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#464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism Podcast Episode Description
Dave Smith is a comedian, libertarian, political commentator, and the host of Part of the Problem podcast.
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OUTLINE:
(00:00) – Introduction
(00:10) – Sponsors, Comments, and Reflections
(09:32) – Libertarianism
(10:47) – Ron Paul
(13:59) – Military–industrial complex
(20:53) – War on Terror
(33:12) – China and Taiwan
(41:00) – Just war theory
(48:09) – Israel and Gaza
(1:05:35) – Douglas Murray
(1:13:29) – Hamas
(1:29:48) – Hitler and Stalin
(1:32:01) – Darryl Cooper
(1:41:13) – Antisemitism
(1:54:46) – World leaders
(2:07:21) – Jeffrey Epstein
(2:15:24) – Sam Harris
(2:28:07) – Ukraine and Russia
(2:47:32) – Joe Rogan
(3:00:01) – Conspiracy theories
(3:17:52) – Hope
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#464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism Podcast Episode Summary
In this podcast episode, the host engages in a conversation with Dave Smith, a comedian and libertarian podcast host known for his antiwar stance. The discussion delves into the dynamics of podcasting, highlighting the unique relationship that hosts build with their audience over time. Smith reflects on the intimacy and depth that long-form podcasts can achieve, allowing listeners to feel a personal connection with the speakers. This format, he argues, can reveal more about a person than traditional media interviews.
The episode also touches on the challenges and opportunities of interviewing high-profile figures, such as world leaders. The host shares his experiences and hesitations about conducting long interviews with figures like Benjamin Netanyahu and potentially Vladimir Putin, emphasizing the value of extended conversations in uncovering deeper insights.
A recurring theme is the transformative power of podcasts in media, offering a platform for more authentic and transparent discussions. The conversation suggests that this format can challenge traditional media narratives and provide a space for diverse voices and ideas.
Actionable insights from the episode include the importance of authenticity and transparency in media and the potential of podcasts to foster deeper understanding and connection. The discussion also underscores the value of being open to diverse perspectives and the impact of long-form content in revealing the complexities of individuals and issues.
Overall, the episode conveys a message of optimism about the future of media and the role of podcasts in promoting more genuine and insightful discourse.
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#464 – Dave Smith: Israel, Ukraine, Epstein, Mossad, Conspiracies & Antisemitism Podcast Episode Transcript (Unedited)
Speaker: 0
00:00
The following is a conversation with Dave Smith, an outspoken and at times controversial antiwar libertarian, comedian, and podcast host. And now a quick few second mention of his sponsor. Check them out in the description. It’s the best way to support this podcast. We got Call of Duty for video game fun, Tax Network USA for, figuring out your tax problems, Notion for collaborating with your mates and integrating AI in the whole process, Shopify for selling stuff online, and BetterHelp for figuring out the problems of your mind.
Speaker: 0
00:36
Choose wisely, my friends. If you’re watching or listening to this on Spotify, I decided to start putting the same ad reads for me at the beginning as I do on Apple Podcasts and the RSS feed since a lot of folks in the survey said that they actually like the random non sequitur, weird, strange, chaotic things Ai talk about in these ad reads.
Speaker: 0
00:58
And ai said that they would be happy to skip when they don’t feel like listening. I do make it easy to skip with timestamps on screen and in the description, And I’m not adding ads in the middle, so, hopefully, this whole thing works for you. Let’s see. I do try to make the ad reads interesting and personal, often related to stuff I’m reading or thinking about.
Speaker: 0
01:20
But if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I’m grateful for them. Sign up. Buy their stuff. Whatever it is, I enjoy it. Maybe you will too.
Speaker: 0
01:29
Also, if you want to, get in touch with me for whatever reason, go to LexFreeman.com/contact, and now onto the full ad reads. Let’s go. This episode is brought to you by Call of Duty Warzone. Cue music. And, the return of the iconic Vodomska map. It is out now. The wait is over.
Speaker: 0
01:52
Vrdansk is back. This reminds me of how much I like Schwarzenegger movies. I’ve been talking back and forth with Robert Rodriguez, who is a legendary filmmaker in part for the action movies he creates, in part for the improvisational genius that he has. Anyway, talking to him, learning about him, thinking about his work, and watching his work reminded me how much I love action films.
Speaker: 0
02:20
And I think of Call of Duty given its realism as an action movie Ai can be a part of, I can be inside of, I can participate in. I can tell the story of the movie with my own actions. You can download Call of Duty Warzone for free and drop into the Vodonsk map now rated m for mature.
Speaker: 0
02:42
I don’t know why I’m doing the movie announcer voice, but let’s keep going with it. This episode is brought to you by Tax Network USA, a new sponsor, an awesome sponsor, a full service tax firm focused on solving tax problems for individuals and small businesses. I just did a really, really, really deep dive on, theoretical computer science. I shouldn’t say with who. One of the most brilliant people I ever met. Super technical episodes.
Speaker: 0
03:11
Super long episode. Anyway, p versus m p came out briefly. It’s not their thing, but it it is a thing I’ve thought about for many years. Of course, it’s the elephant in the room of theoretical computer ai, so I took a lot of courses on complexity and always loved the puzzles of algorithms, of data structures, of proving various things about algorithms.
Speaker: 0
03:33
I love that field. Anyway, I mentioned that because when I think about The United States tax code, what I think about is complexity. And I wonder there’ll be a future when AI will be unleashed on that tax code and will be used to simplify it. There’s nothing that brings more joy to me than taking a complicated thing that makes a lot of people’s lives super painful and simplifying it, and therefore, helping those people have less pain in their lives.
Speaker: 0
04:11
And I think The US tax code is the source of probably more pain in The United States than anything else. Anyway, you want to have really great people to help you deal with that pain, essentially, to relieve you of that pain, to relieve you of that stress. That burden can be the heaviest of burdens. Anything financial related could just break you. So great professionals that work on taxes, are really gifted the world.
Speaker: 0
04:39
Anyway, talk with one of their strategist for free today. Call +1 809581000 or go to tmusa.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by Notion, a note taking and team collaboration tool. They have been integrating AI better than basically any company I’ve seen. Always at the cutting edge. Always thinking how Ai could be actually used to solve practical problems.
Speaker: 0
05:08
Not for a prototype, not for a demo, not for a thing to post on x. Look at the cool thing I did, but actually make you productive at the thing you do at the individual level and at the team collaboration level. This really is the problem. AI should not just be a thing that makes you dream of the possibilities of what’s to come.
Speaker: 0
05:29
It should be a thing that just makes your life easier every single day. And despite what people think, it’s actually not that easy to integrate AI in this kind of way because human intelligence, human ingenuity, the speed at which we’re able to figure out a puzzle and know the next hop from the the puzzle, you know, the tab tab tab tab ai coding thing, but applied to document collaboration, document development, dom document summarization, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: 0
05:58
That’s what Notion is incredible at. You could try Notion AI for free when you go to notion.com/lex. That’s all lowercase notion.com/flex to try the power of Notion AI today. This episode is also brought to you by Shopify, a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere with a great looking online store. I’ve recently returned to Nietzsche.
Speaker: 0
06:20
And I wonder, what is the Nietzschean concept that explains the will of the entrepreneur? What is that? Is that trying to reach for power? Is it trying to reach for immortality? Is it trying to find the meaning of existence in the creative act?
Speaker: 0
06:47
There is something deeply creative, of course, to the entrepreneurial pursuit. It is fundamentally creative. It feels like pain. Right? It feels like risk. It feels like chasing money.
Speaker: 0
07:00
It feels like chasing impact or having a positive influence on people’s lives. But when you’re in it, I think about Johnny Ive. When you’re in it at your best, what you’re doing is you’re creating. That’s probably what Nietzsche would say. It probably is the creative act is the drug, the joy, the will that pulls at the entrepreneurial heart.
Speaker: 0
07:28
Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/lex, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com/lex to take your business to the next level today. This episode is also brought to you by BetterHelp, spelled h e l p help. Since we mentioned Nietzsche, I must go to maybe another intellect called Jung and the shadow, the archetypes.
Speaker: 0
07:55
I wonder how much of our existence is trying to contend with the uniqueness of the person we see in the mirror and the bin society puts us in. There is something about, especially the American spirit that resists categorization, the binning process. And in that tension, I ai, a lot of dark stuff can emerge.
Speaker: 0
08:25
Resentment, regret, depression, the gap between expectation and reality. Added with some, neurotransmitter malfunctioning sprinkled on top. Boy, is the human mind wonderful and a terrifying machine that can destroy itself. Anyway, BetterHelp is a nice first step to try to avert the coming storm.
Speaker: 0
08:59
Check them out at betterhelp.com, /lex and save on your first month. That’s betterhelp.com/lex. This is the Lex Freedom Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here’s Dave Smith. You are a long time libertarian, perhaps an anarcho capitalist. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
09:37
We can talk about that. Can you, explain the different variants, flavors of libertarianism and where you stand among those variants?
Speaker: 1
09:47
Yeah. So there’s almost like anything, like, with left wing schools of thought or right wing schools of thought, there’s many different camps and different thinkers. And so within the kind of broader theme of libertarianism, there was a lot of influence from, people like Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell.
Speaker: 1
10:05
Those were, I think, some of the more mainstream figures. And then there’s kind of like the Ron Paul brand of libertarianism, which is kind of distinct from that other camp where there’s much more of an emphasis on foreign policy. All of them kind of fall into the, radical monarchist points of view. And then there’s Rothbardian anarcho capitalist.
Speaker: 1
10:27
Then there’s also like, David Friedman, who’s an anarcho capitalist, but from a completely different perspective than Murray Rothbard. I would probably be most I’m most closely ai with the Rothbard school, which is very similar to Ron Paul, but even maybe a little bit further in that, you know, the very little bit of government that Ron Paul might support.
Speaker: 1
10:47
You’ve been
Speaker: 0
10:47
a big fan of Ron Paul. Can you explain what you admire about him?
Speaker: 1
10:51
A big fan is an understatement. I think Ron Paul is ai the greatest living American hero. I I I revere him on the level of of the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson or George Washington. Number one, I mean, all of the major issues that he he was correct in his understanding of them, his diagnosis of what caused these problems, and his solutions.
Speaker: 1
11:17
And in hindsight, there’s just ai a million different examples of where almost everybody today would agree, even though his ideas were very controversial at the ai, be like, oh meh god. If we had just listened to Ron Paul about that, we’d be so much better off. But Ai think there’s something almost deeper than that about why so ai Ron Paul inspires so much love from so many people is okay.
Speaker: 1
11:42
So number one, the guy, he was a champion of these views for decades when there was no payoff for it at all, where he was just kind of alone in the woods being you know, they used to call him Doctor. No because, well, he was a medical doctor, and then he was he would be the lone no vote in Congress, like, all the time.
Speaker: 1
12:02
Like, on on the bills that the entire Congress, bipartisan agreement, everything is and there’s one vote against it, you know? And that he would be that guy. He clearly kept doing what he was doing simply because he believed it was right, not because there was any benefit for him.
Speaker: 1
12:19
In fact, he dealt with a lot of headaches for the views that he had. And then he was just a a genuine person of integrity. You know, he’s the only, congressman who I’ve ever heard this about and and, like, DC sai, people on the hill will say this. He was the only congressman of my lifetime who the lobbyists simply stopped visiting.
Speaker: 1
12:38
He was the only one who they just stopped going to his office because they were just like, there’s just no getting through to this guy. He was just not playing politics like that. And he was you know, you you imagine what it must have been like ram, like, the lobbyist perspective when they first tried to go there.
Speaker: 1
12:53
You know, and they’d be like, alright. Listen. We really need you to, you know, vote yes on this or that. And he was like, the constitution doesn’t authorize us to do that. And they’re like, what? Like, who who in this town even talks like that? You know?
Speaker: 1
13:04
And so there was just he’s also just I’ve I’ve met him, many times at this point, and he is just genuinely he’s ai one of those guys who’s just from, like, an older, better generation. Just he’s the sweetest guy, but he’s ai, but he’s not a pushover. Like, he was a tough guy in in his day, and he was an athlete, and he was in the air force, and he’s married to the same woman for, I think, over sixty years at this point, has, like, a big beautiful family.
Speaker: 1
13:32
He was a country doctor. He was a baby doctor who delivered thousands of babies. Like, he’s just it is he’s like this kind of classic American figure, and, you know, I just think, you know, at the risk of of falling into, like, hero worship or something like that, I do think he’s a Ai think he’s a genuinely great man, and I think great men are to be revered.
Speaker: 0
13:57
Yeah. As you said, there’s integrity there. Can you speak to the ideas that Ron Paul represents? Like, ai says some of the things he’s been right about. Maybe can you speak about the economics, the Meh, and maybe war and being anti military intervention?
Speaker: 1
14:10
Well, I think it comes it all came from kind of the same central thesis, which is that the highest political value ought to be liberty, And and that, you know, the government ai its very nature is an instrument of force and tyranny, and that therefore, the more government you have, the less liberty you have. I think he also was he was way ahead of his time in in, like, really calling out the corruption in DC.
Speaker: 1
14:41
And I think that’s one of the things that’s kind of that’s that it’s a common through line between the Federal Reserve and, government spending and, of course, this crazy war industry that our country has. There so there there’s a a lot of components to that, but, essentially, Ron Paul was talking about draining the swamp way before it was, like, this dominant mass message.
Speaker: 1
15:04
And I think Ron Paul, in many ways, laid down he laid the groundwork in his 02/2012 presidential campaigns for not not saying that he leads to Donald Trump, but he laid the groundwork for Donald Trump to be able to get up at the South Carolina Republican primary debate and look at Jeb Bush and say, your brother lied us into war.
Speaker: 1
15:29
And you know what I mean? And and and to have the Republicans agree with him. You know, the say these were a lot of the same people who had voted for George w Bush twice and supported the war and even mocked their liberal, you know, fellow countrymen for not being on board with it, and and a lot of that was the work that Ron Paul did and people waking up to, the how how messed up all these wars were.
Speaker: 1
15:53
And I think that at least from there were a couple major things for me, okay, at the time. So I was like a I was a young man when I first found Ron Paul. I was, in 02/2007 was when I first saw him and then started obsessively reading all of his books, and so Ai I was young.
Speaker: 1
16:10
I’m born in ‘eighty three, so what would that mean? ’23, ’20 ‘4, when I first met him. So I was a young guy and, at least for me at the time, there were ai kind of two categories in my, you know, naive mind where, okay, there were ai the liberals who supported big government at home, but were skeptical about, you know, big government abroad, or they’re skeptical about wars.
Speaker: 1
16:34
And then there were the Conservatives who said that they supported small government, limited government at home, but were always on the side of whatever the next war is. And at least for meh, and I think for a lot of people of my generation, Ron Paul was the first guy who came along and said, like, no.
Speaker: 1
16:50
I’m for limited government here and abroad. And it was ai like a portal where you could, like, access a different perspective on the world. And then once you saw that, you were like, wait. That’s actually what makes sense. It makes it it doesn’t make sense to, like, what are what is it exactly that, like, all the Ronald Reagan and George w Bush and and even, like, Milton Friedman and guys like that and Thomas Sowell and the it’s ai you want a constitutionally limited world empire?
Speaker: 1
17:17
Like, that’s what you guys stand for? Because that doesn’t that doesn’t fit together at all. And so why is it that we took we we were taking this as a given? And then, of course, the more you you look into it, you realize that, like, okay, they’re those two things do make sense together.
Speaker: 1
17:32
And then also, that kind of, like, the in the initial wave of, like, the original progressives, you know, look, people like Woodrow Wilson or FDR, these were people who were pushing big government at home and big government abroad, and that actually made much more sense as a cohesive worldview, and to oppose that would be the Ron Paul worldview.
Speaker: 1
17:51
And then the other thing for me, and this was actually this was my introduction to Ron Paul, and this too to me was like kind of a portal in a way. It was it was a way, at least in my naive, not fully functioned brain or fully developed brain at 24 years old or whatever, it was a way for me to kind of get, like ai, I tapped into something that was outside the empire.
Speaker: 1
18:14
And I had, I had heard a lot you know, I was already against George W Bush, and I didn’t like the war. I could I I had already figured out, you know, I think this I think this war in Iraq is bullshit, and I think that we were lied into it. And so I kinda got vatsal. And then there were there were liberals and and left wingers who I knew.
Speaker: 1
18:32
I grew up in New York City, so I was very familiar with the left wing perspective and who are critical of of George W Bush and and for fighting the war and and, you know, signing the Patriot Act into law and things like that. But I had never really heard anybody break it down the way Ron Paul did when he was when he basically was like, Look, there’s a reason why these terrorists hate us, and it’s not what they’re telling you.
Speaker: 1
18:58
They don’t hate us for our freedom. It’s not as if I remember the way Pat Buchanan put it, which I always loved was he goes, he said, Dick Cheney makes it sound like Osama bin Laden stumbled on like, in the deserts of Afghanistan, he stumbled onto a copy of our bill of rights somewhere, and he was ai, oh ai god.
Speaker: 1
19:16
They’re free to look at this speedy trial. Are you kidding me? Like, this is like, what is going on here? They can own guns, and their women can wear meh, and that and that just made people so angry that they were ready to, you know, like, suicide bomb themselves. And, like, that makes no sense at all. And then Ron Paul was just ai, no. Look. Here’s the thing.
Speaker: 1
19:35
If we think we can just go around the world killing people, propping up dictatorships, putting our military bases in the the Muslims’ holy land, and not engender hatred from that, then we do that at our own peril. And I thought that was it was such an interesting kind of you know, it had always been I I’m an eighties and nineties kid, and to me, it was always kind of a given that, like, America’s number one.
Speaker: 1
19:59
We’re the force for good in the world, and we’re and it was ai an interesting introduction to the idea that there are people outside of that who are dominated by that, who don’t care for it very much. And, like, that that’s what nine eleven was actually about. And for me, you know, I was living in New York City.
Speaker: 1
20:16
I was 18, I think, when nine eleven happened. And that was, like, the moment of my childhood. It was a huge thing to live through. I mean, we were attacked. This seemed like something that could only happen in a history book that didn’t happen to America in the nineties.
Speaker: 1
20:31
Two thousand ‘1 was basically the nineties. And, and it was just like, oh, ai, it clicked. It was like, that makes sense. It’s the first time I had ever heard, like, an explanation and an understanding of this whole thing that we’re involved in now ram 09/11 to the terror wars that actually just made perfect sense.
Speaker: 0
20:50
Yeah. We should also say that there’s some degree of truth that the battle is not just militaristic. It’s also cultural. And then many of those parts of the world don’t want other people’s values forced onto them. Right.
Speaker: 1
21:07
But the way that George w Bush and Dick Cheney and every right wing host in America and Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly and, like, everybody, what they were saying is that they hate that we’re free. Mhmm. Whereas it was much closer to saying, like, they don’t like us imposing on them.
Speaker: 1
21:25
Even, like, all the hardcore neocons, Brett Stevens, the New York Times, he wrote this piece on the twentieth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, so, 02/2023 to cheerlead the war in Iraq. And he goes through the whole piece, and there’s not one mention of the million people who died in the war.
Speaker: 1
21:43
You know, he he literally just goes the pieces just measure life under Saddam Hussein versus life under the Shiite parliamentary system that they have now. Which one’s better? And I he’s arguing this one’s better. Therefore, it was worth it. But there’s, like, no mention. It’s like, okay.
Speaker: 1
21:59
But what about the 20 plus million people who were displaced? What about the million people who were killed? What about all the millions of people who were injured? What about the tens of thousands of our soldiers who have blown their brains out in the aftermath of the thing?
Speaker: 1
22:11
Like, it’s, like, so so many times this true in with government policy in general. People talk about, like, the end result that they sana, but you’re like, yeah, but what about the process by which you get there, and how much hatred you know, could you I mean, like, I you know, it’s it’s not that hard for me to, like, put myself in in other people’s shoes.
Speaker: 1
22:30
And, like, I have two little kids and a ai, and if anybody were to ever try to argue to me that they have to be the eggs that get broken to make some bigger omelette, like, it’s it’s okay. Like, you know, we’re ultimately gonna impose something on your society that’s better than what you have right there.
Speaker: 1
22:46
It sure does suck that your wife and kids gotta be the one who get taken out. I mean, I’m As I’m just saying this to myself, and this is not real, this is just a thought experiment I’m making up, I’m already pretty close to being a terrorist. Mhmm. Ai, my next thought is kind of like, well, okay. Mhmm. Well, I hope you’re gonna like it when you watch your family die in front of you.
Speaker: 1
23:06
You know? Now, I’m not hopefully, even if that happened to me, I wouldn’t go kill that guy’s family. But, like, maybe Ai just go after him or something. But I could understand. Ai I think most people who have kids could understand go going to a level of, like, the the most evil, dark place you could imagine if something ever if anyone ever threatened or or actually did something to your kids.
Speaker: 0
23:29
Yeah. We’ll have to remember the thing that’s difficult to measure that you just mentioned, which is the hate that’s created by every bomb that’s dropped.
Speaker: 1
23:37
It was, General McCrystal who, you know, was the general running af the war in Afghanistan. He wasn’t, like, he wasn’t Ron Paul. You know what I mean? Like, he was a a sai, yes, sir, how do we fight and win this war general? And he’s the one who coined the term insurgent meh, that 10 minus two equals 20. You know, it’s like the more you the more you keep.
Speaker: 1
23:57
I was just reading I was rereading about this the other day, because of the, you know, Trump’s been bombing, the Houthis in Yemen. And, you know, it was like when when we first I think it was in in at least in 02/2009 is when Obama really stepped up the drone campaign with the then secret drone bombing campaign, and the Yemen was one of the major theaters.
Speaker: 1
24:20
And even back then, when it really was just a it was a war on terrorism, like, their main targets were always Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and their presence in Yemen. Even then, like so before the Saudis invaded, so, like, from 02/2009 through 02/2015, AQAP just kept growing.
Speaker: 1
24:38
It was doing all these targeted bombing campaigns, and they call them targeted. Ninety six percent of the people are innocent who get killed, but they call them targeted drone bombings. And they and and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula just kept getting bigger and bigger because, you know, it’s ai, meh, every time you go in there, it’s like, okay.
Speaker: 1
24:54
You took out one arya, and then you took out three little girls and, you know, a a few and every one of those little girls had brothers and uncles and fathers and, you know, and and all of them just signed up to join the fight now because, you know, and and I found Ron Paul was the first one who really made this click for meh.
Speaker: 1
25:13
But it’s in a way and I’m not, like, I’m not a leftist. I’m not an egalitarian. I’m not a cultural relativist. I’m not saying that all cultures are the same or that we all look at the world the same way. There’s enormous differences between all of us, and I personally think some are better than others.
Speaker: 1
25:29
But, there are things that unite all of us, and in a weird way, it’s I I remember one time I was arguing with a Democrat guy on a Sai cup ai. I used to be a contributor on on her shah, and we were arguing and it was after it was after a terrorist attack here in New York, a fairly minor one.
Speaker: 1
25:48
It It was like a guy, like, I think he hit someone with his car arya then jumped out with a gun and then the cops lit him up and killed him. This is ai back in 02/2017, I think. And he he claimed to be ISIS inspired. I don’t I don’t remember if there was like a direct connection or not, but they were, at the time, they were like, doesn’t this mean we gotta step up the war in Iraq or in Syria where Ai stronghold is?
Speaker: 1
26:10
And I remember the guy saying to meh, he goes, you know, I went off on how these wars have been ai, and he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, but Dave, what you’re saying here is we’re supposed to do nothing? Like, this just happened, and now we’re supposed to do nothing? And so, like, even though this guy had a suit and tie on, and we’re in a cable news studio, and we’re in a first world country, we’re in The United States Of America, and we’re having that the basic thing that he’s saying is, like, what do you sai?
Speaker: 1
26:33
You’re saying we’re not gonna go kill some motherfuckers? You know, like, I mean, he’s he was just putting it as, like, do something. But what something? Something is dropping bombs on human beings, you know, when, like, meh, some innocent people are gonna ai. But, okay, that but it’s the same thing.
Speaker: 1
26:47
It’s the same after 09:11 where we’re like, we gotta go fucking invade some countries right now. That’s the same impulse. It’s ai, they killed some of our people. You think we’re not gonna show them who the real killers are? You think there’s a chance that you could come here and and that is, like, the most human instinct ever.
Speaker: 1
27:03
It’s ai some other tribe just came in here and killed some people in our tribe. So what do you wanna do about that? Well, I don’t know. It’s not gonna take me too long to figure out. We’re gonna go kill a bunch of people in their tribe.
Speaker: 1
27:14
And I do think that, like, that is I think that’s the major motivating factor for both sides of the Israel Palestine conflict. I think that’s the major motivator for both sides of the war on terror conflict. And it’s ai that’s it’s in a way, when you look at it like that, there’s something even though it’s so dark and tragic, there’s something almost beautiful about it where you’re like, oh, we’re all caught in this same cycle.
Speaker: 0
27:37
Yeah. It’s deeply human, the the warring between ai. But, you know, especially in the recent years, but more and more through human history, there’s almost like a third party, which is this military industrial complex, which is making money from the two tribes. So if you just have two tribes, one, I’ve been reading a lot about Genghis Khan. If, this is why Genghis Khan banned this.
Speaker: 0
28:00
It was very common in, in Mongolia before Genghis Khan to steal people’s wives. Like, you’re my wife now. Right. And he he realized that that creates a lot of conflict.
Speaker: 1
28:12
Yeah. It sure does.
Speaker: 0
28:13
That seems natural and human, that kind of conflict. But when whenever you a third party rolls in and starts making money on the whole thing and then driving that forward, then the escalation of the conflict comes with this whole machine that makes deescalation really difficult.
Speaker: 1
28:30
Yeah. The military industrial complex in America, it’s so big, and it’s so sophisticated, and it’s so so it’s not just that there’s, you know, you know, there’s this there’s the intelligence agencies, there’s the weapons manufacturers, then there’s the, like, people in the media who are either directly or indirectly just parroting, you know what I mean, all of their talking points.
Speaker: 1
28:56
And so it’s not just that you can kind of, like like, you make money when there’s a conflict, but you have this entire apparatus to, like, create the conflict and then create the public sentiment for that. And then we’re and it’s interesting. We’re we’re in an interesting place because we’re kind of in this, like, new frontier of now where shows like this can happen, and and there’s a lot of them, and a lot of them are humongous ai yours.
Speaker: 1
29:21
But for so long, it this just didn’t exist. And it was just like, oh, like, for so long, it was the case that, like, the New York Times and NBC and CBS and ABC and the Washington Post and the the Associated Press, I guess, they could just move the nation. I mean, if they wanted to be like, hey, there is the the idea that forget even, like, after nineeleven.
Speaker: 1
29:47
The idea that in 1990, ’19 ’90 ‘1, that there was any organic movement from the American people going, You know, we really got to see about the Saddam Hussein guy. You know, the, dictator in Iraq is having a slant drilling dispute with the, Emir of Kuwait. Mhmm. We really got to do something about that.
Speaker: 1
30:09
Ai, that is not something that organically came from any that that was not like a a few soccer moms hanging out, you know, watching their kids game being like, I really do think I think in a in a couple years, we’re gonna have to send these boys over to Iraq to get like, that’s not they just, from the top down, were able to create this feeling that, like, hey.
Speaker: 1
30:29
There’s a new Adolf Hitler on the rise over here in Iraq. We gotta go see about this. There are these poor people in Kuwait. We have to do that. You know, like, there’s they were able to create this desire for war, that was it’s it’s really incredible when you think about it because there’s for I think for the most part in human history, you would have had to have some type of plausible threat, some type of plausible reality to convince people that we actually have to go to war, in order to deal with this.
Speaker: 1
31:02
Whereas, like, you know, The Ai the idea that in 1991, the United States of America would feel threatened by Iraq was just ridiculous. And meh they were able
Speaker: 0
31:12
to do it. Well, so to push back a little bit, throughout human history, there was also a thing. You look at the Roman Ai where just the cultural values were different, where military conquest was seen as a good thing. So, like, we just almost assume in The United States, there would war has been framed in the defensive sense, like, where offensive war, we’re not doing that anymore.
Speaker: 1
31:36
You make a fair point. It’s certainly true that throughout human history, there’s been, there’s been, like, overt, empire building and wars of conquest and things like that. But I guess I’m just saying, at least even there, you would have some type of cell of, like, why we’re gonna go take these resources and why that will be good for us.
Speaker: 1
31:58
Whereas the idea that they’re like, Kuwait just needed to be defended by the Americans seems so it seems so hard to convince anybody, and yet they were able to do it. If you read, like, NeoCon writing in the ai, it was very interesting, because they would they would tell the truth a lot more.
Speaker: 1
32:18
And they were, essentially, I think, there was the Soviet Union had just collapsed. It was what what Charles Krauthammer dubbed the unipolar moment. There was ai a lot of there was ai. There was a feeling of invincibility, and also the neocons weren’t in power, and after ’92, really.
Speaker: 1
32:38
I mean, they had a little they were in the George h w Bush administration, but after ’92, they really weren’t. So they’re just writing at these think tanks, and it just didn’t seem as, you know, like they weren’t as guarded. There weren’t ai these accusations of you’re a war criminal or something like that.
Speaker: 1
32:51
But what he said, what Jonah Goldberg agreed with was that every, I think the statement was every ten years or so, America’s gotta find a puny little country and put them up against the wall just to let the rest of the world know that we mean business. And that was actually their mentality.
Speaker: 0
33:08
I’m sure there’s people that agree with that. I happen to disagree with that, but the the drums of war are beating a little bit over Taiwan and China.
Speaker: 1
33:16
More than a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
33:17
But there, I can’t even see a justification of a just war. What is the long term benefit to society if you do military intervention?
Speaker: 1
33:25
Ai well, I also think this and I’ve I’ve been saying this for a while, but I do think there is this, like, there there’s, like, this empire mentality that Americans have gotta shake off, like, as if it’s even a question of whether we should allow it or not. Like, are we in a position to allow or not allow that?
Speaker: 1
33:46
Why do we it’s it’s almost like if you were, you know, like, I I don’t I hope China doesn’t invade Taiwan. I hope Taiwan remains as free as possible. I hope China becomes free. I root for freedom and prosperity for everyone, you know? But I also root for, like, everybody to have a healthy meh.
Speaker: 1
34:01
But if you were, like, if you were talking to me and you were, like, hey, the guy down the street is cheating on his ai. Like, I don’t think we can allow this. I’d immediately be like, that’s really not my place. And then on top of that, I also have no pow I have no authority over what they do in their marriage.
Speaker: 1
34:20
Like, I have to be concerned with my marriage. And the idea that, like, imagine if there were the political will to, invade Mexico. Like, if DC decided we’re taking Mexico City, like that’s that’s gonna be part of America now, and we’re taking it by force. And then China was like, we’re not sure if we can allow this. I think immediately most Americans would be like, allow?
Speaker: 1
34:44
Like, how the fuck do you think you’re gonna stop us from taking Mexico City? What are you gonna do, China? You’re gonna send your navy ships over here to fight us off the coast of Mexico? Good luck with that. And and it at least from my understanding, in almost all the war games that they’ve run, if we did militarily even if it doesn’t come to nuclear weapons being used, in which case, the whole world gets blown up.
Speaker: 1
35:10
But even if we go to militarily try to stop China from invading Taiwan and no one everyone agrees to not use nukes and we just fight a conventional war, we lose that war every time.
Speaker: 0
35:21
I think what you said applies to a lot of the wars we’ve been involved in, but China and Taiwan is a little bit different because because of TSMC
Speaker: 1
35:30
Right. Because there’s an economic dependence. If that was the concern, then the response would be we need some type of Manhattan project. And I’m not supporting a government project here, but there would be we need some type of Manhattan project to say we’re going to make these things here.
Speaker: 1
35:43
We can’t and, look, I I was running that experiment before saying, like, what if we all pinky promise not to use nuclear weapons or something like ai? But that’s not the reality of the situation. The more reality look, even in in Ukraine, everybody, the biggest talks, the biggest pushers of this policy and Joe Biden and, policy to fund Ukraine.
Speaker: 1
36:02
No one’s suggesting we send in the eighty second airborne. No which is really the only thing that could repel the Russians right now and restore, you know, Ukrainian the the original sovereignty of the Ukrainian borders, but no one’s suggesting we send in the eighty second airborne because we all know.
Speaker: 1
36:17
Well, we can’t have a direct war with Russia. That’s the end of the world. And same thing with China. So, you know, I’m not saying microchips or whatever aren’t important, but there’s we can find other ways to the Taiwan is not magical. Like, we can produce these things in other places. No?
Speaker: 0
36:35
So you have the humility to say that you don’t really know much about the situation. It sounds ridiculous to say, but there’s something magical about not Taiwan, but TSMC. It’s incredibly difficult to manage the supply chain and manufacture at such a low cost that they are.
Speaker: 0
36:49
And to add to that, China has been signaling about the one China policy. But you’re absolutely right that you shouldn’t be doing the the Washington thing of beating the drums of war. That’s ai Yeah. The completely the counterproductive thing. There should you should, actually try to find partnerships with China, build friendships and cooperation. Like, India is doing a good job of this. Like, build friendships.
Speaker: 0
37:10
This is the twenty first century conflict. This Cold War thinking is going to be destructive to the economy, destructive to humanity, to the flourishing of the individual nations of the world. There’s there’s just nothing positive except making money for the military
Speaker: 1
37:26
industry. And and it was totally destructive during the original Cold War two, and almost led to nuclear war on a couple of different occasions. But, look, I would just say and I I really I’m no defender of the Chinese regime. I hate communism and or fascism, whatever they are, some hybrid mix of of the two. They’re paying you, aren’t they? Yeah. No. Fuck them. Okay.
Speaker: 1
37:47
By the way, I was getting a lot of people speculate online, but I am not I’m not getting any of these checks, man, and I’d really like them to start coming in. Yeah. But there’s, like, even when it’s like China you say China’s asserting the one China policy, but the one China policy is the policy of The United States Of America and has been for fifty years now.
Speaker: 1
38:05
Right? So it’s not I think what’s happening there a lot of times is that, essentially, even though officially the one China policy is the policy of The United States Of America, all of these American politicians, and and, you know, different figureheads across powerful centers in America arya are saying that China doesn’t have the right to go into Ai.
Speaker: 1
38:28
And then China’s in the position of being like, well, hey. Wait a minute. No. That’s not actually the policy. We maintain this one China policy, but we allow them to kinda do what they wanna do.
Speaker: 1
38:39
And, you know, the the most obvious example of this was when Joe Biden actually said, like, oh, we wouldn’t allow that. And we would militarily intervene if they went into China. And then and this was so bizarre. Then the White House, whoever that was, came out to correct the president of The United States and say, no.
Speaker: 1
39:01
The policy of the White House is the one China policy, which look. I mean, again, I think the whole point of this is that the reason why whoever the hell was able to overrule Joe Biden and his administration, I I don’t know who that is, but the whole point is that if you say and and this is why there is some wisdom in America accepting the one China policy, is that if you tell China that we recognize Taiwan’s independence and that they’re not a part of Ai, that might be the type of thing that would make China invade and sai, no.
Speaker: 1
39:36
We’re not accepting that. And so at least ai now, it’s like kinda like, okay. Here’s look. This is the reality. It’s something that you kind of run up against with the war in Ukraine a lot and and with the situation in China and Taiwan, is that there are, there are constraints placed on us by reality.
Speaker: 1
39:57
It’s not all just how would you like the world to be? How would you like it to work? Obviously, I think we would all like that bigger countries don’t invade smaller countries, and bigger countries don’t bully smaller countries around. That is not the way of the world. We are a big country that is the biggest bully in the world, so we’re in no position to let but what we’re kind of in the position is just like you’re like, hey.
Speaker: 1
40:18
We’d sure love if you don’t do that. Mhmm. You know, you can do it, and you can get away with it, but we would sure love it if you don’t. And so the goal would be to do everything we can to make sure that doesn’t happen. When Vladimir Putin starts talking about, like, hey.
Speaker: 1
40:33
If you keep pushing the idea of Ukraine joining your military alliance, I’m going to invade that country. The goal there or the move there would be to be ai, okay. We’ll stop talking about that. Is there something else that we can agree on? You know, like, is there is there a way that we we you will promise you won’t do anything to them? And okay.
Speaker: 1
40:50
And we’ll promise we won’t bring them in our military? Like, that’s the goal. You don’t just go, like, no. Fuck you. We’re doing it anyway over and over and over again until they do the thing.
Speaker: 0
41:00
I think we got to this discussion from the military industrial complex and military intervention and Ram Paul before that. If you sana, like, rewind a little bit, is there any amount according to you and according to various flavors of libertarianism, is there any amount of military intervention that’s justified
Speaker: 1
41:20
that’s okay? Well, I I would say okay. So at least to me, in in terms of, like, pure libertarian theory or just in in terms of, like, what I think is right or wrong, like, there is such thing as a just war. The most obvious, example of that would be ai you’re invaded by a military and fighting them off.
Speaker: 1
41:43
So in that sense also, ai, even if you wanna if you wanna kind of isolate from everything else, from, you know, all of the awful US policy toward Russia post, Soviet Union to all of the, you know, NATO expansion and color coded revolutions and all of these things. If you wanna, you know, Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine, I do think the Ukrainians have a right to fight and and protect their their land.
Speaker: 1
42:10
Like, they’re the there’s an aggressive there’s an aggressor there, and you have a right to defend yourself. So certainly in that sense, I think, the American Revolution was a just war. I think there are, you know, there there can be just wars. In terms of pure libertarian theory, I think Ai would say that, look, you’d you don’t you never have a right to kill innocent people. There that’s never morally okay.
Speaker: 1
42:38
Now, there could be a scenario, just like this is true in life in general. Right? Like, there’s lots of things that you don’t have the right to do, but you could come up with some scenario where you might be in a position where you have to do it because there were all of these extenuating circumstances, you know, like, for you know, you could think of something where, like, you meh the, the Saw movies where they used to, you know, these crazy, like, horror scenarios.
Speaker: 1
43:01
But it’s like, okay. So there’s a person, you know, a a evil bad guy has buried a key inside this person, and you have to kill that person in order to get the key in order to unlock these 20 people to let them out of a cage. Now, look, you still don’t have a right to kill people. It’s horrible and wrong, and what you did there was still evil.
Speaker: 1
43:21
But if you were taken to trial over it, you could probably explain to a judge and a jury. Be like, I know, but the situation I was in was either these 20 people were gonna die or this one person was gonna die. And under that situation, I chose to save the 20. So, like, in other words, by perfect theory, no. You never have the right to kill innocent people.
Speaker: 1
43:41
There could be a scenario where you were ai, look. We had to take this military action, and some innocent people did die. And it’s so tragic and awful that we had to do this, but we are certain that many more people would have died had we not done this. Now in that case, I would look at that as, like, number one, it’s much like killing the one person who saved the 20. It’s still wrong.
Speaker: 1
44:06
It’s still an immoral thing that you were forced into doing. It’s not justified. I would say that the overwhelming onus should have to be on you to demonstrate that you absolutely needed to do that. I And that’s how I feel about all these these wars. You know, it’s not like, you know, I think that, like, let’s just say, like, if you could make World War two, like, you could reduce it down to the simplest caricature of what World War II is and say there’s no Joseph Stalin.
Speaker: 1
44:35
We’re not even partnering with him. Like, there’s a good guy in Russia who we were partnering with and there’s and and the British Ai had never done anything wrong. They were just nothing but good guys. And of course, FDR was nothing but a good ai. And Hitler was even worse than the real Hitler.
Speaker: 1
44:47
You know what I mean? And in order to stop them, we had to go on this bombing campaign, and we only got Nazis. We only killed the bad guys, and we were able to take out the Third Ai. But one eight year old girl died. And you did this thing that stopped the whole world from falling into subjugation. So I think almost everybody would agree, Jesus, meh. You have to do that. Okay?
Speaker: 1
45:10
This is, you have to do that because the whole world’s gonna be subjugated. There’s nothing but good guys here. The Nazis are so evil, and there’s one I still would say that every single time World War two came up, we should all just be somber, and we should all just think about that little eight year old girl who died and what a horrible thing it is that we had to do that.
Speaker: 1
45:28
You know? And so the like, when there are these campaigns where, like, you know, again, where tens of millions of people are killed, the fact that anybody’s ever, like, spiking the football or this ai, like, rah rah, we were the good ones. And then also when you add in all those other complicated factors ai that, this wasn’t the scenario at all.
Speaker: 1
45:48
But I do so so I guess essentially I’d sai, no, you don’t ever have a right to kill innocent people. It’s never self defense to be killing innocent people. I mean, short of, like, you know, some type of scenario where, like, you know, if you’re holding a baby and coming at me shooting and I shoot back at you and okay.
Speaker: 1
46:05
I was acting in self defense and it happened to kill a baby, but I’m I’m talking about, like, what the scenarios where you’re dropping bombs on cities, it’s never ai, and the overwhelming onus should be on you to demonstrate that you absolutely have to do it. And that that should be the standard, because there’s so many other standards that I see thrown out that I just think are make no moral sense at all.
Speaker: 1
46:28
You know, people will argue about, like, in Gaza, they’ll argue about, the civilian to combatant ratio, which Ai like, that to me doesn’t really that’s not what counts. That’s not the measure that’s important. And also no one knows what the numbers are. They are all just kinda, like, pretend to.
Speaker: 1
46:46
And then the other thing will be, that people who say as someone just recently argued with me about they’ll sai, like, well, Hamas has to go. That’s the starting point. Hamas has to go. And I’m like, no. I don’t think you get to say that because the the truth is that look.
Speaker: 1
47:02
You can make an argument that Hamas has to go. Sure. You can make an argument that the Likudinix have to go. You can make an argument that Kim Jong Un has to go or that Xi has to go or that Putin has to go or that Zelensky has to go or, certainly, I would make an argument that Joe Biden had to go.
Speaker: 1
47:15
But just because a government has to go, that doesn’t mean you could just go kill all their people.
Speaker: 0
47:20
Yeah. That should not be the starting point, like the assumption, the axiom of the discussion. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
47:25
The the question is, is it is there no other option than doing it this way? It’s ai, okay. Like, October 7 happened. We can all agree this was ai a a horrific tragedy, and, you know, an indefensible act of terrorism. Like, okay. Can is it guaranteed that another one of those is gonna happen tomorrow? Or was this the biggest security failure in, you know, Israeli history? Okay.
Speaker: 1
47:50
Well, if it’s the biggest security failure, let’s just say not even going down the inside job rabbit hole or anything like that, but just saying, it’s a giant security failure. Okay. Then put a bunch more men at that fence, first of all. And now you gotta talk about how can you achieve your goal while inflicting the minimum amount of devastation on innocent people.
Speaker: 0
48:09
Let’s talk about it since you brought it up. October 7. So what exactly do you think about the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israel?
Speaker: 1
48:19
Well, I mean, like, what I just said that it it was, horrible and, you know, it’s always by the same logic that I’m giving you now, it’s always it’s always evil to target innocent civilians. I don’t believe, you know, civilians can be held responsible for the, the crimes of their government.
Speaker: 1
48:37
This was, by the way, the Osama bin Laden logic, which I think would also be the logic of, like, Bill Clinton or George w Bush or Barack Obama, but Osama bin Laden very explicitly said when he was asked, like, well, are you just gonna target ai US military sites or are you targeting US civilians?
Speaker: 1
48:55
It was an interview in the ai before nineeleven. And he goes, no. Civilians are fair game too because you guys have regular elections, and you guys vote for your government, and therefore you’re responsible for the crimes that they commit. Now Ai think that’s the logic of a fanatic ai Osama bin Laden, and that’s not the logic that any of us should follow.
Speaker: 1
49:16
It it doesn’t make any sense, and it’s not true that people are responsible for the crimes of their government. I think that that same argument is used quite a bit by people on the pro Israeli side when they say, like, oh, they they had an election in 02/2005, and Hamas won a plurality.
Speaker: 1
49:32
Therefore, twenty years later, they have no rights. I think that’s insane. So okay. So Hamas had no right to go after, civilians. You know, it’s horrible.
Speaker: 1
49:44
And you see, you know, the, these, you know, teenagers being killed and the people, you know, you see the images of people, who were who were held hostage for all this ai. So it’s like your heart breaks for those people. It’s truly tragic. I I do think that it was in many ways an indictment of so many different things.
Speaker: 1
50:12
You know, like October 7 happening was an indictment of, the entire occupation slash siege of of Gaza and the West Bank, you know, for that matter. It was, I Ai think, should have probably forever destroyed the legacy of Benjamin Netanyahu, who is, you know I I mean, this isn’t like George w Bush, you know, was I mean, he was on the job for almost a year when nine eleven happened, but it was still kinda new.
Speaker: 1
50:43
You know? Like, it was still kind of in his first year of being president. Benjamin Netanyahu was the longest serving prime minister in Israeli history and had explicitly been ai, I’m the tough right winger who’s gonna be tough on these Palestinians, who’s gonna, like, move away from the idea of coming to a two state solution because this is what we need to keep us safe.
Speaker: 1
51:05
Like, the justification is ai, I’m gonna be hard on these motherfuckers because that’s because I know what it takes to keep us sai. And that culminates in the the worst massacre in in Israeli history. And then, I mean, the other big one is that I ai, and it’s not like a I wouldn’t even say an open secret at this point.
Speaker: 1
51:25
It’s just out in the open. He had this strategy of propping up Hamas for years. And so he had this strategy of propping up Hamas, for a myriad of reasons. But a major part of it was that, look, meh, as long as there’s terrorists in power there, there’s never gonna be any pressure on us to give the Palestinians a state because, fuck, are you telling me I gotta negotiate with them?
Speaker: 0
51:49
He was allowing Qatar money to float. Insisting
Speaker: 1
51:52
that Qatar money float to them. When the Qatar money dried up, sent the Mossad in to insist that it gets back to him. Hundreds of millions of dollars, briefcases in cash. And he said in his own words that the reason for doing this was to keep to his words were prop up Hamas, bolster Hamas, to keep them in power so that the West Bank and the and the Yeah.
Speaker: 1
52:15
Gaza were divided
Speaker: 0
52:16
Divided. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
52:17
And that the international community as well as the liberal Jewish community in Israel wouldn’t be able to put pressure on them to make a deal. But what are
Speaker: 0
52:24
the options? So if he doesn’t allow the money in, it also looks really bad for him. Because if he’s not allowing the money in, that means he’s not allowing the, quote, unquote, aid in to help the Palestinians.
Speaker: 1
52:38
Yeah. But, Lex, I mean, the the dynamic here, right, is from 02/2007 to today. Israel’s had a full blockade around the country. They won’t let potatoes in. They won’t let sugar in. They won’t they they the and the the justification is because they’re dual use. You know, they they can be used to make rockets, as well as they can be used to, you know, feed starving children.
Speaker: 1
53:07
Sai, we can’t let that in because it’s dual use. But, cash to Hamas, does that not have dual usage? Like, is there is there nothing else that they can sai, yeah, it’s ai, meh, when you have a full blockade around the country, you take on certain responsibilities. And I think this is, you know, this is the the essence of really the the whole struggle here, which is very tough, I think, for the pro Israel side to grapple with.
Speaker: 1
53:35
But the bottom line is that Israel hasn’t occupied Palestine for, like, a few months after a war or even a couple of years after a war while they’re figuring out what we’re gonna do with them. It’s been over sixty years. The the we’re talking about a a one week long war or a day short of a week long war in 1967.
Speaker: 1
53:54
Israel’s had control of them ever since. And much like in the same way that, like, if you kidnap someone and you lock them in your basement and you don’t feed them, you murdered that person. So in other words, stated differently, you’re not allowed to kidnap people and lock them in your basement.
Speaker: 1
54:12
But once you do, you take on a responsibility to feed those people. You know what I mean? Like, you can’t you’re not allowed to keep someone and not feed them. That is a worse charge than just keeping them. And sai, meh, anyway, I guess my point is the solution to that, if if you go ai, well, I’m a bad guy if I fund the MASM, I’m a bad guy if I don’t let the aid in, was to let the reputable international aid organizations bring aid in to the people of Gaza.
Speaker: 1
54:39
Don’t have, don’t don’t pressure the Qataris to send in briefcases full of cash. Allow internationally recognized reputable human rights organizations who are lining up trying to do it. Stop turning them away and let them in. And and and this is just it’s so long past due. I mean, like, it’s it’s just well, I’m not, like, defending, Arab terrorism. It’s, I think it’s really it’s it’s a tragedy that the Arabs embraced terrorism.
Speaker: 1
55:08
I don’t think it’s unique to them. And in fact, you know, I think it was the, the Zionist militias who introduced terrorism to that part of the world. But there was also, like, there look. Terrorism persists because it works, and this is true with state terrorism and with non state terrorism. You know?
Speaker: 1
55:27
It’s ai there the it terrorism has often worked for people. The I think the thing, ai, early I think early Yasser Arafat Ai know was very influenced by, the Algerians who, you know, successfully kicked the French out at embracing terrorism. And it was almost like the major miscalculation of the the those Palestinian Arabs who did embrace terrorism was that this isn’t the French.
Speaker: 1
55:57
This isn’t the French hanging out in some colony with their home country back home, where maybe a few acts of violence could work enough to you know, your the liberal population back home is like, oh, I really didn’t like the response to that terrorism. We killed so many people. Forget it. This is too much of a headache. Let’s get out of here. The Zionist settlers were there to stay. They weren’t going anywhere.
Speaker: 1
56:18
They weren’t going back to Eastern Europe. You know what I mean? They weren’t go they were just that and so it’s a tragedy that this whole thing went the way it did. But you always whenever you’re talking about, like, a conflict like this, the person who has the or the the party who has the power is the one who needs to make concessions.
Speaker: 1
56:38
You know? And the the it’s just indefensible that the status quo of the Palestinian people having no ai, literally no rights, being ruled by a government that they do not get to vote, for or against, no right to do commerce with the outside world. No freedom of travel. No freedom of movement. No basic property ai. You could be kicked out of your home at any time. No right to a fair trial.
Speaker: 1
57:02
No right to a lawyer. No right to a jury of your peers. I mean, the fact that that has been the status quo since 1967 is just indefensible. And if and and then in the context that that has been the status quo, I guess I’m just not even though I’m against it, it’s kinda like when you’re just lecturing about the way in which they resist this.
Speaker: 1
57:26
I think it’s very tough to be on a strong moral footing. You know?
Speaker: 0
57:32
Yeah. You have to you have to really empathize with the decades of suffering Yeah. In the region. I suppose my question was grounded in, how can the Israeli government how can the world help the Palestinian people flourish? So, yeah, you suggested, allowing reputable aid organizations in.
Speaker: 0
57:54
But, you know, that’s kind of almost, patching. Yeah. It’s just helping humans who are suffering. But that’s not how you have a nation flourish. You have to build up the infrastructure.
Speaker: 0
58:07
You have to build up a culture of the education system, the the, you know, democratic processes of electing and regular elections and so that the the people are represented, and you have to form partnerships, friendships, normalization of relations with the Arab world, with Israel.
Speaker: 0
58:26
You can travel back and forth, and lessen the choke hold, like, the security choke hold, you know, that you could say is justified in a militaristic situation, but why is it a military situation? The question is there, like, where do we go from from here? If we you know, we’ll talk about Netanyahu some more.
Speaker: 0
58:51
He is, you know, he’s very criticized inside Israel as well. Yeah. For sure. Maybe less so after October 7 because the you know? Again, in the same way you can empathize with the Palestinian people, you can empathize with Israelis where October 7 touched just like it is for Americans with nine eleven.
Speaker: 0
59:13
It touched some kind of primal Yeah. Thing %. Of fear of, like
Speaker: 1
59:17
Oh, yeah. And, like, the same shit. The same thing I said before. Like, I could also very easily go if my if one of my kids was, like, at that rave or something like that and just got gunned down or kidnapped ai I could understand being, like, level the whole goddamn place, and I’m sure I would feel that way if that was one of my kids.
Speaker: 1
59:35
You know? So yeah. No. That’s that’s exactly right. I mean, there’s lots of examples in the world of, you know, like France and Germany are right next to each other, and Ireland and England are right next to each other, and they’re just totally living in harmony right now.
Speaker: 1
59:50
Like, there is just no the thought of them going to war is, like, inconceivable right now. Not saying it could never happen in the future, but it seem it seems pretty hard to imagine. And that being the case would have been very hard to imagine for a very long ai. You know?
Speaker: 1
01:00:07
Like, there I mean, there’s some serious levels of brutality between those two ai. And even more directly, it involved, you know, Egypt and Israel went to war four times in in a couple decades. They went to war. And then in the late seventies, they made a land for peace deal. They haven’t been to war since. You know?
Speaker: 1
01:00:28
And, like, I do at least try to hold out that, like, that is you know, it’s not like Egypt is you’re not gonna say they don’t have a an issue with radical Islam in Egypt. You know what I mean? Like, there’s that’s not the answer. It’s just that they made a land for peace deal, and once there wasn’t, you know, once that wasn’t the that was solved, it was kind of easier to avoid the war.
Speaker: 1
01:00:49
And I do like to think that there there could be a solution to the the Israel Palestine question, but the it’s gonna have to it’s gonna have to involve Israel taking their boot off of the Palestinian’s neck. And I know that that’s scary, and I understand that there are, like, legitimate concerns about that.
Speaker: 1
01:01:09
There’s, it was, like, the great, Thomas Jefferson quote about slavery, which was, we we have the wolf by the tail, and we can neither afford to hold on to him nor risk letting him go. Which is ai, you could see where that would have been, like, a real concern of people, like, right toward the end of slavery or or, you know, whatever in the early eighteen hundreds, sai, the first half of the nineteenth century, where you’d be like, okay.
Speaker: 1
01:01:37
Okay. Okay. We recognize this is wrong now. But we’ve had these millions of people enslaved for all these years. If we let them go, they’re gonna fucking kill us.
Speaker: 1
01:01:46
And what are you saying? They’re citizens now, meaning the second amendment applies to them, meaning that the guy who I enslaved now can get a gun? You know what? And and so okay. There are the but I think in sai, looking back at it, we would all just go, yeah, but you can enslave people.
Speaker: 1
01:02:03
So, like, whatever risks come with the next phase of this, unfortunately, you know, like, you’re going to have to just deal with that and and move you have to start with abolishing slavery.
Speaker: 0
01:02:16
And it is good to also remember in the hopeful meh you sana, like, at any day, you can make a deal. Ai one of the frustrating things I had with the I hosted a debate on Israel. It’s like, it just felt hopeless. And a lot of people I talk to, it feels hopeless, but, like, I have a lot of I I I maybe naively see a lot of possibilities at peace there.
Speaker: 0
01:02:36
I see, for example, normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia and Israel, and then Saudi Arabia taking some ownership over Sana, Something like that. Some interesting, where a big major player in that region takes ownership and steps as the middle meh.
Speaker: 1
01:02:54
Yeah. Ai, like, I I agree with you, and and you’re 100% right that and even before October 7, I think many steps had been taken away from, you know, the peace process and the feeling of that. I mean, really, I think since the saloni Intifada, is when, like, the the appetite for peace, I think, in Israel was greatly diminished.
Speaker: 1
01:03:11
There but to your point, I meh, it’s gonna take really painful concessions on all sides in in order to get there. And I think that the the personally, I think and I don’t know if Ai say this for the not necessarily ai the Arab world, but at least the nation states, like their their governments, I think arya are pretty much there.
Speaker: 1
01:03:42
Like like, Saudi Arabia and UAE and Jordan and Egypt. Like, if the Israelis they’re almost ai, look. These are American sock puppets, you know, for the most part. Right? And so their their thing is that, like, okay. 100 of my population is completely opposed to what Israel is doing to Palestine right now.
Speaker: 1
01:04:04
And they just hate that Israel that the nation was created at all, that all the the Arabs were kicked out of what is, you know, very important land to them religiously. And, and so the governments there are like, look, we sana continue to have US tax dollars flooding in here.
Speaker: 1
01:04:21
We’d love to make a deal with Israel, but, like, you gotta stop doing this to the Palestinians ai my own people don’t, you know, rise up against me. So I think as long as the Israelis were ai, fine, we’ll do a two state solution or something like ai, I think Saudi Arabia couldn’t wait to bryden.
Speaker: 1
01:04:36
In fact, they proposed a two state solution just a few years ago. I mean, they’re they would love to be a part of that, and normalize relations. Amongst the Palestinians, like which again, I think this I think this had been accepted multiple ai, at least by their leadership.
Speaker: 1
01:04:53
It’s ai, meh, you’re gonna have to accept that, like, you lost in ’48. You know, you’re gonna have to accept that you lost in ’47. You’re gonna have to accept that the state of Israel does exist. And you’re gonna have to accept that, like, the right of return is not going to literally mean that everybody can go back to where they were.
Speaker: 1
01:05:10
And what Israel’s gonna have to concede is that it was awfully fucked up that they kicked a lot of people out of their land, and that the whole, a land for people, for a people without land was never true. That was just a slogan that made that felt good to avoid what you guys actually did.
Speaker: 1
01:05:28
And the fact that you it was inexcusable that you guys occupied these people for sixty years, and that has to end immediately. I interviewed Douglas Murray recently.
Speaker: 0
01:05:38
He just wrote a book on Israel and Hamas called On Democracies and Death Cults. He makes what I think is a strong pro Israel case focusing on Hamas as a an evil organization, you know, evil for its corrupt leadership who’s essentially stealing money, from the Palestinian people and allocating the money that is there towards terrorist militaristic operations versus, like, building up, Gaza.
Speaker: 0
01:06:05
Can you speak, man, the case for and then against this perspective? Sort of centering we’ve been talking about the people about, centering around Hamas, which is, like, this extremist religious organization. The perspective being, like, they need to be, as you mentioned before, eliminated before any progress can be made.
Speaker: 1
01:06:28
Okay. So if I were so it’s speak sana Douglas Murray’s case. I would say, well, I guess the case is right. Look. Hamas is a fanatical death cult, essentially, which I do think is a fair, description of them. There is no question that they have pursued they have they have pursued a path that was just devastating to their own people.
Speaker: 1
01:06:59
And there’s no question they have not spent the resources they have on their priority has not been uplifting their own people. Their priority has been, I I think, essentially antagonizing Israel into this overreaction so that they can turn world opinion against Israel. I think they’ve been very effective at doing that. And and okay.
Speaker: 1
01:07:22
Again, I think the argument would come back to something like, and the people kind of voted for this in 02/2005, and the people sure do we sure do see a lot of people cheering when Hamas is doing some pretty horrific stuff. And sai, hey, you got that on one ai, and you have a kind of a a country that’s much more similar to Western societies on the other side.
Speaker: 0
01:07:43
If we can just, like, linger on that steel, man, what do you what do
Speaker: 1
01:07:45
you make of the celebrations in in, Gaza after October 7? I think it’s sickening and incredibly disturbing. I just I guess the way I look at it I always and maybe there is a degree of, like, naivete to this, or perhaps it’s just that I just don’t want to allow myself to go down a certain path because I think it leads to such dark outcomes.
Speaker: 1
01:08:10
But I just always, I always try to be kind of, like, against the government for the people, against the powerful, sympathetic to the powerless. I think that look, it’s it’s sickening. You see big crowds cheering on, you know, people who have been, you know, with these people who have been in captivity for for, I think some of them for over a year and a half.
Speaker: 1
01:08:34
I also thought when Nikki Haley and other Israeli politicians are signing the bombs before they’re launched into Gaza, I found that sickening. I think there’s all tyler. I think, like, mission accomplished banners and flying on meh. I mean, I think all of the I think having Bob Hope specials at the end of the Persian Gulf War was sickening.
Speaker: 1
01:08:55
I just think all of it is, like, horrific. I just I look at it and I try to say to myself, Okay. We had won nineeleven in this country. And we all, like, collectively, we lost our minds as a ai, you know? We were ready to go bomb whoever the hell our politicians told us to bomb, and we didn’t care how many people it killed.
Speaker: 1
01:09:17
And we killed a lot more than than a lot more than Israel or Hamas has killed doing it. And ai to I try to think to myself, okay, imagine being trapped in what is it, you know, ai could call it whatever they want to. I do think Pap Buchanan and these guys were right to call it a concentration camp. You’re trapped in a five mile by 25 mile area where you cannot leave.
Speaker: 1
01:09:44
You are stuck there. You don’t have an airport because the Israelis bombed it. You don’t have a seaport because they won’t allow you. You have no access to trade with the outside world. And you’re not suffering through a nine eleven. You’re suffering through a thousand nine elevens.
Speaker: 1
01:09:59
Your whole life is the the people the the people in Gaza are their entire life has been being refugees. You know what I mean? Their entire life there there’s generations, of people have been in this status now. And so, you know, if my society lost its mind after one nine eleven, I just have a tough time, like, judging the people who who came up in this environment.
Speaker: 1
01:10:22
But there’s no question it is I mean, it’s, you know, profoundly disturbing. But I wonder how much of the indoctrination is really made,
Speaker: 0
01:10:33
the software of their mind permanently anti peace. Yeah. It’s ai extremify them. And that, you know, it doesn’t justify anything, but it’s more, concerning for the prospects of peace.
Speaker: 1
01:10:50
Well, I’d say I get your point. I get it’s an interesting question that I don’t I don’t know if any of us know exactly the answer to. But I would say that, like, you know, even after, what was it, eighty years of the Soviet Union, you know, it’s like and there there were real debates back then about, like, the new communist man and whether the minds had been so warped of people that they would never even want they would never even care about these things like liberty or national identity or ai, and and then yet at the end, it was all still there.
Speaker: 1
01:11:21
You know? It was it was very repressed, and it went underground, and people weren’t allowed to talk about it, but they all still had it. And, in fact, I was just listening the other day to this Murray Rothbard, speech from, like, the early nineties, and he was talking about how there sai something where there was, like, a, like, a a camera crew interviewed, like, a Chinese family under a, like, a real deal Chinese communism.
Speaker: 1
01:11:47
I believe it was before Mao Zedong ai. And they were, like, they were just saying all these this crazy shit to the camera. Like, they were, like, would you rather, you know, your your sons are, like, healthy and live good lives, or would you rather they suffer but be loyal obedience to the state?
Speaker: 1
01:12:03
And they were like, we would rather they be obedient to the state and blah shah blah and all these things. And Murray Rothbard was saying he saw this interview, and he, he he was talking to his friend. He was, oh my god. This is horrible. Like, it’s hopeless.
Speaker: 1
01:12:15
These people’s minds have been warped. And then he was talking to his friend who’s, like, a China expert who had been there a lot, and he was ai, no. They’re not. That’s what they say when the cameras are around. As soon as the cameras go ai they’re sai anyway, I’m just making the point there that, like, there there is, like look.
Speaker: 1
01:12:30
Even in the situation with Israel and Gaza, specifically Gaza, not even the West Bank, when you could look at it. When the peace talks were going on, support for Hamas plummeted. When the peace talks fell apart, support for Hamas went way back up. You know, at every time there’s an aggressive military campaign, support for Hamas goes back up.
Speaker: 1
01:12:50
So I just think that, like, I’m more hopeful than not that, like, you could get to a place where, like but it it requires, like, you you have to like, if you do understand the Ron Paul point about blowback, the General McChrystal point about insurgent meh, that you just realize that it’s like you’re you’re ai you’re you’re fighting in a way that produces more of the thing that you’re fighting.
Speaker: 1
01:13:17
And so the first step is to stop doing that. Like, your your cure is making the patient more sick. So stop doing that, and then let’s see if maybe we could heal.
Speaker: 0
01:13:27
And what about the case against the the the Douglas Murray case of the death cults and that a fundamental part of this process, Hamas, needs to be eliminated?
Speaker: 1
01:13:37
Well, I mean, first of all, I would just say that and I’m not I’m not saying this as a fan of democracy. I’m not, like, a big believer in democracy. I believe in liberty, and I think, democracy is often, not in line with liberty.
Speaker: 0
01:13:55
The Chinese government paid you to say that as well?
Speaker: 1
01:13:57
Or They that was act that’s literally all I had to get out. I’m a plug. But I get to say that what I want the rest of the pocket. Okay.
Speaker: 0
01:14:02
Great. Great. But there’s just
Speaker: 1
01:14:03
that I had to tell. No. I’m well, I don’t. Well, no. I mean, my beef with the Chinese government would not be that they don’t hold regular elections. My beef with them would be that they silence speak, that they that they put people in camps and things like that, the surveillance, that stuff.
Speaker: 1
01:14:15
I think, look, when you call Israel a democracy, which I guess is right in the title of his book, and I, you know, full disclosure, I haven’t read the book, but I have I have listened to some of of his thoughts on this stuff. I think you’ve run up against a real problem, which is that the creation of the state of Israel, even though he tried to walk away from those comments as Norm Finkelstein called out Benny Morris, for writing in his book nineteen forty eight, which is a great book, His words were, the Zionist project always knew it was sana involve transfer.
Speaker: 1
01:14:51
That was Benny Morris’s words. Now when when Finkelstein was grilling him on this on your podcast, he kinda sai, like, yeah, but that doesn’t mean ethnic cleansing. That could be voluntary transfer. That you know what I mean? Like, but the point is the Zionist settlers, and they all they spoke about this openly.
Speaker: 1
01:15:07
They all knew they had a major problem, which is ai, well, you can’t create a Jewish state if it’s ai fifty fifty, which is and in all of Israel, it was much less than fifty fifty. But even in, like, the the Israeli portion of the partition recommendation, it was very close to fifty fifty.
Speaker: 1
01:15:24
Now you can’t really have a Jewish state with a fifty fifty voter base because now you’re just kind of in a breeding war for the next generation and or, you know, like ai, like, who who turns out the vote? Any more than we could hope, it it it would be the prospect right now of making America an official Republican state or an official Democrat state.
Speaker: 1
01:15:45
Well, how are you gonna do that, man? It’s ai fifty fifty between the two. And so Ai think what Benny Morris was saying was that they always knew some of these Arabs are gonna have to get moved out of here so that we could have more of something, which ultimately where they got to, like, ai eighty twenty, which is pretty much what Israel’s maintained, the whole time.
Speaker: 1
01:16:03
Now, Benny Morris could quarrel about whether that necessarily meant voluntary, but when it happened, it wasn’t voluntary. Okay? So, like, when it actually happened in effect, it involved a massive amount, something somewhere between 708 hundred thousand Arabs being forcefully evicted out of this area.
Speaker: 1
01:16:18
Now, that’s one thing. You know, a lot of nations are started on some things like that. I suppose if you just did that and then you were left with your eighty twenty split and you go, but we have elections from here on out. I guess you could claim it’s a democracy. Still seems like kinda gaming the democratic system a little bit. You know what I mean?
Speaker: 1
01:16:35
Like like, if I just if I just deported 80% of Democrats and then say, look, Republicans win every election. You might be like, yeah, dude. But you didn’t exactly get there democratically. You got there through force. But forget that.
Speaker: 1
01:16:46
I’ll let that one go and just say, I’ll call you a democracy if you just kept being a democracy like that moving forward. The real problem is the occupation that starts in 1967. Because what look. When you’ve occupied an area since 1967, you can’t even really call it an occupation anymore.
Speaker: 1
01:17:06
It’s an annexation. You know, you took these lands. You have control that you are what the definition of the government is. And you could call Hamas the government all you want to, but they’re not the sovereigns. They’re not the final decision makers. Israel’s the final decision maker.
Speaker: 1
01:17:22
Hamas does not meaningfully in any way decide the biggest questions about Gaza. I’m talking before this war, not not even, you know, pre October 7. And so the problem Israel has in order to call themselves a democracy is that there’s somewhere between five and six million people, less now because they’ve killed a lot of them, but there’s somewhere between five and six million people who live under Israeli control, who do not have voting rights.
Speaker: 1
01:17:49
And I just by any other, like, reasonable, commonly held standard of democracy, we would not call that a democracy. I mean, like, I’m not again, I’m not even saying this to try to be inflammatory or try to pick on the Israelis. There’s things about Israeli society I like. I don’t hate the people there. I’m Jewish. I love Jewish people. It’s not but the fact is that’s not a democracy. That’s an apartheid state.
Speaker: 1
01:18:14
Like, I and that’s just I’m not even trying to be inflammatory when I say this. It’s just literally describing what’s in front of you. If we in America right now said black people no longer get to vatsal, and black people can only live in these few neighborhoods, we don’t get to call ourselves a democracy anymore then.
Speaker: 1
01:18:31
You ai? And, like, I’m not even coming at this from a pro democracy point of view. I’m just saying, like, if your defense of them is ai, well, we’re a democracy, which seems to be the case so meh, well, no. You’re really not. You’re you’re really not as long as you got millions of people who have no say in their own government. Like, then then you’re really not a democracy.
Speaker: 1
01:18:48
And so, again, so you could frame it as democracy versus death cult was his language for Hamas. It’s ai, alright. You know, it’s a little bit difficult to accuse another group of being a death cult when the group you’re supporting has killed so many more people than them. Now I’m not saying that’s the only metric. Like, there’s other things that are factors too.
Speaker: 1
01:19:09
But the fact is that, like, you have I I mean, I don’t know to look over the numbers that for the whole history of the conflict. But the amount killed by the Israelis on the Palestinian side versus the amount killed by the Palestinians is 20 to one in Israel’s faith, you know, killing more people.
Speaker: 1
01:19:27
Maybe more than that. I don’t exact you know, I’d have to look at the numbers. But Israel’s killed far, far, far more Palestinians than Palestinians have ever killed Israelis. And so it just it rings a little hollow to me to just call them a death cult. Ai, we’re the democracy even though none of you know, there’s millions of people who can’t vote over, you know, who rules them. But they’re the death cult.
Speaker: 1
01:19:47
I I mean, look, they kill people in a more primitive, barbaric way, I guess you could say. You know, there’s something a little bit cleaner about, like, you know, when it’s done by a government, and it’s collateral damage, and it was done with sophisticated weaponry. You know? Okay. Still innocent people on the end of those bombs.
Speaker: 0
01:20:07
Absolutely. But there there is, I think, a powerful ethical difference when, you mentioned about the eight year old girl. Right? If you’re in your stated goals of the war is to do everything you can to avoid the death of that girl versus saying, you know, we love death more than we love ai, and Israelis’ democracy or not are pro life for for life.
Speaker: 1
01:20:33
There’s a little I mean okay. I don’t I don’t 100% disagree with you, but I think if I would say, like, the degree to which that matters you know, like, at a murder trial, after somebody’s been convicted and before sentencing ai, the judge will allow them to give a statement.
Speaker: 1
01:20:51
And, like, if their statement is, like, I’m very sorry for what I did, and I’m so sorry to the family, and this or that or that, like, that might be, like, life without parole rather than the death penalty. You know what I mean? Like, it might make that bit of difference in that. And if you get up there and you’re ai, hey.
Speaker: 1
01:21:06
I’m happy for what I did. Screw the family. But that that might make a judge who was gonna give you life without parole, give you the death penalty or something. It’s like that type of margin around the edge. Let’s say, like, you’re a really bad guy and I wanna kill you and you’re at home with a a bunch of women and children and I know there’s women and children there.
Speaker: 1
01:21:26
Like, I know for a fact that if I blow up this building, it’s gonna kill all those babies. But, you know, what I what I would be charged with is murder in the first degree. And the fact that I went in there and said ai, well, listen, hold on. It’s a shame that I had to kill those babies.
Speaker: 1
01:21:43
I really just wanted to kill that one guy. I I wish the babies weren’t there. And they’ll be like, Yeah. But you knew they were there. And you did it anyway. You get murder in the first degree.
Speaker: 1
01:21:52
Maybe it would make some little difference tinkering around with the sentencing at the end of it, but it doesn’t, like, in kind change what the crime is there. And so Ai I just think at a certain point, when you’re if you’re doing something, like, you know look. I’ll say maybe with a little bit of an edge.
Speaker: 1
01:22:10
You know, let’s say Barack Obama wants to drone bomb, you know, this place to kill a terrorist, and he thinks he can do it without killing any innocent civilians. Does it, and then it ends up killing some innocent civilians. That’s one thing. But once you’ve done it over and over and over again, and every single time it kills innocent civilians, and then there’s a wedding and you order a drone bomb strike on a wedding, like, no.
Speaker: 1
01:22:32
You murdered those people. That’s murder in the first degree. Like, I just don’t and sai, meh, like, you know, like, whether you say out loud, oh, it sure is a shame that we gotta kill all these kids. When you’re doing it over and over and you know the action you’re taking is going to kill more kids, I just don’t think it like, it’s yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:22:53
It’s a little bit different, but really not that much. It’s still pretty much and then also when you mix in with that, the fact that, like, you know, I mean, if you go and I’m not taking an opinion on the word genocide. I don’t even like to get into that conversation. I feel like it just derails it anyway.
Speaker: 1
01:23:07
What Israel is doing, whether you think it’s a genocide or not, it’s certainly not what most people envision when they hear the word genocide. But, you know, if you could look at South Africa’s case that they promoted at the International Court of Justice, the whole thing is just quotes from Israeli leaders.
Speaker: 1
01:23:22
And so and I’m just saying, like, by the way, it’s not like they’re always saying, oh, it sure is a shame that we had to kill that eight year old girl. They’re, like, half the time they say that when they’re talking to the international community. And then the other half the time, they seem to basically be saying there’s no such thing as an innocent eight year old girl.
Speaker: 1
01:23:37
And so I just I guess I just don’t find that argument to be very compelling, especially when the thing has been going on for so long. There is some disagreement I have with you there. I think the
Speaker: 0
01:23:49
thing you’re implying is when whenever they state it, it’s not quite genuine to some degree, not genuine.
Speaker: 1
01:23:56
Saying it might be. It might be genuine by some people. I’m not saying it’s necessarily not. I’m saying that when there’s a lot of people who are saying the opposite, it doesn’t seem like it’s, consistently genuine Yeah. From from the entire, you know, Israeli leadership class.
Speaker: 1
01:24:10
And that even if it is genuine when some people say it, that that’s that’s kinda not enough to get away from the the fact that it’s you know, when when Tucker was on, Piers Morgan, he said the thing. He goes, you know, I don’t like my tax dollars being used to intentionally kill children.
Speaker: 1
01:24:26
And a lot of people really objected to that word intentionally ai I think so many of the defenders of Israel fall behind this like, no. No. No. That’s not intentional. We’re just trying to kill Hamas. But, again, like I said, we would never accept that standard in, like, a domestic murder case. It’s ai, no.
Speaker: 1
01:24:43
Like, the the thing is that if you know there are kids there and you know they’re going to die, then that’s intent.
Speaker: 0
01:24:50
I I I think I agree with you fundamentally because war is hell, and that’s why I’m against war. But there is a difference. So, like, I think you’re we’re, like, mixing in a lot of things. I think you’re fundamentally against war, and that’s why to you, it really doesn’t doesn’t matter.
Speaker: 0
01:25:09
It is murder. It it’s just murder, and we shouldn’t do murder. And there’s a lot of democracies with colorful flags and that justify murder because they’re trying very hard not to kill civilians. And then when you say you look at the reality of the Obama administration, the entirety of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, you’re you’re you’re murdering civilians. Yes.
Speaker: 0
01:25:34
You’re trying to kill bad guys, but you’re murdering civilians. That said, on a on a ethical consideration on which kind of ideals, ideologies you can build a society after the war. One that, even on the surface levels, states that the value of every life of every civilian life is equal and high in value. That’s a good society.
Speaker: 0
01:26:00
That’s the concern with extremist ideology that, that basically is very difficult to build a flourishing society on. But then the argument against that is the one you said, which is like, yeah. Well, Hamas is really supported now because of the war. Right.
Speaker: 1
01:26:20
But by the way, I don’t disagree with the first part of your statement there. I just don’t think it’s in conflict with what I’m stating. It’s like, look, I understand, first of all, that, like, there is a difference between the way you’re gonna sai prosecute crime domestically within your own country and the way you can prosecute crime or what a war between two different countries.
Speaker: 1
01:26:42
Right? Like, maybe it’s it’s not exactly the same. You don’t have cops that you can just send in. You can’t arrest somebody and put them on trial. It’s not the same. So, like, fine.
Speaker: 1
01:26:50
You could sai, but the point I’m making is more ai, I’m just saying how we would think about these things in a domestic setting. We’re talking about, like, morality here, and morality ai its very nature is something that rises above, you know, the, it it rises above logistics.
Speaker: 1
01:27:07
It rises above, like, nationalities or governments or borders or any of those things. Like, what’s right or wrong. Like, if it’s if it’s wrong to rape somebody in New Jersey, it’s also wrong to rape somebody in Central Africa. Like, it does and so I’m just saying you’re committing the same act that we would consider murder in the first degree here.
Speaker: 1
01:27:27
And then just to go one step further, I think particularly, ai, part of the reasons why people have different attitudes about the way two nations fight, like what what we think of as war versus what we think as as ai, sai, like a policing issue. Like, we would never accept the idea that, like, you know, if, if if whatever.
Speaker: 1
01:27:49
The same the logic that’s used in wars, used in World War two, even used in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially used in the war in Sana. If if, you know, if there was a bad guy, even a guy who had done something like October 7, you know, at at which we have school shooters and things like that here.
Speaker: 1
01:28:04
You know, if there was an an active duty school shooter and he’s in a school shooting people, and we know he’s already killed, like, 25 people Blow up. Blow up. School. He’s hey. He’s using them as human shields. No. It’s not our fault. You sai, listen.
Speaker: 1
01:28:16
Those deaths those deaths, Lex, while tragic, were the school shooter’s fault because he used all these people as human shield. We would never for a goddamn second if those were our kids in there. We’d never accept that excuse. Be like, what? Yeah. That guy was bad.
Speaker: 1
01:28:30
You still had an obligation to do something else. That was never accept Now that we may look at things differently in the context of a war, but also ai the way, I’m not sure Sai completely do. But typically speaking, when people think of wars, they’re thinking of this government versus this government, this military versus this military. That’s not the situation here. You know?
Speaker: 1
01:28:52
Sai, like, while Israel is saying, Hey, they’re using human shields. It’s also ai and that is true, I think, to some degree. I think the Israelis overplay it a little bit, but there have been, I think, clear instances where Hamas is using human shields. But it’s kind of a flip side of a different point.
Speaker: 1
01:29:11
And and, like, the other point is ai, oh, well, why aren’t they using their army or their air force or their navy? Oh, right. Because they don’t have any of those. Oh, that’s right. So you’re fighting a war against a a people that don’t have a government because you’ve denied them their right to have one.
Speaker: 1
01:29:27
And so that’s that’s the thing where I do think if you’ve occupied the place since 1967, you almost now take on an obligation that you kinda have to almost conduct this as a police matter. You know, you’re not allowed to just because otherwise because now we are getting awfully close to the scenario that we just laid out.
Speaker: 1
01:29:45
We’re like, oh, there’s a school shooter. Blow up the school.
Speaker: 0
01:29:49
It’s difficult to have a discussion about ethics when you’re talking about war. Because really, at the core of it, all war is immoral. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
01:29:58
I mean, by its very definition, it’s innocent people ai, almost always. Right? Like
Speaker: 0
01:30:03
It’s it’s difficult to pick which is the just war. And even World War two, because of the complexities that you mentioned, is difficult.
Speaker: 1
01:30:11
Yeah. Because it’s Stalin. Well, as my as my buddy, Daryl Cooper demonstrated, I think we can have a reasonable civil discussion about these things without anybody blowing their lid. We can all just talk no. But, ai, I mean, look, there’s so many I mean, World War two is just it’s the third rail ai nothing else.
Speaker: 1
01:30:32
I I really, World War two and the civil rights movement, I think, are the, like, third rails of American politics that if you, ai, if if you have any type of view that is not the the approved ai view of how these events went, you’re in a lot of trouble. If you wanted to compare Hitler to Stalin’s body count, at that time, Stalin was already a genocidal maniac, and Hitler had not gone genocidal yet.
Speaker: 1
01:31:00
So there is a weird dynamic that now in hindsight, it looks a little bit better because you go, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he went so genocidal at the end there. You know?
Speaker: 1
01:31:07
But, like, that’s a weird decision at the time to ally with with Joseph Stalin when he had already done the worst things that Joseph Stalin had or at least a lot of the worst things he had done. I guess there were a lot more in the war as well. But
Speaker: 0
01:31:24
I was curious, though, you didn’t mention Mao. It’s that funding again. Because he did even worse than Stalin. So is that
Speaker: 1
01:31:29
the second I’m not sure that’s officially known. Do we actually know that Mao killed anybody? I mean alright. I’ll come I’ll say it. Here we go. I’m gonna blow my funding. Bad ai, that Mao Zedong. Do not care for him.
Speaker: 0
01:31:41
I think the Chinese government, officially says they they have, like, an actual percentage that he was 70% correct.
Speaker: 1
01:31:48
Is that true? They they actually broke it down to that 70%. But the 30% was being the worst mass murderer in human history. That’s such a communist thing to do.
Speaker: 0
01:31:57
Yeah. We measured it.
Speaker: 1
01:31:58
We measured it.
Speaker: 0
01:31:59
And ai, scientifically figured it out. Since you mentioned Daryl Cooper, you’re friends with him. Can you tell me about him and tell me about the whole saga about where he got attacked after the the tyler interview?
Speaker: 1
01:32:10
Yeah. Yeah. Sai well, Daryl, I was just a big ram. I’m I’m and still, I’m really just a big fan of him. Ai, we’ve we’ve chatted, like, a few tyler, and I interviewed him on on my podcast. And I I consider us friends. Margar Maid Podcast is his show, and it’s just phenomenal.
Speaker: 1
01:32:29
I found out about him from ai guy is, Scott Horton, who’s, a very close friend of mine and I think the best, the best person on war in the country. He’s, just a genius. He runs the Libertarian Institute, and he’s also been the editor at antiwar.com for many years now. So he first, told me about Daryl and that I what I knew of Daryl was just that, he did a podcast with Jocko.
Speaker: 1
01:33:02
And so, like, they did their show together, and I listened to a couple episodes of it and really enjoyed it. And then it was Scott who was like, dude, you gotta check out his podcast, Martyr Maids. It’s like the best history podcast. You got, and I ended up listening to his, the first thing I listened to of his was the Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem.
Speaker: 1
01:33:20
He’s done a few things on Twitter where he’s kinda ai shit posting and stuff like that. But when you listen to his work, like when he lays down, like, I’m going to put together this this thing. I’m gonna take years to put to put together, like, a long presentation on the history of this conflict or the history of this.
Speaker: 1
01:33:35
He has has, like, the utmost responsibility in the way that he tells the story and the way he presents it. I cannot understand how anyone would listen to his work and come away with the feeling that this guy is any type of, like, Jew hater or Nazi apologist or anything like that.
Speaker: 1
01:33:53
It’s just it’s just not who he is. What Daryl said on Tucker’s show was that he goes, you know, I’ll say this to be provocative sometimes to kinda rib my buddy, Jocko, who’s ai Anglo Saxon, so this kinda gets to him. He goes, and I’m being a bit hyperbolic when I say this, but I’ll I’ll sometimes say that, Winston Churchill was the chief villain of World War two.
Speaker: 1
01:34:13
Now, he didn’t commit the most atrocities. He wasn’t ai the worst person there, but he was a guy who was hell bent on kind of this thing becoming what it ultimately became, whereas ai it this might have just been an invasion of Poland. This may not have been this whole cascade of, like, the worst thing that ever happened in human history.
Speaker: 1
01:34:29
Now, the retelling of that is always people go, he said Churchill was the chief villain of the war, but it’s ai, no, not exactly. Like, he you know what I mean? What he he’s making a point, and I think he’s he’s putting out right now a, long series on World War II. He just put the prologue to it out, which was excellent, by the way.
Speaker: 1
01:34:48
And I really just have, you know listen, if after it’s out, maybe I’ll come back and regret saying this, but I don’t think I will. I really have, like, trust that Daryl will handle this, like, responsibly. And in fact, I think that he might be and not because he’s, like, involved at, like, this is his angle or what he’s attempting to do.
Speaker: 1
01:35:11
I think just that he’s gonna tell the truth and the truth will take you where it takes you. I think he’s actually gonna probably serve a function of bringing a lot of those types kind of back to reality and bringing them back to being ai like, he if you think he’s gonna be excusing the atrocities of the Nazis in this thing, I just don’t I don’t think you’re gonna be happy with the end product if that’s what you are coming into it for.
Speaker: 0
01:35:34
Okay. One thing I wanna say is I think calling Daryl Nasi sai Nasi sympathizer is just wrong, and it it does a lot of damage. I think he’s he has a lot of value to his podcast. I think we’re like there’s several things to sort of make very clear. I think he’s a really interesting guy. I’m sure I’ll talk to him in the future.
Speaker: 0
01:35:52
But I I just wanna lay on the table that I think what he’s saying about Churchill is just dead wrong. I think, legitimately, that statement, removing the trolling from it, is the revisionist history statement that I think is wrong. The invasion of the Soviet Union would have happened no matter what, and possibly, which I’m actually learning a lot more, Stalin could have gone the other way as well.
Speaker: 0
01:36:16
That that was going to be a global war no matter what. Churchill the role of Churchill, we can debate, and I still don’t think he was a main instigator of that expansion there. There’s a lot of historical documentation of that.
Speaker: 1
01:36:29
Well, look. That’s a that’s a fair debate to have, and it’d be interesting to see you two kinda talk about that. Ai may not even debate it, but just, like, have a conversation about that.
Speaker: 0
01:36:37
I I think the broader point you’re making is a lot of I mean, there’s just a lot of trivialization of the the World War two that happens in the West, in The Ai States, especially, and that’s used by neocons, by Oh, yeah. By warmongers to sort of
Speaker: 1
01:36:52
Oh, I constantly I mean, I’ve never I don’t think I’ve done a bunch of, like, ill Israel Ai debates. I don’t think I’ve ever done one where World War two wasn’t invoked and where that wasn’t, like, the the well, I mean, that’s Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki. You’re gonna tell me it’s not okay.
Speaker: 1
01:37:10
And, immediately, just if you just look at it like that like, let’s say the the official narrative is 100% true in World War two. Let’s let’s even say every aspect of the official narrative is is really true. Like, the lesson of World War two is that we should have gone to war sooner, which is essentially, right, like the the dominant mainstream narrative that, Chamberlain is the failure.
Speaker: 1
01:37:31
That was the problem, the appeasement. Churchill was the solution. If only Chamberlain had been Churchill, or if only we had gone to war with Germany and, you know, whatever in 1933, we would have just it would have been better. Okay. Let’s say all of that’s true. It still doesn’t follow from that that therefore, in every situation, appeasement is wrong and aggression is good.
Speaker: 1
01:37:51
It doesn’t follow from that that’s the only lesson of history, and that now it’s just okay to slaughter civilians. Like, it’s okay to go to total war against a civilian population because this one time it was necessary. Like, it’s and and the idea that ai, Bobby Kennedy said this to meh.
Speaker: 1
01:38:05
Again, somebody who I I really do love and, admire in many ways, and I’m glad he’s the health secretary. Ai I remember him saying to this evoking the Nazis, making a comparison between Hamas and the Nazis. Hey. Like, dude, Hamas doesn’t even control Sana, really. The Nazis had most of Europe at one point. This is just not an apples to apples conversation.
Speaker: 1
01:38:26
This is not you you can’t even compare the two in terms of what type of menace or threat they are to the world. I mean, like, sure. Maybe if Hamas had a lot of power, they’d use it in a bad way. But, like, that’s true with, like, some homeless guy on the street too, but he doesn’t have that power. So, like, what are we talking about here?
Speaker: 1
01:38:43
And so the way I do think that the way the World War two narrative is weaponized has been even if World War two itself was necessary and just, the way that that’s been weaponized over the years has led to just, like, countless catastrophes. And, like, you know, it’s and it’s always there’s always it’s not just, like you know, I mean, I guess it’s just in some ways, there might be something positive about the fact that everybody’s always called Hitler if they’re bad.
Speaker: 1
01:39:12
You know what I mean? But because we we make Hitler the, you know, the face of what is evil eternally or something. He really does play the role of the devil in our society in a in a strange way. But there is, like, you know, Saddam was the next Hitler, and Gaddafi was the next Hitler, and Bashar al Assad was the next Hitler. Trump. Trump is Hitler.
Speaker: 1
01:39:35
Hamas is Hitler, except the problem is that, like, none of them are Hitler. None of them are even close. It’s just totally different.
Speaker: 0
01:39:42
Yeah. And, the amount of power is really important. Like, it matters how much destructive power you have within you, the capabilities. But, like, every every major superpower with nuclear weapons has the potential to be that destructive. It’s it’s just unproductive. Thing.
Speaker: 1
01:39:57
The only ones who ever have dropped them are us. Mhmm. Yeah. I was arguing with one guy on a podcast, one and he said that. He goes, you can’t allow dictators to have nuclear weapons because they might use them. And I was like, but but we are the only ones who ever used them.
Speaker: 1
01:40:10
And he goes, ah, come on. That’s naive or something. Like, wait, what? Why shouldn’t that be pointed out? And I don’t know.
Speaker: 1
01:40:18
I mean, Ai I’d prefer Iran not get nuclear weapons. Ai, you know, I think we’re pushing them to probably want to pursue vatsal, and I also think there’s been a lot of propaganda about the nuclear, program in in Iran. I know, at least since the nineties, according to Netanyahu, they’ve been five years away.
Speaker: 0
01:40:39
Yeah. I think there’s a a lot of warmongering going on about all parts of the world, Iran especially. I do I have a lot of friends in Iran ram Iran. It’s one of the most beautiful cultures in the world. Like, this just super superpower of intellect and culture, and it’s really sad and disappointing that the regime is basically suppressing that culture. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:41:00
You have to always remember, like, there’s parts of the world where the the people are beautiful, and we don’t who we don’t get to see it because of the suppression, the the lack of freedom. Yeah. No. Absolutely. So all that said, there does seem to be a lot of hatred of Jews on the ex. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:41:21
How much of it do you think is actual hate of Jews, and how much of it is just trolls and grifters
Speaker: 1
01:41:28
and, conspiracy nerds just, you know, cosplaying as, Nazis? It’s really hard to tell. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know how you even figure it out. And and I think this is one of the problems with outrage culture. It’s ai one of the unintended consequences of it, is that now you just have no way of knowing who’s saying this just to get a rise out of you or who really sincerely means it or who’s some version of both.
Speaker: 1
01:42:02
Then there’s also it’s like there’s so many weird dynamics because there’s no question, like, I see it all the time. I mean, I see a level of, like, Jew hatred on Twitter that I’ve never seen before in my own replies and other people’s things. Like, it’s and that’s interesting.
Speaker: 1
01:42:18
Like, first off, you’re like, okay. So what’s going on here? Interesting sociological phenomena. Yeah. Right. You know, yeah. Concerning and troubling and all of that stuff.
Speaker: 1
01:42:28
But then you also see people who will be asking, like, completely legitimate questions ram making completely legitimate points that are called anti Semitic. And then ai, I think, does not help the dynamic at all because now you’re almost like, oh, there’s number one, you just kind of you make the word meaningless.
Speaker: 1
01:42:46
You take away the disincentive for anybody else to actually be a Jew hater. I mean, I think there’s a lot going on. You know, one of the things is that for young white men in America today, they’ve lived through the years of of real insane progressive wokeism. And sai, you you know, which is something ai meh like, I’m 42. It’s just a different thing for me.
Speaker: 1
01:43:11
Like, I come from a different culture in a different time. That is just simply was not the case that when I was a teenager or when I was in college or when I was in my early twenties, that the school, the faculty, the politicians, Hollywood, all of them embraced racialism. You know, they all said we’re playing identity politics, and it is okay to dice people up along these racial lines and have that first and foremost in your ai.
Speaker: 1
01:43:37
You know? And Ai there is this weird feeling over this last year and now with Trump being reelected that, like, we snapped our fingers and wokeism went away or something like that, but these guys still came up in this in this era. And there was it was always the case that, like, one of the the dangerous elements of playing this game was, like, hey.
Speaker: 1
01:43:59
You think you’re gonna play this and that, like, young straight white men aren’t gonna start playing this game too? Why the hell would they not? Like, why why would they just accept we’ll just sit here while everybody else is allowed to have a racial identity and a grievance about it, and yet we’ll be the one group who, yeah, you could just stomp all over us.
Speaker: 1
01:44:17
We’re the bad ai. And that’s part of the reason why I always opposed the woke insanity. I mean, first and foremost, just because I think it’s wrong. I think it’s wrong to, like, be shitty to people based on their racial group, and that includes white people too. But then also you’re ai, you don’t see that this is gonna result in something bad. So there’s there’s that.
Speaker: 1
01:44:36
But Ai meh, I you know, clearly and and what’s weird to me is that I I guess it’s because a lot of the people who are the most upset about the antisemitism also happen to be supporting Israel. Like, there’s a big correlation between that. But clearly, it’s a huge factor in this.
Speaker: 1
01:44:54
Like, it’s it’s not a coincidence that all of this rose up while Israel is just conducting this brutal campaign with our weapons and money. And so Ai always think with these things, whether it’s with Putin or with Al Qaeda or with whoever and I’m not saying, like, the guy who posts, like, Jew Haiti stuff on Twitter is the same as them.
Speaker: 1
01:45:13
I’m just saying in all of these situations, you always kinda gotta separate, like, what are legitimate grievances and what are, like, okay. That’s you’re wrong on that, and you shouldn’t be doing that. You know? Ai, so it’s it’s pretty easy for me to, like, if I listen to, like, the Putin interview with Tucker, I thought his whole thirty minute opening thing was, like, horrible and just, like, kinda stupid, especially when you’re talking to Tucker Carlson.
Speaker: 1
01:45:37
You know this is, like, for an American audience. You know how much that does not resonate with Americans being, like, we have a historic claim over another our entire society is founded on we think that’s bullshit. Like, that’s the entire history of our it’s, like, ai. It doesn’t matter. Sorry. Like, literally, read the declaration of independence.
Speaker: 1
01:45:56
It just refutes everything Vladimir Putin said in the first thirty minutes. Like, our view of the world is that God wants us to be free. Mhmm. And we get to overthrow governments if they’re infringing on our rights. Like, that’s so that was stupid.
Speaker: 1
01:46:07
But then when he’s talking about, like, NATO enlargement and bringing Ukraine into the American military alliance, you’re like, I okay. He’s got a legitimate point there. We would not allow, one of our neighbors to be brought into China or Russia’s military alliance. And sai, likewise, when it comes to those guys, I do think that, like, you almost look. It is it is just true.
Speaker: 1
01:46:29
It is the case that America has fought many wars over the last, seven years with Israel playing a very influential role in us fighting those wars. And, you know, these were, the this was ai a scheme that was cooked up by the neoconservatives and the Likudniks in Israel that we would go through this path, but this has been confirmed by four star general, Wesley Clark.
Speaker: 1
01:46:54
He literally said it was a study paid for by the Israelis that we were going to topple seven countries in five years. And we didn’t get there in five years, but we’ve been made attempts to topple all of those countries since then. You know, you see, Trump’s bombing the Houthis because they’re pissed off about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and so they’re trying to shut down their straits or whatever.
Speaker: 1
01:47:14
And it’s ai, so we’re just bombing another group on behalf of Israel. And if you really are concerned about the rise of Jew hatred, I would say, like look. It’s much like you know, sometimes people would argue where you know, the thing I said in the beginning about the terrorists don’t hate us for our freedom.
Speaker: 1
01:47:30
They hate us because we’re over there. And people would sai, that’s just what Osama bin Laden says. He just says he hates us for our military. But he really just hates us because he’s an Islamist sana we’re free people or whatever. And he’d be like, okay.
Speaker: 1
01:47:40
Well, even if that’s what’s in his heart, that sure is his recruiting stick. That sure is how he gets other people to blow themselves up. And so even if you wanna sai, which is which might very well be the case, that some of these people just hate Jews, and it wouldn’t matter if Israel was at war with Gaza or not.
Speaker: 1
01:47:55
It’s like, okay. But that sure is their recruiting shtick. That sure is how they get other people to go look at what these Jews are doing in our foreign policy. So I would I I don’t know. There’s a lot going on. I do think Ai think racialism of all different forms is stupid and wrong. It always just leads to sloppy thinking and bad results.
Speaker: 1
01:48:18
It’s always kinda ugly, and then weirdly, it also always ends up hurting the person. Like, it’s not good for you. It’s not good for your soul. So I don’t like seeing that stuff, but then I also think, you know, like I was saying before about there’s ai this hierarchy of outrages that you gotta have in order to think and act.
Speaker: 1
01:48:36
You have to kind of put these together. And, you know, I just hear a little bit It’s something that, you know, despite being described as a self hating Jew, I am really not. I love Jewish people. I love Jewish culture. I’ve benefited a lot from it.
Speaker: 1
01:48:49
It’s, in many ways made me the person I ram, and I think made, I think it’s influenced some of the best parts of me, but there is, like, a whininess and a hysteria about this stuff that I think is just, like, not healthy. I think it’s not good. I’ve told many Jewish friends and family this privately, but it’s, like, the way I look at it is like, I’m an American.
Speaker: 1
01:49:14
This has been a wonderful country to be Jewish. Jews are doing exceptionally well in this country. We are 2% of the population or so, and we are thriving by any metric. And if mean stuff on Twitter is our great burden to bear, I don’t think we should be talking about it like we’re in the middle of Nazi Germany or something like that.
Speaker: 1
01:49:36
So I do think people get hysterical about it.
Speaker: 0
01:49:39
In a way, that’s completely not productive. But to me, I think I think of the Jew hating, nerds and trolls on Twitter as just the other side of the woke.
Speaker: 1
01:49:51
Ai trying to get that. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:49:52
It’s almost like a response, like you were saying. It’s just that the the woke weren’t censored, and the response to the woke was censored. And now that on x, they’re less censored or not censored, you just get to see it. And they’re both annoying.
Speaker: 1
01:50:08
Yeah. Ai I agree with that.
Speaker: 0
01:50:10
They they don’t really help the discussion on Israel. They don’t help the discussion on anything. In fact, I, one of the reasons I stay away from that discussion of Israel, which I think is nuanced and really complicated in the way that we’ve been discussing, In order to have an intellectual, like, exploration of ideas, you have to be able to misstep and try ideas
Speaker: 1
01:50:30
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
01:50:31
Yeah. Ai. And if I’m gonna be punished severely by these, I’m okay being criticized by but the when there’s, like, low bryden takes that are just lying about me en masse. Like, he gets a huge amount of engagement just because you’re, like, thinking out loud and reading history, and it’s just annoying.
Speaker: 0
01:50:51
And, by the way, I’m really interested about World War two, probably in the way that Dan Carlin and, Daryl Cooper are interested because it’s such an interesting stage on which human nature was explored in all its forms, the geopolitics of it. Everybody on that stage was complicated. There’s a lot of also, there’s a lot of fascinating military taxes and strategy and military technology, plus the nuclear bomb, all of that.
Speaker: 0
01:51:19
That’s ai a moment in human history. Listen. I love Genghis Khan, Roman Ai, Alexander the Great. Those are all interesting studies of human history, of military tactics, of of brutality, of human nature, all of that. That’s why I wanna be able to discuss that.
Speaker: 0
01:51:34
It’s fascinating, like, that humans are able to do that kind of thing. What causes them to do it? What were the dynamics involved? The propaganda on all sides could’ve could it bryden avoided or not? You know? Plus Saloni is part of this picture. Yeah. It’s like, what the fuck?
Speaker: 0
01:51:52
What like, you don’t get characters. This you don’t get care after the nuclear bomb, you’re just not gonna get characters like that. You’re not gonna get a global war of that kind. It might be a different one, maybe a cyber war or maybe a war in space, but we’re not gonna get this kind of war ever again.
Speaker: 0
01:52:07
That was the last the biggest and the last global war we’re gonna get. So I wanna be able to, like, mouth off and explore and, yeah, argue with Daryl Cooper, Bob Churchill, and say stupid shit in the process. And Daryl says stupid shit in the process too. And, like, together come up to the sai, anyway, the the trolls on the left and the right just make everything worse, and it’s annoying.
Speaker: 1
01:52:27
No. I I agree with vatsal. And I’m sure, like, I’m Ai sure I’m not without my own bias in this because I like but from my own, like, self interested perspective, I’m not saying, like, this is the main reason to be annoyed with them or anything like that. But I what I personally get is all types of, like, self hating Jew Yep. Nazi apologist, all this. Literally, just because I criticize the way Israel’s conducting this war.
Speaker: 1
01:52:56
So I think that’s, like, insane. But then I also feel like and I’m not, Liz, I’d wanna be clear and disclaim this. I’m not saying this is the worst thing about people who are Jew haters on Twitter. But just from a personal perspective, I’m like, guys, you are not helping me, man.
Speaker: 1
01:53:12
Like, it’s like I’ll get people in my comments who I think are trying to, like, catch my back who just don’t know I’m Jewish. And they’re ai, I’ll say something critical of Israel and then someone argue with me and they’ll be like, oh, look, a Jew came in here to defend Israel.
Speaker: 1
01:53:25
And I’m like, dude, first of all, do you you’re ai literally, you might as well be working for Mossad. You literally make the entire you make the movement who’s criticizing Israel look terrible, dude. Like, the you are literally the enemy that they would like to have. And so it’s it there’s a very weird dynamic in the Israel Palestine conflict where all of there’s so many of the loons on both sides who almost seem like they’re secretly working for the other side.
Speaker: 1
01:53:57
Like, if you when you see the the Palestinian protests Yeah. And they’re chanting death to America and all this stuff, you’re like, what are you what are you doing? Are you trying to make people more sympathetic to Israel? Because that’s the if if ram Shmueli was working for Adolf Hitler or something like that, it would all make perfect sense. You’re like, oh, I get it.
Speaker: 1
01:54:19
You sent this guy out to make everyone hate Jewish people. And then, like, it’s just there’s just a and then with the, with the the Jew hating post too, it just yeah. It’s it just feeds right into the the opposition side of how to caricature. You know? It’s like, oh, so their game is they’ll smear everybody who’s a critic of Israel as as being a Jew hater.
Speaker: 1
01:54:41
So your answer is to just really be a Jew hater. Like, alright. I don’t think that’s helping.
Speaker: 0
01:54:47
So maybe this is a good time to ask for your advice because these folks are the reason why I’m hesitant. So I’ve interviewed several world leaders recently. It’s looking likely that I’ll interview Vladimir Putin and several other similar level major world leaders. I’ve previously interviewed Benjamin Netanyahu for an hour.
Speaker: 0
01:55:13
One of the biggest regrets I have about that interview is it was only an hour. I realized that, I mean, I learned a lot, but I think he’s a really important historical figure, and I think it’s impossible to have a an effective conversation with him that’s shorter than three hours.
Speaker: 0
01:55:31
So, it looks like he’s interested now to do round two with me for three or more hours. And I’ve personally, so this is a bit of a therapy session, but I’ve personally been leaning against doing it. And I hate that I’m leaning against doing it because the reason I’m leaning against doing it is because the very people you’re talking about, because I just don’t want them to on either side.
Speaker: 0
01:56:00
Pro is your pro it doesn’t really matter. But the chanting sheep of animal farm, Jew hating or otherwise, just make your life they follow you around everywhere on online and make it, difficult to think. I I think whenever I come across these crowds, the woke left or the whatever you call the Jew haters, the woke right, let’s call them, they just, like, decrease the quality of my thoughts for the rest of the day.
Speaker: 0
01:56:34
Ai feel dumber. It’s like Rogan talks about when he hears a bad comedian, he feels like nothing is funny anymore. This is what I feel like when I read their thoughts. It’s ai, I can’t I’m gonna go read a book now because I need to, like, recover ai brain.
Speaker: 1
01:56:49
Dangerous kind of poison to let in your mind because then you’re ai, it’s like, hey. I can’t be thinking about you when I’m doing what I wanna do. Like, I can’t be thinking about what your reaction to this is gonna be. The way I always thought about it was ai, when I meh like, you know, hate ai, which I’m, you know, always meh.
Speaker: 1
01:57:07
It’s always just kinda like I look at it like this, like Sai got, I got a great family and a great career, and I really love what I do. I make really good money at what I do, and I go I do shows all the time. I get crowds of people who love what I do. I get a lot of people who listen to my podcast, who love what I do.
Speaker: 1
01:57:31
And it’s like, so if I get all that and then the price that comes along with that is there’s some people who talk shit online. It’s like, that’s a very that’s a very good price to pay for all of this. Like, ai is just and I just, like, I just kinda made a decision at a certain point that it’s ai, I’m just gonna accept that that’s the price of business here.
Speaker: 1
01:57:49
That’s what it costs, and then okay. Fine. And then sometimes Ai try to have fun with it ram mock them or whatever to go back. But to me now, again, I I can never tell you what to do because this is a it’s a very personal price that you have to pay, and it’s a very weird psychological dynamic.
Speaker: 1
01:58:07
I mean, it’s just not it’s almost something ai that we we were not evolved to deal with and is very artificial, and it’s very you know, like, if you’re if there’s a group of, like, thousands of people who hate your guts and are furious at you, we’re almost, like, hardwired to be ai, well, I’m gonna be killed now.
Speaker: 1
01:58:25
Like, that’s the next thing that happens. You’re not you you’re not supposed to get to know what just someone in Arkansas thinks about you right now. You know? But so that’s a very personal, like, decision to make. But I kinda feel like guys like me and you have already made the decision that we’re in the arena and we’re going to deal with that that price.
Speaker: 1
01:58:49
And so I just from my perspective, I’m like, yeah. But how could you turn down getting three hours with Netanyahu? Like, that would just be so interesting. And I’m not even saying, you know, like, I hate the guy. But I’m not saying you should interview him like you hate the guy, or I’m not saying you even have to, like, grill it.
Speaker: 1
01:59:05
But just if you get three hours with somebody, something interesting is gonna be revealed there. There’ll be a benefit to that. It’ll be interesting to just see him talk that way. There’s also something about as we ai saw with with Trump doing the podcasts and even with JD Vance doing some of the podcasts, there is something really interesting about this format, the long form podcast, where it just gets people to let down their guard and reveal themselves a little bit more.
Speaker: 1
01:59:36
Like, it is it’s not just the time factor. Like, that’s a big one. That that’s a huge, huge one. But it’s ai there’s something about, like, if me and you were just, ai, if you we were having this conversation right now, but in back of us was, like, a cable news, you know, background of red and blue and sparks and a ticker at the bottom of the shah.
Speaker: 1
01:59:54
And then you just start interview someone. It’s just a different thing. Whereas this, you just ai, like, fall into conversation mode. And I’d be interested to see him fall into that. Putin too. Like, I I just think that it’s great.
Speaker: 0
02:00:09
First of all, thank you for the encouragement. But to push back on the complexity of a little bit, I think everything you said about your life is also true about my life except family. I wanna have a family. You son of a bitch, you bragging. On the podcast side, I can have a lot of incredible conversations.
Speaker: 0
02:00:27
Some of my ai is talking to programmers or, video game designers or, or to you about Netanyahu versus talking to a world leader is a very specific thing, and people don’t understand that, for example, you and I can mouth off. We can be super supportive of Netanyahu, super critical in a way that you can’t do in front of the guy.
Speaker: 1
02:00:49
Yeah. That’s true.
Speaker: 0
02:00:50
You you have there’s a if you wanna reveal something about that person, there’s a different skill involved there in order to reveal how they think, who they are as a human being. You have to just like we said with Derek Cooper, you have to humanize the person to a degree in order to let their mind flourish in front of you, in order for them to break to let let down the barriers they’ve they’ve put up, and Benjamin Netanyahu has put up a lot of barriers.
Speaker: 0
02:01:18
The internally in Israel, he gets attacked insanely. There’s a there’s a Game of Thrones constantly going on, and this guy has maintained power for a very long time, so he’s very good at putting up those barriers. Plus, you know, globally, he gets attacked a lot. So the task there is difficult. And so each one is a puzzle, and you have to make a decision.
Speaker: 0
02:01:38
Do you wanna take this on as a project, which might become a lifelong project because of the consequences? And you don’t need to.
Speaker: 1
02:01:48
It’s it’s there there’s a calculation there. I’m not sai it’s not so, like, self evident that there is a correct and incorrect answer. And I do think that we’ve probably all had things, like certain type of ventures in life where you’re like, alright. No. I don’t wanna do that.
Speaker: 1
02:02:03
But then you have to have a moment and be like, well, why is it you don’t want it? Oh, is it just because it’s gonna be a lot of work? Is it just because you’re scared of it? Is it just because this? And those typically are not good reasons to not do something. Like, you know what I mean?
Speaker: 1
02:02:15
And then now there might be there is a reasonable, I think, point that you made in there where it’s ai, when it is a different game to interview a world leader. That is a very different thing. Like, talking to some, comedian about his thoughts on all this stuff is a very different thing than talking to a world leader and especially one who’s conducting a brutal war as you’re talking to them.
Speaker: 1
02:02:35
You know? Like, that’s a and I don’t know exactly what the way to navigate that is. I agree with you. It’s not just to be, like, hostile and be ai, I’ve got you here for three hours. I’m gonna grill the shit.
Speaker: 1
02:02:45
It’s, like, probably not the the best way to do it. There’s probably to, like, have a conversation to talk to the ai. Probably try to get some important questions in, but also give him a chance to breathe and be a person. I just from my perspective, but again, it’s a very personal thing. For me, I just do think that I like, I’m going, I hope you do it.
Speaker: 1
02:03:07
Because I’d love to see that podcast. Okay.
Speaker: 0
02:03:09
Well, see, this is why it’s part of the reason I asked you is because I get a Dave Smith endorsement on the on on the There you go.
Speaker: 1
02:03:15
So that When this completely ruins you. Exactly.
Speaker: 0
02:03:18
At least there’s another guy who thought there’s a chance it might be a good idea. Because I don’t know. I see that’s the cool thing about the things we do. You’ve been through a lot of battles. You you walked into a lot of tough debates, and it’s ai, you don’t know. This could be the conversation that, like, ends you.
Speaker: 1
02:03:35
I know. I well, I’ll say that’s I think that’s one of the things that I love about doing debates, and there is something about that where it’s I I do kind of feel this ai, I’m a little bit of of, like, an adrenaline junkie. I mean, not, like, really, you know, I don’t, like, skydive or do stuff like that.
Speaker: 1
02:03:52
But, like, doing stand up is kind of like you know, there’s always something about that that’s ai you’re risking a lot by doing it. You’re like you feel alive, you know, like, not and not like the way you do when you first start, but there is something about that. And there’s something about well, first of all, I just kind of I feel there’s kind of two things.
Speaker: 1
02:04:09
Ai, number one, I feel like I’m obligated, and I wouldn’t say this for you, but I think this is true for me. I think I’m obligated to do, like, at least several debates a year. And I think that I think that if I’m gonna go on shows like your show and Rogan’s show and and Tucker’s show and, you know, Candace or whoever else, you know, Patrick Bet David and Tim Pool.
Speaker: 1
02:04:31
I go on these big shows for long form things, and I’m sitting there and I’m being like, okay. It’s like this. Like and this is and Sai think it’s like this and that. Then if I’m gonna do that, I kind of have an obligation to, like, test myself against someone being like, no. It’s not like that.
Speaker: 1
02:04:46
And then, you know, like, showing that I think I can stand up to these these ai challenges. So I do feel like I’m kinda obligated. But then I do like, there is a feeling to it where you’re like, hey, man. Like, this is not my career is not a joke. Like, I got little kids. This is how I support them. You know?
Speaker: 1
02:05:03
And, like, I am kind of taking my career in my hands every time I go do one of these debates. Like, if I just get smoked and this guy just totally beats me up, it’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know. How are you how’s anyone gonna look at me again after that? You’d be like, oh, you you acted like you had such a good point, and then this guy just totally destroyed your point.
Speaker: 1
02:05:23
So but that then kinda motivates me to be like, okay. I gotta really be on point. I gotta really make sure I’ve done my homework. I gotta make sure my argument’s really tight. I gotta think about this thing from all ends.
Speaker: 1
02:05:37
And then on the other level, it’s like, if someone can do that to me, then ai of that’s the way the movie’s supposed to end. You know, like, if you if I if there is some hole in my argument that I’m just not thinking of, and then someone else can point it out to me and I got no response to it, then I kinda deserve to be humiliated publicly for that.
Speaker: 1
02:05:55
So alright.
Speaker: 0
02:05:56
I I don’t know. That’s it’s kind of exciting in a way. Because the movie ends at some point.
Speaker: 1
02:06:00
Well, that’s true. Unless you and your genius friends can figure out how to, you know, give us eternal life or something. I don’t
Speaker: 0
02:06:06
think I wanna live I don’t think I wanna live forever. I I I think Ai think flirting with that idea too much is dangerous, this kind of, transhumanism kind of idea. Yeah. It’s it’s it’s it’s it’s not a good way of thinking. Of course, I do, wanna heal diseases and extend human life, especially high quality, of human life. But yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:06:31
If we could live if we could be in, like, much better shape and much healthier and, like, extend life by a few decades, I think that would be great. But I agree with you. I think there’s supposed to be an expiration date on it. I think we’re supposed to we’re supposed to, there’s something about, like, scarcity being a necessary component in a lot of different field. You know what I mean?
Speaker: 1
02:06:53
Where it’s like, the ai itself having a finite amount of time on it, I think, makes it more precious.
Speaker: 0
02:07:02
Yeah. At the individual level and then at the societal level, it just does seem like death is the way you get new ideas. It’s like people kinda solidify their ideas and are unwilling to change their mind, and the only way
Speaker: 1
02:07:15
you get new ideas interesting, right, the next generation sai to take them over. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:07:19
You have to keep churning. Alright. Speaking of the trolls in, Israel, I gotta ask you about this. Let’s talk about Jeffrey Epstein. Ai recently got attacked, because of conversation a couple conversations I had with Tim Dillon three and four years ago. I love Tim Dillon. He’s hilarious.
Speaker: 1
02:07:38
I love Tim too. I’ve know I’ve known Tim for many years. Love that guy.
Speaker: 0
02:07:43
Yeah. So we I I bring up Jeffrey Epstein often because, there’s a there’s a fascinating study of evil to me, whichever angle you’d you’d take on it. And I think they’re partially, they talk shit, but, I showed some skepticism that he’s connected to Mossad. So to me, there’s three, and I’ve evolved on that since then.
Speaker: 0
02:08:08
Ai I’m not actually sure it’s Mossad. It could be any intelligence agencies. It could be Ai. But I was wondering if you could educate me. I did a little research on this last night. I looked into it a little more, and then I saw that you said he’s definitely Mossad.
Speaker: 1
02:08:20
Well, I don’t know if I’d say I didn’t say he was definitely Mossad. I don’t know my my exact I mean, I made one kinda jokey post. As is the case with almost any, intelligence operation, it look, I don’t wanna, like, poo poo anybody’s hopes here because Sai guess, like, the JFK files, just got released sana supposedly the rest of the Epstein files are coming out.
Speaker: 1
02:08:44
And there’s a lot of, there’s a a major yearning right now to get to the end of the movie where we find out everything that happened. You know? And the I I think it’s great that people have that desire, and I hope more and more does come out. I think the truth is that with any intelligence operations, we’re probably never gonna know all of the details of exactly what happened.
Speaker: 0
02:09:06
The funny thing about intelligence agencies, and I’ve been regularly accused of being CIA, FSB, or Mossad, depending on the group that’s attacking meh, But I think it’s a fascinating topic, and it’s very difficult to know somebody’s intelligence. But if you have any nuance ai wanna discuss the nuances, then the the the the comment is going to be that guy for sure
Speaker: 1
02:09:28
is Mossad. Right. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:09:29
If we’re talking about Mossad or so on. But, yeah, I that’s one of the things I didn’t know when I saw the what is it? Alex Acosta said that, basically meh that Epstein is intelligence. That to me is like, okay. That’s a piece of evidence. That’s a really valuable piece of evidence that he’s intelligent. And ai was very, not just intelligent, but Assad.
Speaker: 0
02:09:49
Because that before that, I thought it might be CIA because that’s I kind of heard
Speaker: 1
02:09:54
And it’s it’s I think it’s quite possible that he was working with elements of both. I mean, as I think is is often the case. I also think that’s something that people get a little bit wrong, like, when they think, like, okay. This guy was CIA or this guy was Assad. And then there’s also I think there’s the possibility that there are rogue elements within those organizations.
Speaker: 1
02:10:12
Like, this is not necessarily coming from the director or or what you know? I I I don’t know. But you look at the ai, the way his his career trajectory tracks is, like, completely unexplainable outside of being connected to intelligence. Like, it’s not just, like, the one or two people saying that he’s intelligence.
Speaker: 1
02:10:31
It’s ai, dude, the idea that you’re just, like, you you have no experience and that you’re a teacher at Dalton, which is, like, this incredibly elite, New York City private school. And then all of a sudden, you’re at Bear Stearns and, like, within two years, you’ve, like, made partner and you’ve made you’re worth hundreds of millions of dollars and nobody knows where you made your money from.
Speaker: 1
02:10:51
This just doesn’t happen. And then you’re just in you’re just inserted into this world with all of the most, like, highest level political leaders and cultural figures and stuff. But the thing that’s amazing about the Jeffrey Epstein story is that it’s, like, the level of evil and the level of corruption that it exposes, no matter what the answer is.
Speaker: 1
02:11:12
Like, no matter what the answer is, it’s you’re gonna you you’re gonna tell me that there was a pedophile ring in our country that involved I mean, listen, dude. If you had said this shit before it came out, this would have been the wildest conspiracy theory. But a pedophile ring that involves the most powerful people in The United States Of America and in the the world to some degree, touching the royal family, the Clintons, like, all these people, and that this was known and covered up and then allowed to continue.
Speaker: 1
02:11:46
I mean, like, the there’s a blackmail operation that relies on raping American children. And and, like, if this is, you know, whether it’s CIA or Mossad, doesn’t make one less, you know, the the it’s equally horrible. But then there’s, like, these elements where, like, you’re like, okay. So when it when he first got arrested Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:12:13
And then he was given a slap on the wrist, slap on the wrist, and then the prosecutor says, well, I was told by the intelligence community that he’s intelligence sana to go easy on him. It’s like, oh, okay. Okay. And and you didn’t resign in disgust that day? You know what I mean? Like, I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.
Speaker: 1
02:12:30
You know, there was the, the ABC reporter who said that that she had the whole story. She’s on the hot mic saying she had the whole story, and then the network told her to squash it. It’s ai and you stayed working there?
Speaker: 0
02:12:40
Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:12:40
Like, that’s I’m sorry. Like, I’m not asking for I’m not saying, like, we’re all imperfect sana none of us are heroes, but, like, you’re at a news network and you uncovered a child raping ring that implicated the most powerful people in our society, and your news network told you we will not run this story because of our relationship with the royal family, and you did not resign in disgust that day and take this story to every single independent, you know, outlet that would maybe publish it.
Speaker: 1
02:13:10
I’m sorry. It’s like the thing, it’s so damning to the entire apparatus that we did not sai, at the very least, see mass resignations of this. Forget even, like, at the very least speak that it would have been prosecuted and shut down. And then, you know, still to this day, you know, even it’s ai, and I think Tucker Carlson just said this recently, but ai and I guess it’s a little bit of a weird area when you’re filming people raping children, but what where are the tapes?
Speaker: 1
02:13:40
Why is everyone talking about the flight logs and the files? Where are the tapes? This guy was clearly taping people to blackmail them. Where are those? Is I don’t know what the legal process of this is, but, like because I think, technically, it’s child porn. So, like, yeah. Okay.
Speaker: 1
02:13:55
You can’t just, like, distribute it out and let everybody watch it. But isn’t there a way that, like, somebody has to sit down and watch it and see who is implicated in this and see who would, like I I just don’t and there seems to be there’s even I think there’s a lot of larping with this administration going on right now on this topic.
Speaker: 1
02:14:12
But does anybody really expect that we’re actually gonna get to the bottom of this? Because I don’t. And that in itself just tells you what a sham this whole goddamn system is. One of the things that’s so amazing about the Jeffrey Epstein story, right, ai I mean, you have all of that, and then, of course, the end of it, which is just ai, wait a minute.
Speaker: 1
02:14:28
Wait. What? Hold on. He’s in, like, the most secure, like, bryden, and then he gets the the cameras go out, and the correctional officers don’t fill out the log, and he’s found dead. I mean, it’s the like, it’s just but when you look at it in totality, there’s just, like, no getting around the the huge indictment it is of this entire, like, everything.
Speaker: 1
02:14:51
And Ai I mean, even the the fact that even the Trump administration bryden Pam Bondi goes, we’re gonna release all of this information. We’ve only redacted what needs to be redacted for national security.
Speaker: 0
02:15:03
A meme.
Speaker: 1
02:15:04
Like, why does anything need to be redacted for national security? Like, I’m sorry. You’re telling me there’s a pedophile ring, and we can’t tell you everything about it for national security. Why would that be related to national security? I mean, there’s just it it’s ai and and I do think there’s something and it’s very interesting because, you know, like, we talked briefly was that on air before we were talking about was that about Sam Harris kinda, like, sai me a little bit for not having the credentials to talk about some of this stuff, which, you know, ai, I even said, okay.
Speaker: 1
02:15:30
He’s got a point. But it’s, like, one of the things that, like, guys like Sam Harris will talk about a lot is, that, like, look, we need trust in institutions. And this this is his big thing where he goes, you know, these people ai Joe Rogan and Dave Smith are just tearing down the institutions.
Speaker: 1
02:15:46
And while I recognize that’s an issue, I also think we need trust in these institutions. I think
Speaker: 0
02:15:50
it’s Sai Harris.
Speaker: 1
02:15:50
Well, it’s like yeah. But what yeah. Well, if you talk in that tone, then it means you’re not being emotional, and you’re only being logical and rational, which is, like, I actually don’t think is appropriate when you’re talking about a child rapist ring. But whatever. That’s my take on it. But But it’s like, okay. So where where are these institutions I’m supposed to trust, man?
Speaker: 1
02:16:07
You’re telling me there’s a pedophile ring that is at least in some degree associated with national security. Like, what? The and and how could you possibly have this story? Like, if you did care about the trust in institutions, then you should be even louder than me talking about, like, you gotta tell the truth on this story.
Speaker: 1
02:16:26
Otherwise, we’ll never have trust in these institutions.
Speaker: 0
02:16:28
I’m the same, actually. I believe in institutions. Like, I I think they have out so this is where you and I probably disagree on the libertarian side. I think it’s I think institutions, if they’re run efficiently, can Ai.
Speaker: 1
02:16:41
Who’s the utopian now? That’s right.
Speaker: 0
02:16:43
I mean, there is a utopian notion to it for sure. But, because it’s very possible that bureaucracies always destroy the productivity and the effectiveness of institutions, it’s possible.
Speaker: 1
02:16:51
It’s a Lord Atkin kind of power corrupts Meh. Type deal.
Speaker: 0
02:16:54
And and it’s you’re absolutely right. If you believe in institutions, you should be you should want to release everything about Epstein. You should want to be transparent, as much as possible. Yeah. I but the one thing I’m and and it is very suspicious. So I’m more and more becoming convinced that there’s some intelligence agency connected to it.
Speaker: 0
02:17:14
But I also want to, like, setting that aside, just comment on one thing where, again, it’s super entertaining, but people say about me that I came out of nowhere, and that’s proof that I’m intelligence. So first of all, there is a track record of where I came from, quote, unquote. It’s just people are too lazy.
Speaker: 0
02:17:36
And it and there is something sexy about, like, just saying fucking Mossad. Oh, he’s denying it. Fucking Mossad.
Speaker: 1
02:17:43
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:17:44
By the way, the Mossad thing is a new thing. It used to be, FSB and CIA. What do I wanna say about that? Oh, yeah. I’ve, been gradually growing in popularity over the past ten years. I’ve been doing, interviews, lectures, podcasts, and they’ve been just it’s actually very gradual.
Speaker: 0
02:18:04
And I I don’t know what else
Speaker: 1
02:18:07
to say. There’s something Ai know I’ve experienced this too. Right? Like, there’s such a difference in perspective because, like, if somebody, like, if somebody just found me and they just found out who I am Yeah. And I go, this guy’s brand new, and he’s doing, like, all these shows. But you’re like, yeah. Well, I don’t know, dude.
Speaker: 1
02:18:22
Not from my perspective I’m not brand new. Like, dude, I’ve been doing I’ve been doing stand up comedy for nineteen years, and I’ve been podcasting for, like, fifteen years. And you’re ai and then when it, like, starts taking off, everybody’s like, oh, this guy just came out of nowhere. And you’re like, I mean, alright.
Speaker: 1
02:18:36
I wish I wish I had been aware that it was all this quick. But look, a lot of this stuff with with so much of this too, it’s just laziness and people searching for confirmation bias and people searching for a simpler story because that’s easier. So if you’re if they believe that Epstein was Mossad and there’s a clip of you where you’re like, I don’t know about that, then they go, sai, he’s Mossad too, and now that fits perfectly into my little story.
Speaker: 1
02:19:02
And I don’t know. The truth is that there it’s quite possible that people just aren’t convinced. However, given enough time, Tim Dillon is always right about everything. Sai you gotta That motherfucker. Eventually, you’ll have to admit that he got it right.
Speaker: 0
02:19:16
And, you know, not to say the cliche cheesy thing, but it is true that the comedians sometimes say say the obvious thing that people are a little resistant to say that ends up being, being true. Now we just landed some more credibility to Tim Dillon’s insanity. Great. Now I I do wanna comment on the there’s the other aspect of me that came out of nowhere ai, but I do get to talk to world leaders, which I have to really admit.
Speaker: 0
02:19:45
I don’t understand why. So the experience I’ve had is you basically gain a reputation. Like, I talked to a lot of scientists early on. You gain a reputation ai that this is this is a interesting person to talk to, and that travels. And then over time, you just you get fans.
Speaker: 0
02:20:10
And world leaders are humans too. Like, they listen to the stuff. And sometimes it’s their family that listens to
Speaker: 1
02:20:15
Ai, right, like their kids. It seems to be a big one.
Speaker: 0
02:20:18
And so and that that’s just how it happens. And so you sana an email, hey. You wanna talk? And then the their team or them directly in several cases, they just respond, yeah. And that’s it. It’s as simple as that. And they’re, like, they’re they’re human beings. And I think a lot of them sai human beings are exhausted by journalists, by shitty journalists, I should say.
Speaker: 0
02:20:40
The and it’s hard for them to know which is the good journalist. By good, there’s the cynical view that they want they want somebody who’s just going to speak propaganda that ai with their propaganda. No. They just want a good faith person in front of them. Now, like and I should also say that there no single world leader has told me which questions to ask.
Speaker: 0
02:21:01
There’s no, there’s this meme about my conversation with Modi that’s, like, scripted. Nope. There is zero oversight. I have full control.
Speaker: 1
02:21:11
Well, it’s also, like, there’s, I mean, obviously, one of the major dynamics, which is just, like, one of the, most interesting kind of themes in the world, I think, right now, but it’s particularly true in in America, is that, like, the corporate media is just shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. And this whatever this is
Speaker: 0
02:21:34
Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:21:35
Which is so weird that we still all call them podcasts because that’s just not the right name for them at all. And, none of us have had an ai in quite a long ai. And, like, I don’t it’s just such a, like, the first thing person came up with it. It’s a cast on an iPod. It’s a podcast.
Speaker: 1
02:21:49
And we all still use that term even though it’s sai but whatever these these shows on the Internet, have the audience. And so that’s a big factor, just that it’s like, oh, this is where you can go to the audience. And then I would say and I don’t know exact like, I have no idea.
Speaker: 1
02:22:03
I should say the motivations inside any individual’s heads, but I would say, like, in the case of Vladimir Putin, he is completely blacked out in American media. And to the point that even RT has been blacked out, they they never play any of his speeches. They never allow you to hear, like, look, this is what this guy’s perspective is.
Speaker: 1
02:22:23
It’s, it’s very interesting in the same way that they kinda all flipped out when Osama bin Laden’s letter to America went viral on on TikTok, and, you know, then all the talks of banning TikTok increased and stuff. So for him, say, like, when he did the Tucker interview or if he does an interview with you, well, that’s a way for him to do an end around and allow his perspective to be heard, which I personally think is, like, obviously a good thing.
Speaker: 1
02:22:49
Like, if you’re gonna go in a war and we’re kind of at a war with Russia right now, you should know what is the other guy’s perspective is, not that you should take it as gospel. But and then from Netanyahu’s perspective, I would imagine, you know, they Israel has a lot of control in a lot of different areas, but they have been losing the Internet battle very, very badly.
Speaker: 1
02:23:14
And it’s a major problem for Israel. I mean, I don’t know. I I still think I think in a very strange way, everybody seems to be under underestimating how grave the implications of all of this are. But Israel the view of Israel from the world is never going to be the same, what it was before.
Speaker: 1
02:23:31
The entire and the generational divide on it is so stark. Like, everybody you know, 40 and under who very quickly, you know, the time goes by quickly. Pretty soon, that’s you know, the the 40 and over crowd gets aged out pretty quickly, and this is just go it’s never going to be the perception of Israel that my parents’ generation had ever again because of this war.
Speaker: 1
02:23:52
And, you know, I’m sure to some degree, at least, Netanyahu is like feels like he has to try to get his perspective into that Internet conversation area. And so I think a lot of different people you know, obviously, it was, Donald Trump’s it’s in a way, it’s kinda shah, and and Ai guess kind of, Bobby Kennedy, when he was running for president, and Vivek Ramaswamy, when he was running for president, they kinda were doing some of it even before Donald Trump was.
Speaker: 1
02:24:20
But it is kinda crazy in a way that it took this long for politicians to figure out that it’s like, oh, well, I guess we gotta go where the audience is. That’s the point of doing shows. Right? I mean, like, would you rather do a show, you know, ai, with a million people or with 10,000,000 people?
Speaker: 1
02:24:37
It’s like, well, okay. You guys do CNN all the time. Why wouldn’t you do Joe Rogan’s podcast? It’s just a bigger audience, and those people get to vote too.
Speaker: 0
02:24:46
You reminded me with Netanyahu that one of the goals I have with the podcast is to have the kind of conversation that a a historian would find useful twenty years from now, which is tough to do because you’re gonna get punished for it. Because it’s mostly Ai wanna reveal as much information as possible without the signaling, without the you just wanna know who was this person.
Speaker: 1
02:25:11
Yeah. No. I think I think that’s that’s exactly right, and I think this was kind of what Daryl was saying. I think that the part of the the awful thing of always using World War two as the next example for the next war is that it’s almost like you’re never, this is you know, they hate us for our freedom, or Vladimir Putin’s just mad and he wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union.
Speaker: 1
02:25:33
It’s like you they always insist that we can never treat our enemies as people and be ai, this is a real person with real grievances. And even they might be a fanatic also. Like, I’m not saying they’re not, but it’s just ai that there there are these, like, human qualities to it, and it’s always ai, you know, whatever.
Speaker: 1
02:25:51
Even when they were going, before they did the, Obama and Hillary Clinton did the regime change war in Libya, it was ai, oh, this propaganda. They’re like, he’s buying up Viagra to rape all the women, and he’s gonna go genocide. This guy had been in power for decades. You know what I mean?
Speaker: 1
02:26:06
Like, it hadn’t done that. And there’s it’s just like, oh, it’s like the way you’re supposed to think about war is almost like these people have been possessed by pure evil. They are monsters, and there’s no talking to them. There’s no dealing with them. It’s just simply this.
Speaker: 1
02:26:21
But, well, a good example, just this recent conflict with the Houthis, where you have the Houthis in Yemen, which Saudi Arabia invaded in 02/2015 with the full backing of The United States Of America. The Houthis maintained power for eight years through that. They maintained power until this until the Saudis finally gave up.
Speaker: 1
02:26:41
And it was literally like the Saudis were just killing hundreds of thousands of people, and then the Houthis would, like, get, like, a drone off at one of their oil refineries or something like that. And that, eventually, they were just doing enough damage that it was like, shah. Alright. This isn’t worth it anymore. And so they end it.
Speaker: 1
02:26:55
And so anyway, you have this thing. You’re like, okay. So if they did if they went through a total war for eight years, we think Trump sending a few Tomahawk missiles over there is gonna stop them from doing this? Okay. But then, they didn’t do anything, and there’s according to all reporting on it, they didn’t do anything during the ceasefire.
Speaker: 1
02:27:14
It was only once the ceasefire broke down that they went back to attacking ships again that were coming through. So you just see this thing where you’re like, look, it’s not saying right or wrong or who’s good or bad. It’s like, look, sometimes there’s a diplomatic solution and there’s not a military solution.
Speaker: 1
02:27:29
And, like, in this case, you’re like it just shows you, okay, if there was a ceasefire here, these guys will chill out. What do you wanna do? Again, do you wanna go to total war with it? Because, like, okay. We could overthrow the Houthis. We if The US invades Yemen.
Speaker: 1
02:27:42
Like, that’s kinda what it would take. Because, like, does anyone here really have the appetite for another catastrophic war in The Middle East against the poorest country in the Middle East? You know? Or we could pursue this diplomatic route, which seemed at I ai, I’m just saying based on the evidence that they weren’t attacking ships during the ceasefire, seems like there could be a diplomatic solution here.
Speaker: 1
02:28:02
And so there’s just, like, a lot and and the problem is when you don’t, like if you make everybody monsters and they’re not human beings, well, you can’t do diplomacy with monsters. You can’t make a d you can’t negotiate with monsters, but you can with humans. And, like, you know, I’m sure there arya, you know, ai, to our earlier discussion, like, maybe there are times where you’re not you shouldn’t negotiate or you can’t negotiate with humans, but it’s better if you can, and and we could use a lot more of that thinking.
Speaker: 0
02:28:32
Can we take that idea and, move to the war in Ukraine?
Speaker: 1
02:28:36
Sure.
Speaker: 0
02:28:36
What do you think is the path for peace there?
Speaker: 1
02:28:39
Well, I think what Trump is pursuing is, like, infinitely preferable to what Biden was doing. You know, what puts Donald Trump and and I don’t think everything he’s done has been perfect. And I really did not like that mineral deal that he was floating out for a while there.
Speaker: 1
02:28:57
And I it I think maybe that might be the best thing that came out of that Oval Office thing is that maybe that, you know, Donald Trump is gonna be very tough to do business like this. And it’s like, ai, we shouldn’t be doing this business deal anyway. But and and ai the way, I don’t think we should do it on a few number one, principally, I think it is kinda like bullying Ukraine out of resources.
Speaker: 1
02:29:17
And I don’t from what I understand, they don’t even have that many, like, fine minerals, but whatever. But it’s also ai well, look. If he’s he was selling it to Ai, that’s kind of a security guarantee. You know? Because, like, ai.
Speaker: 1
02:29:29
If we’re in business, then if Putin messes with you, he’s messing with us. But from my perspective, like, that’s the whole point, is you don’t wanna get into the business of giving out security guarantees. I mean, this is a real this is why George Washington was against entangling alliances. Like, you give out war guarantees to too many places.
Speaker: 1
02:29:45
You might have to fight a lot more wars than you otherwise would have fought. And, also, like, the there’s simply we’re in this weird position where America postures like they’re so tough. But, really, when it comes down to it, we’re not going to war in Ukraine. There’s no political will here. Like, I’m sorry.
Speaker: 1
02:29:59
I can’t try to convince the American people. We should send our boys to meh like, I understand you’re from the region, but, like, for you or you have roots from there, but, like, to the average American, the idea of going to war over whether Luhansk is ruled by Kyiv or Moscow is just they they don’t even know what Luhansk is.
Speaker: 1
02:30:18
And if they met someone from there, we’d probably just assume they were Russian. You know what I mean? Like, they and they might be, but whatever. I think the first step to a path to peace is that you have to want to get a path to peace. So I think Trump’s doing a good job in that.
Speaker: 0
02:30:30
Do you think all three sides want peace ram what you understand? Obviously, Ram, legitimately, fully, with an urgency, wants peace.
Speaker: 1
02:30:37
I think, for sure, Trump wants peace. I also think Putin wants to wrap the conflict up. And I think that Putin has Putin has been willing to deal for the entire lead up to the war and pretty much throughout the war. And there’s been a lot of solid reporting on this. And, I mean, the sources on it are pretty impeccable.
Speaker: 1
02:30:57
The the head of NATO, Stoltenberg, I always mess up his name. But he literally said that in late two thousand twenty one, that Vladimir Putin actually sent a draft agreement to NATO and that his condition for not invading is like, I will not invade, but you have to put it in writing.
Speaker: 1
02:31:17
Like, he sent a tri a draft treaty to them. You have to put in writing that Ukraine will not join NATO. And then, Stoltenberg bragged about how he sai, No, because we we won’t let Vladimir Putin dictate to us whether we can expand NATO or not. And then he was bragging. He was like, And look what he got, more NATO expansion, Finland, and this and that. So look at that.
Speaker: 1
02:31:38
And it didn’t even seem to notice, like, the wait a minute. You’re admitting that you could have just promised not to bring Ukraine into NATO and saved hundreds of thousands of lots. Seems like it would have been a much better deal. It’s it’s gonna be a much better deal than what Ukraine will ultimately end up getting.
Speaker: 1
02:31:53
So I do think I think, also the Joe Biden’s CIA director, who was a c I CIA director’s whole four years, William Burns, When he was ambassador to Russia, he wrote the meh means net. And in the memo and, again, this was dumped by Julian Assange. This wasn’t for the public. This was just him writing to Condoleezza Rice to tell the secretary of of state his assessment.
Speaker: 1
02:32:14
And he said that his exact words were a decision Russia does not want to have to make, and this was the decision about whether to invade Ukraine or not. And he was like, they sai, if you keep pushing for Ukrainian entry into NATO, this could lead to a civil war and even worse.
Speaker: 1
02:32:31
And in that situation, Russia would have to decide whether or not to intervene, a decision Russia does not want to have to make. So, essentially, it’s ai, I think it’s pretty clear from all sides that Putin didn’t want it to come to this. And and look, I mean, even after the coup in two thousand fourteen, he did he took Crimea, but he didn’t invade the country.
Speaker: 1
02:32:51
Sai ai, he sent he may have sent special forces in, but, I mean, not the full scale February. And even for the civil war going all that you know, he did it seemed like he I’m not defending the decision. I’m just saying it seemed like he reluctantly, debate you know, what was it?
Speaker: 1
02:33:07
In 02/2015 when they had the plebiscites in Crimea and in the Donbas region, and they voted to be independent? He didn’t take them then. I mean, he could have used that as a pretense for, like, hey. They voted to be with us, and he didn’t. I think he wants to end the war.
Speaker: 1
02:33:24
Zelensky, from everything he sai publicly, seems like he still feels like, I mean, I’m just taking him at his word here that it’s like, well, no. Look. Like, we could end the war, but we gotta end the war. It seems like he’s moved from his position being ai, no. We have to reclaim reclaim all of our territory, to now his position is kinda like, alright.
Speaker: 1
02:33:48
Maybe we don’t reclaim all of it, but we gotta be given some type of security guarantee in the future. I think the problem with that is just, again, like I don’t mean to be cruel about this because, like, it sucks that there’s little countries that are next to big countries that kinda get bullied around about them, but there also is a bit of an entitlement to demanding a security guarantee.
Speaker: 1
02:34:09
Like, what exactly do you mean? Ram Meh? What? That will go to war if you’re invaded? Why are why do we owe that to anybody? Like, that’s crazy.
Speaker: 1
02:34:19
I’m sorry. You can’t just sign up to say that we’ll go to war if anybody invades anybody. I mean, I hope nobody invades anybody, but that I I don’t want us to get dragged into that that’s a recipe for always being at war, you know, and I don’t think that’s right for our country.
Speaker: 1
02:34:35
So, essentially, I think Trump and Putin want peace. And if that’s the case, I think we’ll ultimately get to an end of this war.
Speaker: 0
02:34:42
So there’s a lot of stuff to say here. Let’s think you start at the at at the beginning of the foundation of this. I think the thing that we left unsaid, that’s important to say is that Putin invaded Ukraine in, 02/24/2022. And I think he is, at least from ai perspective, the person who started the war. You could talk about NATO expansion.
Speaker: 0
02:35:08
You could talk about any other thing that led to it. You could start at the collapse of the Soviet Union. You can go all the way back as he did a thousand years. The reality is and this goes to our, ai, deep discussion about the morality of war. No matter the reasons, the guy that, like, pulls the trigger first, nonaccidentally, and keeps pulling the trigger, that’s the guy who’s at fault.
Speaker: 1
02:35:35
Oh, I I agree. I’ll say one standard, Like, one standard for everybody. The standard that I laid out before is the same one Ai sai. It’s like, did you absolutely have to do that? You know, once you start killing people by the hundreds of thousands, it’s like, was there any other option?
Speaker: 1
02:35:49
Are you telling me, like, you absolutely had to do this? And Ai don’t think that’s right. You know, my my friend Scott Horton, who I was talking to you about, who just totally brilliant guy, even in his book there’s a whole chapter of all the other options of what Vladimir Putin could do.
Speaker: 1
02:36:04
So you’re absolutely ai. And there’s a weird thing where, like, people say, ai, if you say that the West provoked this conflict, that is a very different thing than saying that this conflict is that this invasion was justified. And in in the same way that, like, you know, if you if if you were at a a bar and someone goes and spits in another guy’s face, and then he pulls out a gun and murders them right there.
Speaker: 1
02:36:28
Like, he’s not justified in doing that. That is that is not okay. You don’t get to murder someone because they spit in your face. Also, if you were talking about ai, why did he murder that guy? I’d be like, ai, because he walked up and spit in his face. That’s why it happened.
Speaker: 1
02:36:41
And that that is essentially my contention about this war. And it is I I think it’s just crystal clear that that’s why it happened. It listen. It may be right or it may be wrong. But if China or Russia ever, like, backed a street push to overthrow the democratically elected government in Mexico and then install a pro Chinese or a pro Russian government and then started pumping arms into that conflict and then kept floating out the idea that they were gonna bring them into their military ai, DC would simply not allow that.
Speaker: 1
02:37:16
You cannot do that. It any more than the Soviet Union could put nukes in Cuba. Like, sorry.
Speaker: 0
02:37:22
That should be said that that’s really cold war twentieth century neocon thinking. Right? It is the way the world works, but, like, that’s I don’t think You you should still punish.
Speaker: 1
02:37:32
Ai don’t think sai of the neoconservatives, I ai listen. Whether you’re talking about the neoconservatives or going way before the any other group that has ever had control of US foreign policy, going back to the, the cold warriors, the Truman administration, the Eisenhower administration.
Speaker: 1
02:37:53
I think you could take this back to Thomas Jefferson. If if this happened in eighteen o one, there is simply no way that they would allow a foreign great power to come bring our neighbor, overthrow their government, and then bring our neighbor into their military alliance. I think there’s no great power that would ever tolerate that.
Speaker: 0
02:38:11
First of all, we’re in a post nuclear world. Right? So meaning post the there’s nuclear weapons. So the threat of somebody being on your border is just not the same kind of threat when you’re in nuclear power, which is why, you know, you look at Finland
Speaker: 1
02:38:25
No. I think in some ways, it’s more it’s more of a threat in some ways.
Speaker: 0
02:38:28
Well, I think he’s not there’s Putin is not upset about Finland joining NATO Yeah. Nearly as much.
Speaker: 1
02:38:33
Look. I’m just saying to Vladimir Putin in his own words, what his issue always was was the military hardware that comes along with NATO membership. It’s not just that you get into NATO, but then you get all that military hardware there, and he made a huge deal about the dual use rocket launchers in Poland, which George W Bush put there after 09/11.
Speaker: 1
02:38:54
So I I think all of those things are factors. I think Ukraine, the Crimea being their only year long warm water ai. I think there’s, like, several, you know, like, elements to it, but I do think a huge part of it is that there also, the country’s been invaded through Ukraine, multiple times.
Speaker: 1
02:39:11
And so there’s just yeah. It’s it’s he I think very reasonably, within the grading on a curve of how reasonable governments are, he saw that as a security threat.
Speaker: 0
02:39:23
But I we should make very clear because the way that comes across, the full responsibility of the invasion of Ukraine lays at the hands of Vladimir Putin. Sure.
Speaker: 1
02:39:33
I completely agree with that. Vladimir Putin is, Vladimir Putin launched a war where, again, I I I don’t know exactly what the numbers are. I’ve read a whole bunch of estimates, some that contradict each other. But the consensus seems to be it’s at least in the hundreds of thousands, possibly, well, north of a million if you’re talking about the casualties on both ai.
Speaker: 1
02:39:53
And Vladimir Putin launched a war that led to that. And he’s responsible for that. That being said, you can also point out that the, you know, really what we’re talking about here is the George H. W. Bush administration, the Clintons, Bush again, Obama, and then Trump.
Speaker: 1
02:40:12
And the people who were in charge of the foreign policy in that in in those administrations, the same ones who gave us Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, They were also in charge of our European foreign policy, and they had the most reckless sai they the the most reckless policy of all was their NATO policy.
Speaker: 1
02:40:31
And that they they drove up to this conflict with Russia with nothing but off ramp after off ramp after off ramp and consciously decided that we’re not gonna take any of those. We’re gonna drive it all the way up to this point. And Thomas Friedman for the New York Times interviewed George Kennan in 1998, and this is George Kennan was the the, ai, the cold warrior.
Speaker: 1
02:40:53
He was he’s he’s credited as founding the containment strategy in the cold war, and he was talking about, the first round of NATO expansion, which he and many other foreign policy graybeards opposed. And he was talking, and he was like, this is the worst thing we could possibly do after the fall of the Soviet Union, to now say that we had this alliance in NATO that was an anti Russian military ai, and now that the Soviet Union isn’t there anymore and it’s Boris Yeltsin’s Russia, that now we’re gonna expand NATO because of that.
Speaker: 1
02:41:27
And he literally said in 1998, he goes, the people advocating that we expand NATO are gonna continue advocating it and advocating it and advocating it, and then there will be a Russian reaction. And then they’ll say, see, that’s why we were right to expand NATO. But they’ll get this completely wrong.
Speaker: 0
02:41:44
When do you think a deal is reached?
Speaker: 1
02:41:46
I really have no idea what the ai gonna look like. I’m hoping sooner rather than later. I think, like, I think Donald Trump would love nothing more than to have some type of, like, big spectacle of ending this war, some type of big press conference or some type of you know what I mean?
Speaker: 1
02:42:04
And so I’m sure like, if I my guess would be that’s where Trump’s mind is, is how to do this in the best way that sells him the best. And and, you know, But I I think that already, we’re in a position where Donald Trump has put a lot of political capital chips into the middle of the table that I can end this war.
Speaker: 1
02:42:29
You know? And he’s gonna look very, very bad if he can’t. So he’s very highly incentivized to get this thing done as quick as possible. And so, hopefully, that can that can happen soon. It would be great if it
Speaker: 0
02:42:42
could happen in the next month. Yeah. People on both sides outside of Donald Trump are telling me that it’s a it’s a process. Yeah. There’s ai of implications it’s gonna it’s gonna take a while, which I really hate. I really love love Donald Trump’s urgency.
Speaker: 1
02:42:57
Well, it’s also terrible. There’s something really awful, ai, per you know, look. When in innocent people dying in war at any time is is terrible, but there is something profoundly awful. And I’ve I’m old enough now that I’ve seen this a few times happen. I’ve lived through it a few times. I’ve read about it happening earlier.
Speaker: 1
02:43:14
But it’s ai once you’ve kind of already decided the war’s over and people still ai. You know what I mean? There’s something almost, like, sadder about that because it’s always ai, come on. You already know. You know, like, when there’d be, like, a big you know, there’d be, like, a bombing campaign in in, in Afghanistan, like, when we all already knew we were a few months away from ending the war.
Speaker: 1
02:43:33
You’re ai, you gotta kill more people, like, on the way out. We already know we’re leaving. We already know that because there’s something, at least in the beginning, they could kinda hide behind this justification, or they could be like, listen. We’re gonna overthrow the Taliban, and we’re gonna install our new government. They’re gonna be a democracy. It’s going really good.
Speaker: 1
02:43:49
We have to do this in order to do this bigger project. But then, by the end, you’re like, we’re not even pretending anymore that we’re doing anything more positive. It’s just someone dying in a senseless thing we never should have been in.
Speaker: 0
02:44:00
Well, in the spirit of that, that’s why I traveled to Moscow, and will travel to Moscow again in the near future to likely interview Vladimir Putin and, hopefully travel back to Ukraine, which I did, to, talk again with with, Volodymyr Zelensky or, with whoever the future president is.
Speaker: 1
02:44:19
You’ll be the only guy who’s interviewed both of them, I think Yeah. During this war. Right?
Speaker: 0
02:44:24
And I have to sai, the border crossing is getting increasingly more intense. Like Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:44:29
I went I went to Canada last week, and I didn’t care for that, so I’m sure. Primarily, it’s the nations of war as it was
Speaker: 0
02:44:35
in Ukraine. And it’s fucking it’s, like, it’s dangerous to do both.
Speaker: 1
02:44:40
It’s also, like, I think something that, I think something that’s a little bit foreign, no pun intended, to America is, you know, like, we’ve fought in a lot of wars over the last, say, twenty five ai, you know, fifty years, whatever. But all of them, including in a way the the world wars even in the twentieth century.
Speaker: 1
02:45:03
It’s like but it’s been since 1812 that we fought one on our shores. And none of the other ones I meh, I guess Pearl Harbor, but even Pearl Harbor, that was a one off, and it was only kind you know, it it was America technically, but it wasn’t Mainland Meh. You know? And so we’re fighting wars, like, halfway across the world. This is a very different thing for two neighboring countries to fight.
Speaker: 1
02:45:30
And even though most of the fighting’s been done on the Ukrainian side, not all of it. Like, there have you know, there I think there still are areas in Russia, ai, inside Russia’s borders where there’s action. And so it’s just ai there’s something so much more real about that. Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:45:43
That’s not just like you know, the wars we’re used to are we we send a military that is a hundred thousand times more sophisticated than anything it’ll be meeting on the ground over to a third world country to go do that. Now as we’ve found out over the years, there’s still a lot of challenges to that.
Speaker: 1
02:46:00
Even when your side has night vision goggles and the other one doesn’t and your side can call in air strikes and the other one can’t and your side has all the sophisticated training and the other side’s practicing on monkey bars, Still very hard to occupy a people and dominate them and defeat an insurgency.
Speaker: 1
02:46:13
But that’s very different than, like, two nation states on right next to each other on the border. Like, there’s just a real feeling of, like, survival in that moment. And I I do think that probably Ai don’t understand this as well as you do, and probably you don’t even understand it as well as maybe, like, an older generation, of of Russians and Ukrainians would.
Speaker: 1
02:46:37
But, like, there’s also something about, like, both Russia and Ukraine in their own ways got so absolutely fucked over in the twentieth century multiple times in a way that Americans just it is just too foreign to us to even understand anything like that. Like, millions of people starving to death, being invaded, the entire nation collapsing. Ai mean, the the Russian, government collapsed twice in a hundred years. Right?
Speaker: 1
02:47:06
That’s that’s pretty, like that’s traumatic. And we just simply have never been through anything like that. And so if you when you have that kind of, like, trauma as a society and then there’s a war on your border, I’m sure there’s a whole lot of different kinda feelings that we just can’t relate to.
Speaker: 0
02:47:24
Plus a history in both nations of super sophisticated and expansive intelligence agencies.
Speaker: 1
02:47:30
Right. Right. Right. Yeah. That’s a very good point. Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:47:34
You host a podcast called Part of the Problem? Yes. What have you learned through that whole process of, interviewing some interesting people? And are there topics you cover that make you sweat still to this day? It feels like going into the fire.
Speaker: 1
02:47:51
What Ai what I’ve learned just from the podcast is that there is, there there’s something there there’s an interesting, like, relationship that you build with your audience. And, you know, I I travel a lot and I do shows a lot. Sai, like, I’ll I meet people who listen to the shah.
Speaker: 1
02:48:09
And I know, like, I’ve had this experience before. I kinda had this experience with you, where, like, meh, you know, me and you met once, I think, before today. We were me me and you actually met on a very interesting night. I don’t know if you remember this. But we were at, it was before the comedy mothership was built. You came by a Joe Rogan and friends show at the Vulture. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:48:32
And it was the it was while Joe was going through the Yeah. Shitstorm of canceled Vulture and he was on the phone with Dana White and stuff in the back. It was a quite it was a wild night. Quite a
Speaker: 0
02:48:41
wild night. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:48:42
Is but then at the same time, right, like, even though we just kinda met that one time and then we talked on the phone and now we’re doing the show, I ai I know you already. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I already know you. And it’s not just that we have friends of friends, but I’ve just, like, seen so much of your stuff that it’s ai Sai know who you are.
Speaker: 1
02:48:56
And then and then it’s weird because people come up to you and they’re like that. It’s like they know you. And I’ve had this experience. I had this experience with with Joe. Like, I I knew him before I knew him.
Speaker: 1
02:49:04
And so that was kinda, like, one of the things that I really learned from doing the podcast over the years was, like, how much that’s actually a relationship. Like, you actually have a relationship with your listeners, and and almost, like, in the same way in the same way that, like, you know, you can’t lie to people, like, in your life.
Speaker: 1
02:49:22
You also can’t lie to your like, they’re a relationship too. Like, You can’t lie to your your audience and that I think that there’s, like, there’s there’s often almost, like, kind of shortcuts that are presented before you, but there is a payoff to not taking the shortcuts and to, like, kind of doing it the way you wanna do it.
Speaker: 1
02:49:42
What do
Speaker: 0
02:49:42
you think is the number of hours it takes to form a relationship? Because I I absolutely agree with you. First of all, I should say I’m a huge podcast fan. I’ve listened to you as a guest and your own show a lot. So, yeah, there’s I think with you, I’ve already crossed the threshold of hours where, like, I feel like we’re friends Yeah. One way.
Speaker: 0
02:50:02
And Ai guess because you listen to me, it’s the other way, which should have, like, separate parallel dimensions.
Speaker: 1
02:50:06
Ai weird. It’s very strange in a way. It’s very interesting. And it’s also, there’s something there which is cut more your area of expertise than mine, but there’s something there where, like, technology is playing this wild role. Like, we could have two a two way friendship without actually having to meet each other, all facilitated by the machines that we built. It’s very trippy.
Speaker: 0
02:50:25
Ai think it’s probably, like I’ll say it’s, like, fifty hours. Maybe twenty twenty to fifty hour range is when you’re ai, okay.
Speaker: 1
02:50:32
It’s kinda interesting in a way. Right? Because, like, the the thing before, like, the Joe Rogan experience and what was, like, kind of the thing that made comedians big. The things before that used to be, like, Letterman and Leno and Conan. Like, comedians would meh, like, a seven minute set on there.
Speaker: 1
02:50:54
And even if you do great, like, if you’re just like, you killed and someone watching is like, I love that comedian. That comedian’s amazing. First of all, unless they were, like, on social media and then went and, like, shoot you out. There was no, there was no way to connect.
Speaker: 1
02:51:08
They’d just be like, love that guy. Anyway, back to my life. And then maybe you’ll remember him, and maybe when he’s coming to town, you’d see, oh, that same guy I saw in Conan is gonna be at the local comedy club or something, maybe. But but then, like, Bryden became the main thing. And now they didn’t just see you do seven minutes of stand up.
Speaker: 1
02:51:28
They sat and listened to you for three hours. So even let’s just say even off that one Mhmm. Off the one three hour podcast
Speaker: 0
02:51:35
Right.
Speaker: 1
02:51:35
You come away knowing a lot more about that person. It’s it’s not like just a little taste. You know a lot about it. But there is I probably would put the threshold at at forty to fifty hour. Like, if you’ve consumed forty to fifty hours of somebody, especially when they’re doing what we do on these shows where you’re just you’re speaking very, you you’re speaking in a very unguarded manner Mhmm.
Speaker: 1
02:52:00
Even though, like, this is your show and and you asked, like, a lot of questions. You don’t know exactly where this is gonna go. You know, you’re you’re, then then you’re seeing what I say and then going, okay. Well, let me ask something based off that. Let me make a point based off that. We’re both kinda, like, unguarded.
Speaker: 1
02:52:17
And when you consume somebody like that for for, like, forty, fifty hours, you do see into their soul. I think there’s almost no way there’s no way to avoid that. And and, also, I would sai, if they’re not letting you see into your their soul, you’ll notice that. Yep. And you know that about them.
Speaker: 1
02:52:32
You ai, this is a guarded person. This this was ultimately Kamala Harris’ issue. Right? And this is why she was probably, you know, correct not to do Bryden. Even though everyone looks back at that and ai, like, no. No. No. This is this was the big disaster of her campaign. It’s ai, I don’t know. You know?
Speaker: 1
02:52:47
She was so guarded in every single interview that she ever did. She was always constantly not trying to let you see who she really was. And if she was gonna try that on Rogan, that would’ve that would’ve been so apparent to everybody involved.
Speaker: 0
02:53:04
So you’ve had a lot of intense conversations on Jerry. What do you appreciate most about Joe as a human being, as a conversation partner?
Speaker: 1
02:53:14
I can’t overstate how how much I love Joe and how much, I admire him.
Speaker: 0
02:53:21
Not as much as Ron Paul. Just let’s be clear. There’s, like, a hierarchy here. Is Ron He’s he’s close, man.
Speaker: 1
02:53:28
They’re Holy shit. They’re both, ai, they’re both, like, you know, there’s, like, very few
Speaker: 0
02:53:33
That means a lot coming to me.
Speaker: 1
02:53:34
There’s Ron Paul like, Ron Paul and Joe Ai, I’d like are those are, like, my generals.
Speaker: 0
02:53:39
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
02:53:39
Ai, an I’m a soldier. My those are my guys. Like, if if Joe Rogan pointed to some guy and said, you gotta go fight that guy right now. I’d be like, alright. I gotta go fight that guy or what you know, Ron Paul too. I just think it’s both very personally for meh. You know, like, Ron Paul, like, introduced me to, like, a set of ideas that, like, changed my ai, and, and I’m just enormously grateful for that.
Speaker: 1
02:54:01
Joe Rogan was ai I was a huge Joe Rogan fan before the Joe Rogan experience. Ai, I’m an old school Joe Rogan head. I used to go on joerogan.net before the when websites used to end with that.
Speaker: 0
02:54:14
Jerry, before, like, whatever it is.
Speaker: 1
02:54:15
Before everything. ai. I remember I I was a fan of his before he confronted Carlos Mencia. And the day he confronted Carlos Mencia, I watched the video on his website. Was like, oh, shit. Joe Rogan called him out, dude. This is the craziest thing ever. And then and then when I I was a fan that, like, when he started the podcast, I remember going, this is gonna be big because he’s gonna be so good at this because he’s got so much interesting shit to say.
Speaker: 1
02:54:39
And, I didn’t realize it was gonna be quite what it became, but I did think like, oh, this is gonna be an awesome thing. And then so there’s ai that. Sai, like, I always really admired him, and I was always a huge fan of his. And then he literally not only did he, like, change my life, but he changed, like, all of my friends’ lives. Like, it’s like a very weird situation.
Speaker: 1
02:55:01
Like, he’s like the he’s the Santa Claus of my world. Like, he’s literally just sana and there was something ai I don’t know, man. He’s just He’s just a very, like, genuine person, and he’s really loves I think he really, derives a lot of pleasure out of the fact that he gets to help the people who he sees as, like, the good guys, like, the guys worth helping.
Speaker: 1
02:55:27
And I just think that’s, like, such an unbelievable thing. You know, I the first time Rogan had me on his podcast was, I believe, in 02/2016. And I ai, like I I might have had, like, 5,000 followers or something like that. Like, I was real completely unknown and and and, like, it was ai I did nothing for him.
Speaker: 1
02:55:48
It was just the fact that he heard me on Ari’s show, and he was like, oh, I like what this guy’s gotta say. I think this is cool. Like, let’s talk about it. And, Yeah. I mean, he’s just like, you know, like I again, he’s just been such a great guy to me.
Speaker: 1
02:56:02
And and and at every little angle, like everything, you know, you open for him, he takes care of you better than anybody else does. You’d work his club, his club pays better than anybody else does. He, you know, like, just everything is always, ai, it it he’s always great to the people who are around him.
Speaker: 1
02:56:17
And, you know, again, like, this is it’s it’s just hard to over like, you know, again, I have a wife. I have two little kids. Like, he’s put me in a situation where I can, like, provide a great life for them. And, like, don’t get me wrong. I mean, you know, like, I did something with the opportunity.
Speaker: 1
02:56:33
It’s not like he just gave meh, you know, ai, it’s like he gave me the opportunity and I did something with it. But still, I mean, he didn’t have to give me that opportunity, and I I will always I will go to my grave being enormously grateful for his friendship and his, his, you know, the platform that he’s given me.
Speaker: 1
02:56:50
And also just he is ai and I try not to abuse this, but there’s been, like, a few points, like, over the years where I was like, I really need advice on this. And Ai gone to him and he’s been, like, the absolute best at literally every single time. I’ve followed it a few times.
Speaker: 1
02:57:07
A few times, I didn’t follow his advice, and I really regret not following his advice. But he was the absolute best, like, guy to be like, ai. Let’s talk about this. Which and and the last thing I’ll say is that it was freaking crazy. It’s like because I ai, like, you know, got more shit going on than anybody else in the world and is still very interested to take time out to, like, discuss some thing that I’m asking him about, which is a really, really great quality.
Speaker: 0
02:57:31
Yeah. Always takes a phone call. Yeah. You’re right about the advice. He’s, he’s his advice is spot on, and it’s, it’s often the ones for me personally. What’s needed is, like, he’s been through so many fires Yeah. That he’s really good at, like, making you feel like, don’t fucking worry about it. Just Yeah.
Speaker: 0
02:57:51
Just, like, move on. It’s the don’t read the comments thing, but generally. Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. Just like, fuck it.
Speaker: 0
02:57:58
And there’s he has a whole that whole vibe, which kinda looks effortless, but I think when you look at it seriously, especially in contrast with journalists, there’s a fearlessness there. 100%. Like Yeah. That not giving a fuck I mean, he says it’s, like, fuck because of fuck you money or any of that. I don’t I don’t think so.
Speaker: 0
02:58:21
I think it’s
Speaker: 1
02:58:22
It’s more than that.
Speaker: 0
02:58:22
It’s more
Speaker: 1
02:58:23
It’s I mean, I’m sure that’s a component of it, but there’s people who have that who still don’t have
Speaker: 0
02:58:26
this fear of stress. Yeah. People who have money Yeah. A lot of money arya actually become more scared Yeah. Because they like the comfort of just, like, normal life. Because when you’re taking risks, you’re gonna pay for it even if you have money, not just financially. Just, like, it’s gonna it’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna disturb your life.
Speaker: 0
02:58:44
It’s gonna create turbulence. Yeah. The guy is fearless and follows just his genuine curiosity. It’s like an inspiration to meh, friendships aside, just inspiration of how great of a conversationalist he is, and not he would generally didn’t give a fuck if, like, he talks to any of the presidential candidates or not, if he he’ll just talk to friends, just because he wants to.
Speaker: 0
02:59:09
And there’s there’s no, like, clickbaitiness to it. There’s no, like, giving a shit above views or, like, sharing that.
Speaker: 1
02:59:15
Ai mean, during the COVID stuff, meh, I mean, he was, like, interviewing doctor McCullough, and who’s the other one? Saloni, doctor Saloni. And I had Bobby Kennedy. All these people like, at this time when it was, like, so and and he’s had it with me before too, like, talking about Ukraine and Israel, like, at the times when it’s really white hot.
Speaker: 1
02:59:34
You know what I mean? And, like, there’s this huge penalty on not going along with the regime’s talking points. And he’s ai like, it’s really hard to overstate it. I mean, there was there used to be nothing like this. Mhmm. It used to be that if if CNN and Fox News agreed, well, then that was it.
Speaker: 1
02:59:51
That was the line now. And now we got the biggest show in the country will actually allow the other perspective on and allow people to, like, challenge
Speaker: 0
02:59:59
the regime. I think it’s been historic. I think also there are shows, there are people that just are constant conspiracy theorists, which is fine also, but I sometimes feel that those lack genuineness. Yeah. Because they ai of put themselves in a bin or everything. Like, you question everything to a point where, like, I don’t know.
Speaker: 0
03:00:20
I feel like you’re not getting closer to the truth when you question everything.
Speaker: 1
03:00:23
There is something that some people in the conspiracy world do, which is, like, they they speak about something with certainty when they’re really not certain about it. And it’s, like, it’s it’s fine to, like, ask questions and it’s fine to speculate about things, but you also have to, like, you just it’s true in general in life.
Speaker: 1
03:00:44
You gotta be really careful about, like, presuming your conclusion and then working backward from there. And then ai when you have one or like, it’s just it’s a matter of being sloppy versus not being sloppy. And, like, sometimes people like, I remember for a long time back in the day in the in the nine eleven truth movement, there was this one of the huge smoking guns that they would point to was that in the nineties, there was this one meh, I’m blanking on the title of it, but it was from PNAC, the Project for a New American Century.
Speaker: 1
03:01:12
Mhmm. And this was the think tank or one of the think tanks of the neoconservatives. Like, all the big neoconservatives were involved in Speak, from Dick Cheney to Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, David Worms, all the big neocons. And there was this one document where they basically they were ai, you know, their their project for the new American century was how we’re gonna have hegemony for another hundred years.
Speaker: 1
03:01:33
Now that we won the twentieth century, how are we gonna win the twenty first century? And they were like, okay. Well, here’s what we wanna do. We wanna start multiple wars in The Middle East, and we wanna, like, go like, all the plans that they had, NATO expansion in Europe was a big part of it too.
Speaker: 1
03:01:45
And then there was one line where they said, it’s gonna be tough to work up popular, support for these multiple wars we wanna fight in The Middle East short of another Pearl Harbor style event. And the nine eleven truthers would point to this and go, speak? Clearly, they did it. They did nine eleven.
Speaker: 1
03:02:05
They even say in their own words here that they want another Pearl Harbor event so they can do this. And it’s like, well, look. That doesn’t actually prove anything. I mean, it’s it’s it might just be the case that they were like, oh, we wouldn’t get this without a Pearl and then when nine eleven happened, they went, hey.
Speaker: 1
03:02:21
We got our Pearl Harbor style event. And, you know, and and even if you like that story of nine eleven was an inside job, you know, because it’s ai sexy and exciting and, like, oh meh god. What a crazy world we’re living in if that’s true. And I’m not even saying it’s not true.
Speaker: 1
03:02:33
I’m just saying, if you’re not sloppy and you’re scrupulous, you go, that’s not really evidence. It’s it sounds like evidence. It’s evidence y, you know, but it’s not actually a piece of evidence because that doesn’t in any way demonstrate that they actually were in on the thing.
Speaker: 1
03:02:47
And there’s just a lot of things like that. There’s a lot of ai. I even see, like, because it’s a very popular conspiracy theory online now that, that Israel did nine eleven. And I’m like, I’m open. You know? What do you got?
Speaker: 1
03:03:01
What’s the evidence? And they’ll be like, well, did you see that Larry Silverstein took out a huge insurance policy on the World Trade Center? How did he know? And you’re like, how did he know that the number one terrorist target in the world might need a big insurance policy on it?
Speaker: 1
03:03:14
You realize that the same guys attempted to knock those towers down in 1993. Right? And so there’s just little things like that where, like, if you’re being sloppy and you already really want this conclusion, I see where you could see these things as as evidence. But if you’re just being a little if you’re critically thinking about them, it’s actually it’s not as strong a case as you think it is.
Speaker: 1
03:03:32
And I I like to again, I’ll speculate every now and thing again, on things, but I like to take on something where I feel like I can prove this case. Like, I really have enough evidence that I think I can prove this. I think I can prove that the neocons didn’t invade Iraq because they were worried about weapons of mass destruction, and they actually had this agenda for at least a decade before the the war broke out.
Speaker: 1
03:03:53
You know? Like, there’s there’s strong tangible evidence for that. It’s just some sometimes tyler the constant conspiracy guys, not always, but sometimes they just get sloppy when it comes to actually analyzing how strong the case is.
Speaker: 0
03:04:07
I mean, there’s several psychological effects. I think there’s a certain drug to the dog dogmatic certainty that you were mentioning. It it you know, it really annoys me that there’s something about human psychology, because I usually when I say stuff, I usually, show doubt and show the humility that I might not have the right answer, and I sometimes look at multiple perspectives.
Speaker: 0
03:04:34
And that’s seen as weakness and lack of intelligence often. It just sounds like when I even, like, listen back to people that do that kind of thing Yeah. That certainty sounds like intelligence to people. Like, if you say something with a lot of certainty, it sounds like this this is a smart motherfucker.
Speaker: 0
03:04:55
And I hate that about myself and about human psyche that that seems to be the case because then, like, the the dumb dogmatists are going to be, like, the ones that are driving agenda.
Speaker: 1
03:05:09
It is true. I’ve noticed that for a long time, though. It’s almost like, in a weird way, it’s kinda like a prerequisite for leadership in a way. You kinda have to be certain about things. But then there there’s a real problem with that, which is that a lot of ai, you’re just bullshitting or you’re just or you’re or you’re not right you’re not correct to be this certain about this.
Speaker: 1
03:05:28
It’s at least debatable and you know? So you always ai. And then the thing, like, I I feel like, at least for me, is which I try to do. I’m sure I fail at the at this a ton. But you try to at least go, like you gotta almost you gotta work on training your brain, and you have to be conscious about it.
Speaker: 1
03:05:47
And so you have to go ai, hey. If there’s something here that is confirming my bias, that I get that you know, you start getting that little sense of pleasure of ai, oh, great. Here’s another point that proves the thing I want to be true. Then you have to, like, be 10 times as, you know, like, you know, skeptical about this.
Speaker: 1
03:06:08
You have to really examine this one and be like, okay. Am I sure that this one you know? Because sometimes you’ll hear people even throw out things where it’s like, oh, I know you liked that because it was helping your case, but come on. Think about this. This doesn’t even make sense. It’s like, okay.
Speaker: 1
03:06:22
I wanna make this argument, and then everything that would support that just gets sucked in like a like a force of gravity or something. And you’re like, yeah. But half of these are bad data points.
Speaker: 0
03:06:31
Mhmm. I mean, like, for me, there’s something definitely about my brain that is attracted to conspiracy theories. So Yeah. Me too. Very well aware that that gravitational pull is there.
Speaker: 1
03:06:43
Well, it’s it’s if nothing else, it’s a crazy story. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like a movie. So it’s like, oh,
Speaker: 0
03:06:48
that’s cool. Crazy.
Speaker: 1
03:06:49
Yeah. Every fucking episode You don’t need to work on Epstein.
Speaker: 0
03:06:51
Ai don’t understand. Story. I don’t that’s one of the big mysteries of, like, our modern era is, like, how the fuck did this guy get an island, this pedophile, and got, like, smart smart, I think, really smart people to, like, hang out with them. Meh.
Speaker: 1
03:07:13
And what the fuck? And has anybody I mean, obviously, just Lane, however you say it, her name. Elaine. Elaine Maxwell. Okay. She went she went to jail. It’s ai, has anybody else? Has anybody has anybody anywhere been forced to resign? I mean, like, just even, like, say, like, I don’t know, like, at the FBI or something just for not, like, catching the thing sooner.
Speaker: 1
03:07:37
Like, even if you weren’t in on it, it was ai no there’s a real problem with the American system in and it’s that. That, like, that I think this just went on for too long before, like, the American people just wouldn’t put up with it anymore, and this is why trust in every institution and the corporate media and the Congress and all of it has evaporated, is that it’s ai, is he just saying of all the people who sold the war in Iraq, no one so much as, like, got kicked out of polite sai?
Speaker: 1
03:08:05
You know, like, I’m not even saying, like, oh, they went to jail for war crimes for life, but was just like, yeah, you can’t we’re not looking to you for advice on the next war. Thanks. Go home. Like, none of that. And it’s ai all these, like, crazy things, nobody goes down for it.
Speaker: 1
03:08:19
I mean, like, they freaking they lied us into war after a war. They’ve bankrupted the country, damn near destroyed the dollar. They locked down the country on the basis of pseudoscience, then then lied through their teeth about what this vaccine would do as they were forcing it on people.
Speaker: 1
03:08:38
And, like, no one loses their job. No one even gets in trouble over any of this. And, look, in any in any area of life, whether a business or a relationship or whatever, you can’t you cannot screw up that catastrophically and face no repercussions for it and think that your business or relationship isn’t gonna fail as a result of that.
Speaker: 0
03:09:01
I think, ultimately, there’s been a lot of wake up calls, and I think we’re gonna build a better society from it. The like, better institution. I I believe I hope you’re right. Ai, you know, more transparency, more, like, authenticity. I think also the Democratic party has learned the lesson of, like, you have to have candidates that do I I don’t give a shit about podcasts, but do podcast like things, meaning reveal themselves as human beings.
Speaker: 1
03:09:25
I I think it’s one of the best things that happened in this last, election. And I’m not saying like, I did think they were great, but I’m not saying that, like, any of the Trump podcasts were perfect or like maybe there there’d be a better way that they could be done. But I will say that Ai always I used to say this for a ai, like as of, you know, like the last few years.
Speaker: 1
03:09:47
But Ai be like, sai it’s like so I’m I’m meh. You know? And for me to do what I do, it’s kind of expected that I’ll probably, like I don’t know. I get, like, at least, like, maybe 15 10 to 15 times a year, I’ll come do a show like this. Like, a a long form show on a big platform where I’m gonna you know, like, my ideas will be poked and prodded and tested, and there’ll be pushback questions, and they’ll be there.
Speaker: 1
03:10:19
Sometimes they’re more, you know, adversarial. Sometimes they’re more friendly. But, like, you’re gonna and then meh, our standard for who is the commander in chief was ai you show up to these debates that are, like, ninety minutes long with these really, really stupid questions, and you give a ninety second answer to it or blah.
Speaker: 1
03:10:37
And at least for the first time now, it does seem like, oh, the standard is ai of, you’re gonna have to do a long form show where peep you really have to have you know? And and that that, I think, is long term a real positive development. You know? Like, you you just kinda know going forward the Democrats, right, which I think is kinda what you were saying. Right?
Speaker: 1
03:10:58
You can’t run a Kamala Harris if she can’t do a long form interview. You gotta run somebody who’s able to sit down and express themselves and have real, genuine thoughts or at least try to convince people they have real genuine thoughts, at least, you know? And it’s that’s very different in a way than you know, I look back at some, like, the most talented politicians of my lifetime, which I’d have to say the two were were Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Speaker: 1
03:11:18
Just ai the most talented traditional politicians. Trump’s like the anti politician, but, like, they were like the traditional and just unbelievably but they never had to do that. It was just a different time. Bill Clinton had to walk up and, like, you know, be like, oh, it’s a beautiful baby you have here.
Speaker: 1
03:11:33
They go back and then play the sax and then have a couple good answers to a small I’m from a little town called Hope. You know? Like, that that’s not the game anymore. Now the game is ai, can you sit down and actually, you know, have some ideas in a long form? And I think that’s so much better because it’s so much more revealing of you know, ai like what we were saying before. You reveal a little bit.
Speaker: 1
03:11:53
It’s not fifty hours. But in those in those three hours, you reveal a little bit of your soul.
Speaker: 0
03:11:58
Yeah. And I think that process makes you actually a better person. I, I ultimately think that Barack Obama is a fascinating human being, and there was a choice made early on to be more to do, like, less interviews, be more behind the wall, I think. And that that’s that’s a disservice because I think it’s a skill to be an authentic person, like, that you build.
Speaker: 1
03:12:19
Yeah.
Speaker: 0
03:12:20
Like, to to be able to allow yourself to be yourself. Like, it’s very possible that Kamala Harris is a fascinating person.
Speaker: 1
03:12:27
Like Yeah. We’ve just never gotten to meet her.
Speaker: 0
03:12:29
And I don’t know if she has gotten to meet her, but, you know, it’s a practice thing to, like, reveal yourself as a tricky thing. I think it’s just good for the candidate. I think she well, I think she what she did you know, I’m a critic. I don’t think she’s a good candidate, which shah she did is pretty freaking incredible.
Speaker: 0
03:12:49
Meaning, like, in that to raise that much money in that short amount of ai, I think it was a terrible thing for the Democratic party to do. I think she’s a terrible candidate, but still, with the tools you got, like, use TikTok, use whatever.
Speaker: 1
03:13:05
I’ll say the fact that she came as close as she did to being president is pretty goddamn insane if you ask me. But, yeah, the dem the Ai are a mess. They’re a mess like I’ve never seen a political party before. But that in itself is is, I think, a very good thing. And what comes from here is there’s a lot of possibilities now.
Speaker: 1
03:13:24
And, you know, there’s never been like, I don’t know who the person is. I don’t see anyone out there that I could think of that would fill this role. But there’s never been a more ripe time for someone to Donald Trump the Democratic party now.
Speaker: 0
03:13:40
Mhmm. Yeah.
Speaker: 1
03:13:40
You know? Like, somebody to what Donald Trump did people tend to forget this because now, like, it’s it’s also because the accusation from the Democrats is that, you know, the the Republican parties are all a bunch of Trump cultists or something like that. But, like, I’m I’m old enough to remember 02/2016, and what actually happened was that Donald Trump came in and just really resonated with the voters, and the establishment of the Republican Party hated it.
Speaker: 1
03:14:09
They were openly talking about changing the rules at the Republican National Convention to deny him the nomination in 02/2016. What they were saying is that they were gonna raise the number of delegates required so high that nobody could hit it, and then say, hey. Since nobody hit it, we select Mitt Romney again, and we’re gonna run Mitt Romney again.
Speaker: 1
03:14:30
Like, they were openly, openly conspiring to steal the thing from him, and, eventually, he just had so much support on the ground that they couldn’t do it. Right now, someone could totally do that to the Democrats. But the thing is it would have to be somebody outside of the three letter agency control because that’s what everyone’s rejecting right now.
Speaker: 1
03:14:47
But if you were to actually sit there and go, like, the and even policies I don’t necessarily agree with, but there are a lot of policies that if it was actually, like, a pro labor working class party, you could you could you know, Bernie Sanders showed you a little bit of what’s possible, and this was from, like, an 80 year old socialist who didn’t really have the balls to go through with it at the end of the day.
Speaker: 1
03:15:06
You know? Like, if somebody younger and and a little bit more, more with the current zeitgeist were able to do that, that could happen.
Speaker: 0
03:15:15
I mean, I would generally think that AOC can develop into that candidate. She might not be there yet, but I think she can develop into that. It could be out there. It could be
Speaker: 1
03:15:23
I don’t know. I don’t see AOC being the one to do it, but I I could be wrong about that. She’s got some qualities ai almost all the other ones you could think of. I just you know, I don’t see I I don’t see anyone right now who I think could be that person, but I never would have I mean, if you had asked me in 02/2014 who’s gonna come take over the Republican party, I never would have guessed Donald Trump was gonna come do what he did.
Speaker: 1
03:15:50
So it might be the person we’re seeing who we’re not even thinking of, or it might just be some unknown. You know? Same with Obama was an unknown. I mean, obviously, he had he had very powerful people behind his presidential run. It’s not like he was a true just, like, grassroots guy, but he wasn’t anyone we would have been necessarily thinking about.
Speaker: 1
03:16:07
I mean, he gave that big speech at the two thousand four DNC, but that was it. That was the thing he was known for. He gave one great speech at the besides that, he was a state senator and then a junior senator. No one’s thinking he was gonna be the next president.
Speaker: 0
03:16:19
It could be ai a Jon Stewart type character. Of course, I don’t think he would ever I honestly don’t think a comedian will ever run, but I never thought
Speaker: 1
03:16:26
Trump would ever run. So There is there is something about Jon Stewart that is, he’s and obviously Sai disagree with him on a lot of stuff too, but he is an authentic person. Mhmm. And there’s something about that that gives you a huge advantage, particularly in our current political climate. People are so sick of the phoniness.
Speaker: 1
03:16:48
It’s like it’s it’s and and it’s and and they’re right to be because you could only, you know so you can lie to some of the people some of the time. Like, this you can only lie so much before, eventually, nobody wants to hear you in that phony voice telling the same phony lies anymore.
Speaker: 1
03:17:02
And at least Jon Stewart is I will say, I think he’s I think Jon Stewart is telling the truth the way he sees it. Mhmm. Like, I don’t think he’s necessarily right about a lot of things. He is right about a lot of things, but I think he’s wrong about a lot of other things. But he I just get the impression that he believes what he’s saying.
Speaker: 0
03:17:20
Mhmm. And there’s something powerful about that. Especially when he’s surrounded by people that disagree with him, he’s still willing to say it. Yep. That takes a certain ai of courage. Yeah. And be funny doing it. But he’s not gonna run.
Speaker: 1
03:17:33
Ai. I don’t think so.
Speaker: 0
03:17:34
This is annoying. No nobody, like you have to be fucking crazy to run.
Speaker: 1
03:17:39
That is one of the real problems. You know? And then, like, people, like, attack Donald Trump for being, like, a narcissist.
Speaker: 0
03:17:46
You have to be.
Speaker: 1
03:17:47
But who the hell else is gonna ever do this?
Speaker: 0
03:17:49
Yeah. Alright. What gives you hope about this whole thing we got going on?
Speaker: 1
03:17:56
America and human civilization. Okay. So this is not mine, but this is, Gene Epstein, who’s ai a is a really brilliant economist, and a great guy. And he told me this once, and I just always loved it. And he and so I call it Epstein’s Epstein’s case not that Epstein. Different Epstein. Gene Epstein.
Speaker: 1
03:18:19
No relation. I wanna be clear on that. Okay? This is Gene’s. Let’s call it Jean’s case for radical optimism.
Speaker: 1
03:18:26
And the way he put it was he goes, he goes, so imagine you were sitting around in, 1845, And, like, you’re at the height of, you know, the slavery. And you were like, hey. In twenty years, slavery is gonna be abolished across the West. And, like, if you told that someone, they’d be like, ai, slavery has existed for all of human history. Slavery is and look around. It’s not going anywhere.
Speaker: 1
03:18:57
You’d have to be out of your mind to think we’re twenty years away from abolishing slavery. And yet we were. I mean, it’s it’s just, like, the greatest thing in the history of the world. And not and, unfortunately, America had to fight a bloody civil war to get there, but many other countries didn’t.
Speaker: 1
03:19:13
And they just walked away from what had been the status quo forever, you know, and just stopped doing it. And now, look, you can argue there’s slavery by other names and things like that. And, like, you know, to some degree, paying an income sai is some degree of slavery. But there is not chattel slavery in the way that there used to be.
Speaker: 1
03:19:34
And that is like an incredible advance for humanity. And then the other example he would give is he goes, he was talking about how at the beginning of the Reagan administration, ai, in 1981, that the neocons because when he was trying to have detente with Russia, the neocons were in the press being ai, he just guaranteed another hundred years of Soviet dominance.
Speaker: 1
03:19:57
You know? And if someone had just been to you like, ai, listen. Calm down. In ten years, there won’t be a Soviet Union. It’s just been ai, what are you like, okay. Nice idea, but you’re out of your fucking mind. And meh, that was true too.
Speaker: 1
03:20:09
And sai, there is even when, you know and you can see some dynamics even in our politics today where, like, you know, three years ago, I was really concerned about whether they’d shut the whole thing down. Us, I mean. You know? Like, when it was during the COVID times and during times where it was, like, everyone I knew was just getting strikes on all their channels, and if you just even wanted to, like, talk about how, like, there are people being vaccine injured.
Speaker: 1
03:20:37
You’d, like, lose your YouTube channel, get people getting kicked off Twitter left and right. And I just saw it, and I was like, dude, the the grasp is just getting tighter and tighter and tighter. The regime is not gonna allow these alternative voices, you know, in here, and they’re just getting too big.
Speaker: 1
03:20:51
And they’re gonna shut this whole thing down, and I’m gonna have to figure out what I’m gonna do, after that. And I was totally wrong. It just the trend totally went in the other direction, and things are now at a point where it’s ai, I couldn’t even imagine it. I never would have envisioned Elon Musk was gonna get $44,000,000,000 together and buy Twitter, and then he was you know, it’s like and so I just think that if you kinda, like, zoom out, I think that the the regime has lost their monopoly on propaganda.
Speaker: 1
03:21:19
And this opens up enormous possibilities for what you know, I I remember so vividly 02/2002. And and 02/2002 would you know, nineeleven happened in late two thousand and one. We invaded Iraq in 02/2003, but all of 02/2002 was a massive propaganda campaign. Just constantly laying down the blueprints for this war that we knew was George w Bush was about to launch.
Speaker: 1
03:21:46
And it was, you know, they have weapons of mass destruction. They were in on nine eleven. They’re friends with Al Qaeda. They’re gonna hand this weapon that they don’t have off to the terrorists they’re not friends with. And then they’re gonna nuke Vatsal.
Speaker: 1
03:21:55
And and every right winger by the way, this is also, sorry for rambling a little here, but this is also one of the reasons why when when the Jew haters will say things like they’ll be like, oh, look. All of the Jews support Israel, or 70% of the Jews vote this way, or the 70% of the Jews support this sai. It’s like, listen.
Speaker: 1
03:22:12
I don’t like blaming or even the when the the Palestine haters will sai, 70% of Gazans support Hamas or whatever. It’s like, okay. Look. I remember a time in this country. I know I’m going back twenty years, but every right winger in this country was completely convinced that we have to go invade Iraq because he has weapons of mass destruction, and you’re some type of leftist homo if you don’t agree with that.
Speaker: 1
03:22:34
That was the entire culture in this country. And it was the one thing that the New York Ai and Bill O’Reilly and CNN and the Washington Post all agreed on. They were all on board selling this war. You could not do that today. They could not get away with that today.
Speaker: 1
03:22:49
Because if they did, how do you control this entire problem? You tell me. Mhmm. How do you control Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson? You know?
Speaker: 1
03:22:56
How do you get these guys to go they’re not gonna go along with it. And in fact, they’re almost definitely gonna have people on their show who are just tearing it apart. And so I just look at that, and I go ai, yo. I mean, we’re at a place now where we have this world of possibilities that that would have seemed impossible just so recently.
Speaker: 1
03:23:15
And so just thinking, like, all of that rambling stew, whatever all that was, that leaves me feeling very, very hopeful for the future.
Speaker: 0
03:23:25
Yeah. There’s a a lot of social and political progress in that rambling stew over the over the decades and the centuries. For me, probably some of the technological progress is really exciting. Me personally, it just fills me with hope whenever I see the the rockets go up to clarify.
Speaker: 1
03:23:43
Not the ones going into Gaza, the ones going into outer speak. Ai I assume.
Speaker: 0
03:23:47
You had to clarify the Epstein thing, the Epstein rule. I have to clarify exactly which rockets SpaceX and Blue Origin rockets. So taking humans out to space and, yeah, for us to be among the stars. Like, it makes me feel like we’re gonna make it Because, the bleaker times throughout human history, you think I mean, there’s just a sense you’re right.
Speaker: 0
03:24:13
And during COVID, there’s a sense of, ai, for many reasons, maybe just a simple psychological human reason, it felt ai bleak. Like, fuck. I don’t think we, as a civilization, are arya ai. If we can’t handle this pandemic from a policy perspective, from a human perspective, economic perspective, like, this is, like, pandemic light.
Speaker: 0
03:24:36
There’s going to be other bigger troubles coming our way. Yeah. And then now you have this kinda again, the the rockets are going up. It’s like we you know? First of all, we’ll colonize space and other planets, and we like, we’re in inventive motherfuckers. We’ll figure it out.
Speaker: 1
03:24:54
Yeah. And then certainly, you know, like, for me, just personally because this has, like, really touched my life. But, you know, like, the the innovations in medical technology are just done. And, you know, my my, son, had a congenital heart defect and open heart surgery when he was three days old.
Speaker: 1
03:25:14
And, I mean, this is like something that twenty years ago I would have lost my child, you know? And he’s fine. Just absolutely ai. Because it’s just amazing what these surgeons and cardiologists and, you know, neonatologists and all of them, what they do now is like goddamn magic.
Speaker: 1
03:25:30
And so there was always something about that that would it was almost like that inoculated me against ever having a sense of, like, well, I wish it was a previous ai. Because, like, now, sorry, in a previous time, I lose my kids. So I don’t meh whatever other challenges there are out here.
Speaker: 1
03:25:46
Like, I’ll take that trade off where this baby survives and gets a shot at having a life. And there is a lot of that stuff is is just kinda easy to take for granted. And it’s ai, you know, when it touches your life, it’s you don’t take it for granted as much, but it’s just ai, now it really is it is there are miracles going on all over the place now that, like, everybody in human history did not have access to.
Speaker: 1
03:26:08
Alright, brother.
Speaker: 0
03:26:09
It’s great to finally meet a friend and have a conversation.
Speaker: 1
03:26:12
Yeah. I really enjoyed this.
Speaker: 0
03:26:13
And, I can’t wait to talk to you again, brother.
Speaker: 1
03:26:16
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Speaker: 0
03:26:18
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Dave Smith. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now meh me leave you some words from Ron Paul. Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it’s wrong. Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time ai.
