. So if you're tired of the same old approach to politics and you really want something new, join the live and let live movement. However, you live.
So long as you are peaceful and respect the rights of other people, the equal rights, the reciprocal, equal rights of other competent adults to choose to live their lives however they think is best, join the movement and let's do something really important in the world and try to get the ship moving and sailing back in the right direction while we're still alive and able to take action here on the planet.
Murray Sabrin (42:34.173)
Mark, thank you so much for that inspiring point of view about how we can have a better world, how a more peaceful world, eventually would mean a more prosperous world, not only for people in the United States, but for people all over the world. So again, thanks to everyone for watching and listening. Health, wealth, and pursuit of happiness. I'm Maurice Saber. Until next time, keep qu keep questioning conventional wisdom. Keep pursuing truth and keep striving for a healthier, freer, and more prosperous life.
And this Saturday I will have a special update that I will upload to my Substack, MurraySabran.substack dot com. It'll be available on YouTube also. So until next week, have a safe and prosperous week and pursue your happiness.