 Hi everybody, you're listening to Iran Book Show. Welcome on this Saturday morning here in California, wherever you may be. Wow, what a week of news, it just doesn't stop. Somebody asked me this week whether I thought I could do a daily show two hours every day of the Iran Book Show. And a week like this week, that would be easy. There's something to talk about every single day. Although I made a decision a few days ago to try to stay away from politics this show and try to do something more philosophical. And there was this question that somebody asked a while back, I don't know, weeks, months, I can't even, I can't find the question. And somewhere, I don't know if it was on Twitter, on Facebook, or in an email. But somebody asked me a question about kind of the impotence of evil. And what did Iran really mean by the impotence of evil and if evil is impotent? Why the hell is it doing so well these days? And so I thought that would make a good show. Although I have to say it's not a topic I'm an expert on, I thought it would be a good show to kind of talk through and take questions and discuss. But then, you know, the Republicans yesterday kind of bailed on the whole Obamacare thing. So I have to say something about that, right? So we're going to talk about that. And one other thing just happened this morning. So, you know, worthy of discussing, although I won't talk in depth about it. So this morning I got a tweet that one of these racist alt-rights, and for those of you who don't believe the alt-right exists, you can go find them at this place. One of these racist alt-right publications has published a critique, of critique, right? Of my article on just war, on just war theory. So my whole approach to foreign policy and their ridiculing and I haven't read the whole thing. I don't know if I will read it, you know, I just find it. I like want to have a shower whenever I go to one of these websites. It's so despicable, but it's called, so the article, this critique is called On Neocons and Eurotics. Iran broke in the folly of preemption. So this was preemption in war. And so, you know, it's funny on a number of different respects. One calling me a neocon is really funny. The neocons are horrified, the neocons are going to hide right now. The idea that I would be a neocon terrifies them. And of course, I'm not a neocon. Indeed, I think probably the most critical book ever written on neoconservatism that really analyzes it philosophically in depth and crushes the whole ideology of neoconservatism was a book that Brad Thompson wrote with my help called Neoconservatism an obituary funny idea. And I wrote the chapters on font policy criticizing and demolishing the whole neocon view and approach to font policy. So calling me neocon and then calling me neurotic, maybe. I don't think so. I don't think anybody would call me neurotic. I'm probably the antithesis of neurotic. So, you know, that's what I woke up to this morning is this. Oh, and it's published on something called the Occidental Observer, right? And which is edited by a guy named Kevin McDonald, who is a professor of psychology just to prove that in order, you know, that racists and bigots and just nuts are not necessarily people who are uneducated. Usually they are led by people who are very well educated. Anyway, this article is on something called Occidental Observer, which is subtitled white identity, comma, interests and culture. So, yeah, white interests and white culture. Obviously, the fact that I'm white does not create a common interest with these people. I guess I'm white, though I'm Jewish, so I guess that doesn't count completely as white. I don't know. This whole race of stuff makes it very difficult to figure out. Written by some guy named James Wald. Okay, so this is like, it was published this morning and it's freaky and it's spooky. And it's, well, it's not spooky because it's not really scary. These people are really impotent. We'll talk about the impotence of evil in a minute. These people are clearly, certainly on the side of impotence. So, though, again, they are being successful these days. But it did remind me that the topic I actually wanted to talk about today was actually font policy. And I was going to do a whole discussion of the title that I was chosen for today was Islam. What should we do about it? But I have decided to postpone that. And I was going to talk about the whole question of Israel and the whole question of immigration into Israel, which everybody goes after me about all the time. Well, not everybody, some people. And I've decided for a reason I'm not going to actually disclose right now. I'm going to keep you in suspense and I'll disclose the reason when I do the show to postpone it for two weeks. I will probably do that show in two weeks and the show in two weeks will be on a Sunday. And I'll probably be doing it from London. And that show will be the show probably, unless some breaking news happens or something else happens, will probably be the show I do on Islam, on evaluating Islam, on the threat that is Islam, on who the enemy really is, is Islam the enemy. And I'll also cover in that show the whole question of Israel and immigration into Israel. I'm not going to talk about immigration into the US again. I've done that too many times already, although I'm always open to questions about that. So, you know, it should be, this should be a, it should be a good show, a provocative show, a show some of you at least will not agree with and will want to argue with me. And you're welcome to call in and do so. So, this is that show on Islam in two weeks from today. So, that'll be what? That'll be April, I don't know, 10th or something. Let me just pull up a calendar and I'll tell you exactly. So, that'll be the show that I do from the UK. And it'll be April 9th that I'll actually be on a Sunday, the 8th I won't be able to do. Now, let me just say to those of you listening for overseas that if you're in Finland, I will be in Finland giving a talk on April 3rd. If you're listening, and I know some people are listening in Bosnia, I will be in Bosnia giving a talk on April 4th. If you are in, what, where is this? If you're in Montenegro, I will be in Montenegro, April 5th. I will be in Macedonia, April 6th. And I will be in Albania in Tirana, April 7th and 8th. So, for those of you who live in those countries, and I know I do have listeners for this show, in all those countries, you can find information about that on my website. Actually, not on my website, I don't have a website, not yet anyway. I'll have one soon. But on my Facebook page and on ary.inran.org slash events, ary.inran.org slash events, you will find a listing of all those events. So, Finland, Helsinki and Finland on the 3rd. Sarajevo in Bosnia on the 4th. A city whose name I cannot pronounce on the 5th. That is Podgorica. Something like that in Montenegro on the 5th. And Skopje in Macedonia on the 6th. And then Tirana in Albania. I will be speaking on the 8th at a conference. So, that'll be. And then it looks like there's going to be a talk in London for those of you listening in London, probably on the 10th. And that talk sounds like it's going to be on immigration. So, I will be giving a talk in England, in London on immigration on Monday the 10th. So, if you have any questions about immigration concerns, if you disagree with me, if you think I'm crazy about immigration or whatever, join me in London on the 10th for Q&A. My guess is that'll be taped as well and streamed and whatever. So, there'll be plenty of opportunities to listen. But most of those talks, anyway, those talks will all be kind of interesting. But my point is that if you're interested in the Holy Slam question, if you're interested in my views on Islam, that'll all be on April 9th, the Sunday. And I'll be broadcasting from London if we can. Get me a wide internet connection in my hotel there. Last time, we were unsuccessful. So, we're going to plan ahead and try to make sure we get the wide internet connection this time. All right. Let's see. Just quickly, this week, I gave three debates in Ohio. I've never really spent much time in Ohio and I found Cincinnati fascinating in the sense that you look around and you can get a sense of how rich the place used to be and how wealthy it was and how productive it was, the houses on the hills. I didn't realize how kind of hilly it was. I thought Cincinnati would be flat. And I went to the Cincinnati Art Museum. Definitely worth going to the Cincinnati Art Museum. I saw a wonderful, beautiful Bouguereau painting at the museum. I should actually post some of the photos I took up on Facebook and I will. Some beautiful sculptures, beautiful, beautiful sculptures. A couple of Frishmuth. Frishmuth is one of my favorite American sculptors. She was a woman, but some wonderful sculptures, a couple of life-size sculptures by her in the courtyard. And then there was a Jerome, and as I said, a Bouguereau and a Alma Tadeima and a bunch of other really good paintings and some beautiful sculptures in there. So you could tell the wealth that was Cincinnati. And it's kind of cool and a little sad that obviously it's not as wealthy as it used to be. But that was the great industrial period in American history, late 19th century, early 20th century, when Cincinnati was kind of a frontier and industrialist went there and prospered there and did very successful, the era of capitalism in America, relative capitalism in America. Frishmuth is the name of the sculptress and she's got a famous sculpture called Divine, which is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I'm doing my positive values up front, which is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but there's also another copy of it at the Cincinnati Art Museum. And it's in the courtyard, so it's easily to miss it, but it's not positioned really well, so it's hard to really appreciate the sculpture at the Metropolitan, it's easier to really delight. Well, I was in a cloudy kind of cold day, but yeah, definitely if you're in Cincinnati, go to the Art Museum. I like going to Art Museum period, but particularly to lesser known places and to places that used to be wealthy because you know that all the contributions of artwork were done in the 19th and 20th century. That's when people accumulated art because that's when they were rich and therefore they are as good as compared to the junk that is accumulated in modern times, wealthy people who have no clue. So that was cool. I spoke at North Kentucky University, I spoke at the University of Cincinnati, both at the law schools and then I went up to Columbus and did a debate at Columbus. And I'll just say this, because the Columbus one was memorable. The debate at Columbus was memorable and the debate at Columbus was memorable because of the nuts I actually landed up debating. I mean, they actually had me debating a socialist. I mean, a committed socialist and wow, wow. I mean, I should have done the whole show just on the socialist and the evil that is socialism and to hold that ideology and to spout the nonsense that this guy spouted. I should have talked about evil. Oh my God, it was just horrific. So not something I would typically do. And the guy was young and it just was all messed up. It's not something I would typically do, is debate a young socialist. He's head of the Socialist Union in Columbus. All right, big thing in the news this week was the fact that Obamacare did not even come to, you know, the repeal of Obamacare or the Obamacare Light was not, didn't even come to a vote. The Republicans clearly did not have enough votes to pass it. This is in the House where they have a clear majority. It would be one thing to talk about the Senate where, you know, you probably need 60 votes to pass a lot of this. Certainly you would need 50 and all they have is a two-person majority. In the House they have a big majority and it didn't even come for a vote because they were so convinced that they couldn't pass it. And this is tragic and depressing and stupid and reflective of everything wrong with the Republican Party and everything wrong with President Trump because this is not just a failure of Paul Ryan and the Republicans in the House. This is primarily a failure of Donald Trump and his leadership ability and his ability to make a deal. I guess he's not so good at making deals. And I know all of you, you know, a lot of you are going to come out and say, oh, Yvonne, it's just anti-Trump. No, but think about it. This is exactly an example of how pathetic Trump is in actually leading this country. So what should have been done about Obamacare? And I'm not going to say what I would have done if I were President because that, you know, put aside my radicalism, put aside, you know, I'm always accused of, oh, Yvonne, you're just about, you're willing to sacrifice the good for the sake of perfection. Put aside perfection. What should the Republicans have done? And I'm talking about, you know, Republicans as they are today. Well, not Donald Trump as he is today because that's pathetic, but as they are today. What should have Republicans done? And let me just say to power was the fact that he appointed price, the fact that he appointed price as health and human services, right? And because price is pretty good on Obamacare and he's pretty good on health care generally. He's a doctor. He's a former doctor. He turned congressman. He was pretty good in the Congress. He was part of this freedom caucus that basically stopped the bill that was going before the House, right? And, you know, he, so what was, you know, so I was fairly optimistic because I said, look, price is good. He had a repeal and replace bill already that he had proposed. So he had a proposal on the table when he was a congressman, which is not bad, which is not bad. And I thought, all right, this is a great sign. We've got a health of human health and human services director, a cabinet member who actually knows how to get rid of Obamacare, who would actually replace it with something more sensible, more free market. And he is going to propose this. That's going to be the starting point. The starting point is going to be a dramatic move towards free market. And yes, we probably won't get that because they'll have to compromise to the left with some of the Republican moderates, but we'll get something better than what we otherwise would have gotten. So this is what Republicans should do, right? This is, this is strategically. If you are going to make a deal, right? Donald Trump claims he knows how to make a deal. You start with your morally economically strongest position. IE you start with free market healthcare. We want to repeal Obamacare and we want to institute in the United States free market healthcare or more free market healthcare, because we know that it's not enough just to repeal Obamacare. There's still many, many, many problems in American healthcare, so we're going to combine the repealing of Obamacare with things like making, taking away the deductibility of healthcare from corporations, making it impossible for businesses to deduct insurance premiums so as to encourage individuals to purchase and to own their insurance premiums rather than their employers owning those insurance policies, having individuals own their insurance policies. Things like allowing to buy across state lines, think like a dramatic expansion of medical saving accounts and so on, right? So free market like policies. And you put a package together. The repeals takes away all of the garbage. You add to that these pro free market components and you add to that because I guess, I guess, you know, and then, and then you start with that and you put that in front of Congress and you go to Paul Ryan and you say, you've got to start with the most radical proposal and that's how you do deals, right? And then you've got to compromise to make a deal. You've got to compromise with some of your members in order to pass it through the House and suddenly to get it through the Senate, you're going to have to give them something. But if you start by giving them everything, then you've already lost before you even starting to trade, right? And then nobody's going to like the deal that you're proposing. The moderates are not going to like it because it's too radical. You're repealing Obamacare and the right is not going to, you know, the freedom caucus is not going to like it because it's not free market enough. So if you're really about cutting deals, if you're really a master of the art of the deal, which Trump claims he is, you don't start by selling out, which is what the Republicans did, which was what Paul Ryan's plan was. It's what Trump's plan, Trumpcare, was. It was a complete sell out to the socialists, to those who believe in Obamacare and who want to save Obamacare. Instead, you start with something radical and then you move a little bit to the left in order to get it passed. But that's not what was happening. This bill that they were going to propose included the same kind of subsidies. They changed it a little bit in terms of how you make those subsidies. So it made it marginally better. It involved massive regulation of health insurance in a sense of telling health insurance companies what kind of policies they could sell and what kind of policies they couldn't sell. That is, they started with something far to the left of what I think you could have gotten if you negotiated right. And why did they do this? Why did they start way to the left? Left, I take to be more socialized for the purposes of our discussion right now. Right, I take it to be more free market. I know that's meaningless, but it's just in terms of convenience we're going to use those terminology right now. But I have to specify it in those terms, right? So they started way on the left alienating the free market guys or the relative free market guys. And then when they tried to move to the right, they ended up alienating the moderates. So what happened on Thursday and Friday is they knew they didn't have the votes. So they gave a little bit to the Freedom Caucus. They shrunk a little bit the regulations on insurance companies. So some people in the Freedom Caucus said, okay, we'll vote for this. But then they lost a bunch of moderates. So they didn't have the votes. It's not just that the Freedom Caucus killed this bill. It's that moderates, the socialist Republicans killed this bill as well because the bill nobody was happy with it, right? And this is the... I really don't get it. So this is classic. The Republicans never, ever, ever, ever present a true free market alternative to anything. They never, ever, ever go up and say, here's what we'd like. Let's debate this. And then, okay, we'll negotiate a little bit on the margins. No, they start way on the left, way on the socialist side. And then they seem to upset everybody because the socialists are not quite happy because it doesn't go left enough. And the pro-free market people are not happy because, well, I thought we were for appeal, Obamacare completely, and what have you done? And of course, guiding this whole process, motivating this whole process is Donald Trump because, you know, again, Donald Trump appointed Price as Health and Human Services Director. Price is a free market guy who believes in free market healthcare. Why wasn't that the starting position? But Price was made irrelevant and instead they went way to the left and then Paul Ryan, and I don't know, I guess, and Price put together this socialist compromise over Obamacare which did not repeal anything and which probably would have led to the same thing. Obamacare is going to lead to, we'll get to what Obamacare is going to lead to and to Donald Trump's tweet about it in a minute. But what Obamacare was always intended to do, what Obamacare was always intended to do, is failure of insurance companies which would then be blamed on the marketplace and then the left would come forward and say, see, actually the right would probably come forward, the Republicans would probably come forward and say, we tried markets, we tried them. We had exchanges, we provided incentives, but we tried markets and they failed. The insurance companies all went bankrupt. So obviously insurance doesn't work. Obviously private doesn't work. So what we really need is single-payer socialized healthcare. And somebody on the chat is saying, but don't people hate socialized medicine? No, they don't, they love it. They love it. They love socialized medicine. It's always been a fallacy that Americans dislike Obamacare because what they want is free market medicine. No, they dislike Obamacare at least a percentage of them because what they want is socialized healthcare and the Brits love their socialized healthcare. Brits love it. The Europeans love their socialized healthcare. They love it because they don't want to think, they don't want to judge, they don't want to evaluate and this way they can just walk into any clinic and say, you know, I'm hooding and somebody will treat them and it won't cost them anything so they don't have to take personal responsibility over their own health treatment. Socialized medicine allows you to be numb and stupid, allows you to not have to choose and people like that. People like not having to choose. Choosing takes effort. Choosing takes focus. Now, granted, some people are just ignorant. A lot of people are ignorant on how lousy the healthcare is and what it actually means, right? But, you know, it's... So some people are ignorant but most people know. Most people just don't want to think about it and we'll get to evil in a second but immorality, primarily constitutes people saying, I don't want to think about it. I'm not going to look over there. I'm not interested. You know, it's too much effort to actually engage in. I know it's important to some extent but it's too much effort to actually think over there. So I'm just going to ignore it. Somebody wrote on the... I don't want to burden a planning before my future. So everybody loves Socialized Medicine, particularly when they have it. Americans claim they don't want it but no American that I know of is advocating for the, you know, the elimination of Medicare. Well, I shouldn't say no American that I know or a few Americans who are at the Anduin Institute. But, you know, let's do away with Medicare because that's Socialized Medicine. Especially because we don't fund it like we do, you know, Socialized Medicine because, you know, we're stealing mass quantities of wealth from people in order to fund Medicare. So... How do we get to this? Right? So Obamacare, right? They didn't do away with it because they're absolute unbelievable cowards. Unbelievable moral cowards. And this is Trump, Price, who are publicans. Unbelievable cowards. They had an opportunity, they had an historic opportunity. They had a once in a lifetime, once in a decade opportunity. They could have stood up. The American people voted for them to eradicate, to eliminate, to abolish Obamacare. And they couldn't do it. They couldn't muster the courage. They couldn't muster the energy. They couldn't muster the backbone. The balls, whatever you want to call it, to actually go out there and say no to Obamacare. And actually eviscerate it and offer some alternative that would actually lower the cost of healthcare and solve people's problems, at least offer it. And then if you're defeated, compromise. But if you stop by compromising, you're finished, you're finished, you're finished. Iron Man talked about how when you compromise in principle, which is what they're doing, evil wins, the bad guys win every single time. And that's exactly what happened with this bill. All right, we're going to get to what Trump's response has been to this, which I find even scarier. The scariest thing I find about the whole episode and the reason I wanted to do the show ultimately was Trump's response to the failure of the bill to pass. Ah, my God. All right. So we're going to get to that, but we've got a couple of callers. So we're going to take a couple of questions. Hi, Yaron, the Yaron Book Show. Who's this? Hi, Yaron. This is Mark from Michigan. Hey, Mark, how's it going? It's going all right. And I love your show. I listen to every episode. But I think you are really off base as to why Ryan presented this bill the way he did. Ryan and Price working together. All right. And what they've said is that they can't repeal Obamacare in the Senate because it was passed with 60 votes and none of the Democrats... By the way, it was not passed with 60 votes. It was passed with 50-something votes. They couldn't get 60 votes. But they did some sneaky procedural thing to get it passed. If you remember, it was just before that election in Massachusetts that flipped the majority in the Senate. But anyway, you're basically right. So they couldn't get it in the Senate. So what do you do? So they're trying to get it through this budget process through reconciliation. So they were trying to pass the best bill they could that passes this test of reconciliation where they're allowed to cut things from the budget but they're not allowed to get rid of regulations that don't have budgetary implications. And they said this. That's why it wasn't as extreme as you and I would want. Yes. But the fact is that the Freedom Caucus, which is very aware of everything you just said, kept saying, you could do a lot better than this. Even with reconciliation, this is not... And this is the thing that Paul Ryan never did and what's his name? Trump certainly never did. This is what I think they should have done. You come out with your ideal bill with reconciliation as one portion of it and then another segment and you wrap the whole thing around and you present it to the American people as this is what we want. And I saw Ryan's press conference and he did a little bit of that but again, he cowered because he kept saying that all this other stuff, they're not going to dismantle. For example, they weren't going to dismantle the regulations on insurance companies. Even in the secondary bill that needed 60 votes, they didn't even present that really. You got to present the whole thing. You got to present your ideal and you got to make the moral or the economic or the some principle case for it, which I don't think they did. Then you go back and you present it to your colleagues and you might even pass it in the house and let it fail in the Senate. And then you go back and say, okay, obviously we don't have 60 votes in the Senate. Now let's see what is the most we can get away with. But you start from the most radical and then you moderate. They didn't. They really didn't. If you look at this bill, it is and this is why the Freedom Caucus voted against it. I mean they're completely aware of the problems of reconciliation and what you can and cannot do and yet they thought this was a weak bill. I mean, they're not idiots politically, they know. So what I actually think they kind of are idiots politically and you've noticed this a bit too where a lot of these conservative websites get really hyperbolic and they over promise what can be done legislatively because they're more interested in just keeping the outrage machine on than getting bills passed. And I think the Freedom Caucus just agrees with those fringe websites and they don't care about getting the Obamacare replacement passed. I think Paul Ryan is right procedurally. If you look at somebody like Justin Amash or even Rand Paul, I don't think that's true. I think they understood that what was going to pass was a complete sell out that what was going to pass was actually going to keep Obamacare in place and that it wasn't going to dismantle enough of Obamacare to make a difference and that this ultimately was going to lead to an even worse outcome than keeping Obamacare because they would own it. They would own it. So it could be, right, I'm not at all convinced and the fact is that, what's his name? Paul Ryan was making compromises with the Freedom Caucus as late as Thursday night, right? They reduced some of the regulatory burden. They found a way somehow to do that within this bill to reduce the regulatory burden on insurance companies which they claimed originally was impossible to do because of reconciliation. Somehow they found a way to do that. Why not, again, I repeat, you start with your most aggressive plan possible and let it fail in the Senate and then use that to then start moving to the left as little as possible. I don't think this was the most aggressive plan they could have passed. I think this was a weak plan and if it would have passed, I think it would have been a disaster because then you would have had Obamacare light which would have failed and the Republicans would have been blamed on its failure. This way at least the Democrats would be blamed for the failure which is what Trump is touting but we'll see what Trump's solution to that is in a minute. So I don't agree. If you try to make a deal with the Democrats. What's that? You're going to make a deal with the Democrats and he's going to pass something to the left of what we just failed to pass. I agree. I agree. That's what he is going to do. This is why he's a pathetic president. Yes. He's going to make a deal with the Democrats. He's going to give a single payer under the guise of some compromise deal that solves all our problems. He's going to cut a deal with the left but you see that would have happened anyway because what they were proposing, what Republicans were proposing was going to fail as well. So either way was screwed whether it would have passed or whether it was not but the whole way of approaching it has put the Republicans on the defensive instead of the offensive. If they had started with free market healthcare here's everything we want. Here's the whole menu of everything we want. We know it won't pass the Senate but here's the plan. Look at this plan. CBO goes score this plan, right? Not that anybody should pay any attention to anything the CBO scores. But here's the plan, right? And then we'll chip away to the left of it in order to bring on some moderates so we can pass this. But that's not what they did. They started with a moderate plan and then they did some compromises with the right. Anyway. All right. Yeah, thank you. But I understand what you're saying. I agree with you on this that they're in a complicated situation. Paul Ryan's in a complicated situation because he can't get what he wants and he suddenly can't get at what he wants in the Senate. He probably can't even get it in the House, right? He cannot get. He suddenly can't get it in the Senate so that I think the failure was to start with something that could pass the Senate. That was the mistake. You have to start way to the right in terms of free markets of the Senate and let it fail and then compromise to the left because once you start with something that will pass the Senate, you've already given everything up and you're not in a good bargaining position. This goes to the heart of the art of the deal. The art of the deal is the real art of the deal. I don't know about Trump's art of the deal is to start with your ideal and to name your ideal. And this is what Republicans never ever do and this is why they fail and this is why we always get movement to the left. You start with your ideal and you name the ideal and you name the principle on which the ideal is based. Free market healthcare, let's say. Free markets are better at delivering healthcare than is the government and we want to move significantly towards that. And then what? And then you set that as your standard and now you've got room to move. Yeah, you're going to move to the left. There's no option but to move to the left but you set the terms of the debate as being free market healthcare. We want to get as much of that as possible and they never did that. They never ever did that. And again, all of you who thought Trump, you know, Trump, Trump, Trump, whatever, you think he didn't get it done one way or the other, he didn't get it done. So much for him being a businessman who knows how to get stuff done. This is politics. This is a completely different ballgame. All right, let's see. We've got another caller. Hi, this is Andrew from New York. Hey, Andrew, how's it going? Hey, you know, it's funny, I was going to say, I was thinking about what I was going to say to you. You know, thanks for fighting for us and I realize that's on an altruistic premise. I said, he's actually fighting for himself and we are also, you know, and us. Yeah, but you know, it's not complete altruism. It's not complete because I like you guys, right? Now, most of you, I don't like all of you, but most of you, I like, and I'm fighting for myself. There's no question, but partially, I find it because I like you and I realize and I, you know, and I want you as well as myself to have a better life. That makes sense. Primarily, and I think it can be said proudly, you're fighting for yourself. Absolutely. Primarily. Absolutely. And I think that that's an important point that people shouldn't feel uncomfortable to say that morally. Not at all. I wanted to also hit on a, I wanted to hit on the moral point on this healthcare debate. Yeah. And I think it's really interesting because you use the term cowardly to describe the Republicans and I've heard this in objectivist circles and something strikes me as off to it. Like, I think there's definitely truth in it, but at the same time, we have you and I and Rand obviously have covered this a thousand times that what needs to be changed is the morality. And what these, what we're seeing as manifestations in the Republican politicians or I'm forming a unit with like John Roberts upholding, you know, Obamacare. Yeah. That they are acting in accordance with their morality. They think that they are, they may not recognize this or not, but they are acting as heroes according to a, the morality that they believe in. You know, this is a subconscious probably process where, but they see themselves as heroes internally, which is why they're always going to side with that, with altruism at the end of the day, rather than the Constitution or free market economics. They believe in those things on some level, but they don't see them as part of a spiritual existence. And we know that the spiritual existence is the most animating factor for man and who has a mind, which is the most powerful part of us. So they are always going to act for what they believe is spiritual salvation. And on their premise, being altruistic and being cowards is actually heroic. Yeah, I know. I agree with you completely. I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, I don't think it's heroic because to be heroic, you have to have an explicit goal and you have to overcome real obstacles. So it's not heroic, but it's consistent with their more deeply held moral beliefs. But this is the problem and you've identified it, right? The problem is that they are this mixed bag, right? And this is what separates them from some Democrats. And I'm talking about the better people among Republicans, not all of them are like this, the better people. They love the Constitution. They love the founding fathers. They even some of them, to some extent, love free markets. They get a sense that this is a beautiful thing and a great thing and they've even read and read some of them, like Paul Ryan. And they love the vision of Al Shrugged and they love the vision that she projects in some of her writing about the free economy or free world looks like. But you're right, they're not committed spiritually, they're not committed philosophically, they're not committed morally to that vision. They're committed morally to a vision of altruism. So they're constantly... So you're wrong, would you say that the cowardly, to call them cowardly, that you're saying it in the sense that, given what they know, given that they know about the wonders to revisit their moral code and overturn it, is that the cowardly? Yes, the cowardliness. It's not just that they don't overturn it. It's they never question it. I mean, I'm not inside their head, so I don't know. But at least it doesn't look like they ever actually question the contradiction that they're living in. And that's cowardly. And I think it is cowardly. And I know religious people say, I say to them, you're so radical in your beliefs in free markets. You're so radical even in your beliefs about politics. Why are you completely conventional when it comes to morality and even epistemology and metaphysics? Why are you so conventional when it comes to these basic ideas? Take this radicalism, take this idea about free markets and all of that and start questioning your more basic notions. Yeah. I see what you're saying you're on, but I can't do it, right? And if they're dishonest, oh no, this is all consistent, this is all the same thing. And I think but that's a cowardly response. That's because what happens when they go deep into their psyche to address their morality or anything like that is that it's got to be something... Yes, and then they turn away from it. And they go with it. They feel the discomfort and they just automatically turn away from it. Instead of saying, is there another way to alleviate this discomfort? Yes. And some of them become socialists as a consequence, I fear. But they're less cowardly in that sense. Okay, at least they've made consistent their whole ideology. It's the people who live with this split ideology. They hold on to their altruism and to the logic that they collectivism. And they still want to be individualists like they do explicitly with Obamacare. They won't question the fundamentals. And that, to me, is ultimately where the cowardness is. And it's sad because we're all the victims of that. Yeah. I got to say, Yoram, just as a point as an iron rand sand that I'm sure obviously thousands of people feel the same way as I do. But just to really promote that one of the huge positive aspects for me was she connected to economics with sex. She made integrations of mind and matter that were just incredible. And to see yourself as a spiritual being in a real sense based on reality is so powerful. It's such a powerful experience for those of us who have done that. And if other people out in the culture could understand that there's a real spirituality to life. Which is so powerful. And I know it's a very hard thing to communicate to people who haven't experienced it. No, absolutely. And you hit on a really important point is that what she does, and this is a genius as a philosopher, is her ability to integrate all these ideas, concepts, everything in Objectivism is integrated. Economics, the sex to healthcare to across everything. And you know there's a you remind me because I was just looking at where is it? Oh, here it is. There's a course by Lena that addresses exactly this issue of the importance of integration of unity and the spiritual consequence of having that kind of integrated view of life and its impact on your morality, on how you live your life. And it's called Knowledge of Unity. Well, that's lesson one. Where's the course? The course is called something else. Let me just find it. Oh, man, I can't believe it. Yeah, there's nothing like there's nothing like that experience of kind of unifying mind and body. And if people could understand that that's a real experience, you know, it's not floating like their spiritual experiences. I mean, there's nothing more powerful. No, and it's really the secret, ultimately, to happiness and to happy life. And so the course is called Unity and Epistemology and Ethics. So I recommend to everybody go to the website, go to the campus website and look for Unity and Epistemology and Ethics by Lena Peacock. It's a brilliant, it's a brilliant, brilliant course. And again, this idea that in order to properly be moral and to all the benefits that come from morality, that is a flourishing happy life, you've got to have this integration and epistemology is so crucial to your happiness, to your spirituality, to be able to be a complete human being, to live a flourishing life qua human being. So this is a new course, so it's not a new course, it's an old course, but it just went up on campus the last few months. So I encourage you, Unity and Epistemology and Ethics by Lena Peacock is crucial and I have a lot more, I mean I learned a huge amount from my friend obviously but the real integration the real work of becoming an objectivist and really integrating it all and making it happen for me, happened to me when I really studied Lena Peacock's courses. I mean he really choose it in a way that really allows you to make it part of you, makes it part of your essence and it's so crucial and so important. Great. Thanks for the call and good because we got to the essence of what the cowardly represents and that's great. So thanks those are the best kind of calls when it causes us to go deeper and go to another level and engage in the philosophy. So let me just say something because I want to talk about this idea of evil let me say something about what about yes, about Donald Trump and I know some of you are cringing, oh here Iran goes again slamming Donald Trump but you know, I'm just reading his tweets, that's all I do so here's Donald Trump's tweet from this morning I guess it was 737 am I think my time, east coast time west coast time this morning yeah, 24th of March okay, here's the tweet now this is so wrong on so many different dimensions so wrong on so many different dimensions but this is what he said, Obamacare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for the people the people by the way is bolded the people do not worry oh my god am I worried oh my god, so first Obamacare will explode that can't be good that can't be good for people who have insurance that can't be good if you're sick that can't be good if you're in a hospital when it explodes it can't be good if you're if you want to buy health insurance there are a million ways in which the fact that it's going to explode is really really really bad I don't want my president gloating about something exploding and I saw this from Trump he called up I don't have this up but he called up the Washington Post and made the announcement to the Washington Post reporter about the deal not coming together and about the the vote not taking place and he basically was saying look no big deal this is all the Democrats' fault no Democrat wanted to vote for this bill which I think is a good sign I worry when Democrats want to vote for something that the Republicans are proposing and he said it's no big deal the Democrats are going to get blame for it when it all collapses and it's going to all collapse and like no sympathy for the victims of this collapse which all of us are victims of this collapse companies are going to go bankrupt if the premium is going to go through Trump is okay but what about all of us so no sense of no sense of this is really bad we need to do everything in our power for the people to prevent collapse to prevent this from becoming a catastrophe and a disaster no this is fine it's going to collapse no big deal and by the way when it does collapse I Donald Trump are going to swoop in and bring in the Democrats and we're all going to get together and we are going to put a great great healthcare plan for the people in bold no in bold in all caps now this is scary because what deal are you going to cut with the Democrats for the people the Democrats are going to sign on and the Republicans are going to sign on for I mean it's going to be socialized medicine some form of socialized medicine it's going to be worse than Obamacare it's going to be worse than Obamacare this is where he is heading and this is what he's always been about remember Donald Trump was for universal healthcare Donald Trump was in his history for single payer this is beautiful for him when the Republicans failed on the fee market side Obamacare is going to fail on whatever elements of fee market is still left and Donald Trump is going to swoop in and give the Democrats what they've always always wanted that's where we're heading that's what the street suggests now it could be still sabotaged and we could still but I don't get all of you out there who support Donald Trump you explain this to me explain why this is a good thing explain why this is the president that you so passionately voted for I'm not talking about those of you who voted for him because the alternative was worse but those of you who voted for him because you really believed in him I mean this is pathetic this is pathetic this is scary dangerous stuff alright I'm going to take a quick break and when I come back we're going to talk about evil and its impotence and so on I don't know how much we can get into it but we'll talk about it a little bit I encourage your calls if you have any questions about evil let's put healthcare aside there's nothing we can do about that but let's try to understand this concept better and you know if you're next to a computer pull up the Iron Man lexicon and look at what Iron Man has said about evil I'll be reading some of that off but also it'll be an opportunity for you to just look at it and if you have any questions I'm going to take a quick break we're going to talk about and we're going to come back let me see what are we doing here alright see you in a minute you can see for yourself the day in, day out assault on a reason throughout our culture collectivism, socialism and an ineffective foreign policy are the direct result of the bad philosophy that all too many people including our leaders currently hold the only antidote to bad ideas the only way to reverse the irrational philosophy we see everywhere is to fight for the right philosophy that's Iron Man's philosophy, objectivism which proudly upholds reason, self-interest and capitalism ARI fights every day 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ARI's new book failing to confront Islamic totalitarianism from George W. Bush to Barack Obama and beyond addresses this very question and the fundamental problem at its core the book, a collection of essays from ARI experts Ankar Gati and me, Ilan Jerno highlights the irrational philosophic ideas that permeate and subvert American foreign policy while the United States is indeed a military superpower that lacks the moral certainty needed to defend itself and its ideals and our political intellectual leaders evade the true nature of Islamic totalitarianism after 9-11, ARI predicted that the prevailing ideas about morality would undercut our foreign policy ultimately crippling us sadly, those predictions have proven to be correct we can end the Islamist menace and secure our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness easily in fact but we must adopt the right philosophic ideas to guide the way pick up your copy of failing to confront Islamic totalitarianism at Amazon today to learn more about this life or death issue and speaking out in defense of free speech free markets, free minds you can join their battle for reason individualism and capitalism here and around the nation by making your contribution today at iran.org slash support that's A-Y-N-R-A-N-D dot O-R-G slash S-U-P-P-O-R-T All right, so let's talk a little bit about evil, we've got about a half an hour for this topic and you can call in 347-324-3075 347-324-3075 what do we mean when we talk about evil? well, before we get to evil this is why this is going to take longer than half an hour we have to in a sense at the standard for what goodness and what morality is because evil is the opposite evil is the rejection or the opposite of morality, of the good of the positive evil in a sense is, if you want it's got extreme immorality it's immorality on steroids so we have to understand what immorality is now I've talked a lot on this show about what morality is and we've talked about the requirements and the virtues and values and we haven't talked much about the flip side of that the essence of immorality now there's a great quote from the objectivist ethics that is really the first entry in the lexicon that I think sheds a lot of light to the essential characteristic of both immorality and ultimately of evil now but let me just say before I spend too much time on this this is a tricky topic it's a hard topic and it requires a lot of thinking because it's hard it's hard for somebody who is moral it's hard for somebody who is good to understand immorality and particularly to understand evil because it is so far to one's own way of thinking and one's own experiences with oneself so one has to find one has to really really think about this and look for examples and try to really integrate this it's not easy it's not easy to integrate negatives it's not easy to understand the motivations of people who are motivated by a negative now many of us have certain psychological weaknesses that we can when identifying in ourselves then use that to extrapolate to other people and can see that for example you might have once in a while just a glimpse of envy you might look at somebody who's got a lot of stuff once in a while somebody's successful or somebody's good and you say I wish something bad happened to and you immediately reject that because you know that's stupid and that's bad and you don't really believe that but you get that emotion of something bad happens to somebody you know and you go kind of good because he's too full of himself but not in the negative full of himself but he's being successful you got to find those little things well we'll get to evasion and we'll get to that so first I want to make I'm making the claim that this is hard and a lot of thinking needs to be done about this in order to fully integrate it I mean I can talk and you can listen but to really understand what it is you've got to integrate it and here I recommend a major source obviously you know Ayn Rand, the Objectivist Ethics you should read the Objectivist Ethics you should integrate the Objectivist Ethics you should really think about it Gold Speech has a number of references to the question of evil and then there are issues like Compromise, the Anatomy of Compromise where she talks about this and any discussion of Ayn Rand's and altruism is relevant to this so you've got to read a lot and really think about this a lot and study it the other source of really valuable information about this is Lena Peacock's course that he gave which is not available on campus but is available in the bookstore on the Ayn Rand Institute bookstore is judging, feeling and not being moralistic judging, feeling and not being moralistic where he spends the whole first lecture really discussing various forms of immorality or very descriptions of immorality and then spending quite a bit of time on evil and giving some examples and who's evil and who's not evil and so on so those are fantastic sources also there's just a short video which I found really useful and helpful by Greg Salamieri who did a short video for STRIVE and the question posed to him was why did Ayn Rand say that Immanuel Kant was the most evil person in history and I thought Greg gave a really nice response to that without really delving into the answer to why is Kant the most evil person in history according to Ayn Rand but really a much broader discussion a very good broader discussion on evil on how to assess evil and then and then kind of talk about why Ayn Rand might have thought that but how you cannot know you as the listener you as the person who asked the question you cannot know that Kant is the evilest person in history without really getting a sense of really what Kant did to philosophy and something about his life and about his motivations and about you know without reading some Kant it's very hard or it's impossible for you to have a first-hand understanding of what Ayn Rand actually said so I'm not sure I have a first-hand understanding because I don't know enough about the history of philosophy and I don't know enough about Kant's philosophy and I don't know enough about his life what I know comes from Ayn Rand Ayn Rand primarily and from others not from directly engaging with with Kant partially because I'm not a philosopher and I hate reading that kind of stuff and I just can't I have a very low tolerance for I don't know deep philosophical texts that make no sense to me so I have very very low tolerance for that weaknesses I'm not arguing that all of you should do that but I can't so anyway so those are good sources Greg tell me it's a short video it's like 9 minutes I think and you can find it on my facebook page why brook but if you I think if you go to Strive's facebook page you go to the Strive website Strive the objective group the student group with Greg and one of those videos has to do with evil so here's the quote from the objective ethics which I think is at the core of this and which I think you can't understand any of these concepts without really understanding this quote the standard of value of the objective ethics the standard by which one judges what is good or evil is man's life so the standard by which one tells if something's good the good is that that supports life evil is that that harms it so that wasn't a me quoting so the standard by which one judges what is good or evil is man's life or that which is required for man's survival for man so that is what's required for man's survival for man so let's since reason is man's basic means of survival so reason is man's basic means of survival that which is proper to life to a rational being is the good so just not to any being because man is the rational animal reason is our basic means of survival it has to be to a rational being so that which is good so that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good that which negates it so that which negates the life of a rational being opposes or destroys it is the evil so negates opposes or destroys that which is proper to the life of a rational being is evil right is evil so obviously the destruction of life the destruction of life is evil the destruction of the mind if we are if human life depends on reason and something is destructive of the mind then that is obviously evil so anything that negates opposes or destroys life as a rational being is evil so that which is good for life of a rational being is good that which negates it is evil right so I've got a question here on the on the chat can you be evil and not know it well you can do evil things and not know it but you have to ask the question of you know do you really not know it and that depends partially on the evil things now let's let's take the flip side of that can you do evil things fully know it and fully know it in a sense that you can say to yourself I am evil I am here to destroy life to rational beings and that is my purpose and that is my function and this is what I am going to do Rand's answer to that is no you cannot know it not like that fully indeed James Taggart in Atlas Shrug does evil things and we'll talk about and to some extent he knows it so he is evil but when he fully recognizes the fact that he's doing evil things for the sake of doing evil things because he likes doing evil things because it makes him that peases whatever his psychology psychological need is in doing those evil things he goes crazy he goes mad and indeed Rand would say that to fully recognize one's own evil to fully recognize the one doing what one is doing is evil and to recognize that one has the psychological need that is being fulfilled through what is evil that is impossible because of the nature of the human mind that would that would make you go crazy and that's what James Taggart does if you remember the scene where John Galt is being tortured I hope I'm not giving away too much of the book so if you haven't read the book just close your ears for a few seconds he comes to realize that he is enjoying the torture enjoying Galt's suffering and that he wants Galt destroyed that he wants that he's always wanted he's always wanted Francisco and all of these people all the good guys that that's what he's wanted he's wanted their destruction and indeed what he wants he comes to realize is the destruction of life and of all value he can't hold that and boom he goes nuts right he goes crazy now two E knows it in the fountain if you read the fountain and I think I ran I think I'm right in saying that I ran view two E as as an impossible character in real life that nobody could have the full calculated self-awareness that else with two E has and he's way too in a sense efficacious to be a real life character he is a symbol so I think two E is indeed impossible right two E cannot exist but he is and there's no you know she's right in the fountain and she's developing her views about morality she's developing her views about evil and I think portraying as the full manifestation of what evil would look like helps her to develop what evil is and come to the realization that two E cannot exist right so I wonder if when she wrote two E she knew he couldn't exist my suspicion is that came later but that I could be I could be wrong you know by the time at the short comes around there is no character like two E indeed by the time at the short comes around it is clear that evil is impotent you see the impotence the ineffectuality the inability of evil to do anything really other than to destroy all around and to a large extent that's part of the theme of atlas shrug right because if the good requires if the good is the rational mind is man reasoning then evil is the irrational and the irrational by definition you can't do anything you know it's the irrational can't build because rational is a commitment to reality the irrational is a negation of reality how do you build a bridge if you're negating reality rationality is a commitment to logic how do you build how do you build anything fix the economy right if you're banded logic you have to torture John to try to get him to help you fix the economy because you can't because you know and this is what evil does right it knows that this guy is rational and therefore can do something right of course the whole conception of fixing the economy is wrong and this is part of the problem atlas shrug right of the villains atlas shrug but the whole idea is they can identify their own weakness their own patheticness their own impotence so if the good is the rational is living a rational life living a life consistent with reality where you use your mind then the essence of evil is the irrational it's the opposite it's the negation of the mind it's the negation of fact it's the negation of truth it's the negation of logic now so if else or two it can't exist then does that mean evil doesn't exist no because what she's talking about is not a full recognition of the fact that you are being irrational that you are doing something that's evil but the fact that you are evading recognizing it and therefore evading fixing it correcting it so evil is the awareness of you evil is not fully in front of you it is somewhere in the periphery she talks about this in evasion and she talks about evasion being the root of evil it's something in your periphery where you don't go there because you know at some level you know psychologically that you will have to question too much that it will be painful that that there's truth there and you don't want to know the truth for whatever psychological reason you don't want to know it and she talks about this in goat's speech he says thinking is man's only basic virtue from which all others proceed so again thinking is man's only basic virtue from which all others proceed and his basic vice the source of all his evils is that nameless act which all of you practice but struggle never to admit notice the struggle never to admit because admitting is what would destroy you psychologically struggle but struggle never to admit the act of blanking out the willful suspension of one's consciousness the refusal to think not blindness you can see but the refusal to see not ignorance but the refusal to know that's such beautifully it's so beautifully written it's so beautifully written the willful suspension of one's consciousness the refusal to think not blindness but the refusal to see not ignorance but the refusal to know it is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment usually judgment about yourself usually judgment about what you've done or what you're thinking or who you are that a thing will not exist if only you refused to identify it so this is now going she's going brilliantly to metaphysics she's saying that at the core this is an attempt to negate A is A at the core this is a metaphysical statement this evasion is your psychologically making a metaphysical judgment which is that A shall not be A on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refused to identify it that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict it is now that's beautiful writing whatever you think about the ideas that whole paragraph is magnificent it's magnificent it's logical but it's also just the writing it's just beautiful but this is the point to be an evil person one has to know what one is doing at some level one has to know that by advocating socialism you're willfully choosing not to examine Venezuela or to rationalize it away not to think about the Soviet Union or North Korea or Cuba but to somehow rationalize and you see the rationalization that people have oh that wasn't real socialism I got this into debate the other guy the guy's no that's not that's not real socialism so he knows and you can see he feels uncomfortable even when he says it he's not really arguing it there's a sudden unease and that unease is that he knows that he's evading he knows he's shutting out Venezuela and China and the Soviet Union and all these other examples of socialism's failure and that's shutting out that's the essence of immorality that's the essence of vice because vice is about not thinking and thinking requires facing reality thinking requires facts thinking requires a is a it requires identification of identity in everything one does but so the essence of non-thinking is pushing facts aside and not being willing to deal with them evil is immorality on a big scale evil is when it's a commitment not just not to think right now but it's a commitment to create destruction real harm dramatic and significant ways so Leonard in this lecture which again I strongly recommend he talks about bad versus immoral versus vicious versus wicked versus evil and I particularly found his identification of of wicked is interesting because wicked he says pertains the consciousness of the perpetrator how conscious is he of what he's doing he's not at the other two level of consciousness because that is so evil it is impossible to hold it is impossible to be that but when the spectrum of awareness is between somebody who recognizes and says oh my god what I just thought what I just did that's absolutely wrong let me figure out what I can do to fix it restitution oh my god what just happened to me I need to fix it right that's and then there's the guy who says you know I vaguely have a feeling what I did was wrong here and then goes on to something else versus the guy who says and again it's hard to imagine for yourself because good people don't do this but you know what's going on here is I can't know this is bad oh I'm not going to think about right so though I'm very much simplifying this and I'm not a psychologist I don't know how psychologically people hold this but people have various levels of commitment to the bad things that they are doing right so it's impossible to be entirely conscious of one's evil of one's you know immorality if you will put aside evil it's impossible to be completely conscious of one's immorality but it's possible to have a variety of different levels of knowledge about what one is doing it's also how much knowledge you have about what you're doing right so for example I mean what's his name Andre in We The Living Andre I mean imagine this in Ayn Rand's view Andre is morally innocent why because he is truly doing now whether this is in reality possible but he is truly believes that what he is doing is right and just and moral and he has never been introduced to an alternative moral theory he has no knowledge of what an alternative moral theory is so he doesn't have an awareness of the evil of what he does and when he gains that awareness because of how much destruction he has committed in the past he has to commit suicide so it's the same as as Taggart just Taggart comes to realize how evil he is Andre comes to realize the evil he has done even though he himself is not evil but given the evil he has done given the destruction he has done he cannot live with himself so neither Andre nor James Taggart can live with themselves once they realize once they come to full realization but James had plenty of opportunities evaded them constantly and is an immoral and to allegedly an evil character from the beginning to end Andre and we the living who is a communist if you remember and who clearly kills innocent people but is a committed communist that believes in communism and has no reason to doubt his belief until the end is a moral character who suddenly realizes what he has done by mistake by accident and as a consequence has to commit suicide because there is no way to redeem yourself once you realize what you have done but his is that he has done evil things by accident so evil has to do it has to be motivated by self-awareness there has to be an element of self-awareness in the evil so is Hitler fully aware of the evil he is doing well no not fully not in the sense that he goes my goal is to destroy destroy everything knock stuff down pull it down destroy it everybody everything everywhere no he rationalizes that away I am doing this for the good of the Aryan people some degree he believes that I am doing it for the Aryan people and there is a good here there is no accident that most of these guys even at their worst always have some utopia in the distant future that they are striving towards so the Aryan people they will all be harmonious this will be wonderful for them and this is necessary for that now he has to commit massive evasion he has to constantly pull back into the depth of his mind the evil that he is doing and why how corrupt and sick his psychology really is right he has to constantly do that pull it away from consciousness and he has to create a fantasy the Aryan race and he has to pretend that he can commune with the Aryan race to know what is good for them and all of that is an attempt to shield his own psychology from the knowledge about evil he really is and the thing about Hitler is is it so obvious that he is evil that is the evasion has to be massive he is slaughtering people by the millions he is engaging in massive warfare everybody is worse off of his existence so scale of destruction is massive everywhere around him everywhere around him there is no you can't you can't have that kind of scale and you know and claim it is an error now again whether you can be Andre I don't know but even Andre at some point has to come to the realization that everything he has done in the past was wrong and that he can't deal with it Hitler never comes to that realization I have never been inside Hitler's head but I assume not so the scale has to be the same with Christianity or religion Islam take Islam blowing yourself up killing people on a massive scale wanting to do even more damage killing only a few when you want to kill thousands or millions tens of millions of people you have to make that now your rationalization for all that is oh well there are 72 virgins and there is a god and he told me but the whole idea of god is an evil idea in this sense it's because it's negating it's an attack a direct attack on your own mind it's a negation of your mind it's a negation of reality of A as A so it's a direct it's a direct direct attack on your means of survival on your basic means of survival therefore the whole idea that idea is evil and then acting on it acting on it while evading what it really means by killing people by inflicting massive destruction which religion almost always does any religion when given political power does this is again unbelievably evil and you know build these rationalizations on top of one another massive rationalizations to avoid actually having to see it now the question is is it proper to integrate that very poor self esteem is a cornerstone of evil action yes I think so and you know I'm being a little hesitant here because again this is hard stuff and I'm not an expert I'm certainly not an expert but yes I can imagine somebody with and this is Andre right Andre has real self esteem and so he is always trying to figure out what he's doing and why he's doing it and that's why he discovers the evil of his actions even though he's not evil as a person you can have actions and the person might not be evil and therefore has to commit suicide because he's got self esteem so he's active constantly active I don't think you can have self esteem and not discover when you're doing and continuously evade I think those opposite those clash so in order to gain self esteem you have to be focused on reality you have to be committed to reason to some extent or another and you have to be willing to challenge your beliefs and none of that is a characteristic really evil people so they have no self esteem they have no self esteem and again they are being driven usually by some psychological need a want of desire which is completely irrational the desire to destroy and where that comes from we'll put aside we're not going to get into that but they have a desire to destroy they have a desire to see suffering they have a desire you know for bad for these bad outcomes and they act on that desire now some people have that desire and don't act on it and by the way this issue of self esteem with evil is interesting because a popular culture almost always almost always portrays evil people having high self esteem so if you think about the villains in movies and the heroes in movies the heroes are usually timid unsure have no confidence with the opposite sex they're not robust they don't have self esteem and on the other hand the villains always they walk into a room and everybody turns they admire them there was a wonderful movie that I think illustrated this awful movie that illustrated this called Heat by the director called Man and in Heat it was Robert De Niro and oh my god I can't believe I can see his face the other actor Al Pacino thank you and one of them plays the cop and the cop is divorced and he's miserable he's a good cop he's fighting for truth and justice and he's got he's not that confident and just down and everything and then on the flip side the bad guy he's got the girls he's confident, he's got plans he plans along term, he's rational he's doing all the stuff and that's typical that's typical where the reality is should be the flip side now unfortunately a lot of good guys don't have self esteem because they don't know they don't know how to integrate they don't know how to take that goodness and be proud of it if you denounce pride as Christianity does a lot of morality does then you basically denounce you make it impossible for people to have real self esteem you have to be able to commit yourself to morality to be good and to recognize your own goodness in order to have proper self esteem and most good people don't do that and therefore they never get the benefits of self esteem because they won't recognize themselves as good they undercut it constantly anyway so that was the beginning of discussion at evil now we still got the question on the table is evil impotent well I kind of said it is because it's irrational and it has to be impotent then why does it succeed so well why does it succeed so well just because somebody asked would you say Donald Trump is delicate self esteem delicate he has a very low self esteem Donald Trump is a very low self esteem I would never call it delicate you can tell that by the response from people who criticize him and he gets all emotional and he lashes out somebody with real self esteem doesn't care enough about the people attacking him to get upset by their attacks his attitude is I know I'm good if you're criticizing me there are only two options one is that you're right and then I should thank you because I made a mistake and two that you're wrong and then why do I care you would never get all upset you can see whether somebody has high or low self esteem by the thickness of this skin people with thin skins typically have very low self esteems okay I'm out of town so next time we will pick up where we left off and we will ask the question we will ask the question of if evil is impotent why is it still successful alright so you're going to hold me to that to that that I won't get distracted by other stuff that I would actually cover this topic so why is evil so successful if it is impotent alright talk to you next week