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American Exceptionalism? The Meaning of America | Yaron Brook Show · Yaron Brook Show

0:02
Speaker 1: The fundamental principles of freedom, rational self interest, and individual rights.
0:14
Speaker 1: This is the ran Brook Show. Oh right, everybody, welcome
0:21
Speaker 1: to Rue Book Show on this Saturday, October twenty fifth,
0:26
Speaker 1: as you guys who are on YouTube can see, I
0:30
Speaker 1: am not home. This at the beginning of empty second
0:34
Speaker 1: show for my trip. I am now in London. Is
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Speaker 1: my hotel room in London. So I'll be traveling to
0:44
Speaker 1: Israel tomorrow and hopefully the gods of Wi Fi permitting,
0:50
Speaker 1: I'll be doing a couple of shows from Israel from there.
0:54
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a couple of topics I want to
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Speaker 1: talk about today. We'll start the one I've listed, American exceptionalism,
1:03
Speaker 1: the meaning of America. But I also want to talk
1:05
Speaker 1: about a post I saw, you know, earlier today and
1:13
Speaker 1: a lot of back and forth earlier today about objectives
1:18
Speaker 1: disagreeing about Trump, and so I want to I want
1:22
Speaker 1: to make a few comments on that. Can you know,
1:25
Speaker 1: what can can one disagree about Trump? What does that
1:28
Speaker 1: mean to disagree about Trump? And so we will talk
1:34
Speaker 1: about that as well. And my guess is if I'd
1:37
Speaker 1: put that in the title, they'd be there'd be even
1:39
Speaker 1: more people here now than they were before. So maybe
1:42
Speaker 1: you can, you can let people know that that's happening.
1:49
Speaker 1: By the way, let me know if there any what
1:52
Speaker 1: do you call it, streaming issues, audio issues, video issues.
1:57
Speaker 1: As you know, it's almost impossible to tell all it's
2:01
Speaker 1: almost impossibility for me to tell how the stream is
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Speaker 1: going without input from you guys. All right, let's so
2:11
Speaker 1: let's talk about let's talk about America. And I talk
2:14
Speaker 1: about this periodically, and I do these kind of shows
2:18
Speaker 1: often because I think this is one of the most
2:20
Speaker 1: important issues of our time. And certainly it's one of
2:23
Speaker 1: the issues that the right, and particularly the JD Vance
2:26
Speaker 1: version of the right, is emphasizing and making a bigger
2:30
Speaker 1: and bigger deal out of this is also this is
2:35
Speaker 1: true of the of Mega but it's also true generally,
2:41
Speaker 1: you know, the Christian Conservatives, the National Conservatives, the Conservatives,
2:45
Speaker 1: everybody is constantly debating this question. And I think this
2:49
Speaker 1: will be a key question as the future is how
2:52
Speaker 1: do we define America? What does America mean? Is American exceptional?
2:57
Speaker 1: Because when you look at the when you look at
2:59
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, when you look at pretty
3:01
Speaker 1: much every other country in the world, most European countries,
3:05
Speaker 1: probably all European countries, look at even Asian countries. Every
3:09
Speaker 1: country is primarily defined the country. The nation is primarily
3:15
Speaker 1: defined by a particular conglomeration of tribal groups. It's defined
3:24
Speaker 1: by its history. It's defined by a shared heritage, by
3:30
Speaker 1: a shared culture. But that culture is not a intellectual culture.
3:36
Speaker 1: It's a culture of some kind of tribal identity that
3:39
Speaker 1: goes far enough back. Maybe it's even a religious identity.
3:43
Speaker 1: Certainly in the world of where your Muslim countries, Islam
3:48
Speaker 1: plays a big role in defining what the country is.
3:52
Speaker 1: I mean, historically, what is what is Britain. It's a
3:59
Speaker 1: conglomeration of tribes who haven't come to this island and
4:03
Speaker 1: who settled here and who ultimately established a particularly form
4:07
Speaker 1: of government here and had particular kings and in particular
4:11
Speaker 1: governing structures, and they established a certain a certain political
4:16
Speaker 1: entity that became, that became what we know today is
4:19
Speaker 1: as Great Britain. It. You know, some people attribute Great
4:25
Speaker 1: Britain to the Magneticarta, but the Magneicuta doesn't play the
4:28
Speaker 1: role of kind of defining what Britain is. Great Britain is.
4:31
Speaker 1: It's it's Anglo Saxons and Vikings and uh, you know,
4:36
Speaker 1: the people of Wales and the people of Scotland. It's
4:39
Speaker 1: it's the interaction between them. It's it's the shade of
4:42
Speaker 1: history that goes back a long time. It's the Kings,
4:44
Speaker 1: it's the revolutions. To be you know, to be of
4:49
Speaker 1: Great Britain is to be of that history and of
4:52
Speaker 1: that culture, and of course that is being dramatically challenged,
4:56
Speaker 1: dramatically challenged by any influx of immigration. Because if you define,
5:00
Speaker 1: if you define a nation a nation state by particularly
5:07
Speaker 1: conglomerations of political, ethnic, tribal really tribal groups, and by
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Speaker 1: a particular shared history, then they introduct what happens when
5:21
Speaker 1: new groups are introduced, and when new groups are introduced,
5:25
Speaker 1: it's going to be a challenge. But at the end
5:26
Speaker 1: of the day, and new groups are going to be introduced,
5:33
Speaker 1: but what are they What are they entering into? What
5:35
Speaker 1: kind of deal are they entering into by becoming British?
5:38
Speaker 1: Are they? You know? I think at the end of
5:42
Speaker 1: the day, what they're becoming, what they're joining, is the
5:46
Speaker 1: conglomeration of tribes, and they're joining their tribe to the
5:49
Speaker 1: other tribes. And this creates a lot of stress and
5:55
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of conflict because you know,
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Speaker 1: it's clear that other tribes want this new tribe to join.
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Speaker 1: And immigration in most countries is a very, very, very
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Speaker 1: problematic issue because the whole identity of the state, the
6:13
Speaker 1: whole identity of the country, of the nation, of what
6:17
Speaker 1: it means to be an Englishman, a Frenchman, a German,
6:21
Speaker 1: Swede is tied up in a certain look, in a
6:27
Speaker 1: certain belonging to a very specific tribe. Or again, most
6:33
Speaker 1: countries are conglomerations of tribes, several tribes coming together. In
6:37
Speaker 1: that sense, Jo Hazoni's book Nationalism is absolutely right. Most
6:41
Speaker 1: nations are conglomerations of tribes. Now America is an exception.
6:51
Speaker 1: America is not counter to the Jdvansers of the world
6:55
Speaker 1: and the national conservatives. America is not a country created
6:59
Speaker 1: by a scot ddition British tribes in seventeen seventy six
7:04
Speaker 1: and then introduced into it a variety of other tribes
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Speaker 1: from Europe. And that's what makes America America. America is
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Speaker 1: exceptional because America is founded on a basic fundamental moral idea.
7:17
Speaker 1: Iinrand was very clear on this. What makes America America
7:24
Speaker 1: is the fact that it was founded on the principle
7:27
Speaker 1: of individual rights. So in that sense, America is the
7:31
Speaker 1: only nation, really the only nation founded on an idea
7:36
Speaker 1: and an idea that, by its very essence, bye very nature,
7:41
Speaker 1: is anti tribal. Is a rejection of tribalism. It's a
7:45
Speaker 1: rejection of the tribal mentality, it's a rejection of the
7:48
Speaker 1: application of tribalism. It's the idea of individualism, of the
7:55
Speaker 1: value sanctity of the individual, not as a member of
7:59
Speaker 1: the tribe, not as a member of a nation, but
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Speaker 1: its an end in himself, and it's the pursuit of
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Speaker 1: his happiness. It's the pursuit of his happiness, which is
8:10
Speaker 1: his moral purpose, his goal in life, and the role
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Speaker 1: of government is to protect the rights that make it
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Speaker 1: possible for him to pursue that happiness. That's America, and
8:24
Speaker 1: that's unique. It's a set of ideas. Now, it's true
8:31
Speaker 1: that it's not only ideas. It's true that it's not
8:35
Speaker 1: some floating theoretical, abstract stuff that if you just you know, say, oh,
8:42
Speaker 1: I'm a believer in these ideological principles, that makes you
8:46
Speaker 1: somehow in American. No, it's the fact that this country
8:51
Speaker 1: was founded on these ideas that then.
8:53
Speaker 2: Shaped a particular culture, a particular civilization, a particular American character,
9:03
Speaker 2: you win, and in particular what.
9:05
Speaker 1: I called an American sense of life. It is this
9:08
Speaker 1: idea of individual rights of freedom that attracted a certain
9:13
Speaker 1: type of person to come to this country. And when
9:16
Speaker 1: they came here, they had very unique experiences because they
9:20
Speaker 1: came here to start a new life. The immigrants to
9:26
Speaker 1: America in the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century came
9:30
Speaker 1: to the United States of America not knowing much about it,
9:34
Speaker 1: knowing that they would be free. I had some idea
9:38
Speaker 1: what that meant, but what that really meant to them
9:42
Speaker 1: was the ability to go out and start life anew
9:46
Speaker 1: you know, as pioneers in the prairies, or or was
9:50
Speaker 1: industrialists in the city, or was just as workers wherever
9:54
Speaker 1: they could start new and that for the most part
9:59
Speaker 1: placed there's an ideal they would be treated as individuals
10:03
Speaker 1: in our members of their particular tribe that they happened
10:05
Speaker 1: to be leaving in Europe by million Europe. So American
10:14
Speaker 1: chense of life and American character were shaped by the
10:20
Speaker 1: experiences of people under freedom, by the experiences people coming
10:25
Speaker 1: to America. There was no welfare state, there was no
10:30
Speaker 1: government safety in there, there was no social security or medicare,
10:34
Speaker 1: and there were no even in the state highways. There
10:38
Speaker 1: was a vast wilderness. People went into that wilderness and
10:41
Speaker 1: built something, created something, made something of themselves and of
10:44
Speaker 1: the world around them. They shaped the world in their image.
10:51
Speaker 1: So it's that experience that Americans had. It's that don't
10:57
Speaker 1: tread on me, don't you can't stop me. I'm going
10:59
Speaker 1: to do what I want to do. That is what
11:04
Speaker 1: made America now. That is made possible because of the
11:07
Speaker 1: ideas articulated in the Declaration of Inventans and the Constitution.
11:10
Speaker 1: It is made possible because America was governed by a
11:15
Speaker 1: constitution and by a government that left people alone, that
11:21
Speaker 1: left people to be free. That you know, allowed for
11:28
Speaker 1: the for this kind of pioneering, rugged individualism to develop
11:35
Speaker 1: and to blossom and to succeed and and to really
11:40
Speaker 1: materialize in the souls of man as the American sense
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Speaker 1: of life, the optimism, the pro growth, the pro progress,
11:49
Speaker 1: the pro technology, the pro human being, the pro individual
11:55
Speaker 1: sense of life. I am capable, I am I can't
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Speaker 1: contry all my life and I can I can shape
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Speaker 1: the world around me. I belong on this earth. That
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Speaker 1: kind of sense of life is an American sense of life.
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Speaker 1: So it is true. It is true that it's more
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Speaker 1: than idea. It's the it's the kind of character, kind
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Speaker 1: of sense of life, kind of life that this idea,
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Speaker 1: the founding ideas made possible created, and that is American,
12:35
Speaker 1: and those are Americans. America is not a particular ethnic
12:42
Speaker 1: group that more and more on the right would like
12:46
Speaker 1: us to believe it is. America is not just the
12:53
Speaker 1: descendants of people who are willing to sacrifice for the
12:56
Speaker 1: particular soil in which they lived. America is not a
13:01
Speaker 1: blood and soil country. It might become one. I fear
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Speaker 1: it is becoming one, but it is not. America's also
13:11
Speaker 1: not Europe, which is what the left holds a country
13:18
Speaker 1: that believes in nothing, that stands for nothing, and that
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Speaker 1: is that is primarily focused on welfare, and it should
13:28
Speaker 1: feel guilty about all its past sins. America is not
13:32
Speaker 1: just another European welfare state. America is not a European
13:37
Speaker 1: conglomeration of tribes. And then you have to figure out
13:41
Speaker 1: kind of the relationship between those tribes. As the identity
13:45
Speaker 1: politics of the day has us to America is now
13:50
Speaker 1: what all life conceives of it. And it's not that
13:54
Speaker 1: we can just encourage any other tribe to join us,
13:56
Speaker 1: because America means nothing. So anybody can just come to
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Speaker 1: this country become automatically an American and that's it. And
14:03
Speaker 1: at the same time, America is not about the color
14:08
Speaker 1: of your skin, So you can have a different color
14:11
Speaker 1: of skin and still become an American because it is
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Speaker 1: about It is about your ideas, and it's about your character.
14:20
Speaker 1: It's about the kind of human being you are. It's
14:23
Speaker 1: about the sense of life that you have. And the
14:26
Speaker 1: sad thing is that if that is what America is,
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Speaker 1: America is fundamentally about the ideas of individual rights and liberty,
14:34
Speaker 1: and the ideas of life, liberty, and property and the
14:38
Speaker 1: pursuit of happiness. If America is shaped by its constitution
14:43
Speaker 1: and a belief in limited government, and if America is
14:47
Speaker 1: about the character of the entrepreneur, the pioneer, the risk taker,
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Speaker 1: the individualist out there going out there in the world
15:02
Speaker 1: to pursue their happiness. If that's what America is, then
15:05
Speaker 1: most Americans are not Americans. Most Americans have long ago
15:10
Speaker 1: betrayed their own country. Most Americans are committed treason, if
15:14
Speaker 1: you will, against their own country. They've abandoned or have
15:18
Speaker 1: no knowledge of or or or don't have a clue
15:20
Speaker 1: about the ideas that made this country. And they've long
15:26
Speaker 1: ago given up on the kind of don't tread on me,
15:29
Speaker 1: self reliance, personal responsibility, pursuit of happiness vision of America.
15:38
Speaker 1: I mean, what is it, fifty two percent or or
15:41
Speaker 1: something like fifty fifty percent of Americans get more money
15:44
Speaker 1: from the government than they pay in taxes, So fifty
15:48
Speaker 1: two fifty plus percent of Americans are net recipients or
15:52
Speaker 1: government handouts. You know, welfare has completely corrupted what it
16:00
Speaker 1: means to be America, who is an American and the
16:03
Speaker 1: ability of Americans to be American, because it dilutes it.
16:08
Speaker 1: It makes by by by the government giving you handouts.
16:15
Speaker 1: It basically penalizes there's a sense in which it penalizes maturely,
16:19
Speaker 1: those people who insist them being self reliant. You know
16:22
Speaker 1: that when when the welfare state was established during FDR
16:28
Speaker 1: is the period with if you always President, people were
16:33
Speaker 1: embarrassed by it. People embarrassed by taking handouts. They were
16:38
Speaker 1: embarrassed about getting so security. They were embarrassed by the
16:40
Speaker 1: welfare state. Within a couple of generations, that embarrassment went away,
16:45
Speaker 1: and people now fight over the crumbs. That's an American.
16:51
Speaker 1: The shame in getting, the shame in getting, you know,
16:54
Speaker 1: the welfare that is American. The you know, feeling a
17:03
Speaker 1: loss when you lose yourself reliance, that is American. Becoming
17:10
Speaker 1: dependent on government handouts. As American farmers are as more
17:15
Speaker 1: and more American industries are becoming that's un American. Until
17:20
Speaker 1: I extent America is becoming an un American country. And
17:25
Speaker 1: maybe then you know, there is a new definition of America.
17:29
Speaker 1: But I think the new definition of America is gonna
17:31
Speaker 1: disintegrate us. It's gonna splinter us. It's al really is
17:34
Speaker 1: into tribes because there is nothing to unify us. There's
17:39
Speaker 1: nothing to unify us. I mean, like it or not,
17:43
Speaker 1: and I know a lot of people out they don't
17:44
Speaker 1: like it. America is a land of immigrants, and immigrants
17:51
Speaker 1: who didn't come here as members of tribes, Immigrants who
17:54
Speaker 1: came here as individuals pursuing the happiness. And many Americans,
18:01
Speaker 1: you know, indeed, you know, being here many generations, those
18:07
Speaker 1: Americans are more American because they been here many generations
18:11
Speaker 1: than the new immigrants. What if the Americans who being
18:15
Speaker 1: here many generations a warfare recipients are farmers who get
18:19
Speaker 1: farm aid who can't survive without the government help. A
18:23
Speaker 1: businessman that encourage government regulation, the cronies who suckle at
18:29
Speaker 1: the tests of the state. Are they more Americans than
18:34
Speaker 1: the immigrants. I mean, if America is just a standard,
18:39
Speaker 1: ordinary state, as Tachia Coulson said years ago, America is
18:43
Speaker 1: just beautiful scenery and a belief in God, then there's
18:47
Speaker 1: nothing to hold this country together. There is no America then,
18:53
Speaker 1: because of the way America evolved. America evolved through the
19:00
Speaker 1: gration of individuals who resisted tribalism, who in many cases
19:04
Speaker 1: we're escaping tribalism. America's a land with many, many, many
19:09
Speaker 1: different people from different origins, different backgrounds, different histories. And
19:17
Speaker 1: you know, at least until recently, recently, the last few decades,
19:22
Speaker 1: all these people be unified by the principle of my
19:28
Speaker 1: life is mine, I'll take care of it, leave me
19:32
Speaker 1: alone and let me do my stuff. And as that erodes,
19:39
Speaker 1: as that disappears, and as people define themselves based on
19:42
Speaker 1: how many generations removed, are they from somebody who died
19:45
Speaker 1: in the Civil War fighting or in the War of independence?
19:48
Speaker 1: Fighting in this country will fall apart because nothing actually
19:53
Speaker 1: unifies it. So this is a country of ideas. The
20:00
Speaker 1: country have ideas and the kind of men who came
20:03
Speaker 1: here because of those ideas, and the things that they
20:06
Speaker 1: did as a consequence of those ideas, and the character
20:09
Speaker 1: they developed doing those things. It is a land of
20:13
Speaker 1: self reliant. It is a land of personal responsibility. It
20:17
Speaker 1: is in the deeper sense of taking responsibility for your
20:20
Speaker 1: own life, for living your life. It is a land
20:24
Speaker 1: of the pursuit of happiness. It is a land of
20:27
Speaker 1: individual rights. And as we drift away from those things,
20:35
Speaker 1: we become just any other country and become a democracy
20:37
Speaker 1: and we just vote whatever the majority wants. Then we
20:42
Speaker 1: lose what makes American exceptional. We lose what makes America America.
20:48
Speaker 1: We lose the defining characteristic of this particular nation. And
20:53
Speaker 1: then it's not there's nothing else to unify us. There
20:58
Speaker 1: really isn't. There's no bloodline, there are no big tribes.
21:05
Speaker 1: Then there's there's there's religion, and there's a fake kind
21:10
Speaker 1: of nationalism around the flag that now represents nothing. And
21:17
Speaker 1: I think part of that is that people realize this,
21:20
Speaker 1: and part of the hostility to immigrants is the realization
21:23
Speaker 1: that if we if we allow I don't know, a
21:26
Speaker 1: million Latin Americans into the country every year, if they
21:31
Speaker 1: can come being in through the southern border, then and
21:35
Speaker 1: and and Americas no longer a land of ideas and
21:37
Speaker 1: no longer a land of a particular kind of character
21:39
Speaker 1: and a particular kind of work ethic, and a particular
21:41
Speaker 1: kind of approach to life and to work and to
21:45
Speaker 1: the pursuit of happiness. Then they're a threat because they're
21:53
Speaker 1: introducing this new tribe into the American mix, and you know,
22:00
Speaker 1: it's this replacement theory, right, replacement theory. They're going to
22:03
Speaker 1: place the other tribe, the tribe of whites, even though
22:06
Speaker 1: that's kind of a tribe that seems to be in
22:10
Speaker 1: conflict with itself constantly. The tribe of whites is going
22:14
Speaker 1: to be, you know, shrink, and the tribe of bound
22:16
Speaker 1: people is going to increase. And since we're defining our
22:19
Speaker 1: country based on tribal identity, that's a threat, that's a
22:25
Speaker 1: real threat. On another hand, if you define the country
22:34
Speaker 1: based on character, pasive happiness, ideas individual rights, self again, responsibility,
22:45
Speaker 1: self reliance, and anybody who's willing to live under those ideas,
22:51
Speaker 1: and anybody who's willing to live that kind of life
22:54
Speaker 1: and anybody who's willing to take on that kind of
22:56
Speaker 1: responsibility is an American is welcome. And indeed, one of
23:03
Speaker 1: the ways in which we screened for that right people
23:06
Speaker 1: are wired about screening is reality. Many many people who
23:11
Speaker 1: immigrated to the United States in the nineteenth century went
23:14
Speaker 1: back to Europe because they couldn't hack it, they couldn't
23:17
Speaker 1: make it, They didn't want what America offered. They didn't
23:22
Speaker 1: really want the kind of freedom that existed here. They
23:26
Speaker 1: didn't want to be detached from a tribe, they didn't
23:31
Speaker 1: want the challenges that America represented for them. So there
23:38
Speaker 1: was a self selecting process that happened among immigrants to America.
23:44
Speaker 1: The ones who liked it, the ones who embraced it,
23:46
Speaker 1: the ones who liked the ideas, embraced the ideas. They
23:49
Speaker 1: thrived and they survived and they created this country. And
23:53
Speaker 1: the ones that didn't went away, they went back home.
23:57
Speaker 1: And I think that happens with every generation, every generation
24:03
Speaker 1: of immigrants. So as we descend into tribalism, as we
24:14
Speaker 1: lose respect for the Constitution, as we lose any kind
24:19
Speaker 1: of sense of individual rights and what they mean, and
24:21
Speaker 1: the world of government and what it means. As we
24:26
Speaker 1: become a bigger and bigger welfare state, and more and
24:28
Speaker 1: more of our citizens rely on the state for their
24:32
Speaker 1: existence and for their sustenance. In America stops slowly being
24:39
Speaker 1: a land of ideas, being a land of character, being
24:45
Speaker 1: an exceptional place. It becomes like every other place, and
24:50
Speaker 1: it adopts and it embraces the the the the challenges
24:54
Speaker 1: and problems of every other place. And then you know,
24:58
Speaker 1: we're seeing that and the embrace in a America. As
25:03
Speaker 1: the welfare state is created, as the regulatory state is created,
25:05
Speaker 1: as government grows, is coming intervenes more is the ideas
25:09
Speaker 1: of government intervention intervene is the idea of individualism descends.
25:14
Speaker 1: Starting in the early part of the twentieth century, what
25:16
Speaker 1: we see is a greater and greater hostility towards immigrants, because, again,
25:22
Speaker 1: in a tribal battle for what is America, I want
25:25
Speaker 1: to preserve America of a Mi tribe, not bring in
25:27
Speaker 1: new tribes that they don't look like me. So it's
25:43
Speaker 1: true that America is not just an idea. It's also
25:46
Speaker 1: a culture that came out of that idea. It's a
25:49
Speaker 1: character that came out of the idea. It's a sense
25:52
Speaker 1: of life that came out of idea. And the fundamental
25:55
Speaker 1: idea and the things that integrates everything that is America
25:59
Speaker 1: is individualism, the sanctity value of the individual, and the
26:03
Speaker 1: individual's responsibility of his own life and his own happiness.
26:07
Speaker 1: And as we lose that and have been losing that,
26:09
Speaker 1: we lose America. We lose America. And the jdvancers, the jdvancers,
26:16
Speaker 1: the National Conservatives, the Christian Conservatives, that I'm not even
26:19
Speaker 1: talking about the MAGA because they just it's just dumb.
26:24
Speaker 1: But you know, the people who have an ideology, they
26:28
Speaker 1: have already given up in America. They've already accepted America
26:32
Speaker 1: as just one of the many nations out there. And
26:37
Speaker 1: what they want to do is they want to preserve
26:40
Speaker 1: the tribal identity of this America and they want to
26:45
Speaker 1: be able to control it and manipulate it according to
26:50
Speaker 1: what they believe is good for the tribe. Like all collectivists,
26:55
Speaker 1: as America descends into collectivism, the kind of nationalists of
27:01
Speaker 1: the right and the socialists of the left gain more
27:06
Speaker 1: and more power. Because everything becomes tribal, everything becomes collectivist.
27:10
Speaker 1: The individual is the loser. So define America as the individual.
27:15
Speaker 1: And what defines America's descent is in a sense, the
27:21
Speaker 1: disappearance of the individual and the rise of the clan
27:24
Speaker 1: and the tribe and the collective of whatever sort you want,
27:31
Speaker 1: and what you dessent to is tribal wolfing. All right, So, yes,
27:37
Speaker 1: America is individualism. I've said that before. We'll say it again.
27:41
Speaker 1: That is America, at least in its founding principle. That
27:44
Speaker 1: is America as an ideal. That is America for which
27:47
Speaker 1: we fight. Maybe that's not America anymore in reality out there,
27:51
Speaker 1: or maybe it is, but that is in descent, that
27:54
Speaker 1: is disappearing. That is the America of the past, and
28:00
Speaker 1: America the Jdave Answers of the world want to kill,
28:03
Speaker 1: want to destroy, and the left never recognize its existence
28:08
Speaker 1: and has been destroying it for years and years. But
28:11
Speaker 1: the left has no real alternative to it other than chaos,
28:15
Speaker 1: mayhem in destruction. All right. That is my my spiel
28:23
Speaker 1: for today on Americanism. And I did say there would
28:30
Speaker 1: be a second topic today, and I see there is
28:32
Speaker 1: a question around it, So I'm gonna use the opportunity
28:37
Speaker 1: just to shift to the question and use that question
28:39
Speaker 1: to kind of broaden it to the brought in my
28:47
Speaker 1: answer to or cover the question and broaden it to
28:51
Speaker 1: the biggest topic that I wanted to talk about, and
28:55
Speaker 1: that is, you know, in every gathering now of objectivists,
29:00
Speaker 1: it seems that there is significant of people an objectivist here.
29:03
Speaker 1: Let me just say, let's just call objectivists people in
29:07
Speaker 1: my eye, Man's philosophy and who claim to agree with it,
29:10
Speaker 1: who claim to live by it, who claim to you know,
29:13
Speaker 1: understand it and to live by it. That is, let's
29:18
Speaker 1: let's define an objectivist that way. Well, but any gathering objectivists,
29:23
Speaker 1: you're going to find people who disagree and suddenly violently
29:28
Speaker 1: disagree about Trump and and what he represents and whether
29:34
Speaker 1: he's good, whether he's bad, whether he's the less of evils,
29:38
Speaker 1: or you know, how to think about Trump has become
29:43
Speaker 1: among some people a real litmus test for are you
29:47
Speaker 1: an objectivist or you're not objectivist? Are you know? Are
29:50
Speaker 1: you the good guys? Are you bad guys? And and
29:52
Speaker 1: everybody's being judged by this, So let me let me
29:56
Speaker 1: take this question by not your average algorithm and maybe
29:59
Speaker 1: talk a a little bit about it, because they've been in
30:01
Speaker 1: number of posts about this out there and not to
30:05
Speaker 1: have a jog with the rights. Andrew Bernstein just posted
30:08
Speaker 1: a long piece on how Trump is a hero the
30:10
Speaker 1: greatest president of our lifetime, and Lena Peacock feels the
30:13
Speaker 1: same way. You can't be an objectives intellectual and write
30:17
Speaker 1: a post like that, so so let me just uh,
30:26
Speaker 1: let me just say, I mean, does that make Lena
30:28
Speaker 1: peako non objectives intellectual? I mean, is he at ninety two?
30:35
Speaker 1: Is that what he is? But it's I don't I
30:39
Speaker 1: don't think we should think about these things as he's
30:45
Speaker 1: an objective because he holds this position, he's not an
30:48
Speaker 1: objectivist and and and dissect every issue based on you know,
30:55
Speaker 1: what makes him an objectist? What doesn't make him an objectist?
30:58
Speaker 1: I mean the standard is not objectivist. I mean, I
31:02
Speaker 1: mean objectivism as a philosophy is what Einman wrote in
31:07
Speaker 1: opahs in some of lant peakup stuff, and that's it.
31:10
Speaker 1: That's objectivism. There's nothing an objectivism about cow philosophy about
31:21
Speaker 1: how to value or evaluate presidents. So I consider what,
31:28
Speaker 1: you know, a long piece that shows that Trump is
31:31
Speaker 1: a hero to be sloppy and wrong and bad. Objectives
31:36
Speaker 1: are not objectives. It is just bad and untrue. Trump
31:41
Speaker 1: is no hero. He is a villain. He has a
31:44
Speaker 1: villain in every play. I can imagine every point. I mean,
31:49
Speaker 1: I saw Andy's part of Andy's thing, and you know,
31:53
Speaker 1: point number two is something like tariff revenue is up.
31:57
Speaker 1: And I just wonder, since when any of us, any
32:01
Speaker 1: of us that claim adherents to the objectivism, or to
32:05
Speaker 1: the philosophy, or just believe in free markets, think that
32:09
Speaker 1: growing government revenue by raising Texas is a good thing.
32:14
Speaker 1: And you could go on and on and in terms
32:16
Speaker 1: of all the different things that identified as making Trump
32:20
Speaker 1: a good guy, and asking just truth is is this true?
32:26
Speaker 1: Is does this make him a good guy? And the
32:30
Speaker 1: question is the question of truth or false, right or wrong.
32:37
Speaker 1: It's not a question of objectives an object If somebody
32:39
Speaker 1: non objectives wrote a long piece on how Trump is
32:42
Speaker 1: a hero, I'd say this is bullshit. And I think
32:44
Speaker 1: I think I can say to Andrew Bernstein it's bullshit.
32:48
Speaker 1: I don't care objectives not objectives. I don't care what
32:51
Speaker 1: philosophy you claim to adhere to. It's an awful piece.
32:57
Speaker 1: It's untrue, it does not reflect the reality. It is deceptive,
33:06
Speaker 1: it's unintegrated. So, you know, I don't know why people
33:15
Speaker 1: are so enthralled with Trump. And look, I know a
33:18
Speaker 1: lot of people who voted for Trump, and and I
33:23
Speaker 1: understand white people vote for Trump, and I understand why they,
33:33
Speaker 1: you know, why they try to continue to defend Trump.
33:37
Speaker 1: The reality is that the left is horrible. So, for example,
33:41
Speaker 1: if you're a businessman and you've lived under Obama's regulations
33:47
Speaker 1: and controls and hatred a businessmen and you didn't build that,
33:51
Speaker 1: and and and just the awful attitude towards business, and
33:56
Speaker 1: you lived under Biden's everything, Obama and more, you know,
34:03
Speaker 1: and Trump comes around and and he's not attacking businessman. Yeah,
34:08
Speaker 1: he's getting them to suck up to him, and he's
34:11
Speaker 1: he's getting them to bribe him, and he's creating this
34:14
Speaker 1: crony crony oligarchy. But he's not attacking businessman. Y y
34:22
Speaker 1: you know, y, yeah, jd Vance attacks big farm and
34:25
Speaker 1: big tech. But now you know, but it's just the
34:28
Speaker 1: big guys and and they're leaving most businessmen alone, and
34:32
Speaker 1: whether there's deregulation going on in the background or not.
34:35
Speaker 1: There is some quite a bit because the people at
34:39
Speaker 1: the head of the deregulatory agencies, deregulatory agencies are primarily
34:42
Speaker 1: on a on a path of deregulations, just like in
34:45
Speaker 1: the first Trump administration, but I think most so this time.
34:52
Speaker 1: So if you're in the business, how h how can
34:56
Speaker 1: you not in a sense prefer Trump to the others.
35:01
Speaker 1: There's also another aspect of Trump that is appealing. Presidents
35:09
Speaker 1: have always been I mean president since Reagan certainly, and
35:13
Speaker 1: before we get meek and and and cowardly and and
35:19
Speaker 1: you know, they lied, and they try to cover them
35:22
Speaker 1: up their lies and everything, and and and you knew
35:26
Speaker 1: everybody knew they were lying, and but they they there
35:33
Speaker 1: were things that you knew that that you know, they
35:37
Speaker 1: were all politically correct. And here comes Trump and he's
35:40
Speaker 1: not politically correct. He just says stuff, And you know,
35:45
Speaker 1: there's a certain appeal to the idea they're bad guys
35:50
Speaker 1: trying to smuggle drugs into America and we're just gonna
35:53
Speaker 1: blow them up. Yeah, I mean, it's it's like action.
35:57
Speaker 1: We're doing stuff, manly stuff right now. Again, I don't
36:04
Speaker 1: understand how you can claim to hold a particular you know,
36:11
Speaker 1: the views of consistent with iron Rand and then say
36:14
Speaker 1: it's okay to blow boats out into the water because
36:18
Speaker 1: you suspect that they're drug dealers? Is drug dealing a
36:22
Speaker 1: a a criminal offense worthy of the drug of the
36:28
Speaker 1: death penalty? Do we believe that the death penalty should
36:31
Speaker 1: only be handed out to people who are who be
36:35
Speaker 1: tried and found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Why aren't
36:41
Speaker 1: these questions being asked? So I get the Trump is
36:47
Speaker 1: out there, you know, he he he, he fights back,
36:53
Speaker 1: he fights the left, He he goes after the press.
36:57
Speaker 1: He says stuff that's completely politically and co rack that
37:00
Speaker 1: a lot of people wish other presidents it's said, uh
37:05
Speaker 1: he he uh. He attacks people who deserves deserve attacking.
37:11
Speaker 1: And and he's just any. He generally does not go
37:18
Speaker 1: out there and lambast business. He uses me. I mean,
37:22
Speaker 1: he does other really really bad things. But so I
37:26
Speaker 1: get it. I get it, particularly if you're a businessman.
37:30
Speaker 1: And uh and and uh you know most of you
37:34
Speaker 1: you're spending your life in business. You're building, you're creating stuff,
37:40
Speaker 1: you're making stuff. Yeah, you see the bad stuff like
37:43
Speaker 1: the tariffs and the and the coneyism and other stuff.
37:46
Speaker 1: But you know, you're busy building and making stuff, and
37:50
Speaker 1: and and and here's Trump was at least not attacking
37:53
Speaker 1: you and at least not regulating you like the others do,
37:55
Speaker 1: and and and and seems to be interested. At least
37:59
Speaker 1: Trump says that he wants economic growth. He's not one
38:02
Speaker 1: of these democratic de growths who don't believe in economic growth.
38:05
Speaker 1: Through just wants to penalize the rich. I mean, he
38:08
Speaker 1: might penalize the rich, but he doesn't say it, and
38:10
Speaker 1: he doesn't relish it constantly. So you support him. And
38:16
Speaker 1: I get that completely and have no problem with that.
38:21
Speaker 1: What I don't understand. What I don't understand is an
38:32
Speaker 1: intellectual whose job it is, whose business it is to
38:38
Speaker 1: evaluate what is going on out there in the world,
38:42
Speaker 1: to see everything, not just on how it affects a
38:47
Speaker 1: particular group, but to look at the totality, to look
38:50
Speaker 1: at the fact that it has on the economy, on
38:53
Speaker 1: national security, international relations and the spirit of Americans, and
38:58
Speaker 1: on the law, on the future of America and the
39:01
Speaker 1: future of America as a free country. I don't understand
39:08
Speaker 1: how intellectual can look at all of that, to look
39:10
Speaker 1: at the totality of it, and to investigate, to read,
39:13
Speaker 1: to look at different facts, to to to read different
39:17
Speaker 1: arguments that to see the different perspectives, and to do
39:22
Speaker 1: all that and at the end of the day to
39:23
Speaker 1: come out and say, yeah, Trump's Trump's a good guy.
39:28
Speaker 1: He's not just a good guy, He's a hero. I mean,
39:30
Speaker 1: you're not doing your job. You're not doing your job,
39:34
Speaker 1: and it's it's a it's it's it's your bad intellectual.
39:38
Speaker 1: You're doing a horrible job at what you're supposed to
39:41
Speaker 1: be doing, at analyzing thing. To put aside objectives not objectives,
39:46
Speaker 1: You're just a bad intellectual. You're not doing a good job.
39:51
Speaker 1: And to not see the it's just a horrible character.
39:57
Speaker 1: The Trump represents a hero. How can you put Trump?
40:00
Speaker 1: I think Andrews says, how can you put Trump and Rock?
40:03
Speaker 1: How would Rock in the same category heroes? It's just it.
40:08
Speaker 1: I mean, there's nothing heroic about Trump unless you consider,
40:18
Speaker 1: like I'm off your boss heroic because he'll do whatever,
40:23
Speaker 1: and that's exactly what Trump is. He'll do whatever. He
40:25
Speaker 1: doesn't care. So look, I don't care who's an objectives
40:34
Speaker 1: and who's not I care about the truth. The truth
40:37
Speaker 1: is that Trump is probably the worst president of our lifetime,
40:41
Speaker 1: maybe the worst president of American history. That he is
40:43
Speaker 1: a disaster, and that he you know, again, I'm not
40:48
Speaker 1: comparing him to what alternative was. I'm just evaluating him.
40:52
Speaker 1: Qua him. He is driving us towards authoritarianism at the
40:56
Speaker 1: ever increasing speed. Uh. You know, Trump and the people
41:02
Speaker 1: surrounding him anti Americans. They hate this country. If what
41:07
Speaker 1: you mean by this country is the land of liberty
41:10
Speaker 1: and individual rights. And I think an intellectual needs to
41:20
Speaker 1: do the work, or an intellectual that does the work,
41:24
Speaker 1: we'll discover that who's honest and is willing to look
41:27
Speaker 1: at all, you know, at all the facts. I think
41:30
Speaker 1: we'll discover that fairly. I think it's right there. It's
41:34
Speaker 1: not that hard. So if you see certain people, I
41:40
Speaker 1: don't know, Andrew Benstein, Dave Hammond, maybe the others, they're
41:45
Speaker 1: just not serious. They're just not to be taken seriously.
41:48
Speaker 1: They're not to be respected, they're not to be followed.
41:53
Speaker 1: You know, this is this, They're not doing their job,
41:59
Speaker 1: the betraying the responsibility of what it means to be
42:02
Speaker 1: an intellectual. Now an asks even though you mean anti Trump,
42:15
Speaker 1: you are still much more honest and objective about Peacoff's
42:18
Speaker 1: view of Trump. Some don't want to believe it. I'm
42:22
Speaker 1: not sure what you mean by that, but let me
42:24
Speaker 1: just say something about Peacoff's views on Trump and why
42:30
Speaker 1: I'm not putting Leonard in the same category as Andy
42:33
Speaker 1: and Harriman. Leonard is ninety two years old in two thousand,
42:41
Speaker 1: I think it was twenty thirteen, maybe I'm wrong, but
42:43
Speaker 1: around twenty thirteen, after dim Leonard basically retired from if
42:53
Speaker 1: you were Cultural and political analysis. If you remember at
42:57
Speaker 1: the time, he had a podcast where he would take
43:02
Speaker 1: questions from people and answer them. And he would get
43:05
Speaker 1: lots of questions on philosophy, and he would get questions
43:09
Speaker 1: on personal morality and on sex and relationships and all
43:14
Speaker 1: kinds of things. I mean, I think there's a book
43:16
Speaker 1: came out with many of his answers to those questions, right,
43:20
Speaker 1: And he got a lot of questions on politics and
43:22
Speaker 1: he would answer them all well. I think he answered
43:25
Speaker 1: most of them well. In twenty thirteen, Lennet said, look,
43:29
Speaker 1: I don't want to deal with the culture. I don't
43:31
Speaker 1: want to deal with politics. I am going to ask
43:36
Speaker 1: you on me to take over that portion of that
43:42
Speaker 1: portion of the what do you call it, that portion
43:51
Speaker 1: of the podcast, I'm going to have you on to it.
43:53
Speaker 1: So from now on, Uran will answer all the cultural
43:56
Speaker 1: and political issues questions, even though after a while he
44:01
Speaker 1: realized he disagreed with me on some of them, for
44:03
Speaker 1: example and immigration, and if you remember, we did kind
44:06
Speaker 1: of a debate with Amy Peacoff moderating a debate over
44:10
Speaker 1: immigration because it was an issue we disagreed about, but
44:14
Speaker 1: he basically handed it over. And he said at the
44:16
Speaker 1: time that he did not comment in politics required reading,
44:28
Speaker 1: you know, investigating, figuring out what's true and what not,
44:32
Speaker 1: you know, listening to both sides, you know, actually actually
44:36
Speaker 1: doing the work that is necessary to do political analysis,
44:39
Speaker 1: and he didn't want to do the work. And the
44:43
Speaker 1: reality is, and he will be the first one to
44:45
Speaker 1: tell you he doesn't do the work. He's retired. It
44:50
Speaker 1: doesn't mean there's no opinions, but he's retired from being
44:54
Speaker 1: an intellectual or comments in politics. Now he might once
44:56
Speaker 1: in a while come back and comment on them for
44:58
Speaker 1: whatever reason, when people egg him on to do it.
45:03
Speaker 1: But you know, he has said that his main source
45:08
Speaker 1: of news is the New York Post. It's only a
45:11
Speaker 1: newspaper he reads, and he listens to my I think
45:15
Speaker 1: I don't know if he still does. He used to
45:16
Speaker 1: listen to Mike Livin. Well, I don't think you can
45:20
Speaker 1: be a comprehensive you know, you can have a comprehensive
45:26
Speaker 1: view of what is going on in the world from
45:29
Speaker 1: those two news sources. They're just not good enough. It's
45:33
Speaker 1: just not enough. You have to do more research than that.
45:36
Speaker 1: And I think Lennard knew that. That's why he handed
45:40
Speaker 1: it off. Now. I'm not saying because he handed off
45:43
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen to me that he's endorsed me. He
45:47
Speaker 1: obviously doesn't. He disagrees with me. He's disagreed with me
45:49
Speaker 1: about Trump. He disagreed in Trump's first term. He disagrees
45:54
Speaker 1: now from what I can tell, And that is fine.
46:00
Speaker 1: I don't expect Lena Peacock to endorse me, and you
46:05
Speaker 1: know that's not the point. There is no there's no
46:09
Speaker 1: air to Lena Peacock. Leonard, there's Leonard. And you know
46:13
Speaker 1: you listen to me, You listen to me, you don't
46:15
Speaker 1: like what you hear, or you disagree with me, go
46:17
Speaker 1: listen to Andy Busty or Dave Hammond, but see Dave So.
46:24
Speaker 1: Dave posted a post as well where he basically says,
46:28
Speaker 1: Leonard Peacoff agrees with you about Trump, and therefore anybody
46:30
Speaker 1: who disagrees with you about Trump is really disagreeing with
46:33
Speaker 1: Landa Peacoff and uh and yeah, who knows more about
46:36
Speaker 1: objectivism than Lena Peacoff in the world. So therefore, if
46:40
Speaker 1: you disagree with Landon Peacoff about Trump, you don't know anything.
46:43
Speaker 1: You know, you disagree with objectivism, you disagree with I mean,
46:46
Speaker 1: it's a there's so many logical fallacies there, There's so
46:51
Speaker 1: there's appeal to authority, and there's so much bs because
46:56
Speaker 1: it's taken completely out of context. A Peacoff doing politics
47:01
Speaker 1: at age ninety two, which is very different than Landed
47:03
Speaker 1: Peacoff doing politics at age eighty even, never mind at
47:07
Speaker 1: age seventy five or at fifty or at forty. Now
47:15
Speaker 1: people are saying they thought he changed his mind. Yeah,
47:18
Speaker 1: I mean he did. Leonard changed his mind, according to
47:20
Speaker 1: James Valiant, and I don't know, I don't have any
47:22
Speaker 1: first time information. The according to James value Lanet changed
47:25
Speaker 1: his mind about about uh Trump when he saw the
47:32
Speaker 1: way Trump treated Zelenski, but then Trump shifted and he
47:36
Speaker 1: became nice to Zelensky. So so I assume Leonard shifted back.
47:41
Speaker 1: Or maybe you know Leonard's very anti immigration, so maybe
47:45
Speaker 1: you know Leonard's very excited about ice. You know, I
47:48
Speaker 1: don't know, but we don't know, right, And does it
47:52
Speaker 1: really matter? This is this obsession, this fashion over what
48:02
Speaker 1: Leonard thinks about Trump? Does it really matter? I mean
48:10
Speaker 1: a particularly given that Leonard is not in a position too,
48:15
Speaker 1: and hasn't you know, articulated clearly what his position is
48:19
Speaker 1: in the rationale, the full russionale for it. So so
48:31
Speaker 1: I suggest, I suggest you stop listening to these people
48:37
Speaker 1: and you try to come up with the best you know,
48:42
Speaker 1: rational objective or listen to them, and and you decide
48:46
Speaker 1: what position you hold, what position you hold? You you know,
48:54
Speaker 1: and if you you know, watch the uh, you know,
49:01
Speaker 1: watch what people are saying, Read what the different sides
49:04
Speaker 1: are saying about Trump. Uh, look at the news, and
49:08
Speaker 1: you decide it. It's up to you, n n Y.
49:11
Speaker 1: You can't delegate the responsibility of make a decision about
49:13
Speaker 1: your opinion about Trump. It is I it is interesting
49:23
Speaker 1: that uh, you know, Leonard when I saw him for
49:26
Speaker 1: the birthday. I. I mean, the first thing he said
49:28
Speaker 1: to me was something about Trump trying to kind of
49:30
Speaker 1: rib me and poke me about it. But I, y, y,
49:36
Speaker 1: you know, it's obviously we were not gonna get into
49:38
Speaker 1: a uh a d uh a a an argument or
49:40
Speaker 1: a discussion about Trump there at his birthday party. Wouldn't
49:44
Speaker 1: be appropriate, wouldn't be appropriate to me. And I don't
49:47
Speaker 1: think he really wanted that, but he wanted to make
49:49
Speaker 1: it clear to me that he disagreed with me. Fine,
49:51
Speaker 1: I have no problem with that. So I don't know
49:54
Speaker 1: why you guys all have problems with this. It is
49:57
Speaker 1: what it is. Leonard likes Trump, but I don't think
50:07
Speaker 1: Leonard is writing long essays about Trump being a hero. Now,
50:10
Speaker 1: I I I, I don't think that the video he did
50:13
Speaker 1: with Valiant was particularly good. Uh on this, But you know,
50:20
Speaker 1: uh y, you again, you have to evaluate it. It's not
50:24
Speaker 1: don't delegate that. Don't delegate thinking to somebody else. It's
50:28
Speaker 1: your responsibility. You decide whether it makes sense to you
50:33
Speaker 1: or not. And if you like Trump, try to figure
50:36
Speaker 1: out why and and and make it explicit. Why do
50:39
Speaker 1: I like Trump? What are the things that I like
50:41
Speaker 1: about him. What about the bad stuff? How do I
50:44
Speaker 1: how do I explain that? How do I square that
50:47
Speaker 1: what is more important? The good stuff for the bad stuff?
50:49
Speaker 1: How does that all fit together? Alright? So your answers
51:10
Speaker 1: peak of us to put out an essay around the
51:11
Speaker 1: same time. Yeah, I mean read it and and uh
51:15
Speaker 1: you don't make up your mind about it. And look,
51:18
Speaker 1: y I am. You won't find anybody who is more
51:22
Speaker 1: admiring of an and owes more to to len and Peacock.
51:26
Speaker 1: I mean, I I admire, I admire his work. I've
51:29
Speaker 1: learned s I everything I know until large stand, I've
51:32
Speaker 1: learned from him from mine Rand and Land and Peacock.
51:36
Speaker 1: Those are the two main sources of my knowledge and
51:38
Speaker 1: therefore of who I am and what I became. And
51:41
Speaker 1: I couldn't have become what I became without Leonard. And
51:44
Speaker 1: not only is he being a mentor, a teacher and
51:47
Speaker 1: a friend, uh all these years and okay he's retired
51:56
Speaker 1: and on a topic, I think I know more than
51:58
Speaker 1: he does. We disagree. What are you gonna make of that? Alright?
52:08
Speaker 1: I I you know and and I I I I
52:11
Speaker 1: I I just think that the the sudden people that
52:13
Speaker 1: are trying to the certain people that are trying to,
52:20
Speaker 1: you know, gain credibility by association with Leonard, like Dave
52:23
Speaker 1: Hammond did, and and like, uh, maybe others are doing.
52:29
Speaker 1: You know, you gotta be suspicious about that. You gotta
52:32
Speaker 1: be suspicious about that. And as I said, one day,
52:35
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I really think about Dave Hammond.
52:37
Speaker 1: Maybe that day is clo is Is is slowly approaching.
52:41
Speaker 1: But uh, Dave was at the birthday party, by the way,
52:44
Speaker 1: so uh there were some questions about whether he speaks
52:49
Speaker 1: to Leonard. Yeah, he did speak to Leonard. Alright, Uh,
52:55
Speaker 1: let's see, alright, I will take I will take more questions.
53:01
Speaker 1: Remember to support the show. To trade value for value,
53:05
Speaker 1: you can do so by asking a question. You can
53:06
Speaker 1: do so by putting in a sticker just a monetary contribution.
53:12
Speaker 1: You can also do so by becoming a monthly supporter
53:15
Speaker 1: on Patreon or on PayPal. All right, let me see
53:20
Speaker 1: we've had some stickers. Wes, Thank you. Wes did fifty dollars.
53:23
Speaker 1: Thank you, Barry Barry Hoover did fifty dollars. Really appreciate it,
53:27
Speaker 1: thank you fifty dollars. Stickers. There was a great Catherine,
53:31
Speaker 1: thank you so yeah, I mean where we are now
53:35
Speaker 1: because of those stickers. There's a bunch of you out there.
53:38
Speaker 1: Be great to hear from you. It'd be great for
53:40
Speaker 1: you to write a send us a sticker, send us
53:48
Speaker 1: some money in support of the show. This is show
53:51
Speaker 1: one hundred percent funded from listeners like you. Alright, Um, alright,
54:18
Speaker 1: let's see questions. I'm on the wrong page. There we go. Alright, James, Oh,
54:26
Speaker 1: it's a two part of it. Let me find the
54:27
Speaker 1: first part. Okay, uh, James uh. Part one. It seems
54:34
Speaker 1: a lot of intellectuals and political movements are threatened by
54:38
Speaker 1: pride and confidence of the individual human spirit that'll go
54:42
Speaker 1: through extensive sadistic efforts to crush it, the torture of
54:46
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, Gulag's Holocaust, the ah An, and more
54:50
Speaker 1: mild forms. Democratic socialists like Bumdani today, I I I've
54:55
Speaker 1: never felt threatened by someone else's spirit. Why does it
54:58
Speaker 1: drive them crazy? Well, because that, in the end is
55:01
Speaker 1: what they're trying to control. Then what does it mean
55:04
Speaker 1: to control human beings? It means to control their spirit.
55:08
Speaker 1: And if you don't control this spirit, there always a
55:11
Speaker 1: threat to you. And if you view the world as
55:14
Speaker 1: zero sum or if you view the world as it's
55:17
Speaker 1: either him or me, then I need to control what
55:23
Speaker 1: ultimately is threatening to me, and the real threat our ideas,
55:28
Speaker 1: the real threat is the human spirit. The real threat
55:30
Speaker 1: is is them rising up against me and taking power
55:35
Speaker 1: over me, which is what I'm trying to avoid, because
55:37
Speaker 1: it's all zero some right. So uh, it's the if
55:51
Speaker 1: you want to be an authoritarian, it's not enough just
55:53
Speaker 1: to control action because you understand that the real enemy
55:59
Speaker 1: idea real enemy is people's spirit of independence. And that's
56:08
Speaker 1: what you want to crush. Think about nineteen eighty four, right,
56:13
Speaker 1: I mean what they're trying to do, and you can
56:16
Speaker 1: see the parallels in the world around us. They're trying
56:18
Speaker 1: to change the language, They're trying to change everything, or
56:21
Speaker 1: think of anthem. Right, they eviscerate the concept of eye
56:26
Speaker 1: because the eye is a threat to them, to the
56:29
Speaker 1: powers to be, to the people who are trying to control.
56:33
Speaker 1: And what better way to destroy the human spirit than
56:36
Speaker 1: to destroy is the individual, To destroy any semblance of
56:40
Speaker 1: being able to think about the individual as an individual.
56:45
Speaker 1: C Yes, the mind is what ultimately needs to be
56:50
Speaker 1: subdued in order to be in order to achieve authoritarian
56:56
Speaker 1: or totalitarian control. And they know that. Alright, Michael. There
57:16
Speaker 1: is zero sense of life in the modern right. There
57:19
Speaker 1: focus in vengeance and authority, no matter the cost. This
57:23
Speaker 1: is a wildly destructive form of mysticism. Yeah, I agree,
57:30
Speaker 1: I agree completely. Uh, it's it's it's a it's it's
57:34
Speaker 1: incredibly destructive. It's in the name of mysticism. It is mysticism.
57:38
Speaker 1: And their sense of life is a sense of life
57:40
Speaker 1: and a of an authoritarian, of a collectivist. They do
57:43
Speaker 1: not have an American sense of life. This is not
57:45
Speaker 1: the sense of life, even of the Tea Party, which
57:48
Speaker 1: had a vague reminence of the American sense of life
57:54
Speaker 1: of I can do anything and just leave me free, Michael.
58:03
Speaker 1: The funniest thing about DII to me is that every
58:06
Speaker 1: single person in the Trump administration is completely unqualified for
58:11
Speaker 1: their job and wholly incompetent. Yes, I mean, what what
58:16
Speaker 1: The trumpet administration is a different type of DEI. It's
58:19
Speaker 1: a dei not based on ethnicity and not based on
58:25
Speaker 1: some call of equality. But it's a dei based on
58:28
Speaker 1: ideology and based on loyalty and the standard to be
58:32
Speaker 1: appointed in the Trump administration's loyalty to Trump now that
58:37
Speaker 1: is not about merit. So it's not that that Trump
58:42
Speaker 1: is the The opposite of DEI is not loyalty to Trump.
58:47
Speaker 1: The opposite of DII is merit is appointing people based
58:51
Speaker 1: on merit, the ability to do the job, and their
58:54
Speaker 1: qualifications to do the job. And the job includes being
58:57
Speaker 1: able to interact with the president and be constructive and
58:59
Speaker 1: heal helpful to the president. But that is not what
59:05
Speaker 1: the new write is about. It is not about merit.
59:08
Speaker 1: It's about loyalty. It's about mindlessness, mindless loyalty to And
59:15
Speaker 1: this is why no Kings is not a bad label
59:19
Speaker 1: for demonstration. Hoppa Campbell, I don't think MAGA is sustainable.
59:27
Speaker 1: Movements energized by hatred and paranoia always turn on each other.
59:31
Speaker 1: Fascism never lasts more than a decade. I mean maybe,
59:36
Speaker 1: I mean the Nazis lasted, you know, twelve years. Mussolini
59:41
Speaker 1: lasted a lot more than twelve years. I can't remember
59:45
Speaker 1: the date Mussolini came to power, but it was somewhere
59:47
Speaker 1: in the early twenties, I think. So, I don't think
59:53
Speaker 1: it's true that fascism never lasts. Look at what's same
1:00:00
Speaker 1: Franco Franco lasted thirty years. I think the Portuguese dictatorship
1:00:05
Speaker 1: lasted quite long. Peranism in South America has lasted long. Putinism,
1:00:16
Speaker 1: however you want to call it in Russia? What is
1:00:19
Speaker 1: it going on? Over twenty years? Now twenty five years?
1:00:23
Speaker 1: So I don't know what the time limit is. It
1:00:26
Speaker 1: doesn't last forever, but no evil ideology lasts forever. Communism
1:00:30
Speaker 1: ultimately succumbed. But it is true that kind of MAGA
1:00:35
Speaker 1: has no integrating ideology yet yet This is the whole point.
1:00:40
Speaker 1: It's still not what I would call an M two
1:00:43
Speaker 1: what not I would call what Landed called in dim
1:00:45
Speaker 1: and M two mega is not an M two yet
1:00:49
Speaker 1: because it doesn't have an integrated ideology. But the question,
1:00:54
Speaker 1: but I think jd vanswer does And you know Ken
1:01:00
Speaker 1: jade Vance's ideology last twenty years. I don't know, and
1:01:03
Speaker 1: I don't want to find out. A lot of damage
1:01:06
Speaker 1: was done in the twelve years of Hitler, in the
1:01:11
Speaker 1: X number of years of Stalin, in whatever number of
1:01:13
Speaker 1: years of well Stalin's as a communist of a fank
1:01:16
Speaker 1: or whatever. A lot of damage is done when these
1:01:23
Speaker 1: people get into power. So I don't want to try it.
1:01:25
Speaker 1: But I don't know how long it will last. I
1:01:27
Speaker 1: have no idea, and I don't know that we can
1:01:30
Speaker 1: completely look at historical precedent. Now. I don't think it'll
1:01:33
Speaker 1: last in America because I think there's a lot of
1:01:35
Speaker 1: opposition to it in spite of the support, and I
1:01:38
Speaker 1: think that it goes so against the founding principles of
1:01:41
Speaker 1: this country that that'll be reborn in some way or another.
1:01:47
Speaker 1: But that's not a great sign. That's not a great sign.
1:01:52
Speaker 1: So I think you're overly optimistic because I think MAGO
1:01:57
Speaker 1: will morph into something a lot more dangerous, and I
1:02:01
Speaker 1: think I think that morphing will be led by people
1:02:05
Speaker 1: aged Evans and even Marco Rubio, who regularly talks at
1:02:09
Speaker 1: the National Conservative Conferences, and others who are really really
1:02:14
Speaker 1: committed to a particular vision of America which is very
1:02:18
Speaker 1: on American and anti American. Andrew, do you think individualism
1:02:25
Speaker 1: in the sense of life of America is still a
1:02:28
Speaker 1: real phenomena compared to the rest of the world. If so,
1:02:31
Speaker 1: how does that individuals manifest in American culture. I do
1:02:36
Speaker 1: think it's still there. I think that the primary manifestation
1:02:42
Speaker 1: of it in American culture is too entrepreneurial entrepreneurship. It's
1:02:47
Speaker 1: the entrepreneurs. And this is why I say, you know,
1:02:50
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley, in spite of its politics, is very much
1:02:54
Speaker 1: America in its real sense, because I think that individualism
1:02:59
Speaker 1: manifests itself in in entrepreneurship, which you don't really have
1:03:05
Speaker 1: in Europe, for example. Now you have a lot of
1:03:07
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs in China, so they have it. That's why I
1:03:10
Speaker 1: think there's something about the Chinese sense of life that
1:03:13
Speaker 1: is that is good and and and that will hopefully
1:03:17
Speaker 1: ultimately win out against the authoritarians. But the American sense
1:03:22
Speaker 1: of life is still alive among entrepreneurs, among certain businessmen,
1:03:27
Speaker 1: and that's where it manifests itself. It's it manifests itself
1:03:30
Speaker 1: in in the fact that up until recently, very recently,
1:03:33
Speaker 1: we embraced immigrants. We brought them in. They win noble prizes,
1:03:38
Speaker 1: they start companies, they build gardening companies, they they they
1:03:45
Speaker 1: work in our backyards. They they're everywhere, and we embrace it,
1:03:49
Speaker 1: even as we yell that we don't like it. League immigrants,
1:03:52
Speaker 1: we hire them and we employ them and they're all
1:03:54
Speaker 1: over the place. So that I think is that, I
1:04:00
Speaker 1: think is where you still see American culture. It's in
1:04:05
Speaker 1: a lot of immigrants who come here because that's why
1:04:08
Speaker 1: they came here. They came here because of American culture,
1:04:11
Speaker 1: and they manifested it, because they came here to escape
1:04:15
Speaker 1: their tribes at home. They came here to make something
1:04:18
Speaker 1: of their own life as individuals. We don't need immigrants.
1:04:26
Speaker 1: Who the f cares what you need? Since when is
1:04:29
Speaker 1: anything determined by people's needs? That's a new one. He
1:04:35
Speaker 1: doesn't need immigrants. I do need immigrants, So let's unwrestle
1:04:39
Speaker 1: for whether we get immigrants or not. That's exactly that
1:04:44
Speaker 1: un American view, that is that dominates right, that people's
1:04:50
Speaker 1: needs matter, and that our needs, our collective needs. We
1:04:55
Speaker 1: should vote on it. You know, that's how we decide.
1:04:59
Speaker 1: America used to be a land of individual rights. And
1:05:02
Speaker 1: people came to this country not because anybody needed them.
1:05:05
Speaker 1: It's because they wanted to and people, the better people
1:05:10
Speaker 1: in America wanted them to come. It wasn't based on need.
1:05:16
Speaker 1: It was based on rights, individual rights, and that is
1:05:23
Speaker 1: the foundational concept, not need. Need is the foundational concept
1:05:26
Speaker 1: of the left. Anybody who talks in terms of needs
1:05:31
Speaker 1: is a leftist. I'm generalizing that because the right has
1:05:36
Speaker 1: needy people to But no, it's this is a question.
1:05:41
Speaker 1: Immigration is not a question of needs, it's a question
1:05:44
Speaker 1: of rights. And so you don't want more Mexicans than
1:05:52
Speaker 1: Haydens I do. I have no problem with Mexicans, and
1:05:56
Speaker 1: I have no problems with many Haitians. So you don't
1:05:59
Speaker 1: have any problem with Mexican But you know, keep your
1:06:04
Speaker 1: xenophobia to yourself and don't speak for me. Don't speak
1:06:08
Speaker 1: for me. I'm not part of your collective and I
1:06:11
Speaker 1: don't I'm not a believe in democracy. So even though
1:06:13
Speaker 1: you might represent the majority, I don't care what you want.
1:06:19
Speaker 1: Oh there goes Zielon says they don't have rights. Okay,
1:06:23
Speaker 1: Well that means he's not worth talking to you. Right
1:06:25
Speaker 1: when when he says about whole groups of people they
1:06:28
Speaker 1: don't have rights, he's just a racist. He's just a
1:06:30
Speaker 1: racist bigot. And that's what it boils down to, right
1:06:34
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, we don't need immigrants.
1:06:36
Speaker 1: Oh it's not unas you need. We don't want immigrants.
1:06:40
Speaker 1: Oh they're not really human beings. Right, It's just boils
1:06:45
Speaker 1: down to it buzzed down as soon as you prod
1:06:47
Speaker 1: them as soon as you nudge them, they you see
1:06:51
Speaker 1: immediately that they're racists. Because every human being has rights.
1:06:57
Speaker 1: Fani Father says, all men are created equal, all men,
1:06:59
Speaker 1: not all Americans. All men are created equal down by
1:07:04
Speaker 1: the creator with these inalienable rights, inalienable rights, nobody can
1:07:09
Speaker 1: take them away. Every man, not just Americans. Everyone has rights,
1:07:19
Speaker 1: every human being upland to earth as rights. And that
1:07:21
Speaker 1: it's a question of whether the government violates the rights
1:07:24
Speaker 1: and protects the rights. And what you want is the
1:07:27
Speaker 1: government to violate in mass the individual rights of Mexicans
1:07:33
Speaker 1: and Haitians because you don't like them, you don't want them,
1:07:37
Speaker 1: because I don't know what Americans for American merits. Yeah,
1:07:42
Speaker 1: I agree, America should be for Americans. And by the way,
1:07:45
Speaker 1: something you know, zyklontea wonder if that's an American name.
1:07:48
Speaker 1: Doesn't sound like an American name. So the Founders were wrong. Okay,
1:07:55
Speaker 1: I'm ignoring him now because he just said that people
1:07:58
Speaker 1: don't have rights and the Founders were and that disqualified
1:08:01
Speaker 1: him from talking about America. I mean, and you want
1:08:05
Speaker 1: to defend America. You want to you want to say
1:08:07
Speaker 1: the Founders are wrong and there's no individual rights and
1:08:09
Speaker 1: you're talking about America for Americans. You don't know what
1:08:12
Speaker 1: you're talking about. You're an ignorant, racist bigot. All right, Neil.
1:08:19
Speaker 1: What would happen to the concept of identity if humanity
1:08:24
Speaker 1: ends up moving to another planet? What we have a
1:08:27
Speaker 1: new form to form new countries identities? Well, I don't
1:08:32
Speaker 1: know what you mean by the concept of identity. Is
1:08:35
Speaker 1: my identity a member of a group or is my
1:08:39
Speaker 1: identity me who I am? So identity is something that's individual,
1:08:50
Speaker 1: I you know, So do I have an affiliation? I'm
1:08:55
Speaker 1: an American? But is that my identity? That's not my identity,
1:08:58
Speaker 1: that's my political ass where I live. Now, as we
1:09:08
Speaker 1: move into other planets, where we create countries, new countries
1:09:11
Speaker 1: or new political entities, yes, I mean it makes sense
1:09:14
Speaker 1: that you're governed locally, that you're not governed from way
1:09:17
Speaker 1: far away, you know, on Earth. So you could expect
1:09:20
Speaker 1: to see the creation of new political entities out there.
1:09:25
Speaker 1: But that is that that is you know, you've got
1:09:27
Speaker 1: to separate identity from the country. One of the one
1:09:32
Speaker 1: of the reasons I'm so pro immigration and ultimately in
1:09:36
Speaker 1: a free world they should be free immigration, including to
1:09:39
Speaker 1: other planets, is because you should be able to choose
1:09:43
Speaker 1: where you want to live, so you know, you can
1:09:58
Speaker 1: you can belong to a group, and you can have
1:10:01
Speaker 1: you know, but that doesn't Ah, there we go, all right,
1:10:08
Speaker 1: now we can easily block this best thank you sing
1:10:18
Speaker 1: this channel? All right? Yeah, I mean, what do you
1:10:24
Speaker 1: say homosexuals, Jews and the N word? Yeah, I mean
1:10:29
Speaker 1: I told you you could tell that the bigots and
1:10:33
Speaker 1: racists very quickly, very easily, and then they revealed themselves
1:10:37
Speaker 1: fully and they actually say the stuff that make it
1:10:41
Speaker 1: clear that that's what they are. So you need to
1:10:47
Speaker 1: think about what you mean by identities. We blocked Zyklon,
1:10:53
Speaker 1: I blocked Zyclon. Now we we didn't block anybody. I
1:10:56
Speaker 1: blocked him, Michael. There was a time when the right
1:10:59
Speaker 1: would pay lips of Americanism and classical liberalism. This time,
1:11:04
Speaker 1: that time is over. The new right is proudly fascist,
1:11:07
Speaker 1: led by nutcases like Bannon. Yeah, I think much of
1:11:11
Speaker 1: the right is proudly fascist. I think banisuttle is. And
1:11:16
Speaker 1: there's still some people in the right who paid lipservice
1:11:20
Speaker 1: to Americanism in classical liberalism. There's still some conservatives out
1:11:24
Speaker 1: there who do that. They are struggling because they are
1:11:27
Speaker 1: being outflanked, outnumbered, and beaten down by the fascist elements
1:11:34
Speaker 1: within their own party. Clark Stephen Crowder is doing racist
1:11:42
Speaker 1: videos against Black's. Anti Semites are waiting in line to
1:11:45
Speaker 1: ask Glenn back questions. A turning point, USA, these fringe
1:11:50
Speaker 1: neo Nazis talking points have migrated off the Internet into
1:11:55
Speaker 1: physical space. I think we are moving to in a
1:11:58
Speaker 1: Nazi direction. Whether we get all the way there is uncertain.
1:12:03
Speaker 1: I mean, look, we're definitely moving in a racist and
1:12:08
Speaker 1: I said we would as soon as identity politics on
1:12:11
Speaker 1: the left became clear. I said, the right will beat
1:12:14
Speaker 1: you at it, and they are good at racism, and
1:12:17
Speaker 1: they're better than you, and they're going to beat you.
1:12:19
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what's happened. I mean, really, you can
1:12:22
Speaker 1: go back to videos I made or podcasts I did
1:12:25
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty,
1:12:30
Speaker 1: you know, during the peak of woke, and I said,
1:12:34
Speaker 1: the right is going to come after you with the
1:12:38
Speaker 1: same accepting your premises of racism. I said that about
1:12:42
Speaker 1: the left. Are we becoming Nazis? I doubt it. I
1:12:46
Speaker 1: still think the Nazis are small group, are we becoming
1:12:50
Speaker 1: more nationalist, more racist. Yes, and it's never been in
1:12:57
Speaker 1: my view, it's never been this bad in America. It's
1:13:00
Speaker 1: never been this bad in America. You know the way
1:13:05
Speaker 1: Kash Patel whose Maga was treated over the weekend, and
1:13:10
Speaker 1: on and on and on. The racists now are emboldened
1:13:14
Speaker 1: and coming out, always heading towards Nazism, and there are
1:13:18
Speaker 1: enough of them. I still don't think so, Andrew. Get
1:13:26
Speaker 1: into political arguments if you want, but don't be a
1:13:29
Speaker 1: pitball about it, especially if you're barking into an unwilling ear,
1:13:35
Speaker 1: except that someone has the rights to their own opinion,
1:13:38
Speaker 1: even if wrong. Yeah, although as an intellectual my job
1:13:42
Speaker 1: is to bark into your ear. You can always turn
1:13:44
Speaker 1: me off, right, But my job is to articulate a case,
1:13:50
Speaker 1: a particular position to the best of my ability, based
1:13:53
Speaker 1: on what I based on the fact. And if you
1:13:56
Speaker 1: if you don't want to listen to it, don't listen
1:13:58
Speaker 1: to it. But yeah, this, there's no reason to get
1:14:00
Speaker 1: in political arguments. There has to be a context, there
1:14:03
Speaker 1: has to be reason to do it, and sometimes there isn't.
1:14:06
Speaker 1: Sometimes there isn't. I don't seek them out because it's
1:14:10
Speaker 1: rare that you will achieve anything by debating politics, kim.
1:14:18
Speaker 1: Is the capacity for a reason ever truly lost or
1:14:20
Speaker 1: only abandoned, you know, I think to some extent it is.
1:14:27
Speaker 1: It can be lost. You know, if you have dementia,
1:14:33
Speaker 1: you lose the capacity to integreat knowledge and reason. Part
1:14:38
Speaker 1: of what reason is is integration. And I think you
1:14:41
Speaker 1: just lose that muscle, that that physical capability of integrating
1:14:46
Speaker 1: the knowledge that you have. So I think you can
1:14:49
Speaker 1: lose it. I think if you have an accident and
1:14:53
Speaker 1: a certain part of your brain gets damaged, you're losing yourcity.
1:14:58
Speaker 1: Certain capacity is to reason is not necessarily and it's necessary,
1:15:02
Speaker 1: but certainly possible. I like numbers. I'm an Andy Bernstein fan.
1:15:10
Speaker 1: Is calling him to be unfollowly supposed to be moral
1:15:14
Speaker 1: option Marali optional. He's brought a lot of value to
1:15:16
Speaker 1: the movement. Yeah, I mean I I I used was
1:15:19
Speaker 1: always an Andy Bunstein fan. We've always been friendly. I
1:15:23
Speaker 1: like Andy. He's just completely wrong on this and and
1:15:29
Speaker 1: and it's not a little wrong. It's a big wrong.
1:15:33
Speaker 1: And he doesn't have in my view that he doesn't
1:15:36
Speaker 1: have any excuses for this. I don't think that there
1:15:44
Speaker 1: there's much dispute about the data about what's going on
1:15:46
Speaker 1: in the world, and yet he whitewashes anything bad that
1:15:53
Speaker 1: Trump does, and and turn some of those things into
1:15:57
Speaker 1: good things, and and and some of you just ignorees
1:16:00
Speaker 1: when it comes to Trump. He's completely blinded. So you
1:16:03
Speaker 1: don't want to. I mean I didn't make I didn't
1:16:06
Speaker 1: say unfollow him as a moral anything. I just said,
1:16:10
Speaker 1: I mean he has a better formulation of what I meant, don't.
1:16:13
Speaker 1: I mean, he's proven to be somebody you shouldn't be
1:16:17
Speaker 1: getting your political commentary from. How about that? So that
1:16:23
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you shouldn't follow him on other stuff, but
1:16:25
Speaker 1: your politically commentary you shouldn't be getting from Andy. Yes, Anthony,
1:16:35
Speaker 1: what do you think of the Venice to Amsterdam to
1:16:37
Speaker 1: City of London theory that they are the bad guys?
1:16:44
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. I don't know what
1:16:46
Speaker 1: that theory is, and I don't know what the theory means,
1:16:50
Speaker 1: the Venice to Amsterdam to the City of London theory
1:16:53
Speaker 1: that they are the bad guys. I'm not sure who
1:16:56
Speaker 1: has that theory and what that theory actually advocates for.
1:17:00
Speaker 1: Have no idea, obviously. I don't think Venice amstem and
1:17:04
Speaker 1: London are bad guys. I think they're the good guys.
1:17:06
Speaker 1: They're the people who created and built modern the modern
1:17:12
Speaker 1: industrial world, the oceanists. But have you ever considered immigration bad? No? Immigration?
1:17:25
Speaker 1: Co immigration? No? Why would I consider it bad? I
1:17:29
Speaker 1: guess I don't understand this question either. I mean, I
1:17:34
Speaker 1: don't want certain people to come. Loochs and moochas and terrorists,
1:17:39
Speaker 1: and you know, criminals shouldn't come, they shouldn't immigrate. But
1:17:45
Speaker 1: I don't consider immigration bad. I consider immigration of those
1:17:49
Speaker 1: specific people bad. Also, check your email. Adam and Stitch
1:17:57
Speaker 1: and Adam Show would like to have you on. You
1:17:59
Speaker 1: guys can talk about anything from femaleket healthcare to tariffs.
1:18:03
Speaker 1: I hope to see you there. Yeah, I saw that email.
1:18:06
Speaker 1: I'm having my assistant contact them to schedule the day
1:18:10
Speaker 1: and time exactly when I'll beyond thank you. If you
1:18:13
Speaker 1: facilitated that, then thank you for facilitating it, docanist. Is
1:18:22
Speaker 1: anyone really surprised that the right is going in this direction?
1:18:25
Speaker 1: The left has had apologists for Lennon, Mao and Stalin,
1:18:29
Speaker 1: No wonder the right wing racists freak out now. Well,
1:18:34
Speaker 1: I mean, the right could have gone in a different direction.
1:18:36
Speaker 1: They could have gone in a direction of individual rights
1:18:37
Speaker 1: and a rejection of collectivism and a rejection of authoritarianism,
1:18:42
Speaker 1: and they decided to join the left and embracing those things.
1:18:45
Speaker 1: So it wasn't inevitable the right would go in this direction.
1:18:49
Speaker 1: It was predictable. I suddenly predicted it. It seems like
1:18:52
Speaker 1: you maybe predicted it, but it wasn't inevitable. Andrew, I
1:18:57
Speaker 1: know you don't like explaining human behavior by idiocy, But
1:19:01
Speaker 1: aren't some anti Semites and racist being blatantly idiotic? Yes,
1:19:07
Speaker 1: but I don't think that explains it. That is, I
1:19:10
Speaker 1: think that being idiot. I think if you're I think
1:19:14
Speaker 1: being a racist and an anti Semitist makes you stupid
1:19:18
Speaker 1: because it's so anti reality, it's so anti fact, it's
1:19:22
Speaker 1: so based on nothing that that starts conditioning your your
1:19:28
Speaker 1: way of thinking to be like that, to be based
1:19:31
Speaker 1: on nothing, And you become more stupid, you become more
1:19:34
Speaker 1: detachabent reality, you become more detached from facts. So, but
1:19:46
Speaker 1: I don't say they're racist because they're stupid. I mean,
1:19:50
Speaker 1: in many respects, they're stupid because they're racists. The Ocean says,
1:20:04
Speaker 1: I was being sarcastic. About immigration being bad. Deep with
1:20:09
Speaker 1: Diego says, Ocean John is a very old man, very
1:20:13
Speaker 1: old man, he says, very old man. And they didn't
1:20:17
Speaker 1: have sarcasm when he was a kid. And that's absolutely true.
1:20:21
Speaker 1: There was no sarcasm was when I was a kid.
1:20:23
Speaker 1: S Sarcasm is an is a new phenomenon. S So yes,
1:20:29
Speaker 1: given that I'm very old. According to Deeper with Diego,
1:20:34
Speaker 1: you've got to speak up loud and not be sarcastic.
1:20:41
Speaker 1: Thank you, de Deep with Diego, I don't know what
1:20:43
Speaker 1: I would do without you clarifying the my condition A.
1:20:57
Speaker 1: Let's see, Mary Eileen, how would JD. Van Vans compared
1:21:01
Speaker 1: to Trump as president were he to be elected? What
1:21:05
Speaker 1: should we be most worried about? Would anything improve under Vance?
1:21:11
Speaker 1: I mean Vance is not a whim worshiper, and Vance
1:21:16
Speaker 1: is not stupid, So I don't think Trump is smart.
1:21:24
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's stupid, but he's not smart,
1:21:26
Speaker 1: and he's a wim worshiper. He's completely driven by whim
1:21:29
Speaker 1: So one thing you would get from Vance's predictability. You
1:21:32
Speaker 1: know where he standing, you know what he argues, and
1:21:34
Speaker 1: you know where he's going. So that would happen, but
1:21:38
Speaker 1: also think that makes it more dangerous. Trump doesn't believe
1:21:40
Speaker 1: in anything, literally anything. I was talking to somebody who
1:21:44
Speaker 1: knows Trump well and is in Trump's circle of businessmen
1:21:48
Speaker 1: who and he said, Trump will say literally anything, anything,
1:21:55
Speaker 1: and he likes him for that. You'll say anything. It's
1:21:59
Speaker 1: just a matter of creating and his to do it.
1:22:00
Speaker 1: But he will say anything. He has no and this
1:22:03
Speaker 1: is part of what people like about him that Trump
1:22:05
Speaker 1: doesn't care what people think about him, and they view
1:22:08
Speaker 1: that as independence when it's not, because it's it's a
1:22:13
Speaker 1: it's a it's very distorted. But he just doesn't so
1:22:24
Speaker 1: he will say anything. Advance is not like that. Advance
1:22:28
Speaker 1: is more dangerous because he has a plan, he knows
1:22:30
Speaker 1: what he wants, he has a theory. Now he's a
1:22:33
Speaker 1: converted Catholic, so he's committed I think to this ideology
1:22:37
Speaker 1: of nationalism. Now where he would be less dangerous than
1:22:45
Speaker 1: Trump is where he is. I think I think there
1:23:03
Speaker 1: would be more resistance to a Vans. Trump is really
1:23:06
Speaker 1: unique in that, and this is it's a tragedy that
1:23:10
Speaker 1: he's that he's so that he is what he is.
1:23:12
Speaker 1: At the same time, because Trump can get stuff done
1:23:15
Speaker 1: because he doesn't care, and because he's good at flooding
1:23:20
Speaker 1: the zone, doing so many things that nobody can stop
1:23:22
Speaker 1: any one thing that he's doing right like Trump is
1:23:25
Speaker 1: probably doing now right now ten illegal things all at once,
1:23:29
Speaker 1: and you can't keep track of it, and maybe it's
1:23:32
Speaker 1: thirty illegal things. And there's so many lawsuits in the courts,
1:23:36
Speaker 1: and it's different stages of of you know, being appealed,
1:23:42
Speaker 1: and then there's a bunch of other stuff that he
1:23:43
Speaker 1: does that it's not who's gonna ensue him on. I
1:23:47
Speaker 1: don't think JD Vance could do that, but JV Vans
1:23:50
Speaker 1: would be more thoughtful about legislation about eroding our freedoms
1:23:56
Speaker 1: in a more sustainable, substantial way. So I think he'd
1:23:59
Speaker 1: be worse, but let get less done, but what he
1:24:03
Speaker 1: gets done will be more permanent, if that makes sense,
1:24:10
Speaker 1: all right? Evan? How does objectives justify abortion when it
1:24:15
Speaker 1: makes human life a primary value? Doesn't abortion? Of OVERWHEMD
1:24:20
Speaker 1: the value assigned to feed us was ironman evading no abortion.
1:24:28
Speaker 1: The position abustion is completely consistent. The objectives in place
1:24:33
Speaker 1: is primary value on the life, on the light on life,
1:24:36
Speaker 1: on human life, on the only human life that exists
1:24:40
Speaker 1: at the point of an abortion, which is the mother's life.
1:24:45
Speaker 1: You know, it is her life that is the focal point.
1:24:48
Speaker 1: It is her rights that are the focal point. Her
1:24:52
Speaker 1: body that is the focal point, and you know, her
1:24:55
Speaker 1: choice to do with her body as she wishes. But
1:25:01
Speaker 1: that's because we care about life. The fetus might be
1:25:06
Speaker 1: alive technically, so is a skin cell that drops from
1:25:10
Speaker 1: my skin. But the fetus is not human life. It's
1:25:18
Speaker 1: potential human life. It will become a human life if
1:25:23
Speaker 1: it's not sake or if it's and if it's carried
1:25:26
Speaker 1: to term, but if it's not, it's not human life.
1:25:30
Speaker 1: And therefore, when you have a living, non human and
1:25:35
Speaker 1: you have a woman's life, then objectivism focuses on the
1:25:42
Speaker 1: entity that actually is human, that actually is alive, and
1:25:45
Speaker 1: that's the woman, and it's her rights, her life that
1:25:50
Speaker 1: we focus on. And then she has the right to abot.
1:25:55
Speaker 1: So abortion is the fetus is a part of a
1:26:01
Speaker 1: woman's body. She has control and a right over her body.
1:26:05
Speaker 1: And therefore, and and a fetus is not a human being.
1:26:10
Speaker 1: It is a potential human being. And I know that's
1:26:13
Speaker 1: a hard distinction to make, but it is not a
1:26:15
Speaker 1: human being. It is on the way to becoming a
1:26:18
Speaker 1: human being, and it has no rights. It's not individuated,
1:26:22
Speaker 1: it's not separate. To have individual rights, you have to
1:26:25
Speaker 1: be an individual. The fetus is not an individual. It's
1:26:28
Speaker 1: a it's it's it's parasitic on the mother, and it
1:26:33
Speaker 1: is part of the mother. One is an actual, one
1:26:37
Speaker 1: is a potential. The mother is actual. The fetus is
1:26:40
Speaker 1: a potential, and therefore objectivism places it rights with the actual, which,
1:26:47
Speaker 1: which you know is is is the only thing that
1:26:51
Speaker 1: makes sense. So objectivism believes in you know, holds that
1:26:57
Speaker 1: there should be no restrictions on abortion. No. I mean,
1:27:07
Speaker 1: I don't think he has a closed People are have
1:27:12
Speaker 1: been you know, pounded on the head with UH with
1:27:18
Speaker 1: a particular view about abortion for a long time. They'll
1:27:22
Speaker 1: keep hearing my position, They'll read in RAND, they'll listen
1:27:25
Speaker 1: to Lenda Peacock, maybe they'll read some Lena Peacoff on abortion,
1:27:28
Speaker 1: and there's a good chance that some of them will
1:27:30
Speaker 1: change their minds. I think this is an issue where
1:27:33
Speaker 1: people can and do and will change their minds. It
1:27:38
Speaker 1: just doesn't make any sense that you sacrifice an adult
1:27:43
Speaker 1: to a non individual. It's just it's just crazy to me. Yes,
1:27:57
Speaker 1: I mean, Chairman Mao here says a woman will never
1:28:00
Speaker 1: ever have rights. Yeah, he is not convincible because he's
1:28:03
Speaker 1: he can't think because he's not. He's not he has
1:28:08
Speaker 1: no value, so trying to convince him is a waste
1:28:10
Speaker 1: of time. I agree with that. Chairman Rosse says, only
1:28:12
Speaker 1: man have rights. I mean, okay, so it's okay to
1:28:16
Speaker 1: abord a good, but not okay to aboord a boy.
1:28:17
Speaker 1: I guess. I mean. So again, another another mindless creature
1:28:26
Speaker 1: creeps into my chat. But but yeah, I mean we
1:28:32
Speaker 1: see that, and there more and more of these. A
1:28:40
Speaker 1: new bone is not independent of its mother. And it's
1:28:45
Speaker 1: independent of its mother, right. A nurse can take care
1:28:51
Speaker 1: of him. The newborne can be adopted by somebody else.
1:28:53
Speaker 1: You can give it, you can give it formula. And
1:28:58
Speaker 1: of course now it is a set, but entity, it
1:29:01
Speaker 1: is not, you know. Umbilical cord means that the baby
1:29:06
Speaker 1: gets all its nutrients, everything it needs to survive. The
1:29:11
Speaker 1: fetus gets from its mother. If the mother doesn't eat,
1:29:14
Speaker 1: the fetus dice. If the mother bleeds out, the fetus dies.
1:29:20
Speaker 1: You know, the fetus is a part of the mother.
1:29:22
Speaker 1: It's a it's an integrated part of the biology of
1:29:27
Speaker 1: the mother. Once it's born, it's not that anymore anybody
1:29:32
Speaker 1: can feed it, you know, inside the womb, only the
1:29:36
Speaker 1: mother can. So it is a part of the woman's body.
1:29:41
Speaker 1: It's dependent on the mother in a way that it's
1:29:44
Speaker 1: not dependent on the mother after it's born. All you
1:29:46
Speaker 1: need is ice to see that, right, I mean literally,
1:29:49
Speaker 1: you read about the fact that everything, everything that the
1:29:53
Speaker 1: fetus needs to develop to grow to everything comes through
1:29:56
Speaker 1: the umbilical call from the mother. It's not a newbores,
1:30:03
Speaker 1: not independent, but it's not a part of and completely
1:30:08
Speaker 1: one hundred percent dependent on the mother. It's not a
1:30:11
Speaker 1: part of it. So, yeah, the fetus needs to become
1:30:18
Speaker 1: separate from the mother. Separated from the mother, that is
1:30:21
Speaker 1: when it gains rights. That's when it becomes an individuated
1:30:25
Speaker 1: individual human being. You know, it seems to be bizarre
1:30:38
Speaker 1: that people say, so, just before he was born, it
1:30:41
Speaker 1: wasn't a human being and now it is. Yeah. Not
1:30:46
Speaker 1: just before it wasn't born. It didn't have rights, and
1:30:48
Speaker 1: now it has rights. That's the distinction. Why is that
1:30:51
Speaker 1: hard to figure out? It's in the mother doesn't have rights.
1:30:55
Speaker 1: Out of the mother has rights because it's changed status.
1:30:59
Speaker 1: It's completely different, it's not the same. The medical cord
1:31:03
Speaker 1: has been cut. You know, it's such a it's such
1:31:07
Speaker 1: a visually obvious, deep mark of demarcation. I'm trying to
1:31:17
Speaker 1: think of an analogy. Yeah, I mean, one minute you're alive,
1:31:25
Speaker 1: the next minute you're dead. There's no transition, there's no
1:31:29
Speaker 1: but a little bit dead and somewhat dead. And when
1:31:32
Speaker 1: you're alive, you're not a little dead, and you're not.
1:31:34
Speaker 1: It's just in every live person is potentially dead. It's
1:31:38
Speaker 1: a potential dead person. And you're not a potential you're
1:31:40
Speaker 1: not a dead person. So there's a clear mark of democation.
1:31:44
Speaker 1: You're born. When you're born, you get rights. Before that,
1:31:48
Speaker 1: you don't have rights because when you're born, you become
1:31:50
Speaker 1: an individuated human being. Before that, you're not an individuated
1:31:53
Speaker 1: human being. The cord is not cut, but the cord
1:32:02
Speaker 1: is not functioning. The cord stops functioning once the baby's
1:32:05
Speaker 1: at once the baby is outside of the woman's womb,
1:32:08
Speaker 1: you know, the umbilical chord. I mean, again, a little
1:32:10
Speaker 1: bit of biology, just basic stuff, right, The placenta and
1:32:14
Speaker 1: the cord all flesh out of the woman's womb. So
1:32:17
Speaker 1: it's not like the baby is getting nutrients from the
1:32:22
Speaker 1: chord after it's afterwards, And why wouldn't you get the cord,
1:32:27
Speaker 1: you know. So it's not the cutting of the cord
1:32:30
Speaker 1: that makes it an individuated human being. It's the being born.
1:32:35
Speaker 1: It's you're inside another human another, you're inside a human being,
1:32:40
Speaker 1: you're outside a human being. That's a big deal. It's
1:32:43
Speaker 1: not a little change. That's a big change, all right, John,
1:32:55
Speaker 1: You've mentioned that alun Mask has basically gone silent with
1:32:58
Speaker 1: regards forming a political party. Did he disband it? Did
1:33:02
Speaker 1: anyone at ARI wind up getting in contact with someone
1:33:05
Speaker 1: else or someone there? I mean, we tried to get
1:33:07
Speaker 1: in contact with Elon. We've tried by many different routes
1:33:10
Speaker 1: to get to Elan. We haven't been able to But no,
1:33:13
Speaker 1: as far as I know, very little was done. So
1:33:15
Speaker 1: there's nothing to I don't know that it was anything
1:33:18
Speaker 1: to disband because I don't think that anything was actually created.
1:33:22
Speaker 1: But I haven't looked into it in great depth. I
1:33:23
Speaker 1: just know that nothing's happening at that front. And if
1:33:26
Speaker 1: you want to run a candidate in twenty twenty eight,
1:33:30
Speaker 1: you've got to get started soon in registering in the
1:33:34
Speaker 1: States and creating the infrastructure and finding candidates and doing
1:33:36
Speaker 1: all the work. And it doesn't look like, at least
1:33:40
Speaker 1: from what I can see, that Musk is engaged in it.
1:33:47
Speaker 1: All right, John, thank you, normative Randroid Joan. At this point,
1:33:52
Speaker 1: you should write a book on immigration after your current book.
1:33:56
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Augustina, who works at the Institute,
1:33:58
Speaker 1: will do that at some point. She will right a
1:34:00
Speaker 1: book an immigration. That's her passion, and she's she's very
1:34:03
Speaker 1: good at it. She knows a lot, so I'll delegate
1:34:06
Speaker 1: that to her. But there should be a good book
1:34:09
Speaker 1: on immigration. I agree, though she honest with the left's
1:34:13
Speaker 1: embrace of identity politics. What makes you say that the
1:34:16
Speaker 1: rights embrace was not inevitable, Well, it was likely and predictable.
1:34:23
Speaker 1: It wasn't inevitable. They could have made the choice to
1:34:26
Speaker 1: reject collectivism and embrace individualism and go towards the funding
1:34:33
Speaker 1: principles of America rather than towards the left, rather than
1:34:37
Speaker 1: towards Embasis and the left. And I agree with you
1:34:39
Speaker 1: that it was very, very, very predictable because the right
1:34:42
Speaker 1: always intellectually follows the left. So when the left becomes racist.
1:34:46
Speaker 1: So there's the right. So it's inevitable, is very strong.
1:34:50
Speaker 1: There was no other option. Nothing else could have happened.
1:34:53
Speaker 1: There's always, because this free will, there's always the choice
1:34:56
Speaker 1: of just chucking all that bad philosophy and adopting an
1:35:00
Speaker 1: one deeper with Diego. I love your sense of humor.
1:35:07
Speaker 1: Trump twenty thirty twenty thirty, No, it would be twenty
1:35:12
Speaker 1: thirty two. God, you get your dates right, Diego? Come on, now,
1:35:19
Speaker 1: was that sarcasm? I don't know? Was that humor? Neo?
1:35:25
Speaker 1: When is your new book coming out? I don't know,
1:35:28
Speaker 1: so next year, but exactly when? We don't know. I
1:35:31
Speaker 1: don't have an agent, don't have a publish yet. I'm
1:35:33
Speaker 1: trying to get an agent right now. The Oceanis says,
1:35:38
Speaker 1: stop having tds five hundred exclamation marks. He does no wrong,
1:35:44
Speaker 1: and I think he's being sarcastic. I think that's right,
1:35:48
Speaker 1: although I might be too old, according to Diego, to
1:35:51
Speaker 1: identify sarcasm, so maybe I should quit while I'm ahead,
1:35:55
Speaker 1: all right, the Oceanis, what are your opinions on private prisons?
1:36:00
Speaker 1: Seems like to me prisons would fall under the legitimate
1:36:03
Speaker 1: government function. Yeah, I agree with you. So prisons are
1:36:06
Speaker 1: legitimate goverment function, and I don't think legitimate government functions
1:36:12
Speaker 1: mostly should be privatized. Privatization creates all kinds of perverse incentives,
1:36:17
Speaker 1: and I don't think policing, although I do think private
1:36:21
Speaker 1: security firms would exist under capitalism, but they'd be a
1:36:24
Speaker 1: clear demarcation between the responsibility of a police and private
1:36:28
Speaker 1: security firms. I think prisons should be government run. I
1:36:32
Speaker 1: think they should the legitimate function of government. But it's
1:36:36
Speaker 1: also I think only government can do it objectively without
1:36:39
Speaker 1: creating perverse incentives. This is, you know, this is the
1:36:45
Speaker 1: role of government. I mean, I'm open to argument on
1:36:49
Speaker 1: this one. We'd have to draw it out and really
1:36:51
Speaker 1: think through everything. But from everything I've from what I've
1:36:57
Speaker 1: thought about it, which is not a huge amount, and
1:36:59
Speaker 1: from everything scene, this is one of those things that
1:37:02
Speaker 1: just we should be the government. And I don't think
1:37:06
Speaker 1: prisons a security, prisoned justice. Prison is about justice, and
1:37:10
Speaker 1: I think only the government can inflict justice. Criminal justice, right,
1:37:17
Speaker 1: that is the job of government, and it's only the
1:37:19
Speaker 1: job government. And I don't think any got outsourced that.
1:37:24
Speaker 1: Just like I don't think you take criminal precedings, arbitration,
1:37:28
Speaker 1: criminal proceedings go to a court run by the government.
1:37:32
Speaker 1: Prisons a thing of the government. All right, cool, Thanks everybody.
1:37:39
Speaker 1: I appreciate the support, Appreciate all the questions, lots of
1:37:42
Speaker 1: questions today. This is good. I appreciate all the stickers.
1:37:45
Speaker 1: I think I got all the stickers. Maybe I didn't.
1:37:48
Speaker 1: Let me take a look quickly. And thank you for
1:37:53
Speaker 1: all of you participating. As I said, I'm not sure
1:37:56
Speaker 1: exactly when the next show will be. I will definitely
1:37:58
Speaker 1: try to do one from Israel. Alex. I think Alex
1:38:01
Speaker 1: came in with some twenty Swiss fangs as a sticker,
1:38:07
Speaker 1: and so thank you Alex. All right, thank you guys.
1:38:16
Speaker 1: I will see you all next week sometime somewhere from
1:38:22
Speaker 1: some hotel room at some hour of the day. And
1:38:26
Speaker 1: I know some of you don't like that, but so
1:38:28
Speaker 1: be it, all right, thanks for the support. Don't forget
1:38:31
Speaker 1: patreon dot com. Search you on book show and become
1:38:35
Speaker 1: a monthly supporter. Really really really important, really really really
1:38:38
Speaker 1: valuable value for value, be a trader by everybody