 We have the pleasure of having with us today the chairman of the Ann Wren Institute and someone I've been following for a long time, a big intellectual influence of mine, Dr. Yaron Brooke. I even got the accent right. Well, you got the pronunciation just right. Just right. I know that's rare. There's a lot of your runs. Yaron's a lot of that stuff. I've seen you out there. So you have to tolerate. Okay, I want to start. And I know you start a lot of appearances this way for people who might not be familiar with Ann Wren's work and her ideas and the philosophies of Objectivism. We have a lot to cover and a lot of topics that I want to get to. But if you could summarize for all of us, just in a few word sentences, the basic ideas and premises of Ann Wren and her philosophy as someone who's been prolific in sharing her ideas in the modern world. Sure. I mean, Ann Wren is probably most well known for being a advocate for capitalism. She believed in in real capitalism, laissez-faire capitalism, a separation of state from economics. So the state has no involvement in the economy. She based this really on her view of ethics, which says that the purpose of life is to use your mind, your reason in pursuit of your values. The ultimate goal of is your happiness. So she was an egoist in ethics and believed that the only social system appropriate for people pursuing their own values is freedom, which is capitalism, a system that protects individual rights. And then, you know, she really based all of this on her idea that we are a rational animal, that the means by which we know the world is by using our reason. The world is what it is. It's independent of our consciousness. But our consciousness through reason makes it possible for us to understand the world and reshape it based on our abilities to take the atoms out there and produce new stuff. And again, for all of that, you need capitalism. You need freedom. Right. Right. So it sounds like on the economic side of things, there's a lot of agreement to be had amongst these freedom circles within politics. There's a lot of agreement about the laissez-faire elements of things. But where Objectivism and Anne Rand's philosophy sort of veers off, especially from other groups in the freedom movement, just speaking loosely, libertarians and other things. There's a sort of reputation that Objectivism doesn't quite play well with others because of this sort of naivety when it comes to foreign policy, when it comes to the non-aggression principle being taken to such an extreme that any form of government, any form of force, must be removed from society, purely volunteer society, that whole area which I've seen you butt heads with with a lot of prominent libertarian thinkers and figures. So I'm curious where it veers off from the libertarian strain that tends to be very isolationist, very against getting involved in any war of any kind that's considered wrong just because. Where are those distinct differences? Well, there are a number of different places. First, we don't advocate for a non-aggression principle, axiom, starting point. Non-aggression is a consequence of a whole chain of reasoning and a whole philosophy which libertarians don't have. So they take Anne Rand's non-aggression and they make it into their starting point and they ignore everything that comes before that. But if you understand her philosophy, the essential element in her philosophy is focused on the individual's ability to prosper and be successful and again, use his own mind in pursuit of his own values. And so defense of rights and as a consequence, she believes that government is a necessary good, not a necessary evil or not, and she's not an anarchist, which is of course where we really butt heads with the libertarian anarchists who I think these days seem to be a majority among libertarians. And then what happens is that as objectivists, we can look at different countries, we can look at different situations in the world and see certain movements, certain countries are generally, broadly pro-individual rights. They lead to human flourishing, not as much as we would want, not as good as we would like them to be, but they're generally positive. And there are other countries that are clearly negative, horrible, destructive of individual rights and destructive of the ability of individuals to live their own lives and we describe those as evil regimes, as negative regimes. Libertarians typically don't make those judgments, you know, whatever people want they get. And since Anarchy is the standard for them, all governments are bad and there's no difference between, let's say the United States and Saudi Arabia and Russia and China. I mean, they're all just, I don't know, they're all just states and states are all bad and therefore we can't differentiate. So that's one big difference. The other is that because we don't reject the state, per se, we believe that states have a duty or responsibility to their citizens to protect them. So wars of self-defense are necessary just like individuals have a right to defend themselves. We basically have governments partially to be able to provide us with that self-defense against other governments or against terrorist organizations or other foreign entities that might want to do harm to us. And therefore it's completely legitimate to go to war if the war is a self-defense war, if a war is a war aimed at protecting the rights of your own citizens. So a quick technical question on that because I've heard you describe this idea that there is no collective brain, there is no group think, there is no common good. We are made up of individuals. So how do you square that idea with the idea of governments that act collectively on behalf of a nation to engage in force, even if it's necessary and justified to engage in war or fighting? So I'm just, how do we square those two ideas? Well first, you know, the government is there to protect individual rights. So it's to protect the rights of individuals to pursue their life. But the reality is that there are occasions when people threaten that life. We have a police force in order to deal with that and we have processes and procedures in terms of identifying criminals, putting them up to trial and so on in order for the government to use retaliatory force against those criminals. And we have a whole process to do that to try to make sure that they don't go after innocent people, they don't go after bad people, don't deserve it, and that the whole orientation is the protection of the individual rights of the innocent. But it stems, it's rooted in one's individual right to self-defense and we extrapolate upon that. Therefore the collective government representing that individual has the right to the retaliatory use of force because an individual can defend themselves. The problem is, once we get into entanglements in nation-states fighting, there's a lot of collateral damage, there's a lot of things like when I defend myself against someone breaking into my house, I'm defending myself against that person directly. And we are the parties involved. Once the nation-states begin going to war, it implicates a lot of other things which I want to get into. Sure, but the point is that if your kid is kidnapped, the job of the government is to go and find him, right? And there might even be collateral damage in a situation like that. Imagine a kidnapping situation where your kid is kidnapped, but there are a bunch of other innocent hostages in trying to free your kid, the government might kill some innocents. And whose fault is that? It's the fault of the kidnappers. From a moral perspective, from a practical perspective, it is the fault of the kidnappers, not the fault of those trying to do the right thing, trying to protect individual rights by freeing the hostages. So take the situation between nation-states or even worse, terrorists. When 9-11 happened, my life was in danger, right? They were coming after me, you, anybody in the United States. It just happened to be those 3,000 people who died, but it could have been us. So it's completely legitimate for us to say to our government, look, there's a threat, identify it and destroy it. But now granted, we do not have, in my view, the right procedures, the right processes that we use internally, we don't apply those as rigorously to international affairs. For example, historically, it's only Congress that's allowed to declare war. We now have presidents who can declare war on anybody at any time, pretty much. We shouldn't have a police state that listens into our phone conversations and records them or inventories them, and yet we do in the national security. So look, the government today is far from ideal, but in principle, it has a responsibility as a representative to use force in order to defend us, not to use force in any other context, but to use force in order to defend our rights. And, you know, it's nice that we have a voluntary army, it's great that we have a voluntary army, it's not a conscripted army, so those are not being sent there by force. And, you know, we just need the right processes in the government, maybe go back to the kind of processes the founders imagined, or maybe come up with new ones, given that we know a lot more today than we did back then about what could go wrong. But yeah, it's part of the job of the government to protect its citizens. This isn't a manifestation of that. And one more sort of macro question. Everyone would understand that in that context, like if Mexico or Canada hypothetically attacked us, or any country directly attacked the mainland United States, or even bases of the United States around the world, that would require the United States to respond. How does it work when it comes to allies of the United States? For example, with Israel, where, you know, we're seeing a lot of this debate, this academic discussion about how America should support other countries, and to what extent, whether it's troops, aid packages, and that kind of thing, to what extent is it still self-defense when supporting other countries that are fighting comparable enemies? So it depends on a variety of parameters. For example, who is the enemy? Is the enemy also an enemy of the U.S.? Is the destruction of the enemy in America's interest, in the interest of American individuals? That is, does that enemy pose a threat to American individuals? If it does, then it makes sense to support an effort, whether you send troops or not would depend on how imminent the threat to America is. For example, Israel has never requested American troops and they're not necessary. Whether one wants to, you know, use money or just sell weapons depends on the context of the country, and depends on the context of the existing government. I mean, we have a government today that spends what, $4 trillion on BS, you know, 75% of it is complete BS, to send a fraction of that to an ally fighting a war that helps our interests. You know, maybe in a capitalist country where the government would spend, you know, 80% less than what it spends today, then it would make sense, and we wouldn't be giving aid packages. But today it's a blimp with regard to the amount of money being spent. It's insignificant. There's so many other things that are less worthy than sending money to Ukraine or to Israel that complaining about that is absurd given all the stuff they allocate. What, they just approve $1.2 billion a bite and just signed, Republicans voted for it in the House and the Senate of basically taking our money and burning it or handing it over to many people who don't deserve to have it, subsidizing stuff. Just, you know, and this is just like a quarter of the total budget. It's not even, it's not even, that's $1.2 trillion in what people are complaining about. So in the priorities of things to start cutting, you know, the truth is, in Israel's defense, I think Israeli and American troops would not blend well together. Probably not. The patient's temperament would be really messed up. Have you ever seen Israelis play basketball? It's like one, every, each one is playing a one on one. It's kind of crazy. And then, you know, in Israel. No, no, no, no, no. Come, come, come, come on. Israel doesn't want troops. And the other aspect of this is, you know, granted, Israel probably doesn't need the money. That is, Israel is in a position to be able to probably buy the weapons itself. It doesn't, it's a relatively rich country. I hate when America gives Israel money for nothing, the economic aid or whatever. Israel doesn't need it, it's a developed country. It shouldn't accept it and America shouldn't offer it. But think about even this, right? Yeah. The United States gives money to 120 different countries in the world. 120. Most of those countries, an overwhelming majority of those countries are hostile to the United States. So the United States gives money to countries hostile to the United States. So when it gives money to a country that's actually friendly to the United States, then we complain. Which countries would you say, for example, Qatar? Like which countries are you speaking of? Well, Qatar is a massive example. Qatar is funding, is a fund of ISIS. It was a fund of ISIS, still probably is a fund of ISIS. The Russians should probably go after Qatar now. You know, the Russian tourist attack just happened right this weekend. You know, we fund Egypt about the same amount of money we give to. I mean, Egypt's not hostile to the United States, but it's not exactly our best friend. It's not exactly what you would call it, liberal democracy. Not at all. It's an authoritarian state. We fund dozens of countries of Africa all over Asia. We throw money around all over the place. But the only country that it seems that people kind of object to giving money to is Israel. Now, I'm against giving it to Israel, but I'm also against giving it to all the other 120 countries as well. And again, it's a blimp in the bigger picture. Well, there seems to be a resentment. There was a resentment in the West that seems to prosperous countries helping prosperous countries. It's only when there's this asymmetric thing going on that seems to morally jive with. Well, of course, that's Christian morality. You know, Christian morality, you help the poor, the poor virtuous, the poor good, so you help them. And if you support in any way, even just morally support or sell weapons to the strong, the able, then that's a violation of your morality because they are almost my necessity, the bad guys. So that Christian morality is being secularized by the woke left. And intersectionality in that sense is just a secularization of these ideas. And so today, Israel is evil because it's strong and rich and successful. And the Palestinians are good because they're weak and poor. And weakness and poverty give you a leg up on, you know, it means you're oppressed, right? It couldn't be your fault that you're poor. So it must be because you're oppressed. And if you're oppressed, you're virtuous. And if you're rich, you must be an oppressor. It couldn't have been that you created the wealth yourself. And therefore you must be a bad guy. So tying into that, shifting onto Israel, Gaza, the current war and, you know, without getting into the whole history of it, I'm curious what your position is, how this morality, this morality of altruism, what people like to put forth about what the IDF is doing as virtuous, the fact that it is compassionate, the fact that it drops leaflets, that it makes priorities of protecting civilian life, not just on its side, but also on the Palestinian side. I happen to have seen your take on it, and I think for our audience, it's interesting to kind of go there because I've spent a lot of time on the pro-Israel side of these things, making these cases about Israel. But at the same time, now that we're kind of both in similar positions on defending the IDF as just, to what extent do you think it doing what it does is morally courageous versus morally weak? I think it's clearly morally weak and existentially weak. That is, it's morally weak because it's not the IDF's responsibility to protect the civilians of Gaza. It's Hamas's responsibility. Hamas is the official recognized government of Gaza. Its responsibility is to protect the individual rights of its civilians, and it's doing the exact opposite. And it's practically weak because the reality of it is that it puts Israeli soldiers at risk. It has created whatever casualties Israel has taken in Gaza, which are amazingly low, given the kind of combat they're engaged in, but still significant. But it places those soldiers at much greater risk. It prolongs the war. It makes the war much longer, which by the way prolongs the suffering of Gazans. I wonder if Israel had been unequivocally ruthless in the first few days after October 7th. And if the war wouldn't be over by now and hostages back home or dead and the leadership Hamas dead and it be over. And maybe the same number of Palestinians overall, in terms of civilians, would have been killed. It's not clear to me that you actually save lives, right? If Hiroshima and Nagasaki don't happen, probably more Japanese civilians die, not less, right? So sometimes being ruthless in the short run actually saves the enemy civilian lives in the long run. America's weakness in Iraq, a war they should have gone into to begin with, but once they were there, they should have at least won. America's weakness in Iraq, in terms of just this issue, actually I think caused hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties because it allowed the insurgents to rise up. The insurgents mainly killed other Iraqis. They killed each other. They killed less Americans. But if you'd really taught them a lesson, if you'd really crushed them right in the beginning, they would have never been an insurgency and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis would have been saved, even though initially more would have died. Let's just take all that in for someone who's a little bit less familiar. Michael's a Marxist, by the way. I've had him here the whole time, ready to chance, I'll just get it. The Fountain has my favorite book, actually, but I'm not as familiar with it. I know quite a few Marxists who love the Fountain. They misunderstand it, but they love it. It's quite a radical take. It sounds radical to me. It definitely is more on the radical take. I'm also curious, it sounds like the moral standard once you're at war is victory and swiftness. Like be quick, be ruthless, be swift, and end the war. Absolutely. The question is, put your people at the least risk possible. That is, that's what I think a proper foreign policy and egoistic to use a phrase abused today to no end. An America first attitude is, or an Israeli first attitude, is you place your own people at minimal risk and you destroy the enemy and you win as quickly as possible. And look, I wrote a whole essay on this. People can find it. It's called Just War Theory vs. America. It's online. Just War Theory is a theory that was developed over many centuries by Christian theologians, primarily Augustine and then Thomas Aquinas, and then was secularized in the post-World War II by a number of secular philosophers and it's become the standard guide for America's wars. And as a consequence, you can see directly, America's not won a war since World War II. It didn't win Korea, didn't win Vietnam, it really didn't win Iraq, it really didn't win Afghanistan. It can't win a war because it doesn't know how to fight a war. The idea, look, a war is the most barbaric thing human beings can do to one another. It's the most barbaric activity people engage in. And to suddenly say, I don't know, we're going to impose rules on the barbarism. Only helps the bad guys. It only helps the true barbarians. It only helps the people who start the war to begin with. It doesn't help you win and it doesn't help you stop and it doesn't help you in the long run. So getting into the weeds of it, are there then limits to the retaliation? In terms of, I don't mean proportionality in the way that MSNBC uses it. I mean in the sense that if a proper response is to win strategically and never compromise your strategic advantage because you put your own citizens and civilians at risk and that is immoral to do. And by the way, you put at risk future peace. You put at risk true victory, which is peace in the end. You know, there's no accident the Japanese don't hate America. They don't. If you go to Japan, they're very friendly to Americans. It's not an accident Germans don't hate America and England. They don't like speaking English from what I hear. They don't like speaking English, but that's the definition. No, I know. But you know, Britain flattened Dresden, right? They killed hundreds of thousands of people and the Germans don't resent them for that. There's a reason for that because they won. And it forced the Germans to change their attitude and actually establish peace for the longest period in Europe, maybe ever. Does that go to say that, does it make the case that all war inherently is ideological and not necessarily, or at least in the cases of Europe, Nazi Germany, imperialist Japan, radical Islamic terrorism today and is underlying all of this really not geography, but ideology? Yeah. Usually in the modern world, at least in the post enlightenment world, I think the probably post Westphalian world of nation states, most wars are either ideological or wars of defining boundaries, right? Defining boundaries. But like, I don't know, the Balkan Wars of the 1990s were splitting off and Balkanization creating your own little state and fighting off. But yeah, I think at the end of the day, even that is driven by ideology and ideology of ethnic ethnicity. You know, my ethnicity is unique, the ideology of nationalism. Yeah, all wars at the end of the day, all modern wars in the West at least, ideological wars. And to your point, I mean, I hear this argument a lot like with the collateral damage that we're seeing in Gaza. Don't you create more terrorists, more resentment to the West, more resentment to Israel? But then if you look at examples of Nazi Germany and imperialist Japan, that wasn't the case. Now, I don't know in what sense that that's transferable between those societies of those in the 40s and 50s to what we're dealing with now. Do you see it as the same in that populations will eventually turn on their regimes that oppress them by seeing the wrath and the ruthlessness of the armies that defend themselves? I do. I don't see any reason why it doesn't apply. You need to bring them to their knees. You need to bring them to the conclusion. And I know bringing them to their knees is tough, but you need to bring them to the conclusion that they're embracing a violence, self-defeating. They're embracing a violence will only bring violence upon them and with their suffering and suffering to themselves and to their children, their families and to everything that they value. And at the end of the day, the only way they can escape this violence is by reconstituting the ideology that drives their society. It requires a cultural change. The only way is through some kind of shock therapy. It doesn't happen without it. You know, it's very, very rare that you see peace negotiated that lasts. Almost all peace that lasts is a result of victory, not of negotiation. I mean, there are lots of negotiations for peace all over the world. And how long does it last? Nothing else. Israel has won many wars and still finds itself with its hands tied together. Because it's never defeated the enemy completely, right? It never has. By the way, it's always been stopped. And there's no question that Israel, defeating the Egyptians, thoroughly as they did, and coming so close to really wiping them out in 1973, led Sadat, you know, he had his best shot. That was his best shot ever to beat Israel. And it's still won. And that's what brought him to the negotiating table. That's what established peace between Israel and Egypt. If Israel had never crossed the Suez Canal, I don't know how many of you listeners know about the Yom Kippur War. Well, with Helen Miran and everything, she kind of brought it to light a little bit. There you go now. That's right. The movie. But if the Egyptians crossed the Suez Canal, they were on the Israeli side of the Sinai. They had, you know, that a clear path north, if there had been some kind of ceasefire and where the Israelis were backed up and the Egyptians were on that side of the Sinai, and Israel never crosses the Suez Canal, there would not be peace. Sadat would have said, I won this time. I'll try again next time. Maybe I'll win a little bit more territory. The fact that Israel beat them back and almost destroyed the entire Third Army, I mean, really completely destroyed them, is what led to peace. Yeah, the thing that stands out to me is the word army. As you said, they almost destroyed the army. I can see the comment sections coming in on these episodes, and I'm sure you're no stranger to it. These accusations, the slander of Israel being this genocidal regime that is intentionally targeting Palestinians simply because of their ethnicity. Obviously, you don't have to convince me that they're false charges, but the idea is when you say words like, wipe them out or destroy them completely, I guess I'm curious what the limits of retaliation are in terms of strategic advantage. Once you have clear victory, past that point, if you continue, are we now subjecting Israel to sort of a moral judgment of, you know, if civilians die as a result that aren't strategically advantageous or collateral damage to you fighting an enemy, now you've crossed a certain line. Sure. I mean, the only violence that's legitimate is the violence absolutely necessary for victory. Once the victory has been achieved, violence should end, should stop. And if, you know, gratuitous violence is always immoral and wrong, forms of violence, massacring civilians just for the sake of massacring, obviously is wrong. You know, the whole idea is, what is the, you know, coming up with a strategy to defeat your enemy? And that should be the focus. The focus should be how to win this war as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. You know, thoroughly, I mean, with as few casualties on your own side, but that does not involve gratuitous violence. And as I said before, I actually think it involves less casualties on the other side than kind of a prolonged war that keeps them going and they keep popping up of tunnels and they're going into hospitals and then you have to go in again and civilians get caught in the crossfire again. And it's just this endless battles that never, you know, that keep inflicting pain on civilian population. That to me is much more damaging than get it over with, do it and win and come home in a sense. Interesting. Any questions there, Michael, that are hitting you? I'm trying to process all that. Well, I mean, I guess my question that pops my mind is it's easy to say that from where we're sitting. When you see pictures come out of Gaza and you just feel intuitively like this is awful. How do you sort of square that in that moment between what you know and what you're feeling? That's someone who regards human life as the high standard. It's absolutely awful. It's horrible. It's particularly children. It's very, very depressing and the blame is 100%, not 99.9, 100% on Hamas. So imagine if Hamas went into somewhere and just slaughtered a bunch of people as they did on October 7th. I mean, it's horrible and it's Hamas' fault. Every single kid that dies in Gaza, it doesn't matter whose bullet it is, it's Hamas' fault. So I find it horrible. I find it depressing. It's sad just like any massacre committed, any killing committed by the bad guys, but it's the bad guys. And the only way to stop it, and if you understand the only way to stop it, not just tomorrow, but the only way to stop it for the next 20 years is to throw a lead stroke. Hamas, if you don't, that's fine. Then you'll just have to fight this again in five years and 10 years and 15 years and 20 years. You know, the nice thing about this is I have a record here, right? When Oslo was signed, I said, you know, with Yasser Arafat, I said, this is going to lead to more bloodshed, not to more peace. It did. Every time Israel negotiated with the PLO, a terrorist organization, more violence occurred. Every time they got tough with the PLO, violence declined. And when they ultimately compromised almost everything and gave the PLO almost everything they wanted, in return, they got a second intifada, which I don't know if you guys, you guys are too young to remember this, but this is a period of years where buses would explode. We were 15, 16. Yeah, we were. I couldn't go to Israel for the summer, and it was a bummer. I remember. It was, it was, we were teenagers, but yes, of course. It was horrific. Windows and pizza shops. But that's what happens when you negotiate with evil people. It always does. So at some point, and then, of course, Hamas takes over Gaza in 2007. And since then, how many kind of wars, skirmishes have they been almost every year? There's something going on. You know, we can continue that and have an October 7th every few years, or maybe build better walls and it won't be an October 7th, but there's fire missiles over the border. You know, the problem with Israel is that it has a high tolerance for its own casualties and it has a high tolerance for being the victim. And, but this war in Gaza right now should have been done in 2008. And it would have been easier in 2008. You use the term Hamas took over in 2007. Do you differentiate between governments that don't get voted in democratically and it's the citizens responsibility to it and vice versa and governments that do? Well, it's rare you're ever going to go to war with a government that was elected. I mean, that's a reality. Governments who elected don't typically initiate force. You know, unless you count the Russian election as an election, which I don't. There are cultures that necessarily don't have democratic or, I would say, you know, liberty minded values, tolerant values. But, you know, the idea of, I mean, you've famously talked about you're not into democracy. This idea of majority rule doesn't necessarily mean virtuous just because a bunch of people picked it. No, but I think giving people a say in their own governance is a virtue, is a good thing. You know, democracy, i.e., straight up majority rule about everything is bad. But there's nothing wrong with a vote, you know, on specific issues and who should govern. Look, at the end of the day, take, for example, Hamas, Hamas won an election. Then, of course, nobody wanted to recognize that election because who the hell would want Hamas? So there was a civil war between the Hamas and the PLO. The Hamas won it by the way. They won it by slaughtering and butchering everybody who was affiliated with the PLO, right? I mean, this is not, these are not nice guys. Fata and PLO are synonymous. I presume Fata and Gaza of PLO. Fata, Palestinian Authority are all basically a PLO. But okay, call them, call them Palestinian Authority to be nice to them. But, you know, they are off-shoot basically or development of the PLO. Mahmoud Abbas, who's the president of the Palestinian Authority, was our Fats number two at the PLO. So it's, you know, it's not a reach. But look, the population of Gaza in every survey done before October 7th supports Hamas. The population of Gaza after October 7th supported what Hamas did during October 7th. The population of Gaza has not risen up against Hamas. Now you could argue it's difficult, maybe, maybe not, but they haven't. The population of Gaza bears at least some of the responsibility without any question for what Hamas does. And if you look at the videos of October 7th, those weren't exactly Hamas-trained fighters doing all the raping and pillaging and murdering. A lot of them were just regular people from Gaza who the Hamas guy said, hey, join us. Let's go, let's go rape and pillage a little bit. And when they called their families and told them how wonderful it was to kill Jews, I didn't hear the family, the mother say, that's really bad. Come home. You really should be punished for this. No, they were celebrating this. That's what Douglas Murray said. Douglas Murray said they were absolutely elated when they did that. Yes, well, Douglas Murray has a way with words that I do not. He's great. I love him. So you can't say, oh, the Palestinian civilian population has no blame in this. Every blame in this. Now again, children are innocent. So one's heart aches for the lives of children. But this is all in Hamas and innocence on their parents for allowing Hamas to do what they did. Adults in Gaza are responsible for what they do. And they have done mostly what they've done is support Hamas and those who oppose Hamas, those who would like to see a liberty-minded Gaza strip. I think welcome Israel's attacks and welcome the possibility that maybe after Israel's victory, more liberty-minded people might come to govern Gaza. Yeah. One thing that was circulating post October 7th in the conversations around Israel was that we used to discuss on several episodes was one thing seems pretty clear that everyone can agree upon left and right of Israel is that status quo for a long time. I think the sort of Netanyahu sort of ideas like we can just like as you said, keep this the way it is and tolerate a few rockets here and there. They would tolerate that status quo while the sort of anti-occupation left-wing movements of Israel and abroad would say we cannot continue this way. Something has to change. My question to you is in what sense going forward is there an ultimate solution for Israel to be fully secure and that plays into the question of tying into the question of one state solution, two state solution. To what extent is the West Bank and Gaza should it be part of Israel proper? What do you do about trying this idea of having a Jewish nation state and to what extent does that square with objectivism as far as nation states based around a character, a Jewish majority? All those kind of questions because the idea of just leaving this as is leads to more bloodshed. A lot of questions you're asking there. We can take the Jewish state later. So first, there is no solution in the short run. The notion of a two state solution is bizarre, right? In a sense, there was two states. Gaza was a state. It was a state. Israel did not occupy Gaza. This idea that Gaza was under occupation. Of course, there were some limitations on what kind of products could go into Gaza. It's a state of war with Israel. And in spite of that, Israel supplied Gaza with electricity, with water, with food, with all kinds of stuff that no other state in human history has supplied its enemy. It's never happened. Gaza didn't spend the billions and billions of dollars they got from the Arab world to build their own water wells and their own desalination plants and their own electricity. None of that was used. It was used to build tunnels and to buy weapons. So we had a two state solution and it failed. There is no possibility to have a two state solution to have a solution with people who want to kill you and have a border with you and give them their own state and then they can launch rockets. And if you do that on the West Bank, then the rockets are two minutes from Tel Aviv instead of 10 minutes from Tel Aviv, right? I mean, people don't understand the issue of the distances, but the distances. I mean, at the thinnest point, the green line, right, which is the 1967 border and the Mediterranean Sea is like what, a five to 10 minute drive at the narrowest portion. Really, I mean, imagine October 7th coming in from the West Bank into some of those settlements or into, you know, neighborhoods of Tel Aviv. So there is no two state solution anytime soon. I don't care, you know, in 20 years, sure. But what has to happen between now and 20 years is there has to be a fundamental deep change in Palestinian culture. That is, they have to stop teaching their kids that suicide bombers are heroes, that killing Jews is a good thing, that driving the Jews into the sea or sending them back to Europe or whatever is the solution. And by the way, this is a majority of the Palestinians believe that there's only one state solution. It's an out of state and Jews should be eradicated, eliminated or thrown out. That's what they believe a significant majority of them, poll after poll shows this. Palestinians still, you know, hold on to a culture barbarism, a culture that is barbaric. It's not a culture of liberty. It's not a culture of freedom. It's not a culture of individualism. It's not a culture that respects human life or respects individual life. It doesn't respect their own people's lives. It doesn't respect their own individualism. You know, you don't want to be in the West Bank and disagree with Hamas or the Palestinian authorities. There is no freedom of speech in the West Bank, in this Palestinian state. So that has to change. You know, the whole population needs to change culturally. Whether that's possible or not is a real question. I think it's possible all human beings have the capacity to adopt pro-liberty positions. And I'm not talking here about pro-liberty, i.e. objectivist. I'm just talking about basic, I used liberal democracy before. You know, basic, you know, European, American, fundamental values, watered down as much as they are, you know, from the founding or from the values I uphold. Palestinians need to adopt those, and they never have, right? They've had lots of opportunities for two-state solutions. They constantly reject them, and they reject them because what would they do with the state? And the state would be an authoritarian state that was horrible to its own citizens and would be committed to destroying Israel. So if the Palestinians achieve an acceptance of the existence of state of Israel, if the Palestinians are dedicated to a relatively free state, if they are committed to changing their textbooks and getting rid of all the stuff about Shahids and suicide bombers and the virtues of killing Jews, then sure, two-state solution would be amazing. Of course, once they become fully kind of pro-free, pro-liberty, then a one-state solution is fine as well, from my perspective. So yeah, on that front, even you're saying population, majority, Jewish majority, Jewish minority aside, that doesn't concern you the case that is often made about the existence of Israel as a secure Jewish state that does protect the minorities within it, but still maintains a Jewish majority for the sake of protection of Jews worldwide. Does that not concern you? No, I think Israel is unique, and I get into trouble all the time about this. I think Israel is unique because anti-Semitism is unique. That is, anti-Semitism seems to be around always. It seems to be everywhere. It seems to be prevalent. It doesn't matter if those of us born Jews try to assimilate completely or not. They come after us. They hate us, and they want to kill us. If Jews could assimilate, I'd be for assimilation. But the reality is that as Hertzl discovered during the Dreyfus trial, the Jews can't assimilate. That is, even in America, look at what's happening right now with the anti-Semitism rising up. And of course, anti-Semitism existed even back then because that's why people don't know this, before World War II, as Jews were escaping the Nazis, America wouldn't let them in. After World War II, there were hundreds of thousands of survivors of the concentration camps, and America wouldn't let them in. They wanted to come to America, and literally they voted out in Congress. Truman wanted them in. Congress voted not to allow Jews in. So you could argue anti-Semitism is everywhere, even in the face of the Holocaust, anti-Semitism is everywhere. There needs to be a place on the planet where Jews can go to no matter what. So the right of Aliyah, the right of emigration into Israel by Jews should be sustained, no matter what one-state, two-state solution is adopted. And that needs to be secured and guaranteed in a constitution. But if you do that, once that's done, and once that's protected, and we're convinced that it won't be changed ever, then I don't give it a one-state or two-state solution. Do you get in trouble in objectivist circles for saying that? Or do you get in trouble in other circles for saying that? Like where does the pushback come from? Because it seems like it's the objectivist exception because anti-Semitism is such a unique hatred, such a unique evil that while obviously nation states, I mean America people take for granted, it's unique, it's the melting pot of doesn't have a central character, doesn't have a central identity other than immigrants from around the world that make it. It does have a central character and identity. I mean that's what it makes America. America is central character and central identity. Not based on an ethnicity or anything. No, but it's the funny fathers. It's an idea. America is a unique country and it was founded on an idea and that makes it, I think, the greatest country ever. I agree with you. But as that doesn't apply necessarily to these other countries around the world that all have common more, you know, based around central identities or ethnicities or religions. I'm just curious how this squares with, yeah, where do you get pushback from? You said you get in trouble for that. I get pushback from the so-called libertarians, right? So the other freedom people and, you know, and some people who think of themselves as objectivist. But look, you know, the ethnic character of Israel is unfortunate and in an ideal world it wouldn't, I would be against it. But we don't live in an ideal world and one of the things we have to recognize is that we don't and you have to, you don't say, okay, I don't live in an ideal world but I'm going to live out my ideals even if it means I'm killed, right? So I'm a Jew. I'm going to sacrifice myself for the sake of some ideal world. That would be bizarre. Jews need to do what's necessary in order to stay alive and if that requires a state and I think it does, then they need a state. And as long as that state is free, as long as that state treats all its citizens equally and it can have all kinds of different immigration policies. I prefer more open than closed but it should have clearly that for Jews the border is open. I mean, there happens to be a fair amount of Israelis at the Enron Institute. I mean, it's, yeah, I don't know. There's you, Elon, there's a bunch of people. Yeah, a lot. They always have been. Right. That's interesting. Tell the CEO of the Institute right now is an Israeli. Yeah. What's the reason there? Is that just a coincidence? It's the same coincidence with regard to the number of Jews among the intellectual leadership of objectivism, right? Ayn Rand comes from a Jewish origin. Leonard Peacoff comes from a Jewish origin. Harry Benzwanger, Peter Schwartz, almost everybody, at least in the founding generation, not everybody, but a big chunk of them. I mean, Ayn Rand did not marry a Jewish man, but pretty much everybody else. With Jewish, I think it has to do with a particularly Jewish culture that is open to ideas and open to arguments and open to disputation. I think it has to do with the fact that every intellectual movement out there in the world, even the bad ones are led by Jews. It's true. I mean, the worst leftists are Jews. Noam Chomsky comes to mind. The worst rightists tend to be Jews. I know, you know, Jew hating Jews on the right. So they always have been. And environmentalists, every movement out there that is intellectual by its nature, you know, the neo-conservatives were led by Jews. It's because Jews disproportionately tend to be oriented towards intellectual fields and be interested in these things for cultural reasons, which are interesting. I want to get into all that. As far as, in terms of Ayn Rand having known her and her ideas really closely, to what extent was her Jewish identity that relevant to her? It wasn't. It's about as relevant as mine is to me. Maybe for her, maybe for it was less because she didn't grow up in Israel. So for me, it is. But look, she grew up in a middle-class Jewish family before the revolution in Russia and then experienced the revolution in Russia and managed to escape in the 1920s. She said she didn't consider herself Jewish except in the face of anti-Semitism. And to a large extent, I think of myself that way as well. I don't consider myself Jewish except in the face of anti-Semitism or the anti-Israeli or whatever we want to, you know, the combination. I consider myself an American. I, you know, I'm born, raised in Israel. And I care about Israel because my family is there and a lot of people I like are there. But Israel should be just like any other country for me except that it's constantly being attacked. It's constantly being attacked both by the Arab world. But beyond that, it's being attacked by the West, by the West in terms of intellectually. So I spent a lot of time defending Israel, not because of my, I think not because of my Jewishness, but because of the, because I don't feel particularly Jewish. Like it's proven right now. I didn't know. Right? It was like full moon. What the hell? I dressed up as Anne Rand. What's that? I dressed up as Anne Rand. You dressed up as Anne Rand. I did. I do. That would be interesting. I do every year. I do every year. I pick up, I pick a prominent object. I don't get out any guy in 40 years. Right. I mean the synagogue in 40 years. I don't know. And I don't really care. But when anti semites come out, then I'm happy to go. And you're going to school, baby. No, I'm not going to school. I'm going, I'm going for the intellectual battle and struggle, which actually matters. I have a question. The school doesn't matter when Iota. I'm curious to hear how you answer this because I know how I would answer this, but if theoretically Israel could be transplanted to an empty piece of land somewhere else in the world where there was a lot less friction with the, with whatever around it, would you, would you support that? Like to what extent is the homeland part of it important to remember that Herzl voted to establish a Jewish state in Uganda when the British suggested that. So, yeah, I mean, I'm with Herzl. Now, Uganda is probably not very good because it's not abandoned. And they would have had to fight Idi Amin instead of Yes or Off. It would have been the same story. If there truly wasn't abandoned place and truly was going to be free and, you know, truly, you know, I don't know if the United States carved out a piece of itself and said, here, establish your own country. Jews will always, you know, it's called Boca. Yeah. Yeah, we could do it. We could do Southern Florida and just be done with it. Right. Then, yeah, I'd support that. I, you know, today I wouldn't support it only because I'd view it again as a surrender. And I think that would embolden Islamists, Muslim fanatics, to go after more and more Western countries. I mean, Spain was theirs once. Why not retake it? You know, the Balkans and Greece and much of that area was theirs. They made it all the way to the gates of Vienna. So I think I dread anything that emboldens Islamists because I think ultimately they want all of us, Jews, non-Jews. They want us all to convert Islam and have Sharia law. And as the West gets weaker, that crazy fantasy of theirs, which is insane, becomes more realistic. And you think probably I find that the anti-Semitism of the world that creeps up ever would find a way to hate a Jewish state wherever it may be. I agree. That's true. That is true. Yeah, I mean, I'm not excited. You know, Israel's got a great place. It's got a great country. It just needs to subdue its neighbors and get on with living. I mean, if anybody's been to Israel, if you haven't been to Israel, it's really hard to judge Israel. But Israel is an incredibly prosperous place. It's an exciting place, a dynamic place. It has more unicorns per capita than any place other than Silicon Valley. It is innovative and it's fun. And I left because I didn't like it. But it's still a pretty amazing place. But yeah, and the nice thing about Israel is if, I don't know, if you're just a little different than everybody else, they don't treat you horribly. Tel Aviv is like the gate capital of the Middle East or even Europe. It's just a pretty, not as free as I would want, but a pretty free, dynamic, cool culture. And yeah, people should go visit. People should go experience it. Back to the just a quick question on, so in terms of solutions going forward in 20 years from now, how do you feel about this idea that if Israel is not going to take decisive action, but people use this claim about the settlements, which I consider a marginal issue, not a fundamental issue. But these like sort of half-ass attempts to say like, we'll build, we'll say one thing and we'll do another thing. I don't know to what extent that's true because I know policies in Israel in terms of to get approval to build somewhere actually goes through a lot of bureaucracy. Israel is not just expanding whenever it feels like it. But I feel like to what extent is it destructive to Israel and self-defeating to not have a clear decision here? Like if you're going to say this is, and if you're going to see the territory and can see that this is disputed territory and then still continue to sort of have this non-gray solution, that's just going to be, lead to more instability. It's horrible. I mean, the solution should be Israel should reoccupy the entire West Bank and Gaza for 20 years, help reeducate the population, and then talk about a two-state solution. But so we should have a clear strategic agenda, a clear strategic path to go into the future. Returning to the status quo, which is what they're going to do. We all know they're going to do that. They'll change it a little, mix it up a little bit. There'll be some international force in Gaza, maybe the Saudis will be there, maybe the Egyptians, I don't know. But it's just suicidal. It's again, it's guaranteeing more violence in the distant future. But it buys Israel time and I think the Israelis will go for it. So I'll get a 10 years of relative peace on the Gaza front and not clear what'll happen on the West Bank with it. Look at the whole radicals fill that vacuum or something. Yeah, the whole settlement thing is a joke. I mean, I mean, it's the problems with the settlements. I don't want to, and some of the settlements are completely illegitimate, it should be woken up. But look, Israel has dismantled settlements in the past. They did it in the Sinai, right? I mean, I remember I used to hike in the Sinai. I used to go along the Red Sea, some of the best snorkeling in the world. When I was a teenager, we used to go in the Sinai all the time and there were Israeli settlements in the Sinai. And when they cut a piece deal with the Egyptians, they literally evacuated. There was a city, a meat, right? You know, a little town, a real town. They evacuated everything and they brought everything back to Israel and they gave it all to Egypt. And then when they left Gaza in 2005, there were settlements in Gaza and they completely evacuated. They literally had to use force and violence to drag the settlers out of their homes. People who had invested the significant amount of their time and effort and livelihood and they moved them out of there. So it's a red herring to say that the problem there is settlements. If the Palestinians were truly... First of all, look, if the Palestinians really wanted peace, really wanted peace and prosperity, they would love the settlements. They would say, we want more Jews in the West Bank. These Jews, they've been capital, they've been expertise, they've been factories and jobs. Please bring more Jewish settlements into our midst so that we can benefit mutually from all the economic activity they create. And let's have a free trade agreement with Israel and let's do all this stuff. But the first thing the Gazans did when the settlements were evacuated was go in and smash the greenhouses that were built there, the factories, the equipment. They destroyed everything because they didn't want to touch anything. They don't want to use anything that would be tainted by Jews having built it, right? You can't negotiate with a mentality like that. You can't have peace with a mentality like that. So the day the Arabs say, oh, we're not against settlements, we want them here, that's the day they're ready for peace. Wow. Okay. So effectively, the Marshall Plan for the West Bank and Gaza in shorthand is sort of the approach. Post-World War II, how we were able to rebuild culturally from the ground up these societies to be... Yeah, but they have to be willing to... Yes. Except that the Germans and Japanese did not resist. You know, General MacArthur wrote a constitution for Japan with his assistant. They literally sat down and wrote the constitution and went to the emperor and said, this is your new constitution. They didn't ask him for permission, they didn't ask him to vote and they crammed the constitution down the Japanese throat. It's still the constitution into Japan today and Japan has benefited enormously from that. So you need to get to the point where the Palestinians are now resisting the idea of a kind of a... In a sense, it's a political and monetary Marshall Plan and they're willing to embrace liberty and they're willing to embrace their Jewish neighbors and they're willing to live in peace side by side. It seems like in the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia, Abrahamic Accords, do you see elements in that part of the world exerting a little bit of influence towards modernity? Is there a little bit of hope there that this could be... I mean, there's obviously these regional conflicts between Iran and Saudi Arabia that maybe are the motivators here, but it seems like obviously something that's in the hands of a monarch that the next monarch who's not modern can just undo everything. Exactly. How can you trust any of these things when these cultures are fundamentally authoritarian? You know, it was hard to trust the Chinese that they were liberating and they were moving in the right... I mean, they were moving for a lot, but as soon as Xi, a different dictator comes about and he decides, no, we're going to move away from freedom, then it moves away from freedom. What happens when the next emir of Kuwait, the next emir of Abu Dhabi, or the next emir of the next king of Saudi Arabia change their mind and go in a different direction? What happens then? It's very unstable. The cultures themselves have not dramatically, significantly shifted. You know, when Saudi women can walk around in miniskirts and bikinis and drive cars and when atheists are not put in prison for life and when adultery, they're not stoned to death, then I'd say, okay, maybe Saudi Arabia is ready to embrace Western values, but what they want right now is kind of the industry and the wealth and the technology of the West without embracing the political liberty that is associated with the West and without embracing more importantly the individual liberty, the right of the individuals to live their life as they see fit that the West embraces for the most part. And without embracing individual liberty, everything else is empty and shallow and I don't trust them at all. But one could argue that with economic liberty first that incrementally starts that push that can become unavoidable, similar to what happened with the Soviet Union. A lot of people said once they started having the Western influences of being able to buy clothes, blue jeans, go see Bruce Springsteen, it all of a sudden reached a threshold where the regime could no longer maintain these people's thirst for freedom. A lot of us believe that, me included, particularly when it comes to China and China's proved us wrong, right? We got economic liberty, quite a bit of economic liberty. At some point it was easier to do business in China than in the US. And that has all shifted, that's all changed over the last 10 years. So I don't think that is a necessity. Also, you know, yeah, I mean, okay, well, let's see. I mean, if MBS is willing for women to walk around in jeans in Saudi Arabia and go to Bruce Springsteen conference, it's not conscious, not just when they travel to the West, but inside of Saudi Arabia itself, then I will admit to being wrong and celebrate that day. That would be fantastic. When the day the Jews invited to Mecca and Medina to visit as tourists, that would be pretty cool. I don't think it's happening in my lifetime. I don't think it's happening in your lifetime. I hope I'm wrong. I've seen some comedians perform some pretty raunchy standup in the Emirates and people are laughing, and that's a sign of when people can tolerate humor, it's a good sign of freedom or a thirst for it at least. I think in the Emirates, you know, again, the Emirates are built on semi-slave labor, so you have to watch out for that. The way they treat women is still not quite up to par, right? So maybe European women can walk around there and be European, but their own women are not exactly treated well. But yes, I mean, I hope that's right. I hope change is really happening in these places. I'm just not yet convinced. But I hope I'm wrong. I definitely hope I'm wrong. I want freedom, relative freedom, not even the full freedom that I advocate for. I want relative freedom to blossom around the world, particularly in the Middle East, because that will obviously change the entire dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian. I mean, look, here's the reality, right? The reality is that when the Arab Spring happened, what was it now, 13 years ago, when the Arab Spring happened, and a lot of us walked a mystic here that they were rising up, they were using tech to coordinate this, and, you know, this was a real change in the Arab world. The reality is that the change they wanted was to get rid of authoritarian government and replace it with Islamic government, right? I mean, who got elected in Egypt once you had a fair election? The Muslim Brotherhood. Not a friend of individualism or individual liberty or individual... And that is true in many of the places around the Middle East that the worst elements got elected. It's happened in Algeria. It's happened elsewhere. So I think there's still a long way to go before the Arab world embraces what I think is the most important, which is individual liberty, is treating people as individuals and everything that that implies. Yeah. I guess on this last segment here, we'll wrap up here, but what do you make of sort of the new elements that are ascending or reoccurring, reoccur, like that have existed before, but are sort of back in the America First movement of the United States domestically, where it used to sort of be where the more progressive you've got, you would see a hostility to Israel, and now you're sort of seeing this... It's always been there sort of the Papua Canons, sort of isolationist parts of the Republican Party, but sort of in a post-Trump movement now where this America First, like coated with a little anti-Semitism flavor in it, where it's the Jews are controlling our foreign policy, Apex controlling us, the globalists, all these Jews in government. You made this case before of how Jews are represented, overly represented in intellectual life, and that was sort of seen as an accomplishment or a virtue or just a matter of fact, but a lot of people with nefarious intentions are using that against the Jewish community to say, see, look, look how they're controlling society and our decisions. We can name names, Candace Owen, Taka Cawson, and there's a lot of others, people who... A suspicion of Jews, yeah. Who used to be in the mainstream of the conservative movement and are now on the anti-Semitic fringes of it. Yeah, I mean, it's almost inevitable that the more irrational a culture becomes, and look, when Donald Trump was elected, this was inevitable. He is the bringer of irrationality to American politics, the bringer of chaos, the bringer of... The bringer of chaos? The bringer of chaos, Red. Bringer of irrationality, that's what I am. It's good. There's a fantasy novel there to be written. He is... He destroyed the Republican Party. The Republican Party is not the same party at all than it was eight years ago, and it's much, much worse. It's certainly much, much worse on Israel and Ukraine on American foreign policy. Not that it was great before that, but now it's much worse. And, you know, it's bad on not wanting to free up the economy, it's bad on entitlements, it's bad on all the things that it should be good on. So it's not good on anything, right? The new Republican Party. It used to be the Republicans with at least a decent opposition party. Now, if you look at what the Republicans are doing in the House of Representatives, it's a party that's an absolute unmitigated disaster. So now we've got two parties that are unmitigated disasters. And maybe there's an opening for something new, but it's hard to imagine where it's going to come from. So yes, I think the right, the fringe on the right has always been anti-Semitic. The fringe has expanded. It's grown. So it's not a fringe anymore. It's dabbling in, I mean, Tucker Carlson can't be viewed as fringe. He's got millions and millions of followers. And of course, the left has gotten much, much worse in terms of anti-Semitism. And it's not the fringe in the left anymore. It's basically half of young people in America hate Israel. So on both sides, Israel and Jews more broadly are in trouble. And I don't see how this gets better because I don't think the right is going to get better. I mean, the only reason anti-Semitism hasn't become full-fledged policy on the right is because evangelicals for bizarre, irrational, ridiculous reasons love Israel. And Donald Trump needs the evangelical vote. I never make friends. I hate you too. I hate you too. You know, you're bad. You're bad. Overrated friends. I'm kidding. A real individualist. I love friends, but I want my friends to share my values, not to be my enemies. Do you think the term anti-Semitism, especially as coming off of the woke BLM anti-racist elements of our culture gets thrown around too much so that when we do see it, it can be very hard to identify because it now becomes an excuse to cover for everything? I had a conversation with Candace Owens a few months ago post-October 7th. We spoke for about an hour. And a lot of what was real to me was that there was just simply a lot of lack of knowledge and ignorance to the issues that got confused and muddled and she associated this charge of anti-Semitism with a sort of leftist cancel culture element. And I had to say, you're drawing the wrong conclusions here. That just because there's been a lot of elements on our side of that call-out racism where it doesn't exist doesn't mean when we do see it, when it does exist, you don't call it out. It's confusion about free speech and cancel culture. And now you're seeing there's been a lot of activity at the Daily Wire and drama and whatnot. Since your conversation with Candace, obviously her views did not change and she didn't moderate them. She didn't rethink a position or consider it in great depth, obviously, because she's become worse with time, not better. We'll do a round two. I mean, I don't know if Candace is explicitly thinks in her mind Jews are horrible people. They should all be wiped out. I don't think she holds that, but does she hold anti-Semitic ideas about Jews controlling XYZ and blaming Jews for the influence on... There's a suspicion or something. I mean, look at what she said about Ben Shapiro. Right? And the argument that Ben... that she and Dr. Carlson made about Ben Shapiro caring more about Israel than the United States, when... I mean, Ben Shapiro has done so much. I mean, I... I oppose a lot of what Ben Shapiro stands for. It's not yours. Almost a real friend. Now, you ask me if it was done so much to advocate for certain freedoms and certain liberties in the United States. He's done so much for the quote right in the U.S. Agree with him. Still true altruistic for you, but yes. Yeah, to claim that Ben Shapiro is anti-American in some way or doesn't care about America is so dishonest. And what would lead to that dishonesty only some tinge of anti-Semitism and... It's dual loyalty. It's the old charge of the dual loyalty. Yeah, dual loyalty was Dreyfus, right? So, bringing back the Dreyfus argument on somebody who has spent his career defending good ideas or some good ideas about America. So, it's... I mean, it's... How about motivating it? Are they anti-Semitic? Yeah, even, you know, a lot of people are anti-Semitic without knowing it. A lot of people hold anti-Semitic ideas without completely hating all Jews and, again, wanting to be Nazis. Or feed into a general... Either they don't might not hold the view in their heart but they embolden those ideas that create suspicion about the Jew or Jews. Or embolden... Certainly embolden anti-Semites out there who are suspicious of Jewish control or influence. Yes. And some of them, like Candice Owen, just... If I can say so, just don't think. They don't use that gray matter. And she's very influenced by the people who follow her. And she's very influenced by certain people on the right. And, you know, she absorbs that stuff without... Without really, you know, any kind of critical... Critical assessment of it. And I see it on a lot of issues. You know, what she said that the pharmaceutical companies in the United States are the most evil organizations in the world today. I mean, that's just insanity. So, you know, Candice has a lot of problems. Being influenced by anti-Semitic ideas is one of several. Okay. To be continued on that one. I do have one last question. It's not really political. Do you mind if I ask it? Yeah, yeah, we'll wrap up here. It's pretty rare to find someone who has values and principles and then actually lives by them. You know, and you're a pretty striking example that I'm wondering, you know, I think... I love to do a lot of stuff. I believe in a lot of stuff and then I just get up and do the same thing I did yesterday. Is there any advice for someone who's having trouble? Like, you know, I really don't believe in this thing. I'd really like to leave my job or work for an institution that is more in line with what I feel, you know, with what I think, but can't seem to do it. Do you have any advice for them? Sure. I have a whole series on my podcast called Your Hon's Rules for Life, inspired by Jordan. Jordan, ha! Well, you know, I should copyright that so I can get some royalties. You should. You should have copyrighted it. You didn't get it anyway. So, there is Your Hon's Rules for Life, which is, I don't know, 20 episodes where I cover a lot of this stuff. But look, first you have to make sure that the values you have are the right values. They're rational. They're pro-life. They're pro-happiness. They're good ones. And then you have to commit yourself to following them. And, you see, the beauty of objectivism, of Vainran's ideas, is that the values are actually, the model is the practical. If you live up to your morality, you will also be happy and successful and, I think, self-fulfilled. And, you know, this frustration that you feel comes from, I think, comes from the fact that you're not living up to those values. One, are the values the right values? And, B, why aren't you living up to them? Are you not convinced that you will benefit from them? Convince yourself. Life is going to be better if I do these things. And then just do it, right? There is a certain issue of just will. Willing yourself to do it. And that can be hard, but incredibly rewarding. And once you do it once, it becomes much easier over time because you reinforce it. You get positive feedback. Do you think that objectivist ideas and the approach to communicating those ideas could benefit from a little bit more of the emotional components? Because, yeah, facts don't care about your feelings, the famous Ben Shapiro line, but I think feelings process facts. I mean, the way people understand things is through stories, is through emotional resonance, in order to connect with certain things. That's a funny statement about a philosophy that came into the world through two novels. Yeah. Through two stories, filled with emotions, filled with characters, filled with real life. But no children. What's that? No children, though. People have said. No, but I'm saying in the modern day. Do I get credit for having children? I mean, it's a silly question because, yeah, so she wrote a novel and there are no children in the novel. The novel is supposed to cover every aspect of human life in great detail. And she didn't have children, so she didn't write about children. So what? She didn't make a statement about, no children. Bad on you. No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying how it applies in regular life to connect to people sort of where they're at. I'm just joking because people have said there's no children in the novel. So somebody should write a novel from a children's perspective about a family. But it has to be heroic. It has to be dramatic. It has to be, you know, it can't just be a naturalistic description of family. But look, absolutely emotions have a role. Stories have a role. And stories are important. I'm a pretty passionate guy. So, you know, it's not like I'm emotionless, I think. I don't come across as a robot, do I? So, you know, but I also believe that sometimes in cases like what we're living through today, a little bit of cognitive dissonance for people is good. So saying things that cause people to go, whoa, did he just say that? Is maybe a way to shock them out of the complacency and shock them out of the, just the grayness of the intellectual debate today, which I think is pretty great. And it's pretty, you know, everybody basically agrees on ethics, and then it's just an argument about who we're going to sacrifice to whom. And I want to break away from that because I'm not for sacrificing anybody to anybody. Yeah. And also, you know, within the Andran's writings, there's this emphasis on the spirit, the spiritual component of life. Absolutely. I purpose have artwork here. That's David, by the way. You can't see his leg, but his leg. Another Jew. His foot is on Goliath's head. I don't think that's politically correct anymore. You know, chopping people's heads off, you know, even if they're monsters. And so that's David, and that's a Vermeer. So I'm big on art. Classical music junkie. What's that? I know you're a classical music guy. I love classical music. Absolutely. Joshua Bell, right? That's your guy, right? Violinist. Who? Bell? Bell? Bell? He's not a kid anymore. But he's really good. I saw him in London a few couple of years ago. But yeah, I love classical music. I love a lot of arts. I love, yeah. All right. Well, I think that's a good place to end it. Dr. Yaron Brooke, chairman of the Andran Institute, thank you so much for engaging with us in this conversation. I think it was illuminating, clarifying, would love to do it again sometime. Thank you. My pleasure. Where can people find you online? Just go to YouTube, Yaron Brooke Show, or just Google Yaron Brooke, and you'll be flooded with stuff. So yeah, and Twitter. Twitter and YouTube are the places I mostly hang out in. All right. Well, thank you again for schmoozing with us. We appreciate it. My pleasure. Thanks for having me on.