According to Molyneux, his opening keynote speech at the Students for Liberty conference at Drexel University was a great success:

Molyneux wrote:

I spoke for just over an hour this morning, and had a lot of fun, very positive feedback, and a few more speaking requests, so all went very well

but one member of his audience immediately joined FDR in order to post a very different view:

Quote:

Mr. Molyneux’s speech was eloquent and captivating, but I left the auditorium unconvinced and sorely disappointed. I did not find his presentation to be a sufficiently rigorous analysis of the state. According to his logic, one example of the government failing is enough to delegitimize the entire system. Though I agree that the US government is flawed with inefficiencies and corruption, which ought to be fixed in the name of liberty, I do not believe that they merit the complete dismantling of government and the introduction of anarchy.

thread here: In response to the opening speech given by Stefan Molyneux

I dunno, I think Stefan's idea of "successful" would include people coming away with questions like these. I do find it interesting though that they're not being more welcoming to this guy. You know if he had signed up to say he completely agreed with everything he'd heard, they'd be all over him. Not even the usual "check out these books/podcasts", though.

I personally think the state is illegitimate from the fundamental way it works. In the thousands of years we have had states, they have evolved to become quite good at what they do, and consequently I would agree that a small failure of the state in one situation would never be enough to convince someone who tolerates the way it works that we should dismantle it entirely.