 And I made 40 here, I mean, Bliss isn't to be alive in this exciting time, day one of the vouch nationalism revolution, which is sweeping the Western world. So just to be alive right now is absolute bliss, but to be young, to be filled with ancestral supplements, beef organs, to be out there doing your push-ups and your weights and walking and jogging and biking, I mean, to be vibrant and filled with energy and strength right now, it is exciting day one of the vouch nationalism revolution, I mean, it's very heaven. Alright, bliss to be alive, but to be filled with passion and joy and strength right now, it's very heaven. And I had no intention of doing a YouTube show today, but I was reading Stephen Turner's 2013 great book, The Politics of Expertise and he mentions in it a 1974 paper by Ronald Coase. So Ronald Coase was an English economist born in 1910. So he died in 2013, he died in 102. He published about five highly influential papers in his lifetime to a particular import and one Nobel Prize basically on the basis of two academic papers. So many academics publish 100 papers in a lifetime, 200 papers. And when an economist was telling this to Ronald, he said, I published 200 papers, you've only published three. And Ronald Coase responded, well, mine are different because many academics, they just tweak a little here, tweak a little there. They get an essay they publish here, combine it with other essays they publish there and turn it into a book. But Ronald Coase, everything he did was singular and important and changed the way people think. And so I was reading this essay of his that came out in 1974. So it would have been 64 years of age at the time. The market for goods and the market for ideas. So why is it conventional wisdom that we need government regulation with regard to the market for goods? But government regulation with regard to the market for ideas, that's bad. Well, that used to be the way intellectuals thought until when, when did it cease to be the default position for intellectuals that the free marketplace for ideas was definitely the way to go. And I think it was the rise of the internet. I think when intellectuals found that they were getting critiqued by people who they regarded as so far below them and pesky critiques and personal critiques and unpleasant critiques, challenging critiques, when they were on the receiving end of the criticism, that's when they decided, well, we need much more government censorship. We just can't allow the free market of ideas to be extended to just any person. But until, until probably about year 2000 or so, it was the overwhelming position of intellectuals that you need a free market in ideas, but you need very heavy government regulation in the marketplace for goods. So why did intellectuals hold for so many decades that we need heavy government regulation in the marketplace for goods? But government regulation is unnecessary in the market for ideas. And I define an intellectual as somebody who makes his living from ideas. And in almost all cases, someone who makes his is living from ideas, he has to be subsidized. Right? There are very few people who can make a living with their ideas without substantial subsidies like only one intellectual in a thousand. And the most common way that people to be subsidized in the intellectual realm is to be a university professor. If you're a university professor, you're funded by a think tank, or even national university, all right? Magazines of thought like National Review or the New Republic, they would not exist without heavy subsidies. The market cannot support free market intellectual magazines. And that's the way it is. You want to be an intellectual in almost all cases, you have to be subsidized. And so when you're subsidized, of course, then, then you have to pay attention to the person who's subsidizing you or the entity and give them what they want. But that's how I define intellectual, someone who makes a living from his idea. So am I an intellectual? And the answer is no, I am not, because I do not make my living from my ideas. But I get to play an intellectual on YouTube for a couple of hours a day. Okay, so here's the general view that is the focus of this Ronald Coase essay. So in the marketplace for goods, government regulation is desirable. But in the marketplace for ideas, government regulation is undesirable and should be strictly limited. So in the market for goods, the government is competent to regulate and is properly motivated because consumers lack the ability to make the appropriate choices. So we need to nudge people away from drinking so much soda, for example, you need to nudge them into eating healthier foods. So producers of goods often exercise monopolistic power. And so without any form of government intervention goes the conventional wisdom. Producers of goods would not act in a way that promotes the public interest. But in the marketplace for ideas, that position is very different. And I was struck while reading this 1974 essays, how much times have changed because intellectuals no longer have this default support for a free market of ideas. But it used to be intellectuals thought the government if it attempted to regulate the free market of ideas, it would be inefficient. And that its motives would be bad, so that even if it were successful in achieving what it wanted to accomplish, the results would be undesirable. But consumers, on the other hand, if left free, right, they will not exercise proper discretion. So intellectuals regarded themselves as special and beyond government intervention. Right, they were too special, too precious. Right. Producers of goods, right, they are so unscrupulous that their behavior in the marketplace cannot be trusted to accord with the public interest. But when it comes to the press, right, whether you're the New York Times or the New Republic or the Chicago Tribune or CVS, when it came to the press, the press said, we don't need any government regulation, first amendment, guys, government shall not regulate the press. So politicians in their utterances are beyond reproach, we cannot censor what politicians say. That used to be the default position of intellectuals. Now, of course, there's been the default position of intellectuals is that Donald Trump should not be allowed to speak freely, that Donald Trump should not have a Twitter account. Donald Trump should not be allowed to live stream on on YouTube, or anything like that. So it's kind of a weird feature of this attitude that commercial advertising, which is merely an expression of opinion, and you would think this is protected by the First Amendment. But for intellectuals, it's long been considered to be part of the marketplace for goods, not for ideas. So government action is desirable to regulate and suppress the expression of opinions by business, the expression of opinions in advertising. But if those opinions were delivered in the form of a book or an article, these opinions would be completely beyond the reach of government regulation. So it's so quaint to think back in 1974, but the widespread attitude was that we should have a free market of ideas. So this is Ronald Cosier speaking at age 99 on markets, firms and property rights. I get very tired. And I'm often feeling unwell. The organizers of this conference decided that they would make a recording, which could be played at the conference. And this is what I'm going to do. The problem I had, of course, was that they didn't tell me what I should talk about. And I had to decide what my subject should be. I finally decided that. Okay, so the guy's 99 years of age at this point, and still still getting pretty strong. Ronald Cosier is just quite a towering intellect. A man of such tremendous accomplishment. But he did just spread his wisdom willy-nilly over YouTube live streams. He husbanded his resources. And he only deployed them in just a handful of papers that would forever change intellectual life. Good old Ronald Cosier at age 99 still delivering lectures. But not a career where he's just willy nilly spilling his intellectual essence all over the dusty ground. All right. So why do we need the government in the marketplace for goods and not in the marketplace for ideas? So the Western world has long accepted this distinction until the last 20 years, and the policy recommendations that go with it. So there was a powerful article around 1973 by Aaron Decker, Aaron director, and he quotes a strong statement by Justice William O. Douglas in the Supreme Court opinion. Justice O. Douglas said, free speech, free press, free exercise of religion, a place separate and apart, above and beyond the political, the police power, they're not subject to regulation in the manner of factories, slums, apartment houses, production of oil and the like. Now there's no inherent intrinsic reason why this should be so. I've been going through Hobbes 1651 work Leviathan, where he says that government needs to regulate publication and public discussion of ideas, because when people take on new ideas, that changes how they behave. So Aaron director remarks about this attachment to free speech that it is the only area where laissez-faire, meaning free market is still respectable. Now, a laissez-faire attitude towards free speech today is no longer respectable. But it was still back in 1974. Now this may be due to the belief in a free market in ideas doesn't have the same roots as belief in the value of free trade. So Aaron director said the free market as a desirable method of organizing intellectual life for the community was urged long before it was advocated as a desirable method of organizing its economic life. So the advantage of free exchange of ideas was recognized before that of the voluntary exchange of goods and services in competitive markets. So America has long had this but held this peculiar status for the free market of ideas has been part of our commitment to democracy. Now, is a free market of ideas necessary to the maintenance of democratic institutions. So a Carl Schmidt and a Thomas Hobbs would say no, but the dominant view of the liberal, meaning the classically liberal intellectuals like John Locke and the French thinkers like Voltaire would say yes. Now, intellectuals have tended to exalt the market free marketplace for ideas and to depreciate the free marketplace for goods. So why? So according to Aaron director, the bulk of mankind will for the foreseeable future have to devote a considerable fraction of their active lives to economic activity. So for these people freedom of choice as owners of resources and choosing within available and continually changing opportunities, areas of employment, investment and consumption to most people right to 99% of people free choice in their economic lives is as important as freedom of discussion and participation in government. So for most people, most of the time in most countries, really, or people, virtually all people in all countries, the provision of food, clothing and shelter is a good deal more important than the provision of the right ideas. Even if we know what the right ideas are. So why do we get such a difference in view among intellectuals about the role of government in these two markets? It's an extraordinary difference. And it demands an explanation. The title given to the conference gave me all the information I needed. The conference is on markets, firms and property rights. And that covers everything I would want to say. Let me start with talking about markets. One of the things that people don't understand is that markets are creations. They are not something which we can find. A market has to be created in the general law and economics. One of the early issues I published an article on the plywood contract to be shown by the Chicago Board of Trade. It was a very complicated set of negotiations that led to the emergency. This guy was at the University of Chicago, along with the Milton Friedman. Right. So why is it that those who press most strongly for government regulation of the marketplace have traditionally been the most adamant about our need for freedom of expression in the marketplace of ideas? The origins of the contract. And then having tried it, it failed. This Okay, that's Ronald Kirst there. All right. Why this paradox? And what's the explanation? So Aaron director, he has a gentle explanation. He says the suplex explanation for the preference for free speech among intellectuals runs in terms of their interests. Everyone tends to magnify the importance of his own occupation and to minimize that of his neighbor. So for my father, the theologian theology was the most important study. I spent much of my life in journalism. To me, journalism was the most important thing that you could do. So intellectuals are supposed to be engaged in the pursuit of truth, while others are merely engaged in earning a living. So one follows a profession, usually a learned one, while the other follows a trade or a business. Right. So the market for ideas is the market in which the intellectual conducts his trade. So intellectuals love a free market here, because it corresponds with their self interest and self esteem. Who was it who said that in areas where people know something have considerable knowledge, they tend to be quite conservative. They tend to look out very much for their interests. You notice in every profession, it's always trying to expand its status and its its power, and its earning opportunities. So psychiatrists are always looking to expand opportunities for earning more money, having more power and having more status. So self esteem leads intellectuals to magnify the importance of their own market, the marketplace of ideas. Now that others should be regulated just seems natural, because intellectuals regard themselves as the ones who should be doing the regulating of other people. Right. So much of the world can be explained simply by understanding that people are continually seeking to increase their own sense of importance. Why do people go out and commit mass murder because they want to feel more important? Now self interest combines with self esteem to ensure that while others are regulated, regulation should not apply to intellectuals. And so that's how intellectuals have long lived with these two contradictory views about the role of government in these two markets. So the marketplace for ideas is sacred. And this perspective is supported if we examine the actions of the press. So the press is the most stalwart defender of the doctrine of freedom of press. But they're not really so sought on freedom of speech for other people as we see the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the other mainstream media increasingly supporting censoring the internet and censoring my ability to speak freely and your ability to speak freely. So the press wants to speak freely, but they don't want you to speak freely. Right. So the press are consistent in only one respect, they're always consistent with the self interest of themselves, the press. So consider their argument that the press should not be forced to reveal the sources of its published material. This is termed a defense of the public's right to know. So the public has no right to know the source of material published by the press. Now, to want to know the source of the story is not idle curiosity. It's very difficult to know how much credence to give to information or to check on as accuracy. One is ignorant of the source. The academic tradition discloses the greatest extent possible the sources on which one relies and thus exposes the sources to the scrutiny of one's colleagues. Right. This is the sound and essential element in the search for truth. But this consideration does not deter the press from revealing confidences when it is in their interest to do so. Right. So life as we know it would be impossible if we could not express things in confidence. Right. In the real world, if people knew everything that we said, life would become impossible. And this is true for people in business, people in government, people in private life. All right. Confidentiality is necessary for frankness. But the press has no hesitation revealing these confidences when it is in their interest to do so. And the press is at the same time happy to impede the flow of information to reveal the sources of the material published in cases which the transmission of the information involved a breach of trust for the stealing of documents. Right. So the press wants one standard for themselves, a completely different standard for everybody else. Right. The press has no problem accepting stolen documents. They have no problem accepting information coming from people with a grudge. They have no problem breaching confidentiality and just general decency. Right. So from the news media's perspective, the main thing wrong with the Watergate affair is that it was not organized by the New York Times. The New York Times wanted to engage in the behavior that became known as Watergate. Then they'd be doing it in the interest of the people. But if anyone else acts that way, then it's a big scandal. Also, consider the attitude of the press to government regulation of broadcasting. So broadcasting has become an important source of news and information. It falls within the purview of the First Amendment. Yet the program content of broadcasting stations is subject to government regulation. Now you think that the press devoted to the strict enforcement of the First Amendment would have been constantly attacking this abridgment of the right of free speech and free expression. But in fact, they have not. So in the 45 years which passed since the formation of the Federal Radio Commission, now called the Federal Communications Commission, and this essay in 1974, there are very few doubts about the policy expressed by the press. Right. The press, which is so anxious to remain free from government regulation itself, has never exerted itself to secure a similar freedom for broadcasters. In fact, the press has tended to act in a hostile way towards the freedom of broadcasters. So the press colluded to suppress the ability of the British Broadcasting Corporation to gather news independently and then to present news before 7 p.m. Right. No news could be broadcast before 7 p.m. on the BBC because that would adversely affect the sale of newspapers. Now, gradually over the years, these restrictions were reduced. But the press did everything they could in Britain to reduce the ability of the BBC to gather and broadcast news. It was only after the outbreak of World War II that the BBC broadcast a regular news bulletin before 6 p.m. So the press are not just disinterested pursuers of the truth. They also want money and they also want power and prestige and they want to restrict the ability of other groups to get access to money, power and prestige that they believe belongs primarily to them. Now, the traditional attitude towards free speech comes largely from John Milton. We looked last time at St. Peter's Declamatory Speech in the English Civil War and we spent a lot of time on it. And we looked at its relation to the new career that John Milton ended up assuming in the late 1630s this new career as a polemical writer of political prose. And Milton becomes increasingly in this period, and this is the period of the English Revolution. What is the English Revolution? You ask. That's a good question and there are still innumerable often competing answers to that question. It seems to be more or less, this is one way of framing an answer, it seems more or less to be a Puritan Revolution, middle-class Puritans like John Milton find themselves upholding the authority of parliament over the authority of King Charles and over the authority of the official Church of England. That's the roughest possible sketch of what the English but we find ourselves in today's reading, Areopagitica, in the middle of the English Revolution, sometimes called the Puritan Revolution. It's in this period that Milton increasingly begins to adopt or assume St. Peter's a confident and denunciatory rhetoric. He adopts it as his own. Okay, back to this great 1974 essay by Ronald Poz. There's probably not been a more high-minded scholar than John Milton. As is Areopagitica stood for the liberty of unlicensed printing, this work is the most celebrated defense of the doctrine of the freedom of the press ever written. It was written in 1644. He asserts the primacy of the marketplace for ideas. He says, give me the liberty to know, to utter and to argue freely according to conscience above all liberties. The point of this pamphlet was to argue against having to have a license to print and to publish. The current intellectual climate is that essentially people should be licensed to be after post opinions online, that people should be restricted from posting their opinions online. According to John Milton, the marketplace of ideas is different from the marketplace for goods. It should not be treated in the same way. Truth and understanding are not such wares as to be monopolized and traded in by tickets and statutes and standards. You must not think to make a staple commodity of all the knowledge in the land to mark and license it like our cloth than our wool. So the licensing of printed material is an affront to learn it man and to learning. So on the face of it seems like John Milton would not be a big fan of increasing censorship on social media. So according to Milton, when a man writes to the world, he summons up all his reason and all his deliberation to assist him. When I give you my opinions, I'm giving you from what I think is the best in me, what I think are the best sources of information and what are the primary moral values that I stand for. So when I stand and deliver, I'm giving you the best of my reason, the best of my deliberation. I search, I meditate, I mediate, I'm industrious, I consult, I confer with friends because what a man has done, he takes himself to be informed in what he writes. This is John Milton. So if in this the most consummate act of his fidelity, right, no industry, no form of proof of his ability can bring him to that state of maturity is not to be still mistrusted and suspected unless he can carry his considerate diligence, all his midnight watchings to the hasty view of an unleashed licensor, perhaps much as younger, perhaps far his inferior in judgment, perhaps one who never knew the labor of book writing. And if he be not repulsed or slighted, must appear in print like a puny to these guardian in his senses hand on the back of his title to be his bail insurity, that he is no idiot or seducer, cannot be but a dishonor and a derogation to the author, to the books, the privilege and dignity of learning. So that's what I do here. All right, I show up here. This is my most consummate act of my fidelity, of my industry, right, no form of proof of my abilities is going to stand in my stead today. I still have to bring my best stuff. So licensing, before you can print, before you can share your views, is an affront to the people, right, nor is it to the common people less than a reproach for if we be so jealous over them as that we dare not trust them with an English pamphlet, what do we but censure them for a giddy, vicious and ungrounded people in such a sick and weak state of faith and discretion to be able to take nothing down but through the pipe of a licensor. So this is a completely different attitude than we have today among intellectuals. Intellectuals believe the common people need to be guarded over, that they cannot be trusted with just anyone's opinion, that we have to censor on their behalf because they are so giddy and vicious and ungrounded, that they are so sick and so weak, they so lack in discretion, right, that we have to intervene on their behalf. So, according to John Milton in the marketplace for ideas, the right choices are made that truth and false would grapple, whoever knew truth put to the worst in a free and open encounter. This used to be the dominant approach among intellectuals, so why did it change and when did it change, it seemed to me it started changing considerably after about year 2000 when the internet really took off. When blogging really took off. So, I remember when I was writing about the porn industry and every month it seemed like there was someone new who was coming down with HIV in 1997, 1998, the porn industry revolted like who is this outsider coming with information, people should only get their information from official sources like adult video news and the porn industry's trade group, the Free Speech Coalition. So, someone who licenses opinions and printing should be studious, learned and judicious, but this is not what we are likely to get. We may easily foresee what kind of licenses we are to expect, either ignorant, imperious and remiss, or basically pecuniary, just in it for money. So, the licenses of opinion are more likely to suppress truth than falsehood. If it come to prohibiting, there's ought more likely to be prohibited than truth itself. His first appearance to our eyes blared and dimmed with prejudice and custom is more unsightly and unplausible than many errors. So, we evolved to be skeptical when other people are trying to manipulate us. And so, when other people bring us ideas, our natural evolutionarily developed impulses are to be highly skeptical. So, Milton tells us that the licensing scheme against which he was writing came about as a result of industry pressure. Right? There were those who wanted to restrict the ability to publish and keep business just for themselves. Vouch nationalism media licenses, 40 making ways, changing the minds of millions, from pointing on porn to reporting on national socialism. Oh, brother, I have a feeling this is going to be a great lecture. Blessings. All right. I mean, how exciting is this? We are living in day one of vouch nationalism. I am the proud owner of vouch nationalism.com. I mean, this website is the fulcrum upon which I will shift the entire trajectory of the Western world. So, in the formation of John Milton's views, self-interest played a part. He wanted freedom of expression, but his arguments also embody a good deal of intellectual pride. Right? This writer is a learned man. He's diligent and trustworthy. The licensor, meaning the YouTube censor, very likely to be ignorant incompetent and beastly motivated, perhaps younger and inferior in judgment. So, I just got a notice from Twitch. Twitch suspended my account. Now, why would Twitch suspend my account when no other social media has suspended my account? Well, great news guys. Twitch is committed to keeping our community safe for everyone. And as a part of that, we require all users to ensure that anything shared on their account abides by Twitch's terms of service and community guidelines. So, I haven't got this on any other account. And you know how milk toast I've been. So, based on a review of your activity or content, and my content only stays up on Twitch for 72 hours, we have issued a community guideline strike on your account due to the severe nature of this violation. Well, the fact that you've incurred molten, this is my first violation. Your access to Twitch is indefinitely restricted. Reason, extremely hateful conduct. All right. So, everything that I've put on YouTube, you can find at least the audio version, the MP3 version on SoundCloud. Not to mention many videos on Rumble and BitShoot and Odyssey. But did you realize that my last few streams have been filled with extreme hateful conduct? So, are these my streams talking about the politics of expertise? Are these my streams analyzing the rise of reform Judaism in 19th century Germany and the Orthodox response? Are these my streams on the TV show Under the Banner of Heaven? Focusing your conduct on promoting, encouraging or facilitating the discrimination or denigration of others based on their protective characteristics. So, when did I do this in the past week or the past year or the past five years? Examples of violative conduct include but are not limited to devoting a majority of your stream toward promoting racism or xenophobia. Going on a prolonged rant about how a specific group of people are a danger to society because of their religion. Participating in or organizing a hate group's malicious activities. Your suspension is indefinite. Man, John Milton would not be be pleased with this kind of attitude. What John Milton was writing in the 17th century is just so applicable to the people at Twitch, right? We're talking about people who are filled with prejudice, ignorance, fraudsters, right? The writer and the live streamer in this case is a learned man, diligent and trustworthy. But the Twitch licensor, ignorant, incompetent, basically motivated, inferior in judgment, right? The common man always chooses truth as against falsehood, says John Milton. Now Ronald Coase says, I don't believe that this distinction between the market for goods and the market for ideas is valid. There is no fundamental difference between these two markets. And deciding on public policy with regard to that we need to take into account the same consideration. Same considerations. In all markets, producers have some reasons for being honest and some reasons for being dishonest. Consumers have some information but are never fully informed. They're able to fully digest the information they do have. Regulators commonly wish to do a good job, but they are often incompetent. They're often subject to the influence of special interests. They act like this because, like all of us, they are human beings whose strongest motives are not their highest motives. So Ronald Coase says, we should use the same approach for all markets when deciding on public policy. We should employ the same approach towards the market for ideas as we approach toward the marketplace for goods. And he says the case for government intervention in the marketplace of ideas is much stronger than it is in the marketplace for goods. So economists usually call for government intervention, including direct government intervention when the market does not operate properly, when there exist spillover effects or externalities. Now try to imagine the property rights system that would be required and the transactions that would have to be carried out to assure that anyone who has pushed ideas or proposals for reform that resulted in market failure and externalities. All right. So if you're pushing ideas that make the world a worse place, like generally speaking feminism, generally speaking, promoting more and more immigration into the West, more and more communism, government intervention in schooling, pushing LGBTQ indoctrination and grooming of kids, these would seem to be externalities. Situations of this kind usually lead economists to call for extensive government intervention. And then what about consumer ignorance? This is usually thought to be justification for government intervention. It's hard to believe that the general public is in a better position to evaluate competing views on economic and social policy than to choose between different kinds of food. Yet there is support for regulation in the one case, but not in the other. Well, times have changed, haven't they? This was published in the American Economic Association Journal in May 1974. Now there's about just as much support for intervention by intellectuals in the marketplace for ideas as there once was in the marketplace for goods. Love bites, love leads, it's bringing me to my needs. Fort is leading the info war. Alex Jones passed the torch. Wow, did you tell them that you're Jewish, bro? 1776 was an info war. Thomas Jefferson would have sold deep earth iodine from info wars if it was available. Twitch only wants eat thoughts and gamblers and degenerates. I think maybe it was Ken Brown's love streams. Fort is a danger to society. Come on, man. Forty scores. Super low on the hate index, bros. Okay, so back to this. It's just amazing reading this 1974 essay by Ronald Coase and to think that there was a time when intellectuals were basically united in just a de facto support for free marketplace of ideas. What a dramatic change and what do you attribute it? I attribute it to the rise of the internet and the ability of regular people to criticize intellectuals, particularly the rise of Twitter, where anyone could go up against anyone. So what about the question of preventing fraud? Right. We currently here need government intervention to prevent fraud in the marketplace. So many newspaper articles and political speeches contain large amounts of fraud. So on the face of a government action to control this fraud may be considered highly desirable, yet a proposal to do this with the Federal Trade Commission or the Federal Communications Commission would be dismissed out of hand. Well, it would have been dismissed out of hand in 1974, not so much in 2022. What a seed change in the attitude of intellectuals. The strong support enjoyed by the First Amendment should not hide us on the fact that there is a good deal of government intervention in the marketplace for ideas. So governments of strongly intervene in the broadcasting arena, but there's also education. Government funds education and it funds particular types of education, which is an intervention in the world of ideas. If you want to speak freely on college campus, then you can't take federal government funds. Not only one major college doesn't take federal government funds, that's Hillside. Is it the school in Michigan where it tends to be quite conservative? Come on. What's the one college that does not take federal funds? Even Jim Jones. So come on. There's a hill. Hill. What is it? Come on guys. Hillsdale. Hillsdale College, Michigan. List of colleges. So there's a list here actually of 18. And they seem to be almost all Christian schools. Let's get a little bit more into Milton's. And he writes a series of treatises in support of and this is really, really out there and he alienates a lot of his natural organic base with these actions. But Milton writes a series of treatises in support of the right to divorce, divorce for reasons of incompatibility, and he continues to assist the Puritan left, the progressive movement in overthrowing the hierarchical structure of the Church of England. The bishops, also called the prelates, those church officials essentially appointed by Archbishop William Laud whom we looked at last time were replaced in the early 1640s by means of the success of the Puritan revolutionaries were replaced by presbyters, ministers who were chosen by individual congregations. And Milton was able to think of this new form of church government as the most reasonable form of church government because it seemed to be the product of individual choices. It seemed to be the product of individual decisions made by the rational church going English public. Okay, back to this terrific 1974 essay by Ronald Coase. So one area that the government intervened in speech is by subsidizing certain speech in education. So public education usually comes with a left-wing agenda. And any type of education that I've experienced there's always some new fad blowing through almost every year. So government regulation of education is usually accompanied by government financing and other measures such as compulsory school attendance which increases the demand for the services of intellectuals and therefore increases their status their power and their incomes. So self-interest leads to a general support for free market in ideas but they're quite willing to compromise when it comes to government intervention in education. And there are all sorts of other cases in which groups of practitioners in the marketplace for ideas support government regulation and the restriction of competition. So in Germany it's illegal to homeschool your kids, right? People generally support regulation when it increases their income their status and their power. So a general policy of regulation of speech would have the effect of reducing the demand for the services of intellectuals. So the public is commonly much more interested in the struggle between truth and falsehood than it is in the truth itself. So I usually get suggestions to do shows to attack other live streamers. So I was getting comments today hey, you know, for what he go after sticks and hammer sticks and hammer he got caught out by vowsh for being shallow and superficial. So Art Bell writes, look any shot of you reviewing this blast of sticks and hammer being a skimmer more than a reader a careless bulk video maker. So vowsh says sticks is an untrustworthy non peer reviewed YouTuber who referred to a climate change article he doesn't seem to have read properly. This is two years old but sticks is 20,000 subs from vowsh and it's a great swerve from vowsh nationalism to vowsh. So in his super chat show sticks is mentioned to vowsh and told viewers to skip his videos don't trust this guy. But this might mean he knows my dirty tricks so I need to steer people away. Sticks feels the sting of his gas mask critique Biden video. Vowsh noted the overload overload technique of ending the video with many new and unproven conclusions. As you said with the Trump protests Luke six shoves stuff in there without evidence. So vowsh opens the video with a bash of sticks denying the truth. Get your determination Judge Luke the article versus what sticks claims about versus what vowsh says it's about was vowsh correct about sticks and hammer being a lazy skimmer. It's a very catchy title it would show up in search. Also Keith Wood said of sixes plan to handle Trump's defeat by doing hit piece videos for four years sounds like a cope not a strategy. So here's vowsh the video literate cringe lord sticks and hammer 666 complaints about woke climate activism so people are much less interested in truth than they are interested in the battle between truth and falsehood. So let's get a little here from vowsh. Or sticks hex and hammer I guess. I'm going to be honest with you guys. I don't follow this dude's content that much. Everything I have ever seen of this person leads me to believe that they are a desperately cringy incredibly unintelligent loser. You remember razor fist. Remember how razor fist would casually misunderstand and misstate every single thing he said. But he talked fast and he'd a leather jacket and a sense of style that was that let's be real was never appropriate but would have been more appropriate 30 years ago. Yeah yeah it's like razor fist but like lamar basically. The I only know two things from this guy that he complains about cultural Marxism a lot and that he was a Holocaust denier like six years ago. I don't know if he still does this vowsh video came from February 13 2020. This Holocaust denial. He's usually shirtless while I'm glad we happened upon this video then. I watched like two Patriot Act videos. My whole fucking I guess it was like three or four. I was playing hat in time. He's also a Nazi. I I do think I do think sticks and hammer might be too stupid to have a coherent or consistent set of principles because I've seen some stuff that he's done. He went on Red Ice TV. He's he's talked with Richard Spencer. He said he wants to lean more into the far right. But you know. I've also heard him say that he staunchly supports like women's equality and gay rights or something. I have no idea. I have no idea. It's possible to be incoherently fascist. That is totally possible. If anyone there's an excellent video on this. So I think some of our just critiques here a valid could be valid. I don't know enough about the topic but obviously folding sticks because he's willing to talk to Red Ice or to talk to Richard Spencer. Is absurd. And this was the first time I ever heard of sticks and hammer by the way was through destiny. Hold on. Dude over here on the right above my camera. I kind of like them. They seem nice. They're giving me the finger of two fingers actually. But I still like them. I think they're cute. It's him. Okay. I mean I like the little figure. Little baby sticks. Let's find out SJW cannibalism is climate change quote unquote movement declared quote unquote too white. All right everyone. There's a very cringy and funny article the other day from Vice. Okay that's redundant. It's a Vice article about. I'm going to say this exactly once. How do you have 400,000 subscribers on YouTube and have a microphone like this. Holy shit. Jesus Christ put a fucking noise dampener on. I guess there was this you know person of color which is kind of a bigoted term when you really think about what it really means but that's the one that the woke people use now. We got that woke terminology again. People of color isn't a racist term in any way shape or form. People of color is broadly adopted after its use in academia and it was used in academia mainly to distinguish against like hegemonic whiteness. The idea being essentially that in Western or white culture you know here in America at the very least when it comes to your sort of broader racial predilections the way you're treating you are either white or not that there is a distinction. Okay so the reason why I want to talk about this particular video just a little bit is to emphasize Ronald Coase's point that public is not that interested in truth. Public is far more interested in the struggle between truth and falsehood. Right there's a saying all the world loves a lover now it doesn't what all the world loves is a scrap. The world loves a good fight. Right the world is compelled by battles by the struggle between truth and falsehood not particularly interested in truth in and of itself. Between those groups whiteness is inherently exclusionary blackness is inherently inclusionary. Think about it Obama was black but in actual in actuality he was half white why is that well that's because you know a drop of black blood makes you one of them but whiteness is something you have to be allowed into. It's it's it's a to distinguish fundamentally between the like those broader social blocks but it's not a racist term not in any way she performed. I'm going to respond to this in a really good faith it's been a while since I've done that and I feel like I'm going to catch this guy in like 18 stupid things a minute. So did he just say it's been a while since he's responded to someone in good faith? Well areas but who left I guess. I remember the the business for commentary how you make a living supposedly with your ideas is you give a devoted audience what they want to hear. If you're a libertarian you you keep telling them why libertarians are right. If you're a left winger you keep telling them why the left is right and the right is wrong. If you're a conservative you just come every day with why conservatives are right and everyone else is wrong. Now if you're interested primarily in truth then you have to admit that sometimes the left is right and the right is wrong. Sometimes the right is right and the left is wrong. Sometimes the centrists are more correct than either. Sometimes the libertarians are right. Sometimes the authoritarian approach is right. Sometimes the elite are right. Sometimes the elite are wrong. Sometimes the common people are right. Sometimes the common people are wrong. There's no group that is gifted by heaven a monopoly on truth. There's no group that is almost always right just almost always telling the truth almost always on the side of the angels. Right sometimes the left is right. Sometimes the right is right. Sometimes the elites are right. Sometimes the middle class is right. Sometimes the working class is right. Climate movement in so far as that bullshit exists because it's too white. I guess the idea is Greta Thunberg is white and these activists a lot of them they're you know they're white trust funders from like college towns and stuff. That's really interesting. You know what I love doing before I go over these videos I love looking at the article they're referring to which I read you're welcome and it has nothing to do with what he's talking about leaving because Greta Thunberg is white. So this is true for for most pundits. All right. They they use articles and they use news events to to repeat their their greatest hits. All right. Successful punditry is like top 40 radio. You just play the hits over and over and over again. You just vary it with circumstance. So one particular story you come in with this greatest hit then the next story you come in with this greatest hit. And so you'll notice this with virtually every talk radio host. You notice this with Dennis Prager like Dennis Prager would often sees on a news article and then his his sound engineer or his producer will point out well actually the article says the very opposite of what you're saying it is because people see the word not as the word is we see the word as we are. And so we think we can predict what the article is really saying but we've got the you know we've got the truth and we know better therefore we don't have to listen very hard to other people or read very carefully. And because white people do climate change activism we'll go over it more. I'm sure as as it becomes prescient. That is true. That's where that tends to promulgate and so they decided to leave the movement. I'm thinking to myself how fucking wacky this is. First and foremost yes the climate movement again so-called. So I would never choose to watch a sticks video or a vouch video not anything against them that they both you know far more talented far more skilled you know far more popular far more professional and excellent in their genre than I am it's just not how I choose to use my time. I prefer to hear academic approaches I prefer to hear from the great courses I prefer to hear a lecture from some Yale professor. But that you know a little confrontation there between Vouch and Stix and the Hammett does have you know far more compelling entertainment value than me reading allowed from 1974 Ronald Coase essay in the American Economic Association. But he makes this great point here the the public is usually more interested in the struggle between truth and falsehood than it is in the truth itself. You want to get views on YouTube telling the truth it's not going to bring you views struggling between truth and falsehood with internet blood sports debate that is compelling it's not true all the world loves a lover not even a lover of truth what all the world loves is a scrap a fight a competition a battle right so when you have demand for the services of writers and speech makers it largely depends on the existence of controversy right. You have to have controversy for writers and speech makers and YouTubers and podcasters to have any importance any prominence any income right truth standing triumphant and alone there's no money in that right presenting truth triumphant and alone there's no status in that presenting truth triumphant and alone there's no power in that presenting truth triumphant and alone you get no following from that just presenting the truth triumphant and alone and you will very likely feel you're just speaking into a void take Kenneth Brown he gets 99% of his hits because he offers some sometimes smart sharp and funny commentary on the alt right when he's just dealing in the world of metaphysics his audience disappears right there is no audience for truth standing triumphant and alone there's very little audience it's very difficult to attract an audience where you present truth triumphant and alone but people want is truth battling falsehood so what kind of policies would be most appropriate what should government do right is the government as incompetent as it is generally assumed in the marketplace for ideas right if the government is that incompetent then we would want government to decrease government intervention in the marketplace for goods if government is as efficient as it is generally assumed by our ruling elites in the marketplace for goods then we would want to increase government regulation in the marketplace for ideas and that's exactly what's happened so this inconsistency has gone away so in 1974 intellectuals wanted free marketplace of ideas laissez faire with regard to ideas heavy government intervention in goods and services now intellectuals want heavy government intervention in both spheres now one can adopt an intermediate position a government is neither as incompetent as assumed in one market nor as efficient and virtuous as assumed in the other so in this case we ought to reduce the amount of government regulation in the market for goods and increase government intervention in the marketplace for ideas what a stimulating essay by Ronald Coase from 1974 the American Economic Association just blew me away I mean how much the intellectual climate has changed since 1974 when it was simply taken for granted that the free marketplace for ideas is a good thing so a few days ago Stephen Kotkin spoke about Vladimir Putin, Adolf Hitler, Zelensky the war in Ukraine with Lex Friedemann so your powerful, precise, rigorous words are then in a stark contrast I would say to my very recent conversation with Oliver Stone now I would love you to elaborate to this agreement you have here with his words and maybe words of people like John Meersheimer the idea is that Putin's hand in this invasion of 2022 was forced by the expansion of NATO the imperialist imperative of the United States and the so now it's going to get interesting because Stephen Kotkin is going to critique John Meersheimer and Oliver Stone and then I'm going to critique Stephen Kotkin's critique right so now we get to have the battle between truth and false the NATO forces you disagree with this point in terms of placing the blame somehow on the invasion on forces larger than the particular two nations involved but more on the geopolitics of the world that's driven by the most powerful military nation in the world which is the United States yeah Lex so let's imagine that a tragedy has happened here in New York and a woman got raped we know the purpose okay that's that's a great analogy so it's wrong to rape but if you dress in a slutty fashion and go into a bad part of town alone and just walk around and smile and chat with every stranger who comes along you're far more likely to get raped than if you didn't now the rapist is still a bad person they still committed a crime and you do not morally deserve to get raped but the nature of reality is you're far more likely to get raped if you participate in this kind of activity than if you've gone to a bible study in a good part of town so I know women who get into bed naked with guys and are then shocked where those guys rape them well if you don't want to have sex with a guy don't get into bed naked with them now the guy is is doing a bad thing by forcing her to have sex right just because she got naked does not mean that she wants to have sex so he's still committing a moral and a very seems to me very likely a legal infraction by obviously forcing a woman to have sex but if you don't want to have sex don't get naked with a guy and if you don't want to get raped then place yourself in positions where you're far more likely to be raped than other places where you're far less likely to be raped perpetrator they go to trial and Oliver Stone gets up and says you know what the woman was wearing a short skirt and there was no option so it's interesting Steven Cocken here is responding to the realist critique of the nature of reality with a moral judgment and John Meersheim is not primarily in the business of making moral judgments on great power politics he simply lays out this is the nature of great power politics when you threaten a great power on their doorstep they will tend to respond in a vicious fashion John Meersheim it doesn't endorse that reality it would be the equivalent of saying you get into bed naked with guys very frequently they're going to force you to have sex even though you don't want to even though they're committing a moral and a moral sin and a legal crime what for the rapist to rape her the woman was wearing lipstick or the woman was applying for natal membership and just had to be raped there's I mean didn't want a raper but was compelled because of what she was doing and what she looked like and and the clothes she was wearing and the alliances that she was under international law signed by Moscow all the treaties that sovereign countries get to choose whatever alliance they belong to a treaties that the UN Charter signed by Russia the Soviet Union the 1975 Helsinki agreement it's just such a bizarre response that because Russia signed these various treaties therefore they're morally wrong for dishonoring these treaties okay they're morally wrong that's not the nature of the realist critique the nature of the realist critique it's not about the morality of great power politics it's about the reality right there's morality there's reality right often two different spheres sometimes you can bring them together which I try to do at times such as given the nature of reality okay the nature of the reality is if a woman gets naked and gets into bed with a guy she's far more likely to get raped than if she goes to a bible study at her church and doesn't get naked with any guys that night right that's the nature of reality given that reality it would be the moral thing for the woman not to get into bed naked with a guy because she would be they're tempting him into both a sin and a crime also it would be the moral thing for the guy to stay away from such unstable dangerous women who make such terrible choices and who are inviting abuse because it's not going to end well you're getting into bed with an amber hood and how did that work out for Johnny Depp signed by the Soviet Union the 1990 Charter of Paris for a new Europe signed by the Soviet Union the 1997 NATO Russia Founding Act signed by the Russian government to post-Soviet so he's invoking all these international laws so they mean anything international law means very little we're all locked in an iron cage together and when you're locked in an iron cage what is the law is not usually the dominating principle it's not usually the principle that determines how people really react now Elliott says the strong critique what they want in the week tweet about it well tweets are critiques so it's not that the strong critique what they want the strong take what they want and the weak endure what they must and when it comes to physical strength generally speaking men tend to have more physical strength there are other forms of strength women tend to live longer so men and women tend to have different gifts all of those documents signed by either the Soviet regime or the Russian regime which is the legally recognized international inheritor right successor of the Soviet state or I was just thinking one of my recent videos was about how the Buffalo shooter live streamed his massacre on twitch right so I think twitch probably didn't like it that I highlighted the role that they played it'd be a Buffalo massacre so what's easier for twitch to face up to their own bad behavior right he was live streaming for about 20 minutes or you know blame someone else for pointing out that twitch was live streaming the massacre so we would all much rather point our fingers at someone else get back to Steven Kotkin all of those agreements are still in force and all of them say that oh all these agreements are still in force really in force by whom Steven Kotkin believes that these agreements have in and of themselves metaphysical certitude right he sounds like Ken Brown here guys you can't go anywhere until you reach agreement on metaphysical principles and so Steven Kotkin takes it for granted that these legal agreements have metaphysical certitude their metaphysical power their metaphysical force well which battalions are backing up these agreements whose armies back up these agreements whose armies will enforce these agreements whose nuclear weapons will enforce these agreements whose tanks will enforce these agreements and the answer is no one there are no tanks there are no armies there are no nuclear weapons there are no fighter jets there are no bombers that will enforce these these legal agreements right their pieces of paper men sign pieces of paper all the time and these pieces of paper only have force if there is some power that will enforce them but there's no power that will enforce international law international institutions the UN the WHO you know the human rights league in the Hague it doesn't have any battalions doesn't have any bombs doesn't have any fighter jets doesn't have any tanks doesn't have much power unless people with power decide to enforce these institutions and back them up with battalions and tanks and bombs okay so when great powers think it's useful to provide force behind these national institutions then the international institutions have power such as when United Nations went to war in Korea against North Korea's invasion right but that was only because the United States wanted and wanted and was willing to go to war and was able to get the United Nations on board but there's in and of itself the UN and these treaties have no meaning no power he talks as though these things have implicit inherent power they have none who where's the power who who enforces it right an agreement between you and me means nothing unless we voluntarily choose to abide by it or there is some powerful force that will enforce the agreement between you and me but men make assent to things all the time that they don't live up to and the only time that agreements have power and force is when there's a great power and a great force that's standing behind them there's no great power and no great force standing behind these legal documents that Stephen Cochran is invoking as though they're holy Torah he is talking about these documents as though they are the New Testament and he is a fundamentalist Christian he's talking about these documents as though they are the Koran that was handed down by God he's talking about these documents as though they're the Book of Mormon who were delivered which was delivered by some angel to Joseph Smith I mean the startling staggering willful blinded naive Tay of this guy who believes that these documents possess power in and of themselves is breathtaking what a fool can you believe how foolish he is now he has a lot of wisdom but also so much foolishness countries are sovereign and can freely choose their foreign policy and what alliances they oh did you know that countries are sovereign and can freely choose their foreign policy and foreign alliances what world does he live in when has this ever been true for small vulnerable countries living next to great powers this has never ever been true in human history you live next to a great power you are not sovereign and you don't get to choose your alliances has he ever read the history of the Peloponnesian wars history of the Peloponnesian wars started off by one small country making a move here and the the rising power of Athens was was making the dominant power at the time Sparta feel nervous and so the rising power of Athens made Sparta highly reactive and all those other countries that God evolved or those other city-states all right they didn't have sovereignty they didn't get to choose their own alliances you either ally with us or we slaughter you and rape your women that's the nature of reality do you think Mexico is sovereign and can choose its own foreign policy do you think Mexico could host a Chinese military base do you think Mexico could host a Chinese naval port do you think Canada could host a Chinese naval port you think the United States would be just fine right with Canada allowing China to set up military bases of course not it has never operated this way in all of human history this guy is unpleasant absurdia there's never been a time when nations are sovereign in and of the fact that they are nations there's never been a time when the weak haven't had to endure what they must when the strong haven't taken what they wanted and they never will be they want to join let's even go farther than that I mean you don't have to go farther than that but let's go farther than that Lex is an autocratic repressive regime that invades its neighbors in the name of its own security something new in Russian history did we not see oh what about the United States the United States started out as 13 colonies the 13 states and then what did it do it kept expanding it kept invading its neighbors it kept wiping out its neighbors it kept flexing and establishing more and more power and the only reason the United States did take over the Caribbean was because of the divisive issue of slavery and it just would have created too much you know internal dislocation right we invaded Canada in in the early 19th century in the Anglo-American war of 1812 United States kept expanding and expanding until it was no longer in its interest to do so as United States caring about the sovereignty of the tribes that it was destroying United States care about the sovereignty of Mexico when it took territory from Mexico United States care about the sovereignty of Spain United States took what it wanted and Hitler admired the brutal nature of American expansion Hitler modeled himself in large part on American racial policy on American eugenic policy and on the brutal nature of American expansionism right Hitler admired the brutal nature of the United States is this before is this does this not predate NATO expansion does this it's the way human history has always worked the strong take what they want has nothing to do with Russia right Sparta acted this way Athens acted this way the Babylonians acted this way the Medes and the Persians acted this way Egypt acted this way Rome acted this way France Spain England acted this way this is how great powers act the strong take what they want the weak and do what they must it's not predate the existence of NATO would Oliver Stone sit here in this chair and say to you you know they had to impose serfdom in the 17th century because NATO expanded they had no choice their hands were tied they were compelled to treat their own population like slaves because you know NATO expanded I mean I could go on through the examples of Russian history that predate the existence let alone the expansion of NATO where you have behavior policies actions very similar yeah it's just unique to Russia nobody ever does this because as LaFonious points out the United States always respects treaties and agreements certainly did with with the Indians when they made these treaties and agreements with Indians not just to the letter of the law but also to the spirit of the law so that's what means to be American alert to what we see now from the Kremlin and you can't explain those by NATO expansion can you and so that argument doesn't wash for me because I have a pattern here what I mean he's been talking like this for months this is his response to realism for months now since the Ukrainian invasion Shulia has been brought up to him how absurd he is he is arguing that the nature of reality is immoral yes the nature of reality is immoral and so what right the laws of gravity operate whether you're a moral person or an immoral person the laws of power politics and great power politics operate whether you're a moral country or an immoral country here the predates NATO expansion I have international agreements founding documents signed oh my god he has international agreements and founding documents that are signed and they have metaphysical certitude they're metaphysical principles this guy should meet Ken Brown I mean they'd have a great time together talking about metaphysical principles how outrageous it is that people aren't clear on their metaphysical principles and you can't go anywhere you can't make any progress in the human condition you can't help people unless you first agree on certain foundational metaphysical principles by the Kremlin over many many decades acknowledging the freedom of countries to choose their alliances and then I have this problem where when you rape somebody it's not because they're wearing a short skirt it's because you have raped them oh you rape someone because you rape them that's a tautology no people rape because they can right the strong take what they want people steal because they can people murder it because they can and they think they'll get away with it you've committed a criminal act Lex that's a I think there's a lot of people listening to this that will agree to the emotion the power in the spirit of this metaphor and I was struggling to think how to dance within this metaphor because it feels like it wasn't precisely the right one but I think that it captures the spirit I'm not suggesting Lex that everything the West has done has been honorable or intelligent fortunately we live in a democracy we live in liberal regimes we live under rule of law liberal in the classical sense of rule of law not liberal in the leftist sense we live in places like that and we can criticize ourselves and we can criticize the mistakes that we made or the policy choices or the inactions that were taken and there are a whole lot of yeah the West we can we can criticize ourselves man really sucks for those of you who are down I identify with the West because you're just incapable of moral introspection you're just incapable of being self-critical you're just incapable of seeing objective truth you're just incapable of achieving metaphysical principles and clarity about first metaphysical principles I mean that's why it's so awesome to be in the West because we're just so self-critical I mean the levels of willful delusion here are staggering things to answer for and you can now discuss the ones that are your favorites the dishonor or the mistakes and I could discuss mine and we could spend the whole rest of our meeting today discussing the West's mistakes and problems and we won't end up in prison for it yeah Alex and so that's I'm thankful for that and I'm thankful that people may disagree and that people make the argument that NATO expansion is to blink but but you see I'm countering two arguments here I'm countering one argument which is very deeply popular pervasive countering any argument you're living in a world of delusion like you completely detach from reality I mean how on earth how on earth you get this detach from reality how on earth do you think that you're countering an argument when you're not addressing it at all there's a saying there's no fool like an old fool I mean this man has a very solid body of achievement but somehow he's become completely detached from reality about how Russia has this cultural tendency to aggression and it can't help but invade its neighbors and it does it again and again and it's eternal Russian imperialism and you have to watch out for it okay that's silly now he's got a lot of a lot of a lot of insightful things to say a little later in the show so I'm sitting here in front of you thank you it's an honor and it's a mutual honor so Ukraine before the war is run by a tv production company right you're one guy running this fantastic incredible podcast there's 20 guys or so running a country the size of Ukraine and and one's a producer and one's like a makeup person and one's a video editor and and they're fantastically talented people if your country is a tv production so before the war Solensky had what 25 approval rating and he couldn't get much done and it wasn't working he got elected with 73 as you know and then he was down to 20 that's a pretty big drop and so you're thinking maybe having a major large-sized 40 million plus population European country run by a tv production company is not the best choice and then what do we see we see president Solensky decides to risk his life on behalf of his country Ukraine he decides to stay in the capital he's not going to flee he they're going to stay in fight and he could be killed he can die it's a decision where he put his life on the line obviously he's Jewish descent Russian speaking childhood and upbringing Russian speaking Jewish descent puts his life on the line for the country of Ukraine it's a pretty big message don't you think and it's crucial and it turns out not only that legs but they're good at tv they're good at information war and in a war it's a tv production company and a tv personality those that's exactly what you want running a country because they're crushing in the information war and he's spectacular European parliament US congress Israeli parliament there's no room on zoom let alone in person that he can't win over he's just so affected you know this is the first time reality tv has been about reality instead of fake reality tv is just this completely fake there's a great cartoon showing two Russian tanks in Warsaw and one Russian tank commander says to the other while they're smoking a cigarette well we lost the information war yeah they lost the information war but they won the real war which they may very well do fake nonsense but Zelensky this is real reality tv and he means it and the nation is behind him and they're just as courageous and just as ingenious in many ways and it's spectacular and so yeah who saw that coming I didn't see that coming legs in fact the biden we talk about Putin's miscalculation the biden administration as you alluded to offered him an exit from the country they didn't say you know you want to stand and fight we'll back you they said we'll get you out you want to come now and famously you know that quote right what he said about how he doesn't need a ride remember that moment the biden administration was poised to do another Afghanistan moment that ignominious exit from Afghanistan was almost what happened in Ukraine when the biden administration offered him that ride out of there and fortunately he declined and helped rally and the people from below also rallied they stopped the invader without the presidency and without the government in Ukraine saving the biden administration and the european leaders who latched on fortunately they had the presence of mind to latch on to this gift this this bravery and ingeniousness of of Zelensky and the rest of the ukrainians and flipped and decided to support Ukraine's resistance you know first with 5 000 helmets only as the Germans initially promised and now with really heavy weapons and so that's something that wasn't foreseen I certainly didn't foresee that I foresaw the ukrainian society being courageous and resisting but I didn't foresee a television production company being exactly what you want to run a country in a war a president Zelensky willing to sacrifice lay down his life and rallying others in the country to do that and then the country being so effective not just at a courage but at battlefield resistance to the russian invasion so I stand corrected by the ukrainians and I'm ecstatic that I didn't that I was wrong that I was proven wrong and like I said there's clear factions of the west and the east of ukraine and here's a person that like you said was in the high 20s low 30s percentage approval in the country before the war and now was able to use in the 90s he's in the 90 percent approval rating I mean I think they stopped doing the uh the polling once he hit 91 percent whatever it was in the previous poll I think they all understood that for now they didn't need any more polling that it's pretty clear the nation so 25 percent to 90 something percent and and just like the 25 percent was deserved the 90 something percent is also deserved fully deserved and the question is how that all stabilizes it feels like this set of events I may be paying attention to twitter too much which is a concern of mine whether the change I see is just surface level or deep level but it seems like we're in a new world that's something dramatic has shifted that um this power that's rooted I mean in your study it uh of the 20th century so deeply rooted in history there's this power center of the world is now going to it has been shaken by this event and how that changes the world is is unclear it's unclear what lesson china learns from watching this what lesson india learns from watching this both nations as far as you can get polls about chinese population but both nations are largely in support of putin so russia india and china are still supporting of putin quietly I would maybe elaborate a little bit on that point Lex I think you're right the the feeling that we're in an inflection moment you know an inflection point I think that's widespread and I think it's widespread for good reason we might be but I also share your um let's say modesty about where it's going and how hard it is to predict where this might go it's only an inflection point if the trends continue right if the trends endure there are plenty of non-inflection points after 9-11 the whole world rallied around the united states after it was attacked after the the bombing of the towers here in New York City and the hitting of the pentagon and that didn't last it was not really an inflection point was it it felt like it might be but it wasn't and so this is not a comparable moment in terms of what happened so I agree with everything he's saying here in the last five minutes but it has the feeling that it might be a watershed and maybe we'll squander it the way we swandered the post 9-11 rallying around the united states maybe we'll actually consolidate it and it'll endure or maybe it'll endure despite ourselves and we can't tell and we can't know yet and it depends in part on what we do and what we don't do but here's a few things that we understand already the idea that the west was in decline and that the rest of the world had risen and was more powerful and that we lived in a multipolar world that turns out to be empirically false it's not true and I think this is a very important point I mean it's just factually not true there are no major important multinational institutions organizations that are run on behalf of or led by a South African a Nigerian person from India even the Chinese don't run these institutions they would like to and they're trying but they don't and so whatever you pick the IMF the World Bank the Federal Reserve which is the most powerful multinational institution which is actually only a domestic institution and doesn't have a legal mandate to act multilaterally but does it's got the most power of any institution in the world NATO the bilateral alliances that the U.S. has up and down Asia what organizations that have tremendous leverage on the international system on the international order are non-western the U.N. is the most encompassing and of course we know that the five it has five members of the Security Council with a veto one of which is Russia one of which is China the others are the U.S. Britain and France not India not South Africa not Indonesia not all of these other countries where the people live right the bulk of the population of the world and where the population is growing like on the African continent so it's not a multipolar world we talked already about the international financial system that's the western not multipolar we talked about the U.S. military and NATO well we could talk about the Japanese military which is just very formidable enormous number of platforms even the and Jack complains I didn't play any of the recent job Mishaima Steven Walt debate I watched it all thoroughly nothing was said that I haven't heard and shared on this show many times Australian military we could talk about that right and so it's a western dominated world right Australia has the capability of cutting off China's capacity to get energy two or three Australian destroyers in the Indian ocean could end China's importation of foreign oil and without that within within a year 500 million Chinese would starve to death and the West remember is not a geographic concept it is an institutional and values club the Japanese are not European but they're western just like that's an interesting perspective it's not an idiotic perspective Russia is European but not Western because European is a culture that's really interesting Japan is not European but it is western and outlook Russia is European in large part genetically but not Western full category and Western is an institutional category where you have rule of law and separation of powers and free and open public sphere and dynamic open market economy and okay and then we have another thing which is pretty clear the West is powerfully resented powerfully envied and admired simultaneously PJ O'Rourke the comedian who died this year fantastic it was a big loss for the culture he said there are two things that are always characteristic of any American embassy abroad one is a political protest outside and the other is the longest line you've ever seen for visas and those things are true simultaneously and that's the world we live in meaning that non-Western countries envy and admire the West but they also resent the power of the West Western hypocrisy right the West invades countries if people hate you and resent you it's because you have more power and accomplishment than they do right we never hate resent a field with wrath towards those who are below us we only feel these things towards people who are on our level or above us usually so if people resent you because you've got some things that they wish that they had when it wants but when others do that it's illegal right the West arrests you for money laundering but it's Western money laundering that is where you go when you need to launder money right so they see the hypocrisy they see the excessive power that the West has and they resent it and they say you who elected you and Leponia says when Westerners go to Japan they get a serious culture shock it's not Western at all yes but Japan since World War II has thrown itself completely under the American umbrella right Japan it's not active contrary to what United States wants from them in anything important for 70 years China Japan slavishly follows America's lead just as Australia does just as Britain does Britain, Australia, Japan all depend for survival on the might of the United States of America and therefore none of these nations would ever buck the American lead in anything important they cannot because they're very survival depends upon American military protection to run the world we have a billion plus people or we have a 200 plus million people and we don't have a say you're self-appointed guardians of our world who did that and so it's incumbent on the West not only to remember the power that it has but also to exercise that power legally and with restraint and also to think about how we can expand institutions to be more encompassing so that other parts of the world these things are very nice but in the final analysis the primary job of every nation state is to survive and the primary way you survive is by becoming as strong as possible vis-a-vis your neighbors so having a mission of transcendent moral values and trying to establish the international rule of law may very well detract from the survival of your own nation state and would be suicidal for you to pursue that policy if that's true are not on the outside being dictated to but instead are on the inside too often and Josh Randall says Japan went from psychopathic enemy to solid road dog and who said about Germany they're either at your neck or at your feet Western power is not consultative in a decision making I mean think about how I was arguing for years on this show that China was no real threat that in all likelihood China was going down the toilet the United States was far more powerful than China the United States had no real peer competitor and people were telling me oh the Chinese military it's so tough the Russian military it's so tough Luke look at their ads Luke look at their ads their ads are so much more masculine it's so much more tough than American military ads well you can have really gay military ads like the United States has and still have a very powerful military you can have very tough masculine looking ads like China and Russia have and be a piss poor military right the United States it's so much powerful than people realized three months ago and it has no peer competitor China is so much more vulnerable than people were thinking two years ago three years ago remember all the people who come into my chat and just rubbish me that China's got to take over the world the United States is nothing the United States is trash China's just going to eat our lunch never hear that anymore and the extent of China's difficulty is not even realized yet dominantly in the media like China is in such worse shape than the news media portrays and yet the media is portraying enough reality about China that you never ever ever hear anyone talking anymore about how China's going to run the world how China's going to eat America's lunch never hear anyone talking about that anymore in fashion it's consultative after the fact okay you know we got together in the EU or we got together in NATO or we got together at the Federal Reserve and here's our decision and we're announcing it today and so your economy gets destroyed because the Federal Reserve decides it has to raise interest rates or you now go into default you can't pay your debt because Western banks lent you money and now the West has changed interest rates or other considerations and you're in big trouble now and so this is something which we fail to address it's very hard to address it's very hard to reform international institutions it's very hard to share power it's very hard to acknowledge that you have too much power and that maybe having too much power is not good not only for the rest of the world but for yourself and so it's great to rediscover the West and rediscover its values and rediscover its authority and credibility and power but it's that's not sufficient so we know this now we know that the rest of the world is not necessarily jumping on the Western bandwidth can we go to the mind of Vladimir Putin because what you just said China, India they seem to sit back and say we're not going to condemn the actions of Vladimir Putin in Russia but we would really like for this war to be over yeah it was Winston Churchill who said Germany's either at your neck or at your feet so there's that kind of energy of we don't just stop this because you're putting us in a very very bad position and yet Vladimir Putin is continuing the aggression what is he thinking what information is he getting is it the system that you've described of authoritarian regimes that corrupts your flow of information your ability to make clear-headed decisions just as a human being when you go to sleep at night is he not able to see the world clearly or is this all deliberate systematic action that does have some reason behind it we got to talk a little bit about China too but let's answer your Putin question directly so on Twitter you've lost the war or as they say you know there are these two Russian soldiers having a smoke in Warsaw and you know they're they're taking a break having a smoke and they're sitting there in Warsaw on top of their tank and one says to the other yeah you know we lost the information war and there they are sitting in Warsaw having that smoke right so yeah on Twitter Russia has completely lost the war in reality they failed to take Kiev they failed to capture Kiev and they failed in phase two as they called it or plan B which is to capture the entirety of the Donbass we're three months into the war if you had made a judgment about let's say the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union a definitive judgment after three months you might have got the outcome wrong there if you had judged the winter war the 1939-40 Soviet invasion of Finland after three months you would have got that wrong too of what the outcome was going to be so we're early in the game here and we have to be careful about any definitive judgments but it is the case that so far they failed to take Kiev and they failed to capture the entirety of the Donbass Luhansk and Donetsk provinces Eastern Ukraine a part of Eastern Ukraine and they've been driven out of Kharkiv and in the area immediately surrounding Kharkiv they never captured Kharkiv but they came close but now the Ukrainians drove them back to the Russian border in that very large and important region so those look like battlefield losses that are impossible to explain away if you're the regime in Russia except by suppression of information and as you know from Russian history like leaders in Russia have an easier time with a state of siege and deprivation than they do with explaining a lost war but let's look at some other facts that are important to take into account One, the Russian army has penetrated father into Ukrainian territory since February 2022 including in Kherson region the famous Mariupol siege that just ended they have built a large presence in areas north of Crimea on the Sea of Azov the Black Sea Latoral ultimately that they didn't previously hold they're still fighting in Luhansk for full control over at least half of the Donbass and Ukrainians are resisting fiercely but nonetheless you can say that they've been driven out on the contrary father penetration in the beginning Ukraine doesn't have any economy anymore they have somewhere between 33 and 50% unemployment it's hard to measure unemployment in a war economy but they're a metallurgical industry that Azov style steel plant in Mariupol is a ruin now and a lot of farmers are not planting the fields because the harvest from the previous year still hasn't been sent sold abroad because the ports are blockaded or destroyed and so you don't have an economy and you need five billion or seven billion or eight billion dollars a month to meet your payroll to feed your people to keep your army in the field that's a lot of money per month and that's indefinite that's as long as this blockade lasts and so you don't have an economy anymore you're indigent and even if you take the lower number five billion as opposed to Zelensky's as for seven billion five billion is 60 billion a year that's 60 billion this year that's 60 billion next year and so who's got that kind of money which Western taxpayers are ready if you use the seven or eight billion you get up to a hundred billion a year the Biden just signed the Biden President Joe Biden just signed the bill making it law 40 billion dollars in aid to Ukraine it's just an enormous sum the economic piece of that is a month and a half two months of Ukrainians covering Ukrainian expenditures that's it and they're asking the G7 they're asking everybody for this so you have no economy and no prospect of an economy until you evict the Russians from your territory and then you have a Western unity Western resolve it lasts or it doesn't last, Lex so you're president Putin and you've got more territory than before and you've got a stranglehold over the Ukrainian economy and you've got a lot of the world neutral and you've got the Chinese propaganda supporting you to the hilt with those Oliver Stone and Mirshimer lines about how this is really NATO's fault and you've got Hungary dragging its feet on the oil embargo against Russia and you've got Turkey dragging its feet on the recent applications of Sweden and Finland for NATO expand and you're saying to yourself Lex maybe I can ride this out I got a lot of problems of my own and we can go into the details on the Russian side it's the challenges but he's got he's on Ukrainian territory unless he's evicted and he's got a stranglehold on their economy and he's got the possibility that the West doesn't stay resolved and doesn't continue to pay for Ukraine's economy or supply those heavy weapons and so you could argue that maybe he's deluded about all of this and maybe he should go on Twitter you know I'm not on Twitter but maybe Putin who famously doesn't use the internet should go on Twitter and see he's losing the war or you can argue that maybe he's calculating here that he's got a chance to still prevail Wow that is darkly insightful if I could go to Henry Kissinger I mean I wish like yours but so there are these things that we can't predict but there are these things we're watching and watching closely and on top of that something that's not in World War II or for the most part is cyber attacks and cyber warfare which is much less perhaps convertible into human words because it happens so quickly it's large scales so difficult to trace and all those kinds of things it's not bullets it's electrical signals and that yeah but those Ukrainian people they're like Ulex they're young and they're technically really proficient and they've been amazing you know they spent those teenage years in the basement playing video games it's useful after all it turns out it's more than useful you can save your country that way and so they're not alone they're getting support and that support is important yep save your country playing video games such a violent reaction from the military why was that was it arbitrary was it a result of Spanglerian decline was it a result of entropy was it you know satanic chaos from another dimension aliens lizard people what was it I don't have all of these explanations for you although they are fun to think about I guess on the line of creative thinking I believe it's economic in its causes I believe economic incentives led to this political change and so when you had 30 years of Franco similar to you know Juche in North Korea or something you had this hard line military coup take over the country and say stop no more progress but there's always going to be a moment of weakness those kinds of rigid military structures unless they're backed up by the types of economy that allowed them to rise in the first place the agrarian economy when we look at a geopolitical situation if the entire world is doing hyper capitalism progressive and you're just little Francoist state or a little North Korean state and you're isolated you know it's just you holding out against the whole world it seems like it's a matter of time before the leader dies there's a succession crisis in the case of Frank we turned it over to the monarchy and the monarchy said eh we're not going to fight this fight we'd rather just go with the flow so my question is what is that flow what is the incentive structure it fundamentally comes from an economic shift and if you believe we're going back you're wrong what we've done now is we've exported the old economy the industrial economy the economy of the factory to China but the problem with China is that China has a competitive advantage in labor has over a billion people and they're all hard workers and they go to the factory and they make widgets for Americans but what happens when automation comes to China it's already happening to an extent all of the trends that they talk about are already present in China they may be slower than in the west they may be at a different distance traveled than the west thinking about a car driving along a road you know America's here China's over here China might be going slower it might be far behind but it's still headed in the same direction okay not getting anything from that so it's not uncommon you turn into a Kenneth Brown video and 20 minutes later you're realizing there's absolutely nothing here there's no wisdom here so sometimes he brings it sometimes he does extraordinarily well for someone his age sometimes it's pretty funny but sometimes there's nothing there so I was watching a terrific not watching listening to a terrific podcast Trickster the many lives of Carlos Castaneda want to play a little bit The Trickster the many lives of Carlos Castaneda three-part of this game series at the Cineteatro Cajamarca Movie Theater a young Cesar Arana was learning it at home listening to records on the Victrola an indulgence of his jeweler father in the early 90s when Castaneda reemerged onto the public stage his enduring fame and infamy had turned him into a cultural icon a cultural icon who was back in business he and his inner circle of followers began ramping up their appearances and the audience size of their workshops and seminars would sometimes swell to over 800 attendees the workshops taught the set of bodily techniques Castaneda had been honing since the 80s what he was now calling tensegrity a term that he liberated from Buckminster Fuller writing on the popularity of in-home fitness VHS tapes of tensegrity soon found their way to the market in the videos Kylie Lundahl a blonde strikingly tall woman who was one of Castaneda's fiercest followers welcome acted as the lead presenter the movements that you are about to see have been taken directly from other movements with shamans seers who lived in Mexico in ancient times used to call magical passes everything we know about those movements was taught to Carlos Castaneda Taisha Abalar Florenda Donor-Graw and Carol Teaks by Don Juan Matus a Yaqui Indian shaman from the state of Sonora, Mexico but just as Castaneda began upping his public profile health problems began popping up eye troubles okay sorry that was the wrong segment think of a new film company I'm so sorry being launched by Oliver Stone and his producing partner Janet Yang and the name that they had chosen for the company was a rather peculiar one unless you were a fan of Castaneda's books Oliver Stone I named the corporation that I formed X-Lan in respect for Castaneda's work X-Lan was the name of a mythic destination Castaneda had made famous with his third book Journey to X-Lan soon after the ad appeared in Variety the office at X-Lan received an unexpected phone call I got a call from someone named Tracy Kramer he said hi I represent Cops Castaneda and I immediately held my breath this is Janet Yang producer of the Joy Luck Club and the people versus Larry Flynn I was worried if Carlos was going to have an objection to the name X-Lan but Tracy was very friendly he said no Carlos would really like to meet you and Oliver and I said okay is there anything in particular he said no just to meeting the mind so I went back to Oliver and he too had a similar reaction and said oh I'm supposed to be saying okay what do you think he wants to meet I said I really don't know but I don't think he can hurt to me aren't you curious he said yeah I'm curious at the time of Janet's call with Tracy Castaneda was in the process of developing a new secretive project one whose ambition would transcend the confines of a book's cover as Castaneda began beta testing his project in the 80s even by his own extreme standards he was becoming incredibly elusive he started withdrawing more and more from the social world of his family and old friends and became more ensconced in the world of his followers now you notice this with many e-personalities they withdraw more and more from their old friends and from their family and retreat instead much more into the world of their followers so this seems to be the trajectory of a Nick Fuentes and even a Richard Spencer for a while I rubbed him all the time I would ask him why he didn't return my phone calls why he wouldn't return my letters Castaneda's son CJ Castaneda I actually hired an attorney because I thought that they had done away with I thought that the girls or any of those people those whack jobs just following him around like little puppy dogs and I thought that they might have done something with caused his descent into running this whole cult with his followers for Linda and the rest in some way took over his life Castaneda's editor at Simon Schuster Michael Korda he became consumed not only by his own legend but also by the world he created around it it's one thing to believe in witchcraft it's another thing to actually create roving coven of witches and live in the center of them ever since the days when he sat at Professor Harold Garfinkel's feet Castaneda had understood the idea that groups create worlds over time he would realize that the right members could create the right world for him one that was perfectly tailored to meet his own emotional and psychological needs friend Larry Watson Carlos needed the right people the right setting the right combination of elements and if those so the Carlos Castaneda would have loved the potential of the he personality where you can create a world just composed of your own followers who cater to your every whim and you see this with many celebrities they kind of get tired of the sturm and drang of everyday life they just want to retreat to a world of their own followers and Carlos Castaneda had just the best of intentions for all of the stones producing partner at Janet Yang who was dating Billy Bob Thornton at the time as she steadily fell under the influence of Carlos Castaneda Carlos he told me that he didn't like the fact that I was and this is somewhat personal he said he didn't like the fact that I was significantly important he didn't like the fact of anybody's seed being in me as he said throughout her time with Castaneda Janet kept a private journal here I just underlined some things I wrote here I told Carlos guiltily that I had been with Billy and so then Carlos said you shouldn't be seeing him he's going to damage your energy and there was definitely mutual suspicion between the two of them I found myself in the tug of war because they represented two completely different aspects of existence you know there was such a dichotomy because Billy was not a complicated intellectual person he was a very deep person but his life experience was born out of his sensory experiences and Carlos was just the opposite he was his head was in the clouds and he had very grandiose ideas very abstract Undeterred by Billy Bob Castaneda pursued Janet obsessively I don't mind talking about this now because what do we all have to hide anymore so one evening he invited me over to his home right in West LA he had this place that was kind of hidden behind a lot of bushes and trees so he led me into a bedroom and I wasn't really sure what was going to happen but I had a feeling but then I thought oh well what am I going to do and so he proceeded to tell me that that his semen was going to just disappear that that would get absorbed by my body and I've shared this with very few people just because most of the time when it raises the name of people like why don't you make Carlos castaneda that's amazing okay tip guys if some guy wants to fill you with his semen and he tells you it's just going to disappear and it's not a sexual thing probably employ some skepticism it didn't feel right to say this again that he basically I can't say it was rape so that would it wasn't rape you know it would be unfair for me to call it rape I could have run out of there I you know they're made I could have not gone to begin with there's so many things you know so it wasn't rape because I didn't resist he didn't it was it was a it was a unpleasant seduction or something but it's relatable to a lot of the stories that have come out and I really do understand now how common this is in many different ways especially for young women you meet someone that seems to be very powerful that seems to be very concerned about you and your growth that seems to be very invested in that growth and that wants seemingly wants to teach you and there's a level of flattery you get plucked out of the crowd and this idea that someone sees you and thinks you're very special and if you don't know yourself and you want to hang on to that feeling of specialness that somehow somebody's endowing on you so that's Janet Yang the producing partner for Oliver Stone so you're saying 40 cut the crap give me some Donna Bevan Lee I mean this is a woman who has great wisdom so let's get some Donna Donna Bevan Lee you also might think do I want myself in a relationship because if you're looking for someone like you back to square one that's what one two and three year olds do they're like they are uncomfortable and don't like anything that doesn't remind them of themselves because of course they're the center of the universe and everything revolves around them so if you want yourself you're going to go back further your co-dependency recovery so that you can get yourself grown up enough so when you go out there you can be with people you can see them for who they are and accept them for who they are so one of the things about love addicts and that's why I'm not spending a whole lot of time on this part but love addicts have a tendency to accept everyone the way they are for every reason into their lives and what love addicts need to do is accept yourself into your own life on a regular basis you say who am I what am I doing what do I think how do I feel am I glad about that do I appreciate that about myself okay a little bit there from Donna Bevan Lee so I've been watching the new tv series under the banner of heaven and it reminds me of things that go on with all sorts of different religions it's not just the dark side of womanism but this is what happens with religion Martin Ballard president of Robin's stake he phoned me every while ago President Ballard it's a pleasure to meet you how can I help well Robin told me he's badly in need of spiritual counsel and under the circumstances he must be carrying a heavy burden indeed if you're here to visit him I I ask if it can wait for tomorrow the case is very active right now I know Heavenly Father won't let you rest until the evil doers are in him but yeah Robin's a good boy as are Alan and Sam and seeing all three in need of healing prayer I'd like you to release them into my custody perhaps we can talk in private no you don't need to trouble yourself I don't feel it's it's prudent to release them just yet is everything all right it's a very ghastly complicated case and we're all doing our best here you know I mean with you you're carrying so much here in his home your mother her suffering your vision so what you tell a priest and generally what you tell Christian clergy is confidential but what you tell a rabbi is not inherently confidential rabbis get to use what they hear for the benefit of the community which might mean breaking your confidentiality and so you see in corporate environments like Orthodox Judaism or intense versions of the Mormon religion the religious leaders will not hesitate to use your you know every painful personal of assesitude against you if that helps them get what they want or what they believe is best for the community you told me after I met with you and your wife about your daughter's baptism you introduced some provocative questions blood come on I hope you guys can just put your questions on the shelf I mean stop asking questions guys but atonement blood atonement this case must weigh heavy on you perhaps some questions man isn't meant to answer yeah guys some questions man isn't meant to answer trust the priest trust the priest of guys trust the elites please the brothers into my custody put your questions on the shelf put your questions on the shelf guys trust the elites respectfully sir I'm not talking about the only way to obtain the constitution right I mean it's the only way out of this mess and back to God's plan God's plan what's your plan just to get us thrown in jail is that your plan or are you gonna become sheriff and stack the juries and rule how you wish because if you do that's an embarrassment Ron you how do you think we feel I'm embarrassed that I can barely support my family I wish that we could all be as successful as as well off as you are which well when do you put first guys God's plan or man's plan God's law or American law you're telling me right I'm sorry I'm curious does it help your prophets to obey these illegal laws yes or no but you follow them anyhow and why because you're scared dad will be gone soon and what has he left us with Lafferty men used to run things in the state and I've had a vision to set things back in that order and if you don't want to be a part of that and you should change your name if all we do is embarrass you because guys I've had a vision the vouch nationalism is the way forward for western civilization I hope you're not questioning my vision you weren't either a part of this family or you are not you're either part of this family guys or you're not I've got a vision I've had a vision guys are you questioning my vision vouch nationalism I think it might be time for you to leave Ron yeah might be time for you to leave shut up and let me thank you okay I do own my own home and I do own my own business you own on that so someone tell you that I'm I'm gonna lose it all is that why you're speaking when you're in a corporate environment all right meaning that they're not just the separate spheres of your life but the community has powers over all of your life including your business life and yeah you can really get squeezed so I love living in community I also love my freedom to speak as I want so I sacrifice some community for some freedom and I sacrifice some freedom for some community I don't sacrifice all of one for the other but a thread in middle path will you you want to cut me down in front of my own brothers is that what you want I did not know that I'm not just me Ron no no no don't don't touch me I didn't show me I didn't know that Ron you suffer because you're persecuted and persecution has rolled on our heads from time to time like pills so it's a very winning message when you're in a strongly identifying in-group to blame all your troubles on an out-group this applies for Mormons for Jews for Muslims for Christians for blacks for homosexuals this is the nature of in-group identity it's a thunder because of our religion it's the outsider because of our religion Ron so arise and awaken come on guys arise and awaken all our problems are because of out-groups come on guys arise and awaken you want to be part of this family or not into your awful situation I've had a vision you're willing to follow my vision for vouch nationalism they changed the rules on us we're going to put things back in order Robin will you come help me hold our brothers you should pray slowly was this before or after your dad confronted Dan at the parade it was before he only stepped in because Ron hadn't succeeded with Dan in the way that our father had hoped see Alan claims that that Ron had nothing to do with Dan right problems are because of out-groups guys right all our problems because of outsiders very appealing message you strongly identify with your in-group that's it bye bye