 So let's talk about this idea of a national divorce and this comes from a tweet by Marjorie Taylor Greene. Marjorie Taylor Greene is a congresswoman from the state of Georgia and this is what she tweeted when it was February 20th, so about almost a week ago. She tweeted, we need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. What I talk to says this, from the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrats' traitorous America last policies. We are done. We are done. So separate, red states, go red states, blue states, go blue states and let's get this over with. Let's have the national divorce, the separation, you could call it, she calls it a divorce. So what do we think? What do we think of this? I think this expresses a lot of different things and it says a lot about the American right today and how bankrupt it really is and how defeatist it really is. This is Marjorie Taylor Greene who in her Twitter description calls herself a proud American. What does that even mean? What is America? Is America blue states? Is it red states? Is it both? The combination of all? Is it just one? Is it just the other? Obviously she wants to break up America. One could argue and I would argue that she wants to destroy America. She wants to annihilate America. She doesn't want America. So what does she want? She wants red state. I don't know what they'll call red state. I don't know what name they will give it. But she's not a proud American. So first she should change the title. She should change the description because she's not trying to change America in her image which is what Americans have done, Americans who were patriots, Americans who loved America did. They fought for their country. They fought not on the battlefield necessarily but they fought in the intellectual battlefield. They fought for their ideas. What the right has come to a position today of not wanting to fight for their ideas. Maybe realizing that they have no ideas to offer in its place. Maybe the right has now recognized that there is nothing to argue. There's no point in arguing because they don't believe in reason anymore. They don't believe in argumentation anymore. They don't believe in logic anymore and you can argue neither does the far left. So that there is no way to reason ourself out of this conflict because both bodies have given up on reason. And if all that's left is divorce, there's no talking, there's no convincing, there's no arguing because all of those make a very basic assumption. And that assumption is the truth is achieved by reason. The truth is something that we can figure out. Now we know Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't believe that. She is not an advocate of reason. She's not an advocate of rationality. This is one of the most irrational people certainly in Congress but maybe in America. She is an emotionalist, a conspiracy theory advocate. I mean wacky conspiracy theories, a QAnon nonsense. She is a religionist and people who hold a religion and hold tight to it and hold it firmly, you can't reason with them. It's not about proof, it's not about logic, there's no argumentation to be had there. I mean some religious people you can and some people you can argue them out of religion but Marjorie Taylor Greene is not one of those. She is just like the left she criticizes. She is an emotionalist. She is a subjectivist who has chosen emotionally and subjectively a religion, commandments and a set of pseudo principles to follow. But not based on reason, logic, not based on argumentation, not based on an argument that she could articulate but based on how she feels. And given that she realizes that the other side is similar to her in that the other side, the left is also subjectivist, emotionalist, can't reason, has abandoned logic and abandoned reality, she comes to conclusion therefore that we can't get along, there's just no way to get along, the visions of these two emotionalist sides do not align. So what we need to do is separate. Of course how we separate, we'll talk a little bit about how we separate and what that would mean and the practicality of that and then we'll talk about what I think of the whole idea and what I think about America because I think that's important. So one of the people commenting on a tweet I thought this was a good, he says if that terrible thing were to happen to which red state would you move Marjorie Taylor Green because she is from Georgia remember and Georgia is just elected three democratic U.S. senators in a row and actually went from Joe Biden in 2020 and is represented by two Democratic senators and this is the practical problem that the secessionists, of course people like Michael Mallis jumped on this, oh my God they were so happy to hear it and the libertarian types who want to see secession and generally want to see America destroyed and in ashes, thought this was amazing, thought this was wonderful, they jumped on this opportunity. But how do you actually implement this? Rule America, I mean the reality is that it's not true that there are red states and blue states so much as, it's to the generally rural areas tilt red and that's true in blue states, upstate New York, rural New York, tilt red, farmers and rural California, there is such a thing as rural California, tilt red. We know that Austin tilted blue but did you know that every single major city in Texas is blue, Dallas is blue, Fort Worth is a toss-up, San Antonio is blue, Houston is blue. So what do you do with Texas? Texas is maybe 55 Republican, 45 Democrat but the cities are flipped, 55 Democrat, 45 Republican, do you do that like the Cameroons and you empty the cities and you get rid of the people in the cities, what do you do? Do you force them to migrate out? Do you force Democrats to leave red states and Republicans to leave blue states? Or does red America maintain its blueish cities? I mean cities, the areas that are vibrant, the areas that where there's culture, the areas where there's industry, the areas which actually produce an overwhelming majority of our GDP, those cities are blue, like it or not, they are. So how do we do with that? I mean if you just took rural states and you create a country from all the rural areas it would be a very poor country relatively speaking. Aren't the cities where the wealth is created? It's, what's the practice? I mean you could do what Pakistan and India did, you know, India, when India declared independence they basically had a national divorce. They basically said, India basically said we don't want Muslims here, we're going to create a special country for Muslims, Pakistan, and all the Muslims can go to Pakistan, they also created ultimately also Bangladesh, what was called Eastern Pakistan. And most cities in India were like you know majority Hindu but a big minority, not a little minority, a big minority of Muslims. So a lot of those cities kicked their Muslims out and forced them to go to Pakistan and the Hindus that actually lived in Pakistan were forced to go to India and in that transition and that moving people and forcing them in each direction, two million people died, two million people died. That's a lot of people because of the violence between these groups. I mean is that what we want? Do we want an ideological test to be a member of the red state nation or the blue state nation? How is this, how is this going to work exactly? So the whole thing is stupid, impractical, anti-American and at the end of the day it's basically defeatist giving up on America, giving up on Americans, giving up on reason, giving up on the ability to persuade and wanting to see America burn. I mean this is truly nihilistic, this is the end of America. A national divorce, a separation of blue states and red states, not only to mention that they're not contiguous and you know so you'd have to have you'd have to like red states in the middle of blue states and blue states in the middle of red states and so on. It would be a total disaster for America, it would be a total disaster for Americans. I mean you should really think, where would you want to live? I mean it's one thing to live in Texas if it's part of the United States of America but do you want to live in Texas when it's just Texas, an independent state of Texas and maybe all the Democrats or some of the Democrats have all left so it's a true one-party state and then do you want to live in that one-party state? I mean this is just horrific. And Matt Walsh, of course, Matt Walsh, one of my favorite conservatives these days, favorite conservatives to criticize, Matt Walsh came out and said, yeah you know I don't have anything in common with Americans, with other Americans, what do we have in common? People who vote Democratic, I don't have anything in common with them and they don't have anything in common with me. We live in a different world, a different culture, different values, different priorities. So yes, we need a national divorce and they are a bunch of these you know new right conservatives who just love this, who think this is a fantastic idea without thinking. And I consider these people fundamentally anti-American and fundamentally anti-reason and I mean divorced from reality basically. And one of the reasons I think this, one of the reasons I think this is as you know I travel around the world. I spent time in many countries and many places. Here I am now in Georgia in Tbilisi and to say that America and Americans have nothing in common is bizarre. When you visit Prague and you meet Czech people and you visit, I don't know, tomorrow be visiting Poland and meet Polish people and you meet here in Georgia and I mean wonderful people everywhere, particularly the people I meet because they're self-selected. But there's definitely cultural, you know, language, fundamental differences. Americans, even Americans who disagree with one another are far more similar to one another, you know, in terms of attitudes, in terms of the way they think and the way they dress and what they eat and the sports that they love and all this other stuff. Then the difference between Americans and pretty much anybody else in the world. So first of all you realize that there's a lot, maybe not yet at the level of ideas, but maybe not explicitly the way we think about ideas today at the level of ideas, but in many other respects. But even at the level of ideas and put aside the crazy left and the crazy right, most Americans. The most Americans share some basic values, some basic set of ideas. And I think the answer is yes. It's not necessarily explicit, it's not something they could necessarily state, but I think that most Americans even today have some semblance of a commonality, of a common ideas that are, that they've inherited from the American past, that they've inherited from the American founding. I still think after traveling all over the world and seeing people everywhere in Asia, in Europe, in South America, that there is a individualism in America. Not the kind of individualism I would want, not the kind of individualism I would strive for, certainly not at the level of the consistency, but there's still some sense of an individual should be left alone to pursue his life, to some extent. Again, take out the extreme left and the crazy left and the crazy right, take those out. People, most Americans, people who are not part of those, whether they vote Democratic or vote Republican, they generally, inconsistently, have this general notion of, yeah, if you push them, people should be allowed to do what they want to do. And as long as they don't hurt others, as long as they don't hurt themselves, as long as they don't, and they've got a long list of as long as they don't, but more so than in other cultures. Other cultures, even at their best, there's a certain element of ethnic tribalism that exists in the culture that Americans just don't typically have. They're Americans. They're not, you know, I was in Czechoslovakia, Czech, Slovakia. A divorce, they had a divorce. Why? What was the disagreement between the Czechs and the Slovaks? Well, the disagreement was, these were Czechs and these were Slovaks. They have a different language. They have a very, very similar culture, but they have a different language, and they come from a different tribe, and they have slightly different histories, and they come from a different tribe. But here you are in a country that should be united. There's no reason for there to be a Czech and a Slovakia, but they're not, because of stupid tribal reasons, because they look a little different, maybe. They speak a little different, maybe. They have a different history, and they certainly belong to different tribes sometime in their history. That kind of attitude doesn't exist in America. It doesn't exist in America. I mean, yes, the critical race theory people would like to recreate it in a sense of we all identified by a skin color, whatever, and yes, the people in extreme right, many of them, would like to form their white nationalist, whatever. Fundamentally, Americans are not tribal in that way. Their tribal have become tribal in other ways, but they're not tribal in that way. In that sense, they're much more oriented towards the individual and towards moral character and towards that than Europeans. I mean, Mike says Czech and Slovak are mutually intelligible. They can understand each other. That's how close their languages are. But the difference is so stark that they have two different political entities, which by the way is mainly the Slovaks that have embraced market reforms much slower than the Czech Republic has, both slower than they should have, of course. I think when you travel around the world, one of the things that happens, so one of the things is that Americans still have some sense, some leftovers of individualism, at least pretense of individualism, and they're not as tribal in the same sense as Europeans certainly are, and other countries are like even the Japanese or the Koreans. But it's also true that Americans have a certain respect for technology. Americans have a respect for business that you certainly don't see in Europe. You don't see in Europe. I mean, there are exceptions, of course, and many of the people I meet are the exception. But generally, Europe has this deep mistrust of business that goes much deeper than it does in the United States. Generally, Europeans have a distrust of tech. You can see that in the resistance of GMO and anything GMO and a panic about GMO. Although, again, that's changing in the U.S. and you see that change with people's resistance to vaccines and the whole craziness around the vaccines. But it's still true that Americans are more respectful of science, technology, business, progress, success, wealth, and Americans are less envious. And when I say Americans, these are kind of common things that I think unite Americans. Again, not of the extreme left and not of the extreme right, but people in the center. And so the idea that Americans now are so divided that they cannot live together, I think, is just bizarre and absurd. Now, I think Americans are wrong on so many things and deteriorating and getting worse. But in spite of that, they have more in common than they have differences. Now, it's true that the extremes, that is not true. If we're going to have a divorce, the kind of divorce I would like is I'd like to take like the BLM types, the CRT types, kind of the crazy leftists, and I'd like to take the Marjorie Taylor Greens and the really the crazy right. And I'd like to give them a territory of their own and let them fight it out. I don't know. Could we give them Alaska? Alaska is too many natural resources we'd have to give up. I don't know. We'll have to think of a really good place. Maybe we could carve out the middle of the desert somewhere and just let them be there and then we'll divorce them. The rest of Americans, what I would call sane America or semi sane America, could divorce the crazies. Another thing you realize when you travel around the world is really how good we have it in the US. It's so easy to focus on the negative. It's so easy to focus on the wackiness, on the craziness, on the insanity of the different political crazies trying to pull in each one direction. But the reality is that we live wealthy lives. We have a lot of freedoms. We can do a lot of different things. I know a lot of people out there, a lot of objectivists, a lot of libertarians, a lot of conservatives left us, I'm sure. Use, the problems in America today is excuses for their own failures, excuses for not trying, excuses for not producing, excuses for not having a good career or good life or whatever, but these are excuses. You can still have an amazing life in America. You can still produce and create and build in most professions. I've articulated in the past the kind of professions that I think are more difficult. But you can do well in America, even today, even with the wackiness. You know, critical race theory does not touch you that much. Yes, in employment, this DEI is insane and it's really hurtful. It seems to be shrinking a little bit, but it is going to stay. We are going to have to fight it and live with it at the same time. It is going to hurt. There is going to be massive injustices. But again, compared to most other errors in human history, as compared to most other countries in the world, you have amazing opportunities to express yourself, to do your thing, to build businesses, to create values, to trade in those values, to build wealth, to create wealth around you. I mean, when I talk to people around the world, there is still a longing to come to the U.S. with all its problems, with all its challenges. There are still people knocking at our borders, trying to get in and not just poor, middle class, rich. They would love to get in if we would allow them in. So, you know, we get so bogged down with negativity. We get so bogged down with the daily political events that are happening that we forget that America is still the place where, you know, a significant percentage, far greater than its share population or even GDP in the world, a significant percentage of GDP actually happens. And we forget that. You know, innovations in biotech, innovation in technology, innovation in almost anything happen in the U.S. Yes, other countries do some. But, and the fact that it's a big country, the fact that there are many states allows you to move, allows you to live in different places, allow you to experience different things. You want to live in rural America? You can live in rural America. You want to spend a year or two in rural America and move to a big city? You can do that. You can live in New York and then in Austin and then in LA. You can move and travel and see and do a variety of different things in ways that are unimaginable in most of the rest of the world. Now, I'm glad for the European Union that it makes it possible for you to do that at least to some extent in Europe. You can travel. You can go across borders. You can work in different places once you have a European Union passport. You can experience some of that, but it's just not the same as in America where it's one country with a very similar culture in spite of blue and red, with a uniform language and a very, very similar values in spite of us always highlighting the differences, highlighting the challenges like it or not. And I know many of you don't like it. America is a pretty great place to live even today and I'm not willing to give up on America. I'm not willing to say it's a lost cause and I am certain. No, I am absolutely certain that a divided America, a divorced America is much worse than the whole. I would not want to live in red America. I have real fears that red America, particularly if it becomes dark red, particularly if the blue people leave, is a place that's dull, that lacks culture, but it's also a place where it approaches theocracies. It's no accident that the big conservatives are not talking about the girls in Iran. I don't want to live in a place where Matt Walsh's attitude towards women is the dominant attitude in the culture. I don't want to live in a world in which the conservatives' attitude towards Putin is the dominant attitude in the culture. I wouldn't want to live in a dark red place. And of course, I wouldn't want to live in a blue place. I don't want to live in socialism. I don't want to live in a place that makes me feel guilty for having a particular color skin. I don't want to live in a place that regulates and controls everything. Now whether if there was a divorce, they would become bluer and redder and they would stick to that. I don't know. It's hard to tell. There's no question in my mind that a blue America is worse than America, and a red America is worse than America. What I want to fight for is America. What I want to fight for are the right values, the founding values of America. And by the way, those founding values of America are not red and they're not blue. Republicans years ago, maybe decades ago, lost the claim to the founding fathers. They have no clue what the founding fathers represent, what they wrote, what they meant, what individual rights means, which is the founding concept of this country. And of course, I don't have to explain to you that blue America has no claim to the founding fathers. I want to fight for the founders. I want to fight for the enlightenment. I want to fight for the values that made America great and can still make America great. I want to make America great again, not in a superficial, stupid way. I want to make America great again by resurrecting the ideas that made it great in the first place. Ideas that remnants of individualism, respect for science, respect for technology, respect for progress, respect for achievement still exist in the culture. I want to take those little ashes, the little sparks that exist in the culture and elevate them and turn them into a raging fire. Not give up. I'm happy to give up on Marjorie Taylor Green. I did that as soon as I heard who she was and what she stood for. I'm happy to give up on AOC. I did that as soon as I understood what she stood for. Happy to give up on the crazy left, on the crazy right. I'm not willing to give up on normal Americans, not quite yet. Now, maybe I'm being naive. Quite possible I'm being naive. And Americans do no matter what, so who cares, divorce, no divorce. I'm not quite there yet. And the more you travel around the world, the more you see other countries, the more you realize how good life is in America. And the more you realize how much upside this still is there and how much heart of the battle is in these other countries because you have to overcome history, you have to overcome ethnicity, you have to overcome a certain status quo of xenophobia that they just can't give up. They just don't know how to get rid of. If I can't change America, I'm not sure we can change anyway. All right. So I mean, I consider Marjorie Taylor-Green to be a treasonous, this statement to be treasonous, not treasonous in the legal sense, treasonous in the intellectual sense. I find her and everything she represents and all the people she represents despicable and horrible. Let's not give up on this wonderful country. And I have to say, one of the things you discover when you travel around the world is how much people all over the world still look to America to be inspired. How much they hope we don't give up on America? How much they hope we can somehow salvage America? And how much they realize that their own fates, as individuals, as countries, lie with the future of America and what happens to America. So if they don't give up on us, we shouldn't give up on us. And yes, I get a lot of questions and I know people disagree. I get a lot of questions of what's up with American libertarians and what's up with American conservatives supporting Putin? Well, what's always been up with them? They've always been inconsistent. They've always had ideological problems. Don't focus on them. Majority of Americans support Ukraine. A majority of Americans are not CRT and a majority of Americans are not crazy right wingers. All right. So yes, I am not exactly optimistic, but I don't see any other option but to fight for America. I don't think there are any other options. There are no other realistic options. When I'm going to split up a state that's going to have freedom and this fantasy that people have about red states and blue states is nothing but a fantasy and not a very, you know, fantasy should be wonderful and sexy and cool and joyful and pleasurable. This was a nightmare. Easiest possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to youronbookshow.com slash support by going to Patreon, subscribe star locals and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see the Iran book show grow, please consider sharing our content and of course, subscribe. Press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live. And for those of you who already subscribers and those of you who already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.