Latest / Yaron Brook Show / Conversation with Ben Bayer - Tribalism, “Cancel Culture” and More | Yaron Brook Show

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Conversation with Ben Bayer - Tribalism, “Cancel Culture” and More | Yaron Brook Show · Yaron Brook Show

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: A lot of fundamental principles of LEDO, rational, self interesting
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: and individual loss. This is the show. Oh right, everybody,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: welcome to you one book show on this Monday, January
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: twenty six. I hope everybody's having a excellent start today week.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm super happy to have been by on with us today.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: There's a ton going on in the world, so we
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: have a lot to talk about. Ben is a fellow
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and director of content at the Ironband Institute. A little
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: bit more detailed bio is below in the description, so
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: we'll just jump into it.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Hi, Ben Heeron. Actually I'm just just senior fellow now
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: that to simplify the name.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, senior fellow. Excellent, congratulations. I uh so, uh, let's see.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: So let's let's start with the news, right, What's I've
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: been talking a lot about this, but I'm interested in
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: your perspective. So there's been I mean, there's a lot
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: of different ways we can approach this, but let's start
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: with just the shooting this weekend. Uh, you know, the
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the cerific shooting of Alex pretty I think his name
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: is the pronunciation, uh. And so it's really interesting to
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: see how different people have responded to it and and
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: and you know, I look at my Twitter feed and
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I see what people are writing, and it's it's it's
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: it's pretty bizarre. But what what do you make kind
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: of the shooting itself? And then how how the different people,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: both on the left and the right have responded.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, first thing to say is obviously horrific,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: and from all the different camera angles that I've now
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: seen and that most people have seen hard to see
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: how it was was justified. Like, the best that I
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: can make of it is that the and a lot
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: of people have have argued for this convincingly that probably
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: what happens is they disarmed this guy, uh, and then
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: the guy disarming him accidentally discharges the weapon he disarmed
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: from him, and then that makes the other guy, the
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: other ice officers think that he's shooting, and then they
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: and then they they respond. I mean, so the very
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: best case is it's a major screw up and just
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: like the sign of really awful training these guys must
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: be getting. I mean, that's the best case that you
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: can make.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: Yeh, I yes, because the alternative is even worse.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: The guy's kneel to the ground and his back is
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: to the shooter and he just pumps, you know, nine
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: bullets into him. It's it's pretty spooky.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: At the same time. The thing that I find the
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: most interesting about the reaction over the past few days,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: and I've been I've been following things pretty closely on
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: mostly on x but also on other social media, is
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: is the way that even many defenders of Trump's immigration policy,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: who were more inclined to try to take the side
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: of Ice with the Renee Good shooting, many of them
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: are this is even a bridge too far for them.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: And so you had a whole lot of Republican politicians
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: coming out on Sunday saying we got to turn down
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: the heat, and there needs to be a joint investigation
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: with the you know, with the state, not just not
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: just Ice investigator or not just DHS investigating itself, and
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: also just reacting with the critically to the statements by
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: people like Secretary Nome and Stephen Miller who immediately rushed
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: to judgment by declaring this guy a domestic terrorist and
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: on top of that alleging that he didn't have the
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: right to be carrying a weapon, which then it took
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: them a while, It took the Second Amendment conservatives a
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: while to remember that they believed in the Second Amendment,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: but a number of them finally came through. The NRA
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: took quite a while, but finally had a brief post
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: about it, and one that also tried to criticism to
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: blame Democrats in Minnesota for it. But it's so it
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: seems like it's a bridge too far for a lot
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: of the President's supporters, and so it's not surprising to
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: me that the Trump administrations seems to be backing down
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: a little bit. As of yesterday evening, Trump did this
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: interview with the Wall Street Journal saying that he was
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: going to consider pulling Ice out of Minnesota to some degree,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: and that he was going to allow for some kind
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: of investigation. And I mean, I think there's a lot
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: of speaking philosophically. There's a lot of people who've been
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: very critical of Trump, and rightly so, and worried about
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: his dictatorial, authoritarian ambitions. And I agree with those concerns,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: but there's a way in which calling him out on
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: those grounds has has power. And even even real dictator,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: I don't think Trump is a dictator. I think maybe
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: he's could be setting the president for one, but even
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: real dictators can't function independently of the popular support of
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: the of the population. I think, why are that moral support?
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: And that's why they you know, iron Rand I posted
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: a line from ein Rand about this. This is why
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: they do propaganda, this is why they do censorship. And
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: so if if they're propaganda exceeds the mandate that they
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: were given an office, in effect, if if they can't
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: retain popular support, they will lose power. Even if they're dictators.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: And this isn't a dictatorship. We still have free speech.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: We have people all over social media sharing all these videos,
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: which makes it impossible for that. You know, there's propaganda
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: lines from Christy Nome and Steven military work because everybody
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: sees with their own eyes that this is this guy's
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: not a domestic terrorist. Whatever you say about him, he's
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: not that, and it's a pure it's pure propaganda to
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: say that he is.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: No. I think that's an incredibly important point to make,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: is that dictators do aly on the consent of the
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: people to a degree that I don't think people appreciate.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was very little opposition to the GESTOPO
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: and the SS in the nineteen thirties. Within Germany didn't.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: You didn't you didn't see people I didn't have cameras,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: but you didn't see people kind of objecting in an
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: organized way early. And of course maybe by the time
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: they wanted to object, it was too late. That is
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: was the point in which they have did the getstop
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: too much power and they couldn't stop them.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: And it's good.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, my view is it's good to see people objecting,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: objecting online filming, I mean, filming has become an incredibly
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: powerful tool against the authoritarian nature of ice in particular,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: but generally cops. I think cops, you know, now they're
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: quite a way cameras, body cams, but just the fact
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: that other people are filming is just going to make
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: them think twice about about some of the brutality that
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: we've seen in the past.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So this is, by the way, one reason why
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: it's so important to keep fighting for free speech, because
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: it's it's the it's the main recourse against dictori dictorial
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: authoritarian ambitions. I mean, I have all kinds of criticisms
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: to make of Elon Musk and the way even lots
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: of the ways that he runs his platform, but it
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: hasn't been any restrictions on sharing these videos about what's
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: happening in Minneappolis. I think Musk even you know, probably
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: sympathizes with ICE and its policies, but he's letting us
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: put this stuff on his platform, and this is this
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: is good.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: It's it's interesting that I you know, I don't know
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: if this is true. I saw today on X and
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's true. So I'm saying that invests.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: But there's a there's a claim out there that now
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: the TikTok has been transferred to Aliko, basically to to
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Larry Ellison, that a lot of influencers are seeing kind of.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: The materials, the material, you know, access to.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: The material reduced significantly and based on based on criticism
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: of Trump is not as the Chinese were more tolerant
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: of it than Larry Ellison. Again, at least according to
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: certain rumors that out there. We'll see, we'll see if
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: that plays out, if that's a true story or not.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: But yes, I mean, so far X, we haven't really
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: seen any any real constraints on this kind of information
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: getting out on X.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: And also the community note feature has been really useful,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Like some all the worst posts with the worst propaganda
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: have all been community noted, you know, with regard to
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: what are the actual gun laws. No, there's nothing says
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: that you can't bring a gun to a protest. It's
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: a Second Amendment right, et cetera.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: So where do you see the tribalism aspect in the
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: response to the shooting.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean tribalism is where political we're loyalty to
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: a group or loyalty to a leader is what Trump's
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: loyalty to principle, And if there's a principle at all
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: involved in the current debate, it's this debate about gun
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: rights just one of many examples that have come out
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: in the last day or so. And what you have
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: is a bunch of Republicans who, you know, five ten
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: years ago, they would have been on the bandwagon defending
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Second Amendment rights, accusing the Democrats of being the ones
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: who are coming for their guns, and who at the
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: drop of a hat now suddenly become critical of someone
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: just for carrying a gun that he's legally entitled to carry.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: But the tribalism is not just them, right, because you
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: have on the other side, You've got you've got Democrats
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: and liberals and progressives who are all calling out the
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Republicans for this hypocrisy. Now it's not always part of
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: what they could be doing is just calling them out
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: for hypocrisy without meaning to endorse the idea of the
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Second Amendment, but a lot of it you couldn't tell
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: that that's what they were doing. A lot of them
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: are speaking as if they endorsed the Second amend when,
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: of course you know that they've been really critical of
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: it in lots of other cases. And so there's this
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: is far from the only example of this kind of
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: tribalism in the various culture war debates about Trump's policies today.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: But it's it's stunning sometimes the speed with which people
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: are willing to rapidly either abandon or invoke some principle
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: just because it serves a real political the political expediency
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: of the moment, in favor of whatever loyalty they're supposed
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: to be signaling.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I remember the during COVID, some
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: of the demonstrations against lockdown to get vaccines. You know,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: right wing guys showing up with a off fifteen's and
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: sixteen's and you know, with magazine inserted and fully loaded
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: and everything. Walking around and yeah, now the critical of
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: a guy having a concealed weapons permit having a gun hoisted,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: and that's intolerable to them.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: And I mean, one thing that that reminds me of
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: is that it never to take seriously again anybody who
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: objected to COVID lockdowns and the the real but modest
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: restrictions on personal liberty that we had as a result
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: of them, and who's now fined with what ICE is
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: doing because this is this is in my opinion at least,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, far far worse. I mean, it's locking down
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: whole people's lives, not not just because they sometimes literally
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: have to stay home, like we did during COVID without
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: you know, out of fear for what might happen to
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: them on the streets, but because they're if they do
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: go out, then they're sometimes kidnapped and put in a
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: detention center and shipped overseas. So it's it's it's pretty
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: you know, whatever, however bad the COVID policies were, and
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: I do think they were bad, and I've spoken and
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: written about this, there's pretty small potatoes compared to what
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: would happen to, you know, an immigrant targeted by ICE.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: And I know, they don't think that. They think it
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter because they're not citizens, so they don't think
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: they have rights. But in fact that's not the way
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: it works.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, say something about that. I mean, there was this
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: idea that writes only applay to citizens.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Well, well, there's all kinds of problems with that. I mean,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: the simple problem with it is that there's the straightforward,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: simple legal constitutional issue. Is it. The Fourteenth Amendment, the
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: one that defines citizenship by birthright, also says no person
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: process of law, and in the very clause where it
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: then goes on to define citizenship. So just from a
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: legal standpoint, the Constitution does not restrict constitutional rights, especially
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: due process rights, which is what we're talking about here,
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: to citizens. It says persons as to sink from citizens.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: That's the simpler point. But the deeper point that on
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: car Gate I think has really clarified for a lot
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: of us, is that the overall purpose of government is
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: the protection of rights, and the purpose of a constitution
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: is to is to limit the of government against the citizens,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: and so it functions by permission of the people, not
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: the other way around. So and rights like due process
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: are a way of recognizing that fact. They're a way
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: of saying, doesn't matter who you're doing it to government,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: you need to prove to us that you are using force,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: that you are exercising force in an objective, rights respecting manner.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: It's not that you by default get what you want
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: to do, and then we have to prove that we
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: have the status or right to resist it somehow. And so,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: you know, it doesn't matter from that perspective, whether you're
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: talking about citizens non citizens. You're talking about a government
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: with a massive amount of force, exercising in this case,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: unprecedented powers, and that's a threat to everybody. And the
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: major evidence of that is the extent to which has
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: been a threat to United States citizens. I mean, we're
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: talking about to United States citizens who've been killed. In
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: the last few weeks. We've talked about you know, dozens,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: if not hundreds of I think I think I saw
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty or so one hundred and eighty
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: United States citizens who've been detained by these by these raids. Again,
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: because the government is operating on the principle that they're
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: the ones who don't need permission, that it's everybody else
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: who has to carry around the papers and prove that
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: they have the right. And so it's just a complete
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: inversion of the of the proper role of government. And
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: you can you can say that regardlessly, just even leaving
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: aside questions about immigration policy itself, questions about you know,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: whether government ought to have the right to ship immigrants overseas,
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: which that's a separate conversation. I don't think they do.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: But like, even if you did think that they had
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: that right, these du process issues are totally independent of that.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: So what do you make of of kind of what
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: is actually going on in in in in Minneapolis kind
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: of the I mean obviously the ice in bands kind
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: of walking around neighborhoods and then these protests, people following
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: them around. I guess the website where you can go
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: and they will tell you where where the ice is,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: where they're located, so people can go in and demonstrate. So,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: you know, there's the issue of civil disobedience. There's the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: issue of you know, generally we don't like protests because
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: they disrupt the lives of people who are not involved,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: who are you know, innocent, and their rights are being
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: being hampered. How do you how do you view all
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: the balance of all of this.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the first thing to comment on is
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: the unfortunate tribalism again of the whole situation. So I think,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: and we've had, we've had tribalistic culture wars going on
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: for you know, the better part of a decade now,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: where nobody is really motivated by adherence to any genuine
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: moral principles. It's about loyalty to group, or loyalty to
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: a leader, or loyalty some other anti conceptual consideration. And
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: what's really scary is you're starting it now, You're starting
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: out to see it break out into the streets, like
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: in the form of actual physical warfare, like the overtures
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: to it were January sixth, But now you have, now
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: you have, you have in effect. I think my view
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: is that that ice is is a kind of militaristic
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: embodiment of the maga cultural warrior, and they've been given
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: now the force of law. And you know, I don't
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: I'm not claiming everybody and nice has that kind of motivation,
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: but enough of them seem to, especially since they've been
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: hired very very recently without a lot of training and
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: motivated by various political concerns that it sure looks that
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: way from any of them. And you have in the streets,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: you have the left, and as much as I sympathize
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: with their cause on this issue that is condemning and
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: resisting the policies of the Trump administration and immigration, the tactics,
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: in my personal opinion, have have have not have have
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: made things worse in a lot of cases. And that's
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: not to say that any of these activists deserve to
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: get shot by any means. And yeah, I mean we
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: should talk more about this because like I think there
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: are things that they're doing that are helpful, but I
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: think they are things that they're doing that are not
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: so helpful. The most helpful thing is the is the filming,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: and that's that's what's given us the the evidence and
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: the data that we need to show, you know, to
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: cut through the propaganda that we're getting from the administration.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: But it's it's I think they should double down on
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: non violent protest and that's not always happening. I mean,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: just last night there were people who were laying siege
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: to the hotel that a bunch of ice people were
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: staying in, trying to break down the front doors of
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: the hotel and then they had to be pushed back
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: with with the you know, tear gas and the like.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: And that's not helping anything. That is just giving the
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: administration more cause and grounds to invoke the Insurrection Act
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: and send in the army, at which point we're talking
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: like constitutional crisis, civil war two point zero, a civil
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: war that the left will not win. Like if there's
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: a civil war in this country, the Red States will
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: win and that will be awful. So why give them
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: pretext for that?
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: So what what would what would you suggest in terms
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: of sol of disobedience A do you think it's appropriate
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: in this case and be other than filming? What what
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: would you suggest that they actually do?
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, one thing to say is like, so I
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: have written a fair amount already, and the Institute has
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: said a lot about why we oppose mass protests that
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: goes into the streets, and and I'm still opposed to
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: it in principle. Trouble is that it's it's been it's
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: been legitimized by the courts for decades now, and so
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: everyone now takes it for granted that that's the way
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: to protest is to go out into the street, whether
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: by getting a permit or not. And so like that
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: is a ship that has sailed in a lot of ways,
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: and it's not going to return to harbor anytime soon,
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: and so I think to think about it from that perspective. People,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: most people believe this is a legitimate form of First
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Amendment protest. Cities that are giving out the permits think that,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: so they do. So I think, you know, you have
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: to assume that there's there's better and worse ways to
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: do this, and that they should be done with permits,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: and cities should grant the permits on a content neutral basis,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: but then enforce the conditions of those permits so that
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: when it becomes a threat to the you know, to
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: the peace, if it's you know, if it becomes violent,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: they can't. They have the cities have the right to
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: shut these things down. And like, I think one mistake
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: that the governor of Minnesota and other governors and other
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: states where similar things have happened, is not not calling
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: the National Guard in early enough to keep order. There's
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: that I know some of the reasons they've had for
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: being reluctant to do that. Waltz finally did it Saturday night.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: I think late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, and
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: you know, by that time a lot of the worst
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: stuff had happened. If they did it, if they had
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: a lower threshold for bringing it in, they could nip
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: some of the worst of this in the button, maybe
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: stopped some of these shootings from happening. So that's one
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: thing to say. But yeah, I mean, the more they
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: can find ways to do this protests, do these protests peacefully,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: the better. And yeah, civil disobedience is definitely an option,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: even when it means breaking some of the municipal code
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: and breaking some of the state laws about this. If
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: they're willing to be arrested, to actually use their arrest
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: as a way of testing the policies. And like, the
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: best way to do this that I can think of
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: is when and if you know that somebody's being targeted
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: for removal, like you can do a sit in. You
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: can sit in around their proper and then the ice
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: has to come and take you out and arrest you
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: if and then you're not you're not being violent, but
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: you're showing no. I'm serious about this. I think there's
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: something wrong with the law. That's something that actually gives
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: you the chance to take the law to court as
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: a kind of test case, and especially when a lot
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: of these a lot of these the problems are with
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: the due process, where you've got ice coming onto people's
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: property when they shouldn't be able to come onto people's property.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: That's exactly the kind of thing you'd be able to
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: test if you had that kind of that kind of case.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: That's hard to predict when that's going to happen, but
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: the more they can figure out ways to do that
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: the better, because I mean so like Ironrand wrote about
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: the issue of civil disobedience in her essay The Cashing
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: in the Student Rebellion, and she talks about it on
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: the grounds that I just did about why you can
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: do it justifiably if you disobey a law in order
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: to bring it as a test case to court. She
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: says there's no justification in the civilized society for mass
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: civil disobedience. It involves a violation of the rights of others.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: But then she does say that the it's approb mass
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: civil disabilience is appropriate only as a preliate to civil war.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: It's a declaration of a total break with the country's
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: political institutions.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: In which we might be there. I mean, you've got
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: you've got these thugs walking around the streets with masks on,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: you know, harassing.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: People and shooting people.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe maybe it's time to you know, maybe not pray
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: lue to civil war, but maybe it's a way of
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: avoiding civil war.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Maybe it is interesting that.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: So the news right now is that Greg Bovino, who
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: is the head of command at Lodge of the Border Patrol,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: is being fired. He was really he was running things
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: in Minnesota. He's the guy who came out and said
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I'm never going to release the guy's name because then
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: that's dosing and you know, the immunity and.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: All this stuff.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: And it looks like he's been fired, or at least
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: some people who are porting he's been fired, and and
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: he's leaving Minnesota with a bunch of the ICE people.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: So ice is being reduced. Waltz and Trump talked today,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: and I think Waltz has figured out how to talk
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: to Trump. So maybe he complimented him on a few
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: things and and got a got a decent conversation with him.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: My expectation as you'll see a significant reduction in in
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: heat around Minnesota.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Now, I hope that's true, and yeah, like so the
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: classic case here with civil disobedience, where it's actually mass
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: civil disobedience it's not just being done as a test
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: case is in the South during the Civil rights movement,
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: where you know, marching across the bridge in Selma, or
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: you know, any of the number of their marches where
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: they were illegal marches, where the consideration was that they
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: were living in the Jim Crow South, where you know,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: normally you you you get arrested as a test case
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: where there's a there's a rule of law and you
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: have some confidence there's recourse that you can take to
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: alleviate your grievances through the normal judicial systems with legislative
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: system But yeah, if in fact you've been politically disenfranchised
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: in the case of the Jim Crow South because because
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: the you know, the various states are being run by
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: overt racists, well then you don't have any hope of that,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: and all that you can manage is some kind of
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: small scale civil unrest that you hope gets the you know,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: the attention of the wider public, of the media, et cetera,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: and maybe eventually the politicians who have more power, and
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: so that that is the major exception to this kind
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: of principle, and you know, do we have something like
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: that right now? I mean, I was, I'll tell you
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: I was. I was reluctant to think that up until
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: you know, six months ago, let's say, But yeah, facts
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: have changed on the ground where if even US citizens
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: who are supposed to be protected, who aren't supposed to
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: be the target, if they're getting swept up, If if
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: even the non citizens are not getting the kind of
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: due process rights that they're supposed to get under the constitution,
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: then yeah, what what recourse do they have? And yeah,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: they are being arrested for violating laws that are actually
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: on the books that have been elected. You know that
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: elected representatives have voted for for decades now, and nobody
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: has bothered to change these laws, perhaps because they didn't
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: realize what the consequence of action sually enforcing them would be.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: And now but now they're trying to actually enforce them,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: and we're seeing the way these laws on the books
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: totally legitimately adopted from an elective electoral standpoint, how they're
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: destroying people's lives, and so like, ultimately the laws have
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: to change. I mean, this is a this is a
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: problem for democracy in the sense that it's these are
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: democratically chosen laws, and that's a problem. That shows you
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: the problem with democracy in the sense of unlimited majority rule.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: And this is you when we come back to tribalism.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, one of the I think biggest failures we're
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: seeing right now that is purely tribal is the is
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the dysfunction of Congress. That is, Congress has made itself irrelevant.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Trump on whim determined tariffs all over the place, which
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: is clearly in the constitutional function of Congress. Now Congress
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: has given the president certa but whether that's constitutional is
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: not clear, and the court hasn't ruled yet. We'll see
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: what other court rules. But even if the court rules,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: it will only be about one law and it won't
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: be about generally the ability of the president too. This
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: we'll see it with immigration. You know, immigration laws should
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: be written by Congress, and it's basically dictated by a
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: fiat by the executive where it's Obama, whether it's Trump,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, but it's it's them deciding what immigration
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: law should be.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: We see an.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Issue after issue after issue that Congress refuses to really
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: engage in the challenging you know, challenging questions of the
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: legislation of really making choices, and particularly with Republicans right now,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: they will not vote against Trump. It is.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: It is spooky how tribal that seems to become.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: And we're going to get an interesting test of this
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: in just the next week because the DHS funding is
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: up for renewal at the end and it expires it
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: the end of the week, and so you know, you
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: have a lot of Democrats saying they're not going to
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: vote for it, that they're willing to shut down the
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: government for it. Haven't seen any Republicans say that yet,
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: though there have been these Republicans who have been otherwise
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: critical of the president. Will be interesting to see what
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Rand Paul does well.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: What Rand said today was that the problem is that
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: ice funding at current levels was already approved by the
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: previous budget, so this is an increase on top of
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the current levels.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: That is just in this bill.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: So I will continue to function even if they shut
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: this particular bill down. But it will be interesting to
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: see how Rand Paul, in particular, who's been good on
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: some issues and has been willing to be critical of Trump,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: one of the few whether he's willing to be critical
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: of Trump on this one.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: And I wasn't sure what to make of that tweet
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: when I saw it, because it could either mean, well,
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: this is why I'll go ahead and vote for the
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: funding because it doesn't make a difference to the policies
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: one way or the other. But it also means, you know,
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: why should they be raising why should we be raising
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: their budget after all of this? Yeah, so yeah, I
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: don't know what he's going to do, but I mean
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: it seems like we'll have a government shut down one
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: way or the other, unless they decide to shut off
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: the filibuster, which they might do.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: I wish they'd return the filibuster the way it was.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Would you actually had to do something to filibuster actually
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: speak rather than the automatic.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Sixty sixty votes.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: I'm just announcing a filibuster, which I think is a
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: cop out. But you know, make make them work for
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: it if you're gonna if you're gonnassist in the sixty.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: But yes, it does look like there's a it's going
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: to be shut down because they need sixty votes to pass,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: and it looked like as of two days ago, it
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: was going to pass easily. Enough Democrats are going to
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: vote with the Republicans to pass it. And this has
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: given Democrats a spine.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I can't. I can't. I really don't want
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: to let Democrats get off the hook for this because
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: like they could there was a year there where they
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: had total control of Congress and the Obama administration for
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: a year, and again under Biden first, you know, two
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: years of Biden where they had total control. They could
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: have changed they could have used that to change these
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: immigration laws. Yeah, they probably had to try to avoid
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: filibuster too, but.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: They didn't even try.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: They've repeated they didn't try, and they've repeatedly failed. And
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: the reason for it is that there's at the end
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: of the day, there's there's still there's there's a big
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: enough sector of the Democratic voting block that's in favor
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: of immigration restrictions to the kind of Bernie Sanders types
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: and so. And it was democratic administrations that passed the
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: original legislation in the fifties and sixties, you know, under
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: LBJ to impose the system of quotas that it's now
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: used to just keep so many foreign workers out. So
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: it's on them.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Too, No, it's both parties I mean the twenty four restriction.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: I mean the one that shut down immigration from Eastern Europe.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Was a Republican that was COOLi aage who everybody raised about.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: And then it was Johnson is sixty five and Bush,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Bush Junior tried to do comprehensive immigration reform and he
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: couldn't get enough demicut he couldn't get enough Republican support,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: and he couldn't get enough Democratic support. And Democrats wouldn't
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: go for it because, as you said, they have beholden
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: to the unions, and the unions have always been anti immigration.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a I'm writing an article right now actually
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: about this issue. And it's you know, there's this thing
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: they always chant at protests, and they've been doing it
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: lately in Minnesota. Again, this is what democracy looks like,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: and the idea is supposed to be here, we have
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: lots of people. This is what this is what democracy
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: looks like. Here at the protest. But no, actually, the
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: immigration raids. That's what democracy looks like. That's what it
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: looks like when you have a very popular political program
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: that politicians are elected to put into place. And Trump
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: was elected not just in the electoral college but by
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: the popular vote, and he's putting into and he's all
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: he's doing is enforcing laws that were chosen by democratically
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: elected representatives over the course of many decades. That's what
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: democracy looks like, where you think that you can anything
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: that a majority decides to impose is fine, regardless of
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: whatever individual rights it violates. That's what democracy looks like.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: It doesn't look very good. What we need is a
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: constitutional republic.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: We need to return to the constitution of the public
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: we supposedly have. But yes, what's your view of you know,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: but there were legal immigrants and it's you know, we're
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: just following the law, right uh.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: And and and we.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Need we need somehow to go and out and get
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: them because they all illegal.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: They're baking the law.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, the best, the best point I've seen about
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: this is I think what An Cargat said the other
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: day on a podcast with Augustina on our channel, where
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: if the I r s decided to start enforcing the
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: tax law in the same way that ICE is now
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: enforcing the immigration law. Uh and you know, rounding up
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: people on the street, checking their receipts their houses without
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: warrants to look at their finances. You'd have outrage in
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: this country among the same people who are now saying,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: but it's the law. And you can say the same
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: thing for all kinds of laws, uh, that that people
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: break just in the course of living, whether it's the
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: tax laws or the speeding laws or or what have you, that, yeah,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: that's against the law, and and and probably the laws
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: to change. But given the fact that these laws are
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: so ridiculously onerous in all kinds of ways, if you
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: restrict them in a draconian way, you'll stop people from
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: being able to live. And so that means you either
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: have to compromise on your idea of what proper enforcement
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: looks like or repeal the laws. You can't. You can't.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: You can't have it both ways. And there's there's a
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: way in which part of the problem with non objective law,
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: law that's not ultimately justified on the basis of a
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: standard that is objectively justifiable and one that everybody can
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: know when they're when they're breaking the law or not.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Part of the problem with that kind of law is
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: that it, to the extent that it's promulgated, it by
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: its nature erodes the rule of law. And a simple
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: example of this is this is the speed limits. I mean,
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: most of the time nobody keeps the speed limits, and
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: it would be ridiculous if they did in a lot
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: of cases, and so people just start to habituate the idea,
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, those those it's you know, it's a recommendation.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: It's it's not that big of a deal if I
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: go sixty and a fifty five mile an hour zone
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: and you get maybe angry if you occasionally get the
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: speeding ticket, but you just chalk that up as a
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: cost of doing business, the occasional speeding tickets and the
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: more laws like that. And that's, you know, pretty minor example,
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: because you need some speed limits, probably on roads, if
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: they were privately run, they would have them. But tax
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: laws are a better example, where or antitrust laws where
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: you can't even know if you're violating. Yeah, and so
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: it then becomes a matter of discretion when they're going
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: to be enforced, and therefore depends on the arbitrary will
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: of the enforcers, which means there's now no rule of law.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: It's the rule of men.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about cancel culture. You've written about You've
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: written about cancel culture, and Chris Cancer's culture was for
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: you know, for ten years, probably mostly associated with the
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: left in what was going on in the left. So
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: maybe describe what cancel culture was, and you know, if
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: what the phenomena was, and then how it's kind of
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: morphed into today.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: Well, it might be helpful to just back up a
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: little bit to give the context for why I'm writing
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: about this, because this is an issue that came up
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: in one of the latest aspects of our tribalistic culture war,
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: the controversy over Heritage Foundation Tucker Carlson in one way
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: or another endorsing are actually platforming anti semites like Nick Fuentes.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: So Tucker Carlson did this big podcast interview with Fuentas
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of people rightly objected to giving a voice,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: giving publicity to this really obscene, infantile, nasty, wicked anti Semite,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Nick Fuentes. And when they did that, the Heritage Foundation
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: president Kevin Roberts came out and said, no, I'm not
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: going to cancel Tucker Carlson for doing this. He's our
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: he's he's on our side, he's one of our friends.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: And so you get this debate internally in the conservative
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: movement about about cancel culture, quote unquote, and whether or
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: not it is cancel culture to deep platform someone like
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Fuentes or to deplatform Tucker Carlson for giving a platform
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: to Flentse and you had a lot of back and
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: forth about what cancel culture actually was, and I decided
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: this was a good opportunity to find to finally weigh
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: in on this debate with a kind of more theoretical
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: position on what to think of this concept that we've
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: been bandying about in the culture for the better part
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: of five six years now, and I've always been suspicious
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: of it. We've done a few things on at at
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Ari about it, and the more I looked into it,
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: my suspicion solidified, And like, I'm coming out against this
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: concept cancel culture, right, I think it is confused, has
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: no real clear definition, and invoking it in order to
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: criticize what are in fact real problems in our discourse
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: as on the left in twenty twenty during the George
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: Floyd protests and everything that came out of that, using
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: the concept to criticize that only obscures things plays into
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: all other kinds of tribal problems. Because now the right,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: anytime someone is deplatformed and gets to be the victim
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: of cancel culture. Now they get to, you know, be
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: a martyr because they got canceled. And the fact is
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: that half I don't know how to quantify it. You know,
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: a sizeable number of the things that people call cancelation
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: are totally justified because it's it's it they are. It's
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: people exercising their free speech, free association rights to disassociate
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: from someone whom they regard as morally a shameful who
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: they don't want to help give a voice. Some of
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: them are that way, some of them are not. And
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: so what's the right conceptualization, what's the right way to
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: understand what's justifiable disassociation versus the things that were actually
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: happening in twenty twenty that many of the things the
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: left was doing, you know, on against the heretics, against
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: George Floyd. And it's this very simple answer. I think
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: it's witch hunting. And I want to give I want
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: to give Don Watkins credit for this idea, for the
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: idea behind this article, because he had a tweet right
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: around the time of the right around the time of
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: the Charlie Kirk shooting where I tweeted about a related issue,
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: and he said, we don't need we don't need a
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: new concept like cancel culture, when we have an old
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: one that'll do just as well, which is witch hunting.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: And so I turned that idea into a whole article,
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: and when you think about it, really really ties everything together.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: The terrible things that you had woke activists doing around
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: the time of twenty twenty George Floyd protests, that they
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: were witch hunting for sinners against the martyr George Floyd.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: And that was whether they were violating somebody's free speech
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: and doing it or not, Like some of the things
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: that they did didn't involve any kind of violation of
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: free speech. Example being the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: who authored an article or approved an article member which
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: was talking about the way in which the George Floyd
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: riots were destroying the lives of people who lived in
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: urban areas but burning down buildings, and he was made
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: to resign because that was viewed as you know, politically incorrect.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: And so whether it's whether it involves free speech violation
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: or not, it's a kind of witch hunt. It's a
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: kind of religiously driven, irrational search for heretics against some
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: kind of orthodoxy, and that's what unites all the witch
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: hunts in history, from the ones the literal witch hunts
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: in the Middle Ages to Communist party purges in the
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: nineteen thirties, McCarthy era inquisitions on down to on down
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: to twenty twenty. But then once you get that point,
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: once you realize that's really what the essence of the
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: phenomenon is, that it's this kind of tribal religious phenomenon,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: well then you realize that a lot of the you
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: realize not only that it's not witch hunting to kick out,
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: to kick anti Semites out of what you think is
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: a civilized movement, because actually they are witch hunters, but
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: it's a lot of people on the Maga rite have
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: been doing a lot of witch hunting themselves.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: The best example that I can think of, and I
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: detailed this in the article, is what happened after Charlie Kirk, Like, yes,
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: we should absolutely condemn Charlie Kirk's assassination, and yeah, there
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: were a lot of people who said a lot of
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: inappropriate things, you know, who even said he justified, he
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: deserved what he was getting. And some of those people
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: deserve to be fired for it, absolutely, and it was
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: it was justified disassociation to fire those people. But some
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: of the people who said things after Kirk's killing, all
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: they were doing was saying that they didn't agree with Kirk.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: So you had people saying things like, everybody's complaining about
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: everybody's condemning Kirk getting assassinated. But here are all these
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: kids in schools who were just the victim of school shooting.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: Why aren't we paying more attention to them? And the
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: witch hunters came for them too and tried to get
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: them and many cases did succeed in getting them fired.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: And like, those people had a free speech right to
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: say what they were saying, and in fact, what they
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: were saying was it was often reasonable, but no, they
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: were seen as expressing a heresy against the newly appointed martyr,
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: Charlie Kirk, around whom this whole religious movement has now grown.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: And so it's the same damn thing. It's the same
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: kind of witch hunting mentality that you saw happening with
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: George Floyd. And I described it as the George Floyd
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: moment of on the MAGA, right. I don't think I'm
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: the only one who's called it that but I had
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: so many you know, George Floyd Vibes after the kirk
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: assassination happened, and I couldn't. I wanted to wait a
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: few months to write about it, after things had cooled
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: down a bit. I think now there's so many other
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: things that are on people's mind. It seems fine to
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: talk about, but it needs to be talked about because
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: it's there's so much of this blood of tribalism kind
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: of ye.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: You know, your tribalism theme that that you've been writing
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: about and commenting about on a on a variety of
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: different topics. So so how do you think about, you know,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: the criticism of Tucker Calson and uh, I mean he
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: was he's being deplatformed, and he's been again, he's being uh,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: there is this cancer culture. He's been witch hunted if
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: we want to use that terminology. Does that apply in
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: any way too? How do we think about criticize, criticizing,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: sanctioning somebody and and uh and and uh or stopping
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: to sanction somebody? How does that all fit?
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, I I think anybody, anybody who's civilized, should
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: try to find as many ways as they can to deplatform,
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: not just Nick Fuente's but Tucker Carlson, uh and and
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: that it's not a it's not a witch hunt to
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: do it. It is just plain old obvious exercise of justice,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: because these are people who are if anything, they're the
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: ones who are inciting the witch hunters. They're all taking
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: the last month and there's real uniforms. It sounds like Tucker,
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're the ones who are who are fomenting
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: you know, this hysteria and h and paranoia about the
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: whichever of the latest witches there they want us to
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: go after, whether it's in Twente's case, the Jews and
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: globalists or in Tucker Carlson's case that but without really
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: saying that, So, yeah, I don't. I don't have any
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: sympathy for the opportunities these guys might lose. And you know,
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: so I was. I was really happy to see like
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Adam Ossoff deciding to resign from Heritage over it. And
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: you know, probably more people should that, and certainly more
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: people should disinvite Tucker from all kinds of different functions.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: It seems like somehow Tucker won't go away. He's in
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: the White House, he's in he criticizes Trump all the time,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: but he still gets invited there. He's he really does
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: seem to be everywhere, and he has a I think
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: he has a grip on on on too many powerful people,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: or he has connections certainly Jed Events. I mean he
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: made jored events his career and uh, and I think
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: it's a really tough for JD Events to distance himself from.
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: But he's gone completely nuts. I mean Tucker, yep, and
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: and yeah.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: So maybe say something about sanction, right, I mean, what
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: it what you know, because that that's part of the
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: context here is is Tucker sanctions Nick voyentees, right, and
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: and so does PS Morgan.
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: PS Morgan sanctions written by interviewing him.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: So do a lot of people. Why is that wrong?
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, they're just having a conversation. They just
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: just having a debate.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean some debates are good to have, but
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: not not not with certain people on certain topics in
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: certain ways. And like here's the here's one way of
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: thinking about this, and I talk about it in the article.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: There have been there have been a number of people
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: who've criticized Tucker by saying, well, the problem isn't that
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: he brought fentes on his show. The problem is that
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: he just wasn't critical enough and he didn't you know,
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: argue with him enough. And they point to William F.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: Buckley's interview with Eldridge Cleaver, you know, former Black panther
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: guy back in the sixties. If you watch the the
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: the Buckley interview, it's not that much better from what
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: Carlson did with Tents. He gets Eldridge Cleaver to admit
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: a bunch of terrible things that he believes, but doesn't
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: actually critique, doesn't actually condemn. And and either way, what
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: both of them are doing is treating uh, somebody who
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: has views that are beneath contempt and not worthy of
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: debate as worthy of debate as as like and and
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: so it's not even just that the problem isn't with disagreement.
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: You can have a disagreement with people, and you have
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: to make decisions about this when you do debates all
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: the time where you don't agree with what they say.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: You might even think really bad things about the things
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: that they're advocating. But this is not a person who
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: calls for violence. This is not a person who you know,
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: advocates racism or anything like that. And you're going to
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: have a civilized discussion, but it's going to be where
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: you're going to disagree with them. There's certain people where
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: it's not just disagreement, where you're you're you're sending the
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: message that this is this is this person's worthy of
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: attention and worthy of conversation. And like, the the the
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: evidence that this is real, that that you have to
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: that that giving that kind of moral sanction has these
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: terrible consequences, is that once Carlson gets on the Tucker Carlson, Sorry,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: once Fuentes gets on the Tucker Carlson Show, he then
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: gets this whole tour around the podcast circuit, even gets
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: onto TV, like with the British guy that you mentioned,
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: here's Morgan, and so it gets this huge boost to
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: his publicity and now his ideas are going everywhere. It
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: has real consequences. And so, like the concern for the
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: injustice of morally sanctioning evil people and evil ideas is
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: something that objectivism has been concerned about for a long time.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: It's something that I think some objectivists when they hear
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: what Aari has said about it over the years, they
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: think that this is the kind of niche issue on
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: the part of objectivism. Why do objectivists care about such things?
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: But then recent events have this way of bringing the
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: issue really into the public spotlight where you start to realize, oh, no,
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: actually it's not just an objectivist concern. Anybody who is
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: concerned with justice, anybody who's concerned with civilization, is actually
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: thinking about these kinds of questions about who are they
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: giving a voice to, who are they giving a platform,
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: who are they implying as worthy of conversation with on
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: all kinds of issues. I mean, the Tucker Carlson one
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: is just the latest, uh, the one that came before
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: this on a related issue, and on Cargot to give
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: a really great talk about this two years ago at
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: OCONN where he talks about, look, you have when you're
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: concerned about sanction, moral sanction, Who are you endorsing, Who
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: are you regarding as who you implying that they have
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: some kind of moral credibility? Yeah, you even have to
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: worry about are you sanctioning the sanctioners? And sometimes people say, oh,
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: the fact that objectivists even care about that, that just
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: shows how absurd and ridiculous they are. But well, what
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: is it that people are objecting to? What are conservatives
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: objecting to when they worry about the fact that you
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: have universities who permit these anti Semitic pro Palestinian protests
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: on their campus. So that's university sanctioning the protesters. And
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: what are the protesters doing, well, they are speaking up
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: on behalf of Hamas and Palestine against Israel, sanctioning Hamas.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: So you're worried that the universities want to sanction these
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: protesters who are sanctioning Hamas. Well, it's the same thing.
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: And if you find it ridiculous to support a university
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: that supports protesters who support Amas, then you should see
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: it like this is something that matters, and.
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: It's you know, ultimately William F. Buckley this, you know,
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: chose to.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: It, chose to withdraw a sanction of iun man, right,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: I mean he because he wanted it out of the
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: conservative movement.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is why I shake my head even at
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: this suggestion that he is the model to emulate in
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: thinking about intellectual and moral justice on these kinds of issues,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: where he keeps in the religious moral majority of types
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: but kicks out ain Rand, who you know, for the
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: brief time that she was involved in that movement, was
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: the best thing that they ever had going for them,
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: and they've gone down ever since.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Yes, they've suffered the consequences of distancing themselves from her.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: Worst than distancing I mean really, I mean, I mean,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: you got what you could change to write that horrible
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: review of Attla Shrug, which was the worst review anybody wrote,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: and it came out in the in the National Review.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: So trying to kill her.
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: But I love the quote.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: I think when she died, something about her ideas will
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: now be remembered or something like that. She'll be forgotten.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: And you know, I'll bet anything then in fifty years
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: nobody remembers Buckley, they'll remem by in Ran.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: Yep, there's no question about that.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: So anything else on council culture, I think we hit
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: the I think.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: We hit the main the main point.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: I want to encourage people whenever they talk about that,
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: to you know, put it in scare quotes and just
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: start calling calling a spade a spade. We're talking about
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: witch hunts when it's bad, We're talking about justice when
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: it's good.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: All right, So we have we have some questions. Let's
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: let's see, let's see if I understand this question from shows.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: But all right, chowsbot is the ability to determine cause
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: and effect the first casualty of emotionalism.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: It certainly a casualty of emotionalism. I'm I'm not sure
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: quite what motive, what's motivating the question? Emotionalism is any
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: time where you put an I wish above and it
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: is and so, whether it's a fact about cause and effect,
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: whether it's a fact about uh, you know, just a
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: fact that's right in front of your eyes which you're
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: not even trying to assess a causality of. That's emotionalism
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: is a way of ignoring some kind of important fact,
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: whether cause and effect or otherwise.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Ask a follow up, chasbod if you had something particularly
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: in mind. Has been seen Andel? Have you seen Andel?
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: Nope?
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: So can't comment. Sorry, I have seen Pluribus if anybody
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: wants to talk about that one.
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: So what do you think of Plobus?
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: A fascinating show? I mean, I think I don't want
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: to make an unqualified recommendation because I know some people
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: just don't like Vince gill in style and pacing. I
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: was a fan of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul,
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: so I can I can stand it? And I yeah,
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: I don't quite know what message he's trying to send
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: with the show yet, because it's it's unresolved, but you
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: definitely get shades of shades of anthem with you know,
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: basically the human race all operating with one mind, losing
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: all their names, speaking with we not I, and you
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: know a small number of people who are left to
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: figure out what to do about it. I think it's
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: really interesting TV at the very least.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I actually like it, Bet, I mean,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: in a sense, I like it better than Breaking Bad,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: only because I hated Breaking Bad. I mean, I like,
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: I watched it, and I admired it for what it was,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: but I hated the fact that I was like drawn
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: to watching every episode because I hated everybody on the show.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was not a single character I liked,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: and when you had a glimmer of some good, it
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: was immediately kind of destroyed or like the like the Brother.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: I'm curious what you think about Dostoevsky, because my view
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: was that Breaking Bad was basically crime and punishment set.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: I think I think that's right.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: I think that's right.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: But I find it easier to read that than to
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: than to watch it. I guess because there's such evil bastards.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: And I mean it's well, I mean, and and then
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, the good writing and the good directing,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: and the good everything that's that's an acting and everything,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: because it was brilliantly made, all at the service of what.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: And then I hated the ending.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: I mean I hated the fact that he goes out
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: in a blazer glory and when he should have gone
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: out you know, whimper and uh, what's his name? The kid?
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: The kid?
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: The kid gets off too easy.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: I mean he should he should he should be he
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: should die.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: See So.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: I like Justice other movies, I mean, the bad guys
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: need to all diet dand so.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: And that respect, I think Dostoyevsky had a better ending.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah, And I never I couldn't get I
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: watched the first first season of of Soul and the
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: same thing. I mean, I really disliked every character in it,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: and I just gave up on it. I couldn't, I
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: couldn't keep going.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: Well, the most interesting character in that show was Kim,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: who then goes on to the actress. Actress goes on
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: to the star and the in pluribus. Oh, it's nice
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: to see her get her own show, even though it's
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: not the same character.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: But has the right It has the pacing that's slow
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: kind of and I like. I like the fact that
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: he's willing to do that, that's kind of he's appealing
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: to your intelligence in some way, and that the characters
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: are complex. But I am I'm really curious to see
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: where he's actually going with it because it scares me
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: where he's going, because yeah, he might take it in
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: a in a in a direction we won't like that.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: But yes, it's definitely it's definitely super interesting. But and
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: it's a good show. I mean, I'm not a big
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: Star Wars fan. I don't know about you. I'm not
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: a big into Star Wars. And usually I'm bored by them,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: by the different spin offs and the different things, and
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: I most of them haven't watched, but the ones I
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: have watched, I get bored by. But I really enjoyed Ando.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's actually well made.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: What do you think sets it apart from other spinoffs.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: I think it's more character driven and and and and
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: or who's the main character is is interesting, and then
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: you know the other characters in it are.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: They're not bromides. They're not.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: They're heroic and interesting and.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: And that's where the focus is.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: The focus really on the show is not on special
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: effects and not in the big battles.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: It really is on the characters.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: And they finally shut down my Hulu. I'll probably have
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: to get Disney Plus then I'll get to see it.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's both seasons are good.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: All right, let's see why it says.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: You shouldn't have that name. But anyway tribal to say
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: no good? People could see a difference. I think he's
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: referring to the shooting. Is it tribal to say, you know,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: this is how it came down, and people are interpreting
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: it differently, are being dishonest or evading?
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't think I said that, And in fact,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: I don't think that there are no reasonable disagreements to
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: have about what happened. I think there are some reasonable
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: disagreements to have. But so like you just give this example,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: and this applies I think to both of the shootings.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: You can think that the shootings were legally unjustifiable and
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: a consequence of really really bad hiring and policy in
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: the whole lot, and and still think that you know,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: maybe the guys who shot the who committed the shootings
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: shouldn't go to prison for the rest of their lives
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: because in fact, it you know, you do have to
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: react with split second timing, you know, for fear of
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: your life and these kinds of Now you shouldn't be
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: in the situation in this particular case in the first place.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: But like, granted all of that, people can have because
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: they don't have proper training, they can they can they
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: can react poorly, and it's not a it's not deliberate murder.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: It might be reckless homicide and so still something you
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: should spend some time in jail for. But like there's
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: a difference between between actual like first degree murder and uh,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: you know, matt and manslaughter. And so somebody thinks that
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: this is murder. I can't imagine how they could have
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: possibly had anything but an evil intention, And somebody says, no,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: I can imagine some ways where they're not evil, they're
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: just you know, messing up in a big, terrible way
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: that you I could see reasonable disagreements about that.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: But what about the people who say, no, they didn't
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: mess up.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: It was self defense the first time. And here I
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: don't know what.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen too many people defending this one, but yeah,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: I know they are people out there defending its simply
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: they thought they bosses are definiant.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: So what do you make I think you could have
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: even there, I think you can you can have you
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: can think reasonably that the guy who in the moment
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: thought he was defending himself was really really mistaken, but
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: that it was in fact a really bad take on
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: his part, and that it wasn't just and it wasn't
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: deliberate evil. I mean, the more you find out about
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: the guy, that'll make a difference, right, Like, that's why
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: there needs to be investigations on these kinds of things,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: and that's why there needs to be, you know, not
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: just an investigation by the same agency that he works for,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: but by independent bodies local police, local law enforcement, FBI,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: et cetera, so that the chips will fall where they may.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Well, the FBI agent was investigating him, resigning because it
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: designed because they wouldn't let her continue the investigation. But yeah,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I see these people online who you know,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: everything's okay, you know, there's no problem. This is not
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: a lack of training. It's exactly what they should be
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: doing kind of kind of arguments, and that strikes me
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: as just pure tribalism.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: And yeah, and if there's if there's no curiosity whatsoever,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: but could anything have gone wrong here, that's that's pure tribalism.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: And you know, a good test of this is how
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: would you react if the Capitol police in January sixth
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: had shot way more people than they actually did, which,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: by the standards that are being invoked by the people
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: defending the ice, lots more people, lots more January six
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: protesters should have been shot. I mean, there was a
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: there was a cop, Capitol police officer who was being
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: crushed to death in a doorway by a mob of
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: hundreds of people, who I mean, he had way more
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: to fear for his life than the guy standing in
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: front of this soccer mom's suv did. By that standard,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: they should have, you know, opened up the automatic weapons
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: against the whole crowd, and.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: They probably should have shot. They probably should have used
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: ammunition and they would have stopped it.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: You know, they exhibited real weakness on January sixth. Of course,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: the people.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: They were they were just they were just there for tour.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: They were just.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: Adam is ICE's behavior not the result of build the
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: Wall rhetoric by Trump in earlier years, seemingly dehumanizing immigrants
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: in the minds of MEGA supporters, leading to the literal
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: dehumanization of these immigrants during the raids.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so, I don't. I don't have too
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: much to add to that. It's trying to think of
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: what's been a good illustration of this recently, I mean,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: too many illustrations. Yeah, I don't have much to add,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: but yeah, I agree with that.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and and and it's it's a you know, so
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: it's a non authoritarian tactic to dehumanize the enemy, and
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: then people are willing to do horrible things to that
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: enemy because they don't view them as fully human, and
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: so many people interact with unas view immigrants as really subhuman.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: Well here's here's here's actually what I was trying to
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: think of. It's what's what's revealing and interesting is that
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: it's not just the immigrants who are now being dehumanized.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: It's it's the citizens who are just on the other
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: side of the policy disagreement. And that's what you see
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: in these in these two cases of these shootings, because
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: there are people who are saying, yeah, you know, we
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: should be shooting more of them. And when you're talking
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: about that, when you're saying that just because these people
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: have just because these people disagree with you about immigration policy,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: that you've gone way down the road of dehumanization.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I mean I see people tell me, well
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: a leftist was shot? Who kids, right?
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: Or one less communists in the world.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: That's another way to dehumanize the other side is to
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: call them all communists, is to empty that concept of
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: all meaning by calling anybody you disagree with the communist. Yeah, and.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything about the politics of this of
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: this latest the guy who got shot on Saturday, But
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: he was a nurse who worked at a VA hospital
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: who uh you know, cared about American servicemen. So if
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: it may be if he's a communist, that's the kind
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: of communist you're talking.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: About, right uh p Gupta, She says, I've had pushed
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: back on videos I link, saying these videos are one
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: sided and don't show the story from Isa's side and
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: not show how to respond to that. I myself focused
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: on the content in fact seen in the video.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: You, I mean, there's a point to that kind of argument.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: It's often the case that people take short video clips
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: out of context and don't know enough information and rush
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: to judgment on it, especially in the age of social media.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: It's a bit different this time, because we are being
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: saturated with videos of these things. We get this, we
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: get it from five different angles in some cases. That's
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: why it's so important that activists are filming these things,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: and so there's there's a lot less room for excuses
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: with that in mind. And you know, it would also
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: be if that's if that's a concern, if we really
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: wanted to know what was the perspective from ice, well
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 2: maybe I should be wearing body cameras and releasing the
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: videos so that we can actually see what their perspective is.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: And it's interesting that we don't get that from them.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: Why is that?
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: Why don't they want to share this data with us?
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, the guy who was shot on Saturday was
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: shot because he was holding a phone up, so there
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: must be a video that he was taking which we
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: haven't yet seen, and I wonder why not. So, yeah,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: there's a point, you shouldn't take these videos out of context.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: But then the solution is even more information, including from
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: the authorities and of course it's also the case that
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: we know a lot more about the context than just
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: what than just what's in the videos. And I mean,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: to me, the biggest what's most objectionable about the last
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: these last two shootings is not so much the particulars
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: of the circumstances of who did what when, but the
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: whole context that led up to it and the reaction
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: to it after. That's really the scandal is the fact
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: that these these these uh, these agents are on the
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: streets doing the kinds of things without respect to due process.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: In the first place, that's causing so many circumstances where
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: this kind of thing could happen. And then when it happens,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: the denial, the deflection, the propaganda, telling people that they
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: didn't see with their own eyes what they saw. That's
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: the real scandal. And incidentally, I should mention Pooja. I
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: think I know what internet conversation you're talking about too,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: And I remember one of the things coming up there
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: was are are these agents going into homes without warrants?
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: And there were people saying, of course they have warrants,
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: they have to there, that's that's legally required. Well, since
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: that conversation occurred. We now have the news, of course,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: that there is this memo released from DHS saying, well,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: you don't need to have a warrant. You can just
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: have an administrative warrant, which is not a warrant from
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: a judge, not a warrant from an independent authority, but
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 2: from basically one of your fellow officers. And there's there's
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 2: no Supreme Court president for interpreting that as being consistent
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: with the Fourth Amendment. I'm sure it's now going to
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: go to court in some form or another, and we'll
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: have to see how the court rules. But I bet
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: that the people who were assuming that they had to
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: be using warrants didn't think that they were using that
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: kind of excuse.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: Yep, and am at least some people on the right
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: are pushing back against Fluenis and Owens. What about when
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: cancel culture doesn't stop the squad of anti Jewish Democrats.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: Squad? If I understand the question correctly, first, I want
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: to push back on just even asking it in terms
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: of cancel culture. I assume what they mean is people
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: are on some conservatives are rightly pushing against the anti
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: Semites in their midst Why aren't people on the left
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: doing the same thing against anti Semites in their midst
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: And that's a fair question. I I don't know that
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 2: nobody on the left is doing it. I mean there
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: have there have been, uh, there have been better people
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: on the left, like the Persuasion magazine, the Yasha Monk,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: Stephen Pinker types who think that the progressive movement, the
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: woke movement so called, you know, went down the drain
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: in terms of its own irrationality in witch hunting some
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: years ago and are pushing back to try to to
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: try to create better liberals and to condemn woke activism. Souh.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: And a lot of these people are Democrats. Now, how
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: do how do the numbers compare on each side? I
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 2: don't have a way of measuring that, you know. I'd
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: really like to see more of the rash Republicans talking
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: to more of the rational Democrats and doing more things
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: together and eventually starting a third party. That would be nice,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: But I don't know if that's going to happen soon enough.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: Right, Richard says, I like the idea of pluribus, but
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: no character appealed to me until the spotlight turned to
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: minosis at the end. He's the closest I've seen to
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: an objectivist TV character, a passionate individualist wanting to trade.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: This is a guy from Paraguay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, something
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: to that. It'll be interesting to see what I mean.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: He only really.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: Entered the plot right toward the end, and so I
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: suspect he's going to have a lot more a spotlight
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: in the second season. So interesting to see what happens
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: with him.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it means you see if the well, we
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: may viewing positively, whether the show views im positively or not,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: it's not clear exactly where they're going with that. But
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: but yes, he's definitely has individualistic characteristics. And it is
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: noble that he's constantly taking ao, you know, writing ayo
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: yus and he's gonna he's gonna pay it all back.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a little naive and uh, but.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: But you know, for not notably once he figures out
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: what's actually going on, he abandons that in the in
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: the last he.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: Does steal the ambulance or whatever he does actually take it.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: So h.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: We'll see.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: We don't know enough about him yet, but they're positive hints, right.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: Christian says, what do you think of Suela Bereverman, she's
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: defected to Reform UK. Does Kenny brad Knock lead a
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: sinking ship? What do you think about Faraj in the
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: future of the UK.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: I don't, unfortunately follow British politics well enough to have
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: a real view on this. I don't like much of
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: what I've heard say stated. With Frage and Reform, the
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 2: Tories are only slightly less bad. You probably know more
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: about this than I do.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: Your own, Yeah, I mean, actually no. Keimmy Badnock, So
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: I was on a panel with her years ago defending
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: capitalism and I was really impressed. I liked her and
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: and I followed her career because of that. So I'm
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: a fan of Kimmy's. She's she's in politics. She's fall
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: from perfect, but she's good relative. But she is leading
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: a sin king shift, There's no question about it. I mean,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: the Conservative Party in the UK is seeing defection after defection.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: It's not clear how they can compete with Reform and
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: beat Labor. Of course, if the worst case scenario is
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: they both fight each other and Labor wins or but
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: I think I think Reform is probably going to win
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: the next election.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 3: Although it's four years way of something so who knows
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: by then?
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: But and then they'll implode and they'll do horrible things,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: and then the question is who are the survivors. But sadly,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: I think it is a sinking ship for Cami. She
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: won't have a shot at being Prime Minister, not this
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: round anyway. I despise Farage. He strikes me as an opportunist.
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: Brexit turned out to be a massive mistake. And while
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: he sometimes in the past talked about economic liberalization and
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: free markets, he's moved away from that completely now. He's
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: completely embraced economics of populism, for lack of a better.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 3: Word, statism. He's a statist.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: He wants to nationalize industry and he wants to do
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just terrible on most issues.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: Jeron, what do you think is going to happen with
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: Brexit in the post Trump second presidency foreign policy where
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: he's so trying pretty hard to break up NATO, and
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: is Britain gonna feel like it needs to get back
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: together with Europe as a result.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: I don't think they can. I really don't think it'll happen.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: You will have to there'll have to be another referendum,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: and I'm not sure how that will pan out. I
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: don't think anybody actually wants to go there. The Left
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: likes being separate from Europe because they can do even
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: more than what the Europeans will let them, and and uh,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: you know, the right, for nationalistic, not for economic or
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: any other reasons, wants to be separate from Europe. So
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: I don't think there's a constituency that's going to fight
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: for I think from a defense perspective, I you know,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: Europe needs UK because the UK is the only only
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: country other than France that has nukes. So it's likely
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: that as the US steps away from NATO, the UK's
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: role in NATO becomes more important. So I do think
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: you'll see Europe. You'll have the EU for economic purposes,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: which will include hopefully Ukraine by twenty twenty seven. I
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: think they want to join by twenty twenty seven or
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight, and you'll have a separate military alliance
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: of NATO two point zero, which might exclude the United States.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: And I actually, you know, for probably ten years, at
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: least twenty years, I've advocated for the US to leave NATO,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: just not the way Trump is doing it, but to
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: leave NATO slowly and smartly and basically tell the Europeans
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: you're rich enough to defend yourself, do it, you don't
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: need us. And so I think that's going to I
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: think that's going to happen. I think Europe is coming
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: to that realization. I just read a story today that
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: one of the German companies is now producing artillery shells
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: at a faster pace than the United States can produce
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: artillery shells. So the Europeans ramping up military production now stoically,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: when the Germans do that, it's not good. Things don't happen.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: But but maybe history doesn't have to repeat always. So
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: I think I think it's I think it's positive in
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: this context. All right, let's see Wes says Ben. Do
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: you read a lot of fiction? Any favorite genres? Authors?
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: I read almost exclusively mystery and crime fiction, So any
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: favorite a lot of it? And uh, you know, some
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: of the stuff I like, other people probably wouldn't like.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: But I always recommend lately the Robert Galbraith, which is J. K.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: Rowling's pen name for the Strike novels. Uh, they've been
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: there have been six or seven of them now there.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: It's really good. Anthony Horowitz is another recent favorite. Am
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 2: I getting his name right?
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: The I haven't read. I've read one of his theories
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: and not the other one. It's the it's the the
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: ones with I say, I read so much that I
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: forget the names of all this stuff. Uh, the them, Sorry,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: I'm looking it up. Not him, the Hawthorne and Horowitz
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 2: series where he has a He inserts himself into the
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: into the story as a mystery writer who's tracking a
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: fictional detective, all set in London. Lately, I have been
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: into a new series by an author whose pen name
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: is Nikki French, and it's actually a duo British duo
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: Nicki Girard and Sean French. It's a series, the Free
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: Declines series. She's a She's a psychologist who contracts with
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: the police in contemporary London to solve crimes. And it's
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: got a really great something kind of new I think
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: in the mystery genre, which is just like in contemporary TV,
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: we've gone away from episodic features to kind of series
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: season length plot arc. The series has a plot arc
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: in a way that that kind of contemporary TV does,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: So each of them is its own little mystery, but
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: there's a kind of a big bad guy out there
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: through the whole series that she's who's stalking her and
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: she's trying to track down I really like that one.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: Thanks Wes.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: All right it stud Yet, what are your thoughts on
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: Australia banning social media for under sixteen year olds in
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: England considering a similar restriction.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: I haven't thought a lot about it, and I don't
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: know what to think because, on the one hand, I
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: think that you know, kids are miners. They don't have
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: all the rights that adults do. They don't, and and
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: so you can have laws that restrict miners from all
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: kinds of commerce, cigarettes, alcohol, whatever. On the other hand,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: it seems so dramatically unnecessary because parents have all the
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: means they need to restrict whatever they want to their kids,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: especially if it's social media. You don't have to buy
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 2: the kids a phone you don't have. If you buy
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: them a phone, you can there's all kinds of settings
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: that you can apply to it where they don't they
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: don't have access to the things you don't want them to.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: And so to me, it's, you know, the kind of
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 2: policy you could possibly justify, but it seems like it's
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: motivated by all the worst kinds of premises where parents
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 2: don't want to have to do the job of parenting,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: would rather farm it out to the state, and that
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: never turns out.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: Well, I like numbers says, are you willing to get
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: arrested or is it just for others? And might people
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: confuse your sanction with a left that's against all law enforcement?
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: Well, I can say right now, I'm not on the
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: left that's against all law enforcements. So there you can't
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 2: confuse it anymore. It was a fair question. Would I
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: be willing to do it?
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Would I be?
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 2: I think it would have to depend on who, Like
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: do I know the person? Are they part of my life?
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: Is it a neighbor, is it somebody who whose life
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: impacts me somehow? I could I could see myself doing
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: it in that kind of situation, if if, if this
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: time was right again it's you. That's the kind of thing.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: It's going to be hard to time. But I don't
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: see myself wanting to. I mean, I'm just I haven't.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: I went to a protest once in the nineties. I
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: didn't like it at all, and I haven't done any
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: protests since I am not the type who goes out
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: onto streets and generally think it's kind of foolish because
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: it often makes things worse than they could be. But yeah,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, depending on what happens and in the future
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: of our country, all of us will have to think
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: more and more about, you know, what we wouldn't have
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: done before, whether we're suddenly worth willing to do it.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: And like there are people with these Minnesota protests who
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: are saying things like this. They said, I've never been
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: to a protest before, but like I had to start
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: drawing a lot somewhat.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: I'm glad I live in Puerto Rico. I'm not sure
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: I could resist some of these, just because the injustice
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: of some of these, some of what's happening is so outrageous.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: Fe Market Capitol says, if mass protest is irrational, what
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: is the rational alternative to airing grievances.
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: Well, here, I always think there's this. You know, this
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: might come off as to pat but it's still worth
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: considering that there was this ad they ran I think
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: in magazines in the sixties, for Iinrand's novels, and the
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: text of the ad and this is in the sixties,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: and this is why this was the text was Iinrand
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: knows that true revolutions start in men's minds, not in
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: the streets. And that's true. And so you know, there's
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff that many of us can be
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: doing on a regular basis that doesn't involve going into
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: the streets, that really does stand up and speak out.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, I write, I talk, I speak, I tweet.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: I do all of it.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: And you know, there's more and more ways for more
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: of us to do it, and it makes a difference.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: Like I think, I think it wasn't just protesters who
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: made a difference in Minneapolis this past this past week
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: or so. I mean, they got us, they they got
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: the data, they got the pictures. But then it was
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: talked about endlessly on x and in a way that
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 2: nobody could avoid it anymore.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, you know it does. Open border concept
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: misconstrued and prolonged the streamlines a present immigration process makes
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: the legal entry dysfunctional. Uh.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: If I understand that, then yes and no, And it
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: depends on what you mean. So what makes everything worse
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: and what has added so much fuel to the fire
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: of this controversy is the is the fact that people
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: are coming over the border and massing at the border
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: and you know, causing damage to property at the border
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: and making it impossible for services to be provided at
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 2: the border, et cetera. That's if we're talking about the
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: literal border. But why are they doing that? Why are
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: people coming on foot across the border. Well, because they
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: can't just do the normal thing that people would do
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: in their traveling internationally, is get on a plane or
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: take a boat or drive like a civilized person, like
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: the vast majority of these people would be able to
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 2: do if it were legal, but it's not. And so
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: as a consequence of these of the immigration laws, people
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: who are for whatever reason desperate enough to leave one
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: country and move to another have to resort to the disorganized, chaotic,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: somewhat lawless way of just actually walking across the order.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: But they wouldn't have to who didn't have these laws.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: They would just get on a plane. Like they are
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: paying tens of thousands of dollars or something to these
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: you know, the smugglers to smuggle them across the border.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 2: They could afford plane tickets. It's not that they can't
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: afford the normal means of transportation, that those means are
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: not open to them legally, and I've said this before, Like,
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: I think that it would not be wrong for the
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: government to build a wall on the border to protect
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: people's property, as long as you had a an open
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: gate that they could come in through and show their
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: show their passport, you know, go through a screening process,
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: and and if they have a you know, economic opportunity
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 2: they're seeking, enter and pursue it, whether at the actual
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: gate of the border, on the road, or in the airport.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: So Finn Helpa says, I like Making Bad and other
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: such shows where the protagonists are bad because typically they
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: showcase that immorality is impractical. Ran isn't satisfied with baking,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: bads ending, but Walter got nothing he wanted, and then
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: he recommends mister in between.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 3: I haven't heard of mister in Between.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 2: I haven't either. I mean, I overall think that's right
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: about Breaking Bad. It sounds like you take issue with
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: the particular way he goes down in the end, But.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: Well, no, I take issue with the fact that it
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: takes what five or six seasons to get to the end.
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: That is the theme of immorality is destructive? Is self destructive?
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: Was obvious after episode four?
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, so you don't of the first season, so
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, get the point.
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 3: Now you're gonna do it again.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: And granted, every time they do it it's really done well,
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: so I kept watching. But the reality is that the
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: theme was spectacularly illustrated in.
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 3: Season one.
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: You don't need five seasons to illustrate the same thing
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: over and over again.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, now I think about it, part
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: of the reason for that might be that there's a
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 2: lot of people who really just like Hollywood villains and
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: who even think of them as sort of folk heroes.
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: And there were, you know, people had t shirts saying
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: Heisenberg on it, and that goes along with the broader
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 2: cultural phenomenon where Hollywood is better at portraying villains than
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: they are portraying heroes. And in a way, that's a
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: consequence of altruism, because you know, altruism says that evil
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: is powerful, and so if you think power is interesting
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: and admirable, then the heroes end up, you know, being
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: more interesting than the villains. Yeah, I usually illustrate villains
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: end up being more interesting than the hero You have
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: ever seen the movie Heat remind me?
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: You know? And and uh, and the nero Sony movie
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: with it together on the screen and probably haven't. So
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: one of them plays a cop, and one of them
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: plays the bad guy, right, a criminal, and the criminal
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: is is happy and he has the goal and he
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: has money and he's living the life. And the cop,
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: who's a really good guy, right, he's divorced and he's
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: miserable and he has no money and life sucks.
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 3: And that is val Kilos in that movie.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: That that movie, and that that that theme repeats itself
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: in many movies, you know, the the glamour of being
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: a bad guy and the and the drudgery of being
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: a good guy. And that's pure, that's straight altruism.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 2: It's it's uh, there's a lot of that in multra White.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: Uh and yeah. So every every season, we you know,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: we nail another good guy and we you know, the
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: bad guy. Yes he doesn't get what he wants, but
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: neither any of the good guys because they'll to the
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: extent they exist day all day. But yeah, it's a problem.
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: Our best talent's dedicated to that. That's what mostly upsets me.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, imagine that talent focused on interesting heroes. That
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: would be pretty amazing. Adam says, and he has first
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: hand information about this. ICE is ramping up fifteen million
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: square feet of detention centers early this year, buying existing
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: warehouses up to one million square feet each. Is scary
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: reality when these processing centers are coupled with detention quotas.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 2: Yep, very scary. I mean, what we might get is
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 2: ICE pulls out of Minnesota, but they go somewhere else,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 2: and there are lots of other places to go, and
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: it sounds like they temporarily decided not to target California because,
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's an article in the Wall Street Journal
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: a few days ago about how tech company employees at
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: tech companies sent letters for their CEOs saying, please call
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 2: Trump and tell him not, you know, not to come
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 2: to San Francisco. And apparently enough and this is further
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 2: to the point that like speaking up, even if it's
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: just your boss, can make a difference. Because enough of
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: them did that, enough CEOs called Trump that Trump decided
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: to beg off of California. Well, Gavin Newsom has been
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 2: aside in this thorn in his side for a few weeks.
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: Now he might be next and then you know what
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: kind of hell will break out in California.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was Minnesota was unique because of
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: the Somali issue and because of Waltz, and they did
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: some three thousand agents right in Minnesota's Minneapolis is relatively
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: small and they're not.
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 3: That many illegal immigrants in the whole of Minnesota, and.
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: So I don't know if that will replicate this, but
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: but they're gonna go somewhere, I mean, and they all
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: active everyway. We just we just hear less about it
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: because it's it's it's less intense. Yep. All right, Lowie
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: has a question that I don't think you have an
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: answer to, but please comment on the skyrocketing price of
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: gold and silver.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I will totally turn this one over to you.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: You run. I mean, I've commented on it on the
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: last couple of shows. I don't have a lot to
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: say about silver because I think there's there is definitely
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: an element of industrial demand.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 3: For silver that might be driving some of this. I
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 3: don't know. I don't know at this levels.
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: I'm not an expert, but silver is used in a
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: lot of tech and a lot of a lot of
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: weapon systems, and there is this attempt to buy up
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: by the Defense Department, by the inventories of it, so
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: it might be driven just by shifting demand and increased demand.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: I don't understand what's happening with gold. I mean my
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: view this is speculation. I mean, it's a safe haven
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: for when the world ends. But if the world's going
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: to end, the stock markets shouldn't be at all time highs,
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: and you know a lot of other things that don't
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: make any sense. So something's off. Either gold is a
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: speculative bubble, or the stock market is a speculative bubble,
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: or interest rates are skewed.
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 3: Or all three are true.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: Right, they're all screwed up, which is probably the case.
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: It doesn't you know one of these markets is conveying
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: full signals. I don't understand it any other way.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: And when speaking as a complete non economist, I wouldn't
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 2: be surprised if there's a lot of speculation going on,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: but isn't. Don't you think a speculative bubble like that is.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: Going to be.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: Inspired by real economy things, as for example, with are
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: to the US foreign policy recently, which about Greenland and
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 2: NATO and leading companies, leading countries to divest of their
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 2: treasury bonds, and the dollar collapses because of that and
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 2: this is the safe haven.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you think that's not.
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: Something there, But there's very little evidence people are really
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: dumping US treasury bonds. I mean, it just trates still
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: around the same place.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 3: They will you go.
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: And if you look at international purchases of treasury bonds
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: at least as of the end of last year, which
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: is when we have the data, they haven't changed that much.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: And there's nothing to suggest anything's changed this month.
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 3: I mean some there's more.
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: Volatility, but not a massive retreat from people running away
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: from the dollar. And the way it's being described. I've
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: always thought the gold is your hedge against the end
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: of the world, right, and always told the bitcoin guys,
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: you know, bitcoin is fine as long as there's electricity
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: and the internet's functioning. But if there's no electricity, you
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: want gold, right. Gold is golden ammunition is what you
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: want for the end of the world. But generally, if
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: things really go to hell, right, if the stock malt
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: goes down to ninety percent, if we could got into
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: great depression, gold has always had value throughout human history,
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: so it's a safe haven.
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 3: So I get that.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: I got that when it was a twenty five hundred
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: I got that when it was three thousand, I got
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: that one. But then for it to go to double,
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: basically to five thousand within a year, is the end
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: of the world that much closer than if it is?
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: Why does nobody else see it? Because everybody's still buying
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: stocks and everybody's still buying all this other stuff. So
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: why do some people in the marketplace see it and
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: others don't? But it might be that's why I think
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: it's a speculati bubble. I think certain people think hype
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: inflation is coming. They think the end of the world
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: is coming. You know, NATO is going to break up
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: and there's going to be a well, you know, nukes
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: with Russia. Who knows, And they're the ones bidding the
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: price up. And they're not the same people who buy stocks.
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: The other people buy stocks. It's it's a segmentation of
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: the market where the people who really do think the
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: end of the world is coming or hyper inflation is
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: coming are buying gold, and the rest of us are
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: in the stock market.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 2: And meanwhile Bitcoin has collapsed, so maybe it's just bitcoin
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: people moving to gold.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: Bitcoin is flat. I mean, Bitcoin's going nowhere, and it
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be going.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 3: It hasn't. It hasn't you know, really gone down a lot.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: But it's it's gone from its peak to where it
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: is right now, and it's it's it's just flat.
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know the way people online say it.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: You know, boom is by gold, and young people by bitcoin,
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: and and boomers have more money than than young people.
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: So but bitcoin's problematic because people buying bitcoin with debt,
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: and there's only so much you can do with that.
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: There's only so much you can you can borrow money
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: to buy a speculative asset like bitcoin.
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, I don't know.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, and as I said at five thousand, if
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: you know, if you if you needed the money.
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 3: Sell the gold.
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: I have my little pile of gold gold coins somewhere,
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: just just enough so the end of the world, I'll
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: have a little bit. I'm not selling that because it's
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: for the end of the world. It's not to speculate
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: a price. But but if you're invested in gold as
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: an investment, then you know you've doubled your money in
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: a year, Say thank you and get out. This is
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: my perspective. You know, all of this, all of it.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 3: I've been about too long.
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: You know, all of this reminds you of nineteen ninety
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: nine when the Nasdaq went up ninety percent in one
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: year and everybody's like, no, this is the new normal.
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: Every year the nasdek's are going to up ninety percent
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: and and then went down seventy five, and that was
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: pretty brutal. That was pretty boudle Christian said, would you
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: invite and I guess this is to me Amen Navabi?
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know who.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: Imi Navabi is Atheist Republic to a conversation with.
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 3: You about Iran.
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 2: I think that's a meeting we need, right, I mean,
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know the person either, but I
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 2: have noticed lots of uh live streams on x lately
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 2: hosted by that account on the subject of Iran. So
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 2: it seems the place to talk about Iran.
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: Okay on X.
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'll check it out. I'll check him out. I'm
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 3: happy to have somebody like that on okay.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: Put is Trump worse just in scale, also in kind?
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: Is she only doing that for which precedents already set
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: up by the Left.
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 2: At some point, differences in degree fade into differences in kind.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 2: The difference between a difference and degree, and a difference
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 2: in kind is a difference in degree, as Harry once
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 2: put it, and you might have something like that happening
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: with him. I mean, it's.
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: There is.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 2: There's very little that he's uncompletely unprecedented about. I think
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 2: the main thing that's new is the audacity of the
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 2: lies and the audacity of the demands for loyalty among
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 2: his sycophants, which manifests in their having to engage in
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 2: audacious lies in order to demonstrate their loyalty. And and
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: that's really destructive, not just our politics, but of our
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 2: our culture generally, because you see that a lot of
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: people just wanting to emulate it. I don't think I've
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 2: gone back and forth about this, but the more I
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 2: here on cargate argue for this point, the less I
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 2: think that Trump is a overt dictatorial power luster. And
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 2: he's not so much that as he is someone who's
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 2: just obsessed with his image and with his fame and
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 2: with his legacy, and he'll do anything he can to
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 2: get that. And sometimes that means unleashed Stephen Miller, and
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 2: sometimes it means pull the dogs back in, and so that, Yeah,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 2: the trouble is who who's he talked to most recently,
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 2: and you know, and where is public opinion going? Because he,
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 2: like the one thing you can say about Trump is
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: he's a he's a master marketer. Like I think that's
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 2: what the bulk of his success is attributable to. He
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 2: knows how to find a niche base that's gonna glomma
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 2: onto his latest idea and sell it to them, however
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: much bs it's filled with. But that A correlate of that.
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 2: A corollary of that is that like when he senses
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 2: that public opinion is going against him, he knows how
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 2: to definitely pivot away from whatever terrible thing he was
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 2: doing into maybe some new terrible thing, but not as
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 2: immediately bad as the last thing. So and I think
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: that's maybe what's happening in the last two days. And
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 2: I think you take a step back and think about Venezuela.
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: For a while there, that was that was the only
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 2: thing anybody could talk about because he was gaming, you know,
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 2: all the algorithms to like this is we're gonna run
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 2: Venezuela and you know it's going to be the fifty
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 2: first state and I'm the president in charge of ven
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 2: isuel and now we're not even talking about it. It's
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 2: it's only been like two weeks, and that's because he
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 2: decided at some point, you know, this isn't working out,
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 2: and I'm not getting congressional support, and people are starting
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 2: to talk about warpower resolutions. So I'm just going to
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 2: change the subject so they can get out, so my
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 2: enemies can get outraged. It's something different, and my allies
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 2: can you know, sink their teeth into something new. And
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 2: it's a constant it's a constant game of gaming our
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: attention span, and it's exhausting. But that's the way he works, and.
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: I think all that's true. I think he's also the
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: first guy who doesn't really seems to really care where
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: the something's in a really you know, real sense. He
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: doesn't care about something that's constitutional and not constitutional. With
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: the Congress approves on a He's just going to do it.
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: And if they challenge him, he might, he might ffold,
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: but he's just he's going to do whatever he wants
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: to do. And that that I think is he's the
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: most authoritarian, not in the sense that he wants power,
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: but in a sense that he just wants to do
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: what he wants to do, and he likes the idea.
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: He loves putsinnikshi because they get to do what they
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: want to do. They don't want to they don't have
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: to ask anybody's permission. And he hates the idea that
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: the courts could overturn him, or Congress could could chide him,
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: or in some way. He's like, he's like a kid
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: who wants to just he just wants He's a win
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: worship who just wants to do stuff.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 3: And in that sense, he's a different kind.
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: I also I don't like I have, you know, because
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: I don't like this, which precedent already said by the left. Really,
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, is it the left that said the precedent
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: of the worst presidents in the last fifty sixty years?
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 3: They often the left.
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: Richard Nixon was pretty bad, I mean really bad on
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of these things, particularly executive power, price controls,
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: and things that we were unthinkabout today. And then you've
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: got Bush who signed all these executive orders and got
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: away with all this stuff, and gain not true, Obama
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: is worse than Bush, and then Trump was worse in
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: Obama and Biden was.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 3: But it's it's not the left.
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: It's both political parties are to blame, you know, with
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: maybe Reagan being a tiny spot of a little bit better.
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 2: And while we're on the subjects of Reagan and on
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 2: the subject of bad presidents by Republicans, Reagan, Reagan rose
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: to power because he was an actor.
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so did Trump.
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 2: And at the end of the day, that is that
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 2: that's that's what he is. He's an actor. He's he
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 2: the way I always put it, he wasn't a business
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 2: you know how they used to have the commercials. I'm
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 2: not a doctor, but I played one on TV. Trump
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 2: is not a businessman. He's never been a businessman, but
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: he played one on TV. That's how he got his
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 2: That's how he got his following. And he's he's just
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 2: he's running with the whole stereotype. And there's something interesting
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 2: here too, because.
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: The there's.
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 2: There's a and it connects to our previous conversation about
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 2: the role of altruism in the movies, because just like
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: the bad guy as the powerful one and therefore the
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 2: interesting one according to according to altruism, and so then
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 2: people who are looking for interesting, powerful characters start becoming
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: villain worshipers or fans of the villains in fiction. I
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: think it's a similar dynamic with Trump and when he decided, yeah,
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 2: my job is going to be playing a businessman on
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 2: TV and by that definitely the Apprentice, but even before that,
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 2: like the whole image he's creating for himself in the eighties,
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 2: he's particularly playing the image of the businessman that has
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 2: been crafted by Hollywood, where the businessmen are the bad guys.
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: They're the ones who like to fire people and you know,
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: put their feet up on the desk and chomp on
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 2: the cigar. Like he decided, at some point, I'm going
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 2: to be that stereo, the Hollywood stereotype of the businessman.
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 2: That's going to be the role that I play on TV.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 2: But I'm gonna I'm going to try to get the
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 2: kind of villain worshippers out there are the same kind
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 2: of people who like Walter White on Breaking Bad, and
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 2: they're going to be my fan base. And he's been
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: playing to them ever since. Uh And it's it's it's
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: kind of postmodern in the sense of, you know, he
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 2: kind of takes on the persona of the stereotype that
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 2: the other side of the culture rejects and turns it
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 2: into you know, his actual life. Yeah, and then acquires
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 2: this fan base because of it.
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 3: That's absolutely right. I think that's a great analysis.
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: And and we're attracted to it because altruism has conditioned
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: us to what you don't want is a sanctimonious altruist.
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: They're weak, you know, they can't be America.
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 3: First.
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: You have to have an obnoxious, pseudo self interested you know,
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: a jerk. That's what That's what gets stuff done. That's
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: how you get stuff done in real life.
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 2: And if you really find altruism repulsive but you don't
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 2: have a philosophical way of looking at the world, then
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 2: you end up engaging in a blind rebellion against altruism.
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 2: It is I ran put it that way and on
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: carget to talk about this at last Summer's okon where
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 2: because you don't put things, you don't conceive of things conceptually,
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 2: you don't think about you don't have real loyalty to principles,
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 2: you just hate the other side. Then yeah, you you
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 2: adopt this kind of phony, egoistic perspective, but in the
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 2: course of doing so, end up advocating amoralism, which is
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 2: which is what Trump is.
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: All right, USA says, given that the Constitution only addresses
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: citizenship process and nothing about immigration. Can the attitude towards
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: immigration during founding be characterized as open borders.
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 2: I'm definitely not enough of a legal historian, especially on
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 2: the question of the history of immigration law, to really
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 2: comment on this.
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: But I.
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 2: Also think it's also given the little that I've looked
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 2: into this, there were very few, very few immigration restrictions
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 2: in the founding system. They didn't know the Ellis Island
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 2: system lasts since the late nineteenth century, and so it's
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 2: really it's really only the set of laws we have
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 2: right now is dates to them more or less, and
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 2: there were little things here and there. But there was
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 2: a law review article I read about this some a
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 2: few months ago. But like, that's that's by default, it's
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 2: it's open borders if if you want to call it that,
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 2: and I don't really like that way of describing it.
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 2: By default, it's free immigration. Free immigration is the better term.
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 2: And that's just because they don't have They never bothered
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 2: to pass they laws, but it's because they hadn't yet
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 2: gotten to that subject in the development of a legal system.
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 2: I'll stop there because I'm not a I'm no expert
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 2: on the subject.
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: A final question, which I don't know what it means, Ben,
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: how can a corpse employee, a corpse employee be tribal?
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 3: Corpse cop like corporation.
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know what a corpse means.
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 2: Maybe they mean like an agent of the government, like
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 2: the Marine Corps.
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 3: Maybe, oh maybe maybe Marine Corps.
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 2: How can how can they be tribal?
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm anybody can be tribal.
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 2: Anybody can be tribal. Yeah, so.
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 3: He says, how can a corporate employee be tribal?
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm not sure what, but yeah, it's it's anybody.
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 2: Tribalism is a mentality. It's a mentality. But how you
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 2: how you think about your values or don't think about
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 2: values at all? When you don't think about them, you
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 2: you you still need guidance, You still need protection. You
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 2: and therefore you you glom onto some group for protection
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 2: and for guidance and for leadership.
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 3: And uh.
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 2: You could have people who work for a corporation who
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 2: think about their corporation in a tribalistic way, but you
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 2: certainly don't need to. So tribalism is not the same
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 2: thing as just any old association with other people in
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 2: some kind of a group. You can have groups that
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 2: are bound together by common values, where people really care
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 2: about their values, they really want to protect them and
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 2: defend them, and they find other people who share common
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 2: values and to have something abstract and conceptual in common
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 2: with these people in spite of their differences. And that's
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 2: not a tribe, it's a group, it's an association, it's
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 2: a civil association. But tribalism is where you're not bound
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 2: together by any shared common positive values, where you're instead
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 2: bound together by your fear of everything in the world,
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 2: your hatred of other groups, and therefore you seek protection
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 2: and a leader that's going to tell you what to do.
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 2: And that's that's not all groups, but it is too
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 2: many of them today.
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: All right, On that note, thank you Ben.
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 2: You're about for two hours.
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Thanks you guys. Thanks all the superchedtos, Thanks all
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: the questions. I appreciate it. And and we'll see you
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: in Austin next week.
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 2: Yes it see either.
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: You're right, all right, Thanks Ben, Bye, everybody, see you tomorrow.
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 2: Bye bye.