 Yes, this article that is just too unbelievable not to talk about. It's just stunning, stunning, stunning, stunning. So there's a book. A book came out a few weeks ago in defense of looting. In defense of looting. I'm not kidding you. So I'm going to read your passages. We can comment on it. Most of it doesn't need commentary because it's so ludicrous. It's so insane. It's so monstrous, monstrous that it's truly, truly hard to believe. But anyway, the first question is, well, what is looting? So here's how she defines looting, which is interesting. It is the mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting during a moment of upheaval or riot. She says, that's the thing. I'm defending. I'm not defending any situation which property is stolen by force. Let me just read that again to you. She's defending mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting, but she's not defending when property is stolen by force. Notice how they empty words from all content. What does expropriation mean? What is shoplifting mean if not stealing property by force? It has no other meaning. That is a particular form of stealing property by force, expropriating it or shoplifting it. The fact that it is mass does not mean it's not force. She says it's not a home invasion either. It's about a certain kind of action that's taken during protests or riots. So basically she's saying, if it's during a riot or a protest, if it's in mass, if a lot of people are doing it, and if it's about destroying or taking, expropriating, God forbid we say stealing property, that's what she's defending. Note that part of the justification here, without any question, is that it's a numbers game, that there's a lot of people doing it. I mean, and basically that's how we justify to some extent, that's how we justify democracy, right? So that's how we justify voting. If enough people vote to take your money, if enough people vote to take your stuff, then it's okay, it's not stealing. It's not stealing, it's just taxing, it's not stealing. She says, Ludi is a highly racialized word, so to call somebody a luda is somehow racial, it's somehow racist terminology. Now rioting she says, I mean one of the good things about this woman is she defines her terms, so we know what she's talking about, rioting she says, generally refers to any moment of mass unrest or upheaval, that sounds about right, riot is a space in which a mass of people have produced a situation in which the general laws that govern society no longer function and people can act in different ways in the streets and in public. Riding is a broader category in which looting appears as a tactic. So rioting is a situation in which the general laws that govern society no longer function. Well that's true if the police lets the riot happen. If the police arrests the people, puts them in jail, prosecutes them for the crimes they have committed, then there's some semblance that maybe the laws of society are still being upheld. But she's right in the context of today, the honor we've given up on those laws, those rules. By the way, it's interesting how this book came out in the midst of rioting and looting. She must have written it a year or two, three years ago, over the last three years, takes a long time to write a book like this. So it means that these intellectuals have been talking about the morality, the legitimacy, the efficacy of looting and of rioting for years now. The fact that she's written a book means that this has been under discussion for a long time. There's no wonder these people are rioting and looting without thinking about consequences. They think that this is just, they think this is right. They've been told by the intellectuals, they've been told by their professors, they've been told by the thinkers that this is okay. That this is right. That this is how you get your way. That this is how you fight for a cause. Ideas have consequences. Ideas shape the world. Ideas drive movements. Ideas drive people. And ideas are not in a vacuum. Ideas don't exist just out there. It's intellectuals that move the world. It's intellectuals that drive this behavior. It's intellectuals that are responsible for what is going on in the world right now. This is an intellectual philosophical battle. All right, keep going. Looting is more common among movements that are coming from below. They attack on a business, a commercial space, maybe a government building, taking those things that would otherwise be commodified and controlled and sharing them for free. It's not stealing, it's sharing. It's forcing people to share and sharing is good. Sharing is right. Sharing is what we teach Johnny in the sandbox. Sharing is what every adult parent teaches their kids. Sharing is noble and good. This isn't violence. This isn't theft. This is just sharing for free. Now it's interesting how many of these people actually share the stuff that they looted for free, how many of these people actually hawk it and take the cash, how many of these people sell it to their neighbors, how many of these people use it, how many people actually share it for free. I guess the people who are sharing it are the owners because they're not going to get it back and the people taking it are not going to be prosecuted, unbelievable. Now, she's being asked about writing as a tactic. Why do they use this as a tactic and a strategy? She says it gets people what they need for free immediately, which means that they are capable of living and reproducing their lives without having to rely on jobs or wages, which during COVID times is widely unreliable or particularly in those communities is often not available or it comes at great risk. Absoluting most basic tactical power is a political mode of action. It gets people what they need. Now if I in Rand would have written these lines in Atlas Shrugged, and to some extent she did, people would have said no, nobody would actually say that, that if somebody needs something it's okay to steal it as long as they do it in a big enough group. And if I went on a speaking tour and said that the left is advocating for stealing stuff in mass in order to give people what they need and that you can't complain because altruism demands that you give people what they need, people would have said that's insane. That's science fiction. Nobody would actually advocate that or here it is. This is exactly what she is advocating. They need it. And it's hard times of hardship right now. And therefore it's legitimate for them to take I mean who doesn't need a Louis Vuitton bag? Who doesn't need one of those big flat screen televisions that Best Buy has? That by the way are getting cheaper and cheaper every day. They need it. And therefore that justifies everything. Times are hard because of COVID. And it's not enough that the government is stealing my money and giving it to them or stealing our kids and grandkids money and giving it to them, giving it to whoever, they need more. They need those Louis Vuitton bags and those flat screen TVs and they need everything else. So they loot it. But here is the real, the real thing they're trying to destroy. She goes on to say it also attacks the very way in which food and things are distributed. It attacks the idea of property. It attacks the idea that in order for someone to have a roof over their head or have a meal ticket, they have to work for a boss in order to buy things that people just like them somewhere else in the world had to make under the same conditions. It points to the way in which that's unjust. And the reason that the world is organized the way obviously is for the profit of the people who own the stores and the factories. So you get to the heart of that property relation and demonstrate that without police, without oppression, we can have things for free. So really what this is about in her mind, I don't think in the looters mind, the looters just want stuff in her mind. This is really about socialism. This is really about the attempted destroy capitalism, the annihilation of the capitalist system. This is about the destruction of capitalism and bringing about a socialist order in which socialist order in which there are no employees and employers, which is inherently unjust the Marxist claims where everybody gets whatever they need for free, where the state does not oppress those in need. Police does not exist. We have defunded the police so that people just exist taking what they need. This is straight, although it's so amateurist and so dumb and low level that I don't think I don't think Karl Marx would endorse this, but this is so Marxist. But note that the real issue is it attacks the idea of property and that's exactly right. What's beautiful about this is she says it. Honing attacks the idea of property, it rejects the idea of property, but what is amazing to me is, but this is amazing every time I meet a socialist, I'm amazed at this, I debated, I did a debate with the socialists on Saturday, it'll be up online at some point. And what socialists do is they assume wealth just exists, they assume Louis Vuitton bags just exists. They assume the flat screen TVs just exist and the food just exists. And that the only political economic question is not how to create the food, how to create the TV, how to create the bag, the only question is, the only question is, where did it come from? How do you get this stuff? The only question they care about is how do you distribute it? The only question for them is distribution. But note that if you destroy property, if you destroy private property, if you destroy profit which is, she's accusing profit here, right? If you destroy the profit motive, then what is going to produce? Who is going to produce it? For whom? We know exactly what that kind of system leads to. What that kind of system produces, nothing. It produces poverty. It produces zero zilch and yet she is pro-looting because she rejects capitalism and she wants a system in which there's no private property so that people can have nothing and be greatly in need and have nobody to steal it from because nobody will be producing the stuff. Now of course, property is a white concept. So looting attacks the history of whiteness and of white supremacy. The very basis of property she writes in the United States is derived from whiteness and through black oppression, though the history of slavery and settler domination of the country. Looting strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police. Now I did a show a while back about how this is all comes from Rousseau. This idea that these institutions like property, these institutions like civilization, these institutions like the police actually make us worse off, actually make us lose the nobility of the savage. And if we got rid of property, if we got rid of the police, if we got rid of civilization, if we got rid of laws, then crime rates would plummet. Everything would be in abundance, life would be magical, but we know in the 21st century we know without any doubt, without any semblance of doubt that all that leads to is what is happening in Portland and Kenosha right now, death and destruction. All that leads to is tribal warfare. Indeed, most of human history is a history with no private property. Most of human history is a history with no capitalism, with no individual rights, with no police. There were no police forces in the past. All it was was anarchy, gangs, my gang versus your gang, my nobleman versus your nobleman, my army versus your army. And whoever was strongest, one, the greatness of capitalism is, and this is what we're seeing attempted to be destroyed before our eyes, is the capitalism about 250 years ago with the establishment of America and with the establishment of civilized rule, laws, governance in Western Europe. Capitalism brought about the rule of law. It brought about civilization. It eliminated force as the dominant factor in human life. It brought about periods of prolonged peace between nations and peace within nations in which people could live freely pursuing their values, their own happiness without being worried about being pillaged and raped and slaughtered and killed and robbed and looted. It civilized human beings who are savages. We were all savages and capitalism civilized us by providing us with a rule of law. And what these intellectual savages want to bring about is the destruction of that. They want us to take us back to the dark ages. They want to take us back to pre-civilization. They want to take us back to tribal warfare. They want to take us back where there's no property, no rule of law, no police, it's truly unbelievable. The one system that actually eradicated slavery, the one system that actually liberated individuals to pursue their happiness, the one system that is brought about peace is the system they want to annihilate, to destroy and on the path to it, looting gang warfare, riots, destruction, all as part of their fight against racism, against property, against the police. She says, one of the things that people experience when they loot, listen to this, they experience an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure that helps them imagine a world that could be, a world of thugs, a world of barbarism, a world of dark ages. I mean, unfortunately, I think a lot of libertarians agree with these sentiments. It's experienced, she says, as a sort of joyous and laboratory. I couldn't imagine anybody writing this crap. This is who we're dealing with. This is who we're dealing with. She says the whole idea of non-violence nonsense, civil rights actually achieved its biggest successes because of violence. The whole idea of non-violence is an attempt by white liberals to pacify blacks. The whole idea that, and this, she's being honest, that, oh, no, no, the protesters are not the one, the rioters. The rioters are being instigated by outsiders. She says, that's ridiculous. That's a way to diminish black protesters by giving the real power to the white instigators. No, she says, no, it's the protesters rioting. I don't know if she's white or not. I haven't looked up a color. Skin, I don't really care about a color of skin. It's the quality of her character and her ideas that I care about. And oh, my God. She says, even this idea of attacking your own community. So what if they attack their own community? They're attacking store owners in their own community. Owners of stores who are paying them wages, which is immoral and unjust. Property owners, stores in which they might have been followed around by security guards or by their own himself. So just because they live in the same neighborhood doesn't make them any less racist, capitalist. She says, when it comes to small business, family-owned business or locally-owned business, they are no more likely to provide worker protections. They are no more likely to have to provide good stuff for the community than big business. She says, it's actually a Republican myth that has over the last 20 years really crawled into even leftist discourse that the small business owner must be respected, that the small business owner creates job and is part of the community. But that's actually a right wing myth. It's a myth. She doesn't discriminate between small businesses and big business. They prefer neither white. She hates them both equally. They all represent capitalism. They all represent property rights. They all represent oppression. This is what we're up against. This is what we're up against. It's called a book. The title of the book is in defense of looting. And it's in defense of mayhem, anarchy, return to barbarism, return to tribalism, return to violence. And this is what's coming out of our universities. This is what you support if you support your alma mater. This is what you support when you said you're kid to school. This is what you're supporting implicitly when you go to university. It's in defense of destruction, in defense of suicide, of Western civilization, or all civilization, Western otherwise. It's basically a condemnation of capitalism in the name of communism, in the name of egalitarianism, in the name of the worst, the worst possible to mankind. And the only way to combat this, the only way to combat this is with ideas. The only way to combat this is to go after these people to unmask them. And it's not hard because they write this crap. And you know where this interview that I read to you was from? NPR. NPR interviewed this woman, this monster, casually, professionally, as if this was just another book. This is a book calling for looting, calling for writing, calling for destruction, calling for violence. And yet it's treated like, yeah. It's a big deal. My book, I don't know if my book will sold more or less than her book, but my book will never get an interview on NPR. What do I call for? Capitalism, freedom, protecting individual rights, allowing people, leaving people alone to pursue their happiness. But if you write a book, see, I should have, I should have written a book about how capitalism is the real anti-racism. Yeah, no, they wouldn't have bought it. They wouldn't have bought it. I mean, really, it's getting so absurd, so insane on the left, so nutty, so ridiculous that nobody is ultimately at the end of the day going to support them. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual, would be any man or woman who is willing to think. Meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, whims, or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism, and impotence, and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist, broods. All right, before we go on, remind them, please like the show. We've got 163 live listeners right now, 30 likes. That should be at least 100. I figure at least 100 of you actually like the show. Maybe they're like 60 of the Matthews out there who hate it. But at least the people who are liking it, you know, I want to see, I want to see a thumbs up. There you go. I want to see it. I want to see that go to 100. All it takes is a click of a click of a thing, whether you're looking at this and you know the likes matter. It's not an issue of my ego. It's an issue of the algorithm. 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