 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Book Show. And this, what is it? It's still Tuesday. I've been out of it a little bit today. Still Tuesday. And yeah, I hope you're having a great week so far. All right, so today we're going to talk a little bit of politics and philosophy and ethics and so on. And I've got a little political poll going. So if you could vote in the Republican Party, primary, primary tomorrow, whom would you vote for? So I've only got four candidates up there because the polling app, whatever, limits me to four choices. So I can't have more than four. I would have added Pence and Christie if I could. Although I have a feeling Pence wouldn't have got a lot of support in this group, but Christie might have. So that's too bad. But I think this will give us a good reflection of what's going on. I want to encourage you. I want to just say that this is anonymous. So I won't know what you voted. I have no, it doesn't give me the names. It's anonymous. So those of you secretly actually desire to vote for Trump, please vote for Trump if that's what you secretly desire to do so. So far, nobody's voting for Trump. And this is why I have so few subscribers, I think, is because I have a pre-selected group of people that does not represent the world out there at all. Now, I view that as a compliment to you guys. But you don't represent the world at all. I mean, even the Senate is not coming in second. Haley gets 75% of the vote. Who are you kidding? Who are you kidding? It's not reflective of anything out there in actual reality. But yeah, just curious to see how you vote. And of course, you know, my preference generally is Nikki Haley. But I've been saying that for years now. Actually, going back to 2016, I think I said it when she wasn't even running. But please don't vote what you think. I would vote, oh, we got a Trump voter. We got a Trump voter. That's good. That's good. So at least we have one Trump voter. So I'm feeling a little better about the fact that my audience is a little sympathetic. I noticed also that somebody just stopped watching live. So maybe they voted and ran. I don't know. All right, as we get more views during the evening, maybe this will change a little bit. And also, I'll do this every few weeks so that we can see if there are any significant changes as more information comes in. As we see, we've got two Trump voters. All right. So I don't know if somebody is just messing with me or we really have it. All right, so actually, if there were a lot of people voting for Trump, then that would explain a lot of things about the world. As it is, those two Trump voters bewilder me completely, completely. It's not like the poll here is Trump Biden, right? Then I get it. But it's just Trump to Sanders, Vivek Kayleigh. I mean, really? Really? James can't vote. He just can't do it. He just can't do it. All right, that's OK. That's OK. Carl Sagan. I don't know if I'd want Carl Sagan as president. He was good at what he did. He was good as a communicator regarding the passion of science. But as a president, yeah, no, I don't think so. All right, too mellow and too leftist and too, yeah. I mean, I liked him as a presenter, as a popularizer of science. I loved him in that TV show that he did. He was fantastic there. All right, so today I want to talk about politics and evasion. And I'd say our politics of evasion, because one of the things that I think is so characteristic of the political world in which we live right now is the amount, the depth, the extent of the evasion going on. I think this is what makes this particular election cycle even worse than 2016 and 2020. This particular election cycle, oh, not for president. I thought Jennifer, you were voting for Carl Sagan for president. All right, not for president. It's good to know. Liam's quote. OK, I don't see Liam's quote. I missed it. All right. Oh, it must be in the question. So this election cycle seems to be just dominated by evasion on all sides and dominated by evasion on all topics, on all issues. It's not even that it's relegated to, I don't know. They don't get economics, so they don't understand history, or they don't understand this or that. But they really have no concept, period, of anything. They're evading on a scale I have never seen. I have never seen. I'm not sure you really want Elon Musk as president. He's probably better suited for where he is right now. When a freeman said you would get billions of votes, no, that's Trump. Trump gets billions of votes, humongous votes. And the votes from the best people, the coolest, best, fantastic, wonderful, amazing billions and billions of people. That's Trump. That's not Elon Musk. So think about just the candidates. I mean, particularly the really only two candidates right now. I mean, we can play around with Haley and Vivek and DeSantis, but they're not in the race. They're not in the race. Basically, there are two candidates, and that is Trump and Biden. And that's because of the three people voting for Trump. They've got a choice within the Republican Party, but they still want Trump, so that's who we have. So let's start with Biden. I mean, Biden's old. He's old not just in number of years. He's just old. He's old in cognitive function. He's old in physical ability. He can't keep track. Now, granted, Biden was never the sharpest guy ever. I mean, he just gaffes his ridiculous, silly statements. I mean, a legendary. But now he's just old, right? Now he just can't follow along. Now he just rambles and babbles and doesn't know he is half the time. And he's way too old to be president. He's way too old to be in any executive function. Indeed, if he was on a board of directors, they would ask him to leave. A proper board of directors, not one that he's there for influence. But if he was on a board or if he was a CEO, he'd be asked to leave. It's just impossible for somebody with that cognitive ability, at this point in his life, to act and to function as an executive. And not just any executive, but as the CEO, as the president of the United States, a country with 350 million people, the strongest military force in human history, and arsenal of nuclear weapons. Unbelievable decisions have to be made on any given day that have consequences globally and on the life of a very American in the country. And yet, and Democrats, when they are polled, in polls, all say he's too old. Nobody cares. I mean, everybody's just going through the motions, as if this is it. There's no options. There's no choices. We're not going to do anything. We're not going to change anything. We're just going to plow ahead with an old president who can't think, who can't communicate, and who nobody wants. Nobody wants. He is unlike. His favorability ratings are the same as Trump's, which is bad, really, really, really bad. And yet, again, just plow ahead, keep going, just ignore, evade the reality of what you're facing. Too difficult. Why deal with it? I mean, Democrats need a CEO to come in and say, you're fired. Or you'll keep going. We'll keep you the first term. But we're going to get somebody younger with more energy and more mental capacity. Not Kamala, Kamala, but somebody. It wouldn't be that hard. Now, if you add to that, that he is facing real challenges. You know, the Biden, Hunter Biden, President Biden, Justice Department, iOS, corruption, phone calls, Ukraine, China, all of that, it's real. It's there. Who knows how bad it is. It wouldn't be surprising if it was really bad. But it doesn't matter. And it's not going to get better. It's not like tomorrow they're going to be revelations and say, oh, yeah, Joe Biden was not involved. Hunter, bad apple, but Joe Biden, Vice President, never involved, didn't do anything. He's completely kosher. Like, there's no way that evidence is coming out, because it doesn't exist. I mean, it might be worse, it might be better. But the idea that he is corrupt is going to be with us. It's going to be with the Democrats. It's going to be with the campaign. And one of the levers the Democrats have over Trump is, we're the party of sanity, we're not corrupt. I don't know, nice people, we're normal. We're not vulgar, ridiculous, authoritarian, corrupt idiots. But Biden is. So it becomes very difficult for them to have one of their big advantages they have over Trump. One of the reasons there's a good chance that even Biden could be Trump is Trump's negative ratings. Biden has them. And Trump's, the perception of Trump as being corrupt and being just a sleazy human being. Well, here we get Biden, who is a sleazy human being. And there's no adults in the Democratic Party to say, all right, let's have a primary, or let's just go into a smoke-filled room and decide who replaces him. It would probably be the governor of California, who has the most statue among Democrats right now. But who knows who it would be? It's certainly not going to be RFK, and it's certainly not going to be Williamson. It's going to be one of the governors. But it's not clear to me at all that it's going to get to that. Because they'd rather bury their head in sand. They'd rather pretend that it's not going on, rather pretend that all these problems don't exist, and they're not there, they don't exist, than actually face them and deal with them. And that's evasion. Evasion is refusing to look, refusing to acknowledge reality, refusing to accept reality, ignoring it, pretending it doesn't exist. But knowing it's there, because they all know it's there. They all know he's lost it. I mean, that's one among the many evasions, but it's so obvious. And it's right at the top that it's going on. We'll get to other evasions that permeate. And then you've got the Republican Party, which has in a huge lead, huge, massive lead, Donald Trump leading the Republicans in all the polls. He doesn't do particularly well against Biden in the polls, but he does very, very well against other Republicans in the polls. Indeed, of the candidates that I've listed, Trump to Sanders, Vivek and Haley, both to Sanders and Haley do better than Trump. And Haley does a lot better than Trump and quite a bit better than Sanders. So what you really care about is beating Biden. Republicans are picking a candidate who lost to Biden, the picking candidate who lost the Senate twice, arguably, and who lost the House once. And so they all say it's all about winning. We voted for Trump because we want to win, but Trump's a loser. He won one election, and he's lost every one since. So it's bizarre. And then all these candidates are running as if Trump's not even there. They won't say a word against them, with the exception of Chris Christie. It's as if they're running against Vivek or they're running against DeSantis. So in the debate, they were all attacking Vivek, but nobody's running against Vivek. It doesn't matter what Vivek says or does or believes or presents himself as. It makes zero difference. The only person that you have to beat in order to be the Republican nominee for president, the only person you have to beat is Donald Trump. But they won't even mention his name. And they certainly won't say any negative about him. All of them on stage know the real meaning of January 6 and how awful and horrific and horrible it was. Every single one of them knows that. And yet they won't admit it. They won't say it. They will say exactly the opposite. They will downplay it. Everybody knows up there on the stage that Trump is guilty, is at least, it's reasonable to prosecute him for any one of the things that he's being prosecuted for. And none of them will say it. None of them, they're on the contrary. It's a witch hunt. They ignore it completely. And indeed, that's not just true of the people on stage. It's true of the Republican electorate, I guess with exception, of people who listen to you on Brookshow. They don't care that Donald Trump is super unpopular among the American electorate. They don't care he's corrupt. They don't care he lies constantly. They don't care that his policies, or many of his policies failed. They don't care about anything. They just get a vote for Trump. Reality doesn't matter. Facts don't matter. They don't care that Trump is authoritarian. Maybe they think that's a good thing, not a bad thing. They don't care he's vulgar. And it's not about Trump's ideas, because the extent that he has any ideas, and he doesn't really, but the extent that he has or projects ideas, Desantis and Vivek are one-upping him. They're matching him idea for idea. They're taking up all of his ideas. And indeed, they're making them in their own. And doing so in a more convincing way, what could argue? So it's not about ideas. It's not that they love Trump's ideas. So they're willing to evade Trump's failure during COVID. The fact that he was indeed one of the initial primary cheerleaders for lockdowns, they're willing to evade his cheerleading for vaccines. Now, that's the one good thing he did in his whole, you know, one of the few things he did during his whole presidency. They're just willing to evade the reality of who he is. And the difficulty for him to win is, and the fact that if he wins, he'll probably get parties and shambles. But it's not just the voters. It's the people running against him, which is bizarre. I mean, he wasn't there on stage to defend himself. Okay? Maybe it wouldn't have been a bad idea to go after him. But no, Trump is not the competition somehow. And it's, you know, not just that. It's the vision pretty much of everything. The actual state of America, of American culture, of the American economy, they either make it appear too dark, too bad, too distraught. They either lie constantly about the nature of what's going on. But that's the kind of lying that is done in politics all the time. But there is a kind of, and I think this is Trump's pragmatism and Trump's presidency and Trump's populism. What was that great quote about populism? You know, the difference between a populist and just a general politician who lies is that when an ordinary politician lies, then he lies. And he's trying to convince people that the lie is true and everybody knows that he's lying. And everybody knows there's a truth out there. And the difference is when the populist lies, nobody cares about the truth. The truth doesn't matter. The truth is irrelevant. And I think what all the politicians have learned now is the truth is irrelevant. You tell a story, you make something up. If it convinces people great, then it works, and then it's true. And if it didn't convince people, then it's bad and you should walk away from it. And that's it. And, you know, just try a different lie. Try a different tact. Try a different angle. You know, take this migrant crisis. Right? It's a migrant crisis. God, I mean, it's all these migrants in New York and they were in these other cities and the cities can't cope. They don't have the budget. They're paying through the roof. They have to house them. They have to feed them. They have to... All this stuff and nobody can afford it and yet more and more migrants are coming in and there's a migrant crisis. Now, everybody knows what the solution to the crisis is. I mean, certainly Mayor Adams has expressed what the solution to the crisis is. But everybody pretends because it's convenient for them to pretend. So there is no solution. If the solution is to build a wall or the solution is more money or the solution is, you know, more welfare, more redistribution or building a wall. That's the left and the right solution. And I give the Mayor of New York credit for the fact that he actually gets it. What's the solution to the migrant crisis? There's one simple solution that could be implemented tomorrow. And basically the crisis goes away. Allow them to work. Allow them to work. You know, right now the crisis is caused by the fact that they're not allowed to work. So they can't make a living. So they become dependent on welfare. And the welfare rules are limited. Welfare rules are limited. And that's the crisis. The crisis is not a crisis of migrants coming in. It's a crisis of the welfare state not being able to pay for those migrants. Not being able to subsidize those migrants. The solution is obvious. It's always obvious. It's, you know, people pay their way in life. And if they don't, somebody else has to pay. And it's kind of obvious that the people running out of money right now are not the migrants. They don't have any. It's the city. And why is the city running out of money? The city's running out of money for one simple, plain reason. That they have to fund it all. The solutions to all these challenges that we face are simple. They're easy. But that requires facing reality. Evaluating your choices. Having clear standards by which to make those choices. And then acting on them. Executing on them. But that's exactly what they can do. So, yeah, I mean, so, entire political map, entire political process, the stories we tell ourselves, they're all just based on not being willing to face the facts. Not being able to, not being willing to face reality. Not being willing to deal with reality as it is. Phil Graham, the former senator from Texas. Yeah, I mean, I miss Phil Graham. God. Phil Graham was a really good senator. I mean, you only appreciate somebody like Phil Graham after he's no longer there. And you notice the idiots who actually replace him. Right? Who actually replace him. And you start missing people like that. Phil Graham is a professor of economics. He has been the president of A&M University. And Phil used to be a senator from Texas, a very conservative senator. But was really good in economics. He's an economist after all. And he understands economics. He's written an excellent book out there about inequality. I highly recommend it about how inequality in the United States has gone down, not up over the last 40 years. Everything you've been told about the state of the economics over the last 40 years is wrong. And Phil as a whole book presenting the evidence for that. Anyway, he has an excellent op-ed in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. It's actually co-authored by, with Don Boudreau. I don't know if you know about Don Boudreau, but Don Boudreau was a libertarian economist from George Mason University. And the title of the op-ed is Trump's War. Trump's trade war was a loser. Another area in which Trump was a loser. Tariffs destroyed jobs in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and made all Americans worse off. And they go through the numbers. They go through the facts of how destructive the tariffs were, how many jobs they destroyed, how many businesses, American businesses, they hurt, how they raised prices on Americans. And of course we all know the tariffs are paid or just the tax on Americans. And the Wall Street Journal, I mean here are two really good economists. We'll just show this. And the funny thing about it is, why would you need to show it? And this is again the evasion. Everybody knows. Everybody knows. At least anybody, anybody economics knows. Tariffs don't work. The tariffs are destructive. The tariffs are harmful. The tariffs make you poorer. Not richer, poorer. As I've said often, Paul Krugman got his Nobel Prize for an essay on the idea that free trade is better. The trade restrictions, trade tariffs are bad. It doesn't matter. And it's kind of obvious, and I've gone through it a million times and I'm sure we'll go over it again because tariffs are here to stay and if anything they're going to increase. Nobody cares. Nobody's interested in the actual science. Nobody's interested in the actual impact. Nobody interested in everybody claims to be make America great again and America first. Nobody's interested if Donald Trump actually made America great again or actually placed America first. He didn't. They don't care. Complete evasion. Complete evasion. We have inflation. Everybody knows where inflation comes from. And yet again, nobody wants to blame government spending for it. Nobody wants to blame the stimulus for it because the consequences, they come up with all kinds of excuses, supply chain issues, and they talk about excess demand and supply challenges. Where does excess demand come from? Checks handed to people? Are we going to blame Biden? Are we going to blame Trump now? No. We'll give them credit for what we think is the good stuff. We haven't blamed them for the bad stuff. So Democrats evade Biden's horrible economics. I mean, you've got economists who should know all the downfalls, the pitfalls, the problems, the challenges, and how rare it is, for example, for government industrial planning to work. And yet because Biden's doing it, they're evading it. They're ignoring it. They're pretending it doesn't exist. Never happened. Never happened. But you can go on and on. I mean, remember when Trump, what he said about trade deficits? Trade deficits are signs of, quote, hemorrhaging of America's lifeblood. Really? Who comes up with these lines? And yet exact opposite. Trade deficits suggest that you're rich and people want to hold your currency and people want to invest in your country. But again, it's exact opposite of reality and nobody cares. Nobody's interested. We all understand that appeasing evil is never good. Everybody now, everybody on the right now is critical of the deal that Biden is cutting with the Iranians, how dare he selling America's futures out, negotiating with evil. He should never negotiate with evil, releasing Americans, cutting deals with the bad guys. And they're right. But when their guy did it, they evaded it completely. They ignored it completely. It didn't exist. When Trump signed a peace treaty with the Taliban, it didn't exist. It didn't happen. Or then it was the right thing to do because, A, we need to get out of Afghanistan and better sign a deal than stay there. So it's okay to negotiate with evil and bad guys when it's your guy negotiating, when it achieves the goals that you somehow want to achieve. And one of the most fantastical things, and I have to say, there are a few things that Trump did that, it didn't surprise me that he did them, but people's reaction to it shocked me. It just blew me away. The response of people who used to be pro-free trade, or adamantly pro-free trade, hated tariffs, hated trade restrictions, how they came around to loving trade restrictions when Trump did them blew me away. How quickly all the theory they knew, everything they knew about trade, disappeared when Trump did it. And the same thing happened about this negotiating with evil. All these people who had a clear understanding of, in front of policy, you just don't negotiate with bad guys. You don't negotiate. It just shows weakness. And then when he went and groveled before the brutal dictator of North Korea, suddenly it was okay. No, no, you got to be realistic. He was threatening us after all. I mean, what do you want? You want nukes in California? I mean, some of you probably do, but you want nukes in California? Because that's what would have happened if not for Donald Trump's groveling book with the love letters to the dictator, the brutal dictator of North Korea. And suddenly everybody was for it. I still, I did a video on this and I get the comment section is full of, what do you want? What was he supposed to do? That's not groveling. That's diplomacy. That's courageousness. That's, yep, yep, yep, yep. We know exactly what would have happened if Biden had done it. And what the same people's attitude would have been. This is, yeah, and we've got, Scott here will defend Trump's craziness, rationalize it away. It's just, it's evasion. It's evasion on scale. It's abandonment of all principles. 4D chess, you remember 4D chess? You have to remind yourself of 4D chess because it's coming back. It's all 4D chess. No, it's not. Never was. No evidence of it. Zero. All just mindless evasion. Everywhere. And look, this isn't surprising. This is what tribalism does. This is how tribalism works. This is how hate driven tribalism works. And this is not about disagreement because this is not, these are not issues in dispute. Certainly not issues in dispute among people that should be issues of dispute among people who listen to my show, who know anything about random objectivism. But these are not difficult issues. These are not complex. It's showing the issues in economics, a little complex. I get it why many simple people don't get tariffs. They think trade deficits are bad. I get that. They even think that working people in America are worse off today than they were 40 years ago. I get why ordinary people think that because economics is hard and the economic, the politicians and the economists keep telling them that. They keep telling them that as if it's true. But the reality is, the reality is that anybody who knows anything about economics, even a little bit, anybody can look at the data and look at a graph. Anybody who reads a little bit wider than just this little tribe and on economic issues they're left and right agree so it's not even a little tribe. They all agree on tariffs. They all agree on trade restrictions. They all agree that the conditions of the working class have deteriorated over the last 40 years. But anybody who has any kind of education who knows anything has to evade not to know that these are not true. The data is just too unequivocal. So yes. There are a lot of people who disagree with me or I don't say are evaders. There are a lot of people who think different things and I don't think are evading. But there's a lot of evasion going on in the world. A lot of evasion going on in the world. And there's a lot of evasion going on in our politics more than I've ever seen it. More than I've ever seen it. And it's real and it's destructive because all evasion is destructive. Indeed it's suicidal. Because our means of survival is our mind. When we gate our mind. When we put our mind on neutral. When we allow ourselves to just accept. To just go with the flow. When we just conform to the tribe. When we conform to the leader. When we conform to just being against the left. Or just being against the right. Whatever it happens to be. We lose objectivity. We lose rationality. And we lose our means of survival. We lose our ability to live well. And we make bad decisions. And God that is where we are today in America because bad decisions are being made left and right. And I mean left and right. And there's nobody really out there. And I think who's actually willing to look at the American people and tell them the truth. And I think if somebody did that maybe I don't know maybe I'm just a romantic but if somebody did that maybe they'd score some points. Maybe it would actually resonate if somebody just looked at the American people and told them what it really is. What it's really like. What it really refers to. How the world functions. How the world works. What is right and what is wrong. It would be refreshing if somebody, you know you gotta, I mean Ross Perot was a bit of a kind of a joke right. But when he went on television he said, look America, here's some real problems. And he has flip charts. And he had his graphs. And he told it like it is. And he got 15% of the vote. And I think he got it for that reason because he was willing to face up to the issues. Notice that the candidates at the debate did not get any questions about, and the same thing will happen with Democrats. It's not just Republicans. No questions about Medicare. No questions about Social Security. No questions about paying back the debt. About deficits and surpluses. No real questions about how to get the economy growing at 4% a year. No. I mean, all of those crucial, important issues, complete evasion. Completely ignoring. Not mentioning it all. Paul Azuz says Ross Perot is 6'6". Okay, he didn't look 6'6 on TV. One effeeman says, how many votes would Ronald Reagan get in today's environment? I don't know. I don't know. I think he'd get some. I'm not quite ready to give up completely on the idea that he'd get some. But would he even get a hearing? All the media, all the political parties, all the activists within the political parties want to hear is how terrible things are and how the other tribe is evil and wrong and it's all their fault. Actually, to talk about America, to talk about what America stands for, to talk about the rule of government, to talk about what should and could be done. Yeah. How to make America great again, literally. It doesn't seem like there's any interest in hearing any of that. All right. That was depressing. And it's only, you know, it's only going to get worse. I mean, imagine if, and this is, imagine it, but this is the reality that we're going to face soon enough. And that is imagine that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are indeed the candidates. What is anybody going to do? And I'm not talking about how you will vote because that's irrelevant. But what's the country going to do? What's the country going to feel like? What's it going to be like to live in a country where this is the best that could be done? Where everybody knows these guys should not be candidates for president. Everybody knows there are better people out there. Everybody knows that. And yet this is it. This is it. This is the best we can do. What kind of country is that? What kind of country does that represent? And how can it be that even among my listeners, 10%, 7%, well, 7%, would vote for Trump? Among these candidates, not again against Biden. Among these candidates, unbelievable, unbelievable. Unbelievable. I'm glad we have some. And it's surprising because why they would listen to my triads against Trump. But it's so crushingly disappointing that anybody when faced with clearly superior candidates by every dimension, including winning and doing stuff in office and changing the world even a little bit would still prefer Trump. I don't get it. I'm missing, missing something. All right. You know, and the countries and things are only going to get worse, right? I mean, the economy is going to get worse. It's not going to get better. We're facing the stagnation. We could head into multiple crises every few years. Government spending is not going to go away. The war in Ukraine is not going to go away. Russia is going to be there. No matter how you spin this, it's unlikely it ends well. Even if Ukraine kicks the Russians out, Russians are not going to just fold up and say, okay, sorry, they're going to keep tensions if not there somewhere else. But Trump won't deal with your biggest threat. Trump is a coward and a wimp. What did he do in his four years? Nothing. And this is the evasion, right? This is the evasion. Trump will do something. But he was there. He was president. He did nothing. He was stronger than Trump, not weaker. And won and beat him. So what did he do? Nothing. So, I mean, if you care about defeating the left, if that's your primary focus, why wouldn't you go to the Santas? Who at least as a track record of success. Who at least as a winner, not a loser. Trump's a loser. And everything he's done. And his policies were losers. His policies did not dent the left. He didn't even call out the military when the riots were happening. They didn't cheat to win. You're such a sore loser, Ken. It's stunning. I mean, they talk about evasion. We've talked about evasion all evening. The evasion of the people who still think Trump won the election. It's mind-boggling. But it's this tribalism. The evasion of the people who think that Trump did anything to counter the left. He did nothing. Zero, zilch. Except moan and complain. He did a few good things and a lot of bad things. Trump could deal with Iran as a threat. Did he? Four years. What did he do with Iran? Nothing. Every evidence suggests that the Israelis were willing to take out Iran, like every other president of the United States, stop them. What did he do? He killed Soleimani. And then what? Nothing. Good for killing Soleimani. But if that's all you're going to do, why even bother? Why kill one guy? What's the point? On every issue that you claim Trump did something, he didn't. He literally did not. Nothing of substance. Nothing of significance. Biden is tough on China than Trump was. Trump wasn't particularly tough on Iran. Trump was weak on Russia and weak on North Korea. Why would the Iranians think he'd be tough on them? Nothing. Trump was good on taxes. Every Republican is good on taxes. Every Republican ever, except George was senior, has decreased taxes, has reduced taxes. So he was good on taxes. Awful on tariffs, which is a tax, by the way. Oh, he was obstructed by Rhinos. Always excuses. Always excuses. But even if he was obstructed by Rhinos, did he get, by the way, his biggest failure, maybe in the early part of his administration at least, did he get rid of Obamacare? A promise, campaign promise. No. Couldn't even get the Republicans to do that. I mean, he was a weak president, a dramatically weak president. So why not vote for somebody like DeSantis, who's shown that he can rally Republicans around his cause, who's shown that he can get stuff done? I'm not supporting DeSantis. But I'm saying, if you want Trump's stuff, why not actually vote for somebody competent who could probably get it done? Why vote for somebody who showed he couldn't? Oh, yeah, it was McCain. Oh, blame everything on McCain. How many times did Trump go to Capitol Hill to lobby his senators to appeal Obamacare? Did Trump propose an alternative to Obamacare, something that could solve McCain's problems with just doing away with it without having an alternative? Did he offer anything? Did he propose anything? Did he talk about greater privatization? No, indeed, Donald Trump praised the Australian system and other systems that were basically socialized medicine. He's a pro-socialized medicine guy. Obamacare didn't go far enough for him in socializing healthcare in the United States. I mean, you guys never, the problem is, you guys didn't actually listen to what he said, didn't follow what he actually did, and it just enamored with the aura, with the man, with the image, with the tribe. He's your leader. Follow the leader. You've got to brain people, think for yourself. Look at the world. Evaluate, examine, judge. And I get it, I get it. You vote for Trump over Biden. I get it. 2020, you voted for Trump. But now you've got other candidates. You can vote in a primary. And some of you are still voting for Trump. He's not as bad as, I mean, he came out to be, he's much worse, Scott. And again, it's your ignoring and evading and pretending and for de-chessing that makes him appear better than what I'm saying he is. But I haven't yet found the combination of words to express how bad I think he really is. All right, let's go to your question. Let's see if there's anything along the lines of politics. All right, I think this is relevant. It always stuns me how many light years ahead I ran was to all the other members of our species. For 99% of our history, emotions win over logic and imagination wins over reality. Yes. And this is a great case of, this is a great case of emotions winning over logic. Emotions winning over reality. Pretending, pretending, winning over what's real, imagination. But the essence of it all is not thinking. The negation of reason, the negation of rationality. That is what is so bad about the human race. That's what's so harmful in the human race when we engage in that kind of behavior. And I think our current politics is an example that across the political spectrum, the entire political spectrum is like that. Michael says, what is the dialectic? Oh, God. What is the difference between Hegel and Marx's dialectic? I tried reading Hegel. It's an intelligible gibberish. How did this charlatan become so influential off of long and coherent German sentences? Well, I mean everybody wrote long and coherent German sentences. I mean German philosophy. So, you know, he's not any more coherent than Kant or any of the others. So, no, you know, to really appreciate German philosophy, you have to slug through those long sentences and try to, try your best to understand them and try to get into the spirit of what they're trying to express. I'm not the right person to ask these kind of questions. I mean, the basic idea of the dialectic is opposing forces, that a force rises and opposing force rises and then the clash between the forces, something new emerges. And when that new emerges, its opposition will emerge, will again counter it, and then something new emerges. And it's this clash, constant clash and something coming out on the other side, which is the dialectic. It's how history, it's how you explain all of history and it is a necessary and deterministic process within history. Marx has a particular dialectic that has to do with classes. By the way, Nikos, you know Nikos, Greek intellectual, Nikos is doing a course for Ayn Rand University on, Nikos is doing a course at Ayn Rand University on Marx, Marxism, which I think will be fascinating because I think very few people understand Marxism. And it's great to have Nikos do it because Nikos was a Marxist. So he, there was a phase in his life where he took it completely seriously. He studied Marx and he was very serious about it and he really delved deeply into it and now he's going to teach it from an objective perspective. So I think it's really exciting if you have an opportunity to audit the class or to take it or sign up for Ayn Rand University to do it, I'd encourage you to do that. If I have the time, I want to audit that class. I'm looking, I'm really looking forward to it. But Marx's dialectic has to do with classes and Marx's, of course, dialectic ultimately leads to the victory of the proletarian and to this ultimate utopia of the dictatorship of the proletarian that ultimately leads to. But he accepts that history evolves or is determined by this process of dialectic and he says, but history has an end. He sees an end to history and that is with the victory of the proletarian. The final victory of the proletarian is in a sense the end of history. Now again, to get deeper into that and to a deeper understanding of that I highly encourage you to take Nikos's class. Adam says, Camilla Harris lost the woke wing of the Democrats for having been tough on crime DA but she is very good on four key issues abortion, immigration, farm gangsters and freedom of new technology. Do you know something that I don't? Yeah, I mean, I disagree with you on most of that. I don't think she lost the woke but she's always played up to them. Camilla Harris is interested in only one thing and that is power and that is a position of power, she says what she needs to say to get the woke vote when she thinks the woke vote is important as she did in California and then she governs in a way that she thinks will promote her career further but it's not because she believes in anything it's because she believes to hold statewide office in California she had to be tough on crime. She's good on abortion but almost any Democrat is good on abortion. She's not particularly good on immigration. She's driven by immigration like everybody else from an altruistic perspective she's not talking about job based immigration who, you know, she has not come out and a favor, for example for the as a solution to the immigration crisis that we have right now the asylum crisis to allow them to work she's very sensitive I guess to the unions and to the idea that immigrants take American jobs she hasn't talked about the expansion of H-1Bs the expansion of all other visa programs so, you know, she is really not particularly good on immigration she's again a standard Democrat Republicans against immigration so right now we'll be for immigration but what will she be as president? Nobody knows, nobody knows because she'll do whatever she thinks is expedient when she's president she's not a woman of principle in any regard she's good on foreign gangsters I take it that you mean that about Russia maybe, I don't know why because she follows the Biden administration's line on Russia that doesn't mean that's what she believes it doesn't mean that it doesn't mean that's what she would do as president she'll be under a whole other set of pressures and it's hard to tell where she would fall I just don't believe she actually is solid any of those she's freedom of new technology, really? Is she against the White House attempts to regulate artificial intelligence? No, she's not Is she against the Biden administration's massive efforts to go after big tech? No, she's not Is she opposing the Justice Department's massive antitrust lawsuit that started by the way today opening arguments were made today in the Google antitrust case? Is she against that on principle? No, she's not I don't know what Kamala Harris is about because she's a complete pragmatist and a power-lusting pragmatist at that I don't think she knows what principles are and other than abortion I don't trust her on anything and if it was about Democrats there are lots of Democrats better than Kamala Harris who would exert better leadership but also who actually I might actually believe what they say but Kamala has shown that she cannot believe in what she says No one says do you think being called out by Twitter's community notes could be a first step back to honesty? I don't know for whom, I'm not sure what this means and I'm not sure if the community notes that good or do they call back people honestly, are they straightforward and are they selective and what they call you out on and they're not on other things the community notes are they calling out anti-vaxxers? No, they're not are they calling out along musk on some of the stupid things he says about Russia? No, they're not so are the community notes biased? are they only calling out things that fit the agenda of the people who run Twitter now or are they just in the past? No, I don't see it I still see Twitter and generally the culture is being tribal and not interested in facts and not interested in reality and not interested in truth I just don't see where a push for truth is So unless I miss something no one, maybe you can elaborate we're way behind on the Super Chat just to remind everybody you can use the Super Chat to ask questions and support the show, value for value you get some value out of listening to this show even when you disagree you're here, that means you're expressing the value in your behavior but you're not trading you're not being a trader to be a trader you should support the show in some way you can do that on a monthly basis by going to Patreon or supporting the show over there or SubscribeStar or you can do it here if you're on live it's the easiest way to just do it here although I prefer you do it on Patreon or PayPal just by pressing the Super Chat button and doing a sticker to show your support or by asking a question even better because that way you get to somewhat steer steer the show Hopper Campbell asks what makes Nikki Ailey better than Vivik? seems like most objectives prefer her it's a good question I mean, here's the thing with Vivik when Vivik is good he's really really really good and the more Vivik emphasizes the things that he's good on the less he can win the less chance he has on winning for example, I saw today we said he was talking about dismantling regulatory agencies firing 75% of you know, 75% of what do you call it of government employees are really shrinking government dramatically and he says that sometimes and when he's saying that when he's talking about that that's when he's likely to lose because that's not what people are really interested in there really is he has a radical streak about him when it comes particularly to government and economic policy that I like that I think that if came in maybe a different package I think would really really be good and really be good for the country and really really really be good to put out there and to talk about and discuss he's terrible on social issues he wants to use government to impose certain of his social agenda certainly terrible on abortion he's terrible on Trump that he won't say any negative thing about Trump but he's terrible on foreign policy very very bad on foreign policy so Nikki Hale and he's flaky and he gives off the vibes of he's slick and he's just a little too slick and it's a little circusy and it worries me because that slickness and that circus attitude you know it has the potential to alienate people from the parts of his message that are really good that I completely agree with that I would love to be able to support I mean it seems like if you're going to have great ideas and economics you're either like super boring and dull and too laid back and like Rand Paul was in the 2016 presidential campaign or you're slick and and I don't know come across as sleazy like like Vivek, right? What did Vivek have to attack everybody at the debates for? Except Trump like if Vivek attacked Trump I'd respect him I could support him because despite the fact that I disagree with him on some things I agree with him a lot on some things and he says things that politicians don't say that it typically not said it's like giving credit for that but there's certain things that he does that you know have the Trump feel to them that they give up a dishonest vibe they give up a manipulative vibe I just don't trust the guy or like the guy and that's Nikki Haley's strength I don't think like every politician I don't think Nikki Haley's necessarily honest but Nikki Haley has written for years consistently about her defensive capitalism she doesn't understand what capitalism is she's not a consistent defender but she's broadly on the side of human liberty Haley is good in foreign policy best candidate out in foreign policy much tougher than Trump on every foreign policy issue much tougher than DeSantis or Vivek or any of these guys and she knows her stuff she's actually being a governor and being a successful governor she's articulate she's smart I disagree with her on things like abortion but even on abortion she had the courage during the debate to say I don't think there should be one size fit all for all the states I do think that there should be there can be disagreement about this I give her a lot of credit for that I give her a lot of credit for the fact that she said that government spending is not just a Democrats fault it's also a Republicans fault so I think she's a straight shooter I think she's smart I think she's likeable I think she's electable she beats all the other candidates in terms of a face-to-face of Biden in terms of beating Biden and I think she's not as radical as Vivek but that makes her electable Vivek can't get elected but she can Vivek is running for VP there's no way Vivek is going to be VP I've said this over and over again Vivek will not be Trump's VP Trump will never choose as a VP somebody who has more energy than he does somebody who's more radical than he is somebody who's younger and more charismatic in many respects than he is he chose Pence boring Pence for a reason now he might choose Nikki Haley I think there's a good chance that Trump chooses Nikki Haley why because of her strengths and because she knows that she will take the backstage now whether she accepts I don't know but I think it would be a big mistake for her to accept but she is the most likely VP candidate I do not think he picks Vivek Vivek is just too out there too much of a gunslinger Trump is enough of a gunslinger he doesn't need another one as his number 2 can I ask what about illegal immigrants probably in New York City I talked about that earlier in the show it's easy to solve just let them work give them work permits and it takes care of itself they make a living for themselves you don't have to support them and they leave New York City because New York City is too expensive for them to live in and work in so they leave but now they have money because they can work ugh I can't just own for VP I can't think of a more disgusting idea Liam says one of the saddest lessons in history is if we've been bamboozled long enough we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle yes but that's a mentality that's a mentality of evasion it's a mentality that gives up it's a mentality of not thinking that's the that's shutting down your mind but you know the the alternative approach is you bamboozled long enough you stop paying attention to the bamboozling and you live your life anyway oh Jennifer says to call Sagan quote yep it makes sense how are we doing on the poll 62% on Hayley, 90% of Vivek, 13% on DeSantis, 7% Trump so we're still holding on to there's still a significant number of people like 6 people right now who voted for Trump who voted for Trump who were watching still a lot of people haven't voted I think there are more people who haven't voted if you're listening live now you can go to chat and vote who would you vote for in the primary if it was held tomorrow of these four candidates I only had only had room for four people so when you put up four candidates who would you vote if you had that choice all right still got a bunch of questions but way behind on the on the super chat so if you want to support the show if you don't have a question you can do like West just did 50 bucks with a sticker just to show support very very thank you Catherine twice Catherine twice thank you let's see who else did stickers that's all that's the furthest back I can go so thank you guys for the support all right that doodle bunny I don't resent the world I resent the dishonest nihilistic cretins I am forced to associate with in this world you know an out for this I don't think so well the out is take control of your own life the out is take control of the people you deal with the out is you know take control of the people you associate with the work that you do the the the the the fence that you have the environment in which you live the take control of this stuff and associate as little as possible with the cretins out there as you can and and and try to associate with people you choose to associate people you like to associate with as much as you can in your life so you know living life resenting the people around you is not fun and and it's just going to make you embittered and angry and unhappy don't do it find good people surround yourself with good people find a beautiful place to live you know whatever means you have make that place beautiful make it meaningful to you and live you don't have to get rich to do that you can do that at any income level but you have to make choices and you have to take risks and you have to be willing to change to change your life Mary Eileen thank you really appreciate this Ken says we met in Columbia at NYU yeah I don't remember you but that's okay I mean thousands of people I interact with thousands of people a year I don't remember 99.9% of them that's just the way I'm built some people like Bill Clinton remember everybody they've ever shaken hands with they remember them, they remember their name I don't remember anything I don't remember people's faces I don't remember their names it's not what I do why I could never be in politics I guess but I interact with a lot of people Michael says I don't believe anyone really wants to move to red states it's just typically desirable blue states have become unbearable and unaffordable well I don't know what that means I don't know what that means why don't people want to move to red states because they're red but if the if they're cheap and if the blue states are so bad then people do want to move to red states because they're relatively better and people do want to move to red states people have different values than you do people have lots of different values you know you should see the number of comments every time I say something about San Francisco being a beautiful place I got this comment about my San Francisco comment like no who the hell would want to live in San Francisco I'd much rather live in Des Moines, Iowa I mean that to me is bizarre but some people want to live in Des Moines, Iowa that's why a lot of people live in Des Moines, Iowa but I wouldn't you couldn't pay me to move to Des Moines, Iowa I'm not interested in living in the Midwest or the South you know I wouldn't want to live in Florida there are a lot of places I wouldn't want to live I would have loved and it won't happen in my life but I would have loved to have lived for a period in New York that would have been exciting and a lot of fun I'm glad I've spent a lot of time in New York so I've enjoyed it but I would have loved to have lived a couple of years when I had money and young enough to enjoy it in New York it's never going to happen I'm not going to go there I enjoyed living in Austin, Texas Red State but I think their best combination is a blue city in a red state that's the best combination Austin is a good example I loved living in California I would go back to California in a heartbeat if not for the taxes even if it's a I don't have kids who have to go through the educational system there but I would live there would I live in anywhere else in Texas probably not I don't like Florida I wouldn't live in the south most places in the south maybe there's some places around Chapel Hill in again a blue area in a red state in North Carolina but the reality is and you look at maps of the United States life expectancy is higher in blue states crime is lower in blue states it's interesting it's interesting it's not what you would expect look at obesity levels where's their morbidity red states or blue states I don't think I'd live in Charlotte but Chapel Hill maybe there's no way in the Midwest that I'd want to live maybe Denver I like Denver I like Boulder I like Seattle I didn't live in Portland because Portland is crazy now but I would have liked to have but New York would be exciting would be fun it's interesting, it's fun it's exciting there's something new going on every single day so yeah I know West Virginia I've been to West Virginia, I've been to every state except North Dakota in Alaska but very few places I'd want to live most of them are too cold and some of them are too hot too humid although now I live in a humid place so maybe I'm used to it and I won't mind it in the future Joe says Portland has both obesity and homelessness yeah, no, I wouldn't go to Portland today and yeah the homeless issue is a big deal I mean it's a big deal it's a real it's a real deterrent to quality quality of life, Hawaii super expensive to live well and Hawaii is very expensive very expensive New York City has some of the lowest crime rates in the country there's no civil unrest in New York they've got a problem with the migrants right now, the solution is easy if Biden would just listen to the mayor of New York he'd have it solved just let them work but you've got way too many homeless people in New York but yeah I know New York is nowhere near as bad as people think it is yeah, I mean New York is not a place for little kids I wouldn't want to raise kids in New York wouldn't want to raise kids in New York San Diego San Diego is probably my favorite place anyway if I was going to move some way and again if you could abstract away California taxes then I would move to San Diego it's got perfect weather pretty much except for June Gloom where it gets cloudy in June but other than that it's beautiful it's just gorgeous and people are nice friendly I suspect downtown might have a homeless problem so I'm going to reserve judgment until I go there and see if there's a homeless problem I fell in love with La Jolla the first time I saw it but yeah it's super expensive, why is it super expensive? because lots of people want to move there and they don't build enough because of zoning all right let's see Lewis by the way we're only about halfway to the goal so if anybody wants to help out go for it if objectivism has no contradictions there is no room for other philosophies about human nature what other odds I ran was the only person to really get it and since only a handful of people got her really I think the odds in my judgment really really really high I mean what are the odds that 100,000 years of human existence Aristotle was the first guy to get that A is A and invented the laws of logic nobody got the laws of logic before that and given that human history since Aristotle has been dominated by Christianity it's not surprising at all that we didn't get a rational philosophy rational ethics out of that age because Christianity is super irrational super irrational so I mean Popper did not have a rational ethic he didn't develop an ethics of rational self-interest maybe it's implied maybe it's suggested but it's not a developed theory of his that is integrated into a philosophy of philosophical views so let's get you might like Popper but what he did and what he didn't do it's important I mean God not just human nature but she got also what morality is what morality requires and that's massive and then nobody else got people you know people rejected altruism but they either went like some in the 19th century they went whoosh in the direction of subjectivism because they rejected altruism so they became a hedonist in a sense you've got some 19th century thinkers who are kind of egoistic in that sense but it's not really egoism and then you got a Nietzsche who rejects altruism but it has nothing really to offer in its place except another form of subjectivism Rand was the first and only philosopher in all of human history to connect reason with morality reason with morality and to derive a moral code from man's nature and observations of reality so objectively which means consistent with logic and consistent with observation and that's a massive achievement but she achieved it what are the odds that Einstein was the first person to come up with relativity and how many people in the world today understand relativity my physics professor in college at an engineering school claimed that there were just a handful of people in the entire world who really understood the theory of relativity so Rand somebody has to get it right the first time somebody has to make the observation somebody has to figure it out it could have been anybody but it turned out it was Rand now it couldn't have been anybody but I mean there were there being a lot of philosophers but they all were too inspired by religion or too inspired by Plato Rand really is the first one to take Aristotle seriously to take his virtues to take what's right about him and then develop it take it to and then have the insight the genius to take the 2,000 years of knowledge that come after Aristotle integrate that with his fundamental ideas into something new and that's what she does and she's a unique once a millennium type genius to be able to do that so what are the odds one genius and a millennium those are the odds as the daily wire is really going after radical individualism and selfishness lately they just posted a video titled a life of selfishness leads to misery could you do a response video to it yes I haven't seen that one who does it I'm curious to what extent Ben Shapiro is involved in the anti radical individualism part of what they're doing I mean I'm not saying that I'd be surprised if he was involved but I'm just curious to what extent on the other hand the daily wires brought the rights to make Atlas shrugged into a TV series so I mean it's just it's just stunning isn't it that they can hold that kind of contradiction they can love Atlas shrugged supposedly and yet make a video about a life of selfishness leads to misery scary Tana says Yuan how do you know what to look for in a political candidate what should somebody who is new to voting look for when mainstream politics and media seems so convoluted and corrupt the first thing you want to look for is somebody who has a basic respect I think for the American system of government somebody who respects separation of powers respects the role of a Supreme Court respects the difference between legislate you know somebody who respects the American government is set up in some vague notion to protect freedom you know again if I have to go to my opposition to Trump maybe the core of my opposition to Trump is that he has no clue about any of that he doesn't care about any of it he has no concept of separation of powers he has no concept of the American system of government or that the idea of government is the preservation of freedom he's he's a he'd love to be an authoritarian it's just too weak to make it happen he envies Putin and Xi for their ability to be authoritarians so first somebody who respects that and understands at least the big idea that the purpose of the American government is the preservation of freedom in some vague notion even if we don't agree on the definition of freedom what freedom means I get that but a respect for the system of government that we have because otherwise they will do everything to undermine it and undercut it and diminish it and then what do you have once the American system of government goes then we're just open to authority the only thing protecting us from authoritarianism today is separation of powers you know and in a constitution but once those are diminished once you have a president like Trump who doesn't care about those who's willing to overturn an election who's willing to do something that's clearly anti-constitutional and something simple and basic like an election it's all over so that's one thing you look for and then you look for are they generally on the axis of pro-liberty, pro-freedom are they generally in the axis of pro-individual rights again not that they're consistent because none of them will be and none of them are but do they have some respect for free markets and the individuals right to chooses on path in life this is why abortion is such a big issue because once you're anti-abortion you're anti you're anti-life you're anti-the-living and so you know an anti-abortion position is very hard to overcome for me, right but go Stephen Harper Stephen says Ahmad Deutsch will give a piano recital on December 14th in Vienna at Charles she will compose new music especially for the concert wow that's exciting and fun hopefully it'll be recorded I'm sure it will be these days everything is recorded so we'll be able to catch it catch the concert later on that would be cool yeah unfortunately the poll is gone so once that stream ended the poll ended I could add the poll back in now but what would be the point alright thank you Stephen for letting us know Michael says Kamala Harris also seems to think gibberish is a recognizable language what happens if Biden passes and that Bimbo is writing the show I don't think much changes advises are the same I mean it's not like she is less here than Biden is Biden's already not here Hopper Campbell does America have no culture outside of New York City most Americans Americans are bland, uncultured New Yorkers have personality, strong opinions appreciation for art and intellectual pursuits well certainly I think California has a culture and you know various parts of California I think the cities have culture Chicago has a culture, it has a great opera house it has a great symphony orchestra it has beautiful architecture people's personalities personalities are a little different so I think there are regional cultures in America I wouldn't put down America that much you know Texas has a culture if you want to call it that but you know primarily focused on barbecue but yeah I mean I wouldn't put down the rest of America that fast but and even parts of Texas Fort Worth has a great museum and actually I think the largest collection of boogaroos one of my favorite artists from the 19th century is owned by a businessman in Fort Worth, Texas of all places so there you go you never know where you're going to find some of these great masterpieces Apollo's effectiveness of free ports in the UK you know I don't really know my guess is anytime you establish an area where there's relatively less regulations less control less taxes they're gonna do well relatively speaking but yeah I don't know specifically about the UK Ryan says don't evade your super chat support yes we're still only halfway guys somebody out there help us out help us reach the goal you know we lost two thirds of the people watching earlier so it's gonna be impossible to make our numbers tonight what does anyone have to lose by being honest or do politicians not even know how anymore sad and scary well I think some politicians don't know how to be honest they have no concept of being honest I think some people a lot of people this is where evasion comes in they don't know how to be honest they've given up on reality they've given up on their mind so it's gone it's honesty has no standing has no footing but what do you have to lose with honesty votes emotional you know people are mad at you people are upset at you people won't like you lots of different things people think they have to lose their sight of being honest and the life of firming nests of being honest the fact that it is you know it's how to live and once you're dishonest in one place you're gonna be dishonest elsewhere you're gonna undermine your life systematically spy man whoops what did I do to spy man spy man I think Americans have lost their confidence in policy we still have the capability to be strong a strong force in the world but the poor execution of Iraq really did a number on us well I mean it goes back far further back than Iraq Iraq was the consequence of our weakness already we were already weak that's why Iraq happened that's why we did Iraq so pathetically I mean you have to go back lack of strength and lack of confidence the last war we won was World War II that's a long long time ago and altruism is seeped into every aspect of American foreign policy and you got a series of presidents from Eisenhower to Kennedy to Johnson to Nixon to all of them pragmatists deal makers losers not willing to stand up for what American interests really are guarding us in the wars that we shouldn't be in not letting us win when we get into them running from conflict with our tails between our legs engaging in detente and compromise and negotiation with evil regimes all over the world it's way before Iraq now 9-11 did do something and I meant to mention this during this segment earlier 9-11 was such an evasion the fact that our politicians would not name the enemy the fact that our politicians would not name Islam in any form in any way was such an evasion that I think it set the tone for the last 20 some years that evasion maybe is the biggest of all when American lives were at stake when American lives were being lost and then the evasion was Iraq and the evasion was Afghanistan 20 years of war in Afghanistan all the generals knew that the way we were doing it we couldn't win all the generals knew that what we were doing was useless and pathetic and our politicians knew it and yet they never told the American people they lied to us so thoroughly and all of them all the way through Trump so it was it was more than Iraq was kind of the culmination of the evasion and it was an affestation of the evasion but the original evasion the real evil evasion the one that said everything in motion if you will to speak about behavior after 9-11 not naming the enemy not going after the enemy aggressively Spyman has a follow up here on Iraq I think that could have been a renewal because of 9-11 but it never felt like we got justice absolutely because Iraq wasn't the place to get justice Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 Iraq was diversion you know naming the enemy if you'd named the enemy then you'd known that the enemy was Saudi Arabia and Iran it was Islamism and you would have gone after the Islamists and you'd known that occupying Afghanistan and bringing them democracy wasn't the way to go destroying the infrastructure of the Taliban in al-Qaeda there was the way to go and making it clear that you would continue to destroy it every time they came back and you drop as big of a bombs as necessary to never make it possible but why put troops on the ground and if you put troops on the ground why not put them on the ground where it counted like Torah Bora caves to get bin Laden I mean everything about the post 9-11 war was a the post 9-11 reaction was a disaster and it all starts from that initial evasion of not being willing to name the enemy there was one week in which Bush called them Islamist fascists and they stopped and that week was late, right? it wasn't right after so yes, we had an opportunity for a reset and we completely failed and that's because the American sense of life was not there American confidence was not there American self-esteem was not there and most importantly we were dominated by the reason for all these things not being there is the dominance of altruism in our lives Lewis asks what distinction is there to the US failing in Afghanistan and Russia also failing in Ukraine oh there is a big difference Russia is failing in a conventional war army versus army tank versus tank Russia is throwing everything it has in terms of conventional army at the problem and it is still failing the United States failed not army towards army, there was no army it failed against a what do you call it unconventional guerrilla, terrorist tactics it failed, it's much more similar to the way the Soviet Union failed in Afghanistan asymmetric warfare which it should never have gotten involved in but it wasn't a lack of technology, it wasn't a lack of firepower plus the United States never really deployed substantial military force in Afghanistan it was always a minority of our troops a small minority of our troops in the American army but the other thing was Putin actually wants to win Putin went in and was going to go for Kiev America never wanted to win wanted to somehow pretend that it was liberating the Afghans as if the Afghans want liberty and it was just going to give them the liberty and it was just going to just going to you know all it had to do was show up and the Afghans and embrace the Americans and embrace democracy and liberate everything and it's just a complete misunderstanding complete evasion of the nature of the place and then to keep American troops there for 20 something years under those conditions knowing you're not winning knowing they're just dying and knowing they're dying for nothing because nothing will change in Afghanistan it's just such a crime just ugh and the kids who died there for nothing died for nothing Putin wants to win put his entire military force conventional military force to face off against the Ukrainians now you know what we needed to do in Afghanistan is destroy the Taliban destroy al-Qaeda hunt them down and then leave promising that every time they came back we would bomb them to oblivion and not worry about democracy, women's rights all the wonderful things because they were never sustainable it was never real, it was always a fantasy and to really establish those things in Afghanistan we would have had to stay there for several generations that's not the job of the American military you know we spend so much time money, resources on a military being a peacekeeper and a builder of nations what a frigging waste the military's only job is to destroy the enemy to win wars and only to fight them when they're necessary it's not to build democracies Levin says thank you for your long shows and news shows very interesting topic tonight thank you, really appreciate it thank you for the support alright we're chipping away at our goal, really appreciate it slowly but steadily we're getting there so keep at it we might actually make it we might not but we might actually make it still got quite a few questions here so we'll keep going as long as you ask questions and you put dollars behind them it seems to me that people vote against the candidates rather than vote for them what are your thoughts because our candidates are so bad generally because it's hard to admire anybody I think many of us vote primarily against the candidate we think is worse we vote for the less of two evils rather for somebody we like but I don't think that's what most Americans do I think there's a significant number of Americans who like Trump they pretend not to like him but 50 plus percent of Republicans say they're going to vote for Trump in their primaries that's a majority of Republicans that's a lot of people there were I think people who like Biden maybe now then nobody likes Biden but yes I agree with you a majority votes against the candidate they dislike but there are people who like Obama I think a lot of people like Clinton I think a lot of people like Bush I don't understand why but they did so some people vote for people they like I'm jealous of them because I wish there was a candidate I liked that I could vote for I've never voted for anybody I liked even when I voted I always voted for people I disliked but who I thought were the least worst for me Trump's presidency began to end the day after Charlottesville Nazi rally later he started with Putin and Helsinki then Covid plus January 6 no I mean Trump was bad from day one I disliked him from day one as soon as in the press conference right after the inauguration he had pictures satellite photos of the crowd and started arguing with reporters about whether he had a record crowd or didn't have a record crowd I knew this guy was a complete flake loser idiot I mean I knew that well before but his presidency was going to be a complete disaster as soon as he nominated what's his name the guy who just indicted for you know as soon as he had Bannon there and he had the trade guy whose name I forget from UC Irvine rise on trade I knew that his president was a loss but I do agree with you Charlottesville was a real eye opener because I mean he was so horrible on the Charlottesville thing a pit on the follow thank you Frank pit on the follow he was so horrible on Charlottesville but what was interesting about Charlottesville was not how horrible he was that was really bad and that was disgraceful for president of the United States to take the kind of position that he took but the spin on it the the people who justified it the people who pretended he didn't say what he said to this day I have people who say oh no you're on he never said that oh yes he did I have a transcript I have video I know exactly what he said the people who ignore is actually words in order to justify him that was the shocker to me after Charlottesville Charlottesville was so despicable should have been condemned outright to such an extent and what he did the moral equivalency the you know the as close as he could come to to justifying these Nazis that was just horrific and that people were horrified by that that blew me away that just blew me away but then yeah but that was bad tariffs were bad his whole attitude towards trade everything he said about trade was so ignorant no other president in modern times at least comes close in terms of the ignorance of those statements his attitude towards the Buddha dictator of North Korea the fact that he the love letters the groveling the meetings the flowers whatever he literally picked up a communist flag and waved it in one of the meetings with him that somebody in the crowd had oh yeah and then of course there's Putin and all of that I was reeling against Trump all of 2016 so none of it surprised me but it still shocked me and it still disappointed me all right Hugh, thank you Hugh is there an objective ranking of US presidents how might that be produced who would be the top 5 it's much more difficult to do a top 5 than a bottom 5 I can easily do a bottom 5 I mean I would have to say Washington just primarily because he left when he did when he had an opportunity to be president for life basically and he decided to leave and kind of reaffirming this completely new experiment in governance that the American Republic was so Washington Grover Cleveland is one of the great presidents if you read about him I think a lot of the founders were decent presidents Jefferson Adams has a problem because of the Alien and Sedition Act but Quincy Adams I think was pretty good so some of those 19th century I mean Lincoln obviously I wouldn't put Reagan in the top 5 no way no way Reagan destroyed the Republican Party and has a legacy his legacy is very negative but what's his name Coolidge would be higher than Reagan Coolidge would be higher than Reagan I don't know so Coolidge was the best 20th century president probably Calvin Coolidge probably best 20th century in terms of 19th century Cleveland and the founders Quincy Adams maybe and Lincoln of course Lincoln was a giant with all his problems and he had problems and he did things that were wrong but he was a giant there were not good people on both sides I don't care I'll deviate from the thing there were no good people on both sides you don't stand in a rally Jews will not replace us and you're a good person only a good person at a rally like that would leave as soon as the neo-nazi showed up they would leave there were no good people at a neo-nazi rally none, zero, zilch no you might know people who are not racist but these are people who tolerate racist these are people who support racist these are people who are willing to march with racist these are people who are willing to be supportive of racists and they should be condemned every single one of them I don't care if they went to their rally with good intentions because they didn't like the toppling of the statue but even opposing the toppling of a statue of Robert E. Lee a racist who sacrificed the lives of hundreds of thousands of young men for his racist ideology there are no good people defending the confederacy there are no good people marching with neo-nazis there are no good people at a rally where they're yelling Jews will not replace us blood and soil they're no good people if you hear that and you're at a rally you leave you don't stick around by sticking around by showing support you become an accessory to their evil there are no good people on that side of the fence in Charlottesville zero zilch none I don't care if they're your friends I don't care if they're your family by being there they were not good they were bad people maybe in the rest of their lives they're wonderful but on that day in that place they were accessories to evil and they should pay the price for that and the price is simple to be condemned as such people did not leave there was no mass leaving people stayed there and the president when he commented on the event did not have to relate to the people who were leaving that wasn't what he was talking about the question was who stayed the people who marched the people who were part of that protest and that should have been condemned as an outright, unequivocal, unquestionable evil there's no good people on both sides here there's only the side of evil and everybody that opposes evil and the people who walked away were the people who opposes evil did even the cops you know people died the cops in the helicopter who died they should have never been there they should have never been such an event and nobody, the president didn't care people didn't stick around in the protest because they were constrained by the cops from leaving God I mean the excuses and the rationalizations and again the president shouldn't have been concerned with that you don't as a president say that the good people on both sides when one side are neo-nazis and maybe at the margins of people trying to leave but then the people trying to leave wouldn't think that they're part of the problem Spiderman says do you not see an equivalence with Antifa they were a large part of the violence of Charlottesville too they weren't the night before they weren't what was being discussed they were part of the violence later but they were not there and the assembly the demonstration the whole purpose of it was organized and created by the neo-nazis the way you condemn it completely you condemn it to hell and then you can then say there are also people on the other side associated with the violence Antifa and they were evil too but the good people on both sides good people on both sides really you have to treat as the primary the people who initiate the activity and the people who initiated Charlottesville were the crazies on the right not the crazies on the left you can condemn Antifa for burning Portland there's plenty of opportunities to go after the evil that is Antifa in Charlottesville Charlottesville was about the neo-nazis and the white supremacists confederacy lovers on the right and they needed to be called out and they needed to be identified as evil and called out as evil and the fact that that was not done is a stain on this country and a stain on the presidency and another good reason never to vote for Donald Trump and the fact that Antifa was there as well does not justify not calling them out Spimon asked do you have any intention to Detroit to give any talks I'd love to see you live I'm giving a talk in Michigan at a high school but I don't think it's a public talk so I don't think it'll be open to the public in November so right now I have no plans for a public talk in Michigan there was some talk about students maybe Jennifer knows if she's here I don't know if she's here Students for Liberty at University of Michigan inviting me to come and speak actually ask about that but if they invite me to speak that'll be a public talk it'll be out in Ann Arbor not in Detroit but you could come to that so if we can do a if we can do this talk at University of Michigan at Students for Liberty if we can make that happen and it's gonna get tricky because we're running out of days to do this but hopefully we can pull it off then then I will be there what is it the second week in November first full week in November second week in November so hopefully there will be a public talk that you can come to Stephen Arbor says a show where you address comments on past shows would be fun clarify misinterpretations and call out storming arguments promotes commenting which helps the algorithm that's true how do I address comments on past shows oh you mean I pull up YouTube and I start addressing the comments on there that could be fun Apollo Zeus evasion is a form of psychological suppression no evasion is primary to that psychological suppression evasion is not thinking it's not engaging it's not looking it's not acknowledging reality psychological oppression is I think a consequence of that but again probably outside my realm of expertise alright we're close to ending about $200 short if somebody wants to push us over the the top or if you want to ask a question make it a $20 question at least Jared Polis is on track to end income tax in Colorado is he I know he wants to but is he actually going to do it and is forcing cities to remove building regulations he's also said he wants to bring in migrants to build is the future with better dams I mean I don't know enough about Jared and I know my friends in Colorado are going to call me out if I say something wrong but yeah I've been impressed I mean he's talked about eliminating income tax in the state he's talked about reducing regulations he's talked about being pro-immigration so yeah I mean I Jared Polis should run for president I might vote for him as a Democrat but yeah I mean the future might be in Democrats like Polis what will Democrats vote for him because he seems far too radical for most Democrats Moondog you mentioned before that you would like to know what happened in the 10th 11th century's alchemy the search for truth coded in religious language what I would like to know what happened in the 10th and 11th centuries and you say alchemy the search for truth coded in religious language yeah I mean there's a lot of during the 10th and 11th century and then later on there's even Newton participated in this there was a lot of searching for you know codes in religious text there was some element of trying to turn metals into gold Newton participated in both practices but this is pure mysticism it had nothing to do with science it isn't a precursor to science it is just a different application to mysticism dedication a different type of dedication to mysticism but you know I don't view it at all as a a precursor to science at all because it's looking in the wrong place it's looking at the text science is looking at reality mat diff something not mentioned much in mainstream talking points is that Putin is in a position where his life could be on the line if he loses how powerful and incentive our state NATO doesn't face that that's true Putin could lose his life if he loses could lose his life anyway but you know yeah Putin is motivated but it doesn't help much because he's not on the front line fighting now would he use nukes because he's actively motivated but his life would end if he used nukes one way the other his life is ending so I don't think it changes much in terms of the outcome alright guys it's late I will see you all sorry about the the internet going out there and breaking the show up into two happened this morning as well which is not good but I will see you tomorrow morning well actually tomorrow at 3pm tomorrow at 3pm east coast time will be the news round up I had to move it because I've got a doctor's appointment in the morning so 3pm tomorrow see you then bye everybody