 The Radical, Fundamental Principles of Freedom, Rational Self-Interest, and Individual Rights. The Radical, Fundamental Principles, this is the Iran Book Show. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show on this Saturday night. Hopefully, everybody is having a great weekend. Doing well. Thanks for joining me tonight. Thanks for being a part of the Iran Book Show. Luke says he sent me a DM on Instagram. Don't send me DMs on Instagram, God. Like, don't send me DMs. You want to get my attention? Email me, iran-brookshow.com. You know, I have 55 different DMs. There's like my regular DM, there's WhatsApp, there's Telegraph, there's, I don't know, seven different DMs in Facebook, there's Instagram, there's Twitter DM. I'm missing a few, I know. I can't keep track of them, and in Instagram, I don't go anywhere near. I don't know what Instagram is. I've never been to Instagram. I don't know how it works. I don't want to know how it works. You want to get my attention? Email me, or even better. Use the super chat. All right, everybody, today we're going to talk about Ukraine, war, and then we're going to talk about, do you guys think we live in a dictatorship? Is America a dictatorship? Is Canada a dictatorship? Is it time for the revolution? Is the convoy the first sign of a revolution? Is this all justified? Because we live in a dictatorship, so we'll talk about that. We'll talk about, is this the Boston Tea Party? Why is this not the same? We'll talk a little bit about that. So, those are going to be the topics. In the meantime, don't forget, use the super chat to support the show. Use the super chat to ask questions. We've got a goal, the goal is 600 bucks, a show. Catherine is here, Catherine Mendes, who's sold job, sold responsibility in life, is to make sure that you guys live up to get to the 600 bucks, so she will remind you and encourage you and generally promote so that we can get to the 600 dollars. But of course you can ask questions, so use it to ask a question about anything, about the topics we're talking about today, about anything you want about whatever, all right? Yeah, there it is, Catherine says, let's meet our 600 dollar goal tonight with 72 exclamation marks. All right, just to give you a quick update on how we're doing on subscriptions and stuff, we're 3,100, so we added 100 like that. I won't be surprised if we make it a 3,200 by morning. Not 3,200, sorry, with 3,100 we'll be a 3,200. I wouldn't be surprised if by morning, we're at a clip right now of just under 200 a day. Today is about 140 something so far, so we'll see how we do in the next few hours, whether we make it close to 200 again, but we wouldn't 196 or 195 in the previous two days. But the big milestone is, I think, for the first time ever for you on Bookshow, over the last 28 days, which is the measure that YouTube reports this data on, over the last 28 days, we have had one million views on the channel. Over the last 28 days, we've had a million views on the channel. That's about nine times, nine acts, what we usually get in a 28 day period. So, completely blown out of the water, anything that we've ever seen on the Iran Bookshow, YouTube channel, everything is up, views are up, watch time is up, not as much as views, because everybody's viewing one minute videos. Subscribers are up, revenue is, was up, not up, you know, and we'll see if you keep it up today. So, yeah, things are looking great. It's a different one minute video now that's taken off, like every few days, a different one just takes off, and some subside, and some, so like there's a pipeline that we're feeding into this, and every two, we, every, it takes about two weeks for a video to get to vital levels, and then it just takes off, and they rotate, and it's gonna be interesting to see how long we can keep it up. So, that's a challenge. We've got lots of one minute video action, Jackson, who was here earlier, has a lot, we have a lot already lined up through the end of this month. He's got a lot lined up. We can probably feed the machine, and then of course, I'm traveling next month, we're doing a lot of live talks. Hopefully that'll generate, hopefully there'll be videotapes, and hopefully that'll generate a lot more one minute kind of video opportunities. So, we're just gonna feed this and see how big we can become off of this phenomena on YouTube. So, yeah, let's see. Action Jackson said he's got lots in the pipeline. So, yeah, I mean, you can just take any one of my shows and turn them into 121 minute videos. Many of them would be boring though. All right, let's see, what else? There was an update on how we're doing there. That's kind of exciting, and yeah, today was a good day. Today's definitely views are up today from yesterday, and that's good. Just to remind you, everybody, two days ago I did Euron's Rules for Life, number 13, lucky number 13, and we are, what, there's a echo. What's going on? No, what's going on? Whoops, there was an echo there. All right. No, Micah says, Euron is doing a talk on sexuality when he goes to the UK. No, I've already done it. I did it today in the UK. I did two talks today, virtually, for this festival of philosophy and music, and they do a virtual conference in the winter, and then there's gonna be a live conference in Wales in June, in early June, and I'll hopefully be attending that. But today I did a virtual one. I did two talks today. The first one was on capitalism, what is it? And is it Mao? So pretty standard, my standard talk on capitalism. And there was about half an hour and 15 minutes of Q and A. Yes, it's a festival of philosophy and music, the largest festival in the world for philosophy and music. Basically they have concerts going on constantly, all kinds of music, popular music, all kinds of bands and stuff. And at the same time, they've got panels, debates, and lectures on different issues of the day, and they've got hundreds of these over like four days in Wales. Last time I was there, it rained and it was in the mud and everything's intense, and it was very unpleasant to be there, but I think this time it's in June, so hopefully the weather will be better and it'll be nicer. But anyway, today I talked about capitalism in the morning. That was my morning talk. I've been busy today, it's a Saturday, but I've been working. And then later in the day, the topic was, what was the topic? It was about sex. So the topic was, you know, what's going on with sex? Why is the audio is annoying? What's going on with the audio? I haven't changed anything. It's in exactly the same setting as we've had it before. Are you guys having a problem with the audio, or is it just one of Freeman? The audio is the same setting as it has been forever. All right, anyway, let me know if there's any problem with the audio. I don't see anybody else complaining, so I want to Freeman. Tinney, and there's an echo. Okay, checking the audio, checking the audio. Is that better? Let me know, is that better? One, two, three. How is this problem described? It's not an echo. There is echo, some reverberation. It sounds cool. Is it still there, is my question. Is it still there, is it still there? No audio issue from Ragnarok the Desert. It's the same. Now it's good. God, you guys, are very confusing. Tinney, two mics on maybe. No, there's only one mic. Only one mic, let me just check something. Audio, nope, same mic. The settings are all exactly the same. There's no difference. How about that, is that a little bit better? Let me do that, and then let's take this down. Tell me if that's better. Reverb, you know, it doesn't, you know. Still slight reverb. It's not bad, just go with it, all right. All right, I'll move the mic away from me. Yeah, 70 says yes, that's better. That's better, everybody says yes, that's better. All right, what was I talking, anyway, so the topic was, what to make of the fact that people are having less sex? I don't know if you guys have heard of these statistics, but it's over the last 20 years, there's been a dramatic, dramatic decrease in the amount of sex people are reporting having. Particularly among young people, there's a 35% decline in the amount of sex young people are having. But it's across age groups, and it's across married, single, and so on. So we had a panel to discuss sex, and it was me. The moderator was, I don't know what her background is, but she was a woman, a doctor of something. The other panelist, or the beta, was a, what do you call it, a sex worker, I think they call them that, is that the politically correct terminology? A sex worker who both stars, I think, in porn, different types of porn movies, and also is an escort. And then the other woman was a sexologist feminist. So it was fun. I got to represent both the male sex, and I got to represent people over the age of, I don't know, 30, I think, because I think they were all younger than 30. So it was a little strange, because I was clearly of a different generation, and clearly of a different sexual sex male. Sexual sex, male. And of a different philosophy, so it was interesting, and it was a lot of fun. I'll probably do a show, maybe we'll do a show, one of the Iran book shows, we'll do a whole show. One of the Iran's rules for life, we'll do it on sex, we'll talk about sex. We've talked about it on the past periodically, but it was interesting, I enjoyed it, who knows who listened to it, who will follow me as a consequence, and if anything good will come of it. So one of the women says, if I add sex to the titles, more people will watch. I'm not sure, do people wanna hear me talk about sex? I don't know, what do people want to hear me talk about? They clearly don't wanna hear Iran's rules for life, because those shows have a lot fewer listening. They really wanna hear me to talk about politics, like war in Ukraine, and do we live in a dictatorship? Iran's rule 14, have sex. It feels like the have sex part comes up in every single one of my rules for life. So I think I've covered it, but anyway, we'll definitely do a show about why people are having less sex, because I actually have a theory about that. It's the same reason, I think, white people are having fewer children, it's the same reason I think people are now marrying, it's the same reason I think people are now dating, the same reason I think people are now pursuing romantic relationships. People have given up on the long term. As I said, I think last time, the world of Greta is an asexual world. It's an asexual world, it's a world with no sex desire. All right, I wanted to say that. What else did I wanna say before we jump into the topic? Yeah, I wanna say this. I don't know how many of you are listening from Europe. Many of you I think listen after the fact from Europe because it is pretty late. I think Taze was on, but she's one of the few that stay up really late to listen to the Iran book show. But those of you in Europe, I will be in Europe in a few weeks, and I'm gonna come to Europe on several times over the next couple of months. If you have a group and you can get an event going for about 50 people, 50 people, Finland is good. Anyway, whatever asking is that you let me know if you're willing to organize an event or know somebody who's willing to organize an event or know a student group at a local university who's willing to organize an event. All I ask is that we have some expectation of about 50 people, right? And let's talk about me coming and doing an event. So I'm trying to fill in my schedule. I will do that, but I do wanna let you know now that I will be speaking in Amsterdam or somewhere around Amsterdam. I'll be speaking in Ghent in Belgium at the university. I might be speaking in Brussels, I'm working on that. Hopefully we'll be speaking in Brussels. And if you know anybody in Brussels, let them know. And then I expect to be speaking in Paris. Now, it probably won't be in Paris, it might be just outside Paris, but I expect to be speaking in Paris, of course, you know, COVID God's permitting. And then after Paris, where am I going after Paris? Then it's a little up in the air right now so we can see where I'm going after Paris. Brussels is boring, believe me, I know Brussels is boring. I'm not going there because it's fun or interesting. Unfortunately, none of these places, as much as I love Amsterdam and Ghent is beautiful and Paris, of course, is amazing. I'm not gonna enjoy any of them because I'm gonna be in and out giving talks and have no time for really have any fun. But I currently have no other engagement that week and then in April I'll be in, where am I gonna be in April? In April I think I'm doing Prague, Budapest, some other place, what is it in Slovakia? Bratislava and then I think it's Kiev, assuming there isn't a war and assuming it's not being occupied at the time by the Russians, Kiev and then Tbilisi. And I'm not talking about the fact that I'll be in London several times during this. I'm also gonna probably be giving a talk at Sussex University, at Exeter University, at some high school. There's just gonna be a bunch of events in the UK. So UK taking care of, it's more the rest. So it's more the rest of Europe where I need your help. London, I don't need your help. Everywhere else, I need your help, right? To some of my best talks I've ever given, some of the most popular talks that have ever been watched anyway are the talks I gave at Exeter. So some of my Exeter talks are classic. Some of the short videos that have gone viral have typically been from Exeter. So Exeter's a great place, I'm looking forward to that. Hopefully Sussex will be good. Anyway, let me know if you have anything in mainland Europe, if you have a place you want me to come to, but you have to be able to organize it. You have to be able to get, hopefully more than 50 people in there. You have to be able to videotape it and preferably it's students. Preferably it's students. Yeah, I've given five talks at Exeter and at least two of them have been really good, well attended, beautifully videotaped and viral when it came to the videotape itself. But anyway, those are the cities. All of the information about these as it all comes together will be up on my website, youronbookshow.com, under events. I'd love to go to Oslo. I'd love to go to Stockholm. I'd love to go to Copenhagen. I'd love to go to Helsinki. I'd love to go to Warsaw. I'd love to go to lots of places. But you guys need to organize events for me, otherwise I'm not going. I'm not going. And by the way, I will try to do shows from every one of those cities. It will be YBS Entura. That'll be the title, YBS Entura. Corey says I'm sure that if the Russians knew youronbook was in Kiev, they wouldn't day invade. I think that's probably true. But my worry is that they'll invade before in order to prevent me from going to Kiev and emboldening the Ukrainians to fight against them. I'd love to go to Lisbon. Love to talk in Lisbon. I will be in Lisbon for a conference. But I'd love to have Madrid, Barcelona, all of those on the table. I just need Marseille. I don't know. I just need an invitation. Iran's European sex tour. No, no, no, no, no sex on the tour. So yes, I'm sure the Russians are really worried about the fact that I am going to be in Kiev. Maybe that's why they invaded in order to get there before I do, maybe. Exeter is not in London. Exeter is a university, Exeter University in the South East. No, Southwest of the UK, Southwest of the UK. Okay, oh, and I'll also be in Tallinn. So after Tbilisi, I'm going to Tallinn, T-A-L-L-I-N in Estonia. I've never been to Tallinn, so I'm looking forward to, I'm looking forward to being in Tallinn. Hey, Scott says, here's proof, guys. Scott says, I first found you from the Exeter videos in 2019. The videos came out earlier than that, but he first found me because of the Exeter videos, because the Exeter videos are classic. The two, the one in inequality and the one in capitalism have some of the best back and forth with students that I've ever done and my most watched videos. And on the Exeter website, if you look at the Exeter Film Club, the ones who filmed this, my two videos, the video of the inequality is the most watched video they've ever done except for one where they videotaped some party gag or something. But anyway, those are good videos. So that's part of my tour. It's gonna encompass more than that. I'm gonna be in Israel. So if you live in Israel, there are gonna be two events in Israel, one on March 21st and one on March 23rd. Ryan says that he also got here by Exeter. See, my Exeter talks, they're good. They're almost, they brought almost as many people as Lex and Dave Rubin. So I will be in Israel 21st and 23rd. So those of you who I know, we've got listeners here from Israel. Hopefully you can make it. I'll be speaking in Be'er Sheva in the South of Israel and in Tel Aviv. And, oh, Nikoko says he found me because of my debate with Richard Wolff. I mean, you see, the stuff I do makes a difference. And you guys in the Super Chat and in the Monte Contributors, you make all that possible. You make all that possible. Yes, Scott remembers that my Exeter talk included the line, you sit here in your cushy middle-class chairs and complain about working conditions in China. So that was my sweatshop, famous sweatshop monologue. I don't know, Action Jackson, if that has yet become, never might have one minute video, but a three or five minute video, whatever it is. But that is a classic. And the camera switches between me and the face of the kid who asked the question, and it's just perfect. And that should be a standalone video. It was done by other people years ago as a standalone video, but it should be mine. Best Friend Hank says he found me through George Gammon's. Geez, it's amazing, it's amazing. I wonder how many people found me because of the sex panel that I was on this afternoon. We'll see, we'll see. In three years, somebody will be here. I heard you on the sex panel talking about sex. Zac Tease says he found me through Sam Seder debate, some through Varsh. Yep, yeah, it's good. So the more stuff I do, the more I go out there, the more people come, the more people dig deeper, they get to know these ideas, they emphasize these ideas more, and the more exciting it is. All right, one last kind of administrative thing, and then we should talk about the topic, it's already been 25 minutes. And that is that I will be starting to take, what do you call it, sponsors for the show. So I know I promised this in the past, and some of you wrote to me about wanting to sponsor the show. I'm not serious about it, and I've got an external corporate sponsor now. ExpressVPN is gonna be a sponsor for the show, so we're gonna use that. And then some of you who have approached me in the past about being sponsored the show around particular products that you have to sell, I will reconsider all of those. So please remind me if you had such a proposal out there, and I will reconsider those and start in starting this. Ooh, Shelby called me a racist. God, that's pretty amazing. All right, I don't think anybody's gonna find me on TikTok. TikTok, action to action can correct me, but I don't think TikTok has been very successful even for the short videos that we're done. It's all YouTube. So far, all YouTube all the time. So Emiliano says he found me on Objectivismo Internacional YouTube channel back in 2011 talking to Leonard Peacoff about the death of Osama Bin Laden. Huh, I don't even remember that. I don't even remember that. I'm sure it was good when Peacoff was on. No way, Ali. That ain't happening. Ali says you only should visit Jordan. I wish my people in Jordan accept different opinions. I could set up some talks there, but at least you can enjoy the food. Sorry, not coming to Jordan. No, too risky for me, too risky for me. You'll have to come over the bridge and come over to Israel to say hello next time I visit Israel. Thessie says, where did the term middleman come from? I don't know. I have no idea. I have no idea. All right, let's talk about Ukraine. As you know, Russia is now engaged in military exercises with Belarus right next to the Ukrainian border. Biden is flipping out. He's panicking. You'd think they were invading Washington DC. He's on the phone with Putin constantly. I think Putin is now silencing his phone to avoid Biden phone calls because it's nonstop. Macron, who not only visited and sat at the big table together with Putin, and if you don't know what I'm referring to, look at my short videos where Putin Macron is sitting at the big table. Macron keeps calling Putin. And one of the things that is just stunning to me is don't people understand how you deal with bullies and thugs? I mean, Vladimir Putin is nothing but a bully and a thug. And he's a weak bully and thug. Whoa, almost knocked me down. Ashton, thank you. Wow. That got us to 600 bucks pretty quickly. Ashton just put down $599.99. All right, I'm copying down the question, we'll get to it. Don't people know how to deal with bullies and thugs? I mean, you ignore them or you stare them down, but the one thing you don't do is you don't, you do not under any circumstances. Give them attention. Putin wants attention. Just as the little maniac, the brutal dictator of North Korea just wanted attention, which Donald Trump gave him in spades. And now Biden is giving attention to Putin, constant. I don't think a US president has ever spoken to another foreign leader as many times as Biden has in the last few weeks. He's got Putin a speed dot. Indeed, every time somebody like Macron sits down at a table with Putin and Putin gets to diminish him as he did on that big table, that plays right into Putin's hands with his primary audience. And who is Putin's primary audience? Putin's primary audience is the Russians, the Russian people. It's not us. It's not Biden. It's not even Ukrainians, although he doesn't mind them being afraid. And that's, by the way, why the president of Ukraine keeps coming out and saying, calm down, everybody. Stop panicking. There's nothing to panic here. We'll deal with it. Calm, because he realizes that Putin is emboldened by the panic, the attention. It's what he wants and what he craves. Indeed, Putin's problem is that he's becoming less popular within Russia. Putin's problem is that he is a authoritarian over a declining economy. Putin's problem is that, is Russia. And like all thugs, like all authoritarians, when you have a domestic problem, what do you do? You create an external enemy and you strike at it, diverting the attention. But the Russians don't seem to be that excited about this. The Russians don't, war in Ukraine is not popular in Russia. So, Putin is not going to war, I don't think. I might be wrong, but I don't think he's going to war. I've said this from the beginning. But the more, thank you, Ian. God, why do I have the headphones? But the more attention he gets, the more important leaders from the outside give him, the more he's going to continue rattling, saber-rattling. He can tell the French people. I'm not the French people, the Russian people. He can tell the Russian people, look how important I am. Look how important Russia is. Every leader in the Western world is groveling before us. Look what a wonderful leader I am to you. He's weak. He's weak. One of the freemen says he's a troll. Yes, he's a troll. Today, or maybe it was yesterday, yeah, yesterday, a retired Russian colonel general, Leonid Ivashov, who is the head of the All Russian Officers Assembly, which is an assembly of retired senior military officers in Russia. This is a guy, this colonel general, Leonid Ivashov. He was like the number two in the Soviet military before the breakup of the Soviet Union. He's been, he was at the top of the military hierarchy until he was forced out in, I think, 2001 or something like that. So this is a, yeah, 2001, he was. This is a serious guy, a nationalist, a Russian nationalist, very suspicious of the West, very suspicious of NATO. So not, you know, not a compromiser, not a sellout, not somebody who thinks Russia should be weak, but he came out yesterday, he's 78 years old. He could retire quietly in obscurity, but he came out and he made a public statement yesterday. In a small media outlet, a liberal media outlet in Russia, one of the few kind of opposition media outlets, basically lambasting Putin, arguing that Putin is crazy to go to war in Ukraine, that the Russian people don't support a war in Ukraine, the war in Ukraine will result in body bags, it's an unpopular war, it's a stupid war, it's a war that gains Russia nothing, if anything, the downside is that it'll show how weak Russia's military forces are. So instead of giving him all this attention, we should draw a red line and say what's not acceptable, what we would do if it happens and leave him alone, let him stew. Now it's true what I think will ultimately happen. Here's a annex, as Adam says, annex Dantisek and Luzanesk or whatever it's called, the eastern provinces of Ukraine, into Russia just like he did with Crimea and be done with it, but he's not going to war. Everybody says he's waiting for deep freeze so that the ground freezes over so that the army can march through it. And that might be a possibility, but the fact is that ice melts and April, May, June is not gonna be pleasant for an army trying to occupy large pieces of territory in Ukraine. And in the meantime, while it might be frozen, it's cold and fighting in the cold, as Napoleon's soldiers, as Hitler's soldiers, no fun. Somebody in the chat is claiming they're arguing that we should go to war with Russia. If you know anything about the show, if you've listened to any of the show you know that I have never, indeed I have argued against the United States being even-evolved. And I'd say it shouldn't be part of NATO. It should leave NATO, but it certainly should not. Thank you, Richard, and thank you, Brad, thanks for the support, really appreciate it. I guess we're going for a $1,200 goal today. Everybody's pushing. I don't want, never argued that we should go to war with Russia, never argued we should war with China, never argued we should go to war with Taiwan, never argued that we should go to war for Israel, I've never argued for any of those wars. And yet, Richard, who constantly distorts and perverts what I say on the chat, is arguing that I've said these things when I've never said I've said the exact opposite. Exact opposite. Doesn't mean we should just roll over when Putin does it. Doesn't mean we shouldn't take the bully pulpit. It doesn't mean we should recognize the sovereignty of Ukraine and the Russia has no right to invade it. It doesn't mean we shouldn't pull our ambassador from Moscow for it, as I've argued many, many times. It doesn't mean we can't say, and if anybody is going to fight over Ukraine, it could and should be the Europeans. They've got everything to lose. The United States have very little to lose. All right, yeah, I know he's a troll, but he's a troll that I don't know, some people actually pay attention to. So it seems like you have to at least call his bullshit when you see it. And its problem is it's long streams of it. All right, so as I said, I don't think Putin would invade. I think Putin is gonna, again, annex what he can annex, play tough, and again, all this attention he's getting for world leaders is just playing right into his hand to strengthen him among the Russian people. But pretty sad, pretty sad. All right, let's see. Why should we care at all about Ukrainian territories that are populated by Russians, borders for sake of borders? Because, what does it mean populated by Russians? They're populated by Ukrainians. They're populated by people who live in Ukraine. They are recognized borders. The reason we should care is because the initiation of force is evil. The reason we should care is because when people initiate force, nobody stands up to them. Then they learn that using force works and they take more and more and more and more. The reason we should care is because we care about justice and we care about freedom. And Ukraine is a free country. Russia is not. Russia's are the bad guys. In this, at least Putin is the bad guy. And Ukrainians are the good guys. They're a relatively free country. Putin has no business annexing Crimea or annexing any eastern provinces in Ukraine. And we should identify him as a thug, justice demands that we declare him for what he is, recognize him for what he is. It doesn't mean you go to war with him. Doesn't mean we go to war with him, we don't have to. It's amazing how powerful the bully pulpit is. Just ask anybody who lived in Eastern Europe before the war came down. And if Putin is weak domestically, then us standing up to him from the bully pulpit would cause his regime to flounder. And given that NATO has no ambitions of conquering Russia, what difference does it make if NATO is bordering Russia? It already does. It borders it in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland, Romania. So what difference does it mean make if there's one more country? NATO is not an aggressor. NATO does not have territorial ambitions. It is Putin who has the territorial ambitions, and he said so. It is Putin who is the aggressor and has me. Same thing happened in Georgia. Remember that he took a whole province in Georgia, still holds it. It makes a difference for Putin because he's a thug, because he's a dictator, because he's an authoritarian who should be opposed. All right. Ed says, didn't US sign an agreement that Ukraine would give up the nukes if NATO and the US would protect Ukraine from Russia? We did sign such an agreement, and we have already defaulted on that agreement. Nobody cares about that agreement. That agreement means nothing, because in 2015 or 2014, whenever it was that Putin took Crimea and the Eastern provinces of Ukraine, the West did nothing. So that agreement everybody realizes is null and void. Null and void. And we don't have an agreement with Taiwan, and I don't think we would go to Taiwan's defense, and I don't think we should go to Taiwan's defense. I think we should pull our troops out of South Korea and let the South Koreans defend themselves. They are powerful, strong, rich country. They should be able to defend themselves against the North Koreans. As I've said many times, you should bring our troops home, keep strategic bases around the world to protect things like shipping lanes and to protect us from real enemies, those who would actually attack the United States and Americans like the Islamists, and bring everybody else home. I don't think we should be part of NATO, but I also don't think we should just pretend that nothing's happening. I think we should have stood up for China, for taking over Hong Kong. I think that's one of the worst moral travesties ever that the Trump administration did nothing as China basically destroyed all remnants of freedom in Hong Kong, and I think we should speak up when Russia is doing the same thing. And authoritarian regimes should be opposed morally, should be, we should not have diplomatic relations with them. I mean, there's a lot of things we shouldn't be doing. I mean, you know, NATO is, I mean, Europe has some logic for Europe to have a defense alliance of all the free countries in Europe. The United States does not have to participate. Again, European countries are rich, they're strong, they could fund their own military, they could take on the Russians easily. I don't think the Russians have a chance against a properly armed and a properly funded European military. So if NATO doesn't exist without the USA, then the Europeans don't deserve NATO. I mean, that's even more argument on why the United States should leave NATO. If the US is not willing to fund NATO, sorry, if the Europeans are not willing to fund NATO and not willing to actually arm NATO and not willing to defend themselves, why should we be defending Europe? Cause that's what we are. That's what we are. Why should we be the sacrificial animal to defend the Europeans? All right, let's see, wow. Let's do Ashton, can't delay the $500 contributions more than have already. Thank you, Ashton, it's incredibly generous. I appreciate it. What is the greatest lie ever created? What is the most vicious obscenity ever perpetrated on mankind? Slavery, the Holocaust, dictatorship. No, it's the tool with which all that wickedness is built and Ashton says that as altruism. And yes, I put a twin to altruism cause altruism almost always comes and certainly was originated from mysticism. So the combination of mysticism and altruism are the biggest lie ever created. The existence of God, the idea that we must abide by something written in an ancient book and live by it, the idea that there are people who have the truth, the truth, and we must be subservient to them. And of course what God and what all these people demand of us is that we sacrifice, that we give up our personal interests, that we give up our own lives for the sake of others, for the sake of God, for the sake of the tribe, for the sake of the nation, for the sake of Allah, for the sake of something. As long as it's not you, as long as you're not being self-interested, as long as you're sacrificing, as long as you're living for others. So epistemologically and metaphysically, the great evil that's out there is mysticism. There are a whole variety of mysticism from Plato to of course the thing that impacts us most in the West, Christianity, to everything in between and extensions to New Age, to ultimately communism and Nazism which I consider just forms of mysticism, forms of Platonism. Epistemologically and metaphysically, that is the great lie, that is the evil. And of course again, a mystic and a authoritarian, how does he rule? Really rules by making you feel guilty for existence, for existing. He rules by making you committed not to your own happiness, but to your own sacrifice. He rules by telling you that this is something more important than yourself. He rules by telling you that you must live for others, fill in the blank who those others are. It could be anybody. So yes, altruism is the destroyer of the world. I think our grand said, we are dying of an orgy of altruism. Altruism is everywhere. The idea, I mean, just look today at everything from the intersectionality where there's a competition and who is more needy, who is more miserable, who is more discriminated against, who is more deserving of your sacrifice across the entire spectrum of the left, which is dominated by a philosophy of need and need and need. So absolutely it is altruism that is killing this world, killing this world. And altruism does not mean being nice to people. And of course, the same is true on the right, which expects you to sacrifice for the state, sacrifice for God, sacrifice for the community, sacrifice for the common good. One thing the left and right completely agree with is the idea, the primacy, the moral primacy of altruism. And they preach it at every opportunity. And at the end of the day, it is the way in which they control people. It's the way in which they control the culture. It's a primary way. Ed says, Iran, when will you have Peter Schwartz on? Soon, I keep forgetting to text him, but I assume that within a week or two, I will have Peter on to talk about the tyranny of need, to talk about altruism and how devastating it is in every aspect, every aspect. All right, let's see. Ali, $100, thank you, Ali. Ali says, Ashton comment is from a game called BioShock. Yes, you should review that one day. I'd have to play it and I don't play video games. The name of the character is Andrew Ryan, which is named after Ayn Rand. Also, the game has someone called Fountain, named after Ayn Rand. Fountain had, you can find the full one on YouTube. Yeah, I mean, I know BioShock. I, you know, when BioShock, the game came out. I don't know, is it 10 years now? I don't even know when that happened, but it's a long time ago now. I was interviewed a lot about BioShock. I was, I actually was on an interview once with the founder, not the founder, the guy who created BioShock. And there was a lot of discussion about BioShock and I think my kids played BioShock and I had discussions with them about it. So I'm very familiar with BioShock. BioShock was a great way to get, even though it's wrong philosophically, it distorts Ayn Rand's philosophy. It comes to the wrong conclusions about it. It's wrong in many, many, many different ways. It brought a lot of people to Ayn Rand. It brought a lot of people to Atlas Shrugged. It brought a lot of people to Objectivism and just for that, it should be commended. Richard, thank you for the $20 towards Ashton's $1,200 goal. I really appreciate that. All right, let's talk about the second topic that I have, wow, it's already almost an hour. The second topic I wanted to talk about was a response I got from a lot of people on Twitter primarily to my comments and not even my comments, the quotes that I put up for Ayn Rand where she rejects the idea of protests and she says protests are wrong because they violate other people's rights. You don't have a right to violate other people's rights even if the cause for what you're fighting is a good cause. And basically people were writing to me saying but we don't live in a free country anymore. It's a dictatorship. There's no option. This is basically a prelude to a revolution. It's time to take up arms and if you have to violate other people's rights, so be it because we're fighting for freedom in a dictatorship, in an authoritarian place. Canada, Canada. And it struck me as bizarre, bizarre that people would view the world in which we live today as dictatorship. Now look, so I thought, well, what constitutes a free country? So complete freedom is the condition under which the government protects our rights and that's it, where the government does not violate our rights at all. That's pure freedom, that's real freedom, that's what we're striving for. That's what we want. But there is a continuum between that and dictatorship. What is a dictatorship? A dictatorship is a single party rule where there is no rule of law, there's only rule of men. People are executed or sent to the gulags without trial for political reasons, for speech reasons, where private property is regularly nationalized or expropriated and where there is government censorship, extensive government censorship. That's basically what a dictatorship is. One party rule, execution without trial, and I'm reading this from my end, execution without trial and for political offenses, nationalization of population of private property and censorship. That's a dictatorship. Do we live in a dictatorship? Do we have one party rule? Well, clearly not. I mean, we have elections, both parties are pretty bad, but we certainly don't have one party rule. There is an opposition, there's an opposition in Canada. There was just an election in Canada. The party that we don't like won. Do we have mock trials? Do we have executions for political offenses? No, we still have rule of law in this country. We don't like many of the laws, but basically we still have a rule of law. People are not criminalized for their views. You're not executed for political views, not by the state. Is the government nationalizing or expropriating private property? No, it's controlling it, it's regulating it, but it's not quite nationalizing. It's not taking it over completely. And then finally, do we have government censorship? We don't. People don't go to jail for what they say. Publishing houses are not shut down by government officials. Indeed, we probably have greater protection of free speech from the government, but explicit government action. More protection of free speech today than maybe ever in American history. I don't know, you guys remember, but when it was, you could go to jail for saying the F for it on stage. Yes, eminent domain is used, but eminent domain was being used since the founding of the country. Indeed, eminent domain is part of the Constitution. It's in the Constitution. It allows the government to use eminent domain to take your property, you know, and compensate you, but to take it nonetheless. So I don't think that's right. I don't think it should be in the Constitution. But to say eminent domain is what pushes us over into dictatorship, no. The property taxes pushes us over to dictatorship, even though I'm hugely opposed to property taxes, no. That we're being censored because, you know, and there's no free speech in America because some of my YouTube videos are now monetized, give me a break. Oh, Joe Rogan had a hundred and something videos taken down, interviews taken down by a private company. And therefore we have no free speech in America anymore. It's the worst it's ever been in American history. Well, you don't know American history, if you think that. The number of speech crimes that you could go to jail for 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 150 years ago, were much freer when it comes to speech now than probably ever before. Campaign financial form was the Supreme Court case that allowed you to make contributions as an issue of free speech. That happened recently, still upheld by the Supreme Court. If the government shut down the newspaper, the Supreme Court would overturn that. If the government shut down a website because of what they were saying on the website, the Supreme Court would overturn that. So, no, we still live, or put it this way, we don't live in a dictatorship. Granted, we don't live in a completely free country either. We live in a mixed economy, in a mixture of freedom and authoritarianism. And the mixture is slowly, steadily, becoming more tilted towards authoritarianism and away from freedom. But we're not yet a dictatorship. And I'm not yet ready to act as if we are, to disrespect everybody else's rights, to declare revolution. The civil rights movement did not have a right to block streets, to block bridges, to block trains anymore than the truckers do. They did it, the truckers will do it. BLM did it, doesn't mean it's right, doesn't mean I'm gonna stand here and approve of it. I don't, as I said, last show, two shows ago, whenever it was. Civil disobedience is fine if the civil disobedience does not involve violating others' rights. For example, during lockdowns, walking outside, leaving your home. Businesses, opening for business, like Elon Musk did in California, in spite of regulations that say you should be locked down. That's great civil disobedience. Nobody else is harmed from it. Truckers going on strike. Yeah, you're not gonna let me cross from Canada to the US without a vaccine? I'm not driving anymore. I'm not gonna deliver anybody's stuff. I'm going on strike. That's fine. You're not violating anybody else's rights. We don't live in a dictatorship yet. We shouldn't treat our fellow citizens as if we do live in a dictatorship. If you don't like the way things are going, it's still true that the only way to change them, the only way to really change them in any significant way is to argue against them, form coalitions, lobby, argue, debate, achieve political power, and change things. We're not yet ready for a revolution. I mean, think about it. Joseph Kellard reminds me of this, one of my favorite tweets that I've ever done, which got me into a lot of trouble with a lot of you. We live in a country where one of the largest social media companies, actually two of the largest social media companies in the country basically kicked off of their platform, the sitting president of the United States. If that's not a sign that we're not a dictatorship, I don't know what is. If that's not a sign that we're not free, I don't know what is. Now, I wonder, he had just lost that election. I wonder if he had won if they dared to kick him off, but still, still, it's pretty amazing. So don't confuse what we have today with dictatorship. I mean, don't confuse it with absolute freedom, but don't confuse it with dictatorship, and don't start behaving. It's not the same as the Tea Party, where you had a king. What avenue for debate was there? Could you vote the king out? Could you change these decisions? Was there really free speech? Was there really freedom? No, not when you have a king who has absolute power, or at least semi-absolute power in the kind of monarchy of the late 18th century. So no, it's not the same as the Tea Party. Is it the same as Maidan in Ukraine? What was it in 2014 when Ukrainians went out to the streets and demanded the replacement of the government? No, because our government is not as authoritarian, as depraved, as corrupt, as manipulated by foreign powers as the Ukrainian government was. Foreign power in that case was Russia. It wasn't a dictatorship, or it was a dictatorship, and therefore was justified for people to block the streets and fight. But you're not being arrested for what you say. Then speak up, God, speak up. Speak up for liberty, speak up for freedom, go on strike, engage in civil disobedience if you have the numbers to impact it. But don't violate the rights of others. Let's see, we have a bunch of super chat questions and a huge number of questions, but we've got a lot of money came in today, so thank you guys, thank you, particularly Ashton, thanks. Let's echo you with 50 Australian dollars. I think I've asked this question before, what would the right time for disruptions to civil society and talks of revolution be justified under the conditions where government was censoring ideas and we believe ideas to fund the fundamentals of free society? Yes, when you can't speak, when I can't do these videos, when I can't go to campuses and give talks, not because students are demonstrating or the university doesn't want me, but because the government is gonna arrest me if I do, because the government is either shutting me down or telling YouTube they have to shut me down, and it's explicit. Now, to the extent that it's implicit today, to the extent, as some people argue, that the government is telling YouTube in the background, oh, you have to silence this, you have to silence that, and to some extent they're doing that around COVID, which is horrible. But when it comes to extents of political speech, when we cannot argue, when we cannot reason, when we cannot persuade, then all we have is force. All we have then to change the world, the only option we have is to pick up a gun. The only option we have then is a revolution. But as long as we can talk, as long as there's semblance of the rule of law, as long as they're not executing political prisoners or have political prisoners, and give me a break, but the rioters of January 6th are no political prisoners. They should rot in jail for what they did. They disrespected the rule of law, disrespected legitimate political processes in the United States, disrespected the legitimacy of elections, committed violent acts, absolutely they should go to jail. So no, you know, Tuckov is despicable for defending the January 6th rioters. And again, imagine those rioters that had been leftists. Imagine your attitude towards them. Imagine Tucker's attitudes towards them. So when they really start arresting political advocates for political crimes, when there really is only one party in reality, like in Russia, yeah, then it's time for revolution. It's time to pick up a gun and fight. But even then, you wanna make sure that you have at least a chance of winning. And I don't think there are enough people to fight. I don't think anybody understands what this liberty is. What are they gonna fight for? I mean, imagine in Canada, all right, Canada, Canada. Is the greatest violation of individual rights in Canada COVID related mandates? I mean, it's bad. It's horrible. It's terrible. But is that the greatest violation that truckers can't cross the border without a vaccine? Is that the greatest violation of individual rights of Canadians? What about socialized medicine that kills Canadians every day? Massive injustice, doctors and nurses. What about socialized medicine? Isn't that a bigger injustice? Isn't that a bigger crime? Battle Elf says they were led in by the Capitol Police in January 6th. Really, that's why they beat the police up. That's why there was violence. That's why they broke a window. You don't believe me they broke a window? This video of the guy breaking a window and sneaking in. Nobody let them in. Don't buy into the mythology. The mythology that people like Tucker Carlson present the lies, the alternate reality that they are trying to create. It's just not true. Nobody broke windows. Nobody beat up policemen. Nobody knocked down fences. Of course they did. Of course they did. Where was the security force to protect Congress? Good question. Good question. I wonder if we'll ever find out. I wonder if we'll ever find out. All right, no, there's plenty of video footage. There's a ton of video footage. There's no shortage of video footage. There was video footage that day live. I was watching TV live and there was video footage. There's no shortage of video footage of what happened. We know exactly what happened. We know exactly what they were trying to do. We know exactly what their goal was. Their goal was to intimidate. To intimidate Congress. To intimidate Pence. To intimidate. And most of them have been charged and many of them are going to jail. Good. Not everybody was charged. Cause some people just wanted include this. I mean, you have to be a little clueless to be clueless. No question, not everybody broke windows. But there's a significant number of people there who were violent and were involved in an attempt to overturn a legitimate election. And that's a criminal offense. Yeah, there was video footage even the day before it happened, really. God, you people are, some of you, I think some of you are kidding, but some of you are pretty gullible. Yeah, with regard to the conspiracy theories. All right, let's see. Pablo, is perfection something to strive for? Is it achievable? Yes, absolutely. You should strive for it. And yes, absolutely it's achievable. But what do we mean by perfection? Perfection is the best that you can do. Perfection is the best that you can do. Perfection, like everything else, is contextual. It is within your context. So you can't set the standard as unachievable. That would be ridiculous. It would be meaningless. It would be self-defeating. So the standard has to be achievable. And it has to be the best possible to you. And look, when it comes to what's important about perfection, which is moral perfection, what it says is you should be rational. You should strive to always be rational. Is that achievable? Yes. Do most people do it? No, there's almost nobody do it. Yeah, very few people achieve it. But it's a striving towards it and it is achievable. It's just the fact that very few people do it doesn't mean it's not achievable. All right, let's take $20 questions. Ali, why people consider Nazi a right party while it is socialist? Because it's socialism with a different twist. Right, there are different forms of socialism. There are different kinds of socialism. And Nazism is right wing socialism, if you will. Nationalist socialism, ethnic racist socialism. Other socialisms are not based on ethnicity or nation or other aspects. Indeed, communism is a form of socialism, which is international. No borders, no races. So, Nazi is right, but in the sense that authoritarianism can be of the right or of the left. At least that's how the world is defined them. And it's not a fight I wanna engage in. Today, right, I've said this a million times, right and left are both authoritarian, both collectivist. Right is collectivist around states and around ethnicity and around nation and around race. Left is collectivist around race. They share that in common, but also about economic class and about economic resentment. But they're both collectivist. So I don't like left and right. I'm not on the right. I don't consider myself on the right. I'm an individualist. They're all collectivists. And collectivism forks into collectivism of the left and collectivism of the right. Not that hard of a concept. Joao, thank you, really appreciate the support. Let's see, Kyle, part two, where's part one? Especially considering every nation, nationalist government took power. They always invaded their neighbors and expanded their borders. Even his ideal Israel did not long after its founding despite the circumstances. Wow, what am I missing here? I'm missing a whole context. What is part one? Why don't I have part one? I'm not sure what the part one is, Kyle. And I'm not sure what exactly you're getting at. The sentences are not exactly compete, complete. Especially every nation, nationalist government took power. They always invaded their neighbors. Israel never invaded their neighbors and expanded their borders. Israel never did that. Israel fought in self-defense and expanded its borders in self-defense. So Israel didn't do that. Both the 56 war and the 67 war, were wars of self-defense. The Gaza Strip, Sinai and Gaza and West Bank were all taken in acts of self-defense. Israel didn't start the six day war. Not really. It's certainly not. On the Eastern front with Jordan, or in the North with Syria. So no, it's not necessary that nations expand and their borders. But maybe I'm missing the whole question, Kyle. So you might wanna fill me in on part one because I'm clueless in what you mean by part two. All right, Ryan. Shapiro says the lock is the pinnacle of the concept of right. I think that Ryan went beyond lock. Yes, definitely, beyond lock's natural rights. But it's hard for me to articulate. Can you expand on this topic or discuss with Greg Onko on the show? Sure, I mean, I'm happy to do both. I can expand and then we can also talk about it with Greg and Onko. Lock has a concept of rights. But at the end of the day, Lock has no way to derive that concept. He doesn't actually have a way to connect it with a real moral code because he doesn't have a real moral system. His ethics are conventional. So lock comes to a lot of good right conclusions. But he doesn't fully articulate them because he doesn't really have the right foundations. So what does natural rights mean? Where do the rights come from? Well, at the end for lock, they come from God. They're imbued in people somehow by God. They're intrinsic to our nature because that's how God made us. And yeah, I'm not criticizing Lock. He worked with what he had and to some extent, whether he was religious or not, he had to be religious because otherwise he would have been persecuted during those times. But he probably was religious. So Rand basically lays the foundations for individual rights. And the foundations are quickly, you can find this discussion in Man's rights in her articles and much of what she wrote. But basically the foundations of individual rights are reason as Man's basic means of survival. The fact that reason is crucial for human beings to survive. The fact that Man's survival and his happiness ultimately are his moral purpose. And therefore we need the concept of rights. Rights as a concept, as an idea, as a governing principle that protects his ability to think and to live using his mind in pursuit of his values. And the reason he needs that is because force, coercion, authority are the enemies of reason and the enemies of egoism. And rights as a concept, it's an idea, it's a political principle that protects the individual's ability to think for himself, for his life, for his survival, for his happiness, and to act on it, to be an egoist. And none of that Lock didn't have. He had some of it implicitly, but he doesn't have it worked out and fully articulated. And Man does. She has it. If you look at the virtue of selfishness in Man's rights and the nature of government, the two essays I think at the end is where she really goes into it. Kyle says, I said that in your debates with Hazoni, that when he would make the statement that Hitler, Nazi Germany wasn't real nationalism, you wouldn't push back on those statements, I find that troubling. He wrote a whole book on nationalism, where the way he defines nationalism precludes Hitler and Nazi Germany. I didn't wanna get into a technical debate with him about whether Hitler was a nationalist or whether Hitler was whatever Hazoni thinks he is. Now remember, Hazoni is very anti-Hitler and very anti-Nazis. But he wants to argue that their motivation was not nationalism in the sense, the narrow sense that he means it, that they were internationalists, that they were imperialists, that they wanted to expand beyond the border. I actually thought that if I'd argue with him, that it would actually give him an opportunity to articulate his argument about the nature of nationalism, which that's not the direction I wanted the discussion to go in and into the technical disagreements about what is the nature of nationalism. I think he's wrong, there's no question he's wrong. And that part of nationalism, nationalism is always engages with, almost always, involves some form of expansionism. But he views nationalism as maybe in the traditional mid-19th century sense. And if you look at the history of nationalism, that would be a great talk or a great research project is to really read the nationalists from the mid-19th century. And to them, they want to create these little states with their people and their projectors, independence from the empires. And what he's arguing is that the Nazis were empire-buildings, they weren't trying to create an independent state cut out from the empire. I thought it was the technical debate that I didn't want to get into. Maybe I'm wrong in terms of the value or the disvalue of doing that, but that was my sense in the moment. Okay, Brad says, Brad Becker, thank you for being a warrior for a reason, you're a gem, you're on. Thank you, Brad, I really appreciate that. And thank you for the support. Let's see. Sparks asks, I love your show, it's like church for objectivists. That's great. I'm meeting Rand's work and becoming an objectivist many years ago. I wouldn't have guessed that I could benefit from this. Well, thank you, Sparks, I'm really, really happy that you're enjoying this and benefiting from it. Bree says, the politicians are trying to blame everyone for inflation, and they are benefiting from higher tax revenues. Is it reasonable for economists to ignore the suffering politicians are willing to subject the people to? Well, of course not. I mean, inflation is horrible. Your real wages are declining. Your standard of living, your purchasing power is going down. You are doing less well than you were a year ago, even if your wages have gone up, they haven't gone up, but most of us, as much as inflation has. Now, politicians ain't trouble. Inflation is gonna kick their butt, because on the one hand, tax revenues are gonna go up because of your marginal income tax rate. You might be in a certain category, but because inflation, your category's gonna go up. You're gonna pay more taxes. But at the same time, interest rates are gonna go up. And as interest rates go up, it's gonna be very, very, very expensive for the government to borrow money. It's gonna be very, very, very difficult for the government to do well. I mean, not to do well, to borrow, to keep borrowing, to keep running huge deficits. And indeed, I'm not sure inflation can be cut significantly unless the government starts cutting deficits, starts reducing its debt. And there's hope that that will be achieved if the Republicans win the House and Senate or Senate in the 2022 elections. I think if they actually win, they might cut a deal with Biden to start reducing or at least capping spending, which I think would help with inflation. Let's see. Oh, on the Leroy, thank you, 50 bucks. I didn't see that. That's very generous, really appreciate that. Do you have suggestions for marital suitable materials? Sorry, material, marital. Materials suitable for children age 10 and younger that instills a love of reason and individualism. It's difficult because there's so little that has been written that instill that love. But what I would focus on is adventure stories. Adventure stories of, you know, I don't know that there's always been, what was that girl who used to solve mysteries or the secret five or the secret seven, I don't know. But mysteries where kids figure out a mystery by using their mind, by finding clues, exhibit bravery and initiative, and do something important. Nancy Drew, that's right, Nancy Drew, the fabulous five, there are lots of these, right? I don't know if there are any, if the new ones that are being written today are any good, but you can find the old ones all over the place. So children using logic and facts and their mind to solve problems, real world problems in a heroic fashion. So you want to instill with them heroism. The other thing I would do is look for stories from history, great discoverers who overcome great things to discover new lands or to build new things, discoverers in science, great scientists, great entrepreneurs, great artists, expose them to the greatness in man, to man at his best, to man's at his most able, at his most, who is achieving great things. Again, that'll teach them the idea of reason and it'll teach them the idea that man is capable of achieving great things in this world, that he can use his reason and it's individuals who achieve these things. Ina Blighton, I grew up on Ina Blighton. You know, Americans don't know who she is and they've never read her books, but she's a British author. And I grew up on Ina Blighton who wrote these kind of kids novels. In Israel, she was translated, Hebrew, she was everywhere, because Israel was very influenced in those days by British culture, in modern times, in more recent times by American culture, but in the past, by British culture and Ina Blighton was a mainstay of, I think, British childhood culture. Shaw's Butter asks, can you get Mexican food in Puerto Rico? Yes. I wouldn't want to live there if I couldn't eat enchiladas. Yeah, you can get Mexican food. I don't know how good it is because I don't eat Mexican food here. But there definitely some, a number, quite a few Mexican restaurants in Puerto Rico. All right, let's see. Okay, we're done with the $20 questions. Where are we? Wow, we've raised a lot of money today. This is great. We're at $1,006, right? If you want to make the $1,200 mark, that was the challenge that was thrown down. You can, but it's gonna be $200 more bucks. So we'll see if we can make it. But so far, we've had some great support here and great contributions. It's been a great evening. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Let's see. Richard asks, what do you have used in the daily wires bid to influence the culture by movie production? I think it's great. Well, I don't know that it's great because I don't know that I like the way the daily wire wants to shape the new culture, but absolutely, we need to make movies. The challenge that they're gonna find is can they make good movies? Can they make good movies? By the way, I saw the movie yesterday that is up for a number of Academy Awards, Coda, Coda, C-O-D-A. And it's, you know, feel good, you know, success at the end, talent wins out, individualism wins out, live your own life, pursue your own values, don't let your family bog you down, feel good movie. So it's fun. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. So Coda, it's about a family with a mother, father, and one of the children is deaf and the daughter is not. And she loves singing and she loves music and she wants to become a musician. And I mean, it's not great art, but it's a very nice and definitely a kind of a feel good, positive movie. And it's got real virtues. I mean, it's basically about standing up for your own values and pursuing your own values and making the most of your life. And again, not letting your family dictate your values or dictate what you can and cannot do in your life. Steve says, thanks for the hard work you're on. My pleasure. You are making a difference. I'm glad. This is for all the great movie recommendations, 50 bucks. Thank you. You have not disappointed yet. Loved other people's money. It's a great one. 12 angry men. Yeah, and high low. Oh, you watched high low. Excellent. I mean, that's great. I don't think a lot of people took that recommendation. If you want, I mean, one of my all-time favorites is This Land is Mine. Charles Lawton, This Land is Mine. One of my top five movies of all time. This Land is Mine, I think you'll enjoy it. If you can find it, it's not easy to find. All right, let's see. James says, do you think taxation is theft? However, infrastructure has to be paid for by somebody. I know this contributes to high taxes in the U.S. state cities. I mean, look, at the end of the day, yeah. I think taxation is confiscatory. It's theft, it's compulsory, it's by force. It's not simple to say it's exactly that stuff because it is legalized, right? It has the rule of law behind it, so it is legalized, which makes a difference. Taxes are within the rule of law and just going up to somebody and stealing their wallets outside of the rule of law and that makes a difference. But infrastructure could be paid with private funds. There's nothing the government does that should ever be paid for with violence, with force, with coercion. Infrastructure can be built by private individuals. Infrastructure can be built by corporations. The first highways in America, before they were cause, were built by private individuals. The first canals were built by private businesses. It's only later that the government take over infrastructure, nationalize it, take it over and impose its will. Ian says, we watch this land as mine pretty good. Pretty good. God, I need to do a course on how to evaluate a movie. It's awesome. It's one of the all-time greats. It's, yeah. All right. There's a lot of good movies. Let's see. Have you been to Neil deGrasse Tyson's Planetarium in New York City? No, I have not. Should I? Is it worth a visit? Anything of value there? Or is it, yeah, I don't know what it would be. Yvonne, have you followed the president of El Salvador? What do you think of him? Is he similar to Putin? I don't know. I'm suspicious of him. I think he's using El Salvador's move towards Bitcoin as stealth undermining of the dollarization of El Salvador, which I think has been very good for El Salvador. I think it's a way for him to reestablish a national currency, so we'll see what happens. But no, I don't know enough about the president of El Salvador to really comment. Ed says, didn't the US, yeah, I answered that already. James says, live free or die in New Hampshire state motto. Is it actually possible to live in a free society besides living in a small community? It seems impossible for cities. Well, you know, what are you missing in terms of your freedom? So what can you do in a small community that you cannot do in a big city? And are there things that you can do in a big city that you cannot do in a small community? I don't know what those would be. So, I mean, what is it? You want to walk around with a gun? Well, there's some cities that you can walk around with a gun in. I think there's open carry laws in Texas. You can probably walk around with a gun in Texas. What is it that you can do in a small city that you can't do in a city in terms of freedom? I mean, I'd love to understand the case because I don't really get it. I think you can be as free as you can be given the political situation we live in. And you have to make the most of whatever your circumstances are and that a lot of whether you feel free or not, some of it is related to the political circumstances under which you live and some of it is related to your own attitude and what your own attitude towards life and towards action and towards what you want to do in life is. I mean, most of the time, I feel free here. I go to whatever restaurants I want to go to and there's a white selection only in a free country, can you say that? Nobody's watching me, nobody's monitoring me, nobody's keeping score of me. I mean, the NSA is, I mean, they've got my number and they're tracking this and they're listening and they're recording all of my shows. But it's not affecting my life in any way, even if they are, right? I think I told you the story of the day I spent at the NSA, a full day at the NSA headquarters. If I haven't, and at some point somebody's interested in the story, it'll cost you but I'd be willing to tell that story. But I've been to the NSA, I've talked to them, I've engaged with them. So in what sense don't I feel free? I don't feel free when they take half my paycheck and it goes back to taxes. That's why I live in Puerto Rico, so they don't. I don't feel free when they ask me to put on a mask or they ask me for my vaccine card when I go into a restaurant, I get it. It's unpleasant. But I go exercise where I wanna go exercise, I walk where I wanna walk. I take pictures, I do this. I read news sources from the entire world from all kinds of perspective, nobody's limiting me, I'm not having my internet throttled or constrained or limited. For the most part in my day-to-day life I feel pretty free. I don't in my work, I've got gazillions of regulations, I have to constantly think about what I'm allowed to do and what I'm not allowed to do and what I'm allowed to say and what I'm not allowed to say. Yep, I get that. Mainly in my work, that's where free speech is restricted. I think I told you I've got a 500 page document from the SEC about marketing, what I am allowed to do and what I'm not allowed to do is if I'm gonna read a 500 page document. I follow it because I follow the advice of consultants who have read it and have got a chief compliance officer who's read it and who can tell me. So in work, in business, we're constrained, but in most of our personal life, I don't know what the difference is between a city and a small town. Emiliano says, you should have diplomatic relations with right wing dictatorships like Pinochet's Chili or Francisco's Spain like it had in the past. No, I don't think so. I think the United States should not have diplomatic relationship with dictators, period, period. That would send a clear message and a clear signal. The we think dictatorship is an abomination, we reject it, we won't support it, we won't fight it because we're not the policeman of the world and we're not responsible for everybody's freedom, but we're not gonna treat you as if you're normal. What I'm gonna treat you as if you're civilized. You're barbarian, it's a barbarian economic system. And therefore we should not have diplomatic relations. Right or left doesn't matter. Is it not true that civil rights movement could be justified in protest given blacks had little other legitimate alternative? Anka discusses this in the questioning, the sec was saying, yeah, I mean, I think there's an argument to be made that suddenly they won much, much worse shape than we are today. And in many states in the South they couldn't vote. The Svinas speech was limited. So you could argue and I guess Anka argues that they were living in what's the equivalent of the dictatorship as the rest of us went out and they had no option. And even then you could still question the tactics. You can still question whether it was best. And yeah, it was nonviolent, which was good. Although again, even there there was disagreement among the civil rights movements and I get it. I get why somebody like Malcolm X wanted a black state and why he wanted armed rebellion. Because if you think about how badly blacks were treated, I mean, think about what you would want if you were treated that way. Would you wanna raise arms and fight? Yeah. So it's an achievement, their achievement, I think civil rights movement's achievement that they were nonviolent. Because, and I think that nonviolence was predicated on the idea that fundamentally the United States are making us a good country and we need to find a way to appeal to its better nature and to appeal to its positives. So I think again, the situation was very, very different. All right, Frank says, many New York City workers were just fired for being unvaccinated. Other workers may replace them. So what do you think of scabs? Are they really a thing? No, I mean, I don't, right? I mean, the city has a right to employ or fire anybody who wants. Businesses certainly have a right to fire anybody they want and people who want jobs should have every right to take those jobs. I don't think it's your moral of them. And it's not clear to me that, if this was a private firm that said we want all our employees to be vaccinated would people replace it and be scabs? No, I mean, scabs in the negative sense. I wouldn't view anything negative about it. Anything negative about it. Again, I mean, in spite of the fact that I'm very against vaccine mandates, vaccine are basically harmless. Certainly to adults, certainly if you're over 30, they're harmless. What exactly are we fighting for? No, I get it. We're fighting for them not to be imposed on us by force, which I think is horrific. But the cost of taking the vaccine is almost zero for 99% of the people who are not children who are not young put it that way. So is this the issue? The same thing I said about masks. There's so many issues in which our rights are being violated. So many, so many different places. Is this it? Maybe it's the straw that breaks the camel back. Maybe, maybe. I don't know. But it isn't for me. I'm not ready for the revolution yet. Plus I think we'll lose and the people who are gonna win that revolution are not my people. All right, everybody, thank you. That was great. Really appreciate all the support. Really appreciate all the love. Really appreciate all the people who discovered me in different corners of the internet, different places, and came here ultimately, came to the show. And I appreciate all your support. If you wanna become a multi-supporter, you can do so on your onbrookshow.com slash support. I'm Patreon, I'm Subscribestar. And so wait a pin. I'm trying to figure out how to pin a chat comment. I wonder if I write, if I can pin that. Can I pin that? Sorry, yeah, I can pin it. All right, Action Jackson, I figured out how to do it. Next time I will do it. I have to write the comment, post it, and then pin it, and that'll work. All right. Best for the Hank says, what did you get your bride for Valentine's Day? Oh, is it Valentine's Day? We don't celebrate Valentine's Day. We celebrate our wedding anniversary because our wedding anniversary is just a few days after Valentine's Day, so we usually combine the two. And I don't buy gifts. You know, it's just a thing. I just don't buy gifts, I'm not good at it. I'd rather tell my wife go buy something nice. Yes, I answered the $500 question. I don't remember what it was, but yes. I definitely answered it. Why, do you think I didn't? Oh, there it is. What is the greatest lie ever created? Yeah, I answered that. I agreed that it was altruism and I combined it with mysticism. That was the $500 question. So I don't buy my wife gifts. I really never have the most, what I do usually is we go on a nice vacation together or we certainly go out to dinner. We'll go out to dinner. Well, we go out to dinner every night, but we go to a especially nice restaurant on Valentine's Day and on our wedding anniversary. But I'm not good at picking gifts. I'm not good at, you know, jewelry, things like that. I never get it right. I'd rather just say, here's X dollars, go buy what you like. And it's kind of weird because the money is, both of ours, she can take the money out of the counter and buy what you want anyway. So I don't need to give her permission. So the whole gift thing, we do Christmas, but we usually give gifts to our kids and stuff, but not to each other. And usually if we do give gifts to each other, it's usually gifts that we pre-negotiated. But, you know, I'm not recommending this by the way. I'm just saying this is how I am in my relationship with my wife. And we will celebrate next week, we will celebrate our 39th wedding anniversary. That's three nine. We basically got married when we were little kids. So something's worked. So why mess with stuff that's worked? Joao asks, I think it would be nice to see a debate between you and Sam Harris, no kidding. There is an audience overlap and the views of you too are very interesting and rational. Stressing the difference would be very enlightening. Yeah, but Sam will never debate me. Sam has explicitly said that he doesn't want to have anything to do with me. So that's not happening unfortunately. He has a very low view of objectivists and of our environment unfortunately. All right guys, thank you again. And happy Valentine's Day to everybody. It is on a Monday, so no, today's Saturday. Okay, we've got a show tomorrow. I don't know why I'm wrapping up the week and doing all this stuff. All right, tomorrow, 2 p.m. East Coast time. We're at this again. I don't know what we're gonna talk about tomorrow. Well, maybe I'm gonna do Adam Campbell sponsor the show. So we're gonna do Adam's sponsored show tomorrow. It's probably gonna be something like explaining what a free society would look like. Assuming that it's small, it's an island. And using that to illustrate some of the fallacies that people buy into. So, best friend Hank says, thank you. That was an honest answer. You say that like my other answers are not. My answers are always honest. It's not quite goat's gulch because it's an actual society, country. So it has to be, it can be a secret. It can be to illustrate the things I think that Adam wants me to illustrate. It can be a secret. It can be hidden. And it can be just a private club in a sense, which is what goat's gulch is. It doesn't have a government. It doesn't have borders in that sense. It doesn't have, it's not a country. And I never meant it to be a model for a country. So the question is, if you had a country, if you had a completely free country, could we use some examples of that, particularly if it was a relatively small country to illustrate some of the problems with statism? We're gonna try and do that tomorrow. I'm still working on exactly how to frame it and exactly how to work it out, but it should be fun. And I'm looking forward to you guys engaging with it and being there. So tomorrow at 2 p.m. East Coast time. See you there. Thanks everybody. Oh God, everybody's debating vaccines. There's no debate. There's no debate about vaccines.