 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Brookshow. All right, everybody, welcome to Iran Brookshow on this Monday, April 1st. April Fool's Day, I guess. I promise no April Fool's stuff for me. I'm doing the news. I'm not making any of this stuff up, so this is going to be real. Andrew, that's not even funny. So, yeah, you guys can play all the April Fool jokes you want in one another in the chat, but it's an April Fool's free zone on the Iran Brook news roundup. All right, let's see. It could have been funny if I did the whole show as an April Fool's joke with a bunch of made-up news. That would have been pretty cool, but, yeah, I'm not that creative, if you will. That's not who I am. I'm too serious. He's too serious. All right, some updates. We'll start with Israel, then Ukraine, and Turkey, Scotland. Then we'll talk, there's one more story about squatters quickly, and then we'll say something about the Jacobian magazine's article on Iran. And that is, that's what we're going to cover. I do have a hard stop at three, but please feel free to ask questions, so we're a little tight. All right, I mean, breaking news out of Israel, and that is that early this morning or last night, I think it was early this morning, Middle East time, Israel F-35 struck a building in the Iranian embassy, in the Iranian embassy compound. So the building next to the Iranian embassy, kind of between the Iranian embassy, and I think the Canadian embassy, and F-15, as far as we can tell, five bombs, bombed this building, basically knocking it to the ground. This is a building used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. In the strike, they managed to kill three Revolutionary Guard generals. In many respects, this is as significant, if not more significant, than the killing of Soleimani under the Trump administration. They killed the commander of the Revolutionary Guard for Syria and Lebanon, which means the commander over Hezbollah and over all the Iranian militias in Syria that have been attacking U.S. forces. They killed the chief of the general staff of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard against Syria and Lebanon. And they killed a major general who's the commander of whatever they do in Israel, in Palestine. A major blow to Iran, these are three of the most senior military officials within the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which is the base of power that the Iranian regime has. These are the people that keep the regime alive, that keep the regime going. These are also the people who have established, as Soleimani did, the network of Iranian-backed terrorist organizations, militias, however you want to call them, all over the Middle East, from the Houthis in the south, in Yemen, all the way to the different organizations in Iraq and Syria, to the Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Hamas in Gaza. It is also interesting that this is an attack, of course, on embassy property, this supposedly pseudo-immunity kind of thing, for embassy facilities in Israel, went ahead and bombed them. Anyway, this is going to be really interesting to see how Iran responds. They will feel like they have to respond in some way. It will be interesting to see if they choose to respond by launching massive quantities of long-range missiles from Iran, Syria, Iraq, into Israel. The Iranians have so far not fired out of Iran. They fired out of their proxies, but they've not fired out of the Iranian mothership, if you will, in order not to court retaliation on Iranian soil. Will now that change? Will they use their proxies in Iraq and Syria, or will they ultimately unleash the Hezbollah that, as I've told you many times, has an arsenal of over 100,000 various types of rockets and missiles that it could launch on Israel? It's hard to tell what of those. Of course, one other option exists, and that is for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard not to attack Israel at all, but instead to attack the United States. That is, to attack American bases that are in Syria and in Iraq, and as we know, because Americans died in a base in Jordan. So will they attack there? What are they going to respond, or will they not do anything? Really hard to tell. This is a huge hit for the Iranians. The Iranian Foreign Minister has already been out saying Israel's going to get it. We're going to go after them. And so they are kind of at least publicly committed to striking Israel and getting back at Israel, whether they can do anything, whether that thing that they do is effective. The most effective thing they could do, of course, is to unleash the Hezbollah. I will say that over last night, a missile launched probably from one of the Iraqi groups. A ballistic missile actually hit a facility in Elat in Israel's southern tip. I don't know if that's what ultimately instigated Israel to do what it did, or just the fact that they had intelligence about all these generals being in one place at one time instigated it. But the Iraqi militias did hit a base in Elat. So that is kind of the breaking news. In addition, basically if you look at any newspaper out there, what they were putting on is that Israel has ended their raid on the Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip. They've withdrawn their troops. There are a lot of pictures of the massive amount of damage done to the buildings at the Shifa hospital. And a lot of the blame, of course, is being inflicted on Israel, when the blame, of course, should be on the Hamas for using the hospital as a base, for using it as a base of operations, for having hundreds of terrorists base there. And therefore leaving no choice for the Israelis but to enter and engage in fighting in the hospital itself. One of the amazing things about the hospital raid is that Israel killed 200 armed terrorists, Hamas members, Islamic jihad members, zero civilians, as far as we can tell, zero. And they arrested 500 suspected Hamas and Islamic jihad members. So this is a huge raid, a very successful one. They killed a number of prominent Hamas leaders, although I think the people they caught or killed, they were primarily older Hamas operatives rather than the younger generation. But you could argue they should have killed a long, long time ago. So the very fact that they're alive is a sign of Israeli weakness. But Israel did do the operation. They have taken out almost 1,000 Hamas operatives, and that is sure to weaken Hamas in significant ways. So that is going on on the Israeli front. And let's see, anything else I wanted to cover here? Just now related to Israel directly, but just indirectly it is worth noting that the Harvard Law Student Government Association voted at the end of last week to basically encourage the Harvard Administration to boycott Israel to join the BDS movement, which is a movement to boycott Israeli goods and all trade with Israel. The BDS movement is a pretty despicable movement, and if you look at the actual documents of the organizers of BDS, it calls for basically the destruction of Israel. It calls for the destruction of a significant Jewish presence in Israel. It is riveted to see Hamas propaganda. It is the worst kind of the anti-Israeli and ultimately anti-Semitic propaganda out there, the BDSes. And it is tragic and sad to see the Harvard Law Student Government. I mean, this is Harvard Law School. The people leaving here, this is not some two-denk student organization that nobody's ever heard of at Harvard. Harvard Law students are going to get some of the best jobs in the country. Many of them are into politics. They get prestigious jobs in some of the best law firms in the country. And they just voted for this anti-Semitic, bloodthirsty, genocidal policy that basically is behind the eradication of the state of Israel. Lawrence Summers, who was at some point years ago the president of Harvard University, has written about his dismay at this. And it is interesting, he wrote this, those who hire at the Harvard Law School say they emphasize character and judgment in hiring lawyers. I hope they will ask students involved in student government their view on selective divestiture of Israel. As I'm sure they would if student government assessed other resolutions of prejudice. So let's hope these students never get a job. It is interesting that there is no call to divest from Saudi Arabia that treats women the way that it treats them. No calls to divest from, and there were never any calls to divest from Iran in spite of its horrific history. There's no calls to divest from any of the Arab countries that have just horrific disastrous individual rights records. The only country that is singled out for this kind of action is the one country that has immense respect for individual rights in the entire Middle East. And that is Israel. Truly horrific. By the way, I did do the debate yesterday. I think it was about three hours and 40 minutes with Saif Adin, Saif as he calls himself. You know, that will be released at some point in the next few days, weeks. I'm not sure exactly. God was it frustrating, just frustrating. No, it wasn't fun at all. I mean, debates are usually just frustrating because you walk away saying God, you know, and this one had no live audience. All I had was these two guys, the moderator, Robert Bleedlove, who is anti-Israel and Saif Adin. And I have these two guys. I didn't make a dent. I don't think in any of their perspective, but super, super frustrating. I think I did okay, but you'll have to tell me. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't understand how people hold the views that they do. I don't understand how they, in a sense, take a knife and stick it in their own eyes and blind themselves. How ignorant you can be and how blinded to actual reality you can be. It's bewildering and stunning to me the capability of doing that. It is interesting that so many, so many libertarians are like this. I will do a show. I'm not maybe I'll bring it up today, but I will do later today. But I will do a show about this article that somebody from the Cato Institute just issued about. It just published about Israel that is just despicable, just despicable. So Cato's foreign policy is just beneath contempt. Our so-called allies among the libertarians are just, what can I say? Horrific is the best way I can think of it, immoral, evasive, blind. But yeah, okay. We don't have time for that. Some updates on Ukraine Russia. One, it does look like there will be a vote in House of Representatives about a deal to fund weapons for Ukraine. It might cost the Speaker of the House his job, or if he keeps his job, he will depend on Democrats voting for him. That is typically what happens with the Speaker of the House who whatever party has the Speaker votes unanimously for him and the other party votes overwhelmingly against him. Given that the Republicans have such a small margin, all it will take is three Republicans to vote against him and he will lose the speakership. He will have to get at least three Democrats to vote for him. Democrats have expressed interest in possibly doing that in appreciation of the fact that he is bringing the Ukraine support to the floor. If the Ukraine support does come to the floor, I expect a significant number of Republicans to vote for it. But a number of Republicans and not a small number of Republicans will vote against it and then enough of them will vote against the Speaker to try to throw him out, maybe even up to a dozen, that he will have to get some Democratic help. So some suspense in the House around Ukrainian aid. In the meantime, on the battlefield, a bunch of different things are going on. Basically the initiative in terms of the offensive on the ground is all Russian. The Russians are attacking, attacking, attacking, mostly that being held back. They're taking massive casualties, huge losses to equipment. There was this one interesting story that I saw that the Russians have for the first time I think in military history. They deployed a whole attack using basically combat robots. These are like vehicles with an automatic grenade launcher. Yeah, I think it's a grenade launcher and with no driver and they launched a number of these into battle. Almost all of them were taken out by Ukrainian drones. So it is interesting to see robots in the field, primitive robots, but still unmanned vehicles on the ground. We know they're in the air, we know they're even in the water, but this was the first ground offensive that I've seen them being used. Also, Ukraine has caused more damage to the Russian fleet in the Black Sea and basically Russia is in complete retreat in terms of navy operations in the Black Sea. They were free to go out of port. Even the port is not protected with barges because the Ukrainians have these unmanned boats that can come into the port and attack the ships and basically that has provided free reign for Ukraine to use its shipping to export grain on ships, something that the Russians tried to block. So the Russian fleet in the Red Sea really has been decimated which is a shocking development given how strong it is and given how it appeared to be super safe. The Ukrainians using drones, using long-range missiles and using sea drones, ship drones have managed to completely devastate the Russian fleet in the Red Sea. Finally, a story related to Russia, not exactly to Ukraine, but I thought I'd wrap it into this update. 60 Minutes ran a story of an investigation. They ran with the Spiegel and I think an American publication as well about what has been called the Havana Syndrome. This is a syndrome that American diplomats experienced headaches, nausea, insomnia, depression, impart concentration, all kinds of other symptoms and it was deemed to be psychological and not real and other Americans in other places around the world also experienced this including Canadians and there was a lot of internal investigation. Internal investigations came to the conclusion that this was just psychosomatic. Now there's been investigation and it links this to the emissions of radio frequency energy and used by a unit of the Russian FSB with the Russian Intelligence Services that basically is responsible for assassinations and other activities in foreign countries and that this is what has caused the symptoms that are not made up. It appears real, at least this is what this journalistic endeavor has brought forward. All right, I need to speed it up. I think, okay, Turkey. Turkey had elections over the weekend and elections, local elections, not federal elections, but the election results were quite shocking in terms of Turkish politics in that the ruling party, Erdogan's party, basically lost control of major cities all across Turkey. The opposition party that is more secular has gained control of several cities that Erdogan had controlled previous to this. You know, not only did Erdogan's chief kind of opponent win the mayor race in Istanbul, but also his political party, the CHP I guess it's called, won significantly elsewhere. And, you know, this is huge. It's the first time we're seeing the secular opposition party actually doing significantly well, basically dominating local elections in the west of, in the south, or at least the southwest of the coastal regions of Turkey. So this is good news for anybody who values liberty and freedom in Turkey. Erdogan is ever greater force for ill, a force for authoritarianism and for theocracy in Turkey. CHP is a mostly secular party. They might be overly nationalistic. I don't know too much about the party, but it certainly is a good sign to see some opposition and some challenge to Erdogan. It's good to see kind of the victory party at the opposition headquarters versus Erdogan and his wife is completely covered up, only her face, which is clearly a developed Muslim. And in the opposition headquarters everybody looks super secular. You know, the women are all there in western clothes and western appearance. I mean, I think this is good news for Turkey, and it's good news for anybody who would like Turkey to stay an ally of the west. Let's hope that this starts manifesting itself in some of the national elections and that maybe this mayor of Istanbul will ultimately run for president and have a chance at defeating Erdogan. All right, update from Scotland. Scotland has now passed and now come into effect. One of the most stringent hate crime and public hate crime laws, hate speech laws, not hate crime laws, hate speech laws, really in the world, in the western world at least. The Hate Crime and Public Order Act of 2021, which came into force now, creates a new crime of, quote, stirring up hatred related to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity, and being into sex. The maximum penalty is a prison sentence of seven years. A person committing an offense if they communicate material or behave in a manner, quote, that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive with the intention of stirring up hatred based on the protected characteristics. Stirring up hatred. Wow. I wonder if I would go to jail in Scotland. I don't know. Anyway, the bomb defense is lower than for other protected characteristics. So, you know, here it includes insults. It includes insulting behavior. And you don't have to prove that it is inciting hatred, that it's likely to incite hatred. Sorry. You don't have to prove that it's intended to incite hatred. All you have to prove is that it's likely to incite hatred. J.K. Wallins, to a credit, is now saying that she is going to publish some stuff to test this law and to provoke this law and to see what actually happens. So it's going to be interesting. The fight over this is going to be intense. And again, given that we have J.K. Wallins on the side of free speech, which is a good thing, this will be tested. And it sounds like she will push them and try to get arrested for this. And we'll see what happens. Maybe she'll push this to go to the courts and challenge this. I don't know if you can in Scotland. I don't know what the constitutional statue of this. But this is really scary. Ireland has a very similar law, Ireland and Scotland. I mean, I have to really think about, do I want to ever speak in Edinburgh again? And certainly, I would never go and speak in Edinburgh about Israel, right? If I went to speak about Israel, that could easily be perceived as a talk that could, would be likely to be perceived as inspiring hate, right? And by the way, I'm not against hate. I think hating evil is a good thing. And so it's dangerous, tricky, interesting. And this is how the West collapses. You know, one thing that is interesting is, and this is the real test is going to be, and I know the answer to this, but will any Muslim fundamentalist be arrested on the basis of this law for encouraging the adoption of Sharia law and for encouraging hatred of Israel, hatred of Jews, hatred of the West? Probably, probably never happened. Indeed, the first minister in Scotland who was behind this and really pushed this is himself, his name is Hamzai Yusuf. So I assume he himself is a Muslim. I would anticipate that, you know, anyway, that speech that is antagonistic to Jews and Israelis is probably protected speech. All right, quickly, we talked about squatters. I'll just read you the headline. I don't think there's much here to talk about, but the headline is, New York City couple a suit by squatters who allegedly took over the $930,000 home investment home and won't leave. It's absolutely absurd. The owners say, and yes, it seems like the squatters have taken over the home and suing the couple because they're being harassed by the owners. The squatters are suing the couple. The couple, by the way, spent $530,000 renovating this home. So this is an expensive home and the squatters, they can't get rid of them. It will be interesting. We've seen it in Florida where we've got now the anti-squating, the anti-squating laws. Will this create a backlash even in blue states against a squatting, you know, rights, so-called rights, squatter rights, and against the far left that is bringing these to the forefront? All right, finally, and I don't really have time to talk about this. I'll probably just postpone much of this to a discussion in a future show. But there is a last day of March, the Jacobian magazine, which is the magazine of basically the socialist communists in the United States, the dedicated socialists. I've debated, I think, the editor of the Jacobian magazine in the past or whatever on capitalism versus socialism. Anyway, this is the headline of the interview they ran. Ein Rand had a fragile ego, incoherent ideas, and bad taste. It's an interview with this woman, Lisa Dugan, who has written a book, Mean Girl, Ein Rand, and the Culture of Greed. And this is an interview with this woman. The interview is, I couldn't really get through it, but I read much of it. And it's truly horrific. She knows nothing about Ein Rand. She certainly knows nothing about her ideas. And I thought I'd read you just quickly a segment of the interview, just two paragraphs, and then we'll call it quits. Ein Rand was originally from Russia, and a primary formation was rooted in opposition to Bolsheviks. After becoming an expat and coming to the United States, her core belief was against solidarity. Ein Rand's core belief, the thing that was at the heart of everything she did, was her opposition to solidarity. That's what she learned, because the Bolsheviks are all about solidarity, and she hated the Bolsheviks. It has nothing to do with a mass murder. It has nothing to do with oppression. It has nothing to do with suppression. It has nothing to do with silencing. It has nothing to do with her view of individual rights or individualism or morality or her views on epistemology or metaphysics or her... No, it's all about solidarity. She used the term collectivism, but that was truly... But what she really opposed was unity among less successful and dependent individuals. Ein Rand believed that when inferior people come together, they negatively impact the world. Have you ever, ever, ever, ever heard Ein Rand talk about inferior people? Has she ever, in any of her gazillions of writings, used the term inferior to refer to people? Of course she hasn't. This is an expression of the author themselves and their view of humanity. She goes on to say her opposition to communism, she says, her opposition was not just practical, but strongly felt. So it wasn't just practical. It was also emotional. No reason, no mind, because these leftist mind plays no role, right? There is no mind. It's all about feeling. It's a way of connecting with others and their struggles. That's what solidarity is. It's not merely a shared set of interests. It's also an emotional experience, right? So, yes, the problem with Ein Rand is that she rejected solidarity, whatever the hell that means. I mean, it really... If that's what you get from Ein Rand, God help you. You have no clue what you're talking about. And I feel sorry for the quality and type of life you are going to lead. All right. So don't check that article out, but it is in the news. It is all over Twitter. It will be retweeted. It will be discussed. It's pretty pathetic. You could do an analysis of the whole thing, but it really... It boils down to they can't think. They don't understand the world of the mind. They don't understand the world of the mind. And therefore, they certainly can't understand why freedom is better than violence and authoritarianism. That's why they're socialist after all. All right. We're going to do the super chat. We're going to try to do it quickly because as I said, I've got a hard stop. If we get any questions I can't answer, we'll roll them into the show tonight. There will be a show tonight at... I think at 7 p.m. time to be finalized soon. It will be about the Nakba. I figured I did a lot of research in preparation of the debate. So I might as well do a show out of that. So we will talk about the Nakba, about the formation of Israel and the tragedy as the Palestinians view it of what happened there. The refugee problem and the creation of the refugee crisis. So we'll just do an intense history lesson on that. So join us at 7 p.m. East Coast time right here. All right. Clark, $50. Thank you, Clark. Do people actually value honesty? They appear to prefer conflict avoidance. The consistent unwavering courage and honesty required by objectivism may be intimidating to people more than the inability to reason an attachment to altruism. I think you're right. I mean, there's no question. People do not value honesty. Honesty is not a crucial value. And people are, as we've talked about many, many times, people are dominated in much of their lives, particularly in their nonprofessional lives by fear and fear of confrontation, fear of disappointment, fear of having to tell somebody what you really think. And therefore, you know, their lives is constant avoidance of conflict, kind of avoiding of facing reality. It's not just conflict with other people, but conflict with reality. Remember that the person most people are most dishonest with is themselves. Honesty is a virtue about primarily oneself. That is primarily about, you know, your loyalty to facts, loyalty to reality, adherence to reality. Dishonesty is the negation of reality. That relates to how you treat other people, but it's primarily about you and your mind. So most people are dishonest primarily towards themselves and then towards others. And the conflict avoidance is not conflict avoidance just with other people. It's conflict avoidance with reality. They don't want reality to challenge what they feel they want. They don't want reality to challenge their emotions. All right, Upper Campbell, why would an intellectual betray the people like this? What is in it for them? They could just be honest and happy. Well, they can't. I mean, they could, but they can't in a sense that they can't hold that. They don't have a proper conception of honesty. They don't have a proper conception of reason. They don't know the alternative, what the alternative is. They built entire careers. Indeed, their whole intellectual project is built often on dishonesty. They, you know, from the professors that taught them to the classes they took, to the PhD they got, everything was built on some kind of framework of ignoring, avoiding a particular aspect of reality, a particular point of view in order to gain entry into the world of intellectuals. So they've invested so much in the deception. They've invested so much in the lie, they can't. At some point, you just can't turn your back to it. It would take way too much courage than these people have, and it would ultimately lead to their destruction. And they know it. Jason, in the world we live in now, how do we build back better a bridge in Baltimore? Would we invite musk, visas, et cetera, to own port ships, vertical integration, call off antitrust dogs? Would John Galt approve such an invite? Well, I mean, it's pretty easy. I mean, you don't need musk. I mean, there are plenty of great architects who can design a bridge and there are plenty of extraordinary construction firms. Give them the project, give them the right, I don't know, to toll the bridge, give them some upside, give them the opportunity to profit off of it, and let the private sector rip and go into that, privatize the whole segment of the highway, and let the private sector toll it, build it, and profit from it. That's how you would do it. You don't have to distract along Moscow or Jeff Bezos from the thing that they're doing. There are plenty of people in this field in engineering, construction, and architecture to be able to build a high quality bridge without having to take people away from tech. And, you know, remember Dagny, building the John Galt line. There are plenty of people who can do it. And ideally, the government wouldn't have to fund it, or at least wouldn't have to fund the total cost of it because they could privatize elements of it. You know, on the shipping authorities, right? And a bridge like that, which is so important to a port, the port which should be private should fund it. The shipping companies that need to ship goods in and out of the port should participate in it. So there are lots of mechanisms where you can fund it without government participation. All right, no more questions for today's show, just because I probably won't get all of them. I have to go with three, and I will roll them over to the next show tonight, but I'd rather try to answer them all now. Liam says, I know and said contradictions don't exist in reality. Is this also true in moral dilemmas? Do they really exist without operating under contradictions? They don't exist in reality. Moral facts are part of reality. They don't exist in moral dilemmas. Now, the problem with moral dilemmas, because they deal with people often, is that it's hard. They're hard to figure out what the facts are. It's hard to figure out what all the evidence is. It's hard to put together everything that's going on. So it is difficult. It's hard to actually figure out where the contradictions are when they're not. That is the challenge one has with moral dilemmas. It's not that the tourism, the contradictions do not exist in reality, don't apply to them. It's just how do they apply to them? How do we know enough? What kind of evidence do we need in order to figure them out, particularly when there's a conflict between people? If it's just you, then again, you have to introspect and figure out what exactly is going on. James, what makes Sam Harris and Stephen Pinker better than Jordan Peterson? Oh, God. I think that both Sam Harris and Stephen Pinker, particularly Stephen Pinker, has a real orientation towards reality. And Sam Harris has a real orientation towards reality on some issues, but not on others. I think Jordan Peterson, given that he's, I think fundamentalist, fundamentally a playedness, his orientation is not towards the fact of reality. It's not towards what is actually going on in reality and accumulating those facts and making a judgment over them, but towards something else, towards some kind of wisdom that he's getting from some other dimension, whether it's from the stories, he calls it something different, or whether it's from some kind of traditionalist dogma, if you will. So I think it's really an orientation towards reality. I will do a show on this because there's a segment, a video of Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro talking about the Enlightenment. And Enlightenment to me is the most important intellectually, other than Greece, the second most important intellectual period in all of human history, and for the good. And I think what Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro have to say about the Enlightenment is so fundamentally wrong and will do potentially so much damage. This is a period that needs to be defended and improved upon, and improved upon. So that is my answer. Will Israel ever go into Rafa at this point? Or will BB cave to outside pressure? Does BB care more about the global appearances or the will of his own people to enter Rafa so that he can maintain power after this is all over? You know, I don't know. I think they will. I expect they will. I think BB does care about the will of his own people because he wants to maintain power. So I think he will go into Rafa. I don't know why they're taking so long. The Biden administration is putting enormous pressure. There's a conference call by Zoom, I guess, by something, whatever the secure method they do. Video calls between BB and some of his advisors and the Biden and his advisors that's going on any minute now or any time now. So that is happening. And hopefully they will convince the Biden administration that they will do what is necessary to appease whatever Biden is concerned about. So that is the one issue that is out there. But I think he will in the end do it. I think he will in the end do it. It's a question of when and how. Jennifer says, Will Millay be the first sitting president you have ever met? Yes. I've met former presidents. I've met future presidents. But I've never met a sitting president. Now, I'm still like hoping it happens. Remember, he's a politician. He's a president. All kinds of stuff happens. He might decide not to come. He might have some emergency and not come. Lots of things that can happen between now and Saturday and he won't come. So I'm not holding my breath, but if I do meet him, it'll be the first sitting president I have met. All right, Stephen Harper says, April Fool's episode idea of someone impersonate you for a show pretending to be a devoted content. Got the idea from Peacuff's example of possible probable certain and skepticism. I thought what I would do though is it turns out there's now an AI that you can give it a short thing of your voice. And it will basically mimic your voice to the T. And we know that they can do that with your images already. So I thought what I would do is I would have an AI do a whole show as an April Fool's Day. Now, I don't know that we can do that yet today, but beware, April 1st, 2025, it'll be a real question whether Iran shows up or whether AI, some AI shows up to do the show. That could be a good April Fool's joke. All right, Roland says, God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise Corinthian 127. Rejoice all you faithful. Today is your day. Well, yes, today is the foolish day. Go for it. Rafael, hi Iran. Why did art decline during the late Roman Empire? How did it happen and was Augustinian Christianity a major effect in transition? Yeah, of course. I mean art decline because the sense of life and the values that sustained art into the early part of the Roman Empire was Greek. And as the influence of Greek culture, as the influence of the Greek sense of life, as the influences of Greek philosophy declined or morphed into Christianity, I mean Christianity adopted elements, particularly Plato, but also Aristotle, as it morphed into Christianity. And as that rejected this world, rejected pleasure, rejected the human body, rejected sexuality, rejected human success. Augustin, we are born sinful, we're inherently sinful. All of that destroys the capacity to create and to enjoy art. So it is not at all surprising that it declines. It starts declining. You can plot it against the rise of Christianity as Christianity rises, art declines. And it's only, you know, when art ascends back in the Renaissance is a sign of Christianity's beginning to decline. And not long after that you get a reformation and ultimately enlightenment and so on. Alright, philosophy goes zombie hunter. In welfare debates, how can we communicate that things like housing and rent would be a fraction of the cost in a free market, which would make welfare a lot less needed? It's very hard because, you know, they will tell you that's nonsense. It doesn't happen. Where's the empirical study? Where's the paper? I mean, we've got a lot of theory papers that show that. But the reality is, and I made this point a long time ago, it doesn't matter. They don't oppose rent control or any of this stuff because it's good. They don't oppose it because it's practical. Their arguments about the welfare state are not about practicality. They pretend to care about practicality. But what they really care about is the sacrifice of some to others. You know, and they're motivated by, you could see it in the debate I did with the guy with the welfare state. What he really motivates him is the idea of abolishing private property. That's what he really cares about. And everything else is just a facade. So there is no way to do it in a way that convinces the people who are committed to this other ideology. Now, I mean, it's basic economics 101 to show that, to show that the cost of living declines dramatically under capitalism and therefore the poor rise. And so you show how poverty declines under capitalism in major, major ways. Capitalism eviscerates and eliminates poverty. Chad, the ultra-religious life is completely pathetic. As a former orthodox Jew, I completely agree. I'm glad you said that the other day. Absolutely. And it doesn't matter, Jew, Muslim, Christian, if you're ultra-orthodox or you're orthodox in any kind of way, it's insane. It's an insane way of life. It's a life dominated by dogma, dominated by habits created over generations that are not based on anything but emotion and faith and dogmatic adherence to. And good for you, Chad, for escaping that world. Neocon, the Russian invasion of Ukraine reminds me of Operation Barbarossa, where the Germans captured huge amounts of territory but failed in their objectives. I mean, I hope you're right. It still is going to ultimately require that Ukraine gets support from the West in order for Ukraine to actually throw the Russians out of Ukraine. Otherwise, it's much more likely that it's just a stalemate over the very long run. And that would be incredibly painful for the Ukrainian people just because war is incredibly painful. Russia has the ability to lob bombs into Ukraine and destroy its infrastructure, and Ukraine has limited capabilities of doing that to Russia. So both the Russian and Ukrainian people will suffer, given that Russia is the aggressor. I feel more for the Ukrainians. James, have you been to Northern England, such as Leeds? Have you been to Scotland? I wonder what you think of the two people in culture? I have. I've been to York. I've been to Durham. I haven't been to Leeds. I've been to York and Durham. I've been to Edinburgh a few times. I've spoken in Edinburgh, I think, three times. I've been there maybe four times. Well, I've only been there when I've spoken, so three or four times I've been there. I don't know. I don't know enough about the... I didn't interact enough with the locals to be able to tell a difference in culture. I mean, Edinburgh is a beautiful city, a sophisticated city, but I know that Scottish politics is nutty left. I mean, crazy left, not moderate left, crazy left. I mean, they would vote... you know, they want to be socialists. They're all out-socialists, and on social issues, they're completely insane. So, in Northern England is, I think, grungier, more working-class, more factories, even though... if you go to Glasgow, I think that's what you see on the Scottish side as well. Edinburgh is more the intellectual home. But I don't know them well enough to be able to describe the real differences in people and culture. Obviously, the accents are quite different. James, G, along those lines, have you been to wealthy towns surrounding London? It appears that all the cities are going down. However, suburbs, rural areas are not. Yeah, I mean, there are many wealthy suburbs of London. They seem to be doing well. But look, I don't see the deterioration in much of London either. I mean, certainly the neighbourhoods that are awful. But, you know, I lived in London when I was a boy in the East, just east of Hackney. I forget the name of the... Doulston. Doulston. It's called Doulston. And when I lived there, it was awful. It was poor. It was rundown. It was horrible. It was poor. It was cockney. I spoke cockney. And Hackney was a terrible place. And for years, decades, Hackney was a place nobody wanted to live. Hackney's been completely... and Doulston, being completely rejuvenated. It's now... these are hip places to live. The row building, the home that I lived in when I was a kid, which was 100 years old back then and was awful and was completely renovated and looks really nice now. So, you know, these perception of central London is completely rundown. I mean, it's only the neighbourhoods and the neighbourhoods wouldn't want to go and the neighbourhoods that are really awful, but they are neighbourhoods inside. I mean, West London is still beautiful and, you know, and so are other neighbourhoods within London that have been rejuvenated over the last few decades. Again, there are certain neighbourhoods you wouldn't want to go and there are certainly certain neighbourhoods that look like you're in Arabia or something. You look like you're in some place in the Arab world. The sign is all in Arabic and it's just a little scary. But I know James, you live in London. I'm less negative about London than a lot of people. Maybe that's because I visit. Now, it is horror. The protests there and the police's attitude towards the protest is probably the thing that is most disgusting and most horrible. Sivano says, like the show. Thank you, Sivano. Please, like the show. James also, why does the UK allow for public rights of way across some private estates? Is it a thing I do not fully grasp are there other ways UK restricts private property that you are aware of? Well, there are lots of ways of property taxes, all kinds of ways. But I'm not familiar with the particular law in the UK. But the kind of rights of way exist in, I think, in the United States as well. If you have a vast land holding and the government needs to run a highway through it to get from a railroad or something else from point A to point B, they will use them in a domain to take that land and build a highway or build a road and provide you with some way to bridge the two pieces of land that have now been dissected with the roads. I don't think it's unique to the UK. I think it exists pretty much everywhere that has large estates. The government does not respect private property. And basically, in America it's called the eminent domain. I don't know what it's called. England uses whatever mechanisms they have to take the land to facilitate, quote, the common interest. Oil, W, why do young adults have such a negative view of Israel and realistically what can one do to change their minds? I mean, bottom line is because they were taught at the universities. They taught at one-sided history, but they were also taught the whole oppressor oppressed dynamics that I've talked about. Israel is rich, successful, and strong. Therefore must be, by definition, according to this way of thinking, an oppressor. The Palestinians are weak and poor, and therefore they must be the oppressed. And the oppressed are by the very nature of the oppression. They are virtuous. The oppressor, by very nature of their strength, they are the bad guys. And that's it. That's altruism. That's altruism taken to the nth degree. That's altruism, complete dedication to altruism, which is true of modern kind of woke, identitarian ideology. It's what they've been taught from when they were very young. It's what they've been taught at the universities and what their intellectual heroes all believe in and are all focused on. So that's what they hold. That's what they believe, and that's what they carry forward. Shahzabah, thank you. I really appreciate it. I know there were other stickers back there of Stephen Hopper, Sylvanos, thank you. Mary Eileen, thank you. Anonymous user, Graham, thank you. And I know Jack just became a member. Thank you, Jack, for that. Mary Eileen again. So thank you to all the stickers. Thank you, everybody. We made the target. Remind you tonight there will be a show, it'll be more of a history of Israel kind of show. For those of you interested, I might call it Zionism and the Nakba. So we'll talk about what Zionism is, my opinion of Zionism, my view of Zionism. I've done this before, but it seems that in the context of now it's worth repeating. And then I'll talk about the Nakba and the Palestinian perception of the Nakba. The guy I talked to yesterday's, debated yesterday's perception of the Nakba. And then the truth, the truth about the Nakba, and it is a Nakba, but who's responsible for the Nakba will be, we will talk about that. So that'll be tonight, 7 p.m. East Coast time. Please join us there. If there's any other possibility, I'll move it to 8, but as of now, 7 p.m. See you then. Bye, everybody. And thank you. And we covered all the questions.