 of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is the Iran Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome to Iran Book Show. I hope everybody is having a fantastic, what is it? It's Wednesday. Fantastic Wednesday. And, yeah, I am still in, where am I? I am in Santiago, Chile. I think we've already done one show from here. It's, as I think I said in the other show, it is a pretty beautiful city. It's pretty amazing. I mean, coming here from Buenos Aires is really interesting. Buenos Aires is clearly a city with a great past. It was obviously, you can tell from the nicest buildings, those magnificent parts of the city are old. From the early part of the, sorry, from the 19th century, or the early part of the 20th century, it is very much a city of great wealth in the past. Santiago, Chile is a city of great wealth today. The modern buildings, the, you know, the skyscrapers, there's one particular skyscraper that's very, very tall. It just, it's an incredibly modern, dynamic city. I highly recommend visiting here. It's very different than a lot of other places in Latin America in terms of the modernity and just the newness and the amount of wealth. Now, I am sure that there are areas of significant poverty in Santiago. I just haven't seen them. I haven't driven through them. But I'm very impressed with the, with the main part of kind of downtown in the city. My hotel has some really beautiful views of the mountains, the andy mountains and the kind of hills inside the city. It's, it's quite green. There's a river that flows in the middle, but the river, the river is like a concrete river. It's, it's man-made. I mean, they took a natural river and they've, they've just like the Los Angeles River. They've basically artificially built it so that I think they can manage floods and they can manage the snow melting in the Andes. They can manage the river rising and falling. So, you know, it's unlikely there would be a flood in Santiago, even given the way they've structured this. Anyway, a fascinating place. I'm looking forward to the day. It won't be this trip, but to the day where, you know, come down here as somewhat of a tourist and maybe go down to Patagonia, even Chile, maybe go up north to the areas, to the desert here. It's supposed to be stunningly beautiful north of Santiago. And yeah, and just, just experience some of the beauty of Chile. If you look at a map, I encourage you to look at a map. Chile is very, very narrow and very, very long. It basically goes, you know, all the way to the southernmost tip of South America. So, it is a, it is an interesting place and geographically quite beautiful. The Andes go right along, you guys, right along the Andes. The Andes basically separate Argentina from Chile. And it goes all the way up north to, what, to Bolivia, I think. So, yes. Interesting place. Look forward to coming back. We did a two-day conference here hosted by a few market think tank that is run by relatively famous Chilean intellectual, by the name Axel Kaiser. And they've been terrific, right? They've really been, really been nice to us. We used their facilities for the two-day conference. They were the ones who marketed it, brought in students and people. Yesterday was a whole day. It started basically, I think at 10 a.m. and ended at 8 p.m. I gave a talk on the differences between objectivism, conservatism and libertarianism. A little bit like the talk I put up the other day. I know the sound isn't great, but the talk I put up, the sound has a bit of an echo. That was a relatively short talk. I gave a longer version of that here in Chile. And that will be posted at some point. They did videotape it. I'm hoping that it'll be posted soon on my channel so you'll be able to experience that. There were also talks by Ben Baer on morality of capitalism, on abortion. It was interesting. There was a talk here with Chile, again, another Catholic South American country on abortion. I did a short talk on Milay. We did an extensive Q&A discussion about Milay with a local Chilean and somebody from Argentina. Today we had, I did a two-hour session on Iron Man's Ethics, on virtues and values. It was a lot of fun. It was much more interactive. That one was not videotaped because it was very interactive. Couldn't have managed it with the audio and the videotaping and all of that. But it was more classroom style, which I like. Every time I do it more classroom style, I really, really enjoy it. It's not as easy to videotape it and then post it online. So I don't do many of those, but the classroom is definitely more fun. It's much more interactive. You get a lot more questions. And what I find is I don't really, I don't prepare it in detail so that I allow the questions while the discussion is going on. While I'm speaking, the question is to guide the direction that the class goes in. So you cover kind of the material that the student is really interested in and curious about. I really enjoy that. So that was a lot of fun. I did that for two hours today. And yeah, so busy couple of days and getting ready to go home on Friday. So Friday, I'll be home Friday afternoon and we'll do a show from my regular setup at home on Saturday. So I am, yeah, I'm excited about going home, looking forward to it. Enough traveled. I think this one week and 10 days is enough. I used to be, I used to go on the road for like three weeks. I don't think, I don't like it anymore. So it's, yeah, it's not as much fun. All right, so let's jump into some of the topics we're going to talk about. I'm sure we'll talk about other things as well. If you already see some, some super chat questions, please keep them coming. Keep the super chat going. Let's see. Yeah, I mean, there's a big, a big fight going on basically between the Supreme Court of Brazil and a particular justice in the Supreme Court of Brazil, Justice Morales. And Judge Alexandre de Morales, who is a, and Elon Musk, and basically Twitter. Morales is again a judge in the Supreme Court of Brazil. The Supreme Court of Brazil has much more, you know, if you think about the American Supreme Court, it's quite passive, right? Stuff comes to it and it makes decisions and the process is slow. They take all arguments. In Brazil, I think following more of a, maybe of a French tradition, I'm not sure how it's done in Spain. Maybe it's a Spanish tradition, a French tradition where judges are activists. Judges are investigative judges. They actually go and they actually search out facts and they can, they can, you know, pass a judgment and in a sense be almost like an executive branch of government. So there's not a clear differentiation between the judiciary, the legislature and the executive as there is in the American system, which I think is the right kind of system. In Brazil and I think in some, also some European countries, there's less of those kind of distinctions. Anyway, this is a very activist judge who goes out there to seek what he considers justice. And this judge was primarily concerned about the attempts, according to him and according to many within Brazil, of overturning the last election in Brazil. That is, the last election in Brazil, Bolsonaro lost and Lula won, somewhat paralleling, I guess, Trump losing and Biden winning in 2020. And just similar to what happened January 6th, there were riots in Brazil and there was, you know, some, some claim and attempted insurrection. At least that's the claim. Morales was very active in trying to secure what he considered securing democracy. So, for example, an election is supposedly an election day. Highway police began holding up buses full of voters so they wouldn't have an opportunity to vote. Morales stepped in and told them to stop and allowed the voting to continue when they were, when kind of the right wing made all these claims about an illegitimate election. The election was stolen, just like it did in the United States. The difference is that in Brazil, he ordered the people arguing that the election was stolen, he ordered them banned from social media. He has that kind of power in Brazil. And then when, you know, thousands of protesters stormed Brazil's cause of power in Brasilia, he basically arrested many of the people who were involved or were involved in allowing the demonstrations to succeed and to go unchecked. You know, he has kind of identified himself as the savior of democracy, you know, and I think many people on the left consider him a hero. Interestingly, Morales, when he was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2017, he was opposed by the left because at the time he was considered a right of center candidate, a right of center judge. But he has definitely taken a kind of a fascist approach to what he is doing. He has jailed people without a trial for posting what he considers threats on social media, but noticed without a trial. He's helped sentence a sitting congressman to nearly nine years in prison and for supposedly threatening the court. He's ordered raids on businesses and businessmen with really very little evidence that they have done anything wrong. He's suspended an elected governor from his job and he's unilaterally blocked dozens of accounts and thousands of posts on social media with virtually, you know, no transparency, no lists of who has been blocked. And, you know, he has basically become a mini-dictator in Brazil. And my guess is that given that Lula, Lula is the president of Brazil, is a, I don't know how would you describe Lula. He's kind of a mafia thug. Lula is an awful, you know, leftist, but it's more than he's just a leftist. He is unbelievably corrupt. I remember when I was in Brazil, God, ten years ago, or whatever, I can't tell you the year, but I was in Brazil and I was speaking at a conference and when my talk ended, they turned on a big television, you know, behind the stage. And they put on the television and on that big screen behind the stage, you could see Lula being arrested, placed in handcuffs, put into a police car and driven away. And I think everybody in that room, me included, thought, yeah, I mean, he's going down for corruption. That's the end of Lula. That's finished, right? And indeed, he was tried, he was convicted, he was sent to jail and everybody assumed that Lula was, that was the end of Lula. I mean, that was it. The left would have to find somebody else. Well, the Supreme Court reversed the sentencing and freed him, even though he'd been accused and sentenced on corruption charges. And then he managed to run for president, get elected, right, get elected, and he is the president of Brazil today. And Brazil is not a trivial country. Brazil is a 250 million population. It is a massive country geographically. It is by far the biggest country and the most populous country in Latin America. It is, it has immense natural resources. It has the potential to be an incredibly rich, successful, prosperous country. Unfortunately, it's not at all. And a lot of that has to do with governance. Maybe one can hope that maybe the energy behind the election in Mila will spill over to places like Brazil and Chile and get somebody, somebody more free market elected in these countries. But anyway, so Lula of course supports everything Morales has done. Morales is primary target or not only target, but primarily target has been what is perceived to be the right. And there's a big debate going on right now in Brazil about free speech. You know, I can tell you that somebody who's a friend of mine, somebody who's a big advocate for land and a big advocate for liberty and freedom and has been in the past very active in Brazil and elsewhere around the world in promoting freedom is kind of moving out of Brazil because he's afraid. Because he is going to be, you know, they're coming after him. They're coming after anybody who stood up to Lula, anybody who might have supported Bolsonaro, anybody who argues for liberty and freedom, anybody who's arguing that Lula is a corrupt thug is in trouble in Brazil. You know, I'll give you an example, a left wing commentator, well-known left wing commentator writes, quote, under the threat of Nazi fascist inspired insurrection it is worth temporarily, temporarily suspending individual freedoms in the name of collective freedom. That's how you get dictatorship and that's I think the direction Lula would like to go. Anyway, so this has led the moralists to basically ban a number of people from Twitter. So the government has basically told Twitter, you know, cut these people off. You're not allowed to, you're not allowed to, they can't take away their accounts. They can't post on, they can't post on Twitter anymore. And, you know, this is now moralists, but also now the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice of the Brazilian Court saying, look, you know, Twitter has to follow the rules. We set the rules. Twitter doesn't set the rules. And we want Twitter to silence these people, to deplatform these people. And Twitter has under threat, threat of both massive fines and also threat of imprisoning Twitter employees in Brazil. Anyway, the last few days Elon Musk has punched back and basically said, no, we are going to replatform. We're going to put back all these accounts that you've asked us to dismiss. We're not going to be, we're not going to allow you to censor these people. The moralists has come back and threatened Twitter employees. So Elon Musk's latest is, he says he's going to do a full data dump, which means he's going to disclose everybody that's been banned, all the names, all the data, the letters that have been sent by Judge Morales to Twitter. But he's only going to do that after he has moved all his employees into a safe place where supposedly the authorities can't get to them. I don't know what that will actually mean, but there's a real battle here over this. And what he wants is, he's trying to fight for freedom of speech in Brazil. And he's trying to say, I'm not going to let this happen. He tweeted that he'd be lifting all restrictions and that the judges applied massive fines, threatened to arrest employees. And massive fines, by the way, is $20,000 per day for each reactivated account. I don't know how many accounts there are, but I think the bigger issue is the threat to arrest employees of Twitter. That is something the CEO has to take very seriously. He also tweeted, and this is, I wish, he fully understood this. I wish Elon Musk fully understood this. But he did tweet quote, principles matter more than profits. Of course, principles ultimately lead to profits, but good for him for standing on principle. Again, I wish he understood this more thoroughly. On Sunday, this last week, Morales blasted the CEO for obstruction of Brazilian justice, incitement of a crime, waging a disinformation campaign, and that he was going to open up an investigation of Musk himself. If you've seen a photo of this judge, he looks really spooky. I mean, he really looks like a dictator in the making. Anyway, back and forth, it's going to be interesting. Of course, in this kind of issue, I'm 100% behind Musk. I hope he finds a way to, at least he's bringing the issue to the attention of the world. The extent to which Morales is a little dictator and to the extent to which Brazil's freedom of speech is really, really, really under threat. Again, Morales, to some other examples, it's not only what you'd call the so-called far right, whatever that means in this context, but he's also ordered 10 members of Congress to be completely silent on the internet. These are members of Congress. They haven't been found guilty of any crime. He's forced Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and every other social media to remove them, even though there's been no court. They haven't been judged. They haven't, as far as we know, violated the terms of service of any of these. This is just by fiat, you know, the Brazilian authorities are demanding that these companies, that these countries, deplatform them. Of course, Twitter has a mixed record here. It has deplatformed people at the request of the Turkish government, at the request of the Indian government. So they have been accounts banned. I don't know exactly why this is the battle. Elon Musk is waging why he's picked this and not with the others. Maybe he feels like he's in a stronger position here. I don't know. But good for Musk. Let's hope he succeeds. Let's hope that this creates a real backlash within Brazil against the Lula regime and against this horrible judge. I'm not sure when the next election is. I think it's in 2026. And I'm not sure who the opposition is going to put up. Hopefully it's somebody who's not named Bolsonaro. And hopefully they don't commit the same mistake the Americans are doing by presenting the alternative to Biden as Trump. And that they find somebody better. They find somebody more inspiring. They find somebody more committed to freedom, more committed to capitalism, more committed to any level of freedom than Bolsonaro or Lula. So Brazil is a country I really do love. I like the people. You know, I think I've said this in the past. My wife and I love Rio de Janeiro. I think it's one of the most beautiful places on planet Earth. It's a vibrant, beautiful city. And yeah, I've spent a lot of time in Brazil. I've lectured all over Brazil, you know, most of the major cities. In Brazil, I've either visited or given a talk or both. And well, in order to give a talk, I have to visit. So yeah, so I have a... And again, it's the biggest, certainly most powerful country in Latin America. And I'm very interested in what happens here. And I think anybody who values freedom should be. I have a lot of friends in Brazil, objectivism. There's a very active, objectivist, pro-free market movement in Brazil. So there are lots of reasons to root for Elon Musk in this particular challenge. Elon, two days ago, tweeted, How did Alexander de Morales become the dictator of Brazil? He has Lula on a leash. Well, does he have Lula on a leash or is he just doing Lula's bidding? I mean, Lula is, ultimately, a dictator. Or has a dictator tendencies. And so I'm not sure who has whom on a leash. But it is interesting to... It will be interesting to see what Morales' ambitions are. Another thing that's interesting is that a magazine like Wired, I've talked about this in the past, Wired, which used to be a tech magazine, very invested in technology, venture capital, Silicon Valley, very pro-tech, has become over the last, I don't know, five years or more, just a leftist rag, just a place that everything is tilted towards the leftist agenda. Wired's headline is, Elon Musk is platforming far-right activists in Brazil defying court order. So by Wired's definition, Elon Musk is the bad guy, because he is standing up to a authoritarian court in Brazil that is clearly violating Brazilians' free speech. And again, Brazilians are afraid. I mean, I talked to Brazilians. I met Brazilians at our conference in Buenos Aires, of course, was in Sao Paulo a week ago. And Brazilians are afraid. Brazilians are worried. All right, let's see. So that's what I have to say about Elon Musk versus Brazil. All right, so one second. Yeah, so there's been a storm on the right in the United States over the last couple of days. And this has been brewing for a long time, and I kind of have predicted it for quite a while. The general view is that the right in the United States and the Republican Party conservatives are pro-Israel and will support Israel and will stand by Israel. The general view is that Trump will be a pro-Israel president and that MAGA is ultimately pro-Israel. And some of that is based on the fact that among evangelicals, evangelicals are very, very pro-Israel for religious, bizarre religious mystical reasons. I have warned people for a long time about relying on evangelicals and relying really even on the right in the United States, certainly on the MAGA, given that the motivation around supporting Israel is based in religion, in faith, ultimately in mysticism. You know, that dedication, if you will, that support for Israel could change like that. And since October 7th, we have noticed a number of people on the right not being particularly friendly towards Israel and talking against Israel and against support for Israel from a variety of different perspectives. And, you know, there's the big split, for example, at the daily wire between Candace Ohn or Hatt Was, Candace Ohn's been fired, the daily wire and Ben Shapiro and Candace Ohn. And there's no question that much of that was because of Candace Ohn's not supporting Israel and indeed supporting the Palestinians and giving a voice to pro-Palestinians and denying the horrors of October 7th and being an apologist for Hamas. And the amount of support that Candace generated from this position by many, many, many people on the MAGA, right, was truly astounding. I mean, she wasn't a lone voice out there, but she was generating significant, significant support. And we've seen it across... I showed you Joe Rogan, and I don't know Joe Rogan as MAGA, right, but certainly Joe Rogan has influence on the right. And we saw Joe Rogan calling what Israel is doing in Gaza a genocide. And of course, I've talked about Takka Carlson, and there are many, many others on the right that have expressed anti-Israeli ideas, sentiments, and, you know, of course the libertarians are particularly kind of what you'd call the right libertarians, the libertarians who tend to be on the right. A very anti-Israel. And this should worry anybody who supports Israel. And what you could see across every demographic but across every political orientation is a steady, steady decline among Americans in support for Israel to the point where today a majority of Americans think Israel's gone too far, think Israel's in the wrong, and in a sense, not explicitly, but in a sense, implicitly supporting the Palestinians. Anyway, Takka Carlson did an interview yesterday which has created quite a stir, because, you know, Takka interviewed yesterday a Christian Palestinian, a Christian Palestinian from Bethlehem who was super critical of Israel, accused Israel of attacking Christians, accused Israel of discriminating against Christian Arabs both in Israel and in the West Bank in Gaza, accused Israel of killing Christians. Takka seems to have bought into this completely. And you know how Takka does it, but emphasized these concerns, suggested that the United States should stop supporting Israel in any way, because Israel was anti-Christian and attacking Christians, bought into, didn't challenge this Reverend, Reverend Montha Isaac at all about his claims regarding Israel's treatment of the Christians. You know, statements about Israel's targeting of Christians that have no basis, really no basis, in reality. I mean, so let's just take, you know, one of his claims, which is the claim that because of, you know, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the Christian population within Bethlehem has been decimated. Christians are being, what do you call it, discriminated against. This is completely counterfactual. The reality is that before the Palestinian Authority took control of Bethlehem, the Palestinian Authority controls Bethlehem. Bethlehem, of course, a holy site for Christians. Christians were a majority there. They're now a small minority. The Palestinian Authority has been Islamizing the city, taking control of every aspect of Bethlehem. It is not Israeli occupation that is the issue. It is the Palestinian Authority and the ever-growing influence of Islamic, Islamic totalitarianism, Hamas-like ideologies in the West Bank that have created, you know, a Bethlehem today that is a vast majority Muslim when it used to be Christian. Christians are basically left. Now, this is not unusual in the Middle East. Over the last 20 years, really over the last, you know, since over the last 50 years, the Christians of Lebanon used to be equal numbers to the Muslims. Christians of Lebanon have left. They are now closer to 20, 30% of Lebanon when they used to be about 50. Christians of Syria have left. Christians from Iraq have left. Christians all over the Middle East have left. There's been a huge outmigration of Christians as the Middle East has become more serious about its Islam. Same thing is happening in the Palestinian territories as the Palestinian territories become more committed to the Islamic ideology. So, you know, Christians are leaving. Now, you know, this reverend just repeated claims that are just untrue. Claims about Israeli snipers killing civilians in a church which have been refuted. You know, just story after story that he's making up or repeating things that are known now to be false. To try to establish that Israel is anti-Christian and committing horrors against Christians. Now, you know, Christian Arabs live in Israel. They have equal rights. Churches have the same kind of religious authority as mosques and synagogues. They have, you know, they have control over this complete freedom of religion, in other words, in Israel. This is completely made up. Now, it turns out that this preacher, this reverend, praised Hamas for October 7th or at least did not denounce them. He used some slightly ambiguous language to describe them. This is a man who hates Israel, who despises the state, who wants the state of Israel to disappear. He is on the side of the radical Islamists and on the side of the Palestinian authority and they wish to eradicate the state of Israel. Tachalcosa is not only a game you have a platform, but, you know, amplified it and emphasized, emphasized, that American foreign policy should be guided by a country's attitude towards Christians. So, you know, Tachalcosa says at the start of the program, he said, a consistent but also never noted theme of American foreign policy is that it is always that Christians will suffer. Really? Really? I guess Russian Christians are worth more to Taka than Ukrainian Christians. I guess the persecution of Christians by regime after regime in the Middle East is not worth commenting on except when the United States has revolved. And then he adds when, quote, when there is a war abroad that the United States is funding, there are Christians who tend to die disproportionately. Note how Taka has become obsessed with Christians Christianity. He's become, I mean, this has been a theme for Taka for quite a while now. He's really gone off the deep end in terms of his Christian nationalism, national conservatism, really bad. You know, and then he goes after, he spends his time going after evangelicals in the United States for the support of Israel. He says you shouldn't be supporting Israel. Israel persecutes Christians. And yet you care more about the Jews than you do about Christians. Stop supporting Israel. I think you're going to see a bigger and bigger voice for this point of view and you're going to see evangelicals shift already. That shift exists in young evangelicals who are much more sympathetic to the Palestinians than they are to the Israelis. Altruism demands it ultimately. And you're going to see a significant weakening of support for Israel from the right. This part of the right that is anti-Israel and at least in some cases anti-Semitic is growing in influence. The right is being completely intellectually corrupted. And those of you, I don't know if Scott is on today, those of you want alliances with these creeps? Want alliances with these people? Not me. I don't want to have anything to do with the tuckers of the world and the American new right, the anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli, anti-American. New right, hate the Constitution, hate the Declaration of Independence, hate individual rights. That is Taka Kalsen. So yes, Taka gave a platform to this guy and conservatives are attacking him, like the pro-Israel conservatives are attacking him all over the place. This is going to, I think Israel is going to be a real battle within the conservative movement. You've got the Candace Owen and Taka Kalsen and wing of the new right. And there are going to be many else who join this wing and who are going to advocate against Israel, against American support for Israel. You've got the old evangelicals, just like the old left that supports Israel, whereas the young evangelicals and the young left hate Israel. And right now, again, a majority of Americans think Israel is in the wrong when it comes to Gaza. And this is ultimately a great tragedy and we will see what happens. We'll see what happens if Trump wins and how MAGA, what position MAGA takes. Remember that Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the leaders of MAGA and Congress, I can't even believe I said that, she's a complete wacko. Remember her with the Jews with lasers and I mean she's a complete nutcase. Anyway, she is one of the leaders of the Republican Party these days. She's not exactly pro-Israel, not ultimately. Anyway, it'll be interesting whether this hurts Taka or ultimately helps Taka, whether this increases the kind of anti-Israeli anti-freedom wing of the Republican Party. All right, what is our next topic? Where are we going from here? Yeah, quickly just on inflation. Inflation numbers came in today higher than expected. Not significantly higher, but higher. The stock market took a dive. The interest rates spiked, the 10-year bill spiked. The Fed, which has been talking about reducing interest rates for months now, is going to have to really think about it. They assume that there is a correlation between interest rates that the Fed determines and inflation, that is, as the Fed decreases interest rates, there's a risk of inflation increasing. So in order to suppress inflation, the story goes, conventional economics tells us, you have to raise interest rates. While inflation is high, interest rates, they thought about lowering them, which would be bad for inflation according to them. They are now going to hesitate lowering them and increasing them as a consequence. Again, assets are being replaced with the assumption that interest rates are going to be higher for longer, which means asset values are lower. That means that anything, any financial assets, again, everything else held constant, has declined in value and got hit today. Banks got hit in particular, but so did assets across the spectrum. And again, interest rates, 10-year interest rates went up, above 7% again. And this optimism that I think was pretty prevalent around the turn of the year, which suggested that inflation had been beat, that we were not going to have a recession, it was going to be a soft landing, everything looked great, and the economy was going to be terrific, and that would ultimately boast in Biden his reelection campaign. I'm not sure that's happening. But it really does look like that is challenged and that maybe inflation is not beat. Maybe interest rates will have to go up even more. Maybe there is still a recession in the horizon. And any talk about inflation, bad economy, potential recession, mortgage rates going up and the stock market going down is not helpful for Joe Biden. The stock market has just hit record levels, so it's going down after hitting record levels. But still, this is going to be a big issue in the election, but it's a big issue for all of us, right? We have to live with high inflation. High inflation is not a good thing. Not a good thing. And it's something we are definitely being challenged with. All right. Arizona. So, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled yesterday, today, this morning. I can't tell. But anyway, ruled very recently. Top hold a law from 18, from before Arizona was a state, a law that is 160 years old. Again, from before Arizona was a state that basically banned abortion completely. I think with some exception for the patient's life is in danger, banned all abortion from conception, from conception. This law will go into effect probably in about 60 days, and basically all abortions will be banned in the state of Arizona. Now, this is a spite of a law that was passed a couple of years ago that said that banned abortions after 15 weeks. The Supreme Court ruled that that law had a provision in it that if the court upheld the 19th century law, the new law was null and void. And the court just went by the letter of the law. And because Dobs did away with the law of the land, which was Roe, Roe was his weight, so the law of the land was abortion is a right, abortion is legal. Since that went away, the law of the land in Arizona is a 160-year-old law. Now, this creates big problems for Republicans. So, first of all, Republicans have come out and gone after the ruling from the Supreme Court, which is interesting. It's a Carrie Lake who, if you remember, ran for governor, lost, claimed the election was stolen, and she did a whole thing and a whole circus around the election stolen. Anyway, she is now the Republican candidate for the Senate. These MAGA nutcases never die. They keep getting resurrected. Anyway, she's running for Senate. When Dobs passed, Roe vs. Wade was eliminated, she was very positive about Arizona going back to the 160-year-old law. She thought it was a great law. And she supported it. Yesterday, she said that the ruling was unfortunate, it wasn't a good ruling, and she encouraged the governor and the legislature to come up with an immediate common-sense solution. Again, two years ago, she said that the 19th century law was a great law. The reality is, Republicans know that if they run on an agenda of completely banning abortion, they will lose. And so Carrie Lake has backed off of her support for a total ban on abortion and is encouraging the legislature and the governor to come up with something else. Of course, the governor who's a Democrat has no interest in really coming up with something else because on the ballot in November, Arizona has an amendment to make abortion legal completely with no restrictions. Now, given this 19th century law, this is going to increase, this is going to increase turnout, turnout among the left, turnout among Democrats, or turnout among anybody who supports abortion. And therefore, it increases the chances that people will come out and vote against Republicans. Particularly Republicans who stand up against abortion. So Carrie Lake has a very delicate dance to dance here. But if there's a great turnout of people who support abortion, in November, Carrie Lake will probably lose. And there's a chance, at least, that Donald Trump will lose. Now, Donald Trump knows this. Donald Trump is a... if nothing else, he's a political animal. He understands politics. He understands what is going to get him elected. So earlier this week, Donald Trump came out and said, everybody's expecting some statement from Donald Trump about abortion. And the expectation was that he would say that he supports a federal ban on abortion from, I don't know, 15 weeks, or 20 weeks, or something like that. Which would be a compromise, right? Donald Trump surprised everybody on the right by coming out and saying, I will not support a federal ban, any federal ban on abortion. I will actually veto a bill that came to my office if such a bill came. I support state... the states, every state, making its own decision about abortion. And this shocked many people on the right. It surprised them. But the reality is that Donald Trump looks at the latest elections and looks at the referendum around abortion and looks at the polls around abortion. And he gets it. He gets that Americans... Americans... in the swing states where he needs to win, in those states, Americans support abortion rights. He is not going to win Arizona if he comes out against abortion. So he's basically saying every state will make their own decision and that frees him from taking a solid stand on the issue. Now, he still has to say he's against abortion in order to secure the religious rights vote. But he probably has those anyway. What he needs are the swing votes. And for those, he needs to have a much more moderate position on the issue of abortion and he's taken that position. So, it's going to be interesting to see what happens in Arizona. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays into the November election. But, you know, Republicans are terrified that there are going to be all these states where the issue that really gets voters to come out is going to be abortion, where they are voting on some kind of referendum about abortion. And once they're there, they're going to vote against Republicans. The reality is that the abortion issue is one that has motivated voters significantly over the since Dobbs eliminated Rovers' Wade. Abortion rights have been amendments have been passed that state that you were not expected. It's solidly red states and Republicans are afraid of this issue. And Trump did what makes sense politically, completely, to do which is to, you know, not having to take on not having to take on the issue. And by the way, it's not going by the Supreme Court decision actually passing a federal law, what many Republicans want to do is not against the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court just said there's no right. Legislature, go do your thing. Pass laws. So, you know, Congress is within its right, given the Supreme Court ruling to pass a law banning abortion nationwide. What Trump is saying is he will not support that because he knows that that electorally would be suicide. Suicide. And you will see that this is going to become a huge issue for November. There are a number of states that are going to have it on the ballot and it's going to be challenged. There are a number of states that are going to have constitutional amendments, others and a lot of these states are going to be swing states and Trump is trying to take this off. Trying to eliminate this is an issue by saying let the states do what they want. We'll see. Right? Scotis did not toss it back to the state. Scotis tossed it back to legislatures. He tossed it back to legislatures including the federal legislature. Scotis did not say that you couldn't have a federal ban on abortion or you couldn't have a federal law about abortion. What they said was it wasn't constitutionally protected by the constitutionally protected and therefore they couldn't overrule a state law or a federal law. So actually have to understand what the Supreme Court is actually saying. By the way with regard to Arizona Trump again said that he was against the Arizona law, the Arizona ruling that he liked Arizona to come up with a more reasonable one. By the way Florida is going to have a constitutional amendment a constitutional proposition to alter the constitution in favor of abortion rights and that is going to be in the November ballot. Now I don't know that that could swing Florida away from Trump but it could swing some of the some congressional seats it could swing a senate contest that is it could swing some other elections within Florida away from Republicans in favor of Democrats and the Republican Party is really really scared, they're running scared of this. It's not me read what Republicans are writing about this it's no accident that Carrie Lake suddenly is for compromise on the issue of abortion when she was adamant about no compromise on this issue not that long ago. Alright finally talking about Florida Florida in 2023 passed a law that restricted educators use teachers use personal pronouns titles in schools so basically said you had to use the pronoun of the sex to which you were born right the gender to which you were born. This is part of a series of laws that you know banned what do you call it cross dressing cross dressing performances and all kinds of other things so that so but part of this was for schools you couldn't present yourself as having a different gender than the gender you were born with in terms of the pronoun you identified yourself with. A federal court on Tuesday blocked blocked education officials Florida education officials for enforcing this law requiring a transgender teacher to use pronouns that align with her sex assigned at birth saying the law violated her first amendment rights and the judge is pretty brutal against this is from Judge Walker's decision he writes once again the state of Florida has a first amendment problem of late it has happened so frequently some might say that you can set your clock by it this time the state of Florida declares that it has the absolute authority to redefine your identity if you choose to teach in a public school so the question before this court is whether the first amendment permits the state to dictate without limitation how public school teachers refer to themselves when communicating to students the answer is a thunderous no I agree I mean whatever you think about transgender and the you know the I think that to a large extent the horrors of the whole thing the idea that the state the state can tell people how to self-identify and what they can and cannot call themselves is absurd even in state schools and where part of the question is how they identify themselves a pedagogical issue and the judge says it's not a pedagogical issue it's in you know this is not an issue of pedagogy this is an issue of free speech he writes given the personal self-identifying speech at issue in this case and the board application of this restriction to every employee or contractor in the public K through 12 context regardless of whether they are responsible for teaching students this court concludes that the restriction itself is not simply a pedagogical a curriculum choice all right good ruling and followed up and another setback for the I don't know for the you know the absurd agenda of absurd anti quote anti-woke agenda of the dissentous administration so another setback he's had many of these setbacks setbacks before government has no business in this all right let's see I mean this is a simple first amendment issue you don't have the state does not tell you how to identify yourself I mean the fascists on the chat would like the state to be able to tell you I mean it's none of the state's business what I call myself what they do with my own body where they have operation to assign reassign my sex I don't support that necessarily but it's none of the state's business you are the state's property you own you know you are owned by the state and therefore the state can dictate what you do with your body this goes to the abortion issue it goes to the trans issue it goes to freedom of speech issues the state should keep out of these issues let's see all right let's open this up to a super chat let me remind you all it's getting hot in this room let me remind you all that we do have sponsors for the show we have the Invin Institute that sponsors the show and you can still register another five days to register to get to apply for a scholarship for Ocon, Ocon Objectives Conference Ocon is going to be fantastic it's in Anaheim this year right across from Disneyland the program is amazing you can have lectures by the leading objectives and intellectuals and socially it's a terrific event with a lot of time to kind of get to know your fellow attendees to form new friendships to old friendships it's just a little piece of golf is offered by Ocon every summer so I encourage you guys to attend and those of you who think you might qualify for a scholarship apply you've got nothing to lose by applying and it's all paid all expenses paid scholarship I mean all reasonable expenses paid and you can apply at www.ionrang.org here also the show is sponsored by Alex Epstein by Energy Talking Points and Alex AI which is a new AI app Alex has created that basically provides you with answers as if Alex is answering your questions on energy so it's focused on energy I think Alex has the best thinker about energy issues in the world I think he integrates both knowledge of the science, the evidence, and a deep knowledge of philosophy of what is entailed in human flourishing. And he provides a unique combination of the knowledge of philosophy and the knowledge, the specialized knowledge of the field. He has been incredibly successful. Alex AI is being used today by congressmen, by senators, by I think by governors, but anyway by senior people within the political world. It's used by many thinkers and public intellectuals and it's something that you should consider using, particularly if you're interested in this area. And if this is of importance to you, particularly if it relates to your life, to your life energy issues. So you can go to Alex Epstein, Alexepstein.substack.com Alexepstein.substack.com, Alexepstein.substack.com, and sign up, sign up for the talking points and sign up for the get a subscription to the chat GPT like Alex AI. Alright, let's see. Just on the on the Florida thing, the state cannot, cannot dictate what somebody calls themselves. It shouldn't be able to dictate what somebody calls themselves. It's stupid. Now, there shouldn't be state schools. There shouldn't be any government schools. And the government is going to dictate the curriculum, you know, okay, but to dictate what a teacher says and how a teacher identifies themselves, that is bizarre and ridiculous. And I think that will not stand the courts scrutiny. So you guys who are, you know, and you know, government schools should should disappear. They should be privatized, all of them. And then the government certainly has no say in them. But what get now government employees throughout the government are going to, you know, they're going to be told what they have to identify with and you know, what they can and cannot say because they happen to be government employees. I mean, that's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. Alright, let's see. Okay, Michael. Alright, by the way, just to remind everybody, this show is funded from contributions by listeners like you. If you're not here live, you can support the show by going to Patreon or doing it on your own bookshow.com slash membership. That would be PayPal. You can support to show that way on a monthly basis, which is fantastic. You know, the monthly basis is what keeps the show going. If you're here live on YouTube, one option to support the show is using Super Chat. You can use Super Chat to ask a question, which always is great because it helps shape the show. But you can also just use a sticker just to express support for what I am doing with the show. So please consider doing that. I have targets for these shows in terms of a goal for the amount of money needs to be raised just so we can sustain the program. We sustain what we're doing. So please, we try to reach those targets as often as we can. We haven't done a long show like we're doing today in quite a while, so I did set the target at 650, which I think is consistent with what we've done in the past. All right, John, thank you for the $20. We really, really appreciate it. Ryan, thank you. Stephen, thank you. These are stickers. These are people who are not asking questions, just showing support by giving a sticker. You can too. $1.99, $2.99, $5.99. Stephen, just did 10. Thank you, Stephen. So thank you to all the people doing stickers and supporting the Iran Book Show and what we're trying to do in the Iran Book Show and an expansion of the Iran Book Show that is coming. Ooh, I did, I was going to do a poll today and I forgot to set up the poll. Okay, so maybe tomorrow, tomorrow's show will have a poll. By the way, tomorrow we will have a show at 1 p.m. east coast time. 1 p.m. east coast time, there will be the next show and then the next show after that will be on Saturday. All right, Michael, $100. Thank you, Michael. Really, really appreciate the supports. We need more supporters like Michael who value this rather than complainers. All right, Michael says, despite the real distinctions between libertarianism and objectivism, a half percentage of libertarians are finance of Iran than the number of Republicans who are Iran fans. Despite Iran's objection to libertarian project, Iran created more libertarians than any other thinker. I think that's true, but is that a good thing? That is, is having a lot of libertarians a good thing? If I, if I look at the libertarian party, I think not that it's not a good thing to have more libertarians. I'm sure Dave Smith and and others within the libertarian party who, I believe, hate America, who are anarchists, who despise Israel, hate Ukraine, love, love Putin. I'm sure they all would say that Iran was an influence on them. I mean, with influence like that, I, you know, that is not, that is not helpful. It doesn't support anything. It doesn't move us in the right direction. Indeed, quite the opposite. It's people like that that retard the progress of free markets. It's these moral subjectivists, anarchists, who I believe retard the progress towards liberty and freedom that make us look like we're crazy if we support free markets. So I do not consider the fact that so many, that there were a lot of libertarians that I created a good thing. It's not clear to me that I don't think libertarianism is moving us necessarily in the right direction. Now again, not all libertarians, some libertarians are good and they do good work and they move us in the right direction, but not all libertarians. And this is why libertarianism is such a murky concept. It includes all kinds of people, some of whom are really, really good and some of them are really, really horrible, right? And not helpful. You know, those kind of libertarians and, you know, people who, people who say Iran influenced them but didn't get it, don't understand individual rights, don't understand the role of reason in human life, don't understand the role of rational egoism and morality. They're not helpful and to some extent they're harmful. So again, they're not just distinctions. I mean, this is a point I was trying to make in my talk and I make even more so in my other talk that hopefully I'll post soon. It's not about distinctions between libertarianism and rejectivism. Libertarianism and rejectivism have very little overlap. Suddenly if you consider objectivism as a philosophy, libertarianism is only a political philosophy and even as a political philosophy, it doesn't have that much overlap and you can see that on the extent to which libertarianism is, libertarians, some libertarians are unbelievably hostile to the good, to rights, to I think virtue out there in the world and are friendly to people like Putin. See, these are all $20 questions, we'll get to those. Excellent. All right, still need $10, $20 questions or $200 questions but in order to make our goal, I think we can do it. All right, Liam says, even if most people don't take altruism that seriously, all it takes is a small dose of it in a person or a culture psyche to generate enough moral confusion to cause societal damage. Absolutely. Absolutely. It doesn't take much altruism to infect, to cause you to feel guilty when you shouldn't feel guilty. That guilt can cause you to take positions which you shouldn't take. A little bit of altruism can cause you to try to defend capitalism on the run grounds and utilitarian grounds and other grounds which then undermine the actual advance towards capitalism. A little bit of altruism can really do damage on a personal level to you in terms of your ability to be happy, your ability to achieve in life, your ability to be guilt-free in terms of unearned guilt and it can do massive damage on a societal level because it's what ultimately encourages taxes and regulations and controls and big governments and intrusive government and ultimately authoritarianism. And altruism is everywhere and for most of us who learn about rational egos and we learn about objectivism, learn from mind-rend, it can take us years to get rid of the elements of altruism and some people never get rid of them and it hampers their ability to be happy. It really does. Remember, altruism doesn't mean just being nice to people. Altruism here means that the moral purpose of life is sacrifice, self-sacrifice for the sake of others. They, others, are the purpose of your life. Alright, Ryan, what is the benefit of stating a date for the Rafa invasion? Seems idiotic. I get that you need to allow civilians to prepare but 12 hours seems better notice. If you want to save IDF soldiers from being killed, huge blunder. Well yeah, but I mean what's new here, right? Netanyahu says he has a date but the American government is saying no he hasn't got a date. They're going to do this in steps. They're going to allow the civilians to evacuate. They're going to set up checkpoints to make sure it's only civilians evacuating and not Hamas troops. All this delay in time is going to increase the possibilities of errors and mistakes and more international pressure in Israel. All this is going to provide more time for Hamas to prepare and to organize itself for the advance of the Israelis into Rafa. They should go tomorrow. So idiotic, self-sacrificial, you know, self-destructive, suicidal, those are all the names that I can think of, terms that I can think of that apply. And you know, initially if you remember I was very skeptical that Israel would do the right thing in Gaza. Then there was a period where it was like, huh, maybe they're doing more than I expected. Not the right thing. Not everything I would have proposed that they do. But maybe better than I expected. And now it's back to Netanyahu's a wimp. He's always been a wimp. He waits. He is not decisive. He doesn't make quick decisions. He procrastinates and procrastinates. And he gives Israel's enemies more and more and more time. And he gives our enemies more and more time to put pressure on it. And as a consequence, the right thing will not be done. And as a consequence, I mean, all the areas that Israel is now left in Gaza, there are significant reports of Hamas re-establishing its control over those areas. Re-establishing control in a way of police, in a way of infrastructure, and in the way of militants, of soldiers, of terrorists. So what have you done? The whole idea was to dismantle Hamas and its ability to govern. How can Israel do that when it retreats immediately from territory it is occupied? If it doesn't stay, if it doesn't guarantee the eradication of Hamas, and for that matter, if there's going to be aid being provided to the Palestinians, the Israel should manage that process. It shouldn't let Hamas manage the process. Israel should be guarding those trucks from point of entry all the way to delivery of the aid to the civilians and not let Hamas steal it, but also not let Hamas manage the process. Because if they're managing the process, they're equivalent of the government of Gaza. And the whole point was to eliminate any possibility that there would ever be the government of Gaza. So it's just unbelievably discouraging what is going on in Gaza right now, and the dithering, and then the negotiating again, and every two days Hamas turns on and turns down the Israeli proposal. So Israel compromises some more, and then Hamas turns that down, and Israel compromises some more, and Hamas turns that down. And at the end, Israel might as well just leave Gaza, tell them to keep the hostages and call it quits. It's just pathetic. But this is altruism. This is altruism. In every aspect, it's what is guiding Netanyahu. It's what is guiding the Israeli public. And it's what's guiding the American administration. Everybody who's commenting on it. It's disgusting. James, I have never heard an argument against free will that didn't end up implying free will. Can you think of one? Well, not really. Other than, you know, let's take Augustine's argument against free will basically says everything's predetermined. Every action that you will take in life has already been determined. And the ultimate decision in life, which is whether you go to heaven or hell, was determined before you were born. So everything's preset. I'm not sure why you should care about anything you do at that point, because it's all predetermined anyway. But yeah, it's, but even in that, well, how do people actually live on a day-to-day basis? What does it mean not to exercise will? What does it mean not to actually make decisions? What is it? What do you just drift? I mean, what does it actually look like? I guess you just drift. Don't make decisions. You just go with the flow. All right, Hopper Campbell. Without Ayn Rand, will Aristotle be defeated? I mean, not in the long run, he will make a comeback. There will be another Ayn Rand, it might be a thousand years, it might be 500 years, I don't know. But it's not like Ayn Rand came out of a, Ayn Rand came in a sense, she did come out of a void, but there was an enlightenment, there was a renaissance, there was a rediscovery of Aristotle, then there was Ayn Rand. But let's say if you eliminate Ayn Rand, Aristotle will be defeated, and then he will rise up again. And ultimately, there will be an Ayn Rand. Ultimately, truth will be discovered. Ayn Rand was not the only person in all of the human future with the ability to discover the truth. It might have taken a few more hundred years, but it would be all discovered. So no, I don't think Aristotle will ever be defeated, completely, thoroughly eliminated. I think he will always make a comeback. Jennifer, Jonathan would like you to comment on the effects Bricks may have. Thank you. So yeah, Bricks are the, is they kind of the Bricks is originally Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. I think ultimately the Bricks are a destabilizing force in the world. But really, you know, Brazil doesn't matter. And South Africa doesn't matter. You know, India is starting to matter. But the only countries that really matter in the Bricks are Russia and China. Now, they've just added a bunch of countries to the Bricks and actually Argentina turned them down, which is another reason I like Millay is that he turned down membership in the Bricks, which is fantastic, right? So he's not enamored by Putin. But the real Bricks issue is an issue of China and Russia. And will China and Russia have an impact on the world? Absolutely. Will Bricks independent of Russia and China have an impact on the world? Very little. The fact is that Bricks are poor, weak. They have no influence. They have no influence. There might be a lot of them. Ultimately, you know, a lot of countries might join Bricks, but they have no real power outside of Russia, China, India. India is so far cited with on a lot of issues with the West. Russia is a real disruptor, as we see in Ukraine, and we will see in Europe for years to come. China is a disruptor, but still has to make up its mind how bad it's going to disrupt and how committed it is to disruption versus the trade and versus its own development. So I wouldn't rule out that ultimately China, you know, that that I think China is a force for ill right now in the world. But will it be a force for ill long term is really hard to tell. Again, I spoke to somebody today who's very not not today, but in Argentina, who's very knowledgeable about China knows China in and out. And he thinks China is going to come back. That is liberty in China is going to come back. And you know, I think that China is you know, China is the real challenge that we face. And of course, Russia. So do I think the bricks are going to establish a new currency? Do I think no, they don't can't even agree among each other. I mean, China and India enemies. They have a border dispute. Russia and China don't really agree on much. The main thing they agree about is hatred of the West. Brazil is super leftist. You know, Putin is super fascist. China wants influence globally. China considers itself superior to all of these people. I think at the end of the day, what really matters is what China does and what Putin does. Putin knows weak. China's much stronger. So the end of the day of the bricks, the only one that really matters is China. I've done shows on the bricks in the past. I just don't think as quad bricks, they are important. Clark, do people have trouble responding to reason? They can't even recognize a rational argument is being presented to them. Yes, I think absolutely. I think people have a problem engaging with rationality with with reality, with thinking, I think we live in a world that is dominated by emotion, dominated by tribal thinking. And it is it is not a culture of thinking people, at least not outside of kind of their professional lives. And as a consequence, they have a hard time presenting rational arguments, dealing with rational arguments, dealing with facts, dealing with reality. Hell, you can see it on my chat, you don't have to go very far in order to see the lack of reason and rationality and the lack of egoism. Because for whatever reason, these people who hate me are still here. Still here. It's bizarre, weird, spend significant amount of their life on the Iran book show. That doodle bunny is a subconscious a war between proclivities and motivations goals. Well, it can be. If you don't bring order to it. One of the ways one of the ways it means to activate reason and to think and to, you know, be a thinking rational, conceptual reasoning being is to bring order and and to get rid of the the contradictions and the battles that might be going on between what's going on, you know, between your different values and your different goals. I don't know what proclivities are. I don't even know what that term ultimately refers to. And the whole idea is to make your goals, your values real to you. And to organize them and to structure them and to organize your life around them. And to make sure that, you know, that they're consistent. So and to get rid of any conflicts and wars. I don't think that is the nature of man. I think a lot of us at war, in a sense that we are raised on a particular ethic, we're raised with particular ideas. And then we change them and they're still a conflict and we haven't completely integrated them. But that's the job. That's the work that has to be done. Integrate your values in a way that is non contradictory, in a way that does not create conflict in your mind, conscious or subconscious. Due to bunny, we always discuss the tyranny of the state and coercion between human beings. But what about the tyranny of your soul? Can your tyranny, can you tyrannize yourself? No, you can't tyrannize yourself. tyranny is something that involves coercion and force. And your mind can't, your mind is your mind. And you control it. This is the whole point about free will. You are in control of your mind. You are in control of your soul. You determine what your mind and your soul are and what they will be. So, and it requires work to get to the point where you are satisfied with the kind of soul that you are creating, where you're consciously creating the soul in a way that is consistent with your explicit values. But that's the work that has to be done. The soul can't tyrannize you. The soul is under your control. You are the builder of your soul. It's the choices that you make, the values that you determine. That is your soul. Now, you can argue that some people don't spend the time creating a soul. And in a sense, they don't have one. And then they're terrorized by their emotions. They're terrorized by their unthinking subconscious, if you will. But that's because they lack a soul. That's because they haven't spent the time, the energy to actually do it. Liam asked, why can't most people think beyond their nose? Well, they haven't been taught to think they haven't, you know, they don't understand the motivation. And look, most people can think beyond their nose because most people are working for a living. They're producing their creating that requires thought. It's that they don't think consistently and they don't think beyond their nose beyond the work that they do and they don't apply it more broadly. I mean, you can add you should. You can, you can, you know, it basically is a lack of consistency. It's a lack of effort. It's a lack of engagement and a lack of motivation because they don't understand the importance of thinking. Harper Campbell. Is anyone who uses the word genocide or Pothide to characterize the state of Israel a vicious anti-Semite? Everyone probably not. There are probably some ignorant people out there who just don't know and don't understand, but suddenly educated people, people who should know better, people who have access to the information and who can observe it. Yeah, I think people are using genocide and a Pothide who have some ability to investigate and to know the world and have some knowledge of the world around them. Yes, I think for them, it represents it's a, it's a sign that they are motivated by something else, not knowledge, not reality, not truth, but by some of the motivations, some hatred, anti-Semitism could be very well be part of that motivation. Andrew Trager. The moral is the practical. Republicans can announce support for IVF, opposition to Arizona ruling, but pronouncements don't rewrite reality. The facts of being wrong and the principle of abortion are real and won't go away. I agree completely, Andrew. And the idea, the conservative, crazy religious mystical idea that human, that human life begins at conception and at conception, therefore, the entity that is created gains rights. That massive philosophical error, evasion, if you will, has massive consequences. It means IVF is not a procedure that is legitimate. It involves murder. It means that, wait a minute, how can you abort at 15 weeks? How can you abort at five weeks? It's murder. So the, yes, absolutely. Once you accept the irrational proposition that a zygote has rights, you can try to weasel your way around these things, but the reality is that you are anti IVF, anti abortion completely, and your anti life, your anti human life, your anti women, you're also anti children, but that's a whole other issue. Your anti human life. And you need to suffer the consequences. And I think Republicans have, are and will suffer the consequences of the complete irrationality of their position on abortion. And I hope they continue to suffer the consequences. Charles Butler, could you comment on Ben Shapiro's video regarding being a cultural Christian? You're showing the topic was cut off by internet issues. Yes, but I will be doing a show on it, Charles Butler. I'm not going to answer the question now. I will be probably maybe on Saturday, I want to show clips from both, what's his name, Dawkins and clips from Ben Shapiro and comment to those clips. I don't want to just comment without showing you what he actually said. So that will be the topic, maybe of Saturday show, if not of Saturday show, then Sunday or Monday, but it will be a topic of a show coming up really, really soon. So stay tuned for that. And I know it cut off. But I don't want to do it on the road. There's too much risk of technology for cutting off again. Too many windows have to be open to my little laptop. So it's too complicated for me to do a show on the road where I show you clips of somebody else and comment on them. I will wait to do that from home. All right, guys. I hate to do this. We're still short on the goal. We're still about $200 short on the goal. So I do encourage anybody who wants to support the show haven't haven't done a lot of shows this month. So I haven't asked you a lot. But it is that shows already an hour and a half. So 650 is usually our target for shows that an hour and a half to two hours long. We will be shifting schedules next week. So our shows will be my shows will be they'll be longer. There'll be fewer shows but longer. And we will be I will be setting some ambitious goals for the shows. I hope I hope there's enough support and interest on the live chat to sustain the new schedule because otherwise I'll have to I'll have to shift it again. But 650 is pretty much what we're going to be raising trying to raise every single day in order to sustain the new schedule. So hopefully we can still make it today. Michael, why did Atlas Shrugged sell so many more copies in the fountain had given that the fountain is a smaller and easier to process novel? Well, I think because Atlas Shrugged has some such broad appeal. It is such a a it affects and speaks to so many aspects in life. It has a unique appeal to businessmen, a unique appeal to entrepreneurs. And I think became a success because businessmen and entrepreneurs picked it up. It has such a big statement. And it's so I think that's why it also you know, it got a lot of publicity much more than the fountain had it got a lot of publicity because so many business leaders and other leaders came out and said this is a book that changed my life. This is a book that's huge influence. This is this is a book that, in a sense, helped me be what I am. Anyway, from you know, so many of Silicon Valley founders, we've talked about this fortune for 4500 CEOs across the board have credited Atlas Shrugged. And I think that's had a huge impact. And it's and that's why it's more philosophical. It gets to it's more procapitalism. Put it that way. Found head is more about the ethics. Atlas is more procapitalism explicitly. It's implicit in found head. It's excellent sleep and therefore picked up by the procapitalist that people who are procapitalist, they got behind it even if they didn't understand his wider implications. Hopper Campbell thoughts on Alan Dushowitz debate with Norm Fickleston yesterday. I haven't seen it. I thought Dushowitz did a good job taking them all high ground and articulating moral clarity. I wouldn't be surprised Alan Dushowitz is a good debater. Normal Fickestine is a is awful, horrible human being and an awful, just awful, awful in every respect. So I'm not surprised that that does so it does. This which is also a lawyer, he's sharp, he's quick. And he's very pro Israel. And he knows the arguments, at least most of them. So I'm not surprised, Dushowitz won the debate or is better at it. By debate, by the way, as soon as it comes out, I will let you know. James Taylor is the concept of war crimes invalid. There can be no crimes in a state of war. Since you have to do whatever takes to win. Yes, I mean, there is no validity. I mean, what's a war crime? War is the crime, right? The real crime is the real war. The real crime is initiating force in a war. So starting a war, that's the real crime. Now what happens in the war, if you initiate it, everything you do is evil and wrong, is a crime. And those defending themselves have to do whatever they need to do in order to defend themselves. Michael, will Israel invade, still invade Rafa? Yes, I think it will. Will it be a bloodbath of civilian casualties? No, I don't think so. I think Israel will evacuate a lot of civilians. It will go in, just like Gaza wasn't a bloodbath for civilians. I don't think it will be. And yes, I think that Israel will manage to take over Rafa without huge numbers of casualties and will control Rafa. The question is, will it do enough to dismantle Hamas? Will it capture or kill all the Hamas leadership? Will it destroy the entire Hamas infrastructure? Will it actually do that? It will capture Rafa. Not enough, has to do a lot more than that. And I'm worried that they're not going to do everything that's necessary. Lee, I'm a lot of Canadians I speak with, say the authoritarianism is getting out of hand. People being fined or arrested for speech economic decay. I think that's right. That's the sense I'm getting from Canada. The authoritarianism is on the increase. This administration, this Canadian government is horrible and free speech. We've seen that with them going after the courts ruling on, you know, Jordan Peterson, but also the ability of, what's his name, Trudeau to confiscate the bank accounts of the truckers, if you remember that. You know, it's just ongoing attacks on free speech and liberty. And Canada is really becoming more and more authoritarian. Whether there'll be a backlash against this in a future government, I don't know. I certainly hope so. Friend Harpa, have you read The Prince or Utopia? I just learned about them in reopening the Western mind, finished it yesterday. And I must might listen to these next. Thanks for making me aware of closing opening Western mind. I haven't finished the reopening of the Western mind. So I haven't, I haven't read or read about Utopia. The Prince, I think is, is what's his name, it's Machiavelli. So yes, I've read The Prince, but I haven't seen the interpretation of Friedman in reopening of the Western mind to it. But The Prince has some really interesting things to say, particularly given the time that was written. And of course, it is part of the part of the Renaissance, it's part of the rebirth of the West, it's definitely part of the reopening of the Western mind. I'm looking forward to continuing with the reopening of the Western mind. I've got some other projects I have to get to. My main project right now is developing this course on capitalism for the Peterson Academy. Just to remind all of you that that if you want, you can attend the sessions I'm doing the classes I'm doing for the Peterson Academy in Miami. In a few weeks, you can sign up for that. You can check out my Twitter feed where I have advertised the link to go to, to sign up to come to be live at the classrooms that I'm giving. I hope some of you join us, it should be really, really, really fun and interesting. Crook says, but, but, but at least Tucker Carlson is not the left. Yeah, I know. That's called thinking, Crook. That's called thinking, right? If Tucker Carlson says something, then it's obviously true and because he's anti-left and that's what thinking constitutes. It constitutes agreeing with Tucker Carlson. That's what for some people constitutes thinking. All right, Apollo Zeus, what will you be doing whilst AI generates your show? I don't know. Listening to music, working out, watching Netflix shows, reading, no, no shortage of stuff to do. Daniel says, I started auditing a few courses at ARU and I'm loving it already, learning a lot. Excellent. Thank you, Daniel. I mean, you guys should audit ARU. You should become full-time students at ARU. You should really be engaged. All right, last comment, question. Jeremy says, thank you for your dedication and reason you're on. I really appreciate that, Jeremy. Thank you for the support. All right, everybody. Thank you to all the superchatters. Thank you for being here. Next week, we are moving to a new schedule on Monday. I will be interviewing Tara Smith in the evening. So, it's either seven or eight o'clock East Coast time and I'll be doing a news roundup at two p.m. I think at one or two p.m. But starting on Tuesday, we'll be doing a long show every day. It will start at two p.m. and it could potentially go to five. It really will depend on you. I will pick content, but also depend on the superchats and how many questions you ask. But every day, I am striving to generate a two-hour show, potentially going up to three hours if there are a lot of questions and a lot of discussions. That will be Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, every week. Now, I'm traveling quite a bit in the next few months, but when I'm home, that will be the program. On Mondays, there will always be an, I'm striving to have an interview in the evening and a news roundup show in the afternoon. So, please consider that. I hope it's a program. I hope it's a program you are, you will be interested in and a format that generates support. You know, again, I'll have goals for each show and we will strive to meet those goals. But, yeah, there will be no shows on the weekends. I will free up my evenings and free up the weekends. That is the benefit I get from the new program. But also, there'll be, you won't have two shows a week. We won't keep changing the times. It will be, every week will be the same time, except when I travel. So, hopefully that consistency will be something you appreciate and help us grow the channel. We are growing subscriptions quite nicely, again. So, that is good. I am looking forward to getting to 40,000 subscribers in the next few months, hopefully. We will see. We're putting out a lot of short videos, the one minute videos are having a real impact out there. I think particularly bringing in subscribers. And I will be doing a lot of commentary videos on people like Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and others, because those generate a lot of views and a lot of engagements. So, we will do that as well. Again, if you have videos you would like me to comment on, please send them to me at youron at youronbrookshow.com. Youron at youronbrookshow. I won't do all of them, but I want to do more shows commenting on others, starting with Ben Shapiro, Dawkins, one on cultural Christians. So, please send those over as you encounter them and as you think and see things that are interesting and worth doing. So, yeah, youron at youronbrookshow.com send me links to things that are worthy of commentary. Taka Kalsen, Candaceau on Ben Shapiro. Anybody out there right or left that you think are worth commenting on, please do it. All right. All right, thank you guys. I will see you tomorrow, 1 p.m. east coast time. 1 p.m. east coast time. We'll have a show tomorrow. I will see you there. Bye everybody.