 Hey everybody, tonight we're debating reparations and we're starting right now. With Rob's opening statement, thanks so much for being with us, Rob. The floor is all yours. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here again. James, you always have a really good show. Do a great job moderating. Tyler, pleasure to meet you. I'm looking forward to this. As with most debates, I'm more concerned about learning something and hopefully getting to the truth of some things, whether than just winning though, let's be honest, we all wanna win. So I think it'll be a lot of fun. And it's always nice to debate a fellow conservative, especially when we can find things that we disagree on. So happy to be here and have this discussion. So the question of reparations, unfortunately, is going to come down to some definitional concerns. And so I'll be interested here after we get through the opening statements exactly what form of reparations Tyler is advocating for. In general, I'm against reparations. I don't want it to be like a semantic dictionary. I don't really care about that. What I'm concerned about, I'm gonna try to outline specifically the type of reparations that I'm against and maybe some that you would consider that I'm for, depending on how you would define it. Basically, I'm against any sorts of payments responsible for sins of the past to people that didn't directly suffer the consequences of those policies of the US government. So in other words, if you signed up for the military as a black person or an Irish person or an Asian person and our government wronged you by not paying you what you deserve and you were contractually obligated to have and it was based on your race or some other thing like that. Absolutely you're entitled to compensation from the government. However, if your grandparents were victimized by Jim Crow or redlining, no. I don't think that our government should be giving monies out to people like that. And there's various reasons. The first reason would be that we have no idea what form those payments would take. Depending on the definition you use, we can see that reparations may have already been paid. For example, we've had trillions of dollars in the war on poverty that went disproportionately to people that were affected by things in the past such as redlining and other activities such as that. So are these a form of reparations that already happened? And if so, how effective have they been? In many cases, the war on poverty has been a disaster. We've seen that in many of the things in inner city communities that were addressed by the war on poverty back in the 60s have actually been exacerbated by these policies by creating a dependent culture that is constantly in a state of being told that they're victims. We have generationally done things like broken up families, discouraged education. We've had teachers unions that have done a poor job in inner cities. And all of this was done in the name of a pseudo type of reparation. It might not have been reparation in name but the idea of giving money to certain communities that definitely happened. Secondly, I think that reparations will be bad because they will further drive a wedge in this country and cause division. We can see that there are massive amounts of division including racial division in this country today. Hopefully I'll be able to convince my friend Tyler here that this is a reason to adapt my position because the reality is we have no evidence that reparations would actually make lives better in the communities that would be seeking those reparations. But what we do have is evidence that it would definitely cause more division and open up the playbook to some of the things we see in the radical left, such as teachings of critical race theory, teachings of division, 1619 project, hatred of the country focusing primarily on these sins of the past. So because of that I think reparations won't have a net effect of doing much good and they will have a net downside of causing more division from this country. Furthermore, the idea of reparations that makes it unique is it's not just giving money. I have no problem discussing specific policies based on financial need. If people are poor in this country and need food or homes we could discuss policies to do that but we should not give government money which is this the money of the people, two people based on immutable characteristics such as race, gender, sexual orientation and things like that. When we do that we're punishing people by taking the money that they've paid in and selectively giving it to people based on things that they have no choice over such as their skin color. This will again cause more division and it will not be able to be applied even handedly. If there are 10 poor people then we can agree to help the poor people. We don't say we'll only help eight because of their skin color and sins of the past. If someone is poor today who cares if the reason that they're poor is because their great-grandfather suffered through Jim Crow or their great-grandfather worked at a steel mill that got outsourced due to sort of the globalization policies. Furthermore, there's all sorts of groups that would be able to have claims to the government aggrieving them and would be called for things like reparations. This money is not infinite. The government money is the people's money and so we would be forcing people that have done no wrong to pay for things that they had no connection to whatsoever. Finally, depending on the types of reparations we're talking about, they seem to be given holistically. So it's not necessarily, and we'll see what Tyler advocates for here, but it's not just that you get reparations if you could prove that your great-great-grandfather or something suffered some harm. They talk about giving them based on race, but we could see the problem with that. Many people that we consider black Americans actually don't have generational ancestors that suffered through those things. So for example, maybe they're recent immigrants or maybe we see people that are traditionally considered minorities, but when we look in their past, their family actually did take part in things like Jim Crow or slavery. So what percentage would they be entitled to? For example, I believe Kamala Harris's family actually was part of in Jamaica owning some slave farms. So it becomes very difficult questions. The best we could do as a country is this. Every country in the world, including the United States, which is the greatest country in the history of the world, has sins. They've made bad decisions. They've done terrible things. The best we could do is live by the creed of Martin Luther King and treat people based on the content of their character. Try to have a colorblind and clean slate going forward. And within a few generations of encouraging hard work, encouraging treating everyone as individuals instead of monolithic members of a race, we will start to see communities that traditionally haven't done so well with things like the war on poverty start to thrive. So that's why I'm against reparations. I don't think it'll solve anything and I think it'll make the problem worse. You got to thank you very much for that opening, Rob. And I want to let you know, folks, if it's your first time here at Modern Aid Debate, we are a neutral platform hosting debates on science, religion, and politics. And we hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you are from, conservative, liberal, Christian atheists, you name it. All the different peoples, we are glad you were here. With that, we're going to kick it over to Tyler. Thanks so much, Tyler. The floor is all yours. Yeah, likewise, man. Thank you for, likewise, like Rob. Thank you for inviting me on as well, man. It's always a pleasure to be here. So yeah, so I literally just came to this realization as I was talking to you guys off-screen about this just a few days ago and I wanted to kind of discuss it, right? So yes, let me go ahead and go into my opening statement. So my position is that descendants of American slaves are owed reparations by the government as recompense for unjustly taking away their essential freedoms. Now this is very similar to how states currently give compensation to inmates who were found to be wrongfully convicted after the fact, as it's recognized that the government upheld the wrongful imprisonment of that individual. Now from my criteria, you would have to show evidence that you are a descendant of someone who was wrongfully enslaved in America and that it was upheld by an American government. Now this also means that victims of the state who have been imprisoned solely due to unconstitutional gun control should also receive reparations. But this is a further in the future problem that we can discuss for, and I can tell you why the reasons why it wouldn't work now, but we could discuss that later. So if we agree that a debt was owed to those individuals at the time for slavery, which I think most people, even on the political right, would agree that those people that were directly affected, right? If we can agree that they were owed some type of debt, but we're saying, oh well, if they died before the government satisfied this debt, oh well, this really just comes down to a belief that we shouldn't hold the government accountable when they make egregious mistakes, specifically when they wrongfully uphold the law to enslave their own citizens. I find this to be just an incredibly odd position if you are someone that considers themselves on the political right, if a debt is owed by the government to an individual and they are dead, we shouldn't allow the government to just skate by, right? It should go to their next of kin. I think that the problem amongst most opponents to reparations is where the money is going to come from. Because taxpayers today shouldn't have to pay for something that they had no part in, and this is the position that I used to hold up until a few days ago, and it's a logical position. So the problem then becomes, okay, well, we have to find a way to hold our government accountable, but in such a way that it doesn't actually use current taxpayer dollars. This is why I propose that reparations shouldn't be a lump sum payout from taxpayer dollars. Instead, the government should just not be permitted to taking their tax dollars in the first place. So descendants of slaves would pay no taxation until a certain amount is met. This settles the debt that the government owes to the living descendants while not using or raising the taxes of current citizens. Now understand that my stance has nothing to do with race. It does not matter if your genetic makeup is majority black or majority white. You could be 99% white today and still be a descendant of an American slave, right? I don't really care about people's feelings. If they don't like that or not, this is what is fair and owed to the people who are descendants of said slaves, just because you are black and Rob actually touched on this, just because you are black does not mean that you are a descendant of an American slave. So that's it, that is my opening statement. Oh, and one thing, if we're just gonna go right into it, I can kind of go off of what Rob just said when we can have a discussion. You got it. Well, wanna let you know folks, we are thrilled that our guests are here. They're linked in the description and so if you wanna hear more from our guests, you certainly can and that includes if you're listening via the Modern Databate podcast as we put our guest links in the description box for the podcast as well. And then my dear friends, we are very excited. First, this is the first time we've ever hosted this topic, brand new topic. We're really excited about that. And then tomorrow, another juicy one, namely critical race theory versus prayer. In schools, it's gonna be a juicy conversation. You don't wanna miss it. So hit that subscribe button so you don't miss it tomorrow. And with that, thanks gentlemen. The floor is all yours for open discussion. Yeah, so just a couple of things I wanna touch on here, Rob, just a few things. So one thing that I heard you say is you said that it's bad because of division. I've heard this argument a couple of times. Well, we don't think that well, because of this division, or they'll say something else. Well, I don't know if it's gonna fix anything like this is just a complete red herring. Like it doesn't actually matter. It's diverting from the argument. If a debt is owed that hasn't been paid or not. I don't, like I said, like I don't actually care about someone's feelings on the matter. If it's a debt that government owes to an individual, we should hold them accountable for it. And then when you were talking about, well, people who didn't directly suffer from government shouldn't get this. Like that really just comes down to, I would ask you, like, why do you believe that the government shouldn't be held accountable for the debt that they owe to individuals for egregious crimes? It's like saying, okay, well, if they die in like while they were enslaved, it's like, oh, well, too bad. We can't pay them because they died, right? I find that like, that's just such a weird position to hold. Like, can you go ahead and explain that to me? Yeah, when you say government, what is government? Like our governing bodies. Right, but what is it? Government's just the will of the people. It's the collectivation of the people, right? So the earliest forms of government. Well, I don't know if you wanna say it's the will of the people because it's the collective age. It's the collective, what government is, we the people have agreed that we will give up some liberty, some wealth, some of our productivity to a body that will do things that individuals can't do. So the original idea for like- I wouldn't even really agree with that, but go ahead. Okay, anyways- I would say that everybody has agreed with that, but go ahead. Okay, anyways, the argument, basically the point is this, the government doesn't have money. The government takes money from the people that it represents. That's what it does. It's supposed to use that money for the collective good of the people you're a conservative. So I assume you think that that government should be limited. So, we certainly things like infrastructure, military, and then we can debate other programs that we want the government to have. But when you say that the government is responsible, no one alive today in or outside of our government that pays money into the government or that is a politician was engaged in the activities of slavery. So my question would be, why should they pay? Similarly, let's take- I never said that- First of all, I never said that they should pay. You're strong in my argument already. I never said that they should pay. I said that they shouldn't have to pay in taxation. Okay, well- So that's not the same thing. In effect, it would be the same thing. Because- No, it's not the same thing. Okay, so what's the government do with our money? They have programs that benefit the people, right? Rob, Rob, Rob. There's a difference between using taxpayer dollars that have already taken from you and then saying, okay, we're not going to take this person's taxpayer dollars. Like, I don't know how to simplify it. The net result is the same. You're still going to- That money will have to be made up somewhere, which will mean that the people that are- How is it gonna have to be- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're saying it has to be made up. Wait a minute, wait a minute. So are you holding the position that all taxes that the government takes is just- I would say that most taxes, probably 90% of taxes that government takes is, isn't legitimate. So are you holding that? Because you're saying they have to make it up. So what are you talking about? I'm saying that if we slice revenue from the government, that they'll get that revenue from other people. Unjust revenue? Like revenue that they should already- It doesn't matter if it's just, it doesn't matter if it's just or not. It doesn't matter. Please, just give me a chance to- You're the person- We're gonna break into three-minute intervals if it isn't a little bit more. We're gonna hear a little bit more from each of you before you come back and forth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead. So anyways, yeah, it's not really the way it works, right? We would see what would happen. We could agree that the government taxes too much and though we can say the post taxes would be unjust, but you're suggesting that people based on sins of the past not have to pay taxes that other people that could be in the exact same economic situation would have to pay for, and their share of those payments will increase, right? So similarly, if we could prove that your great-great-grandfather did something unjust to my great-great-grandfather, which harmed our family financially, should I be allowed to sue you for that? No, now you're talking like on an individual level. You're not talking about like the governing body. It doesn't actually work when you try to put that in the opposite direction. But why? I don't understand the difference, right? Because again, the argument you seem to be making is the government is this monolithic entity that's existed since the foundation of our country in 1776 till today. So if the government did something long to someone in 1776, then the government should pay today. But my argument is that the government's just the people, right? That's all it is. It's not this monolithic entity. And the people alive today, both in government and that are paying for that government weren't alive when those horrible abuses occurred in the past. So I don't see how they're morally culpable to pay for those abuses in the past. Okay, so hold on, so hold on. So do you agree, yes or no, that at the time, let's say in 18, whatever, right? So at the time, do you believe that those slaves that were unjustly, right, wrongfully enslaved, do you believe that they were owed some type of recompense? Sure. Why do you believe that? Because if you are aggrieved by our government or by people, you deserve to be compensated for that. I mean, technically, the government wasn't directly doing it. They were just upholding the law. It was slaveholders that were doing it. Nonetheless, that it was the local governments, the state governments that allowed them to do it. Well, hold on, Rob, so what you just said was that you were just talking about how it's not actually the government. So the government shouldn't pay out regardless. So I'm trying to figure out why you believe that it should be, okay, so hon, so you do believe it? No, no, the government that exists at a time is different than the government that exists in 200 years, right? Okay, so if the government- We can see the problems, like for example, should we pay reparations? Hold on, hold on, before you go into these other things, like I'm trying to go through a thorough process here. So, okay, so you do agree that at the time that the government is responsible for paying out some type of recompense, and you said why is that again? Because the government was responsible for the conditions they were in. Because the government was responsible for the conditions that they were in. That's right. Okay, but it would still be at the cost of the taxpayer. Sure. So you're okay with the taxpayer paying for it, even though- The taxpayers of that time were in a system that was harming those people. What we don't do is say that the taxpayers of the future have to pay for the people that were victimized in the past, future's children. Or grandchildren. I don't know, I don't know, like only 3% of those people were actually slave owners. So like, what are we saying here? So like, I hold the position that the government is responsible because they upheld this law. And that doesn't seem to be like your position, your position was something else. So I was just trying to figure out like what your position is. All right, my position, it's very simple. That if you weren't directly agreed by the actions of the government, then you don't deserve a recompense from it. And- Okay, okay, okay, okay, that's fine, that's fine. So here's what I'm asking you. So, okay, so you, we agree, no matter how we get there, we still come to the same conclusion at the end. So it's like, okay, so if the government, that government of the time should have paid this out, right? Sure. Okay, but because they didn't pay this out, then we just don't hold them accountable and we allow them to skate by. It's not a matter of skating by. The individuals, again, government is a collective will of the people or the collective entry, wealth, et cetera, of the people. The people that engage in the act of slavery are dead. They cannot be punished, period. They can't be. When you say we're punished, we allow them to skate by. That's only like 3%, that's only like 3%, it's only like 3%, Rob, Rob. You're saying that you are okay with it because some people, like the very minute minority of people, right? That they were engaged in this so that other people should still have to pay for that. So okay, so what are you saying? Like I'm not understanding here. Now I'm being quite clear with what I'm saying. If our government or if a government agency wrongs someone that they're entitled to compensation, if they wronged your great-great-grandfather, you're not entitled to compensation. Pretty simple. But this is what I'm saying, like 97% of those people didn't. Sure, none of the less. But you're okay with that 97% paying out. So you're contradicting yourself. I'm not contradicting yourself. Rob, this is the point that I make it, Rob. This is the point that I make it. So you're okay with the 97% that you agree had actually nothing to do with slavery. You're okay with them paying out this money. And this is so weird anyway, because my position isn't even that people should pay. It's just that the government shouldn't take their taxes. But let's just go with this. So you're okay with this 97% making up and saying, okay, well, we're going to have these 97% of people go ahead and pay for something that they actually had no engagement in, right? And then I could just easily say that to today. Okay, well, then what does it matter from 97% to 100% like it doesn't matter? Like they're still not involved in it. Why shouldn't we pay it out? Like you're contradicting yourself. It's not a contradiction. It's only a contradiction if you're not understanding. Okay, I'm sorry, you're right. It's a special pleading fallacy, my bad. This is a big words. Yeah, what I'm saying is this, yes, we understand that in our system we're having a system of governments that sometimes when the government wrongs someone, the government's responsible to pay out to those people that are wrong. That's implicit in the contract we sign when we start a government, when we start a country. We all understand that, right? Now, sometimes it's not fair. For example, we can see it now. You have state or local governments oftentimes that are forced to pay out money through misconduct of state employees like police officers and things like that. Yeah, that sucks for the rest of us, but we understand that that's something that has to happen because those individuals were directly wrong by those government agencies. Therefore, they're entitled to compensation. What we don't do, it matters because people that are directly wrong deserve compensation. People's great-great-grandchildren that are directly wrong don't deserve compensation. I understand that, but you haven't answered my question. Please, if you'd like me to finish. And so the other difference is the reason is even though it sucks that today if a police officer wrongs someone, that me and your tax dollars might go to a lawsuit that that person passed, we at least exist in the time that that government existed and committed that wrong. We shouldn't be forced to pay when none of us alive today, not one person either suffered the effects of slavery in this country or was involved in any government in any even the smallest form, paying taxes to a government that enslaved people, signing up for government entities like the military, police or things like that that enslaved people, no one alive did that. So we don't compensate those people. And if anyone's contradicting themselves, it's you because you can't give me the difference why you would say an individual whose family wronged an individual's family in the past, why the family today if they were never compensated isn't entitled to compensation. You can't give me a reason why it's different if it's government. That's not a contradiction. You just didn't ask for any further explanations so I didn't give you one. So if you're asking me for a further explanation I can absolutely give you one, right? So, well, for yours like on one hand, this is what I'm talking about. So you have a government that owes like a debt to an individual. And then by giving it to a descendant no individuals are directly harmed while that happens, right? So no direct individuals are harmed especially from my framework when we're just talking about not collecting taxes, right? So on the other hand, you're talking about like if an individual owes a debt to like another like you would have to be comparing that to like slaveholders. I don't believe that slaveholders should be held accountable for that because what they were doing was backed up by the government. The government said, okay, it is legal for you to do whether it's state government or whatever, right? The government's saying, okay, what you would, this is completely legal for you to do. So how can we hold them legally accountable for something that was legal at the time? Now, if you're talking about oh I'm not finished yet, hold on, hold on. Give me one second. So like, if you're saying morally hold them accountable like if we're saying, okay, well, you know was it morally justified if like slaves that were freed rose up or not even freed like if slaves rose up and went after physically like these slaveholders I'd say sure, yeah, absolutely. But if you're talking about legally hold them accountable I'd be like, no, that would be like saying, okay, well if tomorrow they made alcohol illegal should people that today consumed it should they be held legally accountable tomorrow? It's like, no, because what they did today was legal, right? So that doesn't make sense. So yeah, like you would have to be comparing it to like slaveholders and it's not analogous. Okay, so just to be clear, you wouldn't if you existed at the time of the emancipation you would say that the slaveholders did not deserve to pay recompense to the slaves. Say that again, I'm sorry. If you were around at the time of the emancipation you would make the argument that slaveholders weren't responsible to pay any compensation to slaves. Yeah, correct. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's anything. I think it's an absolute position. I do. That's not an asset. I think that's, let's use your language. Why would you leave them skate? Hold on, hold on, hold on. So you're not understanding the logic and I've already actually explained this, right? How can you hold someone legally accountable for something that the government, the governing authority says that this is legal? I just made that analogy when it comes to alcohol. So why don't you just go ahead and just debunk what I just said about alcohol? Sure, I'll debunk it because in the course of events when we see the government allows things that we say are morally outrageous, even if it was in the framework of legality because the government was engaged in bad behavior we still hold the people responsible that committed those heinous actions even though it was technically legal. The Nuremberg trials prove this. It's not enough to say I was ordered to do these things because I was a Nazi. Your position seems to be, you're making a moral claim that says, real quick, please let me finish. You're making a claim that says, ah, the government shouldn't be allowed to skate by today, 200 years later. The people involved in the government today, they can't skate by, they can't skate by. But the actual people that were the 3% that you mentioned that were involved in the slave trade, they don't have to compensate anyone. They don't have to do anything. That just seems so backwards. So any moral claim you have seems to go right out there. That's not a refutation just because you said, oh, well, I don't like it. It's like, okay, well, if you don't understand the logic of it, like I don't know how to like dumb this down any further. Like, if you engage in an activity that your governing authority says is legal, we cannot hold you legally accountable for it if at the time it was legal when you did so. That is why you have to hold the governing authority that allowed for this to happen in the first place to be legal. Now, if slavery was illegal and then people were still enslaving people, then absolutely, you can now absolutely hold them legally accountable. I don't know what you're not understanding with what I'm saying. No, I understand your position. I'm saying that your position doesn't make sense. I understand what you're saying. I'm saying that it's actually the backwards of what we should do. When people commit actions, even if it's considered legal, that are so detrimental to other people like the act of enslaving them, they are the people that deserve to be punished and to compensate the others. Yes, at the time, real quick, real quick, now, here's the question. All right, one thing is we have worked on this issue for quite a while now. Also though, in terms of the back and forth, we might jump into the like two minute intervals or so. Are there any other issues related, but still you could say distant enough such that we might be able to examine some of the other potential arguments or against on this topic more broadly? Yeah, I'm gonna go back to the other question. So let me say this. The way that you set this up is actually antithetical to doing any good whatsoever. And this is the problem I have because it seems like you're making a moral claim. You didn't really make any claims about how these monies would actually benefit people or they need these monies. So think about how this works. The way you set this up is people don't have to pay their taxes. But the truth is many people that are poor, particularly disproportionately inner city blacks already pay very low taxes. So the benefit they would get would be minuscule at best. The people that will benefit the most from this are wealthy people that had slave ancestors. And those are the least amount. So the net benefit of this will be, again, and you could say this won't be the case, but all of the people that pay taxes, including people that are middle class or poor that had nothing to do with slavery whatsoever, they'll end up paying more and the people getting the tax rates will be the people right now that are wealthy that had ancestors of slaves. Meanwhile, the people that had ancestors of slaves that are the poorest Americans, they'll get no benefit whatsoever because they're already paying and low income taxes. Let's kick it over to Rob or I'm sorry, Tyler, give you a chance to respond. And then we really do, when I had asked if we could explore a different topic, I don't know if you heard me, that's what I asked. So we'll give you a chance, Tyler, we'll give you the last word in terms of like the arguments for and again. So like another example would be like, but do you understand what I mean? I'm gonna go into my original question that's gonna force Rob to like kind of abandon this anyway. Go ahead, Tyler, give you a chance to respond. Okay, so yeah, so I find that like your entire rebuttal was just like an appeal to emotion here. Like it doesn't matter if it's like benefiting them or not, right? If somebody owes a debt, it doesn't actually matter how I use that money if that money is owed to me. I'm not saying that I'm a descendant of slave and that I'm owed. I'm just putting myself into this hypothetical, right? So, or if you, like if you were a descendant of a slave, it doesn't actually matter how you use that money if that money is already owed to you, right? So that doesn't actually matter. I don't care. I think, I mean, it'd be great if they use it to benefit themselves. You know what I mean? But like if they don't, like it doesn't actually matter. It's just such like an emotional argument. So going back to what I said earlier, why do you believe, right? You never actually answered my question. So if you agree that the government owed a debt for reparations at the time, but then let's say that they didn't pay it out, which was wrong, they should have paid that out, right? If they didn't pay out that debt, your position would then have to be okay, but we are going to allow the government, we are gonna not hold them accountable for this debt that they owe. Like why, like, can you explain why you hold that position? I find that- Like this is exactly what James was asking that we move on from, I'll re-explain my position again. We don't punish people for sins of the forefathers. It's something that all developed nations have realized. That we cannot- Who's being punished, Rob? Please, please, let me finish. That's what the argument is, that we have to, that when you say, skate by, that's what you're talking about. That they have to be held responsible for the actions that they took. That's what you're saying. So you're kind of being, you're being punished. You're being punished. You're being punished. You're being punished. You're being punished to not collect taxes. You have to give Rob a chance to finish. Are you not able to hear me? Go ahead, go ahead, my bad, go ahead. Yeah, I'm trying to leave you speaking. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Has to be reciprocal, but yes, what we're saying is, when you, like you keep conflating to issues, you keep saying things like, what's not about, it's not about actually helping poor people. It's not about whether or not it would actually benefit people. It's about righting a wrong. And are we going to let them skate by? Right. And what you're saying is, we have to hold the government accountable. The problem is, no one is alive today that was a member, a participator, a financier of any of that government that did those things that you said, they've already skated by. They have. The government is just the collective of the people. Those people have skated by. Ironically, the people, you say that you would have allowed the actual offenders to skate by, those that own slaves, you wouldn't have had them have any compensation whatsoever. It seems like your entire argument could be solved with a national apology. Because if you say the money actually doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter if it actually benefits people, they just shouldn't skate by. Cool. Then I propose that instead, the federal government stands up and says, slavery was bad. We shouldn't have done it. We'll kick it over. Go ahead. Go ahead, Tyler. Yeah. I never said that the money doesn't matter. Like you keep like throwing in like all these little strawmans in your responses. So I never said that the money doesn't matter. I said that if it benefits someone or not, doesn't actually matter to the core argument that if it is a debt that is owed, that it needs to be paid. That's what I said. So yeah, so I don't know how to make that more clear. And I find it very weird that you say, oh, well, like, what did you say? You said something about like you can't hold, not that you couldn't hold them accountable, but I forgot your exact wording, but like you're equating that to the government not collecting taxes. Like it's not like an individual. It's not like I'm, my position isn't the leftist position. My position isn't saying that, look, we need to have all citizens currently have to fund these reparations. That's like a leftist position. That's not my position, right? My position is just that, okay, well, if we need to settle this debt and we need to do it so that it isn't at the direct, like that this taxpayer or your neighbor doesn't have to fund it because it's not, he wasn't responsible, then saying that, okay, well, then we're not going to collect taxes for that. That doesn't directly harm him, right? So yeah, you're not actually attacking like my argument. I feel like you're creating like arguments and then arguing against it. That's not what I'm doing. It's quite clear. Like I've already explained this, right? Just because if you tell a certain group of people, okay, you no longer have to pay taxes because of something that happened to your ancestors. That means if we continue to have spending at the rate we do, which you're not making any argument that you would force the government to spend less, they'll have to make up that money somewhere. Which means that those people that currently pay taxes into that pool of money, I don't know if you don't understand what government is. Like the government doesn't have money. They don't, they collect- We've already established that. Right, right, I get it. So other people wouldn't end up paying more. That's what'll happen or they'll get less program. There's no two ways about it. If you cut the amount of revenue that the government has, either they cut programs or they raise revenue elsewhere. It's that simple. So either these people will lose programs because there's not as much money or they will have to pay more money. It's that simple. And again, where do we stop with this? So for example, if we could prove that a particular person's ancestors fought and died in the Civil War to free slaves. Do they respond to that before you go into the next one? Let's do that. Sure, but we're on the same point that James asks us to get over. You keep asking the same question, but that's fine. Okay, so no, I'm just responding to what you said. So you said that, what was the first part that you said, I'm sorry, what was your ending point, your ending statement? My ending point was talking about should we pay compensation from the government to people whose ancestors died free in slaves? No, before that, before you went into your new thing. When I said that, can I attack this? Right, I was talking about the argument that you saying that it doesn't force people to pay by just telling certain people that they don't have to pay income tax or pay taxes. But in reality it does because we'd either have to cut programs or increase- Oh, right, right, right, right, I remember. Okay, okay, okay. So yeah, again, you're again arguing against the position that I haven't made. So my position is that the government does not collect its taxes from this group of people. And just to be clear, I feel like for you to hold the position that you're holding, you would have to assume that this is gonna be so many descendants when it's not going to be. It's not gonna be millions of descendants. You'll be lucky if you get a few thousand, right? So you're gonna have thousands of descendants that would have to pay this or that they would have to give tax breaks too, right? So that's the first thing. So, and then second, you're just- You just have an estimate for real, hold on, hold on, hold on. I promise to come right back to you, Robin, a bit. Yeah, so then when you're talking about, oh, well, the government will just raise this. That's not my position. I'm saying, no, the government cannot raise this, right? So they just do not collect taxes from this group of people and they cannot raise the taxes of other people in order to settle so debt. That is my position. Okay, do you, real quick, I was just asking you, do you have any idea how many people a lot of the United States had slave ancestors? Had slave ancestors that currently- The people that you think would get reparations. How many people would that be? It would be hard to say because a lot of records were destroyed or not even taken due to them, most of them being, they just didn't keep very good records for slaves back then. This is why it's gonna be very few people that you're actually going to trace the lineage back that far to say that you are a descendant of a slave. Okay, so then this seems contradictory to your claim that we can't allow the government to skate by. So you're admitting that probably a good portion of people that otherwise in your system would have been entitled to these reparations won't be able to get access because they won't be able to prove their claim. So in those venues, the government is already skated by, correct? Sure, right, but on one side, on one side you're talking about that they should just skate by in totality. I'm saying that if we can prove that there are still descendants alive today, that we should go ahead and at least settle that debt because there's something tangible there. We can actually trace it back to somebody who has been, who is a descendant of that person. Okay, you said at the beginning, you said and don't have them pay taxes until it reaches a certain amount. How much is that amount? So we would have to come to some type of agreement to what we believed like that amount would be. But it's your plan. So just give me, I'm not asking for a specific number. Again, again, this would have to be like an in-depth discussion. Like, I mean, we could go based off of logic of how people are currently wrongfully imprisoned today. I mean, what they pay, any state pays between 30 to $50,000 per year that they were wrongfully convicted. So the average slave, 90% of slaves are at farms or plantations and the average lifespan at a slave at a farmer plantation was like seven to nine years. So, I mean, I don't know. Like you could say a hundred grand, you could say 250 grand. Okay, so you wouldn't pay a hundred grand in taxes roughly, or ballpark. Not holding it to a specific. Yeah, whatever we would figure that out. Right, okay, okay. So this is interesting. So what would you do to someone who could prove that they were the ancestor of a slave but they're currently unemployed and don't pay taxes? Well, they have to pay tax. They have to pay at least sales tax. They have to buy stuff, right? So how are you going to enforce? How are you going to enforce? Do you get a special card? So when you go to Walmart- Yeah, that's what I would think. Yeah, that's what I think. So you're literally saying no sales taxes, nothing. No gas taxes? Right, I would say that you would have to pay like, yeah, I would say that you probably would have to pay like no taxes. Now again, now that being said, now on this side of it, like there are hundreds of different types of taxes that people pay, right? So I think that it's fair that we look at each individual tax and see if that's feasible. But like ideally I would say, yeah, that they would pay like no taxes. Again, like until that amount is made and it's what you're not talking about very many people either. Okay, what about states? The government literally takes so much money from taxes. I'm just trying to get an idea so we can proceed with the debate. Do they have to pay state taxes? If, no, why would they? I would say, I would actually say, I would actually argue that the states are more responsible than like the federal government is responsible. So then they should pay state taxes. No, no. Oh, I'm sorry. So you're saying, so for example, if I'm in New York, I no longer, and my slave was an ancestor, I no longer have to pay New York's taxes, even though New York never engaged in slavery. So this is why I'm saying like, ideally it should be like right down to like the state, but like if the federal government wants to go ahead and say like from the federal government, I mean, most of your taxes come from like federal government taxes, right? So, and they take like tens of billions of dollars unnecessarily to fund all these other programs as it is. So I don't see that that being a huge issue, but sure. Okay, so if I could, I'm glad you answered this question. So it allows me to kind of make the point that I was, which is I just, this plan just seems nonsensical and it seems kind of productive to our country moving forward. So what you can see is there's so many nuances that will be necessary in this plan. And we're getting all of these competing messages, right? So for one, we've already proven that when it comes to like federal income taxes, the poorest of Americans pay less than wealthier people. So they wouldn't financially be helped by this. If you happen to be a very poor slave that's paying very little in income taxes, you would go a lifetime and not get the recompense that you deserve under his plan, which means that only wealthier people would actually be paid these reparations, which is a disaster. But he says that it's more about the idea of holding the government accountable. But then he admits, well, it's more the state governments than it was the federal governments. In fact, the federal government fought a war to end slavery. So there's this weird dichotomy where it seems like he's about holding people accountable more than helping poor people. This is the exact mentality that is the problem with so many people in our country. My position was never about helping poor people. Please, right. And that's the problem, right? And so what we see is so many people want to virtue signal or they want to make a statement instead of actually helping people that need help. I think that our country moving forward needs to do the opposite. As long as we're focusing on correcting all of these sins of the past and driving a wedge saying, we have to find nuanced ways how your response, this government's responsible for this and this government's not responsible for this. And my family was agreed 250 years ago and things like that. We aren't doing the good work of focusing on the litany of problems that we have in this country today for people of all skin colors, people of all sexual orientations of political persuasion. Instead, this is used as a wedge issue from people in positions of power to say, well, as long as we can constantly focus on the sins of the past, people aren't focusing on the sins of today and how our current government isn't working for almost anyone in this country. So instead we'll fight over, well, we're giving a couple wealthy people a tax break because their ancestors were slaves. The poor people had slave ancestors tough luck. They're not getting any money or reparations. And we're gonna continue to say that that means that we're good people that we're correcting some wrong when in reality it does no such thing. So Rob, so, okay. I find it hilarious that you're talking about virtue signaling but like you keep talking about things that aren't even like my argument. But okay, so do you believe, let me ask you this, do you believe that someone who is wrongfully imprisoned, do you believe that they are owed some type of like reparations or restitution? Yes. Okay. So let's say that, so like here in Pennsylvania, right? It's $50,000 per year. Would you get down with that? It seems reasonable amount. I'd have to look it, but that seems reasonable. I've no reason to just do that. Okay, so let's say that they spend 10 years in prison. So you're talking about like 500K, right? That's what that would be, yeah. Okay, so 500K. Now let's say that they died in prison, right? So they die in prison. Should the government just not pay that out? What should happen there? Yes, the government should not pay that out. Should not pay that out. Even though they died due to the government failing them. Yes. That's wild. That's a wild position for, I don't know. How far back? At that point, if you hold that position, I wouldn't even like, at that point, I wouldn't even know how to reshoot that. That would be like, that would be like, if somebody held like some weird position that I don't even know how to go past that. It'd be like saying, okay, well, I think that we should be able to have sexual relations with 10 year olds. It's like, I don't even know how to like argue. It's like, no, we like, we shouldn't. You sure you're not a lefty? You're going to pedophilia if someone disagrees. I'm not saying that you do. We're gonna take it back to the original topic. I'm saying that if it's just a weird, like I don't even know how to reach you. Like you're just saying, oh no, that they shouldn't have to pay it out. Like we could just let them get away with that. I'm just like, that's a wild position. We'll give Rob a chance. Yeah, if I could respond. So the argument would be this, what will happen then is, now if they directly caused the debt, that's one thing. If they were falsely imprisoned and then we find out 20 years after the debt, oh wait a minute, actually they didn't commit that crime. No, we don't pay the ancestors of that person money. What will our country become? Every single person in the world will be looking to see if the government in any way ever agreed to any ancestor that they had and then develop the demand compensation for that. Like again, this doesn't solve the actual problem. What this is is it's more, and you're admitting it's not about making people, helping people have more successful lives or helping poor people that need help. Like that's not what we're talking about here. We're just talking about, it's like when you watch like the People's Court or Judge Judy and you'll see these cases. I'm suing this woman for $5 because she screwed up my cheeseburger and what's right is right, God damn it. And I want my $5 back that I paid for that cheeseburger. Sure, I guess it could be cathartic to say something like that, but our government should be in the business of actually helping the citizens of this country, not trying to not skate by for things that people that were alive 200 years ago did. And it just, I don't understand, I've never heard someone argue reparations in this form where you're literally making the argument that, yeah, my form of reparations would disproportionately help wealthy people that had slavery ancestors and do almost nothing for the, most people that make the reparations argument say, well, the reason we need reparations is because financially, people have been devastated through generational wealth or lack thereof because of slavery. Therefore we should help those people. I've never heard someone say, it's not about helping poor people. It's just about not letting people skate by, while simultaneously admitting that they actually would have let the actual slave owners themselves skate by. You already said this, you just keep like going back into this, like this is like performative activism here. So, okay, so check this out. So like I've already answered you before, right? I've already told you like, why my position is that position? It has nothing to do with helping poor people. We have plenty of programs for that. We can even talk about more programs that we can go ahead and put into place. I'm more for like voluntarily or voluntary contribution, not so much like taking government dollars for that, right? But we're talking about specifically a debt that's owed. It doesn't actually matter what that person does with the money. It doesn't actually matter. And this isn't even, like it's so different to my position because it's not even giving them a lump sum saying that they're gonna go ahead and do it, right? It's just about settling the debt that this government owes to this individual, right? And that it needs to go to their next of kin. If not, like you don't even hold the position that if somebody was wrongfully imprisoned, you said, oh yeah, if they're wrongfully imprisoned, then they absolutely deserve a recompense from the government. Oh, but wait, if they're killed oh and killed in prison where the government wrongfully imprison them anyway, then yeah, the debt, debt settled. There's nothing that we can do at that point. We shouldn't have to do anything. Like that to me is just such a wild position. Like your whole position is like, I don't even understand how you keep just defending that. Oh, well, we shouldn't hold government accountable because I don't want to hold government accountable because oh, look, it's poor people and this. And it's like, I don't even like get that whole, it's such a weird position for like conservatives to take them not holding government accountable. When the government takes billions and billions and billions of dollars and funnels it into all kinds of like buttfuck programs that they shouldn't be funding anyway. But then we're like, look, we want to settle up on this debt that the government owes to individuals. You're like, nah. Okay, so real quick, you keep going back to this prison example. So how far back do we go with this? If I find out that my- Next of kin. Just next of kin. Next of kin. So if the next of kin is my great- If I'm wrongfully imprisoned today and 300 years from now, they find out Rob was wrongfully imprisoned. My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren are entitled to money. If the government failed to pay out that individual, then yeah, that's a debt that needs to be settled. So we can see that this will be never ended. That this will just be a cycle that never ends. People, and let me ask you this real quick because you've branched it out to also talking about imprisonment and prisons and things like this. So it's not just slavery, right? Any time that you would have- Well, that is slavery. Well, it's a form. We could say it's a form of false imprisonment, right? And which slavery was a form of that. But does that mean any time, would that branch out to other areas if the government did something heinous to me or cost me freedom or money or things like any of those positions? Yeah, I've already said that. Yeah, I've already said that. So then- I actually gave that example about- I thought you did. I was just clarifying. So again, in your worldview, 300 years from now into the future, people could be looking back to Facebook in the year 2000 and you see if their family's saying anything like, geez, these zoning laws screwed me over. I think they were illegal. Doing research and finding out, yes, those zoning laws did screw Rob over when he was trying to put that garage up on his property. And we see that that actually cost into the tune of $6,000. Why wouldn't that be the case? The government agreed me. So what I'm talking about, so again, this is like another red herring. So what I'm talking about specifically is enslaving someone. So wrongful imprisonment would definitely fall under that. So if you are wrongfully imprisoned, then that's what we're talking about. You keep going into like, what aboutisms? But what about this and what about this and what about this that all you're doing is trying to divert from the core argument of like wrongful enslavement. So just like stick on that. I mean, I literally asked, are you talking about all these other things? You said, yes, I already gave those- You said zoning violations. I asked if you said it would branch out the things other than false imprisonment. If you were imprisoned- No, no, no, no, no. I think- So you're telling me, okay, so now- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Excuse me for taking your words, excuse me. I thought that you said- No, I think there was obviously like a miscommunication rub. Okay, so you're saying- Okay, stop talking over each other. It's driving me crazy. So love you guys. I'm in a good mood, but I just sometimes when you guys keep going, it's just- So let me respond to what you're saying, Rob. So like I said this in my opening statement and I thought that you got it when I referred back to that because what I said was that if you were wrongfully imprisoned due to unconstitutional gun control, then yes, that would be something that you should receive reparations for right now. If you wanna talk about why you can't impose that now, that's because, well, even though it is unconstitutional for gun control, the governing authorities, we would have to get them to acknowledge, okay, well, any gun control that or whatever gun control it's like, okay, this should never have been. So they haven't recognized that yet and that's the first step. We would have to get them to recognize that and then you could go, okay, well now that you recognize that this never should have been, now you can admit that these people were wrongfully imprisoned due to this thing. We're already there when it comes to slavery, like they've already admitted that, right? They agreed, okay, this is wrong. We should never have done this so now we can go ahead and say that. So like, yeah, I don't know. You're trying to compare that to like zoning violations and it has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. I'm talking about wrongful imprisonment. Okay, so now we're just talking about slavery and wrongful imprisonment. That's what I've been talking about the whole time. It's not what it sounded like when I said it with this branch of other things and you said, yes, I already said that. So forgive me for taking you at your words. So let's say then, something I'm against the war on drugs, I think that marijuana should be legal. Let's say that we make marijuana a legal, make marijuana legal. Does everyone who's ever been imprisoned under marijuana laws, even if they died their grandchildren, do they deserve to have compensation? If you're talking about marijuana being illegal, you would have to have that argument of, okay, should any type of, should smoking marijuana or selling marijuana or whatever you're talking about, should this never have been a crime? Was this like a crime against someone's free or like individual liberty that put them into an unjust loss of freedom? Then I think that you could probably go ahead and visit that topic, sure. So now we're paying reparations to anyone who had any sort of fine or you don't want to say. I said you can go ahead and have that conversation. No, no, no, no, but we're having the conversation right now, that's what this is. You keep strawmaning everything that I do. It's not a strawman. Your argument was false imprisonment. You made the specific claim that the reason you wouldn't go after the slave owners, but instead you would go after the government is because it was legal. So what they were doing was legal at the time. So if the government has said, falsely imprison people by saying, we think that we're allowed to imprison. Oh, if you're putting the hypothetical, if you're putting the hypothetical that we agree that, okay, then that making it illegal for people to smoke like we, like we're saying that never should have been illegal. Like that's what you would have to agree on. Like we say, okay, so it should never have been illegal for this to happen. And when you get the government to agree that this never should have been illegal, then yeah, sure, absolutely. Okay, so then now we make marijuana legal. And so now we pay reparations to the people. Anyone who ever got arrested and spent time, anyone who spent time in jail for marijuana now doesn't have to pay the tax. Sure. I mean, this is just nonsensical. I don't know what else to say. And I never said not pay their taxes in totality. I said until you reach a certain amount, see like this would even be, this would even be even easier to figure out because now we can records are better now, right? So now we can say, okay, how much time did this person spend in prison for this crime that we agree should never have been a crime? Yes, absolutely. This is what holding the government accountable looks like. And do you think that after the government like gets more and more and more of these that they're gonna wanna keep putting people in prison for things that go against like their individual liberty? I would argue no. Okay, so again, so what we'll see just to clarify the position, what we would see is something like this. My grandfather spent six years in jail for marijuana related crimes. He died, my parents are dead. So I'm the next of kin, six years at $50,000 a year, $300,000 of taxes I don't have to pay. Correct? The what you said that he died in prison and it was a law that we agreed that should never have been a law in the first place against their individual liberties. That's what we're talking about. Yeah. Okay, sure. Yeah, fine. I mean, this is nonsense. It's just that nonsense. That's not a rebuttal. Please, please. That's not a rebuttal. That's just a fallacious statement. I think that people could see that even regardless who you think is winning this debate, I am trying my best to not interrupt you as much when you talk, you seem to have a proclivity to want to keep talking. You're just being full. So allow me to explain what you're saying, right? All right, hold on one second. To be fair, almost everybody when they debate on this channel, they'll say, you know, that was absolute baloney. And you know, here's why is like, they always start with a kind of like a strong, well, oftentimes they start with a strong bulls even. Well, I promise I'll give you a chance to respond. But one thing I... Before we even go into that though, I do want to mention folks or gentlemen, one thing we hadn't talked about, if we are able to change gears a bit, because it's something that I would find super interesting. I've heard intelligent people go both ways on this particular sub component of this debate. You could say, namely, whether or not wealth is, you could say, sustained well over generations. And what I mean by that is if most wealth is generational, namely if most people have their wealth as a result of the family they're born into, then that seems to be like a stronger and maybe necessary truth, you could say, if you're gonna make the argument for reparations, right? So in other words, if you have a disadvantage as a result of slavery, then it's like, well, hey, you know, you can see why it might be fair to want to argue for reparations. But if let's say due to random fluctuations and things like regression toward the mean in stats, if it's the case that it's like, it's actually like over time, we tend to find that people just kind of seem to move and kind of vibrate and kind of randomly wealth seems to kind of diffuse, then if somebody makes that argument, they would be like, well, then I don't know if reparations are per se required. So any thoughts on that, you guys? I wanna hear if you've read anything on it, either side, I'm not trying to make an argument one way or the other, it's just an interesting point and it's a new point that we haven't covered tonight yet. So for me, it wouldn't have anything to do with my argument. My argument has nothing to do with generational wealth. My argument only has to do with a debt that is owed, whether you are wealthy today or you are not wealthy today, doesn't actually matter to my argument. Okay, yeah, and that's exactly the point. So James, maybe it should have been me and you debating. I'll just real quick say, I think that you could see based on the explanation that the plan that's being specifically argued by Tyler isn't going to do any good in actually helping people that need help, and it's gonna be nonsensical and make our country solely looking for sins of the past, which is the opposite of what we should be doing. Now, the traditional case for reparations, which is what you're talking about, James, I would love to get into it. So the argument would be, if we cause someone financial pain generations ago, does that sort of lack of wealth opportunities trickle down? And there's evidence that that may be the case, right? There's also evidence, and I know we were talking before the debate chains of people like Thomas Swill, that claim that actually there's always a regression to the mean, and no matter what, these groups sort of kind of, although there might be some marginal influence, the reality is there's far more things such as family, such as the greatest metrics that we have for determining whether or not is successful, financially successful, stays out of jail, et cetera, is did you graduate high school? Did you have a two-parent household? And do you have a full-time job? And so what we can see is those things have far more impact, and that can be achieved even if there was a lack of generational wealth in the past. So there are certainly different factors. My argument though, James, against why this case would be a case of reparations would be, I don't think the reparations will be quantifiable, so it won't be possible to divvy them out. And even if we did try to divvy it out, it actually would harm people that are in poor and low-end class that would have to pay into that to pay those forms of reparations. And we already see this as sort of the status quo. And we end up with this sort of idea where you make people dependent on the government. You say, oh, here's free money. We can see this, for example, in inner-city schools. It might shock people to know this, but most poor schools in this country, in particular inner-city schools, spend more per student than up. So going back to this, I do wanna give Tyler a chance to respond to this before we go on to these points. No, he's arguing against a point that's not mine, so it doesn't actually matter to my audience. I mean, that's what I'm saying, James. I know that you would like to have this discussion about the type of reparations that we're normally talking about, but it's hard in this context because Tyler's just like, yeah, that's not what I'm talking about. So it's up to you, whatever you wanna do with it. Yeah. It's not my fault that you prepare for like an argument against like a typical leftist. But if you haven't heard my argument, then you just have to engage with what I'm saying. I'm not the one. James is the one that wanted this guy. I think James realizes that the argument that we're having so- No, I just thought it was a juicy like question. Yeah, yeah. Something worth bringing. For someone who's not believed. Okay, stop it, both of you. So we're gonna go into the Q and A, wanna say, I do appreciate these guys. They are spirited, they've got passion, they've got energy. And so do wanna encourage you, if you're listening via the modern day debate podcast, we're on every app. You guys, if you haven't checked out the podcast app, what are you waiting for? And if you haven't checked out our guest links, what are you waiting for? They're linked in both the description box here on YouTube as well as at the podcast. So we highly encourage you to check them out as we do appreciate these guys. And we're gonna jump into these questions. You do appreciate your questions out there, folks. So thanks so much. This one coming in from Grimlock says, I understand the idea of reparations, but to what extent? How many generations will get paid? How do we calculate the value that someone is owned? Ode. Yeah, so like I was talking about earlier, that would have to be like another discussion over what we think is reasonable for that person or for the debt that is owed, right? So like I made the analogy or the comparison to, okay, well, people who are wrongfully imprisoned today, they generally, if they are found to be wrongfully imprisoned after the fact, they generally pay, depending on the state between 30 to 50K per year of wrongful conviction. So like if we said something like that and then said, okay, well, we see that 90% of slaves were at farms and plantations and that the average lifespan of a slave at a farm or plantation was like eight years, then we could say, okay, well, then we could come up with that was a $250,000 or something like that. We could try and figure that out, right? Maybe that's wrong. Maybe it's 100K. Like we'd have to kind of like really brainstorm and figure out what that should be, what that number should be. But again, even when it is paid out, like my position is not that it is a lump sum at the cost of taxpayer, at the cost of taxpayer dollars and saying that, okay, well, we're gonna penalize this person for doing it. It's like, no, that if we find that you are a descendant of said slave and this is an unpaid debt, then that person will just, the government will just not collect taxes from them until this is made. That settles the debt from the government of what they owe and it's not the direct harm of like other taxpayers. It's just, all it does is it looks past and we could do this, not just in the United States, you could do this with any country, looking for where there was official state action that agreed people in ways. And so we could go back centuries upon centuries. It's not the way moving forward. One of the greatest things that Western society did was understand that we don't force people to pay debts of their fathers and forefathers. There's no reason that collectively we should be doing that through the government. Regardless of how you set up these payments, it's bad to look back. It'll cause more division. It's not going to actually help poor people in this country today and it's just going to make the planters much worse in this country. Juicy and jumping into this next question, very Juicy says, Juicy question, Mike MC says, profiting off of your ancestors bondage is gross. I agree. I agree in a sense. I understand the question. I understand the other position of it too, where it's like, well, I'm in a desperate situation because of the pain that my ancestors went through financially. But again, that's not the argument Tyler's making. His plan would specifically benefit people that pay in large amounts of income taxes. Like for example, he says- Really, well, hold on. Just this- Hold on, you're making all these assumptions. Hold on a second. I'm still talking. The objection is meant for Tyler. So I do want to give Tyler a chance to respond to this. I don't know what the objection is. It's not a question. You're right. It's frankly more of an assertion. I'm frankly trying to figure out, I'm like, am I, how am I, so they say profiting off your ancestors bondage is gross. I'm trying to think of like what way in which morally speaking, without just calling it gross, like what the moral reasoning is in terms of why it's gross, but we'll give you a chance to respond to it, Tyler, if you want to respond to it. I don't know what they're trying to say. Like, I mean, what the question is that they're asking me. I mean, it just, I don't know what they're saying. Like I would just say, okay, I just say it's a debt that is owed to that the government didn't pay and that it should be paid. And we don't allow them, the government, to get away with not paying what they owed to individuals and that it should go to their next of kin. Gotcha. And this one coming in from Harlem Street Tales. Thanks so much. So the reparations is not just for slavery. We were talking about redlining Jim Crow, the flooding of black communities with drugs, so on and so on. Any thoughts guys? Tyler, would you agree that those are other reasons for reparations or Rob, would you say, my guess is you probably wouldn't think that those are reasons for reparations. I'll give you guys a chance to respond. I mean, not really. That has nothing to do with my argument here for like enslavement. So I'm talking about people who like had their essential freedoms take away from being enslaved due to something like that. Like when you're talking about like redlining and stuff like that, like what are we talking about when they actually drew like the red lines around it? Like, I mean, you could take them case by case and try and figure that out on the surface. It doesn't seem like something like for me that has to do with this debate, like for wrongful enslavement. But yeah, I mean, like if you said something more so like maybe you were talking about like black codes, like black codes, like right after the civil war where they had that in certain states where they like wrongfully imprisoned. It was a slavery like under just like a new name where they enslave like black folks for like certain things that like white people wouldn't be like enslaved for. That'd be like, yeah, so like that would be something but like Jim Crow. I mean, you're just talking about like segregation. There are other things in Jim Crow. We have to like look at each thing like just making the blanket statement of Jim Crow like wouldn't be enough. Okay, so my way to respond to that would be this. Of course it has nothing to do with this debate. This is traditionally the case that's made for reparations but that's because presumably the argument that the questioner's asking is, how do we make people that are suffering financially or economically because of these decisions in the past? How do we give them a hand? That's clearly Tyler has no concern over that. So that's why it's not brought up in this debate. What I would say is that what we should do as a society, not to get, I would love to have this discussion. This would have been a more fun and productive, I think discussion that form of reparations. What I will say in general is this, that I don't have a problem with the government helping poor people and we could disagree or agree on the policies that we would have to do that, but we shouldn't be helping them based on a mutable characteristics like who their ancestors were with their skin color was. And I'll just say it like this. If we have two people, one named Bob who was black and one named Will that was white and both of them were born in the same hospital at the same time in beds next to each other to single mothers that are both making $20,000 a year. Why does it matter why they're in that difficult financial situation? Our government should come out and try to help both of those children regardless of their skin color. Why would we say, well, Bob's in this situation because his ancestors were affected by red line, therefore the government should give them money. But Will, his grandfather worked at the steel mill and it closed down because of globalization policies. So screw him, right? That's not the way it should be. And if you say, well, we have money to give both then what's the point of reparation? It's redundant at that point. We either help people that need help or we don't. Focusing on the sins of the past just causes divisions and separations that we see already being exacerbated in this country today. James, James, can I ask a Rob question? Sure. Okay, so let me understand your position here and I'm not trying to straw me in you. So go ahead and like correct me if I'm wrong here. But it sounds like what you're saying is that you are okay with taxpayers funding poor people for the sake of being poor, right? Just because they are poor, then other taxpayers should have to pay for them because they're poor. But when I say, okay, well, this is an actual debt that the government does owe that they shouldn't have to pay that just because they're no longer alive. Like, how does that make sense? I'm talking about helping people based on need. I'm concerned that people can't put food on the table, not concerned that they're great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather did some. We could argue what the best policies would be. But you're in this weird contribution. Please, please, so you asked me the question when you finished. You're in this weird contradiction where on one hand as a conservative, you're like, I don't like social welfare programs. It's at the taxpayer expense. But on the other hand, I'm willing to have a sort of social welfare program that will disproportionately benefit a certain set of wealthier people because it's about not leading people's escape from 200 years ago. Government. It's about them paying a debt that they owe. Yet the government doesn't owe you a debt just because you are poor. We'll jump into the next one. Do appreciate your question. This one coming in from PayPal, do appreciate it. Folks, if you don't want YouTube to get its greasy fingers on 30% of the super chats, at least YouTube takes. Well, folks, we have Venmo and we also have PayPal. Venmo, our handle is at modern day debate. And this question coming in from PayPal, do appreciate it. This is from Thomas, appreciate it. This is Tyler. How is saying that an event that happened in someone's ancestry, not in conflict with the existence of that person? If the event never occurred, that person would not be alive today. They are too detached from the event to experience the pain of, such as for example, the whip, but they are breathing. Yeah, so my question would just be like, why does that matter? Why does it matter if you are quote unquote directly affected or not? If it's just, I don't know how many times, and this isn't like at a, not trying to get on this commenter at all, but my whole thing is just like it's debt. It's debt that's owed that Rob agreed is a debt. He just doesn't believe that it should be paid out to anyone but that individual person. So then my position is like, okay, so if they die while in involuntary slavery, it's like, okay, well, hey, we're not gonna give it to anyone. We're not gonna give it to their next of kin. We're not gonna give it to anybody. Like that just seems like I don't even know how somebody logically backs up that position. Like it literally is just a position saying, look, the government can do what they will if they happen to enslave people and that person dies in enslavement or whatever happens that we shouldn't, it is what it is. The government, we're just gonna allow them to get away with it. I stand on the side of, no, we're going to make sure that we hold the government accountable, especially when it's the same government that takes billions of taxpayer dollars to fund unnecessary things. So when I say, look, we should at least get this thing back that is owed that they owe, right? That that should be paid. It's not a debt compensating someone because you've done something horrible to them. It's not a debt. You agree that it was a debt. No, I agree that they deserve to pay. We're here to jump in on the next one. We must. We must. We must. We must. We must. We always, there's always gotta be somebody that has the last word. We're gonna jump into this next one. Do appreciate it. And speaking of taxes, nobody likes paying taxes more than Rob. Believe me, nasty guy. Next up, for how just easy? Okay, for our tribe says, instead of getting people to pay for things they didn't do to people who didn't suffer, creating a blatant cart, carté blanche for corruption, why not attack contemporary slavery? Carté blanche, is that a new? I've never heard of that. Cart blanche. Oh, thank you. I answered those first two lines. Do you want to go ahead? What cart blanche means? Yep. Like to do whatever you want. Cart blanche, you could get an open table, open slate, do whatever you want. Oh, okay. Let me ask the, re-ask the question though. That just in case anybody else if it's a new phrase for them, they said instead of getting people to pay for things they didn't do to people who didn't suffer, creating a blatant cart blanche for corruption. Like you could say, opening up free reign for people to get their way corrupting. Said why not attack contemporary slavery? Do you want to answer that, Robert? Do you want me to answer it? Well, it's directed to you. I'll answer it. It's directed to you. Yeah, exactly. I guess that'd be my answer. Okay. So yeah, that's not my position. My position is not that anybody should pay, right? So probably people are coming in like after they just assuming what my position is that I haven't actually heard or we're in the beginning of this debate. My position is not that individuals like tax payers should have to pay or fund this. My position was that, okay, well, if we're gonna settle this debt that the government owes, then we can do is just have these specific descendants of slaves, right? Descendants of slaves, not just because you are black. You could totally be a white descendant of a slave, right? So that these descendants of slaves that they just don't collect, the government just doesn't collect taxes for a certain period of time that we will figure out exactly what that was. So that way it settles the debt, but the direct, the like your neighbors or whatever you aren't, that your taxes aren't being raised to fund it. You got it. And thank you very much for your question. This one coming in from, do appreciate it, rumply depew. This is for, they say I kept hearing that quote, that a quote, debt is owed unquote. Who established this? And did they agree? Yeah, Rob absolutely agreed that a debt was owed. So when I made this assertion in the beginning, I asked Rob, I was like, okay, so do you believe that the government owes you a debt if you are to these slaves in the 1800s? He said, absolutely. Okay, then that debt was never paid. So that would mean that that debt is still owed. I guess we quibble about the term debt, right? So there's two ways to quibble those first. I think that if you're falsely imprisoned by the government then the government should try to make you whole. Regardless if we term that semantically a debt or not is irrelevant because even if we do term it a debt, that debt would cease to exist when we're talking about 200 years later and people that weren't affected by it whatsoever now being paid out in some form or another because of things that they never went through. And we could even see that Tyler acknowledges that we wouldn't do this with the individuals. So if you as an individual, if you're a great grandfather imprisoned my great grandfather illegally and cost my family money, you wouldn't be responsible for paying me today. And he says, well, it's different because it's government but all's the government is the people. The government's not going to be harmed. They'll just tax other people more. So the people that will be the ones that aren't skating are the people that will be taxed more. They're the ones that will pay the brunt for decisions they have no part in whatsoever. You got it. And this one from Amanda Foster, sending it in via Venmo. Do appreciate your support. Amanda says, just want to thank both of our guests for being here. You are appreciated. Thank you. That's awesome. It is. And I also want to say folks, they're linked in the description. We really do appreciate them. And so, hey, I mean, if you're enjoying what you're hearing tonight, you're like, this is refreshing, new take. Click on those links. We really do appreciate our guests. They're the lifeblood of the channel here. And so, thanks so much for your question. This one coming in from Forward Tribe says, do you think the West needs more division at this point? And do you think reparations would cause division? I could answer first. Certainly we don't need more division. It's something that's terrible. Notice, by the way, when we're talking not just about reparations with sins of the past, you see this usually in countries in the West, right? We don't talk about sins of the past like what Genghis Khan did to the people that lived in that region or what the Mongols did, et cetera. It's always talking about sort of Eurocentric and people that have come from Europe and them needing to be responsible for the sins of the past. Absolutely, by focusing on the ills of the past, it causes division, right? We should be focusing on the content of people's character today. We should be trying to unify our country. Reparations absolutely would cause this. Again, we could see from Tyler's example of his specific form of reparations, but even the way other people talk about this, it will create animosity from people that feel that they need help or that the government isn't doing enough for them right now, but that would be left behind because they don't fit into the unique category of however we decide to give these reparations out. This will create animosity. It will create dependency by the people that get these reparations. And all in all, it can't be paid out in a fair manner anyways. And so yeah, this absolutely caused more division. We should be focused more on unifying it. Totally agree. Yeah, so again, so yeah, this wouldn't actually be paid out under my framework. Also, when you're talking about division, I think that we probably would agree that we don't want more division, right? But if you're talking about like, do I care about people's feelings if it's just a debt that should be settled? Like no, I don't, right? If I'm just more in the like, look, this is owed, so it should be paid. I don't really care if it's at the expense of people's feelings. I mean, I could go into how, I mean, let's go with like a crazy radical hypothetical. Let's say that we found that every descendant of an American slave here today, let's say that we found that every single one of them were like, if you would say white or what the, maybe say the left colors were like white passing, right? Let's say that you're like majority white. I'd be like, well, that is what it is, right? They are descendants of a slaves and that is the debt that needs to be owed. Like I don't really care about the feelings of those people just because like, oh, well, I want it just because. I don't care if you want it just because we would have to prove that your lineage traces back to that original slave. You got it. Thank you very much. Do appreciate your question. This one coming in from Aftershock says, prohibition, those people affected get reparations to, what would you say, Tyler? Prohibition, are you talking about like alcohol prohibition? Right. People that were in prison for alcohol use? Yes. Sure, sure, sure. Well, I mean, like Rob actually said something about like marijuana. That's like, yeah, sure. It like should never have been a crime. It's definitely unconstitutional, especially at the federal level. I would even argue at the state level that it's still unconstitutional by the 9th Amendment. But yeah, sure. If we came to agreement and said that, look like this should never have been illegal, which I think mostly we do agree that it never should have been illegal. If you were imprisoned due to that and the government didn't, and we could like trace that, your lineage back to that person who was wrongfully enslaved by the government or backed up by the government. Yeah, then sure, absolutely. Like my whole thing has been consistent here, right? Whether it's gun control, whether it's whatever, if the government wrongfully imprisoned you, right? If it is unjust for them to imprison you and take away your freedom, like it's just so weird to me that like conservatives or like right wingers would say like that we either shouldn't hold them accountable or they just make like vague statements like Rob is making and just saying, oh, well, no, we should owe it to them. But like if they die, then it doesn't go to their next again. We just let it escape by. So like I just find that to be like a very odd position. You got it. And thank you very much for this question from Aftershock. Or wait, we've got Manic Panas. Sorry, I missed it. It says, ask Tyler if natives in Canada deserve a form of reparations to in regards to the recent discovery of the many dead children found and other atrocities done to native Canadians? Well, I would say that maybe they're, I mean, their government, if you want to go ahead and talk about that, but people always usually bring this up, like to people in Africa and like the Irish and all these other people, like their government is responsible for settling their own debts, right? As just as our government is responsible for settling debts of the people here. So I would say that they need to talk to the Canadian government. Can I, do you mind if I ask a quick question? Just clarifying question. Okay. Do the people that were unjustly in the North killed in the civil war to free slaves? Do the state governments that were fighting against the North through it maintains slaves, owe reparations to those people? Well, we're not talking about individuals that owe reparations. No, if these state governments, they actually killed unjustly people in the name of false imprisonment and slavery. So do they, if my great, great grandfather died in the civil war fighting to free the slaves, does the state of Georgia owe me reparations? If the, I'm sorry, I'm not following. So like if I'm trying to understand, I'm sorry. So like you're saying if your grandfather was in the North fighting against, excuse me, fighting against slavery, what should happen? I'm sorry. Should I get reparations? Because they were false, they were killed due to government action, which is just if not, that's just as bad if not worse than false imprisonment. So their life was ended because of government action of these states of the South. So should they get recompense? So should they get recompense because they like died in the line of duty? Correct. Well, we already pay that. So that's already a thing. No, no, no, no, no, no. They died not because they were in the line of duty. They died because of the fraudulent and corrupt actions of the state governments of the South. Well, they died during war. They were soldiers, right? So like if you were a soldier in war, like we already pay that. So like I think it's like $100,000 that's like paid to your next of kin. So yeah. It's not about money. It's not about money. Let them finish. Well, no, I'm finished. Like that's already something that is paid. It's not about money. It's about letting the state government skate. Why are you letting them skate? Skate by on what? They skated by on they did something horrible. They ordered their people to kill my ancestor and now they get to skate. Don't you think there's a debt that's owed? I'm not understanding. Like, what are you talking about? Like if the state government, let me ask you this. If the state government of Pennsylvania falsely execute someone today, do they owe the next of kin money? If they be sure? Yeah. Okay. So if the state government of Georgia executed my ancestor, why don't they owe a debt? I didn't say that they didn't know a debt. Okay. So then if my grandfather fought for the North or great-great grandfather fought for the North and he was killed. That's irrelevant. It doesn't actually matter if they fall for the North or not. So that doesn't actually matter. Okay. Okay. Fine. They fought and were killed by the state government of Georgia. Does the state government of Georgia owe me reparations? So they fought against the state government of Georgia. So they were a soldier and they got killed by being a soldier. They got killed in the line of duty. It's who cares if it was in the line of duty? Well, why are you letting Georgia skate? Well, you're not because I've already, so hold on, hold on, hold on. Dear gosh. Both of you quiet for a second. So Tyler mentioned earlier, he said that the state had already compensated soldiers for their being a part of the war. So if you, I'll give you a chance to respond, Rob. I just wanted to hear that. I don't know. Like he said that's the difference between like an execution by the state versus. His argument isn't financial when it comes to his reparations. He's made that quite clear. It's about something that is owed. And he says that if you have governments that commit heinous actions, such as false imprisonment or killing someone that they owe a debt to those people that they killed. So if a regiment from Georgia killed my great, great, great grandfather, it doesn't matter if the union army paid him. It's not about the financial compensation. It's about the debt that is owed by those state governments in the South that killed thousands upon thousands of people in heinous ways. Why is he allowing them to skate? Sure, sure. Like, like I said, like if they wrongfully, well, I'm talking specifically about slavery, but if you want to jump over to like killing. So like sure, like if they wrongfully or unjustly like killed an American citizen or whatever, then I would say absolutely that is a debt that's owed. I don't know what's difficult about this. There aren't gonna be many people paying taxes with you. Rumpily Depew, thanks for your question, said people aren't and weren't in prison for booze. Dear. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Okay, say people aren't and weren't in prison for booze use or alcohol consumption and aren't in prison for smoking a joint. These are bad arguments. I think they're maybe referring to the prohibition question that came up before. I'm not sure, but Steve says, I don't know if you, if the other you wanna respond to that you can, otherwise I'm gonna jump to the next one. It's not true. The initial penalty for like smoking a joint might be a fine in most places, but certainly if you smoke a joint because you were violating probation or something like that, that'll send you to jail. And I believe, I don't think I'm wrong here Tyler, you're saying that that wouldn't matter. That would still be a false imprisonment if we agree that laws should have never been applied, correct? If we agree that it like goes against like you're an alien of the rights in the answer. So one thing I definitely wanna respond, one thing James, one thing that I thought that was just interesting when Rob was like, oh, well there's not gonna be very many people paying taxes. I don't think that most taxes should be paid, right? I think that we could probably eliminate like 90% of taxes. So like, are you, let me ask you a question, like real quick, we don't have to like get far into this, I just don't know like your ideology. Like are you economically on the right? Like do you believe like either taxation is theft or that we shouldn't pay most taxes? I think most, I think that we far over taxed, but it's irrelevant to this conversation, right? Because- Well, not when you make that, not when you make- Sure, sure, because again, this is what I'm talking about about the strange argument that you're making here because you're basically saying that we tax for these social programs and we shouldn't have. But then when it comes to, it's about making things right. It's about paying debts and things like that. And so if you want to eliminate taxes for the sake of eliminating taxes, it's fine. But this idea that we're going to look at all of this crazy shit in the past, like, oh, your grandfather got arrested because he was on probation and drank booze during probation. Yep, you're entitled to reparations. Oh, you smoked a joint and you spent three years in the clinic because of it. Well, you're entitled- Give it, how is that crazy? That form of stopping taxes is stupid. If you want to stop taxes, stop them. Well, Robert, like I would, do you mind if I like continue? James, I don't want to like- Really quick, I'll give you a pithy response. Okay, so I don't understand how that would be like ridiculous, right? Because if we're saying that this crime, that alcohol shouldn't have ever been illegal, like it's your, like you as an adult should be able to consume like alcohol without the government interfering. If we're saying that they were imprisoned because of this unconstitutional and just, like that shit law that they never should have imposed, I don't understand how that would be ridiculous to say, yeah, then the government should have done that. That's a debt that's owed and pay it to the next again. I don't, like, I, like your whole position is just like, like government, cool. Like let the government like get away with stuff. Like it's weird. Government's people. Juicy one from Chris Gammon. Thanks so much for sending it in via Ben Mo. Chris says, Rob, do you support people today suing the government today for reparations instead of traditional reparations? I didn't have a question for you. I don't, I don't understand. Like I don't, it would in effect be the same thing. So traditional reparations to my understanding would just be that we vote through our legislator to pay people reparations. Suing the government for reparations would be instead of the legislators voting, people take it to the court instead. I don't know how that would change any of my arguments whatsoever. Furthermore, my stance is quite simple. If you have been agreed by the government, you deserve compensation. Your great, great grandchildren don't. You've got it. Thank you very much. And this one coming in from Steve says, who's responsibility is it to prove descendancy from an enslaved ancestor, the individual receiving the reparations or the government? That's a fair question. I mean, I guess I would say, do we expect that the government is going to bend over backwards to ensure that they are going to, I mean, obviously they haven't for over a hundred years of even paying out reparations. They didn't do it at the time. Technically, to be fair, I think George has tried to, and then Andrew Johnson overturned it after Lincoln was killed. But yeah, I wouldn't take it, even if the government said that they will, I would take that in your own hands and I would say, no, I'm gonna make sure I do my own research or I'll hire someone or do whatever you're on your own. I would say that you should probably take it in your own hands and not expect that the government is just gonna stand by their word and say that they're gonna do all the research necessary for you. You got it. And thank you very much for this question. Coming in from, do appreciate it. Let me just load this up. Manic pandas. Oh, we did ask that one. Aftershock has one last one. So it says, so if it's true that some will not be able to prove enslavement along with reparations for past laws that were changed, can Tyler not see how this will never end? Never end because of why. But what was it? Can you repeat the question? So they say, so if it's true that some will not be able to prove enslavement along with there being the case that, so these are like two different issues. So the one is like people can't prove it. Some people would potentially not be able to prove enslavement. They say, then they say along with if there are also reparations for past laws that were changed, reparations for other purposes, other government wrongs you could say, then can Tyler not see how this will never end? Okay, so for one, if you can't prove that you are a descendant of a slave, then well, that would end there, right? Because you can't like prove it. But like the next thing would be, okay, so will it never end? I disagree. I think that you would see, I mean, if you would say never end, but like I would say that you would see sharp decline after the government realizes, shit, we're allowing these people to skate by on taxes because we keep fucking up, right? So this is what it means to hold government accountable, right? Other than just like a revolution, right? So which NSA listening, I'm not saying that I'm for overthrowing government, just want to make that clear. But yeah, so like other than that, yeah, like the government wants their money. It's like, okay, well, we don't want to keep allowing people to not pay taxes. So we have to make sure that when we oppose a law that it is either constitutional, it doesn't go against like their inalienable rights, right? So yeah, I think that you will see sharp decline. You got it. And with that, want to say thank you everybody for hanging out with us. It's always a true pleasure. I'm going to quick skim the chat just in case I missed any last. Want to say our guests are linked in the description. We do appreciate our guests and that's why we a lot to remind you as always folks, please attack the arguments instead of the person we do appreciate these guys. And so they're also linked in the description. We will be right back in a moment folks with a post credit scene in which we're going to show you the finalists for our new logo. We're excited about that as well as we'll talk about juicy upcoming debates. This one tomorrow folks, it's going to be juicy. Now, the fellow that we were having on who you've seen the thumbnail, I'm embarrassed to say I'm, I don't want to try to pronounce his name because in case I mispronounced it, I just feel embarrassed to say that. I'm not yet sure how to pronounce it. But our guest tomorrow, it's going to be juicy and the fellow that you see on screen was a, I guess an advisor or what is it? He was on President Trump's task force for, oh gosh. But believe me, it's going to be juicy. You don't want to miss it. We're excited about that. And so we'll be back with more details on upcoming debates. Want to say thanks everybody. Stick around and we'll be right back. Thanks so much Rob and Tyler. It's been a true pleasure. Thank you man, I appreciate it. My dear friends, excited to have you here. I'm going to do a couple of things right now. First, you guys, I am pumped. Have to show you the finalists. I am really excited as we definitely do want to improve our, we want to improve our logo. Enough jokes about the Boomer logo. It is going to be a tremendous logo. You guys are going to love this new one. I'm trying to load this stuff up to right now. I've had so many, I don't know if you guys could tell. It wasn't too bad during the debate. I've had so many mental errors today. It's been nuts. Like things where people are like, I sent an email and somebody's like, oh James, like, why are you saying this? You just told me this opposite thing. And I'm like, oh, you're right. I just like completely forgot. I spaced out. And so it's hilarious you guys. I am thankful that I don't think it happened much during this debate. Cause there are some nights where I'm like, I was like, oh, I was like, that was smooth. And then there are some nights where I was like, gosh, I was tripping over my words the entire time. It was terrible. It was disgraceful. Very embarrassing. Maybe the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life. Sometimes I look back at my speaking and I say that. Not really, but you guys, let me jump into these logos. I'm excited. Let's see here. One, I want to say thank you so much for hanging out with us before we jump into these finalists for the logos. Quebec hoice, foie gras. Thank you for coming by as well as Floyd Visser, Nikki and Wilmar Castro and as Rataza. Rataz, Ratazala. Thank you so much for coming by. Also, you guys, I am so excited that we now have channel memberships or during our 50,000 subscribers stream, which we are so excited about happening. Namely, you guys, thanks so much for your support. I am so encouraged that we've hit 50,000 subscribers thanks to people like you making this channel epic as well as to the debaters. We're thankful for the debaters. They make this channel fun. And so really, folks, I can't thank everybody enough. It is a true community effort. We are so excited about the future. And you guys, I am thrilled. I mean, we really do. We're thinking of new plans, new guests to have on, new topics like tonight's. And so we're excited about that. It's gonna be great. My dear friends, big things to come in the future. And Chris Gammon says, James, did you not sleep well last night? I actually surprisingly slept well last night. And that's why I'm so confused on how I have so many mental errors today. Maybe I didn't sleep as well as I thought. Here's an insightful thing. One of the more insightful things I've heard. It's pretty interesting. The research on sleep, because so you guys know that psychology is like my forte. Like I, this is like, yeah, sometimes we still in, in organizational psychology, we do still sometimes think about sleep. As an example, like we do see that when leaders or supervisors are sleep deprived, they will show more abusive leader behaviors toward their subordinates at work. So that's one example of research on that, which is interesting, sad. And the other thing is this. When it comes to sleep, you actually don't know, the research actually suggests that you actually, you're not your own subjective opinion on how well rested you are from the night before is actually like not that great. There are different metrics for measuring sleep, but one of them to keep in mind when it comes to your own self report based on your kind of your subjective, like, well, I feel like I'm pretty well rested, is that it's almost like a paradox. It's almost ironic. It's just like when you're drunk. If you're drunk, are you a good judge of whether or not you're sober or drunk? Well, no, you're not because you're impaired in and of itself, right? So it's inherent that your judgements will probably be off on whether or not you're really sober enough to drive, for example. It's the same with sleep. When you're sleep deprived, you actually, your judgment on whether or not you're well rested is less accurate or reliable. So really interesting. So anyway, I thought I slept well last night, but maybe you could say my behavior would suggest I haven't slept that well last night. But isn't that interesting? I think that's fascinating. It's a good analogy in terms of like, well, when you're drunk, you really don't, you're not usually a very good judge of whether or not you're sober. And likewise, when you're sleep deprived, you're not really a good judge of whether or not you're well rested. So pretty interesting, but let me pull this up. Just two seconds. I wanna say hello to more people in the chat as I always just enjoy the community here. So Mark Reed, good to see you, as well as Darth Revan and YouTube surgeon general. Oh, that's weird. It said modern day debate message retracted. Did I retract a message? I don't remember saying anything. Let me look for this. It says hide user on channel. That can't be right. Is there someone posing as me? That can't be right. That has to be, it must be me. There's there's somebody impersonating me in the chat. That's weird. This says modern day debate and it's not hyphenated. I always hyphenate modern day. So whoever's account this is, I got a joker in the chat here. It says they retracted their message though. Did anybody see it? What did they say? It's in the YouTube chat. David says it's a fake user. And then David says, you have a hyphen in your name, the faker doesn't. You're right. You're very astute, David, very good eye. That's funny. Somebody out there is being extra based and red-pilled impersonating us. That's funny. And then, but I am, I'm excited you guys. Thanks for your kind words. Nikki says, God bless you, James. We love you, dude. Thanks so much. I love you as well and God bless you as well. And I do appreciate everybody seriously. I'm excited about the future. I really do appreciate you and thank you for all of... We're gonna start throwing out some Hail Marys in the sense that I'm really gonna try to shoot for those speakers that people are really excited to, most excited to host or see us host. In fact, you know about the poll that we put up the other day. I think I'm gonna put that in the YouTube community page. I can put it through an external website. And I put this, basically it was a poll during our 50,000 sub-abration, like celebration, it's like, is we put during our 50,000 celebration stream that we were wanting your opinion on which speakers you'd like to see on modern day debate. And we do, believe me, we're very serious about that. That poll, I had heard that people have had trouble accessing it. It was on an external website. Initially it worked well, but then it sounded like it didn't seem to have a good shelf life. So we're gonna put a poll in the YouTube community tab. If you watch us on Twitch, we are on YouTube. And I find it hard to believe that if you have a Twitch account, you don't also have a YouTube account. So I am asking you if you'd be willing to migrate over to the YouTube community tab if you want to vote, as it just seems like these external websites, I'm like, I don't know if I, after this first one, not doing particularly well, I am kind of like, we'll just put it on the YouTube community tab. And so we also have to show you the finalists for our logo, our potential logo. So let me show you these. We're excited about this. Let me show you, you guys, huge thank you to Tepatzel. Tepatzel, I'm so sorry, as I know that you maybe didn't want me to like, what's the word I'm looking for. Spill the beans so that now everybody knows it was you that made these tremendous, tremendous, what are they called? Oh, I'm frozen. Don't worry, I'll come back. Made these tremendous logos. So let me pull up some of these. I am excited about them. Two seconds. We had a lot of, on the initial votes, we're using the initial votes as a way of kind of narrowing which potential logos we'll use. And so let me pull this up. It apparently, I have to find these in my email. So two seconds, we'll get it. And then I'll show you guys the ones that I'm excited about. You, we'll probably put this up. Ooh, pardon me. We'll probably put this up as well in the YouTube community tab for you to vote. And the reason is Topazzo souped these up. He made them even better than the person that we got them from. Sorry. Oh, you guys, nobody knows who it is. On Fiverr, I ordered from different artists on Fiverr. I ordered several different, what's the word I'm looking for? Logos. See, I'm telling you, I'm like sleep deprived. We're gonna make it. Is that several different logos I had ordered. And I am very excited about these. These are the, you could say like the very best. Tremendous logos. And so let me show you these finalists. Ah, where is this, come on. All right, we'll get there. In the meantime, let's talk about great movies from the 90s such as the 1996 classic Twister starring Bill Paxton. One of my favorite movies of all time. You guys think I'm joking. Now, I had seen when I was a kid, because I was like 11 or 12 when it came out, I had seen Twister, I think six or seven times in the movie theaters. It was that great. It really was, it was a tremendous film. People are saying it was the best. And they were right, it was the best. Now, let me show you, I'm excited. Here's the first logo. We'll talk more about Twister, don't worry. We'll come back to that. But this one was one of the original, this one came from Fiverr and then Topazzo souped it up, made it look even more awesome. I think it looks beautiful. So let me just load this in. I've got to squeeze it down a bit. It's a little bit big right now. Is, this is one of them, right there. See, are you seeing it? It's on screen right now. That is a beautiful logo, no doubt about it. I think it's a tremendous logo. People are saying it's the best. However, don't worry, there's more. I mean, these are, I think these are so cool. I love them. And so I wanna show you this other one. Where did that go? Paul, I mean, Rupert. Let me just, let's see, logo. July 9th, wasn't that, what's that today? Oh yeah, those look good. I like those. But this set. Oh yeah, I think it was maybe right. Yep, here it is. Okay, this one, I'm like, this one maybe is even better. It's possible. I don't know, you guys let me know. What do you guys think? So we have that one that you guys, and I'm gonna put them, you can like look at them and compare them. They, I think they are tremendous logos. And we need you to let me know which one you think maybe looks better. So I'm gonna pull in another. And we'll probably put this in the voting. It shouldn't take so long. I know it's like James, just get to it. But we don't wanna rush it. Plus to be honest, it's gonna take me so long to update all of our different like social media files with the new logos that I'm like, it's gonna be a little while till you start seeing the new logo. But here, look at these two tremendous logos. Let me know what your thoughts are. I am excited about them. Do you have any preferences? Let me know. You should see them on screen now. So, amazing. Thank you, Matic Pan. As I couldn't agree more, definitely amazing. And then Pancake of Destiny says, movies from the 90s, meh, Hitchcock for the win. Watch Dial, what is it? Dial M for murder. I pay you 100 if you will not enjoy it. Huh, I will check that out. I'm open, I'm open minded. The wedding singer, Brooke, you're right. That was an awesome movie. That's so funny. Oh man, the wedding singer was like such a, it was funny that when I was like high school, I had a crush on somebody, one of my people that I went to school with. And I totally, that movie, I don't know, I just have a weird, I had this weird affection for that movie. Like, not toward Adam Sandler or something, but towards just the love story in it. But I liked Adam Sandler's old movies. I don't know if he's got good ones still. But I would say Ever Since, what's it? Oh, this is a click. Ever Since Click, I was like, you know what? I just didn't like them as much. I liked Click itself. That was still good. But After Click was where I was like, I just didn't quite, they didn't really like, I didn't really resonate with them. They didn't really resonate with me. It was, I think it's, I didn't really resonate with them would be the proper way to say it, right? Let me know. Amanda says, it's one of my favorite movies, James, Excellent Taste. I mean, I was kind of joking about Twister. But no, it's actually, it is a good movie. And I loved it back then. I really did see it like six or seven times in the theaters. Now, I probably, I mean, maybe I'll watch it soon. Just for, yeah, I was like, I could watch it. Just for kicks. Or I used to, I used to like, make my friends watch terrible old 90s movies whenever we would hang out. And so yeah, I made them watch like the worst movies, I think just to like get a rise out of them. And they were like, are you serious? You really have to watch this. I was like, it's my house, you have to. So let's see here. Any, any opinions? Okay, pot, potluckology says the first one. And so does, huh, Samuel Littleholm. Thanks for letting me know that Samuel as well. Thank you, Samuel, for submitting one of the logos. Totally appreciate that. That means a lot. And then let's see here. Bob Sadler says, the second one will look better on a T-shirt. Second for sure, says Biscotti. Wow, is that, got some votes for the second one. These are new ones. So, well, they're not actually new ones, technically. These are actually variations of one of the leaders in the poll. So, it looked like in the poll that I looked at on YouTube because I couldn't access the poll results for the original like webpage. Remember when I told you that one started to not work on us? Is I looked at YouTube and it looked like people were saying we like number three but it doesn't have color. It was in black and white. And I think people were like, man, I really want that. So, let's see. Corey Clark says, I like how it has the double D. I appreciate it. I love the double D. It looks tremendous. So, I do, it's a clever way of doing it, isn't it? I just, I think that's cool looking. And then Human Girl says, which one do you like, James? You know, I've got mixed feelings. One is, I do like the dark. I do like black and blue. Like that, even though I admit the one on the right has more pop. The one on the left, I have to admit, I like that. Maybe I'm a little bit partial to it. And, but it's true. The one on the right does have more pop. Nobody can deny that. So, let's see. Biscotti, I got yours. And then Wilmar Castro is the second one. And then Floyd Visser says both the same. And then Bandit Six says, did I miss the debate? Yes, you did. It's all done. Now you have to put up with me. Stripper, or is it Stinger G2 Freudian slip? G, Stinger, Stinger, G, like double Freudian slip. Stinger G2 says, okay, I don't know what that means. So, let's see. I'm not even gonna say it. I think you mean well by it, but I think people could misunderstand it. And then there's a clip of me floating around out there saying that. But, oh yeah, Wilmar Castro. I liked Big Daddy, that was still good. And then the chat's moving on me. Oh, here we go. And then Billy Madison, I agree. Spicey Rhodes, Billy Madison was like one of my very favorites. Corey Clark says, I didn't like grown ups. Me neither. Yeah, that's where I was starting to fall off the Adam Sandler bandwagon. Trolls II, was that Adam Sandler? Tremors, Brook Shavis, you're right. The Tremors movies were epic. I watched like Tremors, it was like part six or seven. They released it within the last few years. Tremendous movie. Nobody, I mean, they still had Burt in it. I mean, so yeah, it's funny that Burt, I think is the only character that's been in every single Tremors movie. Kevin Bacon only in the first one, very sad. But I can't remember, who is Trevor Bacon, or not Trevor, was it the name of his buddy? There is Kevin Bacon, then his buddy in the first one, I think it was Trevor something, I can't remember. He was in the second one as well. Oliver Catwell says, the wedding singer is also great as a child of the 80s, tons of Easter eggs. That's so true, that's funny. And Oliver Catwell, you look great considering, you must be older than me if you know, if you understand the 80s references. I was only born in 87, so I was only like three when the 80s wrapped up. So I don't know, I mean, I get like by knowledge, but by experience I don't get all the Easter eggs, but I get that. And then let's see, Chris Gavin says, 90s movies I can watch anytime, Hunt for Red October. Oh yeah, with Sean Connery, right? I think I remember that, I think I've seen that. And I might be thinking of The Rock though with Sean Connery, so I can't remember if I've seen Hunt for Red October. But yeah, Hunt for Red October I think I've seen, as well as like Armageddon, those types of movies, those are some epic ones. And then Pedro H.M. says James, let's see, that's funny. Bubblegum Guns says the 90s were an awful time for film. Fake news. Will Mark Castro says two is balanced, one is two blue. Yeah, there is more balance in number two, I get that. And then Human Girls says I like the one on the right the best. And then, let's see. I wonder if there's still a way of having a podium. I do like that, and Tepazl removed. I love Tepazl, sorry Tepazl, are you still there in the Twitch chat? But Tepazl did a fantastic job on these. Don't get me wrong, I love these. But I'm also wondering, I'm like, what about, I liked it when it looks like a podium. It was a podium, you remember, because it had the microphone sticking out the top. And that I was like, oh, that's pretty clever. I like that. It looks like a 3D podium, and it's also got the M and the D in it, I don't know. But it admittedly looks a little bit cleaner and sharper this way without the little microphone sticking out of it. But Tane, let me make sure I pronounce it right. Tane, why Rua? We are so glad you were here. I don't know if you see me. I just put it in chat as well in the old Twitch chat. We're glad you're here. Thanks for coming by and hanging out with us. And then, let's see, NB, thanks for coming by. And then, Human Girl says, I like the one on the left best. Good for you, Human Girl. And then, let's see. Oh, what was the movie with double, not double dragon? It was double dragon, wasn't it? Have you guys ever seen the old double dragon movie? Like, that was like in the 90s, they were more, they were willing to take more chances with, what's the word I'm looking for? Video game movies. I'm telling you, you can see I'm slow. The words are like coming slowly. One example being Mario Brothers as well as double dragon. You guys remember that one? And then also Mortal Kombat. The first one was in the 90s. I think the second one probably was too. So, ah, those were the glory days. Glory. That's what it was all about. It was great. And so, Tremors and Footloose sells Walmart Crastero, that's right. Critters, I've never seen that. I've got to check. And then, Saichonab, good to see you. Says, the usual suspects. Nobody beats Kaiser Suze. I've seen the usual suspects, but it's been a long time. But I'm pretty sure I liked it. I'm trying to think of, was it the usual suspects or reservoir dogs? I think I saw, are they similar? I don't know. I know I saw reservoir dogs and I think I saw the usual suspects. Was it with Kevin Spacey or maybe not? But Pancake of Destiny says, if you like horrors, watch what we do in the shadows. You will cry from laughter. If you know classic horrors, you think it is crap. You don't watch classics. Oh, they said, you will think it is crap if you don't watch classics. Good to know. Thanks for letting me know about that Pancake. And then, ooh, sorry you guys. This is a sleep deprivation. So Dan Zammett says, thank you for bringing on Rob. Please keep him coming. Nobody watches. Let's see. They said, they weren't talking about nobody watching Rob. It was never mine. But yeah, we will invite Rob back and we will invite Tyler back. And Snarkboy, glad to see you here. And then Snarkboy, the debate already happened. So whenever you see me just chatting on screen here and everybody's just hanging out in chat and we're just like talking about 90s movies, that means the debate has already happened. So let's see. Manic Panda says, I played Double Dragon. I feel old now. And then Chris Gammett says, oh my gosh, Mario Brothers movie is so bad and yet so good. There's some truth to that. Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. That's right. That was awesome. And Daisy. I can't remember. I don't remember who played Daisy though. But it was a winner type movie. So thank you guys. I gotta go. I appreciate you guys. Seriously, I love you guys. Bob Sadler says, let's watch Guys and Dolls. Are you talking about, I'm thinking of like the old one with like Frank Sinatra. I think I've seen that. I actually like some musicals. And then Boys in the Hood says, Rattazala. Good idea. Juicy idea. And yes, we are excited though. We've got a lot of juicy upcoming debates. We've got one tomorrow. You guys is going to be epic. You don't want to miss it. Zalaf says, can you post the raw JPEGs or pings in the Discord? I was thinking about analyzing these more closely. Let's see. I kind of, to be honest, like I'm maybe, I don't actually use the Discord so I'd have to be over email because I still don't know how to use Discord because I'm a boomer. They specifically designed Discord to keep people like me out of it. Not really. I'm like, I don't really think I've persecuted or something by Discord, but it is hard. I got to learn how to do it yet. YouTube surgeon general says, did you know of modern data bait as a Twitch channel? It's true. We have Twitch and we have YouTube and we're live on both of them right now. So check it out if you haven't yet, folks. You can always jump over and see the other. But yes, we want to say thank you so much for all of your support. We love you guys. Seriously. We appreciate you. We're excited about the future. And we'll try to put those polls up in the community tab in the next couple of days. I'm kind of swamped after today, but hopefully I can tomorrow and want to say thank you, everybody. You guys, so fun. I love you guys. Thanks for making this fun and amazing. We'll see you in the next ones. You've got a lot of cool ones coming up. In fact, that juicy political one on CRT and prayer in school tomorrow. Don't miss it, folks. Thanks everybody and see you next time. That's weird. Why is that picture, I'm confused. I could have sworn. Was that picture up at the start of the debate? Let's see here. Oh, it's because I erased the other one. Okay, let me figure out how to fix this. Very embarrassing, you guys. Ricky move. All right, thank you guys. And yes, thank you again that we've met the 50,000 mark. Thank you guys. You guys have made it possible. We're excited about the future and we'll see you next time. Amazing. Yeah. Amazing.