 The radical. Fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to the Iran Book Show on this Thursday. It's only this afternoon already. A little late for a news update, but best time of the day. All right, let's jump right into the news update. And that is, it looks like Republicans and Democrats have come together. It sends a chill down my spine when I say that Democrats and Republicans together. I mean, is there anything more scary than bipartisanship? Is there anything more scary than when Republicans and Democrats agree with one another? In this case, Democrats and Republicans have agreed to take your hard-earned money. 1.7 trillion of your hard-earned money. Actually, it's not just your money. It's not just your money right now. They've agreed. They've come together and agreed, you know, bipartisan fashion, to put you into debt, to put all of us into debt, to spend a lot more money than they're taking in. They've agreed on 1.7 trillion dollar budget for next year. 1.7 trillion. That's a thousand billions, which is a thousand millions. It's a thousand, thousand millions. It's a million millions. 1.7. Did I get that math right? I think I got it right. I mean, do you have any doubt that if we start peeling away... I mean, just take your income and think about how many times that goes into 1.7 trillion. I mean, all of our income, our lifetime income, even if you make good living, is a rounding error on a 1.7 trillion dollar budget. I mean, how many people do you think pocket the rounding error? I think quite a few pocket the rounding errors in their budgets over there. And is there any doubt that if we start peeling away at the details of this 1.7 trillion dollar budget, if we start peeling away a little bit at them, that we will discover just BS upon BS upon BS of things that the government is going to spend money on, thousands of them, thousands of items in this budget that are completely ridiculous, completely absurd, that if we all knew about it, we would argue against them, even the status among us. Is there any question at all that it's completely corrupt to try to ramp through 1.7 trillion dollars worth of spending in just a few days and get everybody to vote on it? Again, you've got senators who are voting on amendments. They want a little bit of this and a little bit of that and a little bit of here and a little bit of there. And of course, you know, you've got 1.7 trillion. Republicans are going to vote for this. Significant number of Republicans, probably 10 to 20 Republicans are going to vote for this. 1.7 trillion dollar budget is going to pass. And the Republican has an amendment that says something about extending section 42. And there's a risk that the amendment would actually pass because some Democrats are going to vote for it to extend section 42. But if the amendment passes, the budget will fall because it won't get the 60 votes required to pass. So what they've done is they're offering two different amendments about immigration, but they've rooted it in such a way that it's guaranteed that both of them will fail. And if they fail, then the budget can, I mean, all of this, all of the stuff, because not a single one of those senators, not a single one of them cares one iota about what's actually in the 1.7 trillion dollar budget. Not one of them gives one iota about how your money is being spent. Not one of them cares about the size of government, the level of debt and what it's doing to our economy today, what it's doing to economy tomorrow, what it's doing to economy 10, 20 years in a not one single one of them cares about this. But what they care about is the theater. What they care about is their little amendments to show that they care about the current pet topic, the current pet issue. That's what they care about. And they care about of the 1.7 trillion. The only thing I hear Republicans complain about, including people like Massey and Paul, the only thing I hear them complain about is the 40 billion dollars going to Ukraine. I haven't heard anybody come out with a statement as one, as Rand Paul did when he was first senator. He's so mealy-mouthed today as compared to what he was. I don't know what was it 10, 15 years ago when he first became senator. I remember the first time he became senator, the first year he was senator. Rand Paul proposed cutting 500 billion dollars off of next year's budget. One time, not over 10 years, one time. And he got two other senators to vote with him, I think. It was Ted Cruz and Lee and Senator Lee. How the times have changed. How the times have changed. They've all become different versions of status. It's all of them. Nobody, nobody is talking about. Nobody is talking about now cutting, spending. Yeah, they're all going to vote against the 1.7 trillion, but they're going to do it quietly. And they're going to propose amendments that have nothing to do with the 1.7 trillion. And they're going to be loud about the 40 billion in spending, in the money going to Ukraine, because that's the issue of the day. And to hell with the fact that the government's bankrupting all of us, tell the fact that it's causing us to have lower economic growth, lower standard of living. It's increasing poverty in America, or at least sustaining poverty in America. It's destroying us, the government involvement in every aspect of our life. None of that matters. Oh, but we can't give, you know, the 40 billion in Ukraine, that I'm willing to, I'm willing to really make a big stink over. Not following my sword, God forbid. It's going to pass anyway. But, you know, it's unbelievable what passes for politics in Washington, D.C. It's unbelievable what these clowns are doing and in the way they're behaving. Nobody cares, right? Nobody cares. You know, nobody's talking about what they used to talk about. Republicans used to talk about social security reform, talk about Medicare reform. You know, Paul Ryan, the so-called sellout, proposed a budget once converting Medicare into a voucher system. I mean, real innovations, real things that would have a real positive lasting impact. No, now all they can talk about is a tinker here and a tinker there, and let's go make a big stink about illegal immigrants, because that I know my voters care about. My voters don't care about, I mean, my voters don't want to reform Medicare. Remember those signs in the Tea Party? Keep your hands off of my Medicare. So this is the world in which $1.7 trillion is going to be voted on tonight in a rush session, both in the Senate and the House. They're going to do their amendments. They're going to do their theater. We're going to get the theater to get out of the way. We know what the voter's going to be. They're going to pass the budget. Biden will sign it, avoid a government shutdown, and we'll all be happy because everything continues like it always has. No, we don't have to think. We don't have to be challenged. We don't have to, you know, we don't have to consider trade-offs. We just spend everything like we did last year, maybe a little bit extra, throwing a little bit extra. In the meantime, our economy is teetering on the precipice of a recession. The Federal Reserve is trying fanically to figure out how to stop inflation. They're doing it through means of central planning, which are going to result in some devastating outcomes. And the federal government is pretending that there's no issue. They can just continue to spend, and spend, and spend, and spend, and nothing will ever happen. All right. David, thank you for the support. Anonymous user, thank you for the support. Really appreciate it. You can use the Super Chat feature to ask questions. Please do. We've got a goal for each one of these morning, afternoon shows of $250. We are only 10% there. So we've got a way to go. All right. Zelensky. Zelensky last night gave a speech in front of the Joint Congress, Senate and House. Got a lot of standing ovations. The speech was, I don't think, was anything special, but it certainly wasn't philosophical. It certainly didn't go to the root cause of what is going on. Over there, it didn't go to the root cause of war, or to the root cause of what Russia is doing. It didn't describe motivation to Russia. It didn't quite, I think, emphasize the degree of evil that Russia is and its impact. But I thought it was probably effective for what he wanted. I think his main goal was to say, look, I'm not asking you to send troops, but I am asking you to send weapons. And I'm not asking you, and this was an important line, I thought in the speech, I'm not asking this as a form of charity. So I thought the speech was amazingly non-explicitly altruistic. He said in the speech, your money is not charity. It's an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way. So his argument is, look, Putin's a threat. He's a threat to all free nations. He's a threat to you Americans, even if you can't identify it directly. We are fighting the wolf for you. This is not charity. This is an investment in your future. This is an investment in your security. This was, I think, basically a good speech, a speech that most Republicans gave a standing ovation several times, including the Democrats. He has an opposition on both the far left and in some Republican quarters. I mean, it's bizarre how the world has changed. The Ukrainian cause 10 years ago, and certainly anytime before that, going back to the Cold War, would have been a Republican cause. His biggest allies would have been Republicans. And it's the Republican party's growing flirtation with authoritarianism, i.e. Putin, Orban, people like that will get to Orban in a little bit, that assoured them on it. They don't want to be fighting Putin because they like Putin. So it's a Republican party's flirtation with authoritarianism and the positives of authoritarianism which are leading them to question this. And it's the Republican party's, which is interesting, the Republican party's move away from American exceptionalism, move away from, and this is entrenched in the national conservatives, move away from the idea of liberty and freedom as universal values, move away from the idea of authoritarianism and dictatorships as universal evils, and, you know, let each country do as it will, not just from a foreign policy perspective, but from a philosophical perspective as well. It is really tragic to see how weak the Republican party is now on foreign policy. It's not that they have a, well, only do things in our own national self-defense and will be rigorous about it. No, now it's almost a form of anti-Americanism, a rejection of anything that America does overseas. And partially it's because America is not worthy, particularly not if Biden is president. So it's pretty disgusting to see, I mean, I find it disgusting, really disgusting, to see the Republican response as Zelensky. I think Zelensky, I've said this from the beginning of the war, Zelensky is a hero. He is the most heroic political figure in the world right now. I think he's the most admirable political figure in the world right now. He is fighting for his country's survival. He's fighting for his country's sovereignty. Against a brutal dictator who initiated, started a horrific war. He has been an exceptional, exceptional war president. The most exceptional, I think, since FDR and Churchill. This is a great man at this moment in the way he's handled himself since the beginning of the war. And for people not to recognize that and for people to poo-poo him and to make fun of him and to libertarians and conservatives, I find that disgusting and horrific. And again, revealing of the true nature of paleo-libertarians and these paleo-conservatives. And that is that they sympathize, and the same goes with Elon Musk, that they sympathize with authoritarianism, they sympathize with the dictators, they sympathize with the strong man, the Vladimir Putins of the world. So, horrible. Anyway, he gave a good speech for what it was. It was shallow, it was empty, but that's what politicians do. Again, I think the key that he wanted to express was, we're fighting this war partially for you, invest in us. He literally says, I'm not asking for American troops. Where's that section? See if I highlighted it. Maybe I did not. He says, I'm not asking for American troops, I'm just asking for weapons. We can manage running those weapons. Which is interesting because he's going to get one Patriot missile battery. I did not realize this, but I was reading this morning. Do you know how many people it takes to man a Patriot missile battery? Patriot missiles are ground to air missiles that can knock out of the sky. The missiles that the Russians are firing. It can't do much. I don't think with artillery shells, but it can get the missiles. It can get drones and it can get airplanes. It's particularly good on airplanes and on missiles. You can have other systems it can get. But do you know how many people it takes to run one Patriot missile system? 90, 90. That is a stunning number. It's a stunning number. 90 people to run one. They're not going to get that Patriot battery system up and running until the spring. 90. It's going to take months of training. It is an unbelievably complex system that's going to require massive training. One system is eight batteries, I think. I don't know exactly how it breaks down and there must be a back thing and coordinate it all. But one battery system like that could go a long way for defending Kiev and stopping missile attacks on Kiev. It couldn't cover the whole airspace of Ukraine though. Ukraine is a big country. All right. I love it when people say Russia is not fighting for real. If Russia fought for real, they'd win. It's the same people who said Russia is going to win this like that. It's going to be a few minutes. Give me a break. The only thing Russia has not deployed, the only thing Russia has not deployed, the only aspect in which Russia has not fought this for real is they have not deployed nuclear weapons. Everything else in the arsenal has been deployed and they are losing big time because they are a pathetic army and I told you that on day one of the war. It's a pathetic army that even the Ukrainians can defeat. A Ukrainian with Western armory could devastate. And if the West actually opened up and gave them all the arms that they wanted, the Ukrainians would crush the Russians. Russia is not and never has been. I don't think even in the Soviet era it had numbers, but it had the most awful equipment in the West was years ahead of it. I'd say since the 80s the United States and the West and not just the United States because the whole West develops sophisticated systems are decades ahead of Russia in terms of developing weapon systems, decades ahead of the Russians developing weapon systems. The Russians have never been able to integrate advanced technology into their weapons systems and you can delude yourself all you want about Russian strength. I don't know what the incentive is to delude yourself about that. I guess it's a lover Putin without a shirt on that is a man's man. But the difference between me and you is I fought against Russian equipment. I fought against T-72s. I fought against these weapons systems. I know what they're worth and they are pieces of shit to put it technically. All right. Quick update on FTX. FTX is the crypto exchange. The CEO of Alameda and Sam's co-founder have both cut deals with the government. They have both pled guilty to numerous counts of fraud and then they have both cut deals with the government to get later sentences in exchange for them helping them out in the prosecution of Sam Bedford Freed. Those of you who thought that, you know, that SBF was going to get off easy because I don't know he's given money, you know, you're delusional. The fact is he's being brought and going to be prosecuted in the southern district of New York, district and yet he is going to spend time in jail. He is, you know, the fact that they flipped on him and they flipped on him so quickly and so early, you've got to know that the feds have a solid case against him. And yeah, he's going to jail for fraud. It couldn't happen to a more, you know, what is it? Anyway, his altruism will be, you know, tested, I guess, in jail. We'll see how that works for him in there. Will he survive jail? I don't know. I mean, usually for fraud cases, they put you in pretty low security kind of jail like what's his name, the big pyramid scheme guy. But anyway, he'll be in a low security jail. I'm sure he'll survive it. The question is how long will he have to be there? And what toll will it take on him made off? And of course, there's going to be made off as the guy I was thinking of. But of course, there's going to be, I mean, we'll see what kind of ripple effects there are from all of this and where it all goes. All right, let's see. Yeah, quickly, I should have flipped these two topics because Oban is more interesting. Oban, who has become, Victor Oban, who is the president of Hungary, the country, not Hungary for food, but Hungary, the country. You know, Oban, who is the darling of the American right these days, is the darling of the conservative movement. They've even had a CPAC, the conservative big conference in Hungary to show how much they love this guy. Oban, of course, Hungary is a part of the European Union. And Oban is struggling right now. He's struggling primarily because he, the Hungarian economy is really doing badly. It is, I can't find the article. Anyway, it's running 22% inflation. It's got real growth issues. It's not doing well. And of course, the reason it's got 22% inflation, and this is part of the whole mythology of the evil of the euro, is because it's not part of the euro. So the Hungarian, Hungary has its own national currency. It's not part of the euro. And of course, once you have your own national currency, and you've got a strong man at the top, when you get into a bit of economic challenges, a little bit of economic problems, what do you do? You print money. You stop printing money. So money rains down. You know, you print money and you get inflation. So Hungary has high inflation. It has a shitty economy, awful economy. And it basically survives, and I'd say thrives, because if you look at growth, the Hungarian economy grows. But how does it grow? The economy is not very good, and it's got this high inflation, and what's going on? And by the way, it's got this pretty bad economy, in spite of the fact that it has really good tax rates. It's got flat taxes, low taxes. It's got one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world. Oban is thinking of lowering taxes. I think income tax is zero if you're under 30, which is a stupid policy. But anyway, the emphasis is on low taxes, but because of corruption, because of centralization under Oban, because of government regulations and controls, and because they have kept their own currency and therefore print their own money, their economy is in problem. But the reason it grows, their ability to actually sustain the economy, is a consequence of the fact that they get tens of billions of dollars from the European Union. Basically, they are one of those countries that are subsidized by, let me think, Germany. I mean, they're basically subsidized by northern European countries, Germany, France, Netherlands, I think some of the Scandinavian countries, those are the countries that put money into the system. And then they are countries that take money out of the system. Hungary is a country that takes money out of the system. And it is squabbling with the EU. It is fighting with the EU. It's interesting, Oban is one of Putin's biggest allies in Europe, and yet he has not stopped the European Union for imposing sanctions on Putin. Why? Because he knows that if he had sided with Putin explicitly and stopped what he's done is he's not voted against him, he's not voted for them, which is fine. But if he votes against them, they stop. Why is he not voting against them? He's not voting against them because he knows that if he votes against them, the spigot of money from the EU to Hungary gets shut down, gets shut down. Blue states do subsidize red states. That's a reality. California pays much more into the federal government. California taxes pay much more into the federal government. Then California draws out of the federal government. And Mississippi, Alabama, spend a lot less into the federal government and they take out much more than the federal government. If you look at blue state versus red state, it's pretty overwhelming. Although Florida now flipping red maybe changes that but not dramatically. And that's a real issue, right? It's a real issue for Republicans that their states economically suck as much as they do. And Hungary's economy sucks. And to admire Hungary has, Roland says Hungary has a 27% VAT. It's the VAT, value added tax, the highest in the world. So he can present the world, this conservative, right, with flat tax and low corporate tax but the highest VAT in the world. I actually, if he eliminated corporate taxes, which he can't now because there's a minimum of 15% corporate tax that he signed onto as part of the European Union, but if he eliminated income tax and just had a VAT, that would be like a sales tax replacing an income tax and I would be all over that. I would rather have a situation where you pay only sales tax and no income and corporate taxes, but that's not going to happen. Anyway, I just want to point out that the conservatives love a president who runs a country that is economically, compared to the Czech Republic for example, no comparison, Czech Republic way ahead of Hungary, in terms of real economic growth and a lack of reliance on those other... By the way, it's not like red and blue states because red and blue states, they all, you know, they all are part of one federal government. There is no federal government in the EU. In the EU it's just straight subsidies. It's just straight subsidies, right? Just straight subsidies. Maybe we should think about why it is that blue states are as productive as they are and why it is that so many red states are not. Maybe that's worth thinking about. All right. Okay, one last quick story just because you did the cocaine yesterday. This is just a story I ran into today on the dispatch. Interesting, right? Drug Enforcement Agency announced this week it seized about 50 million fentanyl tablets of approximately 1,000 pounds of fentanyl powder in 2022. By their calculation enough of the synthetic opioid to produce 379 million potentially fatal doses. Hey, we could all commit suicide in the entire United States with that amount. The 50 million tablets seized were approximately doubled what the DEA captured in 2021 and a record 107,000 Americans died of drug overdose in 2021 but could be significantly higher for 2022. So this drug explosion is not just with regard to cocaine. It's obviously, as we know with fentanyl, the incentives to produce more and more of the stuff, the incentive to bring it into the country, to try to get people to use it, only go up as we make it illegal and round up all this stuff that is now not going to make it to the market. All we do is make it greater incentive for violence, greater incentive, higher prices, therefore even more incentive for violence. Drug policy in this country is an absolute disaster and all the enforcement and all the war on drugs that has been going on now since Nixon declared a war on drugs in the early 1970s has done zip, zilch, nothing other than kill a lot of people as a part of a massive war on drugs. So this is totally, totally horrific time to stop it and you can't have wars at the end of the day on inanimate objects. Not ones that are going to be successful anyway. Oh, there's Oban. I knew Oban was somewhere. All right, let's see. Okay, we have some time for super chat questions. We, about $150 short of our goal. Let's start with Adam who started us off early today. He said, Zalinsky misses the essential of the war because he does not know, I ran, solved what Marcy Shaw considers the unsolved problem of modern politics applied philosophy. Yes, I mean, I think from the little, I know, I've seen a Marcy Shaw. I mean, the big problems are basically the efficacy of reason which I ran solved and unless you solve that problem you keep falling into the trap of collectivism and collectivism is the cause of war. It is Russian collectivism as I've documented which is the cause of this war, Russian mysticism and Russian collectivism was the cause of this war. But, you know, it's not philosophical and nobody in our political realm today is going to identify collectivism as the cause of this and other wars. Nobody in our political world is going to blame Putin for being a mystic. Nobody in our world is going to identify the rejection of reason and a full understanding of reason as the fundamental problem that is, I think, driving people towards collectivism today. That's a philosophers to solve. It's been solved by I ran, but almost nobody knows. Nobody knows that. Again, I thought the speech was, given what it was, pretty good. Congress does this crazy standing ovation, stupid thing. It was written for Congress, it was written for the American people. Again, it was written to convey that this is not a sacrifice for America. Whether it is or it isn't, you can make the argument. But it was written to make the case that it was not. Dwight, thank you, really appreciate that. Dwight has brought us and Barry. Wow, Barry, thank you. So Barry, $100, Dwight, $50. I think we're basically, we basically got to our $250. Oh, $1.30 short. I'm sure somebody will step in and cover our $1.30 short. Thank you guys, really appreciate it. Bree asks, is Russia a real-life example of the society depicted in Atlas Shrugged? Productive people running for the hills, the cronies in power whistling past the graveyard, and the few good people trying to hold it together? Yeah, I mean, I think that's right, but I think every society that's falling apart is that. I mean, one of the real phenomenons in Russia right now is the massive brain drain that's happening in Russia. The tens of thousands of Russia's best engineers, anybody who can really find a job outside of Russia, is fleeing Russia. You know, most of them have gone to places like, you know, because they don't have visas and they don't have the ability to move, but if anybody can work remotely, anybody can find a job, has left and doesn't want to go into the army, and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, particularly young men have gone to Georgia. By the way, I will be in Budapest, I think, in March, giving a talk, so that'll be interesting, given how much I despise Orban to see what kind of response we get there. They really, a significant percentage of the population they love, so it'll be good to be speaking there. And I'll also be in Tbilisi, where I expect to see a lot of Russians, so it's going to be really interesting. I know that some of you on the chat have, don't think it's of any value to actually have firsthand experience, let's say with weapons or at war, or talking to people or traveling around the world. I know because you know better about the state of the world than anybody who actually goes and sees the world. But I will be spending four days, three days in Georgia, giving a bunch of talks, doing seminars over there, we've got a whole program. I expect there'll be a number of Russians there, so it'll be really interesting. They're also going to Kazakhstan, which they can get into without a visa. And then, I think the United States is missing, as usual, a fantastic opportunity to offer visas to these young Russians and bring them here. We need the workforce. We need the engineers. We need those people. So, you know, let's bring them over to the United States. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. Yeah, the great nation of Kazakhstan, it turns out, is better than staying in Russia. Kazakhstan right now is home to hundreds of thousands of Russians who have fled the amazing Russia, Putin's paradise that you adore, Edward, and that many on the right adore, and they'd rather live in the dumpster called Kazakhstan, because Russia is so horrific. The Russian economy is spiraling downwards. The standard of living quality of life is declining significantly and will continue to decline as 2013 continues. Yeah, it's not pretty for Russia. So, the people are running for the hills. Some people are staying, trying to hold it together. Hard to tell where the oligarchs are. It'd be interesting to see if they're in Russia. Many of them have homes in Dubai. They're a wonderful place in Dubai. They'd rather be in Dubai than Russia. Some of them have homes in Israel, the Jewish oligarchs. So, it's going to be interesting to see where they actually are. We don't know. Maybe we can use that jet-tracking thing. You're not supposed to do it on Twitter, but maybe somebody else will allow it to track the oligarchs jet, and we can see. So, yes, we, at the shrug, but that happens in every civilization that collapses. Gail, it says, I thought it was refreshing that Zelensky used the victory word. The U.S. has removed it from the vocabulary. Absolutely. Absolutely. He used it several times. He's used it throughout from the beginning. Again, I am a huge admirer of Zelensky. Again, as a political leader, I don't think there's anybody on the world stage today that comes close to his courage and to his ability to motivate his people and look what they've done. I mean, what they've done on the battlefield is astounding, and the casualties on the Russian side are truly, truly horrific. You've probably got 100,000 Russians who are dead or injured, or more than 100,000 dead and injured. Those are big numbers, big, big numbers. A lot of families ripped the shreds over this war for what? For nothing, for nada. And Ukrainians have taken casualties, I think, less than the Russians on the one hand, but also they know why they're fighting. They're fighting for their homes. They're fighting for their freedom. What are the Russians fighting for? For Putin's grandiosity. For Putin's mysticism. Michael says, would cursing and profanity exist in an objective world, given how benevolent and wonderful the world would be, why would people ever feel the need to swear? I mean, bad things are still going to happen to you. Things, you're going to be frustrated by stuff. I mean, let's not make this into some kind of, you know, ridiculous utopia. I don't know. I mean, it depends. Some profanity is useful in particular context. So, yeah, I don't think it's a world without it. I think it's a world without a lot less of it, but it's not a world without it. Liam says, Alex, interview with Jordan Peterson has up to half a million views. Have you had a chance to watch and review it yet? No, I haven't. At some point, I will. Michael, never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it. Well, I get the sentiment dangerous. Dangerous. Robert Baez says, $10 for your comment about Putin. I can't remember which one. The one I called him a thug. I mean, I called Putin a thug for the first time on my first visit to Russia in a Q&A at the talk I gave in St. Petersburg. And when I called him a thug, you could literally sense the level of tension and fear in the room rising as everybody took a step back and said, in a sense, said, Iran, you're not supposed to say, you and Russia, you can't say that. You can't say. Anyway, I've been back to Russia. I've said worse things than Putin being a thug in Russia. I don't think I'm going back anytime soon. But there you go. Michael says, is that an example of any communist country lasting more than 80 years or a fascist country lasting more than 10? Well, it depends how you define fascism exactly. Authoritarianism generally is short-lived in a world where there are examples of liberty, particularly places that have any kind of western, western I view kind of western influences, western being reason individualism, the impact of reason individualism. Josh, thank you for the support. Kenny, thank you for the support. Enric, thank you for the support. You have a question, so I'll get to that. And then John, thank you again. Let's see, so I don't think so, but I don't know that that means anything because communism fascism at core terminology are brand new. They haven't existed for that long. Italian fascism, did it last only 10 years? Yeah, 30s to 40s, yeah, maybe. Colt, I usually am against international aid. I think we give what we give, Ukraine is worth it, just to stop evil. But just to see the pro-Russian goons cry a river. I sympathize with the idea of watching these Russian cronies try to justify Russia, try to say, oh, no, Russia's much stronger than this. You don't know what you're talking about in Russia. And talk all this, and then when they ultimately shone Russia's complete failure, they'd have some kind of rationalization about it. It's just fun to watch them go, it tangle themselves into 4D chess in order to justify, in order to try to stay pro-Russia. So, yes, I'd spend 40 billion on that. Look, I mean, the United States spends so much money on so much garbage. If we got rid of all the garbage, then, yeah, we can have a real serious debate about how much to give to Ukraine. But of all the garbage out there, this is not a high priority. As I said, Rand Paul presented a budget to Congress. They cut 500 billion. I'd like to see that. And then we can talk about the 40 billion. Michael says, did you not work in a UC system long enough to collect a pension? No, and I never worked in the UC system. And we didn't have a pension. I worked at Santa Clara University, which is not part of the UC system. We had 401Ks, or what they're called, 4-3-Bs. And, yeah, I saved some money in a 4-3-B, and that's tucked away somewhere. Roland says, oh, yeah, that's the VAT of 27%. Thanks, Roland. Mr. Muffin, what do you think of Republican Jim Jordan? I think he sold out, like so many Republicans in the quote, freedom caucus. He sold his soul to Donald Trump. And I used to like Jim Jordan before that. But since he sold his soul to Donald Trump, he's become more of a populist, less of a real freedom-oriented Republican. I don't respect him anymore. I mean, that number of those, Lee from Utah, Johnson from Wisconsin, these are senators, even Rand Paul to some extent, they all sold their soul during the Trump years. And I don't think they've done anything to suggest that they've regained it. Anyway, could COVID shutdowns have stimulated the cocaine increase? Certainly could have. You know, there's no evidence that COVID increased suicide. Actually, during the COVID period lockdowns, it actually decreased suicide rates, and the number of theories of why that happened. But certainly I think the COVID shutdowns probably have an impact on increased drug use. Yeah, we need to, tomorrow maybe I'll talk a little bit about what's going on in China right now, because that is really interesting. It's really interesting what's going on in China. I mean, COVID is sweeping through the country. Almost everybody has it, and it's having real impact. Well, it says, most Hungarians, I know, actually hate Orban. I guess his fan base are not the kind of people I associate with. I think that's right, because I think he actually does win elections, and I do think he has a majority of the Hungarians. But it might not be your friends and my friends. And we'll see who's inviting me to give the talk. I'm not sure if they're pro-Orban or anti. I don't know if they know what they're getting themselves into. We'll find out. Michael says, if we had five-year-on books doing five-year-on-book shows, it's a wrap. We win it five years. No, we don't. I mean, five-year-on-books each having 34,000 subscribers is what? It's nothing. It's a blimp. It doesn't even register. You'd have to have somebody who's more popular than your own book by a big margin. You'd have to have five Jordan Petersons on our side to make a difference. And a lot of those 34,000 would be the same people listening to the show. So what have you gained? All right, everybody. I will thanks again for all the superchatters for allowing us to reach our goal. And thank you for all of you for being here. Don't forget to like the show before you leave. Don't forget to share material that you enjoy and you like. Don't forget to comment on shows. Any interaction with the shows helps the algorithm. So thank you, guys. I will see you all tonight. What am I doing? Tonight, I'm interviewing Don Watkins. It should be a lot of fun. We're going to talk about ambition. What it means to be ambitious? How ambition manifests itself? What is the virtue of ambition? But we'll talk a lot about a lot of other things, I'm sure. I've got at least one question already that somebody has sent in that I'm going to ask Don, that I think Don has a good answer for. It has to do with Emmanuel Kant. So you might, those of you who are interested in Kant and questions about Kant, Don did a whole thing about Kant, I think, a few months ago. So he's kind of a good person right now to ask, because I think it's fresh in his mind. But you can ask Don about anything. I mean, Don has pretty wide knowledge. Thursdays are going to be interview days. Next week on Thursday would be Tara Smith. You know, and we're going to have a bunch of people I just heard today from Jean Maroney. She'll be back later next year. We're going to have, we're going to do something on life extension with an objective scientist who does work on life extension. We'll have that in early January. We're going to, we're just going to do a bunch of interviews with a bunch of objectivists. And hopefully, you know, we'll get back to that. I started that a couple of years ago, kind of slipped away. Now we're going to do it every, every, every Thursday night will be an interview. As long as I can get people. We'll get all your favorites back. We'll get Gina, hopefully back and Greg and on car and heavy bin swanger. And we're going after all of them. So I hope, I hope you enjoyed. I hope you join us tonight, 7pm East Coast time. It'll be a lot of fun. Bring your questions. Think about things you'd like to ask Don. Also make it, maybe we can make it a lighthearted. It is, it is Christmas after all. It's the season bring over. Yes. We'll have Ben Bear on. We'll have all these guys on. And but, but yeah, I'm looking forward to, to all of you bringing your questions and just participating and having a good time. All right everybody. Thank you for the support in particular. Thank you for Barry and thank you to Dwight for really taking us over the top. Thank you for everybody else. And I will see you tonight, 7pm East Coast time.