 Good day, May 40 here, back at UCLA. My iPhone just cut off on my last stream because the sun was bearing directly on it. So iPhone overheat really easily when you're live streaming and if they're getting direct sunlight, you can go about 10 minutes max before the iPhone's just gonna do an automatic hot temperature shutdown. So I was just musing on Australia getting their first prime minister who doesn't have an Anglo-Saxon or a Celtic name. And so the new prime minister, the 31st prime minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, all right, is obviously of Italian heritage. So I didn't know, don't think I knew any Italians growing up, that the only thing I knew about Italians, and I didn't even think about this, is that there are a whole bunch of slurs for them. I think WAP and Diego, like don't be a Diego, or you're dressing like a Diego. And I never really thought about any Italian connection, but God forbid I just grew up using all these different slurs. And thank God there's probably less of that in Australia now. So our first prime minister without an Anglo-Saxon or a Celtic name. So I'm listening to Thomas Hobbes Leviathan and some very arresting passages. It's beautifully written. This book was published in 1651. And I just listened to this passage that said that when all men have rights to all things, that necessarily leads to war. And Thomas Hobbes is the most important political theorist who's ever written in the English language. And he's been called like the father of totalitarianism or a total government. And so his thesis is that in the state of nature, all men have all rights to all things that they can get, in the state of nature, you take everything you can get because the more you take, the safer you'll get. And I'm just thinking about America since the 1960s and the Civil Rights Revolution. We've, from a liberal conception, we've had these ever-increasing, ever-evolving rights, right? And so with this explosion of rights, we've had this explosion in litigation. So can you get an explosion in rights without an explosion in litigation? Probably the litigation explosion, probably far more intense in the United States than in England or Australia. Have I even read Loki? No, but I'm watching the Northman on Richard Spencer's recommendation. So compelling, but just two viewing sessions so far have only gotten through 20 minutes because I've been getting to it at the end of the day and then I'm realizing this is way too intense to take in at the end of the day. Let me watch Fresh Meat Instead, which is a four-season British comedy about kids at university in Central England or Northern England, Fresh Meat. Highly recommended after you watch Peepshow, another British TV comedy. But yeah, Hobbes says in the state of nature, life is solitary, nasty, British and short, which seems to be a good description of the direction of America since the Civil Rights Revolution in the 1960s. So I was just listening to Ezra Klein of the New York Times interview, Patrick DeNeen. And you think you enjoy a solitary life. You don't really. You have intimations that there's an ordinary world out there that you have yet to find. And you'll one day find that ordinary world of human connection and you'll start living the life of Duran Duran. But Ezra Klein was saying to Patrick DeNeen is this right-wing, fairly angry right-wing professor of the classics, I believe, at Notre Dame University. And Ezra Klein keeps saying to me, I don't know what you're so angry about and which rights do you want to restrict? Like, where do you think Americans have too much freedom? So if you're watching this stream, you probably don't think that Americans suffer from an excess of freedom. You probably don't think that the Civil Rights Revolution gave us more freedom. But from the liberal perspective, America is always evolving towards an increasingly free place where we have more and more rights and we have more and more equity. Yeah, all the kids walking by 40 think he's some base high IQ professor. So there's some sort of graduation going on today and UCLA has like ethnic graduations. Like black students have their own graduation. Like Asian students seem to have their own graduation. Latino students have their own graduation. So they're like all these different racial types of graduation at UCLA. Probably reflecting different levels of academic accomplishment and different majors. So the only stylistic difference that I see walking around separate but equal graduations. Yeah, the only stylistic difference that I see between now walking around UCLA in 1988 is a lot more cell phones. But people are very polite here. Like I don't hear people carrying on really loud cell phone conversations. A lot of the Asian students wearing masks. Remember when I went here in 1988, I learned that UCLA stood for United Caucasians lost among Asians. So I think when I was here in 1988, there are twice as many Asians as there were Caucasians. And I remember there was very dramatic affirmative action differences. So pretty much all the white and Asian students were getting into UCLA with like a 4.3 GPA because they'd taken honors classes or a 4.2. And then the many of the black and Latino students that I met at UCLA, they got in with like a 3.0. And then they would generally take fairly soft majors like black studies or communication. So there was very dramatic affirmative action differences in the late 1980s. And then California got rid of affirmative action. And now it's coming back. So Hobbes, it's interesting in Leviathan, he makes this case for censorship. So he says that the sovereign should have the right to regulate opinion. Meaning to regulate what's possible to discuss publicly. And so he wanted the sovereign to regulate what could be said in church, what could be said publicly, and what could be published. Yeah, they want us to pay for their ethnic studies and women history degrees by giving money to the bank's yard. This loan forgiveness program just seems insane. Why reward people for their bad decisions? I don't know about you, but I worked my way through college. Like I would sometimes work 100 hour weeks. Like I would work from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. sometimes working construction. And so I developed about $40,000 in savings while I was going through college. And I started off at, took a year off after high school and worked and saved about $16,000 from doing that. And then I worked construction during community college and saved another $25,000. Invested in Fidelity Magellan Mutual Fund. Pulled it out before the big, big crash in 1987. So I had over $40,000 in savings. And so this idea of just learn forgiveness just seems crazy. Why reward people for making bad decisions? And for probably what? At least half of college students going to college is a bad decision. They'd be far better off learning the trades. Now in Germany, learning a trade is much more honored. So in Australia, traditionally only about 5% of students have gone on to university. So people weren't expected to go to college in Australia. Most kids dropped out of high school in 10th grade and then got an apprenticeship. And that was an honored and respectable way to go. It's the same in Europe, same in Australia. It's only in America. There's this crazy idea that everyone should go to college. Like Americans have this venerable like Americans have this veneration of education which is far out of touch with reality. Yeah, create tomorrow a hazard or these new students picking college courses, they think it's free. And yeah, you make bad decisions when you don't hold people accountable for the consequences of what they're doing. So why reward those making reckless decisions or like taking on hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans? I carried over $50,000 in credit card debt for about eight years, right? And it never occurred to me to declare bankruptcy. Like a lot of people are telling me, oh, just declare bankruptcy. It never occurred to me to do that. College is supposed to be for engineering or debating and bouncing ideas off each other because it's become limited in speech too. So I knew that I'd be able to work my way out of my debt and I did. I failed out of college, became suicidally depressed and I joined in trade union and it put my life on a good solid path as Alexander. Yeah. So the trades in America, they don't get nearly the honor and respect that they do in Australia, but in Australia, trade is, business is booming. I mean, they earn way over six figures. I mean, trade is doing really well in Australia and have done so for decades. So, yeah, anyway, as your clients talking to Patrick DeNines, like, which freedoms do you want to restrict so that people make more traditional choices? And a real man works with these hands says, Elliot, I don't venerate either working with your hands or working with a computer. I don't think either is better. I declared bankruptcy on my credit cards five years ago. The best decision I could do, I had more maximum credit available, higher score and less debt. Maybe I think it's bad for your soul. How much credit card debt did you have when you declared bankruptcy? So I was just raised with the ethos that you pay your debts. So it was never an option that I took seriously. And eventually I just knuckle down, took extra work, working about 60 hours a week. 18,000, dude, you declared bankruptcy on 18,000, I carried over 50,000 for about eight years. And then I started working 40 to 60 hours a week and paid it all off in about two years. So once I knuckle down and got serious, then I started making twice as much money per hour. I went from about 18 an hour to 35 an hour. And then I went from working 20 to 30 hours a week to working 40 to 60 hours a week, all with the inspiration of Trump did it, he's doing fine. Don't think Trump has ever declared personal bankruptcy. He declared bankruptcy on his businesses. Nick Fuente has been captured on video disparaging people who work construction. Yeah, this reinforces how out of touch he is. Yeah, it's stupid to disparage people who work construction or work with their hands. Like honorable work is such a beautiful thing. It's about the most ennobling thing you can do. It's to do an honest day's work. Like when I work landscaping, when I did a good job, when I put in the irrigation pipe correctly, when I wired everything down correctly, the banks screwed me with 24% lines, kept upping my credit limits when I was a teenager. They were predators, no, they weren't predators. I couldn't get out yet. You could have worked your way out. The banks weren't predators. If you're gonna say that the banks were predators and you're saying that you are not someone who is responsible for his behavior, I paid them enough in interest. So as a client saying, Patrick, to me, what freedoms do you wanna restrict in America? And that's not how those of us on the right, we want people to have the freedom of association, freedom of who they hire. Mango Gym says total disaster down under labor one. Australia's gonna become dysfunctional. Labor one, by a very tiny, tiny, tiny year of manual labor should be a predicate for applying for a student. I don't agree with that either. I don't think there's anything inherently more ennobling about manual labor compared to white collar labor. Like all honorable legal work is honorable and is good for you and is ennobling. So Australia's not moving left. Australia's got the most narrow coalition for the labor party. Australia's been kind of mirroring the American election results. So in 2016, manual labor puts you in touch with reality. So does white collar labor, right? You can do labor one with only 31% of the primary vote. Look, are you worried about monkeypox? It's mostly in men that have, yeah, I noticed that it's monkeypox is mainly in saunas. In other words, gay bathhouses. So that's another result when you expand, right? So there's no longer any stigma attached to massive amounts of gay promiscuity and to gay bathhouses and to the gay hookup scene when the stigma was removed in the 1960s and 70s, then you had an explosion of gay promiscuity and with it you got AIDS and all sorts of other nasty diseases. Careful touching door handles and counterpoint. No, you don't get these nasty diseases from touching door handles. You have to have unprotected anal sex with dudes guy or exchange intravenous needles. I don't plan to do that. So Australia's following America's political lead. So Trump won a surprising victory, populist victory among the working class in 2016. Then Scott Morrison and the conservative coalition won a surprising shocking victory in 2019. Then 2020, Joe Biden just squeaked by with a much narrower victory margin than was predicted by the polls. Now, Anthony Albanese in the Labour Party in Australia squeaked in much more narrow victory than was predicted by the polls. I'm not even sure Labour's gonna have a majority government. They're not gonna be, I can't imagine they're gonna be able to pass anything significant. I'll be doing my 20th consecutive day of century deprivation says Elliot. So Joe Biden has been able to pass any significant legislation. I don't think Anthony Albanese will too. So there's a possibility that Albanese shows himself to be an effective prime minister and then will become more popular. But the odds are that Australia's heading into a recession and the government is gonna cop it. I don't expect that Albanese is gonna be any more successful than Joe Biden at making any important legislative accomplishments. I just don't see it. So I think the coalition will rebound, the conservative coalition in Australia will rebound under Peter Dutton. It's a majority government, 76 in the lower house. Labour's got 76 because when I checked, about three hours ago, Labour was only on 72 seats. So even if they're on 76, yeah, they can form a government. But it'll be very, very narrow. So they'll also have to depend on the cooperation of independents and greens to pass anything through the US, through the Senate. So the one thing that Australia copied, the US government system is that they have a Senate that must approve and pass all legislation, including a budget. So liberals think that, no, this is UCLA, mate, hanging out at a Bruin Walk. So liberals think that they're ever increasing freedom, but from a non-liberal perspective, I experienced, generally speaking, a considerable reduction in freedom since the 1960s. So you have less freedom of association, less freedom in who you can rent to, less freedom in who you can employ. So there's less public trust, there's less social capital. And so people are retreating more from other people, they're participating in the wider society less. So it's not like you can ever increase rights for one particular group without taking rights away from other groups. You increase rights for renters, you decrease rights for owners, right? You forgive loans, all right? You are saying that those who didn't take out loans are suckers. So I would like to see a return to the original US Constitution like prior to the 1965 Voting Rights Act when people could hire who they wanted, who they could rent, who they wanted. They had more freedom of speech, right? I didn't vote for Joe Biden. I just never thought that Joe Biden was gonna be a disaster. I didn't think Joe Biden was gonna be a disaster. I don't think he's been a disaster. He's not been able to pass anything, right? He has no margin for error. He's not able to pass any legislation. And Anthony Albanese, the new Australian Prime Minister, I don't expect that he's gonna have any ability to pass anything. So I'm reading Hobbes' Leviathan and he talks about that if you control people's opinions, you can control their behavior. And so I thought Biden was gonna be boring business as usual. I think that's what he has been. Like there's much less, I think, interest in politics now compared to when Trump was running. Like cable news ratings are way down. So Biden is fairly boring. But Hobbes claims that if you control people's opinions, that you can control their action. And I don't see that, right? I don't think people's actions are governed primarily by their opinions. People's actions are governed by a situation. So I don't think we are significantly reducing violence and division in this country by a restricting opinion. Biden is a boring center left Democrat. The far left lunatics like AOC have no impact over anything, yeah. And so who could be the Democratic candidate in 2024? Because I don't think anyone but Biden could win 2024. I think it's looking very good for Republicans this midterms and looking very good for Republicans in 2024. Burkheim depressed even though Albanese is an old boy of my school, Christian brother of St. Mary's Cathedral, he turned socialist communist. Yeah, but he ran a very pragmatic campaign. He announced he's not woke. The policies of the labor government hardly differ at all from the policies of the conservative coalition. I just don't see any reason for you to be depressed. It's not gonna make any difference in your life. All right, for your real life, it hasn't made any difference whether Biden or Trump was in power. It's not gonna, I don't see how it's gonna make much of it indifferent to your average Australian whether Scott Morrison or Anthony Albanese is the prime minister. Now for political mavens for whom politics is adrenaline rush and it's a source of excitement, then if your guy doesn't win there can be an absolute crash. But as far as significance, I don't see Australia moving significantly to the left. Yeah, if you get depressed about elections then you need to get help. Except temporarily. All right, except temporarily. If you care about politics, I care about politics and you feel depressed for a day or two or three or a week I think that's a perfectly normal natural reaction. If you lose a girlfriend, let's say you've had a girlfriend for six months and you break up with her it makes sense to mope about it and feel sad about it and complain about it for a few weeks. But if you're still doing it a year later then obviously there's something wrong. So anytime you have a significant loss and if you're heavily invested in politics and your party loses, that's a significant loss. If you lose a girlfriend, if you lose status, prestige, lose a community, you lose friends, you lose a job, you lose out on an opportunity, no more natural reaction is to feel sad. Judas says I wasted seed twice today. Judas, and to think I was gonna send you a text and say, oh, you wanna meet up at UCLA and go for a walkabout. But bro, people don't wanna hear publicly about the wasting of seed. Oh, four times total this weekend. Okay, Judas, and to think I was just about to say, Judas, we should meet up at UCLA, go on a walkabout and I don't know, it's just, well, no, if I meet up with Judas, he'll tell me about how many times he's wasted seed recently and I think I'm just gonna pass on that. I think I'd rather walk around UCLA on my own and listen to Thomas Hobbes. So yeah, Hobbes says if the government control people's opinion, then they can control their behavior. And so with ever increasing restrictive speech codes in America, like various parts of America trying to restrict our publicly stated opinions, but is that really going to restrict people's actions? And I'm not sure, that's my open question. If you restrict people's opinions, do you really restrict their actions? Like if you restrict what can be preached from the pulpit, if you can restrict what text they can read, if you restrict what people can surf on the internet, you really restrict their behavior. So I'm at UCLA, bro, I'm on Bruin Walk. So I was listening to Mickey Kaus on Friday and he made the argument that Republicans and nobody should mention the great replacement, let alone push the great replacement because it's a conspiracy theory that leads people to violent behavior. And I was thinking about it and I don't push the great replacement, it's not language that I use, I don't think it's useful. I think if you wanna be accurate, you could call it the great dilution. If you want to talk about it, but obviously the great dilution is not nearly as compelling as the great replacement. But just because you've got a hot button issue that causes people to commit criminal violence, does that then mean that you should not use that rhetoric in public? I think it's a serious question. I don't use the great replacement rhetoric, it's not how I see reality. And I do think if people are going out and committing criminal violence using certain rhetoric that that should have a discouraging effect on one for using the same rhetoric, but it doesn't mean that you can't talk about those hot button issues. I really liked Tucker Carlson's response. So I'm glad that Tucker Carlson was not intimidated. So take the hot button issue of abortion, right? People sometimes go out, God forbid, and kill abortion doctors. And I think that's a natural consequence of the conservative argument that abortion is murder. Like if you really believe that abortion is murder, then going out and killing people to commit murder, God forbid, is still rational. But 99% of people who argue that abortion is murder, they don't actually believe it. But a tiny percentage of people do, and then they go out and they commit murder. And a lot of abortion doctors are absolutely afraid because they do get targeted because abortions become such a hot button issue. But the reason abortions are hot button issue in America is not really because of abortion, right? There's no inherent reason for Christians and trads to be up in arms about abortion. Abortion is a way of talking about race without talking about race. So because conservatives can't explicitly campaign pitching to white people, they look for an issue that would unite the right, would unite Protestants, Catholics, evangelicals, traditionalists, and this anti-elite, anti-sexual freedom, anti-excess argument of pro-life is a way for conservatives to unite. But just because people are talking about abortion doesn't really mean that abortion's what's really going on. It's just a way to talk about race in disguise, a way that's socially acceptable. But some people don't get that, all right? Most people don't get that. Most people think that abortion's a hot button issue because it's really all about abortion and it's a matter of life and death. And those people who don't get it, some of them become dangerous and they become violent. But because there are awful people out there who are committing criminal acts against abortion providers, does that mean that we should not talk about abortion, that we should not have hot button debates on abortion, that people should not be allowed to say that abortion is murder, that social media companies should forbid anyone making the argument that abortion is murder? No, obviously that's ridiculous to restrict political speech that way. So too, I think it's ridiculous to restrict speech about the great replacement that way, even though I don't believe in the great replacement. So I noticed that Facebook has forbidden its employees from talking about abortion at work. So yeah, you really don't wanna be hitting hot button issues at work, right? Don't get talking about hot button controversial issues like abortion, like politics, like sex and religion at work, or with people you don't know because it can just often lead to incendiary responses that you're not getting to like. So I'm morally pro-life. I think in the overwhelming majority of cases, 95%, 98% of cases of abortion, it is immoral to have an abortion. On the other hand, I don't wanna make it illegal. It's not an issue that I think about that much, but I agree with Dennis Prager that morally and emotionally I'm on the side of the pro-life crowd and legally I'm on the side of the pro-choice crowd. And I also agree that Roe v. Wade was terrible, terrible law, and whether or not abortion is legal should be in the hands of the state. Should be in the hands of the states, meaning in the hands of the citizens who get to vote for their representatives who can then vote whether or not they wanna make abortion legal. So if you're against what seems to be this current coming U.S. Supreme Court decision reversing Roe v. Wade, you are against democracy because reversing Roe v. Wade will increase democracy and I think it will increase, I think it will increase democratic participation. The Democratic Party should get more voters. It should be good for the Democrats politically. Okay, going back to listening to Thomas Hobbs, bye-bye.