 So it is absolutely puzzling to me that so many Americans take Ben Shapiro seriously. The New York Times described him as the cool kid's philosopher. Now he talks fast, so a lot of people get the impression that because he talks fast, because he's seemingly confident in what he's saying, that must mean he's intelligent. But if you listen closely to what he's saying, he's not very bright. Like he's genuinely espousing arguments that you'd hear from a 12 or 14-year-old who just read a libertarian, you know, philosopher like Ein Rand for the first time, as Kyle Kalinsky would say. So he's not bright, and an attack on Bernie Sanders that he recently put out on Twitter demonstrates how stupid this guy is in actuality. So Bernie Sanders tweeted, Greed is the religion of the billionaire class, and a nation based on greed will not survive morally, economically, or politically. That is why we fight to take power back from the billionaires and put it in the hands of the people where it belongs. Ben Shapiro then quote tweeted that and said, Greed is literally your religion. You want to steal other people's money and distribute it as you see fit. Now we'll get to the substance, but my first question for you is, did you cash that because how is that not an anti-Semitic dog whistle? Like I get that, you know, Ben Shapiro is an orthodox Jew, right? But he knows his audience. He knows who he needs to pander to. And I don't believe that someone who's Jewish personally hates Jewish people. But as Pretty Bad Lefty points out, this post basically proves that Ben Shapiro knows that anti-Semitism is popular among a significant portion of his fan base because it is coded in a way where it can be read to mean Judaism. But he can just say he means socialism, which also has the effect of relating the two. That's exactly right. It's the same way that, you know, Dave Rubin will minimize the homophobia of Stephen Crowder by saying, well, you know, what you're doing is great because it's comedy and we need comedy. Otherwise there'd be a civil war in the country. You know, it's OK, Ben Shapiro, if you won't bake me a cake because you think that I'm inferior to you because I'm gay, but, you know, you're not homophobic, you know, that's perfectly fine. This is basically what I see Ben Shapiro doing here. Think about what he said. Your religion is greed. Bernie Sanders is Jewish. If anyone else said that, I mean, they would rightfully be saying that this is anti-Semitic. But because it's Ben Shapiro, then he's going to get a pass. When I actually think what he said here is disgusting. He may be Jewish, but he is perpetuating harmful stereotypes about Jewish people. I mean, how do you not see it? How do you not see it? This is part of the right wing grift. You know, you speak out against your own community, say all of the fucked up things that, you know, other people wouldn't say because they would be deemed bigoted and you profit off of it. This is exactly what right wing grifters do. But knowing how that tweet sounded, Ben Shapiro quickly addressed it and said any insane asinine suggestion that my comment has anything to do with Sanders Jewish birth is just that insane and asinine. He's an outspoken atheist. I'm an orthodox Jew and the tweet is a direct response to his own language referring to his worship of socialism. OK, so first of all, the facts over feelings guy who literally sells t-shirts that say facts over feelings is saying Bernie Sanders is an outspoken atheist. When have you ever heard Bernie Sanders talk about his atheism? You have not because Bernie Sanders does not identify as an atheist. Now, maybe he is atheist. He seems like he's not very religious. But nonetheless, he's never been an outspoken atheist. So I would say that that's a gross mischaracterization. And it's more based on your feelings than the facts, Ben Shapiro. And as Vic Berger points out, how could they possibly think that about Ben Shapiro's tweet and Vic Berger then links to a tweet from Ben Shapiro that says the Jewish people has always been plagued by bad Jews who undermined it from within in America. Those bad Jews largely vote Democrat. Now, that is a despicable comment to make, despicable. And if somebody called that anti-Semitic, in spite of the fact that Ben Shapiro himself is an Orthodox Jew, I think that they would largely be right. But as progressive voice astutely points out, everyone is an anti-Semite except for Ben Shapiro. Exactly. Now, getting to the substance here, not that there was much substance, but I want to get to a tweet that Sam Cedar put out in response to Ben Shapiro's initial attack on Bernie Sanders, because it got the attention of Ben Shapiro, which was great. Sam Cedar tweeted, area man thinks taxes are illegal. Ben then responded to that, saying, nope, I think confiscatory taxes designed for redistribution are immoral. Now, what's the problem with that argument? All taxes are confiscatory and redistributive. That's the entire point. We don't get to opt out of taxes. I don't get to volunteer to not pay taxes in protest of all the wars that my taxes are going towards. I don't get to do that. And all of my taxes are redistributed to different areas of the economy. They're distributed to certain sectors, you know, healthcare. They're distributed to elites in the form of, you know, shifting the tax burden. But this is an intellectual. This is who the New York Times called the cool kids philosopher when he is trying to debate the merit of taxes like we've moved past this. We're not debating whether or not taxes are good or bad. Taxes are inevitable if you want to live in civilized society. But Ben Shapiro is just playing to, you know, the crowd. He's pandering. He's got to know better. But at the same time, I don't know that he does know better. Now, Sam Cedar responded to that, saying, in that case, Ariaman doesn't know what steel means, nor the function of taxes. Pretty much. So the question is, why do so many people take Ben Shapiro? Seriously, if he has demonstrated time and again that he is incredibly dumb. I just don't get it. His talking points are the same exact talking points, identical to every other conservative before him who was a pundit. But the difference is that since he talks fast, that gives off the impression falsely so that he must be intelligent because he talks fast, look, anyone can memorize the same talking points and speak really fast. That doesn't make them intelligent. What makes them intelligent is making cohesive substantive points about politics. But he's attacking taxes. I mean, I've got news for you regardless if you are conservative or progressive, it doesn't matter. Taxes are a part of the political process. They're inextricably linked. You're not going to be able to disaggregate taxes from politics. It's just a matter of what we spend our taxes on. That's the real conversation. The debate isn't, do we do taxes or not? The debate is, what do we use our taxes for? Now, for Ben Shapiro, it is, you know, it's tax cuts for his billionaire right wing sugar daddies. You know, they want to pay less taxes. So what they do is lobby the government to shift that burden onto you and onto me. So I mean, Ben Shapiro, like honestly, like reading his tweets, it made me feel like I was losing IQ points. Like I'm being destroyed by Ben Shapiro, by stupidity and nonsense, not facts and logic. You can say facts and logic if that, you know, if you think that makes you sound smart, but that doesn't mean that you are smart in actuality because you're not actually using facts or logic. You're just a right wing talking point machine who can recite your rehearsed lines really fast. That doesn't make you smart. That just makes you really good at grifting and really good at being a shill.