 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran Book Show on this December 29th, the second to last show of the year. We'll be doing one more show on December 31st. 1 PM East Coast time. It's going to be our year in review show. And a big fundraising effort as well that we've got a very, very ambitious target for. So hopefully you'll join us. 1 PM East Coast time. We'll be going for three hours. So anytime during those three hours, just pop in, come over, say hi, ask a question, make a contribution, stick around for as long as you want. Love to have you. All right, let's jump in to the news. It's kind of thin. The news kind of thin the last few days. I figure we've talked enough about the war, two wars. So no videos. Whoops. God. Here's to 2024 where I don't do that. And to 2024 with no technical problems. No technical problems. Everybody, everything, just perfect. All right, so it's kind of thin this week with news, the same news in other states has banned Trump from being on the ballot, Maine. But Colorado has appealed to this, Republicans of Colorado, appealed to Supreme Court. Supreme Court will be deciding this. The wars are going, nothing dramatic new on the war front. So the big stories are kind of they are what they are. So I got a bunch of small stories. And then I forget I talk about some movies. I owe Shazmat a review of Black Adder. So we'll definitely be doing the review of Black Adder. But I've got another couple of movies, one of them in the news, one of them not in the news. But I watched it the other day and I thought, I should recommend it to these guys because this is a great, not just a good. Anyway, a great movie. I think a really, really good movie. So I'll mention that as well. All right, first item is Sweden just keeps inching closer to being accepted into NATO. Finland, as you know, is already a member of NATO. Sweden is inching closer. One part of the Turkish parliament has approved the NATO membership. It's going to move forward. It somewhat depends on whether the US will approve F-16 purchases for Turkey. By the administration wants it. Congress is hesitant. There's some in Congress that really oppose it. But I think the Swedes are going to lobby for it because the Swedes really want it to NATO. And it's going to happen. It looks like Hungary, Hungary, of course, is, again, Hungary is just going to object to anything like this as a mechanism by which to squeeze more out of the European Union, out of its friends in the European Union. I mean, Hungary is basically not really a, you know, Hungary is basically not particularly an ally of NATO. I don't know why it's in NATO. It's more of an ally of Putin's. You know, Hungary is a country that economically really, really needs help. So, and the European Union doesn't want to help them too much because they don't like Obann. So it uses Sweden's entry into NATO. They use aid to Ukraine as leverage because all these decisions have to be unanimous. They use it as leverage as a way of getting more money. Now, you know, if it was up to me, Turkey would not be a member of NATO. Turkey should not be a member of NATO. Turkey is aligned with Iran in some ways. It's a huge back of Hamas. It is called Netanyahu as a Nazi, and Hamas are the good guys. Ogoan is a bad guy. He's an Islamist. He supports Islamist causes. But the reality is, Turkey is a member of NATO, and I don't think there's any movement not to make it a member of NATO in the country. There seems to be movement to add Turkey into the European Union. So the world is not, the world does not play by my rules. If it did, the world would be very, very different than it is in my world. Sweden would be accepted into NATO. Turkey would be kicked out. And Oban would be cut off from all EU funds. And then let's see if the Hungarian people still love him as much as they do when the economy collapses, as it is because Hungary has its own central bank. It doesn't use the European central bank. Hungary has significant inflation, much, much higher than the rest of the EU. Trump has never threatened Turkey. Trump accommodated Turkey. Trump was Ogoan's best friend. If you remember the famous phone call where Ogoan says, I want to invade Syria to take out the Kurds. And basically, Trump said, OK, we'll get out of your way. We'll let you do that. No, Trump loves Ogoan. Trump loves Putin. He loves Xi. Trump is not somebody who's going to stand up to authoritarian regimes, quite the contrary. Particularly, Ogoan is particularly, he and Trump got along great. He managed to manipulate Trump just perfectly and beautifully. And Trump does not love Israel. Kushner loves Israel. I'm not sure Kushner's going to be part of his next administration. Trump does not love Israel, particularly he doesn't love Netanyahu. Trump does not love Israel. The evangelicals love Israel. So the only reason Trump might support Israel is because he needs evangelical support. Trump doesn't give one-eye order about Israel. Jared Kushner was a big supporter of Israel, but Jared would not be part of a future administration. It's pretty obvious that Jared would be out of a future administration, way too soft, way too moderate for the next Trump regime. Anyway, I don't want to talk about Trump. Second, related to this, is the fact that Scandinavian countries in Finland doesn't count as Scandinavia. I am told by Scandinavians and by Finns. But I'm going to include Finland. But basically Finland and Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have all committed to raising their defense spending significantly. Sweden, the defense minister has announced that in 2024 the Swedish defense budget would increase by 28%. So a significant increase. Finland has increased its own defense budget by 5%. It was already at 2%. The threshold that NATO has determined. And Norway and Denmark are committed to the same thing. So I think the Scandinavians are very alert and very aware of the threat that Putin poses. They are very close to Russia. Finland, of course, has fought wars with Russia. And adding Finland to Sweden is a massive strategic defeat. For Russia itself. The Scandinavian countries also share the Baltic Sea with Russia, but also with the Baltic states, which are very fearful of Russia. I mean, if Ukraine falls, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania are clearly next. That will be the test of NATO if Russia invades those countries. And I think the Scandinavian countries want to beef up their defenses as partially as a way to warn off Putin, to encourage Putin not to engage. So NATO getting stronger, which is with Scandinavian support. Germans will probably not increase defense spending. They've got a budget mass. They're a disaster. The thing about the Scandinavian government is as much as we like to call them socialists, the Scandinavians are far, far, far better in physical policy than the United States or much of the rest of Europe. They run balanced budgets. They don't run massive deficits. So if they need to increase spending in a particular category, they will do it and they will rejigger their budget. The Scandinavian government, so philosophically, I disagree with them completely. But they're run by adults, whereas the American government is run by overgrown morons and children and just idiots who don't really care about the future. And since America, as a country, is, I guess, because of its size or because of the pragmatist and because of that, maybe it's because of the arrogance of thinking America will never have problems. We don't seem to care about physical responsibility. We don't seem to care about budgets or anything like that. And the voters don't care. And our politicians don't care. And we need to spend, we'll just spend more. Germany has real constraints on deficits. It generally runs a balanced budget, but they've got this budgetary issue where the courts has ruled $60 billion and their budget illegitimate. And they've got a lot of commitments. They've made a lot of crazy commitments. And they've got crazy energy policy. And if you add it all up, Germany is going to have a very hard time raising the defense budget. The countries that have really raised it in serious ways are the countries that have borders are very close to Russia, like Poland. Poland will have the largest military in Europe, second only to Russia, I guess, and maybe Ukraine, given its levels. But the largest military within NATO other than the United States, when its current plans are fulfilled, and they are really pushing ahead. We don't think the changing government of Poland is going to change that at all. All right, it looks like people out there, security forces all over the world are really worried about terrorism on New Year's Eve. There are a lot of stories about increased security in New York, in Paris, all over the world, really. But primarily, I think, in Europe and in the United States, there's a lot of fear about Islamic, potentially Islamic terrorism during the festivities New Year's Eve. One of the more, one of the weirdest stories I read, with regard to this, is that in Las Vegas, over the weekend, there are going to be low-flying helicopters who are going to have detectors for radiation on them to try to detect dirty bombs. So maybe they've heard something. Maybe there's some legitimate fear here, or risk, or threat, or something. But they're going to be a twin-engine, Bell 412s helicopters equipped with radiation-sensing technology flying low over the strip. Now, that'll put you in the, that'll really put you in the celebratory go 2024 mood to look up and think, ooh, I wonder if they've discovered the dirty bomb or the nuclear bomb. So there you go. Supposedly, this has been going on for a long time. They don't always fly it, but they will be flying from Friday through Sunday in the air above Las Vegas as part of the increased security this year around New Year's Eve celebrations at fear of Islamic terrorism. It looks bad. I wouldn't be too worried about Kolo in Germany. It was. It was. All right, let's see. I would avoid Vegas, New Year's Eve, generally, not because of a risk of a dirty bomb. But generally, I think it's crazy. It's just insane. Interesting phenomena. You know, we've got this border crisis. 200 something thousand people are being stopped at the border every month now. These are record levels. Never seen anything like it. This is all because the United States has these crazy asylum laws that a lot of people in. And then they can apply for asylum. And then it takes years for the cases to be heard. And while they're heard, they stay in the United States. They cannot work for most of their time. But they get welfare. So yeah, this creates this massive incentive for people to come. Anyway, one group of people who are not coming for that, but who, if they get caught, will definitely appeal for asylum, are Chinese immigrants. 5,000, not a large number, as compared to 250,000, but a huge number, as compared to basically the past, are Chinese immigrants. So about 5,000 have been stopped on the southern border. Who knows how many have actually entered? And there is this massive migration of middle class Chinese leaving China. They cannot get legal entry into the United States. They cannot get visas. They have money, and so they can pay to be smuggled across the border. They might even have money in bank accounts in the United States, which they've been moving out of China for years. But these are people who have come to the conclusion that China is not a few. There's no future for them in China. That the Qixi regime is way too oppressive and disastrous. And they are leaving. And many of them travel across the Pacific to Ecuador or to Colombia. Then they travel to overland through the Colombian rainforest into Panama, through the rainforest there, and up through Central America into Mexico and ultimately to the US. More and more Chinese are doing this. It is, I think, a show of the desperation of the Chinese to get out of China and their vision that even as illegals they can live a better life in the United States than they can in China. It's sad because many of these people would be incredibly productive citizens of the United States. Many of them are middle class, as I said, professionals. They could find great jobs in the US if the United States was willing to let them in legally instead of having them trek across jungles and deserts and horrific environments and spending wasting their money on smugglers. The United States should just lay out the welcome mat for them and let them in. And that's what a proper, work-based legal immigration system without a cap, without limits would indeed do. And we would get significant migration out of China. Huge migration out of China. And that would benefit Americans terrifically. And the Chinese would be better off. It really is win-win across the board. But for now, the Chinese are struggling to get across the border. All right, this content moderation is a story we talked about a few months ago. California passed a law that basically requires all social media companies that are active in the state, which means all social media companies, with a sizeable gross annual revenue, basically all the major players. They have to issue semi-annual reports that describe their content moderation policies and provide data on the number of objectionable posts and how they were addressed. So they have to report to the government how this works. Twitter sued California in the US district court for infringement of the First Amendment, infringement of the freedom of speech, and tried to get this law overturned. Judges just come back in an eight-page decision, dismissed Twitter, and basically upheld the regulations he says, quote, while the reporting requirement does not appear to place a substantial compliance burden on social media companies, it does not appear that the requirement is unjustified or unduly burdensome within the context of the First Amendment. So who knew that the First Amendment had to withstand the unduly burdensome requirement and who knew that the First Amendment could be violated if it was, quote, according to some judge, some way unjustified? I mean, this is just an expression of the complete corruption of our legal system, of our laws, a lack of understanding of the First Amendment, but a lack of understanding of individual rights per se. And of course, in a true understanding of the Constitution and a proper understanding of individual rights, 90% of the laws on the books would be thrown out, including this one. So Elon Musk and Twitter have lost this one. It'll be interesting to see if they appeal. It'll be interesting to see if an appeal like this goes to the Supreme Court ultimately under First Amendment with a First Amendment argument. We will see, we'll see if this is something Elon Musk wants to spend a lot of money on or if he just wants to spend the money on establishing these guidelines and issuing this semi-annual, is it an annual report? Semi-annual report to everybody. We will see, we will see. All right. Okay, so, you know, other than that, I have, I think we've covered all the newsy items. I was gonna talk about three different movies quickly and then take your questions and maybe this will be a short show, which is fine. By the way, if you wanna ask questions, if you wanna participate, if you wanna get me to focus on a topic of your interest, you can do so by using the Super Chat feature and asking a question in the Super Chat. The more money you put, the more likely it is that sooner I will answer the question. So $20, $50, $100, $500 all get priorities. But you can ask questions for $2 as well. And so please feel free to do that. And that is available. We're still quite a bit off target of our goal, but we've still got some time. And I'll use this opportunity to remind you that December 31st, we have a year end 2003 and review show in which I will review the news in 2013, the big stories of 2013. And please maybe bring the list of your favorite movies in 2013, best books that you read in 2013, anything like that that you wanna emphasize for the 2013 year, please bring to the show and share with us on the chat. It will also be a fundraiser. The last show of the year is usually, I devote a lot of time for asking you for money. So please accept that, accept my apologies for that, I guess. I'm not apologizing for that actually. And so it's a great time to support the show. We might get a match, who knows, but we will be trying to raise $12,000 during the show. And I'm willing to stay on for three hours plus in order to do that. And it will be at 1 p.m. East Coast time on Sunday. So please don't forget to join us for that. All right, three movies I wanna talk about. The first one is actually in the news right now. And that is May Astro. It is a movie that's come out on Netflix. It is a biopic of Leonard Bernstein, the famous conductor of the New York Philharmonic. He was a conductor of the New York Philharmonic for many, many years. He was also a composer. He is known primarily for his musicals, maybe his most famous is West Side Story, but also Candide, but West Side Story is probably the most famous of his musical compositions. There's a biopic came out in which Bradley Cooper plays Leonard Bernstein. And there's a lot of a pro about the movie for a variety of different reasons. One, well, oh, so first I saw the movie. So I saw the movie, so I'll tell you my impressions of the movie. But a few weeks ago, months ago, there was a lot of pro about the fact that Bradley Cooper, in order to play Leonard Bernstein, had a kind of an artificial add-on to his nose made. So he enlarged his nose to Leonard Bernstein, had a big nose. And Bradley Cooper had that done. And there was a lot of like, that's anti-Semitic. I don't know what the people thought. Bradley Cooper, of course, is not Jewish, and yet Leonard Bernstein was Jewish and there was calls for cultural appropriation. Talk about nuts, right? I mean, I'm against, I mean, I think blacks, whites, it doesn't matter. It's the quality of the acting. Who cares what color skin you have? Anyway, he tried to look as much like Bernstein and he adjusted the nose and I think they did a good job with the makeup, with the nose, they also aged him through the movie. And I think they did a good job. I think he does look like him. I think he talks a little bit like him. One of the reasons this has become an issue right now is because he will be up probably, maybe, for an Oscar nomination for this movie, which I think, you know, he deserves, I mean, he'll have to fight it out with, I forget, Killian, who played Oppenheimer. I think it's between them. I think Oppenheimer will win. The guy played Oppenheimer in, played Oppenheimer in the Oppenheimer movie was brilliant. He's also from what he called the Peaky Blinders. I love him, Peaky Blinders. He's an excellent, brilliant actor. But Cooper's good. And I think Cooper's particularly good here, but there's a lot of people who hate his performance. I don't know if they hate his performance because he's portraying a Jew. I don't know if they hate his performance because Leonard Bernstein was gay. I don't know if they hate his performance, why they hate his performance, but there's a lot of uproar right now about Leonard Bernstein's, about Betty Cooper's performance of Leonard Bernstein. I thought he was very, very good. I'm not gonna say anything about the movie, the movie's mixed, but I thought his performance, he did a really good job. The movie will also probably be nominated for an Oscar, but the movie is mixed. It deals with the part of Leonard Bernstein's life that was less interesting to me, although it landed up being more interesting than I would have expected. So it deals with his relationship with his wife and generally his love life, which I knew nothing about. Zero, now I know a lot about it. I'll tell you about it in a minute. What it doesn't deal with, which would have interested me much more, is with Bernstein's relationship to music. It would have been interesting, much more interesting to me to know more about his view of conducting, why he conducted, the way he conducted. He was one of the more expressive conductors you'll ever see on the stand. You'll see some video belly group again, does a very good job. I think I'm mimicking Bernstein's conducting style. It was incredibly expressive with the baton and on the stage, very, very unique conducting style. But it would be interesting to focus on that, to focus on his composition. He was always frustrated that he's never taken seriously as a classical music composer. Instead he was remembered as more of like the composer of West Side Story. That would have been interesting. His struggles around composing music. Instead the focus was on his relationship with his wife, which was interesting, because she married him knowing that he was bisexual. That is knowing that he had sexual relationships with men as well. And that he would, and they had what basically constituted, at least on his side of the relationship, an open marriage where he had affairs with men on the side. And with his wife, while he also had his wife and he had kids and the kids for a very long time didn't know he had these other relationships. And he lied to them as adults about it. And basically at the urging of his wife. And again, the movie gets into all of that. So it is interesting in the respect of the ability of somebody to have multiple relationships all at once in a kind of an open relationship framework. I think at the end it basically proves what I think is true. And that is that it's not doable. It's just not doable. It's actually, I don't think it's boring. I found it interesting. His character is interesting. His wife's interesting. You know, and the relationship is interesting. And then there's enough music and enough focus on the music that it's all kind of comes together. But again, it is mixed. It's not a great movie, but it wouldn't be my vote for best movie. But I did enjoy it. But what it proves is what I think is true, and that is that you can't do it. And that you can't do it because there's just not enough time. There's just not enough focus. It's 24 hours in a day. If you're dedicated to your career, which Bernstein was, dedicated to Korea. He composed. He taught. He taught music. He did popular music stuff. And then he also conducted one of the busiest orchestras in the world in one of the most famous orchestras in the world to then also dedicate as much time to a partner that they deserve as your partner. And then have other partners on the side, male or female. It doesn't really matter. It's just not doable. Something has to give. And usually it's just a significant partner that gives and giving that you love them. Supposedly it seems like a heavy price to pay. So I just don't think that that's a good thing. I think it's just another exact example of the reality that psychologically and just from the perspective of time and psychological space, the perspective of focus, long term multiple relationships just do not work. Do not work. Don't believe me. You can try. You can try. Now this turns out to be a true story. It turns out that he had multiple relationships on the side with other women and other men. The movie focuses on other men. But yeah, I thought the movie was interesting. And his performance was indeed excellent. I came across just looking for movies to watch over the holidays over the last week. I came across a movie I hadn't seen in many years. I saw it originally at the theater. And it's one of my favorite movies. It's certainly one of my favorite movies of the last 10, 20 years. And I watched it again. And I loved it. I loved this movie. This is really an amazing movie. And it's a movie that is, that you're just not going to find this quality anyway. It's a movie called A Most Violent Year with Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain. It was made in 2014. And it's set in New York City in 1981. Although it looks like New Jersey in 1981. And this is an amazing, an amazing movie. It is the only example I know of in a movie of a businessman portrayed with absolute unchallenged integrity. And who says he is motivated by the virtue of integrity? Who, his argument against thieves is, Crooks, he says, have pride. Stop doing this. Have some pride in what you do. So somebody who verbally, openly stands for pride. He never takes the easy route. Never embraces violence. And he doesn't embrace violence because he knows he will be the one who suffers from it. It's dispensed for primarily because in a business way, how is he going to solve this business problem? It's just, it's really well made. It's well paced. Isaac is brilliant. But it's just, it's a movie that has, you know, philosophically, you will not find better characters than this morally in a movie. You just won't. The movie is called A Most Violent Year, which is true of 1981. It was a very violent year. And it deals with the consequences of violence. And it deals with the consequences of having integrity. And what integrity means, how integrity manifests itself, and how integrity is rewarded. A most violent year. And it's one of these movies nobody's seen. I don't know if any of you have seen it. Nobody's seen. And yet, it's brilliant. It's brilliant. If you want to see it on streaming platform, it's on Max right now. It's streaming on Max. Max is the new Cinemax HBO streaming platform. Or you can buy, I guess rent it on Apple TV or something like that. But really fantastic, much better than The Year of Living Dageously. Although that's a good movie too, but this is much better. It's just, I watched it and your mouth just goes, I mean, how could they be saying this? And this is not script written by an objectivist. How could they be saying this stuff? So, highly recommend it. If you watched it in the past, watch it again. Pay attention to the dialogue. Pay attention to this character. This is about the character. It's not an action movie. In spite of the title, it doesn't. It's not a very violent movie if you're worried. There's some violence, but it's not a very violent movie if you're worried. I was worried when I went to see it first time. Most violent here. Whoa, this is going to be a violent movie. But it wasn't, it's a character, portrayal of a great character. Just a great character. That's about a stronger recommendation you're going to get from me for a movie. Most violent here. Finally, another fantastic movie, a short movie. This is only like 33 minutes long. This is a movie that Schausbach paid me to review. One of my favorite Christmas movies of all time. I watched it, I don't know, three, four, five times. It's Black Addis Christmas Cowell. Black Addis Christmas Cowell. You can find this on, I think on Prime, I think on Prime. I can't remember exactly where I watched it, but I think it was on Prime. Or maybe on Hulu. Where, where Black Addis, you can find Black Addis. It's called Black Addis Christmas Cowell. It was made in 1988. It's with Ron Atkinson playing Black Addis. But it's got terrific actors across the board. Tony Robinson, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Stephen Fry from Monty Python, and Hugh Laurie from House. Just terrific cast. Anyway, Black Addis, Ron Atkinson plays Black Addis. Black Addis is basically the character from Christmas Cowell, the sharp owner. But here the story is reversed. He is the nicest man in England. The most generous man in England. Or in other words, the most altruistic man in England. He gives everything away. And by the time Christmas Eve, you know, Christmas is happening. He has nothing. He's given everything away. And he just, people exploiting him, taking advantage of him. And he just keeps giving stuff away. And when, you know, the ghost of Christmas Future comes to show him the Christmas past and Christmas future, I guess, to show him the past. He shows him a past of Black Addis being selfish and having fun. So what happens is the exact reverse of what happens in the Christmas Cowell. He goes from being altruistic to being selfish with the idea that if you're selfish, you have more fun. And now, you know, it's not philosophically right. You know, the examples they use for being selfish and philosophically right. But it's such a breath of fresh air to show altruism is weak and pathetic and suffering and no good that I'll take their vision of selfishness. And above anything else, it's just funny and fun. And generally, I would say Black Addis, one of the best comedies in all of history, ever written the season one, two, three, and four, all four seasons are brilliant. The first season is in the Middle Ages. The second season is in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The third season is during the Enlightenment. And this Christmas Cowell is during the reign of Victoria. So it's in the 19th century. The fourth season, which is very funny but also very poignant and kind of sad, is set in the 20th century during World War I in the trenches. And highly highly recommend Black Addis. A Christmas Cowell is just fun to watch on Christmas. An anecdote to the stop being selfish, you should be sharing more kind of attitude that pervades Christmas. Show the kids this movie to set them straight. Yeah, Black Addis is always good. There's some classic episodes in the Middle Ages one makes fun of Christianity. Later ones make fun of all different aspects of society and of monarchs and just of the world in which we live. Yeah, those were my movie reviews. Remind you that on December 31st I'm doing the U.N. Review Show. And please bring your favorite movies of 2023 or just movies you watch in 2023 that you really love and yeah, anything else. Books that you read. Stories that you found interesting in 2023. Bring them to the show and share them with us. All right, reminder that the show is sponsored by the Inrin Institute. Right now the registration for Ocon is open. So Ocon is Objectives Conferences. This year it is in Anaheim, California and I will be doing a course there together with Ancalgate. So that's going to be, I think, a lot of fun. There are going to be great talks and you get to meet a lot of people and generally it will be, what is this? Yeah, it will be a fabulous event. It's going to be June 13th to 18th. It's a great place to explore new ideas and connect with like-minded people. You'll have an opportunity to hear from objectivists like Greg Salamieri and Tara Smith and myself and Ancal. You'll get an ARU experience, which we're running there. They'll be moving artistic experiences, performances and we'll have wonderful social events, maybe the highlight of the social events is the poker tournament and you can try to defeat me. I've never won the poker tournament but I've made, I think, the final table every year and it's always fun and I always give a hard time to everybody I play against and you'll see the competitive side of your own book. So that is worth the attendance fee for Ocon. So join us. All right, let's turn to the Super Chat questions. Rimo says, some interview recommendations for 2024. John Ellison, George Seljian, Larry Lawrence White, John Cochran, Charles Koch. All good. Probably get John Ellison, probably get George Seljian. The rest, less likely, but we will try. Enric, is the disintegration from bad premises rising from the left, Islamism, authoritarianism from nations like Russia, China, etc. an opportunity for those looking for good ideas as in objectivism? ARC UK has seen a surge of views recently. I mean, it's always an opportunity when there's existential angst in the air, right? When people are experiencing existential angst, where they're experiencing uncertainty about the future, when they've come to the conclusion that whatever's happening right now is not going well and that they should think about alternatives, think about what to do, then when that is happening, yes, there's definitely an opportunity for objectivism. And the other aspect of that is, and this is the real reason why ARC UK is seeing a surge, they're seeing a surge not because of objectivism, but because they've been doing a bunch of, because of the titles of their videos, have been super controversial. And that has been, but controversial in a way, I guess, that the algorithm is not penalizing, sometimes it penalizes. And as a consequence, they're getting massive amounts of hits on it. Now, I don't know, they've seen a surge in subscribers, but the surge in subscribers is not matching the surge in viewership, because people are going because it's controversial. Now that is objectivism, we are controversial. So it is an opportunity for us to put out there our really, really, really controversial content. And it's an opportunity for people to interact with our really, really controversial content. I mean, 9-11 was a great opportunity and I think we capitalized on it and we got a lot of traction at the Ironman Institute post 9-11 from a lot of people who I don't think would have discovered us otherwise, because we came out with very controversial, hard-hitting content. And people said, whoa, you know, how come they have the moral certainty to say what they're saying? And that causes them to think more deeply about or to investigate objectivism. So yes, I think it's an opportunity. We're trying. I'm putting on more videos than ever. I'll talk about that on Sunday. We'll talk about the new short videos that we're putting out. I've seen a surge in some of the short videos, but my titles, I think, are less, being less effective than the ones they all see UK put out. They've really done some good titles that have really caught people's attention and gotten a lot of views. It's great. Great to see. Great to see. It just proves, do something and you do it and you do it and you do it and you keep at it and you keep at it and you keep at it. You're going to hit some success. The question is, is that success sustainable? And that'll be interesting to see what happens with the RCUK once. All their shows that have hit big time about the Israeli-Palestinian issue, it'll be interesting to see if that is sustainable beyond this issue. I've seen a huge surge in subscribers, which I'll talk about. I mean, not a huge, but a big surge in subscribers because of some of the videos we put up. Adam, I saw an agree about most violent year. What would you think of Denzel Washington in the role of Hank Reardon in a new film or TV series of Atlas Shrugged? I think he's now maybe a little too old, but I would have loved to see Denzel Washington as Hank Reardon. I think he, first of all, Hank Reardon is the hardest character to play because he's the most multi-dimensional character. He's a character that goes through real change and has to reflect the change in his acting. And I think he is one of the great actors certainly of his generation. I would have liked him to have played it 15 years ago, but yes, I would love to see Denzel play Hank Reardon. I think that would be fantastic. He's got the ability to express in the way he talks and in his expressions kind of the changes, the angst that Reardon experiences. He is truly a gifted actor. Bree says, the amendment they are using to disqualify Trump is essentially an oath of office violation. Using this criteria, any that voted to lock down the people should be disqualified. Yeah, but the standard is not oath of office, right? If it's oath of office, then if you have a proper understanding of the Constitution, then every president would be disqualified on a million grounds, not just regulations of business and so much going to war without authorization of Congress. So much of what has happened in America is a violation of the Constitution, but nobody understands the Constitution. But this is a specific provision. This is specifically related to a resurrection, not resurrection of course. Anyway, somebody will give me the insurrection, right? An insurrection and I mean, I think it's at least not crazy. And again, the number one scholar who is pushing this is one of the most conservative scholars out there, illegal scholars. So it's not a crazy idea. I don't think the Supreme Court is going to accept it though. I think they're going to throw it out. Catherine, how can a country be kicked out of NATO? How if so? I don't know the specifics, but sure it can. I'm sure by vote of all the other members, it would have to be unanimous. There must be a process of doing it. You can be kicked out of the EU. You can leave the EU. You can be kicked out of NATO. You can leave NATO. All of that is doable and feasible. So I don't know what the process is though. Francis, how effective can the protest be against Milay? I mean, it depends on Milay, right? I mean, they will keep going out in the street, but it depends on whether Milay will cave to the pressure and how many of the Argentinian people will join the protests to the extent that most Argentinians say, we're going to give this guy a chance. We're going to sit this out. Let's see what happens. Then I think he, when we stand any protest, I think he can keep going. The question is, will either the people or Milay himself break? Michael, we can't force someone to hear a message they are not ready to receive, but we must never underestimate the power of planting a seed. Absolutely. We should constantly be planting seeds. Everywhere we go, we should plant seeds. It's the only way that we could win this. PB says, I'm Caucasian with many friends of Indian descent who mainly associate with Indians also seem to make frequent comments about race. Is it a model for them to discriminate in this way? Yeah, well, yes, if they're really discriminating, if they're discriminating based on race, then it is a model to place your friendships and associations to base them on race as a model. It is to do it irrationally. Anything irrational is a model. Andrew, in the context of property rights, why do you and Rand stress the use of property as against possession? Because fundamentally rights protect action. They protect activity. They protect the activity of living. And to the extent that there's a right to property, it's the activity of either gaining the property or sustaining it. So right don't ascertain to human action. They don't relate to thoughts. They don't relate to stuff. So you have a right to, and this is part of the confusion about rights. It's you have a right to act, to gain or keep, right, to a value in a sense that, but it's the action of it. And it's the whole rights come from the requirements of life and the requirements of life are action. Are the activities engaged in living? Best I can do right now. I'm not sure that's a complete answer, but it's the best I can do right now. Good question for a philosopher. What are your thoughts on the libertarian argument in favor of state rights constitution pre-civil war? Is it too anarchist or does it allow more freedom than a powerful federal government? No, it's a violation of rights. That is, the function of a federal government, the function of any government, is the protection of individual rights. If a state government in a federal system is systematically, egregiously violating the individual rights of a citizen, the job of the federal government is to make it stop by any means necessary. That's the only function of a government. And it's to license the only function of federal government because the federal government doesn't have direct jurisdiction over people. The states do. So the federal government is there to make sure the states don't violate the rights of the individuals who live in those states. That's it. The problem with the anarchists is they don't believe in individual rights. They don't have any problem with, you know, individual rights. Are you relevant in this scheme? So the fact that southern governments had slaves, you know, bothers them a little bit, but not too much. You know, and they've, you know, the states, this was the will of the people in some way. This is what the states wanted. And that overrides any other consideration. So it really comes from the anarchist disregard for individual rights, for individual rights. It's not about how powerful the federal government is. It shouldn't be powerful, but it should have enough power to stop any state from egregiously violating the rights of its own citizens. And slavery is about and egregious of a violation of rights, as one can imagine. And Milka, I can't pronounce a name. Daenerys Tagarian was also pressured not to actually fight so as not to be like her enemies. Let's just say she's still my favorite character, Nukaaza. Yeah, although I think she overreacted at some point and the force became gratuitous. She didn't need to do what she did. She had already won. She was already devastating the enemy. At some point it becomes gratuitous and it doesn't serve a purpose anymore. And I think that's what happened in Game of Thrones. Robin, final question. What do you think it would take for people to move away from the left-right labels whenever someone voices political opinions? I think they won't move away from that until they realize what the positive is and that the spectrum becomes real to them and that the good side of the spectrum has a reality to people. That is, they won't leave left to right until they realize that the real spectrum is individualism, collectivism. And then people say, oh yeah, that makes sense, but then they have no reality to individualism. They don't know what that means. So you've got to concretize and make real to them what individualism actually means and how it's contrast with collectivism. Until we have that, and that's a big mission to get that, it's very, very hard to get them out of the left-right. It's so inculcated and it's so appearingly oppositional. You know, the other thing that could happen is what you'll see is a unity of the left and right around an authoritarian dictator, which is what I predict will happen. And then will be the only alternative to that dictator and it's not clear what we are. You know, they'll have to come up with something different in order to describe the opposition and the dictator because it won't fit neatly into the left-right perspective. Alright, finally, Andrew, I don't disagree that Hailey was partially calculating in her answer to the cause of the Civil War, but I also think she missed the obvious because she's dumber due to this campaign. Maybe she wasn't smart enough, fast enough on her feet and she just said something stupid, I don't know. I doubt it, but I don't know. It seems pretty dumb and it seems to have really hurt her and it seems to have hurt her all over the place. Even among conservatives, even people on the right, it hurt her. So we'll see if she can recover from this. Okay guys, I will see you all in two days, New Year's Eve, 1 p.m. East Coast time. As I said, bring your checkbook, bring questions, bring ideas of what you want to discuss, bring lists of your favorites, this or that. Looking forward to the show, it should be a lot of fun. We'll be reviewing 2023, not a great year, but we'll be talking about the big stories of 2023, the best movies of 2023, the best books, whatever you guys want to talk about. So make sure to join us 1 p.m. Eastern time and of course you can use stickers to support the show today. We're $42 short and didn't get a lot of stickers today, but feel free to jump in here with a sticker. But in any case, it's time for me, 1 p.m. East Coast time. Yes, 1 p.m. East Coast time. See you all, well, yeah, 1 p.m. East Coast time, 2 p.m. my time. I'll see you all on Sunday. And if I don't, if you don't show up for that show, have a fantastic Happy New Year. Really, you should come to the show. Don't forget to like the show before you leave. If you're not a subscriber yet, please subscribe. Talk to you soon. Bye, everybody.