 was cancelled. And it turns out that all the games were cancelled, and that the NBA players in solidarity with, I guess, the shooting in that place in Wisconsin, I can't pronounce, basically decided to not play, although they've changed their mind, but that was the decision on Thursday. There were Milwaukee Bucks, which I guess are the favorites in the East to go to the championship game, decided that given that they're from Wisconsin, that they would not play on because of what happened because of the police shooting. And then the Lakers and the Clippers decided they were just ending, they were all going home. And then, oh my God, it just went on and on and on. And there were negotiations and the owners stepped in and the owner said, well, if you don't play, we're going to cut your salaries. And the player said, yeah, but if we play, we want you to commit to all kinds of social justice stuff. And supposedly Michael Jordan, the greatest player ever, I think, who was an owner stepped in and kind of negotiated a deal between the owners and the players. And what is the deal? The deal constitutes the fact that the owners now will invest more resources into social justice issues, into increasing voting. They want to use the stadiums to the basketball stadiums to facilitate voting, to facilitate more voting, as if other problems we have today will be solved. If only more people voted, if only we had more people voting, all our problems would go away. I mean, one of the things that all of these, all of these crises that were experienced today in this country, and the NBA is a good example of this, is that the complete ignorance, complete ignorance of people, of what this country represents, what it stands for, what our system of government is all about. We are not a democracy. This problem that we face is not a lack of democratic participation. The problem that we face is actually too much democracy, too much paying attention to the will of the people, too much. Not, I mean, I think that everybody should vote, but too much, too many decisions made political. Jennifer writes, everything's political, too much politics, and therefore too much voting in a sense of voting on every single issue, on everything that applies to everything. Instead of what this country was founded on, the principles on which this country was founded, which other principles of individual rights, inalienable rights, which means that no matter how many people vote to take your rights away, they can't, or at least they shouldn't be allowed to do it. That is the system of government we supposedly have in the United States, a system of government in which you cannot take people's rights away. They're inalienable. And we have a whole system of government that is separate our voting from the decision making. And a system of government that makes consensus difficult, makes lawmaking difficult, makes change difficult. And on purpose, and I've talked about this on previous show, the founders wanted gridlock. They wanted big legislation, big rules, big laws, difficult. They wanted you to be able to convince a lot of people to agree with you before these laws were passed. So the problem is not more democracy, just as the problem is not social justice, the concept that I would bet 90% of NBA players couldn't define, wouldn't know what it meant. Now put yourself in the shoes of one of these basketball players. And let's say you believe, you believe that there is some form of systemic racism in the United States that we live in a racist society. There's a march going on in DC right now against systemic racism. All right. I'm willing to contemplate that idea. What is the solution? What are you proposing? What is being proposed here? And how do you get rid of it? Is it that the laws are racist? No, we got rid of the laws which would be systemic. We got rid of those laws in the 60s. Is it that police procedures, the procedures governing police actions are racist? Well, no, nobody's ever pointed to any particular procedure. Even a chokehold or putting a knee on the neck is not racist in and of itself. It's only racist if it's applied in a racist way. It's applied for some people and of others. But again, the procedures itself, the system itself, where's the racism? Now is it true that blacks generally are significantly poorer than whites? Yes. Okay. We're studying, figuring out why. Maybe there's something going on there. But people have been studying it for ages and we've had a want poverty for ages and we've had affirmative action for ages and we've had all kinds of programs to try to alleviate that. And we haven't. So whatever people are proposing doesn't seem to be working. What is it that these basketball players who truly believe there's a problem in this country? I'm not going to disagree with them necessarily. Or what is it that Kaepernick taking a knee? What is it? What change do they want? Now, I know some people will say what they really want is reparations and maybe they want reparations to say it. Say, we're fighting for reparations. At least then we know what we're dealing with. What way and then we can combat that and show the complete injustice and unfairness of reparations and how it doesn't solve the problem. Reparations would actually bring about more racism, not less racism. What is it that they want? Massive redistribution of wealth? What are the programs that we be instituted that dealt directly with issues of racism? Now, I know that the intellectuals want to do away with capitalism. They want to destroy capitalism in the name of racial equality in the name of systemic racism. They want to tear down capitalism and they've told us this. I talked about the guy who wrote the book about whiteness. I forget his name now. A Muslim first name but I can't remember his family name. Anyway, what is it that they're proposing? They're not telling us other than the intellectuals are telling us. They want to tear down. But the NBA players really want to tear down capitalism? I mean, that would really hurt their ability to make money. Really, Ibram Kendi, Ibram Kendi, who said, yeah, racism is capitalism. In order to end racism, we must tear down capitalism. Okay, I get it. At least Ibram is honest. He's straightforward. We know what he wants. He wants socialism. He wants statism. He wants fascism. He wants some version of not capitalist. But what do the NBA players want? They make millions, millions and millions and millions. Because of what? Because this country is capitalist. Indeed, the NBA is quite a capitalist system. It even is excluded from anti-trust laws so they can collude and they can negotiate just like every other industry should be allowed to do. So why not tell us what it is you actually want us to do? Now, I think most of the players and most of people out there demonstrating, not the rioters, but the demonstrators, I think a lot of them are really concerned about racism. They're convinced whether they're just or unjustly that racism isn't a issue in this country and they want to do something about it. But what? What do they want to do? And until they tell us what they want to do, it's almost impossible to take them seriously. It's just an abstract cry into the wilderness. Now, Martin Luther King gave us a vision of what he wanted. He wanted to live in a world where people are judged by the character, not by the color of their skin. That's great. That's a world I would like to live into. That's a world we can fight for, particularly we can fight for culturally, philosophically, ideologically, educationally. But what does the world look like to these NBA players who want social justice? And how do we fight for that? And how do the owners do anything about it? Is it about education? Okay, then I get it. Let's get school choice. Let's get education saving accounts. Let's get government out of education. Let's get private schools into the inner cities. Let's raise the quality of education by privatizing it. But that's not what they're advocating for. What are they? And they won't say because many of them don't know and the ones who do know know to get them in trouble if they do say it. Because, again, the world is guided by ideas, good ideas, bad ideas. It's always ideas. It's always intellectuals. And that's why you shouldn't really pay attention to what basketball players say about politics, or about the world, or about the culture. The people who count are people like Ibram Kendi. The people who count are the intellectuals out there. And therefore, when the NBA players are advocating for doing something, and they're offering nothing as what should be done, then you have to assume that what will guide what will be done are the ideas of people like Ibram Kendi. What they're really asking the owners to do is commit suicide. They're asking the owners to put money aside, to invest in to invest in anti-capitalist, anti-market, anti-freedom, anti-growth, ideas, programs, educational institutions. And if not, they should be offering their own. So it's sad because, you know, it's sad every time I watch a game now and there's Black Lives Matter everywhere, their t-shirts and everything. I still watch the games, but because I don't think they know what they're doing, right? These are children, unfortunately, all of them. They don't know what they're doing. Some of them maybe have to do it because otherwise their teammates would lock them out. So, you know, these BLM shirts and everything. I mean, the BLM is awful. The BLM is horrific. But I think that most people associate BLM with not the worst of their ideas. I think most people associate the BLM with just being anti-racist, just being anti-police brutality. And as such, I think they're mostly doing this out of ignorance. You could say out of purposeful ignorance, out of evasion, which is bad, really bad. But they're not intellectual advocates. They don't know what they do. They really don't know what to do. It's the same thing with the marchers in the demonstrations. They don't know what they're marching for. They hold Black Lives Matter signs, but they don't know what that means. Sorry. All right. So I just wanted to comment on the basketball. I think it's sad, and it's not as fun. And luckily, the back, and luckily, we start having basketball again on Sunday. Well, Saturday. But Celtics are playing on Sunday. Only watch the Celtics. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual, would be any man or woman who is willing to think, meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, whims, or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism, and impotence, and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist. All right. Before we go on, reminder, please like the show. We've got 163 live listeners right now. 30 likes. That should be at least 100. I think at least 100 of you actually like the show. Maybe they're like 60 of the Matthews out there who hate it. But at least the people who like it, you know, I want to see, I want to see a thumbs up. There you go. Start liking it. I want to see that go to 100. All it takes is a click of a thing, whether you're looking at this. And you know the likes matter. It's not an issue of my ego. It's an issue of the algorithm. The more you like something, the more the algorithm likes it. So, you know, and if you don't like the show, give it a thumbs down. Let's see your actual views being reflected in the likes. But if you like it, don't just sit there, help get the show promoted. Of course, you should also share. And you can support the show at your own book show dot com slash support on Patreon or subscribe star or locals and show you support for all for the work, for the value. Hopefully you're receiving from this. And of course, don't forget if you're not a subscriber, even if you even if you just come here to troll or even if you're here like Matthew to defend marks, then you should subscribe because that way you'll know when to show up. You'll know what shows are on when they're on. You'll get notified. Right? So, yes, like, share, subscribe, support, like, share, subscribe, support. There you go. Easy. Do one or all of those. Please.