 G'day, I'm 840 here. So I was listening to Richard Spencer's latest interview yesterday and he was talking about how nationalism is a ship magnet. That was the title of Jim Goad's autobiography and I don't buy it. I don't believe that nationalism inherently appeals to the worst in people. Now, there are certain types of nationalism that operate as a ship magnet. So, Richard Spencer, I want to face that he has been a ship magnet. Jim Goad wrote his autobiography calling himself Shit Magnet. So maybe that is Richard Spencer's lived experience. But it's not inherent in nationalism. Nationalism simply means that you love your people. And loving your people does not inherently bring out the worst. For some people, nationalism may bring out some nasty characteristics. But if you love your people, that means you want to protect your people and you want to protect your people against enemies. But there's absolutely nothing inherent in nationalism that makes it a ship magnet. Nationalism is just as likely to attract the best in people as it is to attract the worst in people. That means you want to protect your family. Yeah, exactly. Is Zionism a ship magnet? Well, there are some really lousy people who attract to Zionism. But there's nothing inherent in nationalism that attracts bad people. So I don't buy it when Richard Spencer says nationalism is a ship magnet. Yeah, the type of nationalism that he espoused perhaps worked as a ship magnet. When you look at other types of nationalism, English nationalism, French nationalism, German nationalism, Japanese nationalism, Chinese nationalism, Australian nationalism, Jewish nationalism, black nationalism, Mexican nationalism. It doesn't inherently attract the worst people, the dregs of society. Now, white nationalism in the United States has tended to attract the worst in people. Because white nationalism is considered weird by American standards. American nationalism is alive and well. Yeah, so it was kind of interesting to hear Richard Spencer talk in this recent interview about how he is opposed to white nationalism. He's not a white nationalist. Then what is he and what's he been doing for the past 15 years? I mean, has he changed? And if so, how? How is he not a white nationalist? And how has he not been pushing that? I mean, the alt-right in its essence was a white nationalist movement that was anti-Jewish. And yeah, is Richard now turning into a racist liberal? So I'd just like to hear him elucidate more on that. So in certain times and contexts, nationalism, I don't like using profanity, but I don't think it's avoidable here. So in certain times and places, nationalism can be a ship magnet. In certain circumstances, given the way incentives are functioning, then certain types of nationalism can absolutely bring out the worst in people. But overall, nationalism just means you love your family and your extended family. Your people is just your extended family. You love your own. The nation is simply the largest group of people that you consider part of you and inherent part of you. And nationalism rose in the 19th century. It's been the most powerful political animating force in the past 220 years. Like decrying nationalism to me, it's like decrying the sex drive. It's like, oh, you know, this, you know, horniness, sexual arousal acts as a ship magnet. Well, it can. Like sexual arousal can lead people to say and do really horrible things. But like, do we do we really want to condemn the sexual impulse because some people misuse it? Do we want to condemn fire? Fire can be used in a very destructive way. Fire can burn at the stake, disavow. But fire can also warm your home. Fire can, you know, help prepare your food. There are lots of useful ways to use fire. So, yeah, there are arsonists out there. So you could, you could say fire is a ship magnet because there are people who abuse fire. But there's nothing inherent in the quality of fire that attracts only bad people. There's nothing inherent in the sexual impulse that only attracts bad people. And there's nothing inherent in nationalism that only attracts bad people. So every mainstream movement of Judaism is Zionist, which is Zionism is just Jewish nationalism. So theodore Herzl and the founders of the Jewish state were they, you know, all the the dregs of society. They were they were capable nationalists, you know, working for the interests of their people trying to protect their family in a dangerous world. So what Richard really is saying, I think, is that white nationalism is acted as a ship magnet. And that's true in the West. That's just an empirical statement. I'm not making a moral judgment here. There's the old canard that white nationalists tend to be, you know, one third Nazis, one third criminals, one third gay. And that that observation is more true than it's false. So American nationalism comes naturally to Americans and there is a racial component to American nationalism. English nationalism comes natural naturally to people in England. And there is a racial component to that nationalism because you are in love with a particular people. And there's there's a racial component to that people, but you don't think about it primarily in in racial terms. You think about it primarily in familial terms. It used to be when I was growing up that at a glance you could look at someone and you could tell if they were American, English, French, Australian. Like there was the different different nations had people who looked a certain way. Right. And so I grew up in Australia and the the ethos was if you're not Australian, you don't count for much. Right. But the Australians were the greatest people on earth and if you're not Australian, you're nothing. Okay. That was the widespread ethos in the Australia I grew up in. So it's definitely a racial component to that. But I was growing up in Australia. Australia was 95% white. The United States for most of its history has been 80 to 90% white. If you were to take the 100 most influential important Americans, it'd be more than 90% white. This was a country not just founded by white people. This is a country founded by English people. Right. 85% of this country. The stock was English at the time of the American Revolution. So it's a very particular people who created this country. And with a different DNA, we would not have the United States of America took a very particular people bringing a very particular legal, religious, social, cultural trends. So there's a widespread saying the rights of Englishmen. Okay. There's a particular outlook on life that has come from the Anglo-Saxon tribes. Right. Freedom of speech, the rule of law. Certain forms of democratic government, an openness for the free market. There are certain ways of organizing human beings that have come from the English and those nations that have been created by the English such as the United States, Canada in part, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa in part. These nations have been disproportionately effective, successful, had low rates of corruption. So trial by jury, the English legal system has been hugely influential. So yeah, there's a racial component to English nationalism and there's a racial component to American nationalism. But American nationalism, American nationalists don't think primarily in terms of race. They think in terms of their extended family. They think about Americans. They don't think about white people in England or in Europe primarily. It's no more natural and healthy to love and care for your own particular nation in its own particular time of place. It's not so common and maybe even not so healthy to be equally concerned about people of your race on completely different continents. What comes naturally for a Frenchman is to care about France. Frenchmen overwhelmingly care about France. Frenchmen don't care what crimes French soldiers commit overseas, right? So recently in Australia, there were these findings that members of the Australian Special Forces committed all these heinous crimes in Afghanistan. And parts of the media cared and parts of the elite cared, but average Australians don't care what Australian soldiers do in Afghanistan. Why not? Because average Australians don't care about any other country but Australia. So white nationalism is not going to appeal to a large percentage of Australians because they don't care about whites in Europe and the United States and Mexico and South America. They care about their fellow Australians. So sure, I can understand how you could see white nationalism in the United States in the past 50 years as a ship magnet or white nationalism in England and Australia. The way it's worked out, it has been a ship magnet, not that everyone has been a bad person, but it has disproportionately appealed to many of the worst people. Because it's not really human. To be human is to care about the people in your nation state. It would be weird if me sitting here having spent most of my life in California, if I cared as much about my fellow whites in Rhodesia or Zimbabwe or Europe as I care about my fellow Americans. I lived almost all my life in the United States of America. I lived 80% of my life in the United States of America. So American nationalism comes naturally to me. When we have the Olympics, I cheer for the American team. When we have soccer competitions between America and Mexico, I cheer for America. That just comes naturally. So when you try to distort that, to have the idea that there could be some kind of white imperium where white people in America, England, Europe, Australia are going to feel some powerful kinship. It is more powerful than the kinship that they feel with Asians and Latinos right next door to them with whom they get along fairly well. I'm just not sure that's going to work out. We only have so much energy. We only have so much ability to love and to care and desire to make common cause with. It's going to be people within our nation in a particular geographic area, really within our nation state. There's never been some overarching racial identity across continents that people have been willing to die for. There are Americans who will die for America. There are Canadians who will die for Canada. There are English who will die for England. There are Irish who will die for Ireland. But very few of these people are willing to die for their nation state would die for their fellow whites halfway across the world. So maybe there are just certain types of racial nationalism that appeal to the worst in people. So there's black nationalism in the United States. So many blacks don't really feel a part of America. They feel separate from America. So it makes sense that they would develop their own nationalist tendencies. And some of these black nationalist groups have done horrible things. I'm not sure. I simply don't know enough about black nationalism to say it acts as a ship magnet. Maybe it does. So nationalism like the sex drive or the will to power or something like a process like fire, incredibly powerful forces that can be incredibly misused and dangerous. But just because something is dangerous doesn't mean it's evil. Everything has a good side and a downside. So nationalism simply means you care about your family. And I don't see how you can pathologize caring about your extended family. Some people absolutely they'll go too far. And nationalism can be very nasty because nationalism means that you want your people to survive. And so therefore you're going to have a negative perspective on other people who threaten your people's survival.