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Episode 172: Dave Smith

Episode 172: Dave Smith

Released Saturday, 27th April 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
Episode 172: Dave Smith

Episode 172: Dave Smith

Episode 172: Dave Smith

Episode 172: Dave Smith

Saturday, 27th April 2024
Good episode? Give it some love!
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Episode Transcript

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0:07

Welcome everybody to Crystal Kyle and Friends. Today we're

0:09

going to be talking to Dave Smith. I will

0:11

proceed to yell at him for being a libertarian.

0:15

That is why we invited him on the show. I will

0:17

berate him repeatedly and that should be fun. Tell

0:19

him you made him like Dennis Prager actually. Yes,

0:21

that's right. He made you like whatever. This is

0:23

already off to a good start. I'm a Prager stan. They

0:26

call me a Prager stan. I'm

0:28

all about Orthodox, Judaism, Zionism, things

0:31

of that nature. Yes, indeed. No, he

0:33

had a great debate versus

0:36

Dennis Prager and Batia that we enjoyed.

0:38

And I thought he in particular did

0:40

a fantastic job. Cenk always does a

0:42

great job in these exchanges. Dave

0:45

has such a depth of knowledge and

0:47

was able to communicate things in a way

0:49

that actually made Dennis Prager just unable to

0:51

really respond. He was sort of sputtering at

0:53

points. So I talked to him about that.

0:55

Maybe we'll also talk to him a little

0:57

bit about libertarianism too. That'll be fun. I'm

0:59

going to ask him if Prager is as big of

1:01

an asshole in real life because we have some

1:03

or I have some information from behind the scenes

1:05

where somebody was like, this guy's a real fucking

1:08

prick in real life. And so I want to

1:10

ask, I want to ask Dave Smith if he

1:12

got that sense from Prager because sometimes it's the

1:14

opposite. Sometimes somebody looks like an asshole, you know,

1:16

on screen and then in real life you're like,

1:18

that person's actually very sweet. Well,

1:21

Sagar, I won't say what Sagar said because

1:23

he hasn't made that public. So we'll just

1:25

ask Dave. Well, you just outed Sagar as

1:27

being one of the sources behind the scenes. I didn't say that. He

1:30

actually wasn't my source, to be fair. I wasn't saying that.

1:32

I have a different source. You definitely said that. But all

1:34

right. A lot of stuff to get to. So before we

1:36

get into that, we wanted to. I

1:39

mean, I tweeted about this when I first saw it. I

1:41

know you guys already covered it. I

1:44

didn't put it in my show from yesterday. But

1:47

now we're going to talk about it. So Netanyahu

1:50

released a video and in the video,

1:53

he's basically like berating American

1:55

college kids who are protesting,

1:58

calling them anti Semites. comparing

2:00

them to Nazis and

2:02

imploring Biden and the

2:05

U.S. government and the various police forces

2:07

to crack down, do something about this. That's the gist

2:09

of the video, so before I say any more, we'll

2:11

watch and then we'll break it down. What's

2:14

happening on America's college campuses is

2:16

horrific. Anti-Semitic mobs

2:18

have taken over leading universities. They

2:21

call for the annihilation of Israel. They

2:23

attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish

2:26

faculty. This is

2:28

reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the

2:30

1930s. It's

2:32

unconscionable. It has to be

2:35

stopped. It has to be condemned and condemned

2:37

unequivocally. But that's not what happened. The

2:40

response of several university presidents was

2:42

shameful. Now, fortunately, state,

2:45

local, federal officials, many of

2:48

them have responded differently, but there has to be

2:50

more. More has to be done. It

2:52

has to be done not only because they

2:54

attack Israel. That's bad enough. Not only because

2:56

they want to kill Jews wherever they are.

2:58

That's bad enough. It's also when you

3:00

listen to them. It's also because

3:03

they say not only death to Israel, death

3:05

to the Jews, but death to America.

3:08

And this tells us that there is

3:11

an anti-Semitic surge here that has terrible

3:13

consequences. We see this

3:15

exponential rise of anti-Semitism throughout America

3:17

and throughout Western societies as Israel

3:19

tries to defend itself against genocidal

3:21

terrorists, genocidal terrorists who hide behind

3:24

civilians. Yet it is Israel that

3:26

is falsely accused of genocide, Israel

3:29

that is falsely accused of starvation, and

3:31

all sundry war crimes. It's all one

3:33

big libel. But that's not you. Oh

3:36

my God. Every single

3:38

part of that was

3:40

a fucking lie. Let's be clear about

3:42

this. So why are the protesters out

3:44

there? It's actually very simple. It's very

3:46

straightforward. Number one, divest from Israel. These

3:48

various colleges, these various universities that have

3:50

different deals with Israel, divest from Israel.

3:52

That's thing number one. Thing number two

3:54

is stop the genocide. Both stop

3:57

Israel committing the genocide and also stop

3:59

the U.S. from arming and funding

4:01

Israel as they do the genocide. This

4:03

is the point of all of the

4:05

protesters. What these people do is

4:08

they straw man the opponent and they

4:10

act like they're out there saying

4:12

Hitler was base. That's not at

4:15

all what happened. What they do is they take

4:17

phrases like, from the river to the sea, Palestine

4:19

will be free, and things like intifada. They take

4:21

those and they twist the meaning as if they're

4:23

saying, kill all Jews. Except I

4:25

got bad news for Netanyahu. A lot of the

4:27

people leading the protests are

4:29

Jewish. Jewish Voice for

4:31

Peace, a pro-Palestine Jewish group, was

4:33

banned at Columbia in like

4:35

mid-October. Did anybody come out then and say,

4:38

you know what, this is anti-Semitic? This is

4:40

cracking down on free speech? This is unacceptable. Why

4:42

are you silencing Jews? Why are you Muslim Jews?

4:44

They didn't say anything because they don't

4:46

want that speech. They don't want speech that's

4:48

critical of Israel and pro-Palestine. And so he

4:50

goes out there, guys, you're

4:53

looking at a man who's responsible for 42,510

4:55

dead Palestinians. Of

4:58

those, 38,621 are civilians. 15,780 dead children. 10,091 dead women. And

5:07

that's to say nothing of the hundreds of

5:10

thousands of homes that have been bombed, 137

5:12

journalists killed, 2

5:14

million Palestinians now homeless because they

5:16

wiped Gaza off of the map,

5:19

322 healthcare facilities being bombed. He

5:21

is responsible for all of that

5:23

death and devastation and carnage on

5:25

purpose. And he has the nerve

5:27

to call college kids Nazis. Look

5:30

in the fucking mirror. You're the closest thing to

5:32

a Nazi I've ever seen. How

5:36

many how many deaths on these college

5:38

campuses from these from these Nazis? A

5:40

whopping. How many injuries? How

5:43

many injuries? I mean, somebody got their eye poked,

5:45

I heard. Oh, yeah. Except that didn't happen. Except

5:47

that didn't happen. I was literally

5:49

someone walked by with a Palestinian flag and I was

5:52

fucking it wires. It's just like,

5:54

OK, so there are so many layers

5:56

to this. First of

5:58

all, the GAL. of

6:01

this foreign leader to smear

6:03

our college kids as Nazis. And

6:07

by the way, he really doesn't just

6:09

smear them. He says this is

6:11

reminiscent of German universities in the 1930s. So

6:14

he's effectively comparing all of

6:16

America to Nazi

6:18

Germany in the 30s. That's

6:21

really the comparison he's making here. Shame

6:24

on every single one of the

6:26

politicians, Democrats, Republicans, all the way

6:28

up to Joe Biden, who

6:30

have bought into this bullshit moral,

6:32

I shouldn't say bought into, have

6:35

helped to craft and invent this

6:38

moral panic and complete smear

6:40

of these kids, which

6:42

is now nationwide, right? From New

6:44

York all the way to California,

6:46

Texas, all of these campuses, all

6:48

of the authoritarian crackdown that you're

6:50

seeing of the sort, you know, these

6:52

are the sort of things that I was terrified of happening under

6:55

a Trump. And now here

6:57

you have Democrats and Republicans signing

6:59

up for yes, let's do the

7:01

authoritarian crackdown. Let's invite the cops

7:03

into UT Austin and crack heads,

7:05

even though there aren't even allegations

7:07

that there was any instance of

7:09

antisemitism, any instance of violence, there

7:11

isn't even a whiff of that.

7:14

And they preemptively bring in, you

7:16

know, including with the encouragement of

7:18

a foreign leader here, cops to

7:20

arrest protesters and by the way,

7:22

arrest a journalist and throw him

7:24

on the ground. I

7:27

feel like I'm going crazy here. And then to

7:30

add to that, the fact that

7:32

there is no bigger villain on the planet

7:35

right now than Netanyahu. How many hospitals has he

7:37

bombed? How many schools has he bombed? How many universities

7:39

has he bombed? You wanna talk about safety

7:41

on campus. He has destroyed every university in

7:43

the Gaza Strip. Literally every

7:46

university. They did controlled demolitions of

7:48

every university in Gaza. Yeah.

7:52

Yeah, and you're lecturing us. And

7:55

let me also say this. Let's

7:58

say that the protest team. Let's

8:00

say they were genuinely offensive.

8:03

Guess what? We have a

8:05

First Amendment and it protects even

8:08

offensive, in fact, especially offensive

8:11

speech. So I

8:13

don't want to hear it. You can be

8:15

offended. Okay, be offended. That's your right.

8:18

Be offended. But guess what? In America,

8:20

we still have the right to say

8:22

things even that are controversial, even

8:24

that are uncomfortable, even that are

8:26

downright offensive. Okay? So

8:29

the gall of these people, and then they would

8:31

be the same ones. The minute Chuck Schumer, remember

8:33

when he said, hey, Netanyahu should, there should be

8:35

new elections and Netanyahu should go. They'd

8:37

be the same ones to tell, oh, you should

8:39

stay out of our domestic politics. You know, we're

8:41

funding you. You hear you come with your hand

8:43

out. You want us to keep

8:45

our mouths quiet while you do a genocide

8:48

and murder some of our people to American

8:50

aid workers murdered in the

8:52

world's central kitchen aid workers. And

8:54

you want us. I just can't. I said,

8:56

quote, more has to be done. Okay.

9:00

What constitutes more National Guard? What do you mean?

9:02

What does that mean? What is more? I can't

9:05

see NYPD already went and cracked some fucking skulls

9:07

when they shouldn't even been there. By

9:09

the way, I mean, they're calling for another Kent

9:11

State. That's really what I feel here before. That's what

9:13

they want. That's the quiet part. All right.

9:16

You're right. They're calling for another Kent

9:18

State. They want the National Guard to come in. They

9:20

want violence done against these protesters all the while screaming.

9:22

It's the protesters who are violent. They're violent. They're violent.

9:25

Let's attack them first. What are we doing? This

9:27

is total police state type stuff. It

9:29

does remind me of the anti-Vietnam war

9:31

protests. In retrospect, everybody

9:34

and their mothers like, well, obviously the

9:36

Vietnam War protesters were correct. We

9:39

were nay-palming innocent villagers.

9:42

Landless peasants were being hit with Agent Orange. You

9:44

had diseases shoot through the roof because all the

9:46

weaponry, chemical weapons that we were using, everybody

9:49

in retrospect says, you know what? They were

9:51

right. By the way, people now do that with

9:53

the Iraq war. Oh my God, everybody who

9:55

was skeptical, turns out they were

9:57

right. Now that's the consensus. You don't think

9:59

the same... Same fucking thing is gonna happen here

10:02

when you have 42,000 Palestinians

10:04

who've been killed, hospitals,

10:07

clinics, marketplaces,

10:09

factories, every

10:11

kind of civilian infrastructure you can imagine

10:14

has been bombed. You don't think

10:16

there's gonna come a day five years from

10:18

now, 10 years from now, where everybody looks back and goes,

10:20

Jesus fucking Christ, what are we thinking? And by the way,

10:23

all the fucking assholes, what's that guy's name

10:25

something? Price? Greg Price or something? He's one

10:27

of these conservative fucking blowhards who doesn't know

10:29

his ass from his elbow and he's out

10:31

there cheering on Texas police, cracking

10:33

skulls of protesters. Meanwhile, seven and a

10:35

half minutes ago, this motherfucker was a

10:37

free speech on college campus guy. Well,

10:40

Greg Abbott literally passed a

10:42

law to protect free speech on college campus

10:44

when he was worried about like, you know,

10:46

Ben Shapiro or whoever not being allowed to

10:48

speak. But he's the first

10:51

to send in the cops. Well, he wasn't the

10:53

first, but one of them to send in the

10:55

cops. And he didn't even in his tweet explaining

10:57

why they're sending in the cops. He didn't even

11:00

claim there was violence. No, he said that these

11:02

protests are anti-Semitic rhetoric and we're not going to

11:04

allow it. It's like, again, OK, even

11:07

if you think that's true, which is a lie, even

11:09

if you think it's true, it's still

11:11

protected. It's still protected. Like,

11:13

I don't want to hear someone's pointing out

11:15

on Twitter to Ryan pointing this

11:17

on the way. This is just down

11:20

the road from Barry Weiss's little free speech. The

11:22

free speech university. Free speech university. All

11:24

of a sudden, crack the protesters skulls. Fucking

11:26

frauds. Every last one of them. Ben Shapiro,

11:29

by the way, Dave Rubin, where the fuck are

11:31

you? Where are you? Riding in with

11:33

your with your cape on that says free

11:35

speech on the back. Oh, I'm defending Western

11:37

values and enlighten the Enlightenment. A Western civilization.

11:39

Here I am. I'm all about speech. Not

11:42

that speech. Not that speech. By the way, how many laws

11:44

are there on the books at the state level, which say

11:46

you can't criticize Israel? That's right. Remember,

11:48

in order to get hurricane relief money in Houston,

11:50

Texas, you had to sign a form saying I

11:52

will not boycott Israel. How many speakers were kicked

11:54

off a college campus in like Abby Martin or

11:56

Ronnie Ocolik, because they were like, I'm going to

11:58

criticize Israel. protest Israel. You're not

12:01

allowed to do that. So you're allowed to boycott

12:03

and protest the United States of America in the

12:05

United States of America. But you can't criticize Israel.

12:08

Well, then Yahoo released this fucking video. That's

12:10

why we always knew that the right was

12:12

full of shit on free speech because they

12:14

never, I mean, even before October 7th, we

12:16

obviously had issues, had instances of pro Palestinian

12:18

voices getting canceled, get it fired. It's at

12:20

Mark Lamont Hill. We've hosted some of them

12:22

on the show and never

12:25

a word about that. Mary Weiss, when she was

12:27

in college, used to be in the, you

12:29

know, let's cancel the Palestinian or, you know, Palestinian

12:31

sympathetic professors herself. And she claimed, oh, I

12:33

changed. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. No, you

12:36

didn't. Here you are. Your

12:39

point about the echoes of history and

12:41

how it's very easy 50 years later to

12:43

be like, oh, yeah, there's Vietnam War. They

12:45

were right. And we were wrong what we

12:47

did then. Oh, we learned our lesson moving

12:49

on. Did you see this Columbia University was

12:52

one of the sites of

12:54

some of those protests, you know, taking over

12:57

university buildings, et cetera. They have a

12:59

piece on their website that actually, you

13:01

know, explains how wrong they were in

13:03

their response. I want to read you

13:05

some of this. It's incredible. They say

13:07

Columbia is a far different place today than

13:09

it was in the spring of 1968 when

13:12

protesters took over university buildings amid discontent

13:14

about the Vietnam War. After a week

13:16

long standoff, New York City police stormed

13:18

the campus and arrested more than 700

13:20

people. The fallout dogged Columbia for years.

13:23

It took decades for the university to

13:25

recover from those turbulent times. And

13:27

they go on to say Columbia is

13:29

commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of those long

13:32

ago events with a deep dive of

13:34

scholarship and exhibits chronicling what happened

13:36

then in its effects today. They never,

13:38

and here's the thing that

13:40

drives me crazy is actually, well, many

13:43

of the people who are cheerleading this

13:45

crackdown and who are cheerleading Israel's genocide

13:47

in Gaza are the same fucking people

13:49

who cheerleading for the Iraq war. And

13:51

somehow not only they survived that, but

13:53

they were promoted and have become even

13:55

more prominent since that moment. That's number

13:57

one. Some of the people were literally, you know,

13:59

on the side of cracking the skulls of

14:01

the Vietnam War protests. And

14:03

they are on the wrong side of

14:05

history every time. And the lesson is

14:07

never, ever learned. It's very easy to

14:10

look back a decade from now and

14:13

many of these people, by the way, will just pretend like they

14:15

were right all along and they were on the wrong side of

14:17

the right side of history all along. Others

14:19

will make up all kinds of excuses, just

14:21

like they did with the Iraq war, about

14:23

how well it was really understandable that intelligence

14:25

was so compelling. Like who is to know?

14:28

We just, we were so trusting of our

14:30

leaders. And so it was very understandable

14:32

that we were so wrong. I am never

14:34

going to forget these motherfuckers. I

14:36

will never forget the people who

14:38

ran cover for this genocide, who

14:40

justify it, who voted to send

14:42

the dollars to ship more bombs,

14:44

to murder babies, to drop on

14:47

refugee camps, to drop on Rafa,

14:49

which invasion of which is now

14:51

imminent. I will never forget

14:53

these people. I am under no illusion

14:55

that any of them will face any

14:57

accountability. They'll just get promoted. They'll just

15:00

continue to become more prominent, more successful,

15:02

because that's the way the world works.

15:04

In conclusion, let's reiterate what these protesters want,

15:06

not just at Columbia, not just at NYU,

15:08

but broadly speaking with the multiple campuses where

15:11

this stuff is going on. Number

15:13

one, to the extent that certain colleges

15:15

and universities have financial relations with Israel,

15:17

divest those financial relations. That's thing number

15:19

one. Then number two, stop the genocide.

15:22

And that means Israel, stop doing the genocide, but

15:24

also US, stop arming and funding the genocide. That

15:27

when it gets down to the

15:29

bare facts, that is what these

15:32

protesters want, period. You

15:34

could do whatever sort of weaselly fucking bullshit you

15:36

want about, hey, I found this video that wasn't

15:38

at the campus and didn't involve a student. It's

15:41

from a street corner with a psychopath who is screaming

15:43

about how the Jews did 9-11 or whatever. People

15:46

are trying to bring that up to obfuscate and

15:48

make it look like this is

15:50

what these protesters are bringing about.

15:53

This is what they actually stand for. They're

15:55

like, Dinabash said this. It's

15:57

just anti-Semitism. They are literally.

16:00

hundreds or thousands of students doing what

16:02

they're doing just because they have such

16:04

a burning passionate hatred for Jews. Even

16:06

though many of them are themselves

16:08

Jews. This is the argument that these people

16:10

are making and what have we just watched?

16:12

We just watched a foreign head

16:15

of state do a video smugly

16:17

lecturing all of us and

16:19

the government basically telling

16:22

them fuck your First Amendment, fuck your

16:24

free speech, fuck your free protest and

16:26

by the way those people are Nazis

16:28

because they're criticizing me and they don't

16:30

want me to carpet bomb babies anymore.

16:32

Yeah okay fucking sick of it fucking

16:35

sick of it I've never felt even

16:37

this is even worse than during the

16:39

height of the Iraq war when we

16:41

all felt gaslit. Yeah I feel more

16:43

gaslit right now. I do feel more you're

16:46

making me feel like I'm fucking crazy but

16:48

this shit is fucking crazy. Yeah. Biden's crazy

16:50

and then Yahoo's crazy and ongoing fucking genocide

16:52

and ethnic cleansing is crazy happening in front

16:55

of our eyes. Brave students

16:57

stand up to say hey stop this

16:59

and you throw every fucking name

17:02

in the book at them and you smear them viciously and

17:04

then you wonder why are they covering their faces. Well

17:06

gee I wonder maybe because they're standing up

17:08

and speaking out against a genocide and that might lead them to

17:10

never be able to get a fucking job because two

17:12

people are psychos. I mean you

17:14

literally have Bill Ackman and other billionaires organizing

17:16

to make sure that anyone is involved is

17:19

docked and never employed again so yeah they're

17:21

gonna wear masks because some of them can't

17:23

handle that consequence for the rest of their

17:25

life and they shouldn't have to by the

17:27

way you know the last thing

17:29

I'll say about this is that the reason

17:32

this crackdown is happening now

17:35

which includes the tik-tok ban

17:37

right where they didn't like

17:39

that there was pro-palestinian sentiment on tik-tok

17:41

so we're just gonna fucking ban it

17:44

and and by the way some of the lawmakers

17:46

admit that that is the entire motivation for that

17:48

bill and the

17:50

police authoritarian crackdown happening right

17:53

now on college campuses is

17:55

because they lost the argument they lost the

17:58

argument exactly fucking right Biden tried

18:01

to do his little messaging. Let me

18:03

try to, let me first try to like leak a

18:05

little bit of a set. I'm gonna say, I promise

18:07

you behind the scenes, these tough conversations. All right. That

18:10

didn't work. Then I was like, all right, what can

18:12

I do? All right. Let me do this. I'm gonna

18:14

build this pier. I really care. You know, announces this

18:16

in the state. I really care about these Palestinian civilians.

18:18

It's really, really important. I'm gonna build this pier. By

18:20

the way, they haven't even fucking started on the pier.

18:23

It was 48 days ago that that

18:25

was announced. It was supposed to be done

18:27

in 60 days. Is they still having it

18:29

started on the pier? Okay. Well, no one

18:31

bought this bullshit either. All right. The little

18:33

minimal things they did that the little sanctions

18:35

of four settlers that they then basically rolled

18:37

back that nobody was fooled by this. And

18:40

so they're not going to change the policy. So it's

18:42

like, all right, well, what's the next step in the

18:44

play boat? Beat their ass, make them fall in line. All we

18:46

can do is smear them, try to undermine

18:49

them and beat the beat the

18:51

crap out of them, arrest them, crush them.

18:53

That's it. That's the next play. And

18:55

that's, that's where we are. So, um, not

18:58

a surprise that it happens now. I just

19:00

saw another poll that came out this morning.

19:03

Overwhelming majority of Americans, um,

19:05

say they don't support what

19:07

Israel is doing in Gaza. This comes

19:09

as we just, all of our lawmakers,

19:11

almost, you know, very large bipartisan support

19:13

for shipping more billions to Israel so

19:15

they can drop more bombs on top

19:17

of kids heads. It's, there's

19:20

just no words for it. And what are we not talking

19:22

about? Cause everybody's talking about the protest now. Rafa,

19:24

we're not talking about kids being murdered on

19:26

a playground. The mass grave that was just uncovered,

19:28

which had over 300 bodies

19:30

in it. We're not talking about that. We're

19:32

not talking about the inevitable invasion of, of Rafa.

19:35

This is what's not being discussed because

19:37

everybody's feelings are hurt over college kids

19:39

being correct arrest Netanyahu. He's

19:41

a fucking war criminal arrest, Ben Gavir

19:44

arrest, Motrich arrest, arrest all these fucking

19:46

people unless you want nonsense

19:48

like this to continue. All

19:50

right. So, uh, let's move on

19:53

here to some Trump stuff. So we

19:55

have some hearings in the Supreme Court

19:57

vis-a-vis whether or not Trump can invoke

19:59

a complete total immunity argument to get

20:01

out of any accountability. I just find it hilarious.

20:03

The fact that you even got to this point

20:05

is like, what

20:09

fucking timeline do we live in? The

20:11

argument got this far, you're at the Supreme Court

20:13

discussing this? Like this should have been dismissed by

20:15

the fucking local dog catcher. This is the most

20:17

ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. I

20:19

mean, this is like, you know how it's famous, Kyle,

20:21

you could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue. And get

20:23

away with it. Yeah, this is like, not only will

20:25

my supporters stay with me, but it's actually perfectly

20:27

fine for me to do that. That's the crux

20:29

of this argument is like, no, actually I can

20:31

shoot someone on Fifth Avenue. And as long as

20:34

it was like, while I was president, then it's

20:36

all fine, all good. So we have some

20:38

video here, Sotomayor questioning one

20:40

of the Trump attorneys. And this,

20:42

I think, gives you a little

20:44

insight into how this is

20:46

viewed by liberals, leftists, also independents throughout the

20:49

country. Take a look. Malem

20:52

in Se is a concept

20:54

long viewed as appropriate in law,

20:57

that there are some things that are so

20:59

fundamentally evil that they

21:01

have to be protected against. Now,

21:05

I think, and

21:07

your answer below, I'm

21:12

gonna give you a chance to say if you stay

21:14

by it, if the

21:16

president decides that

21:19

his rival is

21:22

a corrupt person, and

21:25

he orders the military or

21:27

orders someone to assassinate him, is

21:31

that within his official acts for which

21:33

he can get immunity? It

21:35

would depend on the hypothetical, but we can

21:37

see that could well be an official act.

21:39

They could, and why? Because he's doing it

21:41

for personal reasons. He's not doing it like

21:45

President Obama's alleged to have done

21:47

it, to protect the country

21:50

from a terrorist. He's doing

21:52

it for personal gain. And

21:54

isn't that the nature of the allegations

21:56

here that he's not doing

21:58

them? doing these acts

22:01

in furtherance of

22:03

an official responsibility,

22:06

he's doing it for personal gain.

22:09

I agree with that characterization of the indictment

22:11

and that confirms immunity because the characterization is

22:13

that there's a series of official acts that

22:16

were done for an ongoing or a proper...

22:18

No, because immunity says even if you

22:20

did it for personal

22:22

gain, we won't hold you

22:25

responsible. How

22:28

could that be? Yeah,

22:31

so she's clearly not buying

22:33

it. I mean,

22:37

what's the argument against it? Even if you... let's

22:39

grant it to Trump for argument's sake for a

22:42

split second. By this logic,

22:44

Biden could say, okay, and just have

22:46

Trump arrested, keep him locked up indefinitely and

22:48

say, well, I have total immunity. I get to do what I want.

22:50

This is for national security. Try to steal the last

22:52

election. He's hinting he's going to try

22:55

to steal the next election. I am protecting our democracy

22:57

by locking up this guy. And

22:59

he would get away with it. Or assassinating him is what

23:01

the thing asked about here. Right.

23:04

But like, even if you accept Trump's logic, then that's

23:06

the place where you end up. Yeah.

23:09

So what are we doing here? What game are we

23:11

playing here? Basically, the question is, is the US president

23:13

an emperor? That's the question. Right.

23:16

Are they an overlord dictator? And

23:18

what's your sense of how the arguments

23:20

went? Like who seemed to be open

23:22

to that possibility? So I have this is

23:24

all from the recount and this is all

23:26

like just rolling in now. But we have

23:28

let me give you from

23:30

Gorsuch here. Skotich, Skotich, Justice Gorsuch presses

23:33

Trump attorney John D. Johnson, attorney

23:35

D. John Sauer. That's a weird name. I got

23:37

to say John D. John Sauer. D.

23:41

John Sauer on whether more in-depth adjudication

23:43

of the distinction between official and private

23:45

actions by a president are necessary. Gorsuch

23:47

said, quote, you would agree further

23:49

proceedings would be required. Sauer quote that is

23:51

correct. So I don't know where that makes

23:54

Gorsuch fall on it. Then

23:56

we have Amy Coney Island Barrett. Attorney

24:00

D. John Sauer at SCOTUS immunity hearing

24:02

concedes to Justice Amy Coney Barrett that

24:04

several aspects of Trump's efforts to overturn

24:06

his 2020 election loss were

24:08

private acts, not official. Trump

24:11

has claims his efforts were official parts of the

24:14

general president. So it sounds like potentially some of

24:16

the conservative justices are skeptical. It certainly looks like

24:18

Coney Island is skeptical. So just to give

24:20

people a little bit of background on this case, you

24:22

might remember there was a similar discussion that we talked

24:25

about at the time too, when

24:27

it was at the DC Circuit Court.

24:30

And where they were saying like, wait a second,

24:32

does that mean you can just like assassinate someone

24:34

and claim, you know, assassinate Joe Biden or whoever

24:36

claim it's an official act and you're good to

24:38

go as long as there isn't an impeachment and

24:40

conviction. And they were like, yeah, pretty much. And

24:43

that court overwhelmingly

24:46

rejected that argument. They

24:49

wrote an opinion that was very

24:51

strongly worded. And so there

24:53

was a lot of, I guess hope,

24:55

I don't know if it was really

24:57

analysis, but that because it was so

24:59

overwhelming and because the opinion was so

25:01

strongly worded, the Supreme Court may just

25:03

decide we're not gonna take this up.

25:06

They did decide to take it up. The

25:08

analysis I saw at

25:10

the time was that people didn't really

25:13

think that the Supreme Court would uphold

25:15

Trump's immunity claims, but the very

25:17

fact they decided to take it up was

25:19

a real victory for him because it meant

25:21

that then there was gonna be delay and it

25:23

goes to a oral argument and we have to

25:26

wait for the decision to come out. And

25:28

so in the meantime, all these January 6th

25:30

related cases are on hold. And

25:32

that's his whole goal is delay, delay, delay. And

25:35

so even if the conservative justices ultimately

25:37

are like, nah, this isn't too far

25:39

even for us, which I think they

25:41

may do, I don't know, but I

25:43

think they may do, he has already

25:45

scored a win just by having it

25:48

get to the Supreme Court and have

25:50

to go through this process and wait

25:52

the whatever the normal period is to get this decision.

25:54

And by the way, this doesn't apply to the hush

25:56

money case that's going on in New York right now

25:58

because the hush money case took place. place or

26:00

the action took place before he was president.

26:02

Yeah. And so nobody can argue presidential immunity

26:05

before your president. It's interesting how, I mean,

26:07

it's funny how that one ironically has

26:09

ended up. Everybody's last hope

26:12

here. It's I

26:14

am sort of a dissenter from the people

26:16

who say that there's like, in

26:19

terms of political impact that like, oh, it's

26:21

just baked in. Like it's just Trump being

26:23

Trump. I think it's the weakest of the cases I do. I

26:26

mean, I think it is the weakest of the cases,

26:28

but the other thing about it is the details. People

26:32

want to know these details like they want

26:34

to. It's a lot less boring. Yeah. Just

26:36

sound like a human lie. You got a

26:39

tabloid publisher. I mean, David Pecker's testimony

26:41

was fascinating. I was interested in it, you

26:43

know, like how the catch and kill works

26:45

in this relationship he had with Trump, like

26:47

that he was planning making up literally

26:49

these stories about Ted Cruz and news factory

26:52

Marco Rubio's love child stunner and all this

26:54

stuff like all fake. Yeah, these are these

26:56

are really interesting tawdry details. And I'm sure

26:58

whatever Stormy Daniels has to say is going

27:01

to be interesting. And she says he has

27:03

a little mushroom. Yeah, I care. She

27:05

says, you know, Toad, the character in Mario. Yes, I

27:07

remember that little mushroom dick. I rather not talk about

27:09

that. I'm just saying he's got a little tiny little

27:12

mushroom peepee. That's the word on the street. But

27:14

in terms of like human

27:16

being, Trump would

27:18

understand that sex sells these

27:21

sorts of like tawdry celebrity

27:23

reality TV show dramas are

27:26

really captivating to the American public. So

27:28

I think the details are going to be something that

27:30

people pay attention to. I think they're also, you know,

27:33

from a sort of moral,

27:36

ethical angle, they're

27:38

really indefensible. You know, you're trying to

27:40

hide this affair from your wife and

27:43

the American public. So I

27:45

don't fully buy the argument that like, people

27:47

just like this is Trump and it's not

27:49

going to have any impact on him politically.

27:51

Counterpoint. Yeah. Bill Clinton's approval rating went

27:53

up when all the stuff was going

27:55

on about Monica blowing him and there

27:57

was the star report. So people were.

28:00

like, yeah, you shouldn't have done

28:02

that. Yeah, he's kind of pervy, but also, what

28:04

the fuck are we wasting time for on this?

28:06

There's more important things, stop it. Yeah, that's

28:08

fair, but there was no direct, he's

28:11

making these payments and trying to hide it from

28:13

the public in the context of an election. There

28:16

either. So it hinges on, are people gonna care enough

28:18

about that thing? Well, I'm on the side of, I

28:20

think this is the weakest case, but that doesn't mean

28:23

like the Trump people say, it's gonna benefit him. I

28:25

actually don't think it's gonna benefit him. And it's honestly

28:27

not just because of this case, because of all the

28:29

news recently. I mean, we just heard $454 million fine

28:33

because of tax fraud, insurance fraud, business fraud,

28:35

78 different kinds of fraud. He has to pay E.

28:38

Jean Carroll, whatever it was, 100 million or something like

28:40

that, because of the defamation, which was linked to some

28:42

sexual assault stuff. When you get hit one after the

28:44

other after the other after the other after the

28:46

other, everybody's like, okay, where there's

28:48

smoke, there's fire. Or let me rephrase that.

28:50

Every reasonable person is like, yeah, where there's

28:52

smoke, there's fire. Sure, the Trump cult people,

28:55

whenever there's a new indictment or new charge,

28:57

his numbers go up. But that's only amongst

28:59

that 30% of the population. Right? Amongst

29:02

Democrats, Independents,

29:04

moderates, some moderate

29:06

Republicans. Those people are like, this

29:09

is the best we can do? Fucking really? This is the

29:11

best we can do. This guy here? So I think it's

29:13

the weakest case, but that doesn't mean that this is like

29:16

a benefit for him or anything like that. Like a lot

29:18

of goofballs are arguing right now, like Sean Hannity. Yeah,

29:20

definitely not that. Yeah. Definitely

29:22

not that. All right, should we get to our guest?

29:24

Let's do it. All right, so we're lucky to be

29:26

joined by comedian Dave Smith. He's also a host of

29:29

part of the problem podcast. Talk to him about a

29:31

range of things. Let's go ahead and get to it. All

29:34

right, thanks for joining us. Dave Smith, libertarian host

29:36

of part of the problem podcast. And of course

29:39

he was involved in a mega debate the other

29:41

day with both Cenk Uygur as his partner, which

29:43

by the way, I could talk a lot about

29:45

just that. I liked seeing a libertarian and a

29:47

lefty sort of work together on something that was

29:50

healing for the soul. But you were up against

29:52

Dennis Prager and Batya Unger-Sargon. So let me start

29:54

with, is

29:56

Dennis Prager a prick behind the scenes? Because

29:59

that is... like that's the vibe I

30:01

got and I have some sources

30:03

who shall not be named who

30:06

were in the vicinity and said yeah he's a

30:08

fucking asshole in real life is that was that

30:10

your experience or was he actually a nice guy

30:13

okay so I had the same vibe and

30:15

I was like when the debate was over

30:17

I was like oh this guy's not

30:19

gonna look me in the eye or shake my hand or

30:21

anything like that but he wasn't he wasn't like that and

30:24

we all went out to dinner afterward

30:28

everyone except say gar

30:30

he's too good for us apparently

30:32

in his defense in his defense saga

30:36

legitimately goes to bat at like 8

30:38

p.m. every night he's on the Huberman train

30:41

yeah that's true that's actually true that's what

30:44

that's about I don't I have no

30:46

sympathy for this defense I have two little

30:48

kids I'm always exhausted there's

30:50

never a moment right now I could

30:52

close my eyes and just go to

30:54

sleep so no Dennis Dennis didn't

30:56

stay that long he came for a little bit but

30:59

like he was he was nice but I don't know

31:01

you know if you've heard from other people that he's

31:03

he's a prick that might be true I didn't like

31:05

get to know the guy well enough I kind of

31:07

felt like I mean

31:09

maybe it's a little messed up for me to say

31:12

this but I just thought the results of the debate

31:14

were so thoroughly one-sided

31:16

yeah and I'm not saying

31:18

that like I did such a great job it

31:20

was more well thank you

31:22

I appreciate that but it was more like that he

31:24

just didn't do anything I felt like I

31:26

used the example I was like if uh if you if

31:28

you were like a boxer and you showed up to a

31:30

big prize fight and then the guy just put his hands

31:32

down and there were a lot of moments that stick

31:35

with me but one in particular

31:40

is when he's like name

31:42

and atrocity that Israel has

31:44

committed you're like we covered up what like

31:47

I could I could name them but happened

31:49

literally yesterday right we could spend all day

31:51

here talking about what's been done since October

31:53

7th it was so astonishing to me and

31:55

I would love to get your reaction to

31:57

like what you were thinking in that moment

32:00

Because it just makes me ask the question, is

32:03

he so much in the bubble that

32:05

he actually believed that? Or

32:07

is he just lying?

32:09

Is he just a spin master and a

32:11

propagandist and thinks he can get one over

32:14

on us? Because anyone who's actually following what's

32:16

happening and watching what's happening in the Gaza

32:18

Strip cannot say that with a straight face.

32:21

Yeah, right. So whatever side you're on,

32:23

even if you're on the pro-Israeli side,

32:25

really those are the only options. What

32:28

you said, either you don't know anything about

32:30

this or you're just lying. And

32:35

someone like, say, Benny Morris, who somehow

32:38

twists himself into pretzels to defend this,

32:40

would never sit there and be like,

32:42

Dair Yassine, that was it. That was

32:44

the only atrocity. Name one other one.

32:46

No one would say that. That moment

32:48

actually messed with me a little bit

32:50

because there's these weird things when you're

32:53

in a debate, there's all these

32:55

kind of tactics and framing. And

32:57

so I was making the point

32:59

about Benjamin Netanyahu propping up Hamas

33:01

and how that undercuts the Israeli excuse

33:03

for this war. And then he

33:06

just mentioned the massacre

33:09

in the Olympics in Germany. And

33:12

so then I just mentioned Dair Yassine is like,

33:14

OK, we could all mention atrocities, you know, like

33:16

that has nothing to do with my point. And

33:18

then he's like, name one more. Name one more

33:21

than that. And I was kind of

33:23

baffled for a moment. Like in that moment, it was good

33:25

that I had Jank there with me because he came in

33:27

and kind of caught my back. But I was just so

33:29

blown away that like I was like, well, do I

33:31

try to get back to the point I was making? Do

33:34

you actually think I can't name another atrocity?

33:36

Then like in your head, like all the

33:38

atrocities are going off. I'm like, wait,

33:40

should I get into like Lebanon in the

33:42

80s and the assassination campaigns? I actually thought

33:44

about that too, because I was like, even Ronald

33:46

Reagan called that a Holocaust. It's

33:49

just it's no nobody who's being honest

33:51

on any side of this issue would

33:53

ever pretend you couldn't come up with

33:55

another one. And then also in my

33:57

mind, it's like she. He

34:00

downplayed Da'er Yassine by saying... Yeah, he said it doesn't

34:02

count. That's during war. During a war. Like it

34:04

was one time during a war. And then I kind

34:06

of was like almost in my mind like, well, no,

34:08

let's really get into what happened there. Because

34:11

like, that's so not an excuse. Like

34:13

it was in a war. I mean,

34:15

kind of, they call that period a

34:17

civil war. This is in early 1948

34:19

before any of the other Arab nations

34:21

had intervened. And yes, there

34:23

were street clashes. By

34:25

the way, on the Palestinian side

34:27

with a mostly disarmed from the British

34:30

having disarmed them after the Arab revolts,

34:32

from a mostly disarmed group of peasants

34:35

shooting at them with old rifles on the streets.

34:38

And so then these militias,

34:40

the Ergon and the Stern gang,

34:42

decide to march into a village

34:45

and rape all of the women and murder all

34:48

of the children and murder all of the men.

34:50

Like, I'm sorry, that's not... No, you weren't like

34:52

at war with that village. So anyway,

34:54

I don't know. But to

34:56

me, the moment in the debate honestly was

34:59

when his opening, because I kind

35:01

of went in there with like a thing of,

35:03

you know, look, I'm like, I'm a comedian who

35:06

I mean, I'm obsessed with this stuff. I'm

35:09

a comedian who likes to read books. And

35:11

Dennis Prager has been doing talk

35:13

radio since before I was born,

35:16

or right around since I've been born. And this

35:18

is like his issue. So I'm going into debate

35:20

a guy who on his issue,

35:22

and he's been on TV and radio since before

35:24

I was born. And I was like, you know,

35:26

all right, I better really be on point and

35:28

do a good job here. And

35:31

in his opening statement, he

35:34

opened with his tagline of like, one

35:36

side wants peace, and the other side

35:38

wants them dead. And

35:40

in that moment, I was

35:43

just like, oh, he's got nothing.

35:45

I mean, that's right. He just had

35:47

every talking point that you heard a

35:49

million times before. But it would be

35:51

it would be like if I opened

35:53

and my opening statement was there are no

35:55

Arabs who embrace terrorism. Right.

35:58

That's not true. You know, you'd be like, fuck that. Right.

36:01

Just total denial of reality. But you know what? It's

36:03

interesting because you as you're pointing out, it's kind of

36:05

an effective tactic. Like

36:07

if you're just saying intact because it because it was like

36:09

narrativizing. Well, it's so

36:12

then you have to spend time like

36:14

grappling with reality, you know,

36:16

in a way that then you can't get to these other

36:18

points that you want to make. But you

36:20

know, what was astonishing to me is he

36:22

opens with, oh, who wants to be honest

36:24

with yourself? You know, if the if the

36:27

Palestinians laid down their weapons, there'd be peace

36:29

if the Israelis laid down their weapons, then

36:31

they'd all be murdered. And like,

36:33

you have to admit that that's the case. And then

36:35

later on in the debate, he admits like, no, I

36:37

don't want to do state solution. Yeah, they

36:39

don't want peace, by the way. I don't want peace,

36:41

but they don't want peace. They're the

36:43

problem. But I, you know, I don't accept peace. Yeah.

36:47

Well, that's a that's a very good point. I also just

36:49

think that these these hypotheticals are

36:51

stupid. I mean, it would be like

36:53

as if, you know, in 2002, when

36:56

the war drums were beating to invade

36:58

Iraq and someone were to say, well,

37:00

like, ask me this question, what would

37:02

be worse if Saddam Hussein was president

37:05

of the United States of America or

37:07

if George Bush was the president of

37:09

Iraq? Right. Yeah. It's

37:12

like, OK, but that's not the situation at all. So like, what what

37:14

are you proof? And by the way, in that

37:16

example, yes, it would be worse

37:18

if Saddam Hussein was the president of the United

37:20

States of America. And it would be better if

37:22

George W. Bush was the president in Iraq. But

37:25

like, what does that mean? None

37:27

of that is even plausibly going to

37:29

be the reality of the situation. And

37:32

so how about we look at what's

37:34

actually happening, which is that George W.

37:36

Bush is lying through his teeth to

37:38

try to drum up interest in a

37:41

war. And so like, I don't know,

37:43

I just all of that is stupid. It's just

37:45

it's nothing. It doesn't it's completely

37:47

irrelevant. His reaction to

37:49

you was to scream at the top

37:52

of his lungs. You lie, you lie.

37:55

So from our perspective, we looked

37:57

at that as he wanted to

37:59

say that's. of a Lud libel. He

38:01

wanted to say that, but he reeled it in a little

38:03

bit and just went with libel. Is that how you interpreted

38:05

it in the moment? And then the point Crystal and I

38:07

made in the aftermath, I didn't know this at the time,

38:10

I had to look it up. I was like, wasn't

38:12

Dave Smith raised Jewish? And

38:14

so effectively he's trying to call you

38:17

raised Jewish and anti-Semite

38:19

in that moment because he was saying

38:21

name and atrocity. And in

38:23

your mind you're like, there's 842 of them. I'm

38:25

not just going to spit one out, right? Yeah.

38:27

Well, I mean, look,

38:31

they're just kind of reduced to

38:33

these like slogans and talking points

38:35

and accusations. And I just think

38:37

anyone with a mind can see

38:39

that that's not like you can't

38:42

win a debate by just screaming libel at

38:44

someone. And of course, you know, like, yeah,

38:47

I'm Jewish. And

38:50

there's Rabbi Barclay called me on Candace Owens

38:52

show. He called me a self-hating Jew. You

38:54

know, that's just like kind of the thing

38:56

that you get caught. So like,

38:58

what does that even mean? Do you think

39:01

I hate myself? Like I'm so clearly awesome.

39:03

Why would I hate myself? And like what

39:05

I like, I hate my grandma or something

39:07

like that because I think what Israel is

39:09

doing to the Palestinians is wrong. But honestly,

39:12

like the war propagandists always rely on

39:14

stuff that's this stupid. Again, it was

39:16

the, but you're either you're either with

39:19

the troops or you're with the terrorists,

39:21

right? This was always the line of

39:23

the George W. Bush administration either. Because

39:25

we're free. Right. It's just always just

39:27

the dumbest things that anyone with a

39:29

mind should be able to see through.

39:32

Do you think he was trying to say blood

39:34

libel though? Do you think that there was an

39:36

implication there of like anti-Semite or do you think

39:39

that it was more neutral than that? And he

39:41

was just trying to say, you're lying, not you're

39:43

lying and you hate Jews. Well,

39:45

I mean, it is the same word that they

39:47

always use in that term. So maybe, I mean,

39:49

I can't read his mind. No one

39:51

uses it in any other context. Yeah, I've never heard. Yeah,

39:53

I've never heard that. Is that even proper English

39:55

to say you libeled? No, you

39:58

committed libel. Right. clunky for

40:00

sure. He was really emotional in the debate.

40:02

His eyes were like welding up and

40:11

stuff. I don't know exactly, but

40:14

there's got to be something to having this issue that is

40:19

your main issue for your entire

40:21

life that defines who

40:23

you are. Then you have nothing. You

40:25

have no arguments to back it up

40:28

and you're getting very emotional about it. Really

40:30

the tactic that they have

40:33

is like you're a bad person in one

40:35

way or another to say that. You're

40:38

a bad person. I don't

40:41

know. I know who I am as a

40:43

person and I

40:45

also know what's going on and I know what

40:47

the history of this is. It's just like, nope,

40:49

sorry, this doesn't make me a bad person. I

40:51

got lots of qualities that I could work on

40:53

that aren't so great, but this year doesn't make

40:55

me a bad person. Well,

40:58

I think that's actually a good transition to some

41:00

of what we see going on right now because

41:02

in a sense, like what happens to you or

41:04

me or Kyle on a micro level where it's

41:06

like when people feel they've lost the debate, it's

41:08

like you're actually just an anti-semite. That's why you

41:10

have these opinions. That's all there is to it.

41:13

I mean, that's what you see with the

41:15

now authoritarian crackdown that's happening in

41:17

New York, in LA, in Texas,

41:20

against these campus protesters where

41:22

they'll take one incident

41:25

that is genuinely anti-semitic

41:27

or genuinely problematic in one way or

41:30

another and use that to smear an

41:32

entire multi-faith, including many

41:34

Jewish students, movement as, oh, you

41:37

just hate Jews. According

41:39

to Benjamin Netanyahu, you're just basically Nazis

41:41

and you just want to kill all

41:44

Jews wherever they are. That's literally what

41:46

he said to try to

41:48

delegitimize the entire point that they're

41:51

attempting to make. Yeah,

41:53

I think that's definitely happening. And,

41:55

you know, I like I've been

41:57

critical of certain

42:00

aspects of the protests, and I still

42:02

am. Although I will say after this

42:04

last week, I'm less inclined to be

42:06

because it's, I just hate

42:08

how the entire corporate media is trying to

42:11

make this the story. As if

42:13

like, the real story is what Israel is

42:15

doing to Gaza right now. I'm sorry, this

42:17

is all secondary to that. But

42:20

look, like I could be critical of some

42:22

of the things that have happened at some

42:24

of these protests, but the truth is if

42:26

we're gonna talk about it, look,

42:29

so just to be clear

42:31

on what's going on here, like in 2020

42:33

in the summer, you

42:36

had the George Floyd

42:38

protests that were almost

42:40

nightly devolving into looting

42:43

and property damage to the

42:45

tunes of billions of dollars nationwide, there

42:47

were hundreds and hundreds of assaults, there

42:49

were dozens of murders, nothing

42:51

like that is happening here. It's

42:54

just not anything comparable to that.

42:56

And even as somebody who has been

42:58

a long critic of the

43:00

police in this country, in

43:02

the summer of 2020, I was like, all

43:04

of you guys should stop protesting because this is

43:07

just, you're almost kind of giving cover to this

43:09

now, of course, the police response to that was

43:11

to like tear gas

43:13

peaceful protesters and then stand down

43:15

when the rioters came, so it

43:17

was just insane. But

43:21

in this case, it's nothing like that. I

43:23

mean, really, aside from some isolated incidents where

43:25

there has been some violence, and like I'm

43:27

sure we all agree, like those cases

43:30

should be prosecuted, but really the discussion

43:32

here for the most part has been

43:34

over what they're hollering

43:37

at these protests and how

43:39

that makes people feel. And

43:42

I just, I mean, look, I think, and I

43:44

don't know, me and you guys might disagree about

43:47

some of this, although I don't know if we

43:49

will, but I think that over

43:52

say like the last decade, the

43:56

rise of like wokeness or whatever you wanna

43:58

call it on the left, this. kind of,

44:00

and I'm speaking broadly, like there's obviously exceptions

44:02

to this, but this kind of obsessive

44:05

hyper focus on

44:08

race and gender and

44:10

sexual preference and the

44:13

kind of intense focus

44:16

on very minor infractions,

44:20

like almost an inability to distinguish between

44:22

what really matters and what doesn't really

44:24

matter and that you're never allowed to

44:26

say like, yeah, that just doesn't matter.

44:29

I don't know. A foreign

44:31

student was asked, where are you from?

44:33

That's a microaggression and nobody can just

44:35

go, I don't care. That's

44:37

just not important. There's way bigger things going

44:39

on here. It's that whole like words

44:42

are literal violence. Yeah. And it's like, no,

44:44

they're, they're actually not. And so

44:46

now that's being weaponized by the people

44:48

claiming that like Jewish students are made

44:51

to feel unsafe as if that's supposed

44:53

to garner more sympathy for me than

44:55

what's happening to the Palestinian people is

44:57

just like, I don't even know how,

45:00

how to even

45:02

wrap my head around making this claim. But

45:05

I will say that there also look like

45:07

there's, okay, so I just saw today they

45:09

had a Seder in one

45:11

of the protests at Columbia and it's

45:13

like, yes, perfect. That's

45:16

what you do. Like that's how to

45:18

effectively engage in this, you know, political

45:20

process, which is what protesting is. It's

45:22

a strategic political activity. And like, that's

45:24

what you do. You shatter their narrative.

45:26

Here we are in the middle with

45:28

a bunch of Jewish students and a

45:30

bunch of, you know, Muslim students all

45:32

sitting around doing like a Jewish ritual,

45:34

like, okay. But then there have been

45:36

other incidents here. And again, I want

45:38

to make it clear, like, I'm not,

45:41

I'm just, because I'm trying to prioritize

45:43

these things. I'm just talking about what

45:45

they're hollering. There have been lots of

45:47

protests where they're hollering things like death

45:49

to America, or they're saying like the,

45:52

the one in Georgetown where they were

45:54

chanting something like, we have hang gliders

45:56

glory to the freedom fighters. And

45:58

you're just like, guys, this is is just, first

46:01

of all, it's awful, but second

46:03

of all, it's so counterproductive. Like, what

46:05

are you doing? Like, are you, are

46:07

you Mossad agents? Which, you know, I'm

46:09

not ruling out the possibility, but like,

46:11

you know, but if you're not,

46:13

you know, you couldn't be doing a better job

46:15

if you were. So that, you know, I do

46:17

think it's reasonable to be critical of some of

46:19

that stuff. Yeah. So the first

46:22

of all, a lot of great stuff to respond to

46:24

there. Let's jump into it. So first of all, the,

46:26

the idea that, um, now you have

46:28

basically the establishment and corporate media

46:30

using the same tools that were

46:32

in the woke toolbox. I

46:34

completely agree. That's a perfect description of what's going on

46:36

here. Uh, in terms of like the

46:39

protest, I'm interested in your thoughts. Cause I've, I

46:41

talked about this on my show that I think

46:43

there's like a rigid hierarchy of

46:45

how to protest what's most effective, what's

46:48

most intelligent. And right

46:50

at the top, I would put things like what we

46:52

saw in like the late October, early

46:54

November, where people were trying to block ships

46:56

that had weapons on it that were bound

46:58

for Israel. And that might be

47:01

like, they might literally be committing a crime there.

47:03

Like they could probably spend time behind bars for

47:05

that one, but in terms of like, this is

47:07

effective. This makes sense. We know those weapons are

47:09

being used to carpet bomb babies. Yeah. That's top

47:11

of the list for me right underneath that, or

47:13

maybe like one A and one

47:15

B I would put yelling it at the politicians

47:17

who are making the decisions to keep sending money

47:19

and weapons to Israel and keep voting for all

47:21

these wars. Those I think would be the best.

47:23

And I think you and I would probably agree

47:25

that at the very bottom is

47:28

something like blocking roads for

47:30

regular people or blocking the Golden Gate bridge or

47:32

blocking people from getting to O'Hare airport, as we

47:34

saw recently. I have to admit, David, I'm curious

47:37

what your thoughts are on this. I am kind

47:39

of conflicted on even doing that. Right. Because on

47:41

the one hand, it's like these people have nothing

47:43

to do with the genocide. They didn't do anything

47:46

wrong. Like why are you victimizing them? They're not

47:48

part of the problem. You're just making people hate

47:50

you. I think all that is true. But

47:52

at the same time, I also think it's true that if

47:55

there was enough of shit like that

47:57

being done, then eventually it does get to

47:59

the presidency. where they're like, motherfucker, you gotta do

48:01

something to change this, because every single bridge is blocked

48:03

in America, every single airport is blocked. And all they're

48:05

saying is stop sending weapons to Israel. If you stop

48:08

doing that, they will stop protesting. So I'm curious what

48:10

you think. Are you as torn on those as me,

48:12

or are you on the side of like, nah, just

48:14

don't fucking do that at all? No,

48:16

I'm on the don't do that at all

48:18

side. And, you know, even in your scenario

48:21

where you go, if every bridge and every

48:23

airport in the country is blocked, I think

48:25

you're much more likely to see the effect

48:27

of the American people completely turning against the

48:29

pro-Palestinian cause, rather than seeing this like result

48:31

in ending the support for the war. I

48:34

mean, look, I look at it kind of

48:36

in the same way that I do. The

48:40

way I look at war in general, where

48:42

it's like, you don't have a right to

48:44

do this to innocent people. And, you know,

48:47

when you're blocking roads, this is not just

48:49

like potentially inconveniencing somebody. Like there's ambulances that

48:51

might be on that road. Somebody's baby might

48:53

be in that ambulance. Like, no, you don't

48:55

have a right to do that. So I'm

48:58

with you. Take it to the people who

49:00

it actually affects. Like, what is this running

49:02

in a Starbucks and like screaming through a

49:04

bullhorn at people, I think is just totally

49:06

stupid, not on the level of blocking roads

49:09

or something like that. But, you

49:12

know, like there's an Israeli embassy in this country and

49:14

there's a Capitol Hill and there's all these places you

49:16

could go and like actually inconvenience

49:18

those people. And that I do not

49:20

care about at all. And in fact,

49:22

I support doing that. So that's kind

49:24

of my take. Yeah. The

49:27

other thing for me is I just, I

49:32

feel like people are so horrified by

49:34

what they see, that

49:36

there's just a sense of desperation of like, we

49:38

got to try whatever we can fuck a try.

49:40

Like whatever we can figure out to try to

49:43

throw against the wall. Like we've got to try

49:45

to stop, you know, a genocide

49:47

that's unfolding. And I especially gain more

49:49

sympathy for them when I see like the Jonathan Chase

49:51

of the world. Did you read his piece of accusing?

49:54

This was before the campus crackdown or

49:56

whatever. He accused people who

49:58

went and disrupted. Joe Biden speeches

50:01

as being authoritarian and illiberal.

50:04

And it's like... Oh, that's stupid. It's so, it's

50:06

so stupid. It's so, it's so stupid. It's

50:08

so bad. You gotta read it. You

50:10

have to make a free speech argument about

50:12

how you were blocking the speech of Joe

50:14

Biden, which number one, the man has a

50:16

billion dollars in the bank to spend on

50:19

his speech. Number two, he has the bully

50:21

pulpit. Number three, he apparently has

50:23

no interest in speaking to the American people,

50:25

judging by the fact that he does like

50:27

literally no interviews. It was just the most

50:29

like gaslighting thing I've ever seen. Well,

50:31

you know what happens and look, I haven't read

50:33

the piece, but I feel like what happens in

50:35

a lot of these cases, I said, I've seen

50:38

this a lot, is that when somebody has a

50:40

pet issue, again, like I

50:42

was saying, like Dennis Prager, it starts

50:44

to almost like define their identity and

50:46

then they try to kind of force

50:48

every other issue into that field.

50:51

So I think if you've spent a lot

50:53

of time talking about how like, say, disrupting

50:55

a speech on a college

50:57

campus isn't your free speech, right?

51:00

You're actually kind of cracking down on somebody else's

51:02

free speech. And, you know, however you may feel

51:04

about him, over the years, we've seen these things

51:06

where like Jordan Peterson will go to give a

51:08

lecture or something and there are, you know, protesters

51:10

just trying to drown him out, much like the

51:13

debate tactic that you dealt with on Pierce Morgan

51:15

the other day. And

51:17

you know, you'd kind of rightfully

51:19

be criticizing these kids like, what's

51:22

wrong with you? What's the

51:24

spirit of a liberal arts college should

51:26

be that you hear out what he has to

51:28

say and then ask tough questions when there's

51:30

a question and answer segment or something. But

51:33

I almost feel like he's trying to apply

51:35

that to this, which is totally different. You

51:37

know, like, that's not true at all. Like

51:39

Joe Biden is the supposed servant

51:42

of the public. This is not a

51:44

situation where, you know, it's anything analogous

51:46

to that. So that would kind of

51:49

be my guess. I see this

51:51

happen a lot in general,

51:53

where people, if they have one area that

51:55

they specialize in, they try to reduce everything

51:57

else to that. It's part of the reason

51:59

why all of. the new atheists became

52:01

neocons because their pet issue is that

52:03

religion's bad, and so that's how they

52:05

see this conflict. Well, who's the most

52:08

religious? Now, the most religious fundamentalists are

52:10

over there on the Muslim side, so

52:12

then we better be on this more

52:14

secular side. However, obviously,

52:17

you could recognize the

52:19

problems with fundamentalist religious

52:21

ideologies, but also recognize that the

52:23

far greater evil here is like

52:26

slaughtering innocent people by the hundreds

52:28

of thousands, so if that makes

52:30

sense. Right. Yeah,

52:32

absolutely. So, to go back to the slogans, because

52:34

I actually think there's a really interesting conversation to

52:36

have about this in particular, I agree with your

52:38

point on... Well,

52:40

first, let me say this. I think it

52:43

is largely overstated in the media just

52:45

how much negative chanting there

52:47

is out there. I think

52:49

in the overwhelming majority of instances, if anything,

52:51

you're more likely to see the cringe woke

52:53

shit where they're like doing a land acknowledgment

52:55

before they give a speech, where they're doing

52:57

some weird dance in a circle. I think

52:59

that's more likely than the genuinely horrific slogans,

53:01

but to your point, when I

53:04

do see something along those lines, whether it's

53:06

some sort of support to October

53:08

7th or Death to

53:10

America, like you pointed out... The burned television

53:12

one. The burned television one. But on that

53:14

one, I was skeptical it was real. So

53:17

anyway, I'll digress for just a second. I'll

53:19

point out, I'm a little skeptical as

53:22

to... I think some of these things are real, but

53:24

I think some of them might not be.

53:26

We just saw Gavin McInnes was at one

53:29

of these protests. Somebody recorded him and it's like,

53:31

well, if you have Proud Boys out there and their whole

53:33

thing is like fucking up left wing protesters,

53:35

how do we know that there's not some

53:38

agent provocateurs from him or from Assad or...

53:40

This is all conspiratorial. This is all speculation.

53:42

I'll admit that upfront. But I

53:44

agree with you on the Death to America one. I agree

53:46

with you on the October 7th stuff. But there's other ones

53:48

where I think the media is

53:50

being incredibly dense to the context in this situation.

53:52

So for example, the two big ones, of course,

53:54

would be from the river to the sea and

53:57

into Fata. Now I grant that

53:59

we're... when you hear a Hamas spokesperson say

54:01

on an Iranian news show, from the

54:03

river to the sea, Palestine will

54:06

be free. And then he goes on to say, we're

54:08

going to do October 7th over and over and over

54:10

and over. I grant that in that instance, that's a

54:12

condemnable phrase. And he means it like, let's drive all

54:14

the Jews into the sea. I agree with that. But

54:16

I think when you have some pink haired college

54:18

student who's 20 years old and lives in Burbank,

54:20

and they're chanting from the river to the sea,

54:22

Palestine will be free. I think they genuinely mean

54:24

it as more of a liberation call where you'll

54:26

have a one state democratic solution for all, and

54:29

everybody has rights. And even on the

54:31

Intifada front, my belief on

54:33

the Intifada front is it does mean uprising.

54:35

Is it true that historically, there have

54:37

been violent Intifadas? Absolutely, that's true. And everybody

54:39

should acknowledge that. But at the same

54:41

time, people could definitely mean Intifada in the context

54:44

of 2018 Great

54:46

March of Return type stuff, or they

54:48

can meet it in the context of

54:50

Palestinians have a legitimate right to defend

54:52

themselves against military targets, right? So do

54:54

you agree with me that the context for Intifada and

54:57

from the river to the sea in particular, are sort

54:59

of, it's nuanced and it varies what people means when

55:01

they say it. So we should hold off on like

55:03

the broad condemnation. Yeah,

55:05

I would agree with that. And I think that's

55:07

right. I think like from the river to the

55:09

sea could mean different things.

55:11

And I'm sure in people's minds, it

55:14

does. To be perfectly honest, I don't

55:16

really know what is

55:18

in that pink haired 20 year old college

55:20

kids minds when they're saying it. And I'm

55:22

kind of interested, but I

55:24

don't exactly know what it is. The

55:27

way I see it is that there's

55:29

this kind of interesting dynamic where the

55:31

way I look at it is like

55:33

the left was so on point during

55:35

the George W. Bush years. And I

55:38

was an anti-war lefty during those years.

55:40

And it was all like

55:42

this kind, it really was before this

55:44

woke stuff like swept everything. And

55:47

the protesters there would always

55:49

be making the argument that the

55:51

Patriot Act is un-American. And

55:54

that like it wasn't a death to

55:56

America type vibe. It was like, I

55:58

know you're the deviationist here. representing

56:00

the true American spirit. And

56:02

the left, again, I'm speaking broadly here, I

56:04

think you two are like exceptions to this,

56:07

but the left broadly speaking was just so

56:10

destroyed during the Barack Obama years

56:12

when he continued and escalated the

56:14

George W. Bush foreign policy. And

56:16

it was just like too much

56:18

cognitive dissonance or something. And

56:20

they couldn't criticize him for that. And

56:23

then you had the rise of this

56:25

hyper focus on identitarianism

56:27

and racialism and gender and

56:30

all this stuff. And

56:32

like I was talking about before,

56:34

like the inability to distinguish between

56:36

priorities. This is why in the

56:38

middle of Black Lives Matter, you'd

56:40

see these demands to get

56:42

rid of Aunt Jemima, like as if that

56:44

should be at the top of the priority

56:46

list here. It's like crazy, crazy stuff. And

56:49

I was hopeful when Donald Trump

56:53

first came in that the left was going

56:55

to get better, that it was like, Oh,

56:57

well, now that your enemy is in charge

57:00

of the war machine, maybe it'll be easier

57:02

to criticize it. But unfortunately, this correction just

57:04

never came. And they were so triggered

57:08

by Donald Trump that they just

57:10

jumped on the narrative of

57:12

whoever his enemies were, in this case,

57:14

the CIA. And so they were just

57:17

like, Oh yeah, he's a Russian agent.

57:19

And just, you know, all of this

57:21

kind of delusional stuff. And I feel

57:24

like, okay, so the anti war left

57:26

was just gone for the most part. And

57:29

now they've come back. But

57:31

they haven't like shaken off any

57:33

of this insane woke ideology, they've

57:35

just come back with it. And

57:37

it so it does kind of lead to this

57:40

question of like, why are you guys back?

57:42

Which I don't exactly understand, like why are

57:45

you here now? It I'm glad to some

57:47

degree, like, okay, good, you're against this awful

57:50

thing. But where were

57:52

you exactly when Obama escalated the war

57:54

in Afghanistan, or when he went into

57:56

Libya, or Syria, or Somalia, or Yemen?

57:58

Where were you? you know, like

58:01

during this whole Ukrainian conflict, and why

58:03

is it that now you've popped back

58:05

up to oppose Israel? And what the

58:07

pro-Israeli narrative will be is that— They're

58:09

anti-Semites. They're anti-Semites. They hate Jews. They

58:12

don't care when anyone else does it.

58:14

It's just that they hate Jews. I

58:16

personally think it's much

58:18

more some type of

58:20

connection of like the oppressor versus

58:22

the oppressed of like they're

58:25

seeing Israel as the straight white

58:27

man in this scenario and

58:30

they're seeing the Palestinians as the

58:32

marginalized minority. Now, in

58:34

this case, I think that might lead them to

58:36

the correct answer, which

58:38

is that this war is

58:40

bad, but their methodology is

58:42

so flawed in getting there

58:44

that you still have these

58:46

really fundamental philosophical problems with

58:48

their worldview. That's kind of my

58:50

feeling. I think that's all fair, but

58:53

at the same time, I'm one to make the

58:55

argument like, don't look the gift horse in the

58:58

mouth, right? I take yes for it. Like you're

59:00

a libertarian. I'm a lefty. She's a

59:02

lefty, but we all agree on this issue so we could talk about

59:04

this issue and work together on this issue. And I feel like it's

59:06

a similar thing with the pink haired college kid. I agree. I

59:08

wouldn't agree with the pink haired college kid on much. And I

59:11

think they'd be way too sensitive, way too authoritarian in other contexts.

59:13

They would want to ban a Jordan Peterson or a Ben Shapiro

59:15

from coming to speak, but if they're right on this, I'm like,

59:17

fuck it. I'll take it. I'll take the

59:19

yes. So there's a few things that

59:22

I want to say because I think that's all

59:24

very interesting. So first of all, I think it's

59:26

important to remember that the

59:28

left had the Occupy Wall Street

59:30

moment that was very sort of

59:32

like populist universalist, you know, really, you

59:35

know, 99 percent versus the 1 percent of

59:37

messaging, all of that. And

59:40

out of that comes the Bernie Sanders

59:42

movement, which especially at the beginning had

59:44

that same like universalist

59:46

populist energy. And

59:49

do you remember what Hillary Clinton said about how

59:51

like breaking up the big banks

59:53

won't solve racism. Right. This

59:55

direction of the quote unquote

59:57

left, which was most embraced by. liberals,

1:00:01

really came from that Hillary Clinton

1:00:04

rebuke of Bernie Sanders of like, well,

1:00:06

sure, all this like tax the rich and

1:00:08

Medicare, but that's all fine. But what we

1:00:11

really need to focus on is the equivalent

1:00:13

of the microaggressions and you know, the virtue

1:00:15

signaling and whatever. And there's

1:00:17

a reason why this was so widely

1:00:20

embraced, because that sort of a critique

1:00:22

is not really a critique. It's very

1:00:24

easy for a corporation to hire a

1:00:26

DEI consultant and not have to be

1:00:28

taxed more or do anything different or like

1:00:30

have to deal with workers' unions or anything

1:00:32

else, right? So this

1:00:34

becomes widely embraced and

1:00:37

taken up. And you know, it's

1:00:39

just sort of like in the air that like, these

1:00:41

young people now who are involved in these protests, I

1:00:43

mean, they were babies when it was Barack Obama, and

1:00:45

this is like in the air of

1:00:47

when they're coming up. And so their interpretation of

1:00:49

what it means to be to the left is

1:00:52

like to do those things, but on steroids.

1:00:55

And that's kind of, you know, that's the

1:00:57

cultural ecosystem and milieu that they're coming up

1:00:59

in. So there's that in terms of

1:01:03

why the intense focus and all

1:01:05

the energy around Israel in particular,

1:01:07

I think it's too, I

1:01:09

think it's too dismissive to say that it's so they

1:01:12

have this oppressor oppressed dynamic, and they're just applying it

1:01:14

here. I mean, because I feel

1:01:16

like the things that I'm seeing being

1:01:18

done there and being done with my tax

1:01:20

dollars, like I think I said this to

1:01:22

you before, I've never felt more libertarian about

1:01:24

like, fuck paying taxes, like they're going to

1:01:26

drop bombs on babies. Jenks said the same thing. And

1:01:28

some of these things, however

1:01:31

cynical I've been in politics, it hasn't been enough.

1:01:33

I mean, I'm a little embarrassed to say, but

1:01:35

I never could have imagined that we would all

1:01:38

be watching, and you don't like the word, but

1:01:40

a genocide unfold in front of our eyes on

1:01:43

TikTok, a mass slaughter, a

1:01:45

collective siege, babies starving

1:01:47

to death where we're watching them in

1:01:49

real time, take their last breath, and

1:01:52

then have this monolith between the Democrats and the Republicans

1:01:55

like, yeah, we see that too, we're going to send

1:01:57

them more bombs so that they can keep doing the

1:01:59

same thing. That's what we're going to

1:02:01

do. And anyone who descends, we're going to

1:02:03

send in the police to crush their, you know,

1:02:05

crush their protests and we're here for Israel. It

1:02:07

doesn't matter what. We don't care. That

1:02:10

has actually been, again, I'm

1:02:12

a little embarrassed to admit it, but it has actually

1:02:14

been shocking to me, the level

1:02:16

of brazenness and the just

1:02:19

level of depravity. So

1:02:21

to me, it's not a surprise. In fact, Zagar and I

1:02:23

debated this early on. I was like, this is going to

1:02:25

be this generation's Iraq war moment. He was

1:02:28

like, it's a foreign. You know, young people aren't being

1:02:30

sent overseas like Vietnam. It's different. I

1:02:32

was like, no, I'm telling you because it's

1:02:34

so horrifying that this is on the

1:02:36

table. Like this is on the table.

1:02:38

I didn't know this was even on

1:02:40

the table. So I think

1:02:42

there's such a revulsion to that,

1:02:45

that it makes all the sense in the world

1:02:47

to me that this has become such a central

1:02:49

cause. And I don't know. But

1:02:51

if I had to predict, I think

1:02:53

there will be a little bit of a corrective

1:02:55

now. In fact, I think there already was a

1:02:57

bit of a corrective to some of the craziest

1:02:59

woke excesses, et cetera, because now you

1:03:02

have the example of like, oh, what we

1:03:04

were saying about how like, yay, we're pro

1:03:06

censorship when it's speech we don't agree with.

1:03:08

This is being applied now to us. And

1:03:11

you know what? The whole free speech thing that

1:03:13

actually sounds pretty good. People should be allowed to

1:03:15

say things that are controversial without having their skulls

1:03:17

cracked. Yeah. Okay. So,

1:03:20

I mean, look, I certainly agree with you. The

1:03:22

thing that really does, you know, separate

1:03:25

this war is just how many

1:03:27

of the images we all see. And

1:03:29

there's, there's, I've never seen so many from

1:03:32

any war. And even in the war

1:03:34

in Ukraine, where there's lots of horrible

1:03:36

things happening, I've never, I haven't seen

1:03:38

like images of babies dying at nearly the

1:03:40

rate of this. I did see a

1:03:42

lot, although not nearly as much when

1:03:45

the US Saudi backed war in, or

1:03:47

I should say the US

1:03:49

backed war in Yemen, which

1:03:51

was just the absolute worst thing in the

1:03:53

world, every bit as bad as this and

1:03:55

for much, much longer. And

1:03:58

there didn't seem to be any big outcrops. over

1:04:00

it. But just to the point

1:04:02

you were talking about initially, I've

1:04:04

been talking about this for years

1:04:06

now, but you have these guys

1:04:09

like, say, Ben Shapiro and Jordan

1:04:11

Peterson, and they've been making this

1:04:13

argument for years that basically the

1:04:15

left took over the liberals and

1:04:18

that they're all leftists now. Right,

1:04:20

they're all Marxists, blah, blah, blah. There's

1:04:23

something plausible about that, because if

1:04:25

you listen to, say, the corporate

1:04:27

media, they are promoting these ideas

1:04:29

of critical race theory that were

1:04:32

far left wing ideas. But at

1:04:34

the same time, that was only

1:04:36

one little sliver of the left

1:04:38

and the intellectual tradition of left

1:04:40

wing thought. And they picked this

1:04:43

one sliver, okay, and then blasted

1:04:45

it out from all of their

1:04:47

biggest megaphones. And you can go look at

1:04:49

this in the Nexus

1:04:51

charts when you see how many

1:04:53

times the word systemic oppression and

1:04:55

toxic masculinity and transgenderism and how

1:04:58

it just all shoots up like

1:05:00

in 2012. And

1:05:02

so basically my thesis is that

1:05:04

this was a neoliberal takeover of

1:05:07

the left and what and it

1:05:09

worked, but to like

1:05:11

to stunning levels, it worked so

1:05:13

well. And the real point there

1:05:15

is that it's not look,

1:05:18

obviously, Hillary Clinton wasn't

1:05:21

interested in ending racism.

1:05:24

She was interested in

1:05:26

you stopping to care about what

1:05:28

the big banks are doing. And

1:05:30

so basically what happened is they threw

1:05:32

all of these young lefties onto

1:05:34

these like social, you know, like

1:05:37

trails leading to nothingness, where now

1:05:39

we're having a conversation about whatever

1:05:42

like transgender bathrooms

1:05:44

and however you feel about that,

1:05:47

whatever side of that conversation you're

1:05:49

on, the point is

1:05:51

that nobody at the CIA or the

1:05:53

Federal Reserve or JPMorgan Chase cares that

1:05:55

you're having that conversation. It's

1:05:57

also part of the reason why they even really

1:05:59

important. issues, like issues like abortion, like that's a

1:06:02

really important issue. But no one at the big

1:06:04

banks is scared about you having that fight. Like

1:06:06

go on out and fight about that. They like

1:06:08

that. They didn't like Occupy

1:06:11

Wall Street. They don't like a group of people

1:06:13

standing outside the big banks screaming, we are the

1:06:15

99%. And so

1:06:17

I think this was essentially an op that

1:06:19

worked very well. And it was a neoliberal

1:06:22

takeover of the left. Anyway, to your you

1:06:25

know to your point about like if

1:06:27

this is our generations iraq i

1:06:29

mean i'll say at

1:06:32

least right now it's hard to make these

1:06:34

predictions it feels like for

1:06:36

whatever reason like the war in

1:06:38

libya and and the war in

1:06:40

syria and and the war in

1:06:42

yemen and all these other horrific

1:06:44

wars just didn't get this much

1:06:46

attention and for whatever reason this

1:06:48

one's getting and so i

1:06:51

don't know if it's iraq but it's bigger

1:06:53

than any of those already so in terms of

1:06:56

like the bigger in the mind of the american

1:06:58

people than any of those yeah

1:07:00

salary i'm i'm gonna agree and disagree with

1:07:02

both of you in part so on the

1:07:05

oppressor a press narrative saying i

1:07:07

think you're you're actually write that a lot of

1:07:09

the kids you now care about this they did

1:07:11

come to this through that framework i think that's

1:07:13

correct when i also agree with you

1:07:15

that it is also at least in part waking up

1:07:17

to the carnage of what's happening right so i think

1:07:19

you're both right on that one i'm on the free

1:07:22

speech thing that like will now these kids will care

1:07:24

about free speech actually think they'll just flip back when

1:07:26

it comes to like and agriculture a bunch of people

1:07:28

are giving a speech you know what i mean i

1:07:30

think they'll do the same thing that the right does

1:07:32

now where the right screams free speech when it's them

1:07:34

but when somebody they disagree with all the sudden they're

1:07:36

like drop the hammer and let's be authoritarian i'm counting

1:07:38

on human per hypocrisy as yeah you

1:07:40

don't have club or on the identity stuff

1:07:42

yeah i think like the reason why the

1:07:45

identity stuff has become so pervasive as because

1:07:47

it's the least power threatening and that's why

1:07:49

as the loudest and that's why it's the

1:07:51

most pervasive that's why is comparable for hillary

1:07:53

clinton or corporate media to sort of push

1:07:55

that out it also very convenient for them

1:07:57

to to crush the last and be like

1:07:59

your the real progressive. Yeah, they got

1:08:01

out radical, the actual radicals, by saying,

1:08:04

well, we want a DEI program and

1:08:06

it's like fucking okay, who cares, right?

1:08:08

And I think there are leftists that,

1:08:15

it's not just liberals that have the

1:08:17

hyper-identitarian problem, I do think there are

1:08:19

some leftists, particularly young leftists, who also

1:08:21

are equally focused or maybe even more

1:08:24

focused on hyper-identitarianism. And I think that's

1:08:26

a problem. But I also

1:08:28

think it kind of gets underplayed just how

1:08:30

many classic traditional class-focused leftists are still out

1:08:32

there. You know what I mean? Because it's

1:08:34

easy to do a boogeyman of

1:08:37

the left by saying there are

1:08:39

all these hyper-identity focused freaks. And

1:08:41

we just totally disregard all the

1:08:43

classic Marxian-type

1:08:45

leftists who are like, oh, I care about this

1:08:47

fucking class, right? Viva la revolution type. Here's

1:08:49

the, well, I wish there were more of us, frankly. I'm not

1:08:51

sure there are that many of us, but I wish there were.

1:08:53

But he's not with us on that one because he's libertarian. You're

1:08:56

an offers in a leftist, that's right. But I

1:08:58

like those leftists better. He

1:09:01

likes libertarians better than a lot of people on

1:09:03

our side, right? Something

1:09:05

I was curious about for you, Dave, though, is

1:09:07

that it almost flipped where

1:09:12

the liberals

1:09:14

were using identity as an explanation

1:09:16

for literally everything. And then the

1:09:19

right picks up wokeness and

1:09:22

it's getting applied as

1:09:24

a similarly convenient excuse to

1:09:26

let big banks off the hook and whatever,

1:09:29

where it's like, oh, Silicon Valley Bank failed.

1:09:31

We'll look at their board. They've got a

1:09:33

gay person. So obviously it's the wokeness that

1:09:35

was the problem here. And so

1:09:37

I felt like the dynamic flipped where it actually

1:09:39

became the right that was more obsessed with

1:09:42

wokeness than even like the

1:09:45

woke people were obsessed with wokeness. And it

1:09:47

really fell flat. I mean, look at Ron

1:09:49

DeSantis who launched his whole campaign on like,

1:09:52

Florida's where wokeness comes to die or whatever.

1:09:54

And even he started abandoning the term because

1:09:56

it just, no one cared. And

1:09:59

again, it's like, a convenient thing

1:10:02

to lay on any problem that corporations don't care

1:10:04

if they do have the gay guy on the

1:10:06

board or if they don't have the gay guy

1:10:08

on the board. So either way, if that's what

1:10:10

you're fighting about is whether or not the one

1:10:12

gay guy is on the board, either way that's

1:10:14

a win for them. Yeah, I

1:10:16

mean, there's actual images of

1:10:20

floats at the gay pride parade

1:10:23

with Bank of America logos

1:10:25

at the bottom of it. And you're just

1:10:27

like, doesn't that just say it all? That's

1:10:30

it right there. Like, could you imagine from

1:10:32

the perspective of like big banks at like

1:10:34

during Occupy Wall Street, if the deal was

1:10:36

like, all right, how about we buy you

1:10:39

a gay float and you all go away?

1:10:41

Okay, that'd

1:10:43

be a pretty good deal from Bank of America's point of

1:10:45

view. And well, look, I think I also

1:10:47

think what you're getting at like the other half

1:10:50

of this, this op was

1:10:52

that yeah, you also they also drew

1:10:55

the right wingers into having the

1:10:57

same dumb discussion. And these people

1:10:59

like Ben Shapiro, who became famous

1:11:03

for what? For going and arguing with some 19

1:11:05

year old who's and she's like, you know, I

1:11:07

was born a man, why can't I be a

1:11:10

woman? And he's like, why can't you be a

1:11:12

bird? And everyone's like, the

1:11:15

intellectual prowess of Ben Shapiro, you know,

1:11:17

like, as if like, what are you

1:11:19

even doing with yours? I mean, look,

1:11:21

obviously, like she's this college

1:11:24

kids an idiot, but like, what are you

1:11:26

some hero for like taking this down? And

1:11:28

so it all got just, you know, like,

1:11:31

dumbed down and drawn into these

1:11:33

conversations that are totally unimportant, like just

1:11:35

like I was saying before, like, these

1:11:37

things that it's like, you're never allowed

1:11:40

to be like, guys, guys, this just

1:11:42

doesn't matter that much. Like things that

1:11:44

matter so much more are happening. Like,

1:11:46

how about, you know, during this period,

1:11:48

right, from, from 2008 through

1:11:52

2020, you had the two and this is

1:11:54

kind of where libertarians and and leftists like

1:11:56

yourself can all come together is that you

1:11:58

had the two biggest transfers of wealth in

1:12:00

human history and they both went

1:12:02

from the working class and middle

1:12:04

class to the uber-rich politically connected

1:12:06

class. You could

1:12:09

have whatever conversation like, I might

1:12:11

support the free market and you

1:12:13

guys might support redistributive policies from

1:12:15

the rich to the poor, but

1:12:17

who the hell supports redistributive policies

1:12:19

from the poor to the rich?

1:12:22

This is all going on

1:12:24

while our national conversation has

1:12:26

devolved into whether Ben Shapiro

1:12:28

owned that 19-year-old. And

1:12:31

so the whole thing

1:12:33

just, you know, and again, right, like your

1:12:35

example with all this stuff is all good

1:12:37

examples. But then on top of that, one

1:12:40

of the things that have been that people have been

1:12:42

reminded of or maybe introduced to for the first time,

1:12:44

I was certainly well aware of it. But

1:12:47

all of these, the right wingers who are the

1:12:50

Zionist hawks, they

1:12:52

were always, they were the originators of this

1:12:54

woke stuff. They

1:12:57

were always the first woke, woke stirrers.

1:12:59

And now you're seeing that reemerge. But

1:13:01

this was always the thing that, oh,

1:13:04

if you criticize Israel, you hate Jews.

1:13:07

And isn't that the exact same argument

1:13:09

as every woke leftist is making? If

1:13:12

I criticize any of the things they believe

1:13:14

in, that means I'm a racist. And

1:13:17

it's been interesting and I think

1:13:19

incredibly revealing to see all of

1:13:21

the guys who made millions of

1:13:24

dollars by being against

1:13:26

that just totally embrace it

1:13:28

one second later that right now, if

1:13:30

you are critical of the way

1:13:32

Israel is conducting, like just imagine you're

1:13:35

critical. First of all, it's a

1:13:37

war of choice, like

1:13:39

objectively speaking. It's not that

1:13:41

Israel was invaded and had to defend themselves.

1:13:43

Like some prisoners broke out and killed some

1:13:45

people and ran back into their prison. You

1:13:48

could say they have an obligation to do what they can to get

1:13:51

the hostages back, but this certainly isn't the way to do that. But

1:13:54

imagine like criticizing a war

1:13:57

of choice against a captive

1:13:59

people. that don't have a

1:14:01

military. You know, like criticizing

1:14:03

that is equated to hating

1:14:06

Jewish people. It's

1:14:08

as dumb as anything you've ever heard out of

1:14:10

the woke left. And so all these dynamical things.

1:14:12

It's also really quite anti-Semitic actually,

1:14:14

to conflate all Jewish people

1:14:16

like you have to be

1:14:19

associated with this state government

1:14:21

that's committing atrocities. And

1:14:23

I see this done all the time,

1:14:25

where yeah, if you're criticizing Israel, the

1:14:27

Ergo, all Jewish people must be associated

1:14:29

with Israel, Ergo, you're criticizing Jewish people.

1:14:32

And that kind of like blanket characterization

1:14:35

of any demographic group of

1:14:37

people, like that's kind of

1:14:39

the textbook definition of racism.

1:14:41

Yeah, it's the only people who agree

1:14:44

with that are Benjamin Netanyahu and

1:14:46

the Jew haters. Like

1:14:48

the actual anti-Semites agree with the Zionists

1:14:50

on this. That's right. This does speak

1:14:52

for all Jews. And you

1:14:54

know, there's always been this very

1:14:56

weird symbiotic relationship between Jew haters

1:14:59

and Zionists. And you know,

1:15:01

this is why the Stern gang met with

1:15:03

the Nazis and they wanted to ally with

1:15:05

the Nazis during World War Two. And it's

1:15:08

only because the Nazis hated Jews so much

1:15:10

that it didn't happen, which is kind of

1:15:12

funny in a dark way. Can you

1:15:14

explain that? Because we learned that in

1:15:16

the Daryl's podcast. Can

1:15:19

you lay that out for people? Because it is an

1:15:21

astonishing fact. People don't know this. So

1:15:23

the Stern gang, if you're not aware, they

1:15:25

were one of the militias in Palestine before

1:15:27

the creation of Israel that then got incorporated

1:15:30

into the IDF when Israel was created. And

1:15:32

they were the most vicious ones and they

1:15:34

were all pretty vicious, but they were like

1:15:37

the they were self-described

1:15:39

terrorists. Like they engaged

1:15:42

in terrorism with

1:15:44

the stated goal of driving out an occupying

1:15:47

force. Let that irony sink in for

1:15:49

a little bit. This is

1:15:51

like some crazy argument that Israelis could

1:15:53

know that's not occupation doesn't lead to

1:15:55

terrorism. It was like literally what

1:15:58

you guys said. So anyway, during a

1:16:00

little bit before that during the

1:16:02

run-up to World War II, they

1:16:05

met at least on one occasion

1:16:07

with Nazis to

1:16:09

try to form a partnership. And

1:16:11

the reason was, when you think

1:16:14

about it, kind of obvious that

1:16:16

the Nazis, this is before the

1:16:18

Nazis went genocidal, the

1:16:21

Nazis at the time, their stated

1:16:23

goal was to drive all of Jews out

1:16:26

of Europe. And the Zionist goal

1:16:28

was to get all of the Jews to

1:16:30

come to Palestine. And so

1:16:32

they saw it and they were like, well, hey,

1:16:34

we got a perfect partnership here. We both want

1:16:37

the same thing. Hello horseshoe horseshoe there for you.

1:16:39

Yeah, I mean, like the worst imaginable horseshoe theory.

1:16:42

But even before the rise of the Nazis, the

1:16:44

Zionists always weirdly had mutual interests with

1:16:52

the rise of antisemitism. And you can see that

1:16:54

even now today, right? Like the more people that

1:16:56

are out there saying horrible things about Jews, that's

1:16:58

not like, you know, if I'm having a debate

1:17:00

with Dennis Prager, that's not a point for me.

1:17:02

That's a point that hurts my case. But it's

1:17:05

a point that helps his case because he can

1:17:07

go look, look at how much we're hated. And

1:17:09

that's why we have to do what we have

1:17:11

to do. And that's why

1:17:13

we have to have Israel. And as Joe Biden says,

1:17:15

if there is no Israel, no Jew anywhere, it can

1:17:17

be safe. Right, right. We have

1:17:19

to kind of live in this world as

1:17:23

if the state of Western civilization today

1:17:26

is similar to the state of Nazi

1:17:28

Germany, which is totally absurd. But

1:17:31

so they always kind of had this

1:17:33

relationship where they wanted to see a rise

1:17:36

in antisemitism in Europe because they wanted

1:17:38

more Jews to come to Palestine. And

1:17:41

ultimately, that is what happened.

1:17:45

Dave, talk to me about, you

1:17:47

mentioned in that debate, you don't like to use

1:17:49

the word genocide applied to the Gaza Strip.

1:17:51

Is that like a philosophical thing? You don't think

1:17:54

it meets the definition or you feel like that's

1:17:56

tactically better not to use that language? What

1:17:58

are your thoughts there? it's

1:18:00

I guess there's a

1:18:03

bit of both to it. So strategically speaking,

1:18:05

when you go into these debates, it just

1:18:07

it always devolves into a debate over semantics.

1:18:09

And like, that's not really the debate I

1:18:11

care to have. Like, I

1:18:14

don't really care what you call it. I'm

1:18:16

here to argue that this is wrong and

1:18:18

horrific and needs to stop. Look,

1:18:22

there's the word genocide, it conjures

1:18:25

up images of something that isn't

1:18:27

exactly what's happening in Gaza right

1:18:29

now. Like, it conjures up the

1:18:31

Holocaust. The

1:18:34

Holocaust or the Armenian genocide or like what

1:18:36

Stalin did to the Ukrainians, which I guess

1:18:38

is a little bit more similar to

1:18:41

this. But you know,

1:18:43

the international definition of genocide is like so

1:18:45

incredibly vague. And it's just like, I don't

1:18:47

know, I just don't, it's like, I'm not

1:18:49

like offended when people use the word. I

1:18:52

just don't even, I don't

1:18:54

even care to get into all

1:18:56

of these debates. It's not, you

1:18:58

know, like, I'm, I'm a libertarian,

1:19:00

like a very radical libertarian. I

1:19:03

don't believe in government authority at

1:19:05

all. I don't actually care what

1:19:07

the UN decided the international definition

1:19:09

of genocide is. What I care

1:19:11

about is human

1:19:13

beings, having their rights violated,

1:19:15

I care about what's moral and what's

1:19:17

immoral. And to me, this is horrifically

1:19:20

wrong. And I'm just, I, it's like,

1:19:22

I feel like I'm

1:19:25

a lawyer and I've got this guy

1:19:27

dead to rights on this charge of

1:19:29

this is morally wrong. So let me

1:19:32

just prosecute that case and not worry

1:19:34

about getting into like, you know, arguments

1:19:37

about interpretations of international law. So

1:19:39

in other words, that like the

1:19:41

international criminal court, for example, you

1:19:43

would say a stronger charge to

1:19:45

bring is like, Hey, I'm making

1:19:47

updates here, but hey, on November

1:19:50

12th, you guys bombed

1:19:53

this hospital and this clinic and

1:19:55

this vehicle, which had five civilians in

1:19:58

it. And here are the bodies. and

1:20:00

here's the evidence and this is what

1:20:02

you're being charged with and these are

1:20:05

the penalties, right? So in other words,

1:20:07

you would rather get down into the

1:20:09

micro specific examples versus the broad title

1:20:11

Because it's harder to argue against the

1:20:14

specifics of the actual crimes themselves versus

1:20:16

a label like genocide The

1:20:18

way I look at it is like this And

1:20:21

this is an argument that comes from Lysander

1:20:23

Spooner who is like a brilliant anarchist thinker

1:20:27

and he basically argued that

1:20:29

the Constitution of the

1:20:31

United States of America has no authority

1:20:33

over any of us because we never

1:20:35

agreed to it We never signed it.

1:20:37

We never like there's we never actually

1:20:39

like in it's not a contract

1:20:41

that we voluntarily entered into

1:20:44

but he would argue that The

1:20:48

United States government is

1:20:50

ruled by that document because they all do

1:20:52

swear an oath to uphold it So like

1:20:54

you made the choice to enter into this

1:20:56

contract. So in the same way, I think

1:20:59

that I Think international

1:21:01

law is all Imaginary

1:21:03

and it doesn't really exist. I

1:21:05

like it as a tool to point out

1:21:08

that hey Government of Israel

1:21:10

you agreed to these rules and you're not

1:21:12

following them But the reality of the situation

1:21:14

is that when you go to a high

1:21:16

enough level of power There is no such

1:21:19

thing as law and the entire new

1:21:21

world order International,

1:21:23

you know the whole liberal world order that

1:21:25

was created in the wake of World War

1:21:28

two was specifically Created so

1:21:30

that the United States of America could

1:21:32

become the global empire and that right

1:21:34

don't have to follow International law and

1:21:36

you see this blatantly I mean like

1:21:38

the US violates international law all the

1:21:40

time Israel violates international law all the time

1:21:43

and that's just too bad We're allowed to

1:21:45

do it. That's the way it works International

1:21:47

law is a tool for the powerful to

1:21:50

impose on the less powerful So

1:21:52

we will stop someone else from violating international

1:21:54

law unless you are on the side of

1:21:56

the Empire But you would want to see

1:21:58

it equally applied You'd want to see

1:22:01

it fairly applied and to have the laws enforced

1:22:03

against both the US and Israel, etc. What

1:22:05

I want to see is moral outcomes.

1:22:08

So whatever the means to get there

1:22:10

might be, I mean, whoever has the

1:22:12

power to do so, yes, I'd like

1:22:14

to see countries, or governments,

1:22:16

I should say, I wouldn't

1:22:19

like to see them not be

1:22:21

allowed to occupy and indiscriminately kill

1:22:24

innocent civilians. And if

1:22:26

there was a way to achieve that through international law,

1:22:28

then sure, that would be better than what we have

1:22:30

right now. I

1:22:32

don't disagree with, certainly with the fact that

1:22:34

the US is totally hypocritical. I mean, you

1:22:36

can see it very blatantly with the way

1:22:38

they talk about what Russia is doing in

1:22:40

Ukraine, you know, not that they can say

1:22:42

genocide, they can say war crime, it's not

1:22:44

hard, Putin's a war criminal. Then

1:22:47

when it's Israel, it's like, what

1:22:49

is it? What even is a war crime? Who could

1:22:51

really say we're going to do an investigation and we'll

1:22:53

get back to you? I

1:22:56

mean, this is just the most recent example, right

1:22:58

there, we could go back throughout the history of

1:23:00

this, you know, post World War II

1:23:02

order and point out many, many more. Like

1:23:05

you, I find it useful as a tool, though, because

1:23:07

even though the leaders were full of shit, like, the

1:23:10

people generally bought into this

1:23:12

idea. You know, that's why

1:23:14

they still use the humanitarian language, because people

1:23:16

feel like you and I do have like,

1:23:18

no, we'd like to see certain things be

1:23:21

off the table. We'd like to feel like,

1:23:23

you know, we're the good guys, the way

1:23:25

we were in World War II, stopping a

1:23:27

genocide and being on the right side of

1:23:29

history. We like the idea of there are

1:23:31

certain things that are acts of, you know,

1:23:34

acts against humanity, crimes against humanity that should

1:23:36

be completely banned. And so

1:23:38

when you have somewhat

1:23:41

of an international consensus forming around the fact

1:23:43

of like, at

1:23:45

least plausibly a genocide, that's at least potentially

1:23:47

the case. And you've got the UN, you

1:23:49

know, special repertoire from human rights saying, hey,

1:23:52

there's reasonable grounds. And you now

1:23:54

have a majority of Biden voters saying, yeah, it looks

1:23:56

like a genocide to us. It's

1:23:58

not that I expect the effect. officials to

1:24:01

be consistent. But I think

1:24:03

their hypocrisy is in and of

1:24:05

itself a useful tool of,

1:24:07

okay, you can, Joe Biden can't come out

1:24:10

and say, actually, I do support

1:24:12

tenicides and I was just full of shit.

1:24:14

He has to keep up the farce. And

1:24:17

so that's what makes it a difficult situation for

1:24:19

him. And why do you find the word to

1:24:22

be, to be useful in this

1:24:24

context? Yeah, look, I mean, that's

1:24:26

a fair argument. I pretty much agree

1:24:28

with all of that. And certainly

1:24:32

there's a

1:24:34

benefit to using the word and there's a cost

1:24:36

to using the word. I get your point there.

1:24:39

I can't really argue with any of that. I

1:24:42

just say I'm just going to continue to

1:24:44

prosecute the case that it is horrific. What's

1:24:46

happening? So I was going to

1:24:48

say the final thing on my end. I don't know if you have something you want to.

1:24:51

Yeah, I've got one more. If it's on this, go ahead. Okay.

1:24:54

I wanted to hear a little bit more of

1:24:56

your thoughts from a libertarian perspective of,

1:24:59

you know, you said you're saying it's just you

1:25:01

want to see moral acts and not immoral acts.

1:25:04

What, from a libertarian perspective, is the

1:25:06

way that that would be enforced in

1:25:10

your ideal world system, etc? Well,

1:25:13

I mean, really, like all that has to

1:25:15

happen is that America has to stop propping

1:25:17

this up. I mean, it would

1:25:19

have been there would be no possible

1:25:23

way that Israel could behave the way they

1:25:25

do without the US signing off on it.

1:25:27

So we're essentially removing one

1:25:30

government program away from basically solving the

1:25:32

problem. Israel would be forced to negotiate

1:25:34

and they would be forced to find

1:25:36

some type of peace. And this is,

1:25:39

you know, there's always that this is

1:25:41

also true throughout the entire history of

1:25:43

Israel, that this has always been the

1:25:45

dynamic, is that there were reasonable voices

1:25:48

within the Zionist movement. But

1:25:50

then they had all of the backing

1:25:52

of international financing. And so they didn't

1:25:54

have to listen to those reasonable voices because we

1:25:56

had they had such an incredible advantage over their

1:26:00

Arab You

1:26:02

know inhabitants of the land and so

1:26:04

that's to me the obvious libertarian solution

1:26:06

to this is to get our government

1:26:09

out of the way of Funding and

1:26:11

propping up Israel and protecting them internationally

1:26:14

That would put enormous pressure on them is the

1:26:16

same thing in the situation in Ukraine where they

1:26:18

literally were ready to make a deal And

1:26:21

then the Biden administration comes in and goes we will

1:26:23

fund you till the end of time if you don't

1:26:25

make this deal And of course, there's tremendous perverse incentives

1:26:27

there because it's not just oh We'll

1:26:29

we'll fund your war effort as there's been

1:26:31

a ton of reporting on it's like the

1:26:34

powerful people in Ukraine Who are making this

1:26:36

decision are this money's going into their bank

1:26:38

accounts like they're getting bribed off to continue

1:26:40

fighting this war and they're not Fighting and

1:26:42

dying in it. They're conscripting young men to

1:26:44

go fight and die in it as very

1:26:47

similar dynamic in Israel So I'd say the

1:26:49

libertarian solution would be to get our government

1:26:51

out of propping up. I

1:26:53

don't know Dave I think you're just a self-hating

1:26:55

Jew All

1:26:59

right, so so my last question Dave and correct me

1:27:01

if I'm wrong you called yourself a radical libertarian Is

1:27:04

that the terminology used or was it a different word?

1:27:06

I'd say I think that's a good description. Yeah No,

1:27:08

that's what I just said right now. I mean, yes,

1:27:11

I would okay I mean, I would like to see

1:27:13

nothing short of a revolution in this country. So I

1:27:15

think that's pretty radical So

1:27:17

I you know, I've read the whole Libertarian

1:27:20

cannon I've read Hayek. I've read

1:27:22

von Mises. I've read a bunch

1:27:24

of Ayn Rand Which

1:27:27

flavor of libertarian are you because I've

1:27:29

even seen arguments I think it was

1:27:31

Rand who made the argument of like

1:27:34

any sort of public System

1:27:37

like a court system for example or police

1:27:39

system like even that she would have like

1:27:41

voluntarily funded by the wealthy So in other

1:27:43

words like no form of taxation in any

1:27:45

way shape or form not even a 1%

1:27:47

or 2% flat

1:27:50

tax or you know Tax

1:27:52

sales tax or whatever what how deep does it go?

1:27:54

I know that we're opening up a whole can of

1:27:56

worms here. We can have you on again and we

1:27:58

can get into other like economic stuff if you'd

1:28:00

like, but I'm just curious which flavor

1:28:02

of libertarian are you because there's such a

1:28:05

wide array of versions of libertarian. Yeah,

1:28:07

well I think so I think Mises

1:28:10

was is the most brilliant economist

1:28:12

to ever live. I completely agree

1:28:14

with him on all things economic.

1:28:16

I'm a Rothbardian, you know, more

1:28:18

like in the Ron Paul school

1:28:20

of libertarians. I'm not a

1:28:22

huge iron round fan and

1:28:25

I don't like Hayek at all. But

1:28:28

so I mean look the answer

1:28:30

essentially to me is that like

1:28:32

yeah ideally you would have a

1:28:34

voluntary society. That would be the

1:28:36

ideal way to organize society and

1:28:38

that it wouldn't there's no reason

1:28:40

why. Look if you really

1:28:42

think about the nature of government what

1:28:45

it is is a collection of services

1:28:48

and whether it's protection services or

1:28:50

you know whatever the government

1:28:53

policy may be. And that

1:28:55

if you're looking at this like okay well

1:28:57

these have to be services have to be

1:29:00

funded. Now how should they be funded? Should

1:29:02

they be funded because the people who get

1:29:05

these services provided to them choose to

1:29:07

purchase them or should they be funded

1:29:09

with the threat of we will throw

1:29:11

you in a cage if you don't

1:29:13

fund these. Yes ideally the morally correct

1:29:15

answer there would be that they were

1:29:17

voluntarily funded. That being said I'm not

1:29:19

going to like fight against a one

1:29:21

or two percent income tax that would

1:29:23

be a big improvement over what we

1:29:25

have. I'm not sure we'll ever get

1:29:27

to the point where we do live

1:29:29

in a completely voluntary society but I

1:29:31

would like to move as close to

1:29:33

that direction as possible. You

1:29:36

are a dirty reformist. You are no revolutionary.

1:29:40

A one percent income tax. How

1:29:42

dare you. We're gonna get you

1:29:44

to support unions next Jesus. I

1:29:48

support I support private unions not

1:29:50

public unions though. There's a libertarian

1:29:52

argument for unions for sure that's actually

1:29:54

requires that the government power if you

1:29:56

have like local bargaining committee and then

1:29:58

that's actually most liberal. I've come

1:30:00

across her anti-union, but well no longer

1:30:03

conversation for another day Well, I'll just

1:30:05

say that the the libertarian position is

1:30:07

to you you have to oppose public

1:30:09

sector unions Because it's not it's a

1:30:12

different thing to have workers get together

1:30:14

to Collectively negotiate because we have more

1:30:16

negotiating power when we're together than when

1:30:19

we're just individuals It's a

1:30:21

whole different thing, you know because

1:30:23

in that dynamic It's like the workers want to

1:30:25

get paid more the boss wants to pay them

1:30:27

less So okay, you kind of are negotiating what

1:30:29

a better deal in the

1:30:31

case of public sector unions you have a

1:30:35

Bunch of government employees getting together arguing

1:30:37

with the government about how much of

1:30:39

other people's money They

1:30:41

should give them in which case this

1:30:44

and this just ends with the politician going

1:30:46

sure I'll give you more of other people's

1:30:48

money and this is why there's so much

1:30:50

corruption in every public sector Union

1:30:53

so that I suppose Gotcha,

1:30:55

well, we'll save the the debate for another time That would

1:30:57

be a fun one though if we get into economic stuff,

1:30:59

I would enjoy that very much But Dave, thank you so

1:31:02

much for joining us man. This was a lot of fun.

1:31:04

Yeah, I really enjoyed it Hey, I'm gonna go your stuff

1:31:06

for everybody too. Oh, well, thank you

1:31:08

guys very much. I really enjoyed it Yeah,

1:31:10

comic Dave Smith comm is my website You

1:31:13

want to see where I'm gonna be I tore all

1:31:15

over the country So if you want to come see

1:31:18

me check me out there and then at comic Dave

1:31:20

Smith on Twitter My podcast is as it says behind

1:31:22

me part of the problem. Thanks again guys. I really

1:31:24

enjoyed it Alright,

1:31:26

that was Dave Smith very interesting conversation.

1:31:29

We should actually have one again to go

1:31:31

into like economic Yeah, I have a friendly

1:31:33

debate cuz he seems like one to not

1:31:35

take disagreements personally Definitely big for

1:31:37

this space. Yeah, people get all in their

1:31:39

feelings when you do I'm

1:31:42

never coming back on. Here's a 27 tweet thread against

1:31:44

you. You know, I mean, I'm giving of anyone at

1:31:46

this point Who's on the right side? That's

1:31:49

funny. I'll forgive a lot of things but there's a lot

1:31:51

of good conversation to have Because

1:31:56

I mean in his ideal he would

1:31:58

like a voluntary voluntary society in terms

1:32:00

of funding the basic

1:32:02

necessities. But the big objection

1:32:04

to that, which I didn't want to get in because we could

1:32:06

have gone for another hour, two hours on that, is

1:32:09

that it would only be

1:32:11

the wealthy who fund the courts. It would only

1:32:13

be the wealthy who fund the police. And then

1:32:15

the courts and the police are gonna be totally

1:32:17

biased in favor of the wealthy to the point

1:32:19

of absurdity, right? And then you have

1:32:21

a peasant fucking overclass society, which is in theory the

1:32:23

thing that you're trying to avoid if you're creating a

1:32:25

society that's voluntary like that. You know what I'm saying?

1:32:28

Yeah, sort of like the old company towns,

1:32:30

like West Virginia, where the courts and the

1:32:32

police and the schools and the housing and

1:32:34

everything is like run by the mine

1:32:36

operators. Right, yeah. Yeah, I mean,

1:32:39

there's, anyway, we'll say the libertarian

1:32:41

debate for another day because there's- It's a fun one

1:32:43

though. It is a fun one. We

1:32:45

had that great debate with the libertarian Mike Tromat

1:32:47

number. Yeah, but Dave is more substantive than that

1:32:49

guy. That was a good conversation. It was a

1:32:51

good conversation, but Dave can handle

1:32:54

his own better, I think, than that guy. He's very

1:32:56

skilled. I mean, that's one of the things that we

1:32:58

were talking off camera. It's great to have

1:33:00

his comedian skills. Not

1:33:04

only is he a great communicator, but

1:33:06

he has a way of sort of summing things up.

1:33:09

That's what came through in the debate. And also, comedians

1:33:11

are great observers of the absurdities in

1:33:14

society, and that's such an important skill

1:33:16

in all of this as well. Yeah,

1:33:18

there's a communication X factor ability that's super

1:33:20

important for people who are in the public

1:33:23

eye, and virtually every comedian has that. I

1:33:25

don't know if I've ever seen a comedian

1:33:27

that doesn't have some X factor

1:33:29

in terms of ability to communicate. Oh

1:33:31

yeah, I can't imagine. That's so hard to stand up

1:33:33

in front of a room people and just be a room

1:33:35

of people and be like, make them laugh. It is

1:33:38

fun. I've done one semi

1:33:40

standup routine in my life. I

1:33:43

was the best man

1:33:45

at my friend's wedding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Plotted out

1:33:47

a whole little. You did a whole set. I

1:33:49

did a whole standup routine. I did a whole

1:33:51

set. And first of all, I understand why they

1:33:53

do it. It is fucking addicting. When you get

1:33:55

the laughter, it's like a drug. If

1:33:58

people are laughing, you're like, how may that happen? It

1:34:00

feels good. It feels really good But

1:34:03

the thing that I found interesting about it is all the

1:34:05

lines that I thought would hit and make them

1:34:07

laugh Yeah, didn't and all my throwaway lines made

1:34:09

them laugh, huh? So I was like, oh my

1:34:11

god There's like a science to this shit. You

1:34:14

know, I thought this line was a guaranteed winner

1:34:16

and it was fucking crickets But the next throwaway

1:34:18

line they all that's like even the

1:34:20

best I mean they have to go out and try to

1:34:22

mess it try the material on Workshop

1:34:24

it told me only like the best of

1:34:26

the best can know up front like I bet like Dave

1:34:28

Chappelle or somebody like that Knows up front when I say this

1:34:31

they're gonna laugh It'd be interesting to know if

1:34:33

they feel like they know right away when

1:34:35

they write a joke like oh, this is gonna

1:34:37

hit Well, we remember the other day in the

1:34:39

car about that with music. Yeah, cuz there's this

1:34:41

guy I think what's his name Mike Miller? Is

1:34:43

it the guy who made all the beats all

1:34:45

max Miller Mike Miller's the fucking State Department cool

1:34:47

Jesus Christ? No, that's Matthew

1:34:50

Miller Matthew Miller. Okay Anyway,

1:34:52

there's this one guy who made all like the

1:34:54

number one hit bangin ass songs for like the

1:34:57

past 20 years Yeah, pretty we went and looked

1:34:59

at the list. It was like she's every song

1:35:01

by like this Brittany and Taylor and

1:35:03

Ariana and it's like I wonder

1:35:05

for the artist. Do you know? Hey,

1:35:08

I just made a banger. That's gonna be number one on the charts or

1:35:10

is it just like I don't fucking know throw

1:35:12

it out There see what happens. Yeah, I

1:35:14

my guess is that it's Kind

1:35:17

of similar to you know when we put out

1:35:19

a clip on YouTube you have a vague idea, but

1:35:21

you don't know Yeah, sometimes you you pretty

1:35:23

much know like oh these names are in

1:35:25

the title I crushed it with the title

1:35:28

the thumbnail like there's no way this doesn't

1:35:30

pop off barring YouTube like blocking it or

1:35:32

whatever Sometimes you

1:35:35

are surprised Sometimes one that

1:35:37

you think is gonna be a day and you're just doing

1:35:39

it because you're like this is important and I'm gonna do

1:35:41

it will totally pop off

1:35:43

and Sometimes one that you think

1:35:45

is gonna be like you feel like oh, this

1:35:47

is probably do well It's kind of like a

1:35:50

dud so I mean makes bad is an expect

1:35:52

sometimes you do so that's what I guess is

1:35:54

like They know like oh, there's no way this

1:35:56

isn't popular, but just like with the YouTube algorithm

1:35:59

some of it Alchemy some of it's

1:36:01

not just merit It's like well like it

1:36:03

played and does it happen to you know

1:36:05

pop at the right moment? Argument right happening

1:36:07

right now when like the hip-hop world where you

1:36:09

got Drake versus like a thousand people Yeah, it's

1:36:11

like the argument from all the people who are

1:36:14

against Drake or like you're totally fucking manufactured like

1:36:16

you're not organically The

1:36:19

guy you've been made the guy because your

1:36:21

relationship with the industry and how they pump your shit

1:36:23

out That's basically the heart of the argument which

1:36:25

we don't need to get into all that right now But I'm

1:36:28

a Drake hater, but I think he's holding his own in this

1:36:30

fight with Kendrick and all the rest of them anyway We'll end

1:36:32

it on that. I think for you. I mean for you to

1:36:34

be as big as Drake It's

1:36:36

not just manufactured I

1:36:38

just think they can manufacture somebody like Joe Biden

1:36:41

is fucking president you're telling me they can't manufacture

1:36:43

some shit this motherfucker Never would have won an

1:36:45

affair system There's

1:36:49

no electoral college of the music industry

1:36:51

like no no it would be it

1:36:53

has to be that you know Yes,

1:36:55

it's pumped a lot, but also

1:36:57

people genuinely then they were like I like this I'm

1:37:00

gonna listen to it like you can't I mean this

1:37:02

is somebody he's not like the most number ones of

1:37:04

any whatever Like I'm not

1:37:06

even a huge Drake fan But it

1:37:08

can't be that it's just manufactured clearly

1:37:11

people like his music organically the question

1:37:13

is how far can? Pushing somebody get them

1:37:15

to the top of the mountain. That's the

1:37:17

question Yeah, and I think you would concede

1:37:19

that it can certainly get you

1:37:22

at the very least a few number one hits Yeah,

1:37:24

right, but Drake is way beyond a few number one

1:37:26

I understand that I'm saying if you agree that it

1:37:28

could get you at least a few number one hits

1:37:30

I think in the realm of possibility you could push

1:37:33

somebody to being like the guy I

1:37:35

think it could probably get you to be like a one-hit wonder

1:37:38

like one hit I think it can

1:37:40

go further than that believe it or not I you might

1:37:42

be right that it can't get you like 20 number

1:37:45

one hits And you're the guy in the industry for 10 or

1:37:47

20 years and probably right about that But

1:37:49

I think with just a push you can probably get

1:37:52

somebody you know to be number one for three years

1:37:54

four years something like that You know

1:37:56

I don't buy it, but look this all is

1:37:58

all moot point anyway because like What I like you

1:38:00

know I'm a Drake hater, but I thought he's

1:38:03

doing great in this battle with Kendrick his his

1:38:05

diss track was fire I liked it and Kendrick

1:38:07

hasn't said shit back yet. He still hasn't responded

1:38:09

Oh, but that's how he works. He takes years

1:38:11

before he releases shit usually where a Drake was

1:38:13

like. Oh you diss me Next

1:38:16

day here bitch. I don't actually know if it was a

1:38:19

nice day was within the next few days Yeah, they release

1:38:21

another diss track with fucking AI to pock That

1:38:24

was hard With

1:38:26

AI to fuck and fucking AI Snoop Dogg. I

1:38:28

wonder how Snoop Dogg felt about that True

1:38:32

Snoop Dogg like you're I'm alive. You're I

1:38:34

don't want to be in this beef. You know

1:38:37

maybe he does it's nice for his relevance right

1:38:39

yeah This is what when I'm falling asleep at

1:38:41

night is what I hear Kyle over there listening

1:38:43

to not only It's

1:38:45

golf stuff. It's fucking I watch a

1:38:48

million things true anyway all right all

1:38:50

right guys everybody What are you doing with your life? It's

1:38:52

below You know pay five bucks a month get the video

1:38:54

a day earlier He could sign up for free get the

1:38:56

audio version a day later. Love you all and we'll talk

1:38:59

you later

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