 The radical. Fundamental principles of freedom. Rational self-interest. And individual rights. This is The Iran Brookshow. All right everybody, welcome to Iran Brookshow on this Friday. It's 11 a.m. east coast time. But I'm sure many of you are on all kinds of zones. So good morning, good afternoon, good evening. All right, let's jump right into it before we get to kind of one of the stories I listed. Charlie Hebdo is in the news again. For those of you who remember it's a satirical magazine that puts out cartoons. It was the place of a horrific massacre, a horrific terrorist attack by Islamists who in 2015, January of 2015, actually what, seven years ago exactly, almost exactly, entered the offices of Charlie Hebdo and shot the people working there, the cartoonists. All because Charlie Hebdo published cartoons of Muhammad and Muhammad of course is not allowed to be depicted in any kind of art form. This is one of the Ten Commandments to the extent that Muhammad is a prophet of God. So, you know, they have been in the news on and off over the years. But those cartoons, remember everybody is just sweet Charlie. Everybody was sympathetic, although almost nobody published the actual cartoons. Well, anyway, Charlie Hebdo is back to the old ways, I'm happy to say, and they have been depicting cartoons of the Iranian regime and of Hamani, the Iranian supreme leader, and they're depicting all kinds of cartoons in support of the Iranian protesters. And we should commend them for doing that. They've actually run a, I think a whole, they published dozens of cartoons about Hamani, all part of a competition. It launched to support anti-government protests in Iran. So thumbs up to Charlie Hebdo for doing that. It takes a lot of courage. Remember, these people, you and I can criticize anybody. We could say what we want. There are very little consequences. We'll get to other people, you know, the consequences. With Charlie Hebdo, we know exactly what the consequences are. The consequence of being real and being real for them, and that is death. The consequences are violent death, and they have clear enemies. This is not theoretical, hypothetical. This has been a reality for Charlie Hebdo. So it takes a lot of courage in spite of the Danish cartoons, in spite of what happened to those cartoonists and the Charlie Hebdo to keep doing cartoons, basically insulting an Islamic regime. So again, thumbs up to Charlie Hebdo. Good for them. Of course, this has generated a lot of, a lot of offense in Iran among the regime. The Iranian Foreign Minister on January 4th summoned France's ambassador to Iran to protest insulting cartoons depicting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. So the Iranians are unhappy, good. They should be unhappy. They deserve to be unhappy. Again, kudos to Charlie Hebdo. I mean, there's some of the most, I mean really, these are some of the most courageous people in the world today standing up to authoritarianism, you know, second only to the courage of the actual protesters in Iran. Again, and the timing is, because I think it was January 2015, January 2015 when Charlie Hebdo was attacked by Islamist terrorists. All right, just wanted to cover that quickly. Talk about free speech. You know, I'm not a huge fan of Jordan Peterson and Jordan Peterson's philosophy, but you have to come to the defense of people when they're being attacked unjustly, even when you disagree with them about the specifics. If you remember, Jordan Peterson came to prominence in 2016 arguing against Canadian legislation that was going to compel, or by some interpretation was going to compel certain types or the right form of speech when it came to gender pronouns. And that's when Jordan Peterson really made a name for himself for standing up against that. Well, now it turns out that the College of Psychologists of the province of Ontario, where I think Jordan Peterson has his license to practice psychology, is demanding that Jordan Peterson acknowledge that he has lacked professionalism in a number of his public statements and that he undergo a coaching program of remedial education. Can you imagine? I mean, this is not funny, but can you imagine Jordan Peterson in a coaching program? I mean, who is Jordan Peterson going to let coach him? I mean, the guy would run circles around anybody trying to coach him. I mean, it would be fun to have a camera at somebody attempting to provide a coaching program for him. Now, unfortunately, these kind of professional organizations like College of Psychologists have standing, legal standing. I mean, you could have a professional organization and you could be a member of it or not be a member of it. But these organizations actually have the ability to license you or unlicense you or to kick you out of the profession and make it therefore illegal for you to practice. This is a clear inappropriate role for government. It makes these kind of private organizations quasi-governmental organizations, which is completely inappropriate. They don't have any of the standards that we have for legislatures or anything else. But more than that, it is a government intervention in a place where government intervention is inappropriate. It's inappropriate for the government to license or not license, license in general. Again, I think in a rational society, there would be College of Psychologists who would license their members, but you could still practice psychology without that license. Consumers might come and insist on only going to those people who are licensed and not wanting to be treated by people who are not. But we have given these institutions, this is true in the United States and true in Canada and true in all the western world, we have given them legal power, the power of the gun, the power to ban people from practicing psychology. What they are really threatening Jordan Peterson with is revoking his license to practice, which is not just the license from the college or the license from this organization, but it is a legal license. It would basically become illegal for Jordan Peterson to continue as a psychologist, both a massive injustice to him and an injustice to his patients. I completely understand the College of, you know, a licensing board saying, this person has said things that are unacceptable, we don't think he's okay to practice. Fine, but that cannot have legal standing. You cannot ban somebody from profession because you don't like what he says. I wonder if Jordan Peterson agrees with me about professional licensing? Probably not, but it doesn't matter. Professional licensing with the impromptu of law is wrong, period. So the college, now what is it that Jordan Peterson has said that has offended the College of Psychologists? Well, part of it is comments on Twitter and part of it is comments he made in Joe Rogan's podcast. Supposedly on November 22, the college panel released, oh, so according, Jordan Peterson said... So the college is saying the comments at issue appear to undermine the public trust in the profession as a whole and raise questions about your ability to carry out your responsibilities as a psychologist, unquote. What are the comments? Well, he called Elliot Page the transgender actor by his former name, Alan, and used the pronoun her on Twitter. Now, maybe some people offended by this, but this is speech. This is called free speech. Let's see, also, you know, he called an advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a prick. He made a sarcastic crack at anti-growth environmentalists for not caring that their energy policies lead to more deaths of poor third-world children. So basically, he's made certain political cultural statements that the college doesn't like. He is being penalized for speech, for political speech. Nothing about this has anything to do with his view of psychology, his treatment of patients. I mean, it would be something if they said you're abusing your patients, you're yelling at them, you're sexually abusing them, you're okay. He's speaking about his views on different issues, but this reflects badly on the profession as a whole. This is basically an attempt to silence opposition. This is an attempt to basically say, this is the party line. If you don't follow the party line, if you don't follow the political party line of the College of Psychologists, we won't grant you a license to practice psychology. He also was, you know, he called a former client vindictive, and he objected to sports illustrated swimsuit cover of a plus-sized model by saying, sorry, not beautiful, and no amount of authoritarian tolerance is going to change that. I guess this is all offensive speech and hate speech in Canada, of course, doesn't really have a First Amendment. It doesn't have a protections of freedom of speech, so they're using this to take away his license. Imagine doctors now fearing any public statement they make, a professional organization yanks their license, lawyers, anything they say. Oh, lawyers. Well, it turns out that the Law Society of Ontario a few years ago tried to have a mandatory diversity pledge for all lawyers. Luckily, there was a member revolt, and that was nixed in 2019. But yes, lawyers could be yanked based on what they say, based on their political point of view, based on their cultural, their views on particular cultural phenomena. Professional organizations will now have the power, or always have had the power, but now using this power, I don't think this could ever succeed in the United States, given our First Amendment rights, but in Canada where there is no strong protection for free speech, in Europe where there is no strong protection for free speech, professional organizations now can yank your profession, can exclude you from practicing your profession, based on your political point of view, based on disagreements about not even issues related to your profession, issues related from completely outside of your profession. So, truly horrible. John Peterson, again, is written, quote, who exactly was harmed, how, when, to what degree, and how was that harm measured? He says he acknowledges there have been about a dozen formal complaints since 2017. Wow. A dozen formal complaints in six years. That's an astoundingly good record given how public is. And one demanding a formal reply. You know, so it's, he says this process is punishment, and we all know there is no way in hell that John Peterson is going to go for coaching. So, this is, you know, horrific. This is one of the most horrific, you know, things that I've seen out there of clear violation of freedom of speech and a clear abuse of power of the licensing organization. But again, notice that almost all of these abuses come from the power we have given government. All of these abuses come from the fact that we have unlimited government, that we've given government unlimited power over our lives. And yes, in the United States we might protect a certain segment of our lives, free speech, call it, we'll see in a minute, you know, that doesn't apply to a lot of other things. But the more power government have, the more we embrace a mixed economy, the more expansive that mixed economy is in terms of intervening in our lives, the more difficult it is to protect individual rights or freedom of speech or any right, any right, it all crumbles. And the source is this idea of mixed economy because this idea of giving government more and more power over our lives and disentangling government from its only really purpose, which is the protection of individual rights rather than the violation of it. So on this I stand with Jordan Peterson as much as I disagree with him on so many other topics. Talk about the mixed economy. God. Oh, let me just take this quick Shalsbad question. Shalsbad says, do you think Jordan Peterson makes more money from speaking engagement and psychology practice? I'm, you know, I don't have any insight into his finances, but I'm almost sure that is the case. You know, he was making well in excess of a million dollars from his speaking engagements alone before he got sick. I'm sure his deal with the daily wire alone is significantly more lucrative than anything he could make in a psychology practice. So I don't think this actually is harming would harm his livelihood, but this is the extent that they still practicing it. This is his profession. By what right does anybody take away somebody's ability to practice his profession? Friend Harper, thank you for the support. All right, guys, we're, I promise not to bug about this, but we're way behind. We still have $220 to raise. All right, on our super chat. All right, so the FTC, a government entity that should not exist in my view, the Federal Trade Commission, which is an institution, a alphabet agency that is responsible for regulating business that is responsible primarily for antitrust issues and fair competition. It is guided by something called the Federal Trade Commission Act, which has to do a lot with issues of, quote, fair trade, which means fair business practices, which a lot of times boiled down to antitrust provisions. You know, I will say as a positive before I get to this massive negative about it, that I think the Supreme Court is going to rein these kind of agencies in. Again, I'm very hopeful, particularly about Judge Gorsuch, who's got a very anti-administrative state attitude, and the FTC is up there on the administrative state. Anyway, the FTC has proposed, I think this is yesterday, proposed a new rule. This rule would prohibit employers from imposing non-compete causes on their workers. It is estimated today that about one in five American workers, approximately 30 million people, have a non-compete agreement with their employer in their contract. I know I've signed non-compete contracts. I think I actually probably have a non-compete contract right now at my hedge fund. I think it's standard practice in finance, particularly in the hedge fund business, where, you know, much of what you're exposed to working at a hedge fund is proprietary information, proprietary knowledge. You know, when we hire somebody new, we are training them in a particular process, with particular algorithms, with particular ideas, with a particular approach. And you don't want that person to just leave and go to another hedge fund and bring all that knowledge and expertise to them. You could argue there's IP, you could sue them over IP, but a lot of it is very, very difficult. A lot of it is not something that you've protected through IP laws. It's not something that you can even protect through IP laws. And the easiest thing is to have a non-compete and prevent that person, at least for a year or something, to go and take your, basically, the knowledge that they gained through a lot of training and through working with experts in the field and taking it over. I mean, almost everybody in tech, almost everybody in certain positions in finance is under non-compete. I don't know of anybody in tech who's not under some kind of non-compete. And of course, what do you say? A confidentiality agreement or the confidentiality agreement is the courts have often ruled as not really abiding. The FTC says non-compete undermine core economic liberties. They're doing this in the name of liberty. They're intervening in the economy and telling employees and employers what kind of contract they can sign, what kind of agreements they can get to, all in the name of liberty. I'm so relieved. Evidence suggests the FTC chair, Lena Kahn, writes, evidence suggests non-compete also suppress earnings and opportunity, even for workers who are not subject to a non-compete. Wow. FTC economists estimate the non-compete's lower U.S. workers collective incomes by $250 to $296 billion per year. Let me just say I don't believe any of that. That is complete nonsense, right? Complete nonsense. But even if we were true, it didn't matter. The job of government is not to maximize our earnings. The job of government is not to protect us from ourselves, employers, employees contract with. Con added, lucky workers in place can enable incumbents to close off markets to new rivals undermining dynamism in healthy competition. What will actually happen if you can't have non-compete is much more siloing of businesses, much less collaboration, much less exposure, particularly for junior people, to, you know, the knowledge at the core of a business, much less knowledge about how business functions. It means less efficiency. It actually means less wages. I'm going to hire you at a lower rate. If you can walk away from me and take all my knowledge from you, you know, you're less valuable to me. You're much more valuable to me if you have a non-compete. Now, some non-competes, you know, are not going to be upheld and caught, but many of them are. It's none of the government's business. Government intervention in this realm, again, this is like, this is the social engineering. And this is no different to social engineering in any other realm. This is no different than any kind of social engineering. This is social engineering that some philosopher kings think they know what kind of contract you should have with your employer, and they're going to quote, protect you. So the FTC wants a proposal, make it illegal for employer to enter into or attempt to enter into non-compete with a worker, maintain a non-compete with a worker, or represent to a worker under certain circumstances that the worker is subject to a non-compete. I will predict that this lowers wages, doesn't increase them. But it is a gross, inappropriate intervention into business. I suspect that if this passes that the FTC will be sued, that this goes to the Supreme Court. I think there's a good chance. There's a good chance. I mean, there's a really good chance that this is overturned by the Supreme Court. Anyway, I find it interesting that people are not outraged by this. I don't think people are. And this is why economic freedoms have been chipped away and chipped away and chipped away. The government has been increasing its intervention and employee-employee relationship for over 100 years now, and it's chip away, chip away, chip away. Because every step of this, nobody really seems to be outraged by it. It's much easier to be outraged by Jordan Peterson and what he's going through than by this. But this is a massive disaster for many companies, a massive disaster for a lot of industries and a lot of ways in which people do business. It will lower wages, it will stifle innovation, and it will institutionalize even more the rate of government to run our lives. And you have to always ask yourself, why is this not outraging? And I think it's primarily because it's not individualized, it's not individuated, and because it's just those money-grubbing corporations. So let's hope that this goes in front of the Supreme Court and it's kicked out, but I find this unbelievably outrageous. This is the kind of things that antitrust laws allows for because they view this as anti-competitive, and it doesn't allow employees to leave and start a company competing with you. That's part of the non-compete, right? Imagine you go work for startup, learn a new technology, learn a new business model, learn all these things, discover where they appear, discover where it is, and then leave. Start a direct competitor to the original company, and they can't do anything about it. But the FTCs happen happy because there's more competition. But competition is not a value. Competition is not a value. Capitalism is not about competition. Freedom is not about competition. Competition is a feature. It's a consequence, in some cases. It's not the be all end all, but that's how we view business, right? Because the antitrust laws were the first laws really to regulate business in a massive way. In the name of competition and capitalism is to be presented and defended as this system of competition. But competition is not an essential feature of capitalism. It's a consequence of liberty, of freedom, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with restricting competition by, through the means of things like anti, you know, through these kind of contracts, these kind of non-compete. This is a consequence of the bad defenses of capitalism, the bad presentations of what capitalism is. All right, let's do a couple of stories quickly, and then we'll take your questions. Although I have no super chat questions right now, so I know we exceeded our target last time yesterday. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to get to our target today. $2 from everybody online right now gets us the way we need to be, but we need to be there. All right, quickly on abortion, excellent decision out of the South Carolina Supreme Court, surprising given that it's out of South Carolina, but the Supreme Court yesterday upheld, or this was on Thursday, so this was last week, upheld, not upheld, held actually, that the state six weeks abortion ban with exceptions for rape, incest, and medical emergencies, which went into effect after Roe versus Wade was overturned in Hobbes, actually violates the right to privacy outlined in the state's constitution. So this was in the state Supreme Court, and therefore this is guided by state law and by the state constitution and the South Carolina state constitution has actually a protection, explicit protection for the right to privacy, which the South Carolina Supreme Court views abortion falling under. And so they say six weeks is wrong. Mel, thank you for doing the $2. If everybody did that, we would reach our goal. So they are basically saying six weeks is not reasonable. Let me quote, again, this is not a great decision on legal grounds. It's a great decision in terms of outcome. And they say, quote, the state unquestionably has the authority to limit the right of privacy, in other words, abortion, that protects women from state interference with her decision. But any such limitation must be reasonable. And it must be meaningful in that the time frames imposed must afford a woman sufficient time to determine she is pregnant and to take reasonable steps to terminate that pregnancy. Now that's not great because it basically says the state has a right to violate your rights if they can make a reasonable case for violating your rights, but fine. But at least it recognizes that six weeks is an unreasonable time frame to allow for a woman to make that kind of decision for which the state recognizes that she has to be allowed to make that decision and the state cannot violate her right to make that decision. So six weeks is quite, again, to quote six weeks is quite simply not a reasonable period of time for these two things to occur. So the law stands in South Carolina and abortion is legal now up to gestation, which is 22 weeks. So it's been gone from six weeks to 22 weeks. It's a great victory for abortion rights. It's not what I would want, but this protects women at least from making that decision early on in their pregnancy, and that's a good thing. This decision came to it at the 3-2 majority of the South Carolina Supreme Court. So you have to think that almost all the judges there are nominally Republicans. Okay, Mel, thank you. Adam, thank you. Thank you. So these are all people doing at least $2 in order to try to get us to our goal. Again, if everybody right now watching did that, we will be there. Darlene, thank you. All right. Finally, on immigration, I'm not going to delve deep into this, but just because we've been talking about the asylum laws and what is it, Article 42. The Biden administration has released a whole slew of measures aimed at curbing the record-lover numbers of undocumented border crossings that we've seen in the last few years, in particular this year. I haven't delved into it. I will, but I haven't delved into the whole thing, but I just wanted to let you know that they've got a bunch of these new regulations that are supposed to control this as part of this, and this is a good thing. The Biden administration will increase the use of expedited removal for alien immigrants, so they will send them back, but at the same time, they're going to provide entry and work, work, work. Who would have thunk? Work authorizations for up to 30,000 individuals, I think a month from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Haiti. Why those four countries? I guess because those countries are the most, where they're most likely to accept asylum arguments. So, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Haiti, they will get 30,000 authorizations to work and to enter every month. But these people have to have an eligible sponsor and pass vetting and background checks. Who knows what all that means and who knows if they have the capacity at the border to approve 30,000 a month. But let's hope so. 30,000 is better than what they do right now. It would be great if they have, better if they have more than that. More than that. All right. Good. One quick one. I don't know if you know this, but in New Jersey public schools, masking is back for a lot of students. I'll just leave it at that. Horrible and stupid. All right. Let's see. Doing better. Thank you for, we've got a few super chat questions quickly. MM says, what is your opinion on the value of man versus unmanned space and planetary exploration? Is it worth the additional cost to send humans versus drones or robotic instruments? Also, how much dollars to review a lengthy blog post? I mean, I think for the most part, and certainly in the initial phases, pre-actual colonizing the planets, unmanned, it makes a lot more sense. And one can get most of the information one needs from unmanned. I think it's, I think this issue of what is it worth is a complicated question because you have to ask what is it worth to whom, right? To whom is it worth? Should the government, should the government should be involved in any of this other than it should be only involved in space to the extent that there's a national security issue involved in space. So all of the stuff that, you know, I don't know what percentage, 60% of what NASA does, or maybe it's 80%. I don't know of what NASA does is not related to national security and they show it shouldn't do. Is it worth it for SpaceX to send a man opposed to the space? Well, I mean, one of the reasons to send a man person to space is to start studying the effect of space on human travel to start seeing the impact it has. I think that's why the space station exists. And that's why, you know, there's a variety of other programs that are engaged in this so that ultimately when we do try to colonize the moon or Mars or whatever, we know much more about what that takes from a human endurance perspective. But also, don't minimize the marketing impact of this. Sending a man to space is much easier, much more inspirational. It gets people motivated around the program. It might get investors more engaged. It might get the public more engaged. Certainly, that was the reason for NASA to do it. Politically, it seems more important having a man walk in space versus a robot walk in space. That would certainly be true of Mars. So there are marketing considerations, investment considerations. But there are also medical and other considerations about figuring out what happens to the human beings in that environment under certain speeds. And, you know, I don't know all the details I haven't thought this through. In terms of a link, it depends how lengthy the blog post is. But, you know, let's go from somewhere between $100 and $250 to review a blog post. And it depends on the topic, too. So you might want to email me, tell me what the blog post is and I'll quote you a price. Jeffrey, thank you. Have you done a show on taxes? Or can you summarize your ideal replacement for our current tax system? I haven't done a show on taxes. I mean, I could probably do a tax system. I mean, look, ideal in what circumstances. I mean, ideal in the current circumstances where we have no choice but to raise taxes. My ideal is always being low and simple. I think simplicity is key to this. I think part of the way the tax code violates our rights is through its complexity. So whether it is a flat tax that you could do on a postcard and the same flat tax across the board, everything is taxed at the same level, do away with double taxation, like dividend taxes and other taxes that constitute capital gains taxes that constitute double taxation. And then, alternatively, an ideal would be the repeal of the constitutional amendment that allows for an income tax and just have a sales tax, a flat sales tax, a same sales tax on everything. Again, you don't want the government trying to manipulate what we buy and why we buy it. So certain things don't have a sales tax. It doesn't do because the central planners have decided this is good for you to buy and it's bad for you to buy. Get rid of all syntaxes, get rid of all stupid ways in which the government is trying to manipulate us. And tariffs should be zero unless it's part of a sales tax regime, but then you don't need tariffs. So simple and flat, no attempt to try to control us or regulate us. But I could do a show and then, of course, the ultimate ideal is no taxes at all, no course of taxation. Andrew, further to your brief yesterday that Rand Paul is turning his back on the forces of liberty in Iran on the grounds of being principled is evidence of a corruption in his principles. Yes, no, he's not principled. This is not consistent with any principles he might hold except his, quote, pretend principle of non-intervention. But that is an anti-principle. There is no principle of non-intervention. We're not talking about sending troops. We're not even talking about sending money. We're not even talking about sending satellites so that they can access the internet, which I think we should be doing. This is just, wow, DWN logic. Thank you. Another person who missed that New Year's Eve show and is stepping up. Thank you. Wow, $500. Really appreciate that. Sorry, I missed the New Year's Eve show. Give idiocracy another chance. It's much better on the second viewing. Just kidding. Thanks for everything. Oh, I appreciate it. Just kidding. Thank you. So, yes, Andrew, I think it's a complete anti-principle. I think he has no principles if that's the principle he holds. There is no principle. It's pretending. It's standing in for principle, but it's ludicrous and it's immoral. And I think he should be condemned for it by people who actually advocate for liberty, actually believe in liberty, and he certainly will be condemned by me for it. Apollo Zeus says, other than his career, if Jordan Peterson was a heart surgeon, the consequence of client patients, yes. And to the extent, I don't know how good a psychologist he is, but if he is a good psychologist, think about his patients. So, I mean, just horrific. The consequence is just horrific. shaken, I can't pronounce his name. Sorry, one of these Norwegians' names I can't pronounce. Get your butt on GRE. He's talking about the need for people thinking for themselves at the moment. Have a good great weekend. Yes, but then thinking for themselves, I wonder how consistently he's willing to take that. And what he takes as thinking. I would love to be on GRE. I've tried a gazillion times to get on GRE. GRE doesn't want me. This is Joe Rogan. I mean, let's be clear here. Joe Rogan does not want to have me on a show. He has been recommended to him that I be on the show. I've sent him an email directly. I've sent him more than one email, several emails. I communicated with him directly. And he does not want to have me on the show. So, you can say get yourself on, but how? How? You guys could get me on by advocating for me to be on. But telling me to be on the show is zero value. Telling him to have me on the show, a little bit of value. Scott says, on law, do outcomes matter more than rationale? In the world in which we live in right now, yes, absolutely. There's no question outcomes matter more than rationale. The reality is that the rationale is almost never good. The rationale is almost never right. Even when, you know, so I'll take the outcomes. Because, I mean, not a single one of the judges. I mean, let me be very, very clear on this. Not a single one of the judges in the Supreme Court today has a grasp of what individual rights mean. And therefore not a single one of the Supreme Court justices today could write an opinion whose rationale would be right. Because every rationale of the Supreme Court needs to be grounded ultimately, ultimately in individual rights. And if you don't have an understanding of individual rights, no rationale you have is going to be good. Now, some rationales are better, some rationales are worse. And I think a rationale for abortion based on privacy and based on Roe versus Wade is not the worst rationale I can think of. It's not bad of a rationale and it grounds it on an individual right. But then the idea that, oh, but the state has an interest, that's horrible. But that's on the other side of it. So outcome is super important right now because it's our liberties and our freedoms. And the battle ultimately, the philosophical battle is about the rationale. And as long as the culture and even our smartest and best judges, even somebody like Thomas and Gorsuch don't understand the concept of individual rights, then you can't expect anybody to have the right rationale. Nobody is going to have it. And if we had a vote on rationale, we'd be now completely authoritarian and communist. There would be no barrier, no barrier. Because there is nobody who has the proper rationale. You know, it's the same thing with, let's say tomorrow the board of the psychologist in Ontario comes to the conclusion that it's not in the common good. It's not in the common good to not allow Jordan Peterson to practice and therefore they are overruling the College of Psychologists and they're going to insist, indeed, that Jordan Peterson maintain his license. Now, from a rationale perspective, we would say, whoa, that's the wrong rationale. What's the common good have to do with this? His rights are being infringed and you're abusing your responsibilities and your role in government. Would you reject the fact that they're going to keep him around as a psychologist because the rationale is bad? We would accept it and then say the rationale is bad. And in some cases the rationale is so bad that the other consequence of this is going to be horrific, but at least Jordan Peterson has his job. Thank you, Scott. Amen. Wow. Amen says I'm puzzled on why the Democrats aren't working to make a deal with Kevin McCarthy or whoever they favor to influence things to their side. I think they're trying. I think they're probably trying. The more they wait, the more desperate the Republicans will be. You saw some pictures of AOC talking to some Republicans and there was speculation that they're trying to cut a deal and there is attempts to cut a deal. But the Republicans, it's going to be very tough for the Republicans to give up this idea that they have a majority in the House and they have to somehow cut a deal with the Democrats. So I think it's Republicans resisting that. I mean, what's happening in the House is a fuss, it's a joke, it's ridiculous. Kevin McCarthy basically is folded completely to these nuts on his right and there's no way to go from here other than, you know, there's basically no way to go from there. So other than for somebody to fold big time and the consequence of that is significant. So I don't know. I think those negotiations are going on, I mean, but Republicans don't want to give in. But you might see in the end when they're completely exhausted that they give in to the Democrats. They'll get the worst of all worlds. But that's typical Republicans. Typical Republicans. Daniel says, long time listening to air ride donor, the more I listen, the more I think there is no saving the current system. It is so frustrating because it seems that the answer to the problem is a clear, but no one understands them. I don't, it won't change. I mean, there's a lot to what you say. I mean, there's a lot to your pessimism that I agree with. I think to a large extent that's true. I mean, we're going to have to go through a lot more pain for things to change and a lot more education and a lot more effort. But right now it looks impossible. I mean, it does really look and it's super frustrating. And when people ask me what's your most frustrating part of your job, I always say it's the fact that I know how to fix everything and nobody cares. And you're right. The answers seem so simple, so clear and nobody cares. Max, I'm the child of Cuban immigrants to the U.S., but I've never been to Cuba. All the family members think traveling to the island funds communism and thus unethical. The younger ones disagree. Do you think I should go visit? No. I think it definitely funds communism. I mean, every dollar that you leave in Cuba ultimately goes to the Communist Party. There's no such thing as private restaurants in Cuba. Even the restaurants, they take the money and then, again, a big chunk of it goes to the government. They decide how much the restaurant keeps. I would not go to Cuba. It's one of the few countries in the world I would not go to because it's much more so than China. The government is everywhere. It is everything. And you cannot escape funding and subsidizing and sanctioning that government. Adam says, specialists must start working to get a career, but a non-compete agreement can terminate not only one specific employment, but the individual's career altogether. What conditions should a beginner insist on? I think you have to make sure that the non-compete is not broad. So broad is that you can't pursue your career. What you need to do is make sure that the non-compete is narrow enough so that it protects the employer, but it's also not too broad so that it protects you as an individual so that you can go work for somebody within the same field but not be in direct competition with your previous employer. I'm not saying it's easy to figure out exactly what that is and particularly when you're young it's something hard to insist on, but I think the standards that have emerged in the industries because of a variety of lawsuits and because these things have been challenged in the law are pretty good for both employer and employee. So I think the standard language is pretty good and again, I think the courts have worked to make sure that employees are not being exploited or that employees have avenues to pursue a career. So the standard language I think for the most part is pretty good. Gail says, do you remember the Haight Law kangaroo court trial hauling of Ezra Levant magazine published 13 years ago? Yes. I mean the Haight Law codes and the attacks on free speech in Canada are not new. They go back to the post 9-11 Haight Speech Laws that you couldn't say anything about Islam. Ezra Levant had a whole kangaroo court trial. It was horrific. It's been going on for a long time in Canada and in Europe and Charlie Hebdo needs to be careful because they could easily be sued by the French government for Haight Speech over their cartoons of the Iranian supreme leader. I mean that's how bad it is. Robert, do you see any benefit in unemployment benefits? I live in Massachusetts. I went through a career transition a few years back. Unemployment really helped us stay solvent during that period. Yes, but it should be private. That is, you should buy unemployment insurance or your employer might as a feature of employment buy you but the state has no role in mandating that and the state has no role in subsidizing it because it's heavily subsidized by the state often is, for example during COVID but you should buy unemployment insurance or you should negotiate that your employer buy you unemployment insurance. I think it's better for you to buy it because then you own it and you can take it from job to job no matter which job you have, you have accumulated you have this unemployment insurance that travels with you. Sean, happy new year. I know you're not a fan of rap but I'm taking a chance and recommending two songs which I suspect you'll still enjoy. Kanye vs. Hayek and Mises vs. Keynes. Keynes vs. Hayek and Mises vs. Marks, both rap battles on YouTube. Seeing them both, yes I enjoy them both. They're both very good. They're both a lot of fun. I mean they're not going to convince anybody they're not educational in that sense but maybe they'll cause people to go and investigate more closely the Mises and the Keynes. I thought the Keynes and Hayek was better but just in terms of originality but both are excellent and I wish that, yeah, being watched by millions so Mises and Hayek get their names in front of millions of kids, that's a huge plus. Thank you Sean. Thanks everybody. Wow. Two days in a row we have blown away our target. So let's see. Thank you to DWN Logic. Thank you for Armin and thank you to all the Super Chatters. Quickly I really have to run. Daniel says, would the ideas of limited government have ever prevailed if not for the unique founding of America being a clean slate? I don't think you'll agree but I don't think so. I don't think it's possible to change what's so entrenched. Maybe but then we're still fighting for a clean slate, right? I'm not opposed to revolution. I've never been opposed to armed revolution. It's just not now. At some point maybe that'll be the most appropriate and the best way to do it. It could very well be that we will need to have a clean slate but we're going to get there. The United States is probably going to go through a period of authoritarianism before it achieves a period of complete rebirth of limited government ideology and that's what we're training people, that's what we're doing in order to be there when people are open to new ideas, when people are open to the possibility of both an intellectual and maybe even an actual revolution. Thank you, Daniel. I don't disagree with your conclusions. It's just a question of the more people we educate, the more people we prep, the more people we get ready for, that clean slate, the better off we'll be at that point and maybe it'll take 100 years, maybe it'll take 50 years, maybe it'll take 20 years, I don't know. But we need to be in the process and that's why your support for the Inron Institute is not to change the world in 10 years. Your support of the Inron Institute is to create an army for establishing a new regime when we have the opportunity to do that one day by whatever circumstances that happens. All right everybody, I will see you tomorrow at 2 o'clock East Coast time. We'll be talking about euthanasia. Canada is going to play a role. Euthanasia Bill in Canada and the European euthanasia laws, so we'll talk about value, vice of euthanasia and I'm committed to doing, I don't think all of them, but a bunch of the music reviews. So we're going to have a big music review session tomorrow. But first we'll talk about euthanasia laws and so I will see you all tomorrow. Thanks everybody for joining me today and thank you guys for getting us to this amazing number.