Our worldviews are shaped by education, parental influence, religious institutions, geographical location and political environment, and can be extremely difficult to alter or to even fully recognize. It’s no coincidence that people born in India tend towards Hinduism, Republican voters generally come from conservative households, and most football-watching Pittsburghers are Steelers fans.
Having a fully open mind entails starting with a blank slate, and taking the time to examine and consider your long-held beliefs and why you believe them.
Challenge yourself by questioning your paradigms. Rather than dismissing a foreign idea off-hand, open your mind to the possibility that what you’ve heard for most of your life may indeed be wrong. After all, we all want the world to be a better place, so we owe it to ourselves to make sure what we believe is the truth.
Government is violence.
Government, or the idea that one individual or group has the right and authority to rule over others, relies on forced compliance. The opposite of government is voluntary interaction, in which everyone freely enters agreements, and the threat of violence is never necessary.
Monopolies exist because of government.
Contrary to what we’re taught in school, natural monopolies do not exist.
Minimum wage laws hurt the poor.
Minimum wage laws make it illegal to hire people whose skills are worth less than a set amount. This means unskilled laborers have no access to valuable work experience and are robbed of the opportunity to prove their worth and work their way up.
Democracy is inherently immoral.
Democracy is based on “majority rule”, meaning the will of the majority is forced on the minority. Human rights can not just be taken from any individual, even if everyone else agrees to take them.
Socialism will always fail.