 for doing this, you're such an inspiration to me and I know there's so many people. So thank you for all you continue to do in terms of advocating for individual rights and the ideas that we all hold so important. One of which, of course, is this country. You've often talked to your own about how you came to this country willingly embracing its ideas. I wanna ask you specifically about nationalism. You wrote about it a little bit in the new textbook of Americanism. It is. Talked a little bit about that. But I find myself arguing at odds these days, very oftentimes with people who claim to be great patriots who love this country and they think the way to serve it is through a doctrine of nationalism, of anti-globalism and for shutting everyone out and whether it be not trading or not traveling or whatnot. So how can you kind of make the case that I don't know whether it be free trade or open borders is pro America when the nationalists would say that you're giving jobs to foreigners or whatnot. And because how do you make the case that nationalism is un-American when the culture now even those on the so-called right say that nationalism, that's what America's all about. Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. And these days I'm called an anti-American. I hate this country, I'm told. And I see it all over Facebook, unfortunately. But I think the key is to know what America is. So if you consider, as I think many people do and I think Trump does, if you consider America, just another country, you happen to be born in and you love the country because you were born there and you like the people and the culture's kind of cool and it's a beautiful country and it's a big country and it's a rich country. But America's just the geographic lines that define it. And the people that happen to be inside. That there's nothing unique about America. There's nothing exceptional about America. There's nothing special about America. Then I think that leads you into this trap of, well, if America are these borders and America are the people that happen to be inside the borders, the way to preserve what is America is to build a wall and to not allow new people to come in and to care and to place as a primary your neighbors, the people around you, everybody who is also an American. Now this also requires kind of a mentality of collectivism. That is that these people are more important than your self-interest, are more important than your life, that your primary responsibility is to them, is to maintaining the state, maintaining these people. That is the primary. And in that sense, you know, these same people believe strongly. I mean, Stephen Bannon is a good example. He's now all over Europe, trying to sell nationalism in Europe. And the idea there is that, you know, Polish should be Polish and they should, you know, nationalism borders and you should take care of your neighbor and you should take care of the people around you and the French should be French and the Brits, you know, the whole idea of Brexit is not to escape the collectivism or socialism of the European Union. It's to be able to be British. It's to be able to have the borders and keep out foreigners and, you know, take care of your fellow jobs. And maintain British jobs and maintain American jobs because what America is, is the people around you and you wanna keep America, you wanna keep their jobs. So it's inherently that attitude is inherently anti-individualistic, anti-individualism. It's a collectivist attitude. And it says that the collective, in this case, the American collective, the British collective, the Polish collective, the French collective is more important than your life as an individual. And as such, that attitude is, if you have a proper understanding of what America is, anti-American because America is not just borders. And in a sense, Europe is. In a sense, Europe is just borders. It's just you happen to have a group of people. You know, yes, there's French food and there's a certain sense of French culture and so everything. But, you know, there's nothing special about France. There's nothing special about Poland. There's nothing special about Germany. But there's something very, very, very special about America and that is the rejection of collectivism. America is the only country in human history founded on a moral principle. And our moral principle is individualism. The sanctity of the individual. The fact that you one does not sacrifice the individual to the collective. The fact that the collective is not important other than as just a collection of individuals. So that the focus of the American state from the beginning was on the protection of individual rights, the protection of your rights as an individual, not as a collective. So, and then the question is like trade is free trade. And let's get away from free trade, right? Cause free trade, people think means that everybody trades freely. No, trade without tariffs, okay? So zero tariff unilaterally good for the individual. And the answer is yes, it's good for me to be able to trade with seven billion people rather than we just put 300 billion. The economic advantages from trade, that the fact that my view about who I trade was should be mine. It's none of anybody's business. The fact that it's my choice, not the government's choice to tell me all of that is my rights and good for me as an individual. The state has no business in who I trade with and under what terms I trade with people. Unless again, the people I'm trading with are the enemy and then we should embargo them, then we should have nothing to do with them. The same with immigration. I have an individual right to invite people to come and work for me, to come and stay in my house, to come and rent my hotel room. Why is it anybody's business, right? Why is it my business? Why is it my neighbor's business? Why is it other people's business? How is me exercising my right, violating their rights? It doesn't. So therefore immigration is in my self interest and therefore immigration is something that the government should protect that right to immigrate, the right to invite immigrates in. Yeah, Jonathan. Well, just to say, you know, people on the so-called right laugh when you say sacrifice for the environment, but when you say, oh, sacrifice for the country. Oh, well, then of course, of course. So they buy into that altruism of sacrifice to the nation without question. But we left. But that's common, right? I mean, Christians say sacrifice to our God is great, but those Muslims, they shouldn't be sacrificed to they God, right, because they God is a false God. Environmentalism is a false God, but America, the collective that is America is a true God. Now, look, in the year you have to differentiate, Inrand said some positive things about nationalism in a particular context. In the context of foreign policy and the placing of American interests first in foreign policy. Now, I think she was wrong to use the term nationalism in that context. I, you know, I'm very rarely critical of Inrand, but she shouldn't have used it. But I think she used it in an hour and a half context that she understood what she was doing. 40 years later, a lot of people don't understand what she was doing and they're using it against her own ideas. But the idea that she had was, and this is where, again, it sounds like Donald Trump, but her idea was you have to place American interests first. But what are America's interests? America's interests are the liberty and freedom, the life and property of individual Americans. So in foreign policy, the criteria should always be the lives and property of American citizens. Is this act gonna defend them or is it gonna hurt them? Tariffs hurt them. You know, going after, I don't know, today I guess our special forces killed the head of the spiritual and military leader of ISIS. That's good. You know, that probably protects the lives and property of Americans. So that's a good thing. That's the kind of action that the American military action that the American government should engage with. So, but the standard is not what's good to the Syrians. Not what's good for the Kurds in and of themselves. Not what's good for Israel. Not what's good for any other country. Other than what's good for Americans. That is always the context. And in that sense, Inran is the real America first thinker and Donald Trump is not an America first thinker. He doesn't know what America is and he doesn't know what America first would mean. So the, so nationalism, internationalism is wrong. That doesn't mean, now again, we need differentiate from patriotism. Doesn't mean you don't love your country. But then again, you have to ask the question, why do you love your country? Now, you can love your country for a variety of different reasons. You can love the language and the food and the songs and the culture and those kind of things. And that's why people who leave certain countries miss those countries and maybe they miss that culture. They miss the food. They miss that. But that's not what would determine where you live and what you ultimately really love in a country. I mean, I love America because of its ideas because of the culture that was formed because of those ideas. I love America because of its inherent individualism and Americans because they're for the most part individualistic. That's what I love about America. I consider myself an American patriot and I consider these nationalists, anti-American, anti-patriotic because they're fighting against America. They're fighting against what America represents, what America symbolizes what America was and what America couldn't should be. They're fighting against the founding. I love America for its founding fathers, for its founding principles, for the ideas that made the country great. And I think these nationalists are anti-American. They don't love this country because they don't know this country. And as an immigrant who chose to live here, I think I've chosen because of certain characteristics. And that's what those characteristics that individualism, that spirit that is American is why I'm a patriotic American. But not a nationalist because I believe individuals should be the primary. That's what America is about. Now there are many philosophies that would offer that to an individual. Oh yes. There are religions that offer it. There are forms of government that offer it. How does- Not forms of government. That's politics, that's a different branch. That comes later. Well, yes, but governments in some areas, in some instances, would define for you choices or dictate to you how to live your life. But I'll retract governments and just say religions are philosophies. How does objectivism differ from the philosophies that many of us have been exposed to in our youths? Philosophies based upon religions, theologians, dogmatists. The very first difference. Objectivism tells you that it is not right. It is not proper to men to take anything on faith. Religion is a matter of faith. You accept a religion emotionally or because you were born to it. You have not chosen it rationally. What objectivism will tell you is that reason. Men's reason is his basic means of survival. That is the most important faculty which he has and he has to guide his life and make his choices by means of his rational faculty. He has to make his own choices, but he has to know how to make them. It is immoral for him to act on his emotions, to be guided by the whim of the moment. That objectivism holds as very wrong, very immoral. And morality, in fact, consists of following your reason to the best of your ability. So that rationality is the basic virtue from which all the others proceed. Using the super chat, and I noticed yesterday when I appealed for support for the show, many of you stepped forward and actually supported the show for the first time. So I'll do it again. Maybe we'll get some more today. If you like what you're hearing, if you appreciate what I'm doing, then I appreciate your support. Those of you who don't yet support the show, please take this opportunity, go to Iranbrookshow.com slash support or go to subscribestar.com, Iranbrookshow and make a kind of a monthly contribution to keep this going. I'm not sure when the next...