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Reflections on the French Revolution (Part 3) · John’s Newsletter

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Good afternoon,
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: everyone,
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: and welcome to Around the world in 20 minutes,
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: where we try to make sense the beguiling new planet we find ourselves on.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we had to do an extra one on the French Revolution.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I have seen this coming for 20 years.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I have said the EU is dead 20 years ago and was mocked roundly for
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: the big three reasons that it now is in terrible trouble.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably the best long-term risk call I've ever made.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it is coming home to roost.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to be in on this at this very,
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: very important moment, both for Europe and indeed for the world.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this is our third take on the French Revolution.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Our subheading is simply Edmund Burke.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And again, like all good quotes, there's doubt as to its provenance.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: But the quote goes, all it takes for evil to triumph in the world.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: All it takes for evil to triumph in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't believe in what you're about,
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: in the Fifth Republic in this case, evil, chaos,
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: people who very much aren't students and who aren't protesting against the quality
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: of their schools by burning their schools to the ground,
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: burning the city hall in Limoges to the ground, these are barbarians.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very,
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: very important we call things out as they are,
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: or we can't possibly sort out the dreadful problems that lie ahead.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a day to talk about this.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And yet another set of protests that have gotten out of hand.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And yet again, people doing very, very little about politics.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: About things.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: The first thing to say about good men doing nothing is the haplessness of the Macron government.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have mentioned in X,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: my image,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: he has a picture of de Gaulle on his desk and, you know, give de Gaulle his credit.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: He'd be out in the streets as he was in 68,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: arguing for stability, arguing for the sanctity of France.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: He'd be out engaging in democratic discussions.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And what have the French government done?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, just now Macron said he will finally talk to his people via the safety
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: of television tonight.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Up to now he's been cowering under his desk, it appears to me.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: The French government is not planning to declare a state of emergency even after
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: the mass chaos of yesterday.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what have we seen pictures of Macron doing?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we know he attended a Celine Dion concert in perfect Marie Antoinette fashion.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: So while France is burning, he's attending the Marie Antoinette concert.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we know he's off for a trip to the Gulf states
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: because he'd always rather cosplay at being a serious leader rather than dealing
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: with the literally fires in his own country.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: The trip has not been canceled,
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: which trust me,
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: de Gaulle would have done or any serious human being would have done.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: All it takes for evil to triumph is for enough good men to do nothing.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so...
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: While Macron's at the Celine Dion concert and France is burning,
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: there are all kinds of levels and we've discussed this.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I knew this is a book form event I've been waiting for.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: There are immigrants versus France.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's Islam versus European civilization here.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's just straight out decadence.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to really focus on the third one.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: We will get back as we've already discussed the immigrants versus France, Islam versus Europe.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: These are huge levels.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Dividing historical points that track with this coming French Revolution.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to talk about decadence today because we've left this bit out.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a good piece.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know who wrote it,
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: but you can probably find it, I imagine, in Real Clear Politics or World Today.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: But it was written on Spiked,
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: and it talked about the decadence, two kinds of decadence colliding.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I would add a third kind,
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: which is the French government saying, as Mr.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: McCawber did in David Copperfield,
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: who famously lost all his money, Something will turn up.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're so terrified that one of the protesters will die,
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: leaning to greater protesters,
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: that they're not defending the property and the citizenry of France.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Despite the fact that the French pay more than half their tax to the French state,
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: you would argue protecting property and the citizenry is the ultimate duty
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: of any state.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they're not doing that.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're not doing that.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Instead,
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: they're hiding,
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  SPEAKER_00: going to Celine Dion concerts,
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: keeping their heads down, hoping nobody dies, because they've been so cowed.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you tolerate the intolerable, in the end, it will get you.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: As we've said about Miracle, if you don't masturbate, Master history.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: History will master you.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's now happening to the utterly useless French elite of whom Macron said he was Jupiter.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is a man you have to pry away from a camera who's been AWOL for days
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: while his country burns.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And while very obviously people...
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Who are not students are burning down schools and nothing is being done.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite ex-moments was a woman,
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: a lefty French woman from a posh arrondissement in Paris,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: saying to the people about to ruin her shop, but I vote for Melenchon, I'm with you.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: As they go in, strike her grandmother and steal a cash register from her.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Talking about history, mastering you.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you tolerate the intolerable, it will get you.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a great piece in Spiked about two kinds of youthful chaos.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: First, we have the folks from the banlieue,
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: the Arabs,
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: the people from sub-Saharan Africa,
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: who've been told all their life when they've lived in France
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: that they've been oppressed.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: they feel they have the right to everything,
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: despite the fact that already they're getting mass subsidies for housing,
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: For food, for clothing, to the point that the French state is utterly bankrupt.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Its numbers are similar to America,
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: without the 2.5% growth rate or the exorbitant privilege,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: as Giscard d'Estaing put it, of America printing the world's currency.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Without that, they have the exact same numbers.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're running five, five and a half percent wartime deficits without a war.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is the narcotic to keep the banlieue quiet.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem with drug addicts is they always want more.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: They have been infantilized.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: They owe the French state nothing.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're there to benefit shop.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't keep giving them and giving them more, they're going to come for you.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one form of youthful decadence that's happening.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Almost war This is absolutely ridiculous.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: But the decadence is important.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: These are people who went to school and have heard from their left-wing teachers,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: who are now,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: some of them,
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: having history mastered them,
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: being beaten up by the very people they've been championing from the banlieue.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: These are people who've been told France has been an oppressor.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is a rich country.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I love some of these guys with their coiffed hair,
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: their keffees saying from their posh around these months,
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: why don't we just give more as we're a rich country
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: and we've oppressed these people?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't we just give more to the poor denizens of the banlieue and everything will be fine?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: The horrible danger.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And Thatcher got this right.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: When I got to know her, one of the things that struck me Was her focus not on economics.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't talk a lot about Hayek and the Austrians.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: We talked a lot about the moral degeneracy of socialism and the left.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: It infantilizes people.
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  SPEAKER_00: It corrupts their souls.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: It makes them atomistic consumers.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Who have no ties to anyone but themselves.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: It leads to an advanced form of particularly lazy narcissism.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: That both the folks in the Bonneleure and the folks who are rich,
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: upper class, posh, French,
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: socialist parents voting,
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  SPEAKER_00: right thinking folks in the posh arrondissement say,
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: why don't we just give them more?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: They've been left out that France is a rich country since 1973 or 4 with Giscard and
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: the end of Pompidou.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: The French have not balanced a budget in all these years, the 50 years in between.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: They have lived well beyond their means, and no one's told the kids that France is in decline.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So they say since mommy and daddy have never said no to them,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: and that's part of the problem here,
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: and since they've oppressed these poor people in the Balliol,
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: and since France is a rich country,
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: think of all the hypotheses this insane argument is built on.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's the state of the decadence we're dealing with in French Revolution Part 3.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: They say just give them more.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's as though,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: and someone,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think the guy in Spike said this,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: it's as though you're on a plane that's about to crash.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And this posh kid with his keffiyeh and his posh arondissement is sitting
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: in first class with champagne.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: The plane's about to go down.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's totally oblivious to that.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he demands of the stewardess, why don't you give champagne to everyone in cattle class?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's his focus.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's worried about champagne going to cattle class and not
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: the plane going down itself because no one's told him that you can't forever live
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: beyond your means.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's your basic point.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Socialism will always fail because eventually...
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: More people work for the French state than work in the private sector.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is similar to the disaster Malay found himself in in Argentina, though that was much worse.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Those numbers are something like 7 to 1, which is extraordinary.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: But in France, more people work for the state.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: More
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: people work for the state than work in the private sector.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: That is a disease.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a problem.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: That is a disease.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And all of them have destroyed the French state while still thinking they're rich,
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: so why don't we just pass the champagne back to the folks in cattle class and ignore
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: the fact the plane's about to go down.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: The irony is that The three decadent groups here,
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: the French elite,
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Macron and his people,
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: by the way,
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: also Marine Le Pen and Mélenchon,
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: though we'll get to this in a minute,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: all of them want more French statist involvement.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Their answer to statist collapse is more state.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's why this isn't going to end well.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Philosophically, there isn't a free market party in France.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: There is no free market alternative at the moment.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Both Mélenchon and Le Pen want to lower somehow the French retirement age from that
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: of a toddler to that of a fetus.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they want to do.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: No one is calling for a more free market,
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: less regulatory,
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: aspirational France that pays its bills,
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: generates money, that then it can spend any way it wants to.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, we need more of a state,
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: despite the fact that the French government spends 57% of the country's GDP,
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: the highest rate among advanced industrialized countries.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: These are people aboard the Titanic,
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: not ignoring the Titanic, which is the norm in Europe, Britain in Europe.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's saying, go full speed ahead into that iceberg.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Go faster.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's how crazy this is.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's how utterly mad this is.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is an elite that wants more state.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: These are two groups,
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: the decadent folks in the Baliou,
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: who have no idea about European civilization,
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: have no desire to join it or benefit shopping,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: and say,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: we're oppressors,
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: you owe us,
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: give us everything,
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: or we're going to go ransack another store at the Gallery Lafayette.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or burn down the Limoges City Hall,
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: a priceless 19th century work, which you can see all over X.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: You keep us quiet with the state or we're going to do something bad.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: No sense of aspiration whatsoever here.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Zero.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And a French bunch of kids who've been spoiled beyond belief,
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: much of kids have everywhere,
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: told we are a rich country rather than France's dead broke,
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: running 5.5% deficits in peacetime,
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: who say, since we're
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're dealing with today.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I felt the need to do this extra episode.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the French government's not planning to declare a state of emergency,
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: putting its head in the sand, desperately hoping like Mr.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Macabre that something works out, a la Dickens and David Copperfield, that something works out.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time,
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Macron's attending Celine Dion concerts where his wife is dancing badly
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: and going off to the Gulf for three days after having gone to a meeting on Ukraine.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Anything but governing his own country, which would actually take work.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Just now,
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: he's getting around to a speech,
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure we'll be back about this, tonight, a day late and a dollar short.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: All it takes for evil to triumph in the world is for enough.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: So there is this immigrants versus France,
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: this lack of assimilation that we've been all over as part of the big three.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: There is this Islam and is it assimilatable versus European civilization.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also this notion of decadence, which I really wanted to focus on today.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's about entitlement versus excellence.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see in the protests very clearly to the eye the over-representation
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: of black and Arab teenagers among the rioters.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: These are people who everything has been paid for and it's still not enough.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, you either work or you're out.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's how assimilation works.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: It takes 30 or 40 years in America, as we've said many times.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: The first generation is treated miserably.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: The second, then, if they work hard, get a lottery ticket into American life.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then and only then do things move forward.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: All of this is skipped except the huge entitlement masked by the barbarism.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile...
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: These folks have, again, heavily subsidized housing, welfare benefits, and free school books.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: They're not badly done by, but we need more state.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: More, more, more, more, more, says the addict.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as mommy and daddy pay for more,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: more, more, don't expect the attic to change its tune.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: What we need is a whiff of grapeshot to keep the French analogy.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And Napoleon,
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: after Napoleon fired Cannon into the crowd to save the directory,
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: There were no more riots on French streets.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Until the French get very hard,
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: very fast,
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: things are going to continue to deteriorate,
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: leading to more chaos, more bloodshed later.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now is the time for the stick.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Without the stick, you do not save society.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not prepared to live and die for your society,
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: what in the world are you cosplaying at?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And yet that's where they are.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Napoleon would have known what to do.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: A whiff of grape shot here.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Go in hard.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Stop being afraid of people who will only take more and more from you
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: until there is absolutely nothing left.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And for God's sake, demand things of your immigrants or you'll get nothing in return.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: So France...
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Again, Macron's just about to take off for the Gulf.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to give a quick speech after he's been cowering under his desk for a week
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: before he heads out.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is Marie Antoinette behavior.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the terrible thing is that everybody wants more of the state to do more.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a free market party in sight here.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone wants them to do more.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the two problems going away from this is that
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: the French system is utterly Even Macron,
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: when he tepidly said, well,
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: let's raise the retirement age maybe 62, 64,
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: people start burning tires,
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: tractors are blocking streets in France, and the country goes crazy.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no hope of reform here when everybody wants more and more.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And to see this, you can see the platform of Melenchon and Le Pen.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Le Pen is actually saying, look, I'm going to be more responsible.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to get rid of some people.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going to let in any more people.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's marginally better.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're not the same.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's marginally better.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going to let in more unassimilated, unfettered immigrants.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to see who we can remove who aren't citizens.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: But we're still going to lower the retirement age because we're going
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: to somehow have magic money from doing that to lower the retirement age.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: We'll stop paying for Ukraine, drop in the bucket, but we'll do that.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we'll not take in any more immigrants and somehow money will magically grow.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we can lower the retirement age back to 60, being a fetus and all.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is ridiculous.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's better hope with Bardella and the people around him.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're more free market.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: But frankly, Le Pen's plan, and we're going to talk about this as populists assume power.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Don't pass the laugh test either.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: They still want the state to dominate anything.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're better on immigration.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: But they're not any good on growth,
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: deregulation,
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: capitalism, and energy policy, the other big two affecting the decline of Europe.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Unfettered, unassimilated immigration.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: They're good on that.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Terrible on growth and not very good on energy,
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: though the French are in better position because of their nuclear programs
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: than most.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: But she's no free market capitalist.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And Mélenchon doesn't understand the difference between gross and net salary,
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: as he made clear this week.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Trying off, as always, for his off-Broadway part in Les Miserables.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: He thinks you can write off part of the French debt without anybody noticing.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem now is that to somehow save the French,
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: the German taxpayer, already hard done by, would have to bail this out.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is an incredible problem.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Something's got to give, to quote the great Johnny Mercer.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you all to remember,
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: we were here 20 years ago,
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: we are here now, and this is the best call I have ever made.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we will be with you through all the parts of the French Revolution.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Today, though, we wanted to talk about decadence.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And all it takes for evil and chaos to triumph in the world is for enough good men
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: to do nothing.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Get out from under your desk.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: President Macron,
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: look at the picture of de Gaulle,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: think of Napoleon,
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: think of the whiff of grapeshot,
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: and defend the French culture and society and Western civilization while you can.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks very much.