 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. All right, everybody. Welcome. Welcome to Iran Book Show. Glad to see everybody here. Jonathan, thank you for your support. Really appreciate it. And what day is it today? It's Tuesday. It's already middle of the week. I don't know. Today, I'm a little tired today, so a little slow. Slow on the uptakes, so apologize for that. We'll see how long we go today. I feel like all I want to do is sleep right now. But here I am, committed to doing these shows with you. So we will do it. It's not too late. 8 PM here should be fine. Yeah, the intro wakes me up, right? No, it's you guys who wake me up. The intro does nothing. OK, today, we're going to take a deep dive into Ukraine and Russia. We're going to talk about Putin's motivation. According to Putin, I'm not going to make it up. We're going to talk about why. Why? Why? Why are tanks rolling? Why are armored vehicles moving? Why is there signs of war? What precipitates war? Why is what's happening in Russia, Ukraine, even happening? What is the problem? Is it Ukraine fault? Maybe it's NATO's fault. Or maybe it's the Russian's fault, Putin's fault. We'll figure that one out. We will talk about a little bit more about Canada. Hasn't gone away yet. They won't let the emergency rule expire. They're keeping it. They're going after anybody associated with the trucker and the whole thing. Pretty, pretty, pretty bad. So we'll talk about Canada a little bit, not too much. And then interesting Supreme Court case that's going to Supreme Court, the Supreme Court agreed to hear it today, which is interesting. If we get to that, we'll talk about that because it's the Ukraine stuff will take a while. And yeah, and we'll talk about the rest of the stuff. All right. Brian, thank you. Great studying finance and listening to your own book show. What a combo. Good for you, Brian. So thanks for doing that. Remember, Super Chat is open. We have a goal. Catherine is here to make sure that we get to that goal. Goal is $600 a night, a show. Not a night, a show. And so don't forget to pay attention to Catherine. Don't forget to use the Super Chat feature to ask questions, make comments, disagree with me, yell at me, whatever you want to do. You have the Super Chat available there. You want to argue with me, as I see many of you do, because you have bought into the Putin propaganda machine. It's quite a machine. It's unbelievable, actually. You bought into the Putin propaganda machine, and you want to believe everything Putin says. Well, we're going to give you a little bit of what Putin says. So yeah, absolutely, argue with me, but use the Super Chat to do it. Otherwise, I'm going to ignore you. Don't forget to like the show before you leave. Those likes matter. The algorithm, the YouTube, all powerful, all determining our fate algorithm is helped by your likes. It's helped by the comments. It's helped by shares. It's helped by just engagement. Engagement is good. But likes certainly happen, so press that like button. If you like the show, you don't have to. If you like the show before you leave, do it. And then finally, if you heard the show last time, you know that we now have a new sponsor that is ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN is a sponsor of the show. I use ExpressVPN when I travel primarily, just to shield me. Certainly, I use it in places like Russia and in places like China. In places like China, it helps me get around the firewalls, in places like Russia. I don't know if it helps. They probably look in my computer anyway, but at least I feel like maybe they're hacking me less and it's shielding me. I've been to Russia a number of times. I'm curious of some of the people here who are so worshiping and in love with Putin, know anything about if they've ever been to Russia, if they've ever been to Kiev, to a place like that, I have. As I travel in hotels, I use ExpressVPN just to keep it private, to keep the opportunity for hackers down. And yeah, it's I think one of the more fastest, most efficient VPNs out there. So if you put in www.expressvpn.com, slash your on, y-a-r-o-n, expressvpn.com slash your on. If you do that, then you'll get a discount. You'll get an extra three months free use of ExpressVPN before you have to start paying for it. And of course, I get pennies if you sign up there, so I get almost nothing. So unless a lot of you sign up, this doesn't become very valuable to me, but it is based on how many of you actually sign up and buy the software. All right, let's see. Yeah, I think we're good. I think we're ready to start. I think I've covered all the bases, all the intro stuff. Anything I'm missing, somebody remind me as we go along, or maybe I'll remember as we go along, but let's just jump in. So as you know, as you probably know, if you're following the news, Putin has basically done what we expected him to do, I expected him to do, I said he would do. He's recognized the Eastern provinces of Ukraine as independent entities, and he has moved in, quote, peacekeeping forces into those provinces to protect the peace, of course, or in other words, to make clear that these are now part of Russia and to give him forward forces in case he decides to invade Ukraine. I saw one story that suggested that Putin might take, start just chipping away little pieces of Ukraine, particularly places that don't have any population. Ukraine is a vast country with vast areas that are not very populated, that he might just slowly take those pieces away. Russia invading Ukraine was a fake news and conspiracy theory. Really, that's pretty funny. The Eastern provinces of Ukraine are Ukraine. Russia putting its forces into those provinces is Russia invading Ukraine. And if you think that's fake news, I encourage you to fly to Kiev and take a drive out to Eastern provinces of Ukraine and see if the Russian forces are not there. I mean, Putin said he was taking it. Now, you might claim that those provinces are Russians. Anyway, we'll talk about that, but no, he brought forces into those Eastern provinces of Ukraine, but that's okay because Donald Trump today said that he is a great admirer of Putin and he complimented Putin on his strength and his ability and his spotless and his fruitness. He even suggested, Trump, that maybe we should do the same with Mexico, what Putin is doing to Ukraine. And of course, you guys, whatever, you are now, because Trump is a fan of Putin, you, many of you are therefore automatically fans of Putin, so did Pompeo. Mike Pompeo today also was full of compliments towards Putin. The American right, the nationalist right, the nationalist right, the collectivist right is enamored, enamored with Putin. They love Putin, he's a strong man, he's masculine. He goes and he gets what he wants and if you have to go to war to get it, so be it, wars. What is it, it's invigorating, it's full of it. Yep, conspiracy theories against Russia, absolutely. It's a peacekeeping force, absolutely. Trump has no need to do with this? Look at his interview, I didn't make this up. Go check out the interview with Trump today. It was published, you can watch the video, you don't have to believe what I say unless you think the videos of Trump now are fake news, where he compliments, where he says a lot of positive things about Putin. He also says this would never happen if he were president and he says that maybe we should try it in the Mexican border. I am not making this up, not fake news. Go check it out, you can find the video of Trump. Trump is always, Trump is at the heart of American politics today. He's involved with everything, everything. Anyway, let's just find these quotes, yeah. So why is Putin doing this? This is a big question, an important question. Doesn't seem like there's that much to gain. Why is he doing this? Why has he put 150,000 troops on the border of Ukraine? Why is he threatening invasion? Why have he sent troops into eastern Ukraine? What does Russia want with Ukraine? What does Russia want with Ukraine? What is the deal here? And I think one of the most important essays, if you're interested in foreign policy, if you're interested in war, one of the most important essays you could read is Ayn Rand's essay called The Roots of War. It is an essay that was written in capitalism, not known ideal. You can find it in her book, Capitalism, not known ideal. I recommend everybody who is interested in war, in the roots of war, the source of war, the causes of war. I encourage you to go and read the book. And it's an important book. It might be one of the most important books you'll ever read. Capitalism, not known ideal. Anyway, it's one of the essays there. And basically, Ayn Rand makes the case in the essay that the origin of war, the source of war is collectivism. The source of war is viewing the tribe, the state, the group, the collective as fundamental and important. The group, the state, the tribe. As the unit that matters, that individual is insignificant. And therefore, my tribe versus your tribe, the whole of human history is a story, or most of human history is a story of collectivism, a story of tribalism, a story of one tribe trying to take the property of other tribes, a story of a zero sum world, a story of tribal collectivist affiliation. Remember the Nazis took Czechoslovakia under the guise of, or at least parts of Czechoslovakia under the guise of, well, I mean, many of these Czechs are quote, Germans. And therefore, they belong to that German nation. And therefore, borders don't matter. What matters is blood, DNA, guts. And therefore, we're gonna take a piece of Czechoslovakia that has a bunch of Germans in it. The real, you know, the explanation Hitler gave and the Nazis gave for invading Poland is that Western Poland, it was populated by Germans. And therefore, Western Poland at some point was German, even though there was never such a thing as a German state. Those people are German, they speak German, they have German blood, they have German DNA. Didn't know of DNA back then, but they have German blood. And therefore, it's okay to take back, to reunite the German people under German banner. And therefore, we need to take Western Poland. The whole excuse for World War II, Western Poland was part of Prussia. So it has a history of being a part of a part of Germany. The whole excuse the Nazis gave for World War II was the German people were growing, there were a lot of people, there wasn't enough room in Germany. And they were gonna take land from adjoining countries in order for the German people, for the race to expand, to breed, to have room to grow. So collectivism is at the heart of, you know, everyone. My God versus your God, my people versus your people. And indeed, what is driving Putin is pure utter nationalistic, narrow collectivism. Putin longs for Russian empire. This is not propaganda, this is Putin's own words. Putin longs for a Russia of long ago. Putin longs for the Soviet Union, not communism, but the Soviet Union in terms of the size. He has said, he has said, not conspiracy, not somebody said he said he said. You can find the direct quote. The one of the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the breakup of the Soviet Union. So here I'm gonna give you some quotes from Putin. And now from 10 years ago, from yesterday, Putin gave a speech yesterday, trying to explain what he's thinking, what he's doing, why he's doing, what he's doing. And the speech is very clear. The speech, well, I'm not gonna tell you what the speech is. I'm just gonna read it to you. So here is Putin. These are, you know, passages out of the speech. You can go check them out. The speech is available, translation of the speech is available, the speech of the Russian people yesterday. And again, you can find the speech. You can check it out. You can, you know, see if I've taken it out of context or not. But it is available, fully translated. So here he goes. I would like to emphasize again, this is Putin speaking. I would like to emphasize again that Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space. These are our comrades, those dearest to us. Not only colleagues, friends and people who once served together, but also relatives, people bound by blood, by family ties. Since time immemorial, the people living in the Southwest of what has historically been Russian land have called themselves Russians and Orthodox Christians. This was the case before the 17th century when a portion of this territory rejoined the Russian state and after. There's no conspiracy theory here. He's basically telling you. He's telling you that Ukraine is part of Russia. He's telling that Ukraine is part of the spiritual space, the blood and soil of Russia. He's telling you explicitly. You don't have to interpret. You don't have to speculate. You don't have to have conspiracy theories. It's right here. These are combats, those dearest to us. These are people bound by blood, by family. So Ukraine is not a foreign country to Putin. Ukraine is part of Russia. Now the fact that in 1991 the Ukrainian people in Ukraine voted to separate from the Soviet Union and establish a separate political entity matters not to Putin. He doesn't care. And it sounds like many of you don't care. The fact that the Ukrainians wanna be free of Russian influence. The fact that many Ukrainians wanna be part of the West not a satellite of Putin. Doesn't matter to him. This is his spiritual space bound by blood. And they are Russians, Orthodox Christians. They are bound together by religion and by blood. And what is thicker than blood? Nothing. He goes on to say. So I will start with the fact that modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia. Or to be more precise by Bolshevik, Communist Russia. This process started practically right after the 1917 revolution and Lenin and his associates did it in a way that was extremely harsh on Russia by separating, severing what is historically Russian land. Nobody asked the millions of people living there what they thought. So this is his argument. In 1917, part of Lenin's attempt to consolidate power and to control this vast land. The communists were not in the majority. They didn't have the most powerful political machinery at the time right after the revolution. One of the things that Lenin did was that he gave some of these provinces of the Russian Empire in a sense autonomy, not sovereignty but autonomy. And he created an autonomous state of Ukraine. And Putin is saying, this is the creation of the communists. And one of the great tragedies of his hero, Stalin, is that Stalin put up with us and accepted it. Again, don't believe me because hey, I just read mainstream media propaganda. You guys know it, right? Here I'm quoting Putin again. What Stalin fully implemented was not Lenin's but his own principles of government. This is a compliment to Stalin. Stalin is Putin's hero. But, and here he's condemning Stalin, he did not make the relevant amendments to the cornerstone documents to the constitution and he did not firmly revise Lenin's principles underlying the Soviet Union. From the look of it, there seemed to be no need for that because everything seemed to be working well. This is under Stalin. In conditions of the totalitarian regime and the outward, it looked wonderful, attractive and even super democratic. Excuse me for laughing but to him, it looked super democratic. So Putin's argument is Ukraine is a creation of Lenin. Stalin made a big mistake by not unifying it under Russia. Ukraine is not an independent state. Ukrainians 1991 vote to be an independent state is nonsense. What matters is the fact that they shaped blood with Russia. What matters is the fact that they are occupying Russia's spiritual space. So of course he wants Russia, Ukraine. I still don't think he's gonna invade Ukraine. That's not because he doesn't want to but because I think it's too painful for him to actually go to war with Ukraine. I mean he'll settle for now for the Eastern provinces and wait for another mode of weakness in the West to take the rest of it. He's already got Crimea. So I just wanna give you a sense of what this looks like. So I'll get a map because I know, I know don't take this personally guys but Americans have a very, very poor sense, knowledge of geography. So I thought maps always good because with a map, gonna get a sense of geography. See here, let's take a look at this. Here we go. So what you see here is the Russian Empire. I think this is in pre-World War I, right? This is pre-World War I. What's interesting about this map, you'll notice is how big the Russian Empire is at this point in time. There is no real, if you look here, there's no real Poland. Warsaw is part of the Russian Empire as is Minsk. There's no Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. They're all part of the Russian Empire. Finland, Finland is not an independent state. There's no independent state of Finland during this period of time. Finland is part of the Russian Empire. Ukraine, of course, is completely part of the Russian Empire. As is Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is in the bottom right, if you're looking at the screen. So in the East, the Southeast, that's Kazakhstan. And then, of course, the Caucasus states, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia are not independent states. They are all part of the Russian Empire. So here you get a sense of Russia's ambition. Now it is true that Western Ukraine, and this is interesting, Western Ukraine, a place like Lviv, if you've ever been to Lviv, beautiful city, in Western Ukraine, they weren't part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. So during at least this period, they were not part of the Russian Empire. Now, of course, all of this changes. I mean, there used to be a Polish-Lithuanian Empire that fought the Ottoman Empire and occupied much of this land, including parts of Ukraine, for hundreds of years, or at least for decades, I'm sure some European here, Eastern Europeans, gonna correct my history. The Caucasus had different status and different parts, different periods. Wars were fought over Crimea, the British were involved in wars over Crimea. This area, this whole area, has been a flux over the centuries, over and over and over again, right? Lithuania used to be a huge country. It used to be the Lithuanian-Polish Empire, or the Lithuanian Empire, but Lithuania used to control Poland and much of Ukraine. So think of it, maybe all these countries, certainly Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, a part of the Russian spirit, the Russian soul, the Russian whatever. I mean, how much blood difference is there between many of these countries and Russia itself? Moscow is not that far from Minsk. Russia is not that far. It's either it's as close to Minsk as it is to Moscow and it's not that far from Warsaw. Minsk is, of course, in Belarus, I think that's Belarus. So all of this is potentially Russian. All of this is what Putin would claim is the historical right of Russia. Now let's quickly look at the map of Russia under the Soviet Union. We have it right. There, there we go. Can you see the USSR? Finland has now fought its way to independence and has its own section. You can see that in the upper left. You can see in the USSR that Kazakhstan has been, that's in the lower right, not all the way in the lower right, but in the middle right, in the middle lower section, sorry, in the middle lower section, that's Kazakhstan, that big light red. That is a province of the Soviet Union. You can see that the Caucasus have their own identity. You can see Ukraine now in Poland and Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have all been carved out and given their own quote autonomy. And then if you look today, you see that all of that is carved out. You have now Ukraine, you have Kazakhstan, you have all those countries on the west, you have Belarus. Yes, Turkmenistan is down here on the lower right, even further on, not on the right, in the center, low 12, the number 12 is Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Armenia, you get Ukraine, you get Moldova, Ukraine is five. So Ukraine is right, five, the blue, what you see is the blue. I mean, look how big Russia is. It could gobble up Ukraine and it wouldn't even make a difference, wouldn't make a dent. There's Moldova, Moldova's not high on my, yes, but Moldova's number six. It's right kind of on the other side of Ukraine, between Ukraine and I think Romania, if I remember my geography right. So you can see Putin's ambition. He would like all this. And of course Kazakhstan, we know they're now Russian troops in Kazakhstan to suppress what appear to be an uprising against the authoritarian ruler of Kazakhstan so just to get a little map, just to get a little sense, but think about this. Putin is a collectivist. Putin believe in some value, some essence that is Russian, blood. What was it, spiritual something? Let me find that. Yeah, spiritual space. The Russians occupy this spiritual space. All these places are Russian. And this is what leads to war. The fact that the Ukrainians don't want to be part of Russia's spiritual space. The fact that Ukrainians don't want to be a puppet of Putin, that is irrelevant. It's not a question of what they want or what they don't want. It is primarily an issue of what Putin wants and what the Russian people want. And what the Russian spirit wants. And these bounds by blood and family ties, there's no end to that. And that has to lead to war. And just these words of Putin, if you are an advocate of individualism, if you have any sense of the greatness of American, what America stands for, if you understand anything about Iran, you would declare Putin a villain just based on the speech, just based on a few paragraphs I've done in the speech. Putin is basically declaring that Ukraine is part of Russia. It's not a conspiracy. It's not a story. It's his own words. Now, the challenges, of course, the challenges, of course, is that Putin is weak, the challenge he faces. Russia is a relatively poor country. GDP per capita is very low. Russia basically has one industry, which is natural resources, and that is it. Russia must export those natural resources in order to gain dollars. Russia is, you know, Russia is a poor country. It is mismanaged by Putin. He has destroyed, well, he hasn't destroyed. That's a wrong terminology. He has prevented Russia from achieving its economic potential. He has prevented through his collectivism and nationalism and statism and fascism, really, because that's really what he is, Putin is a fascist. He has prevented Russia from achieving its economic potential. He has held it back. He has prevented it. He has made it poor. He is one of the greatest thieves in all of human history. To compare him to Trudeau or anybody like that is just absurd. I mean, I will talk about Trudeau in a little bit. Trudeau is terrible and awful, but to compare to Putin, God, what universe do you live? Trudeau is still not, not yet, at least, executing his opponents. Trudeau does not have a one-party rule. Trudeau is not invading other countries. Trudeau has not stolen from the Canadian people hundreds, well, not hundreds, billions and billions of dollars. Putin is said to be the richest man in the world. One of the freemen says, yeah, true, yeah, maybe he'll get there. But Putin is said to be the richest man in the world because of what productive ventures that he engaged in? Nothing, zero, none, out of his stealing, his thieving. Ukraine is not, should not be under Russian control. Ukraine should be under Ukrainian control. Ukraine should decide if it wants to align itself with Russia or if it wants to align itself with NATO. Ukraine should be able to make its own choices, make its own decisions. Not be forced to do what Russia decides it should do. Now, I'm not advocating for the United States of NATO to go to war with Russia over Ukraine, although I think that Europeans should think about it. Europeans might have an incentive to go to war with Putin over Ukraine, but America certainly has none, zero. Putin is a dictator. He's a fascist dictator. And the fact that he has so many admirers in the U.S., including President Trump and his former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is truly spooky for the future of American freedom, the fact that so many Americans admire him. I mean, Tucker Carlson is a great admirer of Putin and a great admirer of Oban in Hungary. I still owe you a show on Oban and I will do that soon. These are the worst type of fascists. And, you know, I feel bad for the Ukrainians. As I said many, as I said a number of times, I've been to Ukraine, I've spoken in Ukraine. I know many Ukrainians. Some of them have left the country, some of them are still there. My travel plan includes a stop in Kiev in April, and the last week in April, I'm planning to be in Kiev. We'll see. Don't forget, Putin also invaded Georgia, another country I love greatly, and have a lot of sympathy towards. Putin invaded Georgia and took all province of Georgia and made it a satellite of Russia. Why? By what justification? Because they too. They too are part of the spiritual space of Russia. God, we have Michael Mattis here, not Mattis, who is just a, you know, I wonder if he's getting paid by the Russians. I wonder if Putin is sending him checks, because God, the idiocy coming out of this guy's mouth is just amazing. He's not a Russian troll because he comes on the Iran Book Show quite often. Now he's always trolling and he's always talking nonsense, but this is like off the charts nonsense. This is like next level nonsense. This is like denying Putin's own words kind of nonsense. Putin doesn't really exist. He's just a fiction of the imagination of, yeah, I'm anti-conservative of Putin. Absolutely I'm anti-conservative of Putin. Putin is a conservative. Yeah, in many respects he is. He's a dictator's conservative. He's an authoritarian conservative. He is a status conservative, but that's what conservatives today in America aspire to, aspire to be. Aspire to be. You know, people always use this thing. Well, didn't we bomb Serbia? Didn't the United States invade Nicaragua or whatever? We didn't invade Nicaragua by the way in the 1980s. What's it have to do with anything? So America's not perfect. Absolutely America's not perfect. I am the biggest critic of American foreign policy. You will find anywhere. Yes, so what, what is America's bad foreign policy have to do with any of this? Why? We get here, one second. Yeah, America invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and it has troops in 120 different countries. I wonder what you Ron thinks of all that? It doesn't matter. If America did something bad, then Putin can go into as many bad things as he wants. Go for it, Putin. Thumbs up, Putin. God, it's amazing, the irrationality. All right, let's see. What else do we have? Any questions on Putin? Russian philosopher, Andrei Dugin, Alexander Dugin. Yes, very, very influential Russian philosopher. Moscow State University advocates in his own words, Eurasian empire that is status Russian traditionalist, traditionalist meaning religious and military force to achieve it. He is Putin's advisor. Yes, I know. Alexander Dugin is the most influential philosopher in Russia. He is a nationalist, a statist, and a collectivist, a fascist. And he is for establishing a great Russian empire over the entire East in Europe and Weistop just at the East. This is, if you're European, the enemy is Putin, no less than the enemy was other fascists in the past. Um, Brises. Brises, Ukraine should have played Romania, forcing the European Union and NATO to attack because Romania is a member of NATO. Then immediately surrender to NATO. The EU will occupy them, NATO will occupy them. Bang, NATO is right there protecting Ukraine from Russia. It reminds me of a movie. I don't know if you've ever seen this movie. It's really funny. It's called The Mousetrode. It's probably made in the 1960s. And The Mousetrode is about this fictional, little European country. And it's very poor, very behind. And, you know, so they conspire. How are they gonna get rich? So they look around, they look around, and they see that countries that are being occupied taken over by the United States get rich. So they decide that they're gonna declare war in the United States with the idea of losing and but being occupied by the Americans. And by doing that, they will gain all the economic assistance and all the, all the help the Americans provide countries they occupy and they will become rich that way. The problem is that when they declare war in the United States, the United States kind of ignores it. It's like this little dinky country, we're just gonna ignore it. We're gonna pretend they don't exist. So this little dinky country actually invades the United States. And so they send and they kind of win. And then they're stuck because they were supposed to lose and now they're winning. And so it's hysterical. It's really funny. It's called The Mousetrode. It's Peter Sellers, I think. I'm pretty sure it's a Peter Sellers movie. So if you're interested in geopolitics and you want a comedy regarding geopolitics, that is a good one. So you might find it funny. Daniel says, can you think of anyone that would stand to benefit from Russia invading Ukraine other than Putin? No, nobody. I mean, nobody really benefits. The real beneficiary is, I don't think even Putin benefits. I think literally Russia invading Ukraine, nobody benefits. Ukrainians die, Russians die, people lose a lot of money, people lose a lot of income. Mayhem in financial markets, people in the West lose money, people in East lose money. Wars are lose, lose, lose propositions. Nobody wins as a consequence of wars. Maybe the arms dealers. But it's not like Russia wins because it's at war. Willa says, love the show, but me thinks you give too much attention to people who won't pay for your attention. That's fine, Willa. I do it because it stimulates more ideas and more things for me to cover. And I get more engaged and it gets my blood going and it wakes me up. So I don't mind. And me being angry, I think most of you like it when I get angry. So I think that's good. We'll do Ottawa later. What do you think, what do you make of this new tentative Russia-China alliance, something we should be worried about? P.S., hope to see you in London if I can make it. I will definitely be in London. So I hope you can make it. You can see me in London at the INRAND conference in London the first weekend in April. I don't make much of the tentative. It's a tentative alliance. China is not particularly happy with Putin in terms of Putin pushing himself onto Ukraine. China imports a lot from Ukraine and has no real interest in seeing war in that part of Europe. China is also concerned about Russian aggression because it doesn't want significant Russian influence on the Chinese border. Remember China and Russia have a long border. Now it's in the middle of nowhere but it's a long border and that border is not always, is not always being peaceful. There's often been border disputes between the Russians and the Chinese. Even when they were both communists, there were almost wars and indeed there were proxy wars between China and Russia during these periods. For example, Vietnam was an ally of Russia and China and Vietnam went to war several occasions. So I don't think China is particularly happy with what's going on in Russia. The only thing that makes the Chinese happy is to see the weakness of the West. It's to see the West weak. And I do not speak for China. I'm speculating about what I think China is doing and you guys can decide whether you agree with me or not. You have a mind. But God, you can't say I think China this or the other because now you can't speak for China. You can't do this, you can't, God. So I don't think China particularly is excited about Putin. I don't think Putin trusts China. I don't think China trusts Putin but they have an alliance. The main thing they both agree on is they don't like the United States. And China was, had somewhat of a semblance of an alliance with the United States because it needed U.S. markets in order to sell their products. Data shifted with Xi and then with Trump and now with Biden following Trump's attitude towards China. I don't think there's gonna be a war between China and Russia. I just think that China's not happy with Russia getting too aggressive. I'm just curious about people who write in all caps and make full-on declarations. I wonder, like China and Russia, how much have they studied China? How much have they studied Russia? How many times have they been to China? How many Chinese people have they talked to? How many times have they been to Russia? How many Chinese Russians have they talked to? Did they read Putin's speech from yesterday? Did they read the stuff, did they actually do research? Or did they just have opinions? I think we've moved into a world in which people just have opinions. Or they just mouth the opinions of the people they happen to like. But it's all about having an opinion. It's not actually doing research or thinking about these things or evaluating them or going to the places involved. That's all. All right, put that aside. Put that aside. Put that aside, put that aside. Put that aside, that aside. Okay, all right. So bottom line is this. Putin is a collectivist, a nationalist collectivist. He talks like a fascist. He acts like a fascist. He is a murderous thug. I said this in Russia in St. Petersburg. I called him a thug. He is a murderous thug. He kills his political opponents. There is no free speech in Russia. There's no political freedom in Russia. There is just a Putin's thuggery. He is, if he is a conservative, then to hell with conservatism, conservatism is a fascism if he is a conservative because he is a fascist. And he has ambitions. He has territorial ambitions. He states those territorial ambitions in his speech. He wants to unite Russia's spiritual space. Ukraine is part of that. He would love to take Ukraine like that. He doesn't do it because he's worried about body bags. He doesn't do it because he's not that strong internally. There's a lot of opposition in Russia and he's afraid. The last time Russia was engaged in foreign occupation was Afghanistan and that did not turn out too well. Although they have done okay in Georgia. They have the strategy which worked in Georgia are basically allowing a province within another country to declare its so-called independence. Russia, acknowledging that independence and then providing troops to protect it worked in Georgia. I think it's gonna work in Ukraine. He's basically taken the eastern provinces of Ukraine to be part of Russia. I don't think he's gonna invade Ukraine. I could be wrong, but I don't think he's gonna invade Ukraine more than that. I think the West is pathetic. I've been saying this for days now. The West is panicky. It has no strategy. It has no vision. It has no idea what it wants to achieve. The issue about NATO going into Ukraine should be Ukraine's issue. It has nothing to do with the United States. It has nothing to do with Russia. It's none of Russia's business. It is completely 100% an issue of Ukraine. Somebody says Putin has lost sanity. There's a lot to that. There's an argument that Putin, particularly over COVID, he's super concerned about COVID and is being isolated during COVID and has lost touch with the Russian people and with reality, many would say. He's being criticized internally by former high-ranking officers within the Russian army. Again, not a conspiracy theory. You can find those speeches online. And this is where we are today. We'll see where we are tomorrow. But where we are today is Putin is expanding. And NATO is in retreat. And NATO is, you know, and this is going to harm, you know, the economic consequences to all of us. You can expect energy prices to go up. You can expect inflationary pressures to increase. You can expect, you can expect probably now the risk of recession in Western Europe and in the United States has increased because of these actions. Germany has basically suspended the approval of the pipeline, the gas pipeline from Russia into Germany, which is a huge hit for Russia, but also a huge hit for Germany. Russian economy is going to go into a tailspin. As the Russian economy goes into a tailspin, maybe that's the end of Putin. Maybe this will all turn out to be a good thing in a sense that, in a sense that, you know, he, this is an opportunity for the Russian people to rid themselves of Putin, to rid themselves of Putin. All right, France doesn't have enough excess energy to be Germany's energy source in the short run. Germany is going to rely on more coal. That coal comes from Poland. It's going to have to rely on natural gas in the United States. The United States has promised to increase supply of LNG, liquefied natural gas into Europe. Longer term, there are lots of solutions, including a pipeline from Israel, a pipeline from Egypt, that could provide Europe with natural gas. But that is, that will take years to build, years to build. Ukraine has natural gas, they just won't drill for it. You know, there's lots of natural gas all over the, all over Western, Eastern Europe. It's a question of building it. Yeah, France is building six nukes, but it's going to take a while. It's going to take a while before those are built and finished and ready to supply the rest of Europe with electricity. France is already supplying electricity to the Great Britain. Because Great Britain has invested heavily in wind and solar. That had got them a long way, a long way. All right, so I see no more super chat questions on this topic. Oh, here's one, Nicholas. You often dismiss mysticism, but isn't Putin showing the value of mystic stories? They tell us a story of who we were and who we strive to be. Yes, they do, but in that sense, it's unbelievably fundamentally metaphysically destructive. And Putin is showing that too. Mysticism leads to war. It doesn't tell us who you are. It tells us some fictitious story about what collective you belong to and which collective you should kill. So it's self-destructive. It makes you poor. It makes the rest of the world poor. Everything about mysticism is destructive and you can see it in Putin. You can see that this idea of blood, soil, this idea of spiritual space is destructive. This isn't good for Russia. This isn't good for Ukraine. Nobody wins. So mysticism is a lose, lose, lose strategy. Is it rational as an American to do any investing in Russia? I don't think so. I mean, I know somebody, Iron Man fan who went to Russia in the late 1990s and invested in Russia in the late 1990s when Russia was becoming freer and there were a lot of opportunities and made a lot of money. I mean, he was probably at some point close to being a billionaire if not a billionaire. But then he got on the wrong side of Putin and other oligarchs in Russia. He was a partner of one of the Russian oligarchs but he got on the wrong side of the wrong oligarchs in Russia. And he got on the wrong side of the government and the government sicked the bank on him and he's basically being crushed by them. I don't know crushed but devastated financially. Lawsuits, challenges, not easy for an American to be in Russia, even if you've made a lot of money because it's not a free country and property rights are not safe. Not safe. Alejandro, thank you for the support. I really appreciate this. If you wanna ask questions about opaque, about oil, about the economy, about the effect of the economy, anything else about Putin, anything like that, you can ask. Putin is calculated like a serial killer is calculated. This is an evil form of calculation and it's a calculation detached from reality because what he's actually doing is weakening himself. What he's actually doing is weakening Russia. What he's actually doing is making Russia poorer, not richer. What he's actually doing is making his world the world around and the people he claims to care about worse off. And again, this is the guy Trump and Pompeo admire and would like to mimic in the United States. This is the guy people on my chat are claiming it's just a conservative. This is just conservatism. Well, if this is conservatism, then we should fear conservatism. Best Friend Hank says, I've been hearing individuals wanting to invest there for the Russian markets are cheap. They're probably cheap because my guess is they've been crushed because this is not good for Russian financial markets. Not good at all for Russian financial markets. So yeah, it's cheap right now. You know, I'm not saying as a speculator, you can't make money there. There are probably people who know the markets well enough that could probably make money. I wouldn't put money there because I don't wanna support the Russian economy in any way. I don't wanna support Putin in any way. And I think that it is gonna end in disaster. So you can try. All right, we are way behind. So we are at $264. So we've got about $240 to go. 240, yes, 200, no, that would get us to 500, $340 to go. To make our $600 goal. We've got a lot of people watching live. So please like the show if you like it. Please support the show financially if you can. You can use the Super Chat feature to do that. You can, that way you can also ask questions. You can have your voice heard. So please feel free to participate in the Super Chat. We've got 177 watching live. We had I think 190 a few minutes ago. We've got 108 thumbs up. So please like the show, subscribe. If you're not a subscriber, even if you disagree with me by subscribing, you'll be able to hear my show and you'll be able to come on and disagree with me some more. It's a lot of fun to disagree with me. So you can keep at it. All right, let's see. Best Fed Hank says, I'd rather invest in the Iran Book Show. Thank you. You've invested quite a bit today in the Iran Book Show. So I appreciate that. That brings us up to 280. So, you know, we're gonna keep chugging along and hopefully you guys can get us to the $600. Quickly, I wanna say a few things about Canada, Trudeau and what's happening over there. I mean, it's just horrific. The authoritarian measures that Trudeau has taken. It doesn't make the news. It barely makes the news at all. Almost nobody's talking about this. But the extension of the Emergency Act, the fact that Parliament endorsed us, the use of the financial instruments. I talked about this not yesterday, they were for yesterday, the use of banking and finance to impose one's will and people who disagree with you is one of the hallmarks of authoritarians and that's what we're seeing out of Canada. One of the really depressing things I saw today is a story, this is the title. Canada's crackdown puts crypto to the test. Canada is clamping down on crypto, they're going after the exchanges, they're going, if you have a wallet in one of these crypto exchanges, you know, then they can come after it, they can demand the exchange, give them the information about who you are and what you are. They can demand that the exchanges freeze your wallet so that you don't have access to it. The part of the fighting thing is but not unexpected and part of the things that I think that crypto people have always been a little delusional about is that the companies, the crypto companies that have these exchanges and run these wallets and run these different entities are cooperating with the Canadian government or working with them in order to help crack down on what? On political opposition to Trudeau? Where the conservative voices in Canada, so-called conservative voices, where the liberty freedom voices in Canada complaining about this? The CEO of a crypto exchange is quoted as saying, we will be forced to comply with the government order to freeze assets. We cannot protect you. Well, if crypto cannot protect you, then what can? If you have crypto, you better put it on a hard drive. Don't keep it in a public wallet. Don't keep it on an exchange. If you have dollars, you better have them in cash and not in a bank account. If you have gold, you better have it buried in a backyard because these bastards will come for it. They'll confiscate it and they'll take it. I mean, basically big crypto, if there was such a thing, big crypto coin base and places like that are working with governments to establish regulations. And to make it feasible for governments to be able to freeze accounts if they think that these accounts are being used for illegal activity, to be able to take your crypto, to be able to go after you, to be able to know who you are, be able to make sure that you pay your taxes. So be careful. Don't just assume that because you have crypto, you are safe. Don't assume that just because you have crypto, you are safe. By the way, Ukraine has passed a bill to legalize crypto. Ukraine, go back to Russia. Russia is trying to criminalize crypto. There's a lot of discussion in Russia about banning it or regulating it. Ukraine at the same time is trying to attract crypto to Ukraine. We'll see if any of that happens. If you own crypto, get private keys, own your wallet, don't put it up in exchange. Don't put it up anywhere public because then it's as safe as your cash in your bank account. All right. Just so you get a sense of what Trudeau's been doing, the National Police have said that as of Sunday, so Sunday is a long time ago, it's three days ago, as of Sunday they have frozen 219 accounts. These are financial product accounts. 253 Bitcoin addresses related to protests that it organizes have been given to virtual currency exchange operators and have demanded that they be frozen. They have frozen 3.8 million Canadian dollars held by a payment processor. No wallet, no due process, no, you know, a trial found guilty in a trial. This is all, you know, illegal, what the government is doing. Extra-legal, outside the law. This is the nature of what our territories do. Now it's true, you can still vote Trudeau out, you can. There's still some limited free speech in Canada, but the restrictions on it, they're not yet shooting or, you know, killing political opponents, but they are freezing their bank accounts and making their livelihood impossible. One of the things that might happen is some of these people whose bank accounts are frozen will never be able to get a job. This information will be out there because banks will never open accounts to them, and they'll be able to get a mortgage. I mean, really, what's happening in Canada right now is really horrific. This is what you should be protesting about. This is much worse than vaccine mandates, much worse, but seemingly very few people care. All right, last quick story, and then we'll go to the super chat questions and you are invited, we've already gone over the $300 mark, so we've done around a half. If there are any people out there who can do $100, $50, $300, get us there quickly, that'd be fantastic, but it would be great if we can keep our streak going of $600 per show. Supreme Court today decided to take a web designer's lawsuit. So can a web designer in Colorado be forced by the state authorities, by state law, to provide services to same-sex wedding site? That is, does a web designer have free speech, freedom of association, or do they have to abide by state law that bans discrimination? Now, if you remember the wedding cake, like the baker, does the baker have to bake the cake, which the Supreme Court ruled kind of very weakly that the baker does not have to bake the cake, that the baker can discriminate, but it was weak because a lot of the case was based on the fact that the Colorado authorities had abused the baker and had treated them badly and it wasn't a clear cut case. So this is gonna be a clear cut case. Can you, as a business, discriminate based on sexual orientation? And if you can discriminate based on sexual orientation, can you discriminate based on other things? Why is sexual orientation different than other things? So it's a big case. I think it's really, really important. You know which site I stand. I stand on the site of the web designer, although I think it's pretty ridiculous that they won't do it, but they have a right to be ridiculous. But I want the ban to be on all laws that ban discrimination. I want us to fully discriminate, including by the way laws that say, or not laws, but including private businesses that discriminate and say, you have to be aware of a mask to come into our business or to work for us, you have to have a vaccine, which therefore should rule some of Florida's laws unconstitutional because Florida mandated that people, businesses cannot require vaccines of their employees. Daniel, thank you, really, really appreciate it. You know, it's funny, you know, people kind of make fun of the fact that I ask for money. Yeah, I do, I have no, I'm not embarrassed by the fact that I ask for money. I'm not ashamed of the fact that I ask for money. And I'm not claiming any kind of need for the money. I'm just saying you're getting a value for me. You're here, you're enjoying the show, even if you disagree with me. We believe in trade, we believe in trade. Trade, be a trader. I'm encouraging you to be a trader. If you don't give me any money, it, you know, and you know, the fact is that if you don't give me money, I'm less motivated to do the show and less likely I will do as many shows as I do. Less likely I will continue for a long time. So money motivates. And money is an expression of value. And while a lot of people come and a lot of people are participating in the chat, the real expression of value is in your willingness to put your money where your mouth is. Even if it's a buck or two, because I know many of you don't have money. So even if it's just a buck once in a while, I greatly appreciate it. And I want to set a standard where there's nothing wrong in asking for money when you're providing a value. I don't want the unearned. If you don't get a value for me, then you're masochistic to be here. If you don't get a value for me, don't give me a dime, please. But if you do get values for me, then don't be a free writer. You complain about free writers in the rest of the economy. You complain about free writers everywhere else in the world. Don't be a free writer. Anthony, thank you, 50 bucks. That's great, very generous. Daniel, thank you for the $100. Really appreciate it, thank you. So I'm not embarrassed. You can make fun of me for asking for money. I'm not embarrassed by it. I know what I'm asking for. And I don't think anybody else uses Super Chat quite like I do. And it works. I don't know very many people who raise as much money as I do on Super Chat, given how many followers and subscribers I have. So I'm pretty happy with it. Best for Hank, thank you, PVM Corp. He says, pump it up. Thank you, PVM Corp. Really appreciate the support. Corey in Australia, thank you. Ha ha, yes, you should be ashamed, you're on. Richard with 100 backs, I get value. Thank you, Richard, really appreciate that. So yeah, I mean, this motivates me, it excites me. It's fantastic to see. And yeah, it gives me the sense that I'm providing value. So I'll keep doing it. When people stop responding, I'll stop doing it. Catherine will update me in a minute on where we are in terms of the account, but we're getting very close to 600 because of all of you guys who've just stepped in. Aidan from the UK, I assume, because these are British pounds, listening to a ton of your content and yet to pay a penny. You convinced me you're on. Thank you, Aidan, appreciate it. John DeMarco, please take my hard-earned cash. Happy to do so, happy to do so. Thank you, John. All right, let's see. Again, I might need to like the show before you leave. So let's do some super chat. We're gonna watch the Supreme Court case. I'm curious on how they're gonna rule. Remember, they have a 63, the conservatives have a 63 majority. You'd think that they would vote for, in this case, both religious freedom, but I am hoping that they will make a broader case. A broader case based on free speech, based on free association for the web designer. The web designer's right to be able to discriminate on who he works for and who he doesn't work for on any basis. And if they do, if they start finding that the Civil Rights Act and some of the provisions of the civil rights law, which I don't think they will, but if they ever do, find some of those unconstitutional. Now you're talking about a real revolution. Now you're talking about real change. That would change the dynamics completely that would undermine affirmative action and that would change the whole dynamics of the grip that the left has on businesses through them blackmailing them over issues around affirmative action. It would take the grip away from the left over a lot of public policy issues that associate with race and with what they call equity, but it's really just their attempt to control businesses. Zami, thank you. Really appreciate the support. And Colt Tavich says, here you go for all your good work. I used to be one of those pro-Putin idiots. Also my Ukrainian friend enjoys your show. I'm glad, I'm glad. Yeah, you see, Zami is giving 99 cents. Anybody can do that. And that is just a, you know, he's expressing his support. He's, you know, again, somebody who's giving value for value. All right, Jeffrey says, $25. I want to take a moment to celebrate your beautiful head of hair. Mine started thinning at 17, yours is outstanding. It is pretty cool. I do have my hair, it's really mine. And, you know, it's got a nice color, I think. It's got, it looks distinguished. I started going gray in my 30s and my grandfather had a full head of hair in his 70s. It was white, it wasn't even the silvery gray. It was completely white and that was pretty impressive. James says, Canada is not indistinguishable from the US. London is no longer British. Much of Paris is unreliable. This trend is accelerating. Is the loss of cultures caused by individualism? Or is it by the lack of it? Well, I don't know what you mean by that. I don't know what you mean by that. Canada is indistinguishable from the US in some respects and other respects it's very distinguishable, but is that a bad thing? That is, I think the US had a superior culture to Canada and Canada becoming more like the US is a good thing. Now, as the US deteriorates, Canada deteriorates with it and that's a sad thing, but that's not because of individualism. So, London is no longer British, really? God, London is British. And yeah, one of the things I love about London is you don't have to anymore just eat British food, which is disgusting and horrible. I love London. I love it because it's not British, as British as it used to be. London is beautifully multicultural, not in the sense of multiculturalism where all cultures are the same, but in a sense that you see people there and you meet people there who are from all kinds of cultures around the world and have become British. They've adopted British culture. The Altskirts of Paris are unrecognizable. The inside of Paris is very Parisian. And again, is the fact that Parisians now are friendly and nice and will talk English to you? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I think it's a good thing. So, here's the problem. To the extent that it is driven by collectivism, it is bad. To the extent that Canadians just mimic Americans and then Americans are becoming more collectivist with their tribes and Canadians mimic that collectivism. That's awful. To the extent that the world is becoming more individual, to the extent that, for example, people come to Great Britain and Great Britain doesn't insist on them, what do you call it? Simulating into their culture and what Britain becomes is this collection of tribes. That is bad. To the extent that culture is disappearing by becoming more collectivist, by abandoning individualism, it's bad. To the extent that the different cultures are disappearing because they're discovering what is better as individuals. The fact that, for example, Western Ukraine is more individualistic than Eastern Ukraine is a good thing. And abandoning Ukrainian and Russian culture for a more individualistic culture is a good thing. So the key is, the key is to focus on the point that you kind of were making and that is the key is to focus on the individualism. And if we're moving towards more individualism, that's good. If we're moving towards more collectivism, that's bad. There's nothing sacred about any culture. Nothing sacred about any culture. Is it a good culture or a bad culture? Are the cultural values positive or negative? And if it's a good culture and if the cultural values are positive, then it will survive in one form or another. If they're bad, then who cares? Good riddance. If we can get rid of French snobbery over their language and other things, then that's a good thing. But we don't want to get rid of everything about France because France is, there's some amazing cultural phenomenon in France. And you can't get rid of some of them. The 19th century sculpture, French 19th century sculpture, can't get rid of, it's there, it's beautiful. Please don't destroy it. Luckily, it's all over the world now. What does it take to get $99.99 from U-Bestford-Hank? Why would you say I don't want it? What do I need to do? I'm missing the plot here. French literature. I read Hugo. I hope you guys read Hugo. I hope somebody reads Hugo in French. With it, France has exported its culture. The whole romantic culture of French literature has been exported to the world. I love it, but I'm not French. So I don't care if Paris stays Paris or not. What matters is the good values that Paris represents need to survive, the good values that Paris represents need to thrive and need to be embraced by the rest of the world. Yeah, I'm a cultural snob. Why wouldn't I mark other cultures for their snobbery? The French are snobs. France has good food and good art in the 19th century. Great literature. They've contributed a few things here and there. They had some good scientists and they had a great French enlightenment if you take who's so out. But France has real problems. France has real problems. And that's changing. The French are becoming less snobs, which is good, which is good. Quarry, a hundred Australian dollars. Thank you, Quarry. You have a wealth of knowledge and years of experience learning and applying objectivism. Not to mention you're a student of Leonard Picoff. Yes, I am. I think we're getting the better end of the deal when you're asking for only $20 for your expertise. It's well worth it. Thank you, Quarry. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate that you understand all that. Thank you. All right. Super chat questions going on here. Yeah, we did that. We did that. Okay. Ali asks, how are you on? I saw a video of Klaus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum with Lenin's statue placed in his library. God. Any ideas why some economists like this Klaus admire Lenin? Yes, because they are status. They're authoritarian in nature. And they think Lenin had a soft-of-view vision of communism, but Lenin was brutal, murderous, horrific. And it's disgusting. It's absolutely disgusting that anybody would have a statue of Lenin in a library. Every statue of Lenin should be smashed, maybe museums. Keep them in museums to remember the horror, the evil that Lenin represents. And indeed, anybody who has a statue of Lenin is evil. Ali asks, I'm skipping to Ali because he put 50 bucks into it. Why there's no new material about objectivism, something like Academy of Ideas videos in YouTube. I found Lenin pick up knowledge, but pouring for newcomers, atlas people look like a cult from outside and they don't have much viewers. Yeah, I mean, forget the atlas society. I mean, there's a lot of new material. So I don't know if you've gone to Inland University. I don't know if you've seen the new courses that they're teaching. There's this really good course right now on critical race theory that's being taught by the Inland University. I think there's constantly new material being produced. It's not Lenin pick up quality material because there's no, we don't have a Lenin pick up, but there's a lot of new videos and new material being produced by the Inland Institute. There are a lot of new courses you could sign up as an auditor for the Inland University or the Objectives Academic Center and you'll learn a huge amount from them. The Inland Institute has put up out a lot of videos over the last few years and it has made a lot of its library available for free on the Inland University. There is more objective content. There's no new material. Now, it's not objectivism in a sense of Inland was and it's not as philosophically deep and profound as Lenin pick up was, but look, have you been swinging as putting out a lot of material and epistemology? You know, he was on the show, but he's got his own channel. He puts out stuff on free will and on how we know we put our books. So indeed, there's more material being presented now about objectivism than ever before and stay away from the atlanticity. They are cultish and weird and strange and so on. You know, Inland Institute creates and produces and makes available amazing content, amazing content. All right, Adam, Adam asks, what do you know about Majid Nawaz? Majid Nawaz, he talked to Joe Rogan, not to talk Joe Rogan too much, but he was an interesting story and mentioned reason and reality quite often during their talk. He asked, I mean, Majid Nawaz is a former Muslim. He used to be, and I don't remember the exact story. He used to know his story quite well about 10 years ago, but he used to be like an Islamist, a full-on trained Islamist and he rejected all that and turned his back on Islamism, jihadism, the whole spiel. And has become a real advocate for the Enlightenment, a real advocate for Western values, a real advocate for reason and reality. He's definitely influenced by some very good thinkers. I think he knows who I am. I've known him for a long time. I think he knows me. I think we've communicated at least on one occasion. And he is, I think he's one of the good guys. Now, I haven't followed him in the last few years. A lot of people who I used to think were some of the good guys changed, became less good during the Trump years. But he's very good in Islam and always has been very good in Islam. Again, he speaks with authority because he was one of them. And he, so he, I can't say if he's one of the people trying to reform Islam or thinks that Islam is not reformable, but he is definitely one of the good guys when it comes to Islam. So I'm glad that he did a Joe Rogan interview. It's good stuff. Michael asks, how is civil asset forfeiture even legal? I don't know, but it is in many states. It's legal at the state and local level. If you wanna, you know, the Institute for Justice is fighting it and it's trying to take an asset forfeiture case to the Supreme Court so that they can rule that it's illegal, right? But I don't think that it's unconstitutional. I don't think the recollect is constitutional, and that has been, I think, okayed by the Supreme Court. You have to come forward and prove your innocence before you can get property back, yes. The government is saying, we think you're a drug dealer, prove you're not, yes. It should be illegal, it should be unconstitutional. The Institute for Justice is trying to take these cases to the Supreme Court to do that. Michael asks also, is the Institute for Justice founded and run exclusively by objectivists? If the government attempted to seize personal gold, you own, would you comply? No, the Institute for Justice was not founded or run exclusively by objectivists, but in its founding, and since then, it has been heavily influenced by objectivists who are part of the management team, the leadership team, and the legal team at the Institute of Justice has had in the past, and I think still has a very, very large consti... Not very, very large. A, objectivist contingency there that has significant influence. That's also true even maybe, yeah, it's also true at the Pacific League Foundation, which is very similar to the Institute for Justice, but is based on the West Coast in Sacramento, Pacific League Foundation, one of my board members is on the board of the Pacific League Foundation, at least one former AOI employee is an employee at the Pacific League Foundation as a lawyer, at least one of the lawyers at the Pacific League of Foundation is an objectivist. So again, both the premier pro-liberty legal foundations out there fighting for freedom, fighting for liberty, suing the government are heavily influenced by objectivism. Not indirectly, directly, and this is one of the reasons you should be optimistic about the future. We're having an impact right now, today. Michael asks, I've been watching a lot of IJ videos lately. Good, they're arguing qualified immunity should be abolished, I agree. If it gets removed, oh, you asked another question about gold, if they try to confiscate my gold, no, I would not give it to them if I could, if I could hide it from them, I would hide it from them. There's probably receipts that I bought it, they could probably figure it out, I don't know. Let's see, I've been watching a lot of IJ videos lately that arguing qualified immunity should be abolished. If it gets removed, isn't it concerned police will get sued constantly and will be hesitant to ever make an arrest? Well, no, what they need, what the police will need to do is buy insurance, and that is another way in which you could hold police accountable. The insurance will then have an interest and an incentive to train the police to do the right thing. So I'm not worried, I mean, before the police had qualified immunity, they still did arrests. And I think, but more than that, before they had, but more than that, you could eliminate qualified immunity and make it much tougher to sue them. And if somebody sues the police and loses, maybe they pay all legal costs, you could make it, you could disincentivize, particularly fervolous lawsuits. There are kinds of ways you can do that without having given them qualified immunity. Adam Campbell says, another 50 bucks, just a quick update that things are thriving on an objectivist island. A freedom bank can barely keep up with new deposits, a couple of new truckers here from Canada, as well as seven Ukrainian laborers. Absolutely, and Freedom Island, by the way, has no immigration restrictions, and therefore, you're all invited as long as you can get a job. You're invited on the island, as long as you don't violate property, somebody's property rights, you can come on and find a job and work in Freedom Island. I assume, Adam, you're not talking about Australia, because Australia strikes me as the anti-Freedom Island, both from an immigration perspective and from the perspective of COVID restrictions. Adam, yeah, Adam's not from Australia. No, here from Canada, yeah. So he's on the real Freedom Island, the one we established on the show a week ago, right? We started Freedom Island. Gold's Gold's Chile was a scam, beware of Gold's Scams. Michael asks, if we invent technology that can control weather, how would that mesh with individual rights? What if I want it 72 degrees and sunny year-round and everyone else in the neighborhood wants snow and skiing? I mean, that's a good question. I don't know, you'd have to really think that through. What does it mean to control the weather? Who can control the weather? Do you control the weather over your property or do you control the weather over the whole country? Who gets to decide? So you'd have to really think it through in terms of private property and how it affects private property. I haven't thought about it because it's not really that relevant, but because we can't control the weather and I don't think we will be able to anytime soon. But it is an interesting question in terms of who controls it. You know, it's relevant today in the climate change debate. What if I wanted to get warmer? Do I get a vote? Does anybody care that I wanted to get warmer? Now, once you make it a government thing, then it's democracy. Whoever gets the most votes determines the weather. Michael says, did you see the Ottawa police trying to shut down local businesses who gave food to the truckers? I heard it wasn't the Ottawa police. I heard it was the neighbors. They're freezing their business accounts. God, that's disgusting. Well, a lot closer to tyranny than you think. Do you think it's time to form a militia? I mean, if it's time to form a militia, let's not advertise it on the Iran book show. Let's do it like you wanna start a revolution. Stealth, quietly, right? So, yeah, I mean, I think Canada's a lot closer to tyranny, and yes, I think in certain aspects. Now, we'll see if this emergency provision ever goes away, but yeah, we have now seen what Trudeau is willing to do, what Canadians are willing to tolerate is done in order to preserve power. And that is tyrannical, what he's willing to do. There's no question about it. Daniel says, locals are blaming high-energy costs on greedy capitalists. Socialists have it easy. Everything is the fault of capitalism. Yeah, it's easy. Has nothing to do with environmentalism. It has nothing to do with not drilling for oil. It has nothing to do with not drilling for natural gas. There's nothing to do with not mining for coal. Has nothing to do with all these existential facts. Those are irrelevant to the price of oil. Andy says, when, if ever, is vigilante force justified in the context of a failed justice system? When the justice system really is failed. And when it's in your selfish interest to do it. And when doing so is not a because of the anarchy. So it's very dangerous because by being a vigilante, you're sanctioning anarchy. But if the justice system is completely failed, then there's already anarchy and the bad guys are winning because the justice system won't prosecute them, then you don't have a choice and you become a vigilante. But that's really bad. Michael H. says, rather than pushing Congress to declare war on Germany, how should have Wilson responded to the Germans after they sunk the, the ship that I can't, whose name I can't pronounce right now. Lucit, Lucitania, Lucitania. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know enough about the history. I don't know. I suspect that the sinking of the Lucitania wasn't in a void, that the Germans had a reason to do it. What was the reason you'd have to was, to what extent were they provoked? To what extent did Wilson provoke them in order to get them, to encourage them to attack us so we could go to war with them? But I don't know enough about that history to tell you. All I can say is there's no American interest in going to war, in World War I. If it turns out that we were completely out of nowhere, attacked by the Germans and therefore had no choice but to defend ourselves in fine, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case. All right, this is the last super check question for tonight. What's your position on aliens? God, do I have a position on aliens? Am I supposed to have a position on aliens? I don't know. Out of space aliens. Did Randall Peacuff have a view on it? Intelligent life exists outside of Earth. Yeah, our position is very clear. No, I don't speak fine, Randall Peacuff. As far as I know, they didn't say anything about this ever, but I might be wrong. My position is, and I'm assuming they would say the same thing is, how can I have a position? I mean, I just don't know. I don't know. Don't know. Have no position on aliens, because I don't know. Maybe they exist, maybe they don't. Even if they do exist, if there's intelligent life out there, how do they travel fast in the speed of light? Because if they travel the speed of light, they're never gonna get here. So how do they travel fast in the speed of light? You need a new physics for that. We don't have a physics to that, and that's arbitrary. So any claim that you could travel fast in the speed of light right now, given our knowledge of physics is basically arbitrary. All right, Catherine has recalculated how much you guys have contributed, but it is a substantial amount. It's $855, so thank you to everybody. Thank you, everybody who supported the show today. All the superchatters, thank you for making the show possible. Thank you for providing value for value, and it's very exciting you guys make this all worthwhile. Thank you for everybody who's supposed to show monthly on a regular basis and supporting all of my activities to promote these ideas, to promote the ideas of Iron Man and Objectivism. Don't forget, what is one of your price possessions? Jeffrey says, wow. I mean, most of my price possessions are art. Oh, art, I don't really have possessions that I prize. I'm not in that sense, but I love art. A lot of my art, a lot of the original stuff that we have here, I love. You know, I have signed copies of Lena Pigov's books. Kind of think of other price possessions. I have some Iron Man stuff, I think, somewhere. Not a lot, and I'm not big on those kind of things. So I'd say my art, that's the main thing. Thanks for the support, Jeffrey. Look forward to visiting New York and eating at your restaurant. All right, what else do we have? Yeah, we're done, 875 bucks. Good night. I'll see you all on Thursday. Yes, on Thursday. Don't forget to like the show before you leave. If you're not a subscriber, please subscribe. Adam just stepped in with like a 50 buck one. Adam has this quote, when there is no such thing as truth, you can't define reality. And when you can't define reality, the only thing that matters is power. That's very good. Majud said this in his interview and I was impressed. He's an impressive guy. It's worth a listen as much as Mr. Jones is worth a watch. I will try to listen. And by the way, everybody should watch Mr. Jones. I've reviewed that movie several times. If you're interested in Russia, if you're interested in Ukraine, Mr. Jones is about the period of the Ukrainian famine where the Russians starved the Ukrainians, where the Russian communists starved the Ukrainians and the Ukrainians basically died, maybe 20 to 40 millions died. Thank you to Majud. That is a great quote from Majud. And thanks guys. I will see you Thursday. Don't forget to get your, don't forget to get your ExpressVPN and don't forget to subscribe. Bye, everybody. I'm gonna go to sleep.