 The radical, fundamental principles of freedom, rational self-interest, and individual rights. This is The Iran Book Show. All right, everybody, welcome to the Iran Book Show. And this day after Christmas, it's Tuesday, December 26th. I hope you all have had a great Christmas, Merry Christmas to everybody. I hope you had a fantastic Christmas. So if you got the gifts that you wanted to get, I hope you enjoy time with family and friends. And just had a good day, a good day. And of course, this week is all kind of a Christmas to New Year. It's all kind of a half-vacation time. So I hope you enjoyed that as well. Heading towards New Year here quickly. We're going to jump into the topic in a second. We're going to be talking about Israel, can it win? What does victory look like? What would be required to win? And then the question, I think, the crucial question is, will it, can it, and then will it if it even can? Just a quick reminder, I don't think there'll be any shows tomorrow. Tomorrow's a busy day. But I will start up again with the daily new shows on Thursday. We'll do one on Thursday, one on Friday. And then there'll be no shows Saturday, and no shows in the evening this week. And then the big show on Sunday, Sunday at 2 PM East Coast time. We will be going for three hours or so. My guess is we'll have a fundraising target. I expect it to be somewhere around $12,000. So the target will be $12,000. Yeah, I think it's pretty safe to say that it'll be the target. And yeah, we'll just keep going until we reach the target. I mean, I'll just stay online until. Well, I mean, we'll cut it off at some point. But that'll be a fun show. It'll be kind of the annual year in review, 2023 in review. So yeah, I hope you guys can make it on Sunday. And we can raise a lot of money and have a lot of fun. All right, let's see. What else do we need to talk about before I get started? I think that's all the logistical. I wanted to remind everybody, if anybody's in the Colorado area that I will be there to give a talk on January 12th, open to the public. In DUSCAST, I think $30 to attend. And then there's a dinner. It's to be extra for the dinner, but there's also a dinner afterwards. But you're welcome to join. I hope you will. So $30, it's at 5.30 on Friday, January 12th. It's like two weeks from now. Two weeks from Friday. So it's really coming up. And so we'll be doing a talk. The title of the talk is An Ambitious 2024, the Objective Approach. So it'll be kind of a very positive, hopefully inspiring talk about planning your life into 2024 using objective principles. And so I hope you come. I hope I get to meet you. I hope you come to the dinner afterwards. I hope you come and hang out. Ask questions. There'll be an extensive Q&A. It'll be a good time. It's in Centennial. You can find information about it on Everbright. Just Google. You're on book. Centennial Colorado, when is it? January 12th, you'll get all the information you need. And please join us. It's going to be a lot of fun, so join us. Let's see. Yeah, I think that's it. I will mention I'll be in Michigan. I'll have dates, times, information about that. They'll be up on my website as well. Soon I'll also be in Austin, Texas on January 26th for a talk about Israel. I think the tentative title is Israel's Molo War. That is the tentative title for my talk on January 26th. Please bring people. If you're in Austin, please come. Bring people. Bring people who are not so sure about Israel. Bring people who hate Israel. Bring people over, and let's have a good conversation. I mean, I'll give a talk. Lots of time for Q&A. I would love to have some people who disagree respectfully. Yeah, it will be, you know, oh, this is respectfully. But as long as I let me speak. And that'll be at the University of Texas in Austin. So hopefully that'll be a big event. We'll be doing two talks in Michigan, one at the University of Michigan on the 23rd, and one at Northwood University on the 24th, both about capitalism and morality. So a lot of stuff happening in January, a lot of public talks. I hope you guys can make some of them. I know a bunch of you in Michigan. And I know a lot of you who listen. I don't know if anybody live is listening from Austin. But a lot of you in Austin, Texas, a lot of objectivist in Austin, Texas, please join as well. All right, so let's get going. I think there's a lot to talk about here, but we'll see. It partially depends on your questions and so on. So let's jump in. I don't want to spend any time on the background. You all know the background. Israel is at war. The war is being executed in Gaza. It is being executed both on the air and on the ground. Israel is occupied most of the north of Gaza. It is now in the process of entering central Gaza. And it has a foothold in southern Gaza, particularly in the city of Ghanionis. But Israel does not have control over all of Ghanionis. And there are intense battles going on on the ground in Ghanionis. There's still thousands, thousands of Hamas troops. We'll call them troops because that's what they are. And all of Gaza, there were some estimates to 30,000 to 50,000 people who worked for Hamas. Of them, Israel has probably killed somewhere between 8,000 to 10,000. So you're still looking at, and that probably includes the ones that have been captured. I don't know how many injured, but you've got to estimate maybe another 8,000 injured. So it's taken out maybe 40% of the force the Hamas has, but that still leaves thousands and thousands. And there's a sense in which the low-hanging fruit, the ones that were easy to take out, have already been taken out. The leadership of Hamas is still intact. The political leadership, which is mostly outside of the Gaza Strip, is completely intact. The assassinations of those people have not taken place. And are likely to take years to actually take place. But what is, I think for many people, somewhat disappointing is the inability of Israel to locate and to kill the leadership of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. They are obviously in tunnels somewhere, but not in the tunnels Israel has already discovered. They keep moving and slipping out of Israel's grip. And as we talked about in the past, this is unbelievably difficult warfare. Not only is urban warfare very, very difficult, the most difficult type of warfare, but urban warfare with tunnels is even more difficult. It's unbelievably difficult. And I think one thing is very clear from everything we're learning out of Gaza is that Israeli intelligence has not been as good as we would believe it to be. The tunnel system is vaster, more sophisticated. And in places where I don't think Israel anticipated, we saw that very large tunnel where you could drive a car through it. I don't think Israel expected that. I don't think Israel knew it was there. So Israel is being surprised by the number, extent, and type of tunnels that they are finding. And that is disappointing in a sense that you'd expect Israeli intelligence to be better. And the fact that the leadership of Hamas has not been yet located, has not yet been killed, is again, we're 2 and 1 half months into this. This is again another example of some more intelligence failure. Israel should have been able to find them by now and kill them by now and eliminate them by now. But it has not been able to do so. All right, so the war is where it is. Israel is pounding away. It is systematically, if you will, going neighborhood by neighborhood, going after the Hamas. It's killing many of them, capturing many of them. It's gaining intelligence, but obviously not the kind of intelligence that it really reaches the intelligence to find the leaders. The assassination attempts, as we said, assassinations have not started. We'll see if they ever happen, but they certainly have not started. And I don't expect them to anytime soon. There's still quite a bit of Gaza left to scan. And the challenge is going to get ever bigger in the sense that Israel has asked this civilian population to keep evacuating into a smaller and smaller place. Well, the Hamas leaders are probably with the evacuees, they're probably with the civilian population in this shrinking area. But every time Israel goes into an area and demands justifiably that the civilians evacuate, well, it's leaving a smaller and smaller area for them to enter. But an area that is going to be at the end of the day, is going to be very small with like 2 million people in it. It's going to be impossible to operate. It's hard to assess exactly what needs to be done, given the care that Israel takes not in killing civilians, certainly not gratuitously, and the international pressure on Israel not to kill civilians. So will Israel ever capture the leadership of Hamas? Will they ever get there? How? What is the mechanism by which they do it? If the Palestinians are relegated to a smaller and smaller area that Israel cannot enter because it's just too much. Hard to tell. And I'm sure the strategy, I mean, my expectation is that what the strategy will be, is once they get to the point where the whole population is condensed and it's in one small place and they've cleared out everything else and they've destroyed everything else. They've destroyed the tunnels. They think they've got control over the rest of the land. Israel will basically allow the Palestinians to come back, although there's nothing to come back to if you've seen pictures out of Gaza. Gaza's basically being, to a large extent, being flattened. And that will disperse them, which will allow Israel to go into the areas that hasn't yet gone into and take care of whoever is left. So I expect that is the strategy and that's what they'll do. So let's go to the question of, can Israel win? And the real question here is, what is winning? What does winning mean? And even before we ask the question of what is winning, you have to ask the question of, who is the enemy? Because you have to know who you're winning over. Who are you defeating? Who in this war is the enemy? And I think I've said this in previous shows, but I think it is a massive mistake of Israel's, which might prevent it from actually winning the war and of the international community and certainly of the United States to define the enemy as Hamas. Hamas, indeed, is not the enemy. Hamas is a political party. It's an organization. It is a ruling entity. But they rule over a people and over a territory. We don't say, in the war in Ukraine right now, the war is not against, I don't even know what Putin's political party is called, but whatever Putin's political party is. No, the war is between Ukraine and Russia. The war in Vietnam was between the US, South Vietnam, and North Vietnam. The war in Iraq was between the US and Iraq. And that is a correct conceptualization of what a war engages. It is a war between peoples represented by the armed forces guided by their government. But it is the peoples that are at war, not just the regime. The regime cannot be separated from the people. The regime is part of the people. The people support the regime. Otherwise, the regime would not be in power for very long. The people fund the regime. The people work for the regime. The people send their kids to be soldiers in the regime. So a war is between countries. And what that means is between the peoples of the countries. And this is why even though you might not agree with the war that your government is engaged in, you are still going to suffer the consequence of that war. There's no way for you to escape those consequences. Because your representatives, the people who represent you in matters of force, have entered you into a war whether you like it or not. That's the reality of war. And in that sense, it is really, really important to consider that Israel is at war with the Palestinian people. And Israel is at war with Iran and its satellites, or its, what would you call them, its various forces arrayed across the Middle East. Those are two wars Israel has engaged in, against Iran and against the Palestinians. Hamas, it just happens to be the name of the political party in charge of the Palestinians and in charge of its military forces. Whether you vote for war or not, it's still your war. I didn't vote for welfare. Still, people get my welfare. I didn't vote for regulations. We still have regulations. It's our regulations. Can't help it. These people represent you like it or not. It's called representative government. So the first thing Israel has to do is define who the enemy is. And here, I think there are two basic enemies. It is Hamas. Well, no, sorry, it is the Palestinian people. And it is Iran and its proxies. And the proxies here I consider the Hezbollah, the Iranian agents and provocateurs in Syria, the Iranian militia forces in Iraq. These are all countries. These are all forces that are basically guided explicitly by Iran. And anytime they attack you, basically Iran is attacking you. So Israel is at war with two entities, the Palestinian people in Iran. And what's interesting is, of course, that Israel won't admit that. Israel claims to be at war with Hamas and maybe with Hezbollah. It's about it. The fact that Israel, yesterday or the day before yesterday, assassinated a senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who was in Syria. They would still deny that they're at war with Iran. He was assassinated, a bomb from the air. He was assassinated because he was the conduit for weapons from Iran to the Hezbollah. But this is a major, major win. The president of Iran today went on Iranian television and told the Israelis they would pay dearly for the loss of this great Iranian hero. So Israel has not defined the Palestinians as the enemy. And therefore, can it win a war where it's not willing to define the enemy? It's going to be tough. And then will it win a war when one of the enemies, Iran, it won't even name. It will only name their proxies. And can Israel win a war with the Palestinians without winning the war with Iran? I'm skeptical. So can Israel win? Yes. If it defines the enemy, is the Palestinians and the Iranians. And it basically demolishes the Palestinians. Now, here, I don't mean killing them all. I just mean it pacifies them. Israel takes control of the Gaza Strip, complete control of the Gaza Strip. Israeli troops are patrolling the streets. They've gone house to house, tunnel to tunnel, basement to basement, and disarmed the place. They control the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt so that no more weapons can be smuggled in from the Egyptian side. No more heavy equipment to build tunnels can be smuggled in from the Egyptian side. That Israel controls the entire Gaza Strip is basically, which it can do, basically killed or captured an overwhelming majority of Hamas fighters killed its leadership and is occupying the territory. Hopefully, it is also assassinated Hamas leaders overseas. At that point, it negotiates a deal with the Saudis, with Dubai, with Egypt to basically have them fund the reconstruction of Gaza. But on the basis of a completely revised view of Israel, such a rebuilding would have to include the Saudis' recognition of the state of Israel and diplomatic relations set up. It would have to include the monitoring of the educational system by Israel and these other forces to make sure that the brainwashing of children against Jews and Israelis ends and will never be brought back. It could include Egyptian Saudi troops. It could include, I don't know, international peacekeeping forces, whatever, with a clear oversight by Israel of all security issues. And with the idea of building Gaza into the so-called Singapore of the Middle East, it would also have to acquire Israel to reoccupy the West Bank, to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, and to create some kind of parallel educational system in the West Bank that reflects this new reality that ends the veneration of martyrs, that ends the horrific anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic curriculum that the Palestinian kids are now brainwashed with. And for that, Israel must occupy the West Bank and must dismantle all. It needs to take the weapons away from everybody there, including the Palestinian Authority that have the police and all these other functions. That is just a charade that needs to end. This pretence that the Palestinian Authority is some moderate force that really wants peace needs to end. And Israel has to occupy the entire West Bank in Gaza with a transition to, I don't know, Gaza being ultimately run by some kind of coalition of Saudis and Egyptians or something like that. I don't know. Something would have to be negotiated. Israel doesn't want to long-term occupy Gaza. It makes no sense. But it also has to have guarantees regarding education, guarantees regarding tunnels, guarantees regarding weapons. It needs to be a demilitarized zone. It's under the Palestinians. The Palestinians should not be allowed to own weapons. Now, that would be victory over the Palestinians. What the Palestinians need is shock therapy. They need to understand unequivocally that they can never win, that Israel will never disappear, that Israel will never fold, that Israel will never just go away, that they will never get the river to the sea, that they won't get anything. And if they keep it up, they'll just be destroyed and killed and nothing will come of it other than misery. And they need to be miserable. The misery that's being inflicted on the Palestinians right now is, in my view, not enough. There's some evidence that they're really turning on Hamas and blaming Hamas so much of this misery. And it's exactly what you need. You need the Palestinians to understand unequivocally that they are the problem, that their leadership is the problem, that they must change their ways, that they must figure out a solution on how to live if they care about life. And for those who do care about life, because a certain percentage of them certainly do, they need to figure out how to get rid of those who don't. And the Palestinians should view it as urgent on their part to do it. I don't think there's any option but for Israel to be on the ground. It needs to occupy. It needs to control. And it needs to teach a lesson. And it needs to show that it's not afraid. And it needs to use overwhelming force so that the Palestinians, again, get the message they can never win. And at the same time, Israel has to find a way to deal with the Iranians. It has to do it, where they want to wait until after it's cleaned out Gaza. But it needs to do it. I suggested a preemptive strike in Hezbollah in the first week. That did not happen. But that needed it happened. Israel needs to occupy southern Lebanon. A lot of occupation here. But that's what victory is going to require. It needs to occupy from the Israeli border to the Netanyi River. It needs to be in Israeli control. Israel needs to demilitarize that area. The Netanyi River is a river that flows east to west, north of the Israeli border. It needs to destroy the Hezbollah leadership in Beirut. And it needs to destroy the capacity to inflict pain on Israel. And that means massive bombing campaign, ground operations, and a systematic dismantling of Hezbollah, at least, in the border region. And then it has to, in one way or another, whether with US help or not. It needs to turn its sights on Iran. Now, I don't know what you do with Iran. The leadership somehow needs to be weakened. The economy needs to be dramatically weakened. I've suggested, in the past, taking out all of Iran's oil facilities, basically destroying the economy and encouraging the Iranian people to rise up against their regime, a regime that will only bring them death and destruction. And this is, in a sense, it's the same as with Palestinians. Just the Palestinians are completely brainwashed, and they really need to go through the pain. The Iranians, I think, are looking for an opportunity to rise up against their regime. And if the United States won't do it, then Israel must do it. Its own survival depends on it long term. It cannot allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. And it should destroy any facility where they are working on anything resembling nuclear weapons. And then, of course, if you take out the economy, they won't have the money to develop nuclear weapons and missiles and all the rest of it. And if you weaken the Iranian Revolutionary God, hopefully you create an incentive for somebody, the population, to rise up against them and depose them. That's what victory would look like. A new regime in Iran, a destroyed Hezbollah, now dealing with a new regime in Iran who are not the ally, because Hezbollah is nothing without the Iranians, nothing without the Iranians. And a completely utterly pacified Palestinian people. And at that point, the Palestinians are the great beneficiaries. They will get money from the Gulf States and money from Saudi Arabia. They will be able to build up Gaza to be whatever they want it to be, assuming they have a positive vision. But the one thing they will not be allowed to do is have weapons and teach their kids hatred. Now, there's indications that the Saudis and others would go along with something like this. They seem to want to pacify the, to pacify the, they seem to want to have a good relationship with Israel and they want to pacify the Palestinians and pacify the extreme voices, the extreme Islamist voices in the Arab world. They somewhat want to have the K-Kanita too. They want to be good Muslims. And they want to advocate for some of the ideas behind the Islamists. And at the same time, they don't want the Islamists they want to convert their economies and the modern economies. And they want friendly relationships with the West. And they want to be a real economic force even once their oil is less important. So I mean, you have to break the cycle. And the only way to break the cycle is thorough absolute humiliation, thorough absolute defeat. The Japanese did not continue to hate America after the end of the war. The Germans did not continue to be warmongers and hateful after the war. Why? Because they were crushed. Because the entire way of life that led to World War II was demolished, destroyed. The Palestinians have to believe at the end of this war that Allah is not on their side. That Allah has abandoned them, even better that He doesn't exist, but that is not on their side. And that Allah has given power to the Israelis and that they have to accept that. They need to go through the cognitive dissonance that all has changed. Now again, I think that can happen. I have no doubt that that can happen. I think the Palestinians, that can happen to Palestinians. I think they've been on the verge of that a number of times. I think it's only Israel's weakness that has sustained all this. Now, there are other questions. Will Israel win? And here I don't know. Certainly, the big war, I don't know if they will. You raths as I overestimate the power of Israel. No, I think Israel, its leadership, its military, and its civilians underestimate how much power they have. But Israel has the power, if it's willing to use it, has the power to defeat all of its enemies. And to win this, it has that ability, it has that power if it believes in itself and is willing to use it. But then the question is, will it? A, will it use it? Will it risk alienating the West and alienating the United States in order to win? Because that's what it's going to take. To win, you're going to have to alienate the United States, alienate many of the Western countries. But has it shown the will to do so? I don't think so. And I think the first, I mean, there are many signs of weakness that Israel has exhibited. One is that it took it so long to really engage with the Palestinians in Gaza. That it took so long to bring ground troops to play that the bombing campaign, in spite of everything the Americans and Europeans are saying, was too long, tepid, fearful. But I think the biggest sign of weakness was the negotiated ceasefire and the aid that Israel allows into the Gaza Strip. One of the most powerful tools Israel has is the so-called humanitarian crisis in Gaza. If life becomes miserable enough for the Palestinians, they will turn on their own leadership. They will blame the Hamas. Again, you're seeing the beginnings of that right now. Israeli government came under a lot of pressure from the US for ceasefire and for aid, for aid, aid, aid. Even though everybody knows, everybody knows, the aid goes to Hamas. Everybody knows the aid is in the tunnels. Everybody knows only a fraction of the aid is going to the Palestinian people. Everybody knows that the United Nations organization that is responsible for UNRWA, that is responsible for the Palestinian refugees, is basically run by the Hamas. Palestinians know this. But by providing aid, Israel is bailing out Hamas. Instead of saying all the suffering in Gaza is the Hamas' fault, all of it. You want aid, you want food, you want water, you want cell phone. I think there's still internet in Gaza. Israel still allows them internet service. You want all that? Hand over Hamas, hand over the hostages. I mean, some of the stories from the hostages is that many of them were held in private homes of Palestinians, not necessarily members of Hamas, not necessarily fighters. So these people are responsible for Hamas. And therefore, it's up to them to hand Hamas over. Now, Israel government was under a lot of pressure domestically to cut a deal, to get the hostages, some of the hostages back. But it's a sign of weakness. I'm sorry. It's a sign of weakness. Whenever you negotiate with terrorists, it's a sign of weakness. Whenever you negotiate with people dedicated to destroying you and killing you, even if you pretend that it's on the best of terms, you're exhibiting weakness. Whenever you provide aid to your enemy with trucks of water and food and oil, that is weakness. Whenever you release prisoners, some of them, many of them, responsible for violent crimes against your own people, that is weakness. War requires brutality. It requires commitment to defeating the enemy, and in this case, defeating the Palestinians. Israel is not exhibiting that. It is far too cautious. So will Israel win? I mean, Israel will win a partial victory. It is likely to destroy most of Hamas. It is likely to kill most of its leaders. It is likely to occupy much of Gaza, maybe all of Gaza, but ultimately be forced to leave. It is unlikely to actually take on the Hezbollah and destroy them, and it is very unlikely to take on Iran. I think the likely scenario is the same as I said on day one. Although they've done more than I expected, and their rhetoric is fairly good. Although again, they talk too much about defeating Hamas instead of defeating the Palestinians. So I think the scenario is that this will be a partial victory. It'll set the Palestinians back many, many years, decades maybe. But it will not be enough to change the mentality of the Palestinian people. It will not be enough to convince them that they're being defeated, and it is now time to cut a deal. It's not time for peace. Does Israel have the backbone, the demand from the Saudis and others for any kind of deal here to control the education of these kids? They haven't in the West Bank with the Palestinian Authority. They've left the Palestinian Authority, educate the kids any way they want, which has meant brainwash them against Israel, against Jews. So I just see it as likely to be another partial victory. Look, militarily, Israel cannot be defeated by the Palestinians and will not be defeated by the Palestinians. Hezbollah cannot defeat Iran, cannot defeat Israel. But can Israel win? Yes. Will it win? Probably not. Its victory will be partial. It'll kick the can way down the road. But it'll kick the can down the road. At the end of whatever happens in Gaza, Israel will still be stuck with a Hezbollah problem. It will still be stuck with a Lebanon problem. And fundamentally and importantly, it will still be stuck with an Iran problem. Will Israel, after fighting a brutal war in Gaza, seeing dozens, ultimately maybe hundreds of its kids die in the battlefield, will Israel have the energy, the willingness to take on other enemies, whether in Lebanon or in Iran? I'll make a prediction here. The answer is no. They will not. So I expect, as well as buying time, it'll buy some years, maybe some decades. It will not solve the problem, even though it's got a real opportunity to it. And certainly had, right after October 7th, really had an opportunity to completely change the structure of the debate. They had an opportunity to thoroughly crush the Palestinian people. They chose not to. They're choosing not to now. So is victory possible? I think so. Even without America's active help, I think victory is possible. Will victory be achieved? I think the probability is very small. Partial wins, partial victories, partial success. But to really win, you'd need to embrace a different moral code than the world has today. You'd need to embrace a different moral code than Israel has today, or that the United States has today. You'd have to embrace something that is hard for Americans today to appreciate. You'd have to embrace a true America first strategy, or a true Israel first strategy, where you do to your enemies whatever needs to be done to your enemies so that they don't stop being your enemies forever, not for a little bit, just as the US did in World War II. And I think it's right to compare it to World War II. We are dealing with evil. We are dealing with an existential battle. This is not about, I don't know, some distant war that nobody cares about, that is irrelevant to our lives, that is relevant to our security. We're not talking about the US going to Vietnam. It has no real interest there. It's not relevant for them. And the Vietnamese are not really the enemy of the United States in any real way. We're talking about an existential war on your border, life or death, with a force that is clearly unequivocally fighting on the side of evil. It's only one way to win that war. And that is, we've talked about it, through devastating action. All right, that's the way I see it. Sadly, I don't think this will be resolved not this time, probably not next time. I don't know what it's going to take to get Western civilization to the point where it's willing to actually win fully, unequivocally, against the other side. But we're not there yet. We're not willing to take the actions necessary. We're not selfish enough. We don't have a foreign policy that is selfish enough, that is virtuous enough. We keep compromising with virtue. And that will only lead to more deaths, not fewer deaths, more deaths. Morality is on the side of those who insist on winning. And again, this is a conflict of good guys and bad guys, and the good guys need to win. It's a moral cause. And they're not, and they probably won't. All right, a few reminders to everybody. You can ask questions in Super Chat. I've got a lot of like $2 to $10 questions, not a lot of $20 questions. So you're encouraged to submit $20 questions if you're interested, can afford it, and if it's a value to you. Of course, you can also do stickers. You don't have to ask questions. Up to you, we've got. Thank you. Catherine, who did a sticker. And let's see. Oh, everybody else has a question. Cool. No, there was some stickers. Jonathan and Gail did stickers. So thank you, guys. So you can ask questions. $20 questions get preference. Above $20 gets preference, so I appreciate all the questions. I appreciate all the support. Thank you. I will mention that I will be in Colorado giving a talk February, sorry, Friday, January 12th. That's in two weeks. I hope you can join us at 5.30 and Centennial. You can look it up online. You can find the talk. It's $30. And we'll also be going out to dinner afterwards. You can join us for dinner. There's an added charge for that. But I really hope you can make it. It'll be a lot of fun. And let's see. Beyond that, remind you these shows are sponsored by the Einwand Institute. And right now, they are taking applications for their Einwand conference in Austin, Texas at the end of March. And this is particularly for students and people interested in maybe becoming intellectuals or objectivist intellectuals or really getting a deep dive into the objectives philosophy, ideas considering joining the Einwand University. You can apply for a scholarship. It's einrad.org slash start here. And you can get all the information relevant for that. All right. Let's jump into some of these questions. I'm trying to think if I want to go by topic. Let's do at least something with $20 questions. Let's start with the topical ones. Hopper Campbell says, during World War II, there was an active anti-Nazi underground within Germany. Where is that in the Muslim world? Where are the supposedly moderate Muslims protesting Hamas? Could it be that they don't exist? I think they exist, but they're silent. They exist, but they don't have the more backbone. They don't have any kind of more certainty about their cause. And therefore, they're not participating. There are plenty of Muslims who have not gone out to pro-Hamas demonstrations. But they're also not going out to demonstrations against Hamas. They, you know, you could think of them as cowardly, or you could think of them as just not having a backbone, or not having, not really knowing what they're fighting for, not really having a positive agenda. And here, I blame the West for this. The West, which should know what the alternative is. The West, that should be willing to fight for the alternative, fight for liberty and reason and individualism, right? Those are the ideas that the West should be fighting for against Islam. The West is like, eh, we don't really believe in any of those things. We don't like Islam. We don't like Islamists. And we're fine with these Muslims. We don't like Islamists. And we don't really know what we're about. And we feel a little guilty because we colonized you. And we feel a little guilty because we're rich. And we feel a little guilty because we're the oppressor and you're the oppressed. So, you know, we don't like Hamas, but we're not really going to demonstrate against Hamas. And we're not going to get really upset about Hamas. Another thing about Muslims, non-Muslims don't hold that view. So there's a sense in which Muslims are like, they're just part of the culture. They're part of the culture that isn't willing to fight, fight for Western values. Isn't willing to fight for civilization. They're just willing to kind of, eh, you know, we don't like you. Don't be too extreme. Don't go to it. Don't exaggerate. We just want moderation. We just want, you're not going to win that battle. Islamists will always beat you if you confront them with, look, we don't like you, but we really have no alternative. And we just want you to be moderate, please. And so, it's hard to blame moderate Muslims who exist because everybody's moderate. Whatever moderate, Christians moderate, atheists moderate, everybody, and they don't stand and they're not willing to fight and they don't represent anything. And that's what leaves the opening for Islamists and other forms of authoritarian, authoritarians to step in and take over. And they could take over in the name of Islam, that is definitely a possibility in Europe, or they could take over in the name of Christianity. But they face no opposition, no real opposition. And that's the problem. But yes, Islam has a problem within itself that it never went through a renaissance, it never went through an enlightenment, and therefore it is still in its basic structure and ideology, a primitive dark ages ideology. All right, James, do you think it's hard for good people to understand evil, but evil has an easy time understanding the good? Well, I definitely think it's very difficult for good people to understand evil. It's very difficult to comprehend people who are evil. Right, I mean, think about it in terms of October 7th. Could you imagine yourself raping and torturing and killing people, young kids? I mean, is that even conceivable? And what would you, what kind of mentality would you have? Now, Jordan Peterson will say, oh no, no, no, we're all capable of it. It's in every one of us, everyone is capable of it. But the reality is that's just not true. Well, but what about the Nazis? Well, most Germans were not Nazis. They might, it might be true that all of us are willing to turn a blind eye to evil. And that's pretty evil in and of itself. But to actually engage in evil activities most of us are not willing to do. And it's hard for us to understand what goes on in the minds of people who do do it. So I do think it's difficult to understand evil. It's difficult to understand white people evade. It's difficult to understand white people do the horrible things that they do to themselves, never mind other people. But even though it's an easy time understanding the good, the good is, I mean, I don't know that evil understands the good. There's a sense in which one could say if they were understood the good, maybe they wouldn't be evil. But they understand the good enough to be able to predict what the good will do and to take advantage of the good. And, you know, so they have enough of an understanding of how the good works. Maybe they don't really understand what drives the good. They understand enough because they don't understand the good as reason, the good as engagement with reality, the good as rational. I don't think they have that understanding. But they have this vague understanding of what the good will do and they can predict it and they can try to manipulate it. Huppercampbell, is everyone susceptible to reason? Even those who are vade on some level will register a rational argument. No, not necessarily. I don't know what it means. Everyone is susceptible to reason. People are, people who are vade systematically, I don't think open to reason. I don't think they're interested in reason. I don't think they'd hear a rational argument. I don't think it would integrate into anything. It's not like arguments of floating things that you can separate from the rest of your life and the rest of your thinking. I think somebody who evades on a regular basis is as separated himself from reality, as separated himself from reason, cannot, unless they really revamp the way they think about the world, cannot, they're not open to reason. They're not open to rational thought. They have blocked themselves off. And it takes a real revolution inside their minds to change that. If you're vade on a regular basis, you're doing damage and at some point it's irreversible and at some point you're just, that's it. You're in a sense gone and you're not connected anymore to reality. You're not connected anymore to reason and rationality. Michael says, even though coming off as an abrasive and certain, risks turning some people off of objectivism, being uncertain in argumentation is undermining of the whole foundation of philosophy. Yeah, but it all depends on how you do it. For example, you can ask the other person a lot of questions without necessarily giving the answers and try to show them in subtle, delicate way that they hold a contradiction. That they're engaged, that they hold a falser. You could show them at the end, look, this is how it is, but you don't have to start with the conclusion pounded on it over the head. You have to reflect the fact that you are certain in your perspective, but you don't have to start with that and you don't have to make that your argument. You want to lead them to that conclusion. You want to give them the evidence to show that so that they can experience it themselves, they can see it themselves, they can understand themselves and they can share in your certainty. Now it depends what you're trying to do. I'm assuming here you're trying to convince somebody. To convince somebody, you're bringing them along. Inran convinced me not by giving me 10 commandments or 10 statements of which she was certain. She convinced me by providing me lots of concretes that led me to that conclusion so that when gold speech happens and he says it with certainty. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I get it, I've seen the progression. I understand the sequence and that's not easy to do. But it's the proper way I think to bring people around. All right, let's see where are we. A long way from our goal for tonight. All right, our real goal is on Sunday so we're gonna focus on that. All right, we've got one more $20 questions. Lyvan says, say there was an objective of society on the moon and people arrived wanting to spread religion. Would it be just to shut down, would it be just to shut down their schools and the grounds that they are calling for self-sacrifice? No, it would not. It would not be just to shut down their schools. It would be just to boycott their schools. It would be just to convince everybody around you not to attend their schools. It would be just to try to convince the parents that they are bad at schools. It would be just not to deal with them. It would be just to ignore them. But you have no right to use force on somebody you disagree with. Even if you know their ideas are important. Until they engage in initiation of force, you have no right to use force against them, which what shutting down schools would be. So no, not even, and this I know will be a shock to Scott, not even if the schools awoke. Can't use force. You can boycott them. You can encourage people not to go. You can explain to them why walk is evil or why religion is evil. There's no such thing as a non-aggressive principle. Doesn't work that way. All right, Michael, is Israel the vanguard of the civilized world? Yeah, I think it is. I think the civilized world, whether they know it or not, is engaged in a long-term struggle with Islam, particularly with Islamism. And Hamas is just one, and the Palestinians just one group in a much bigger struggle, funded by the way, almost exclusively by, not exclusively, but to logic then, by Iran and by Qatar. That's why Iran needs to be defeated. But it's a broad struggle with the West. And Iran's cooperation with Russia is because right at this point, they both oppose the West. They both are anti-the West. That's why they can cooperate. The Muslim's figure will deal with Russia later, and the Russian's figure will deal with Islam later. Right now, the West is the enemy. Unbelievable, you guys. So, yes, Israel is in the vanguard of civilization. It's amazing. So, Edward says, Iran ignores anything that is libertarian. Even when I do a whole show, and a show is on, you know, Mille, the libertarian president, even when I debate an al-Qaqabalist, even when I do all these things, I ignore anything that is libertarian. These are the kind of the generalization nonsense that people engage in on the chat. It's just stupid. Evasive of reality. Yep. There's no such thing as the non-aggression principle. There's such a thing as individual rights and the protection of individual rights, and those involved, the non-initiation of force. That's not a principle that's brought out of nowhere, which is how the libertarians viewed. The non-aggression principle is a libertarian principle. It's not a principle. It's derived from a long chain of reasoning and induction, and just a pop out of nowhere and present a non-aggression principle is, it's silly, and it's not productive, and it's anti-philosophical. It's taking knowledge out of context. I think there's no such thing as a non-aggression principle. Does that mean, as you conclude, you want to ignore anything that is libertarian? That's a stretch, Edward. A stretch, even for you. All right, can you reach out to Sam Sita to do a debate about Israel? He's been viciously attacking Israel non-stop. It would be great exposure for you. Also, when are you interviewing Yomi Park? Let me see. I'll try to reach out to Sam Sita. I don't know if he'll debate me on this. I'll try, but suddenly give it a shot. And Yomi Park sometime next year I will be interviewing her. Oh, the big interview I'm doing next week. Talk about libertarian, God, but I ignore all libertarians. All libertarians. Next week I'll be interviewing an economist who probably considers himself a libertarian, but a free market economist from Argentina. And we'll be discussing Malay. So we're discussing the state of the Argentinian economy and the state of the Argentinian economy and Malay's program, what he's already done, what the name of the economist is Ivan Corina. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing because it's Spanish. But anyway, I don't think it's... Anyway, we'll figure it out, right? So we'll be doing that on Thursday. January 4th at 6 p.m. East Coast time. So I'm moving my shows earlier. The evening shows are now gonna be, I think it's 6 p.m. East Coast time on Tuesdays and Thursdays, most Tuesdays and Thursdays. So the interview will be with Ivan. Again, an economist who appears on Argentinian television all the time, who's a free market economist and we'll be discussing Malay's program, the plan and everything else that is going to, he thinks will happen in Argentina. What he thinks will work, what he thinks won't work. What he thinks is problematic, what he thinks doesn't. What does the dollarization mean in Argentina? We'll get a real expert. And so I'm really looking forward to that. I secured that today. So I'm really happy. I know Ivan, Ivan, we've met several times, I think several times when I've been to Argentina. So this will be really good. This will be really good. All right, Ed, I know you do not like Benjamin Netanyahu. I saw a documentary that was favorable to him. Obviously political reasons. What is it about the man you do not like? Well, I don't like the fact that he is a sellout, basically. He talks tough and then governs weakly. He deals with the worst people in Israeli politics in order to stay in power and he always manages to stay in power. He claims to believe in free markets and yet his prime minister has done nothing to move Israel towards free markets. Edward has decided that it's not enough to say one stupid thing about me in the chat. He's gonna do more than one. He's replacing Scott today, Scott's son. He's here but he's kind of, I don't know, he's maybe ate too much yesterday during Christmas and he's super quiet and relaxed. So Edward's picking up a slack. So now, Yuan doesn't like right-wing politicians. That's why I don't like Netanyahu because I don't like right-wing politicians. Isn't that right? God, these people, they listen to my show, every single show, Edward is like here every single time. And he has no, he doesn't listen to anything that I actually say. Nothing actually enters. It's like he's so busy chatting and disagreeing and it's just an interesting phenomenon and how people who listen and enter there every single time, almost every single time, and who just nothing registers. It just doesn't, anyway. So Netanyahu has sold out on all his, quote, right-wing principles that I agree with. He sold them out. So he said never negotiate with terrorists and he was against the Oslo Accord and when he became Prime Minister in the 1890s, one of the first things he did was cut a deal with Yasser Al-Fat, a deal that blew up in his face. And as a consequence, he lost an election. Doed Barak. So the left one, that will please Scott. So then, when he was Finance Minister, he was pretty good and I liked him. He was a good Finance Minister. I was very supportive of Netanyahu and the Finance Minister. Liberalized, moved the Israeli economy on a better footing towards more free markets. And then, he becomes Prime Minister and all the liberalization stops, stops. Even though he has majorities, he can do whatever he wants as Prime Minister. He doesn't liberalize. Then the other thing I deeply dislike about Netanyahu is that he cuts deals with the crazy, ultra-orthodox religious parties in Israel. But religious parties don't care about the security of Israel because their own people don't serve in the military. They refuse to serve in the military. They believe in praying for Israel, not at actually fighting. And that they demand welfare because the men don't work and the men receive welfare from the government. So the secular part of Israel subsidizes the religious part of Israel. And Netanyahu, the last 16 years, would be signing off on that over and over and over again. Even when he said opportunities to form more secular coalitions with other people in the center right who are more secular and less parasitical because the ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel are parasites, he doesn't do it. He'd rather sign, he'd rather have the parasites, the Israeli parasitical religious because he knows he could bribe them and that they will still loyal to him into the future. So I don't like him because he's horrible for Israel. He has been a disastrous politician for the state of Israel. Israel could be so much richer, could be so much more secure. Now the other thing is, talk about Hamas. He has fought several wars with Hamas, the Palestinian people as represented by Hamas. He's fought at least one war with Hezbollah and they've all been failures. He's lost all of them. And again, he sounds the trumpets and he beats the drums and he's super aggressive and then he loses. And he's done it over and over and over again. And if anybody is a sponsor of October 7th in the political leadership of Israel, it is Netanyahu because it is he who has refused to defeat Hamas. It is he who has emboldened them. It is he who has supported supplying them with electricity and water. In that sense, he has supported Hamas, him and his governments. So why do I hate Netanyahu? Cause he's right wing and I don't like right wing people. I mean, that is so, and you know, I've explained this so many times and I've yet to find somebody to say, but look, no, look at all these good things that he did. I don't know those people who say, look at all. I mean, the best I hear, the number one argument I hear from Israelis about Netanyahu, I mean, Americans all say, but he gives such a great speech. Yes, in English, but I also understand Hebrew and in Hebrew, he doesn't give a good speech. In Hebrew is a sell-out and it's what he does, not what he says that counts, but the one argument for Netanyahu I hear from Israelis that gives you a little bit of maybe something. There's nobody better. It's like, why Trump? Well, because Biden. So with Netanyahu, why Netanyahu? Cause there's nobody better. I know two dozen politicians in Israel who are better, at least on paper, not until they've given a chance. We won't know. The economy in Israel is strong in spite of Netanyahu, not because of Netanyahu, in spite of Netanyahu. And Netanyahu's an atheist, give me a break if you think Netanyahu is Jewish in the sense that he's religious. Netanyahu is an atheist. Netanyahu is prime minister for the first time in the mid to late 90s, and then he came back in the mid 2000s after Shavon passed away. Of course, Netanyahu's an atheist. Whole Netanyahu family are atheists. They've always been atheists. I'd say venture the significant portion of Israeli politicians are atheists. They're not gonna say it, but they are. All the founders of Israel were atheists. But even on the right, many of the politicians are atheists. He's Jewish in a sense that he's collectivist, in a sense that he believes in the nation of the Jewish nation, in that sense, there's some collectivism there. But he's not religious. Jacob says Israel should never have sent ground troops. Everything from 10, 7 was enough heartache. No matter how many tunnels found, the world will always blame Israel. How much heartache it is will take. I mean, you can only do so much from there. That's the reality. And the fact is, the Palestinians need to see Israelis on the ground. They need to see Israelis occupying them. At some point, now, you could make the argument, and I'm not gonna be against that, that they should have flattened Gaza completely and then gone in on the ground, maybe. Maybe that's true. But I think part of it is their delusion that they could go in on the ground and get the Hamas leadership and it would all be over. But it can't be until Gaza is brought to its knees. You know, sadly, Israeli soldiers are dying every day in Gaza. And it's heart-wrenching and it's horrible and it's tragic. But that's war and there's no way around it. There's no way to win wars without risking your troops, without placing your own people in danger. At some point, it has to happen. At some point, the Hamas is deep down in tunnels and you have to kill them. You have to destroy them. You have to kill them. And, you know, I think it would have been a lot more difficult with the world, that hates Israel anyway, if it was only from the air. But Israel's screwed no matter what. I agree with you completely. Israel's gonna be blamed no matter what. But it has to win. It has to at least win for the most part. If not, you know, a partial victory, at least. And that requires troops on the ground, unfortunately. Clark says, when I encounter any semites online, I intensely, the intensity of hatred, I find so bizarre. Yes, it's an irrational, visceral hatred of, you know, they are so brainwashed by, it depends which direction they're coming from in terms of the kind of brainwashing, but yes. Michael says, do you think once enlightenment ideas have been captured by a culture they have a life of their own, they no longer need academia to sustain them? No, no. I think they have a life on their own. But if academia doesn't sustain them, i.e. if the intellectuals don't sustain them, whether it's academia or not, the intellectuals don't sustain them, they will die out. They will die out. And that's exactly what's happened in the West. They are slowly dying out. You're still there. But they cannot be sustained because there's no intellectual voice defending them. Or the intellectual voice is too small. That doodle bunny, could you do a reaction video with the Douglas Murray debate with Senk Uyghur? As far as I'm concerned, anyone who calls what Israel is doing a genocide or ethicizing is anti-Semitic. Yes, I mean, look, Douglas Murray's been phenomenal. So, the problem with reaction videos is they're typically very, the video originally is long. I disagree with everything Senk says. I'd have to disrupt them all the time. I think Douglas Murray does a pretty good job debating him. I'll look at it and see if there's something more that I can do with it. But it's very challenging. I mean, people want me to do a reaction video to Jordan Peterson and Michael Malus discussing Iron Man. And I don't know how to do it. I mean, if somebody has an idea how to do it. I mean, Jordan Peterson goes on and on and on and on with his psychological convoluted arguments about the non-existence of a self and so on. And Michael Malus is okay, but he's only okay. He never goes to the heart of it. He never goes to where morality comes from. And then it gets diverted to anarchy. And in Jordan Peterson's mind, you get anarchy that's self-interest. Iron Man's self-interest is anarchy. And it's not very good. I mean, that's really, really bad. If that's the impression it leaves in. So the problem would be is you'd have to listen. Because I mean, what I found frustrating about the video is that Malus didn't speak much. It was mostly Jordan asking Malus questions. But every question that he asked was like 10 minutes long with a one minute answer by Malus. And the problem is to have to sit through the question. I mean, the answer is I don't think I'm very good, but the bigger problem is that the questions are horrible. I mean, I was sitting there thinking, what would I say? Because it's not even clear what Jordan Peterson is even talking about. Anyway, we'll see. I might do that next week on Tuesday. I might do Jordan Peterson and Malus on Iron Man. But, you know, and look, let me just say this, but I'll say it again on Tuesday if I do it. I'm not gonna be criticizing Malus, really, because, no, that was, Ben and Ankar did a different video, a different video of Jordan Peterson, because it's very difficult. I'm not gonna be criticizing him because Jordan Peterson is very difficult to debate because he's talking at a, what he says doesn't always make sense. And it's very difficult to react to something that doesn't really make sense, that doesn't really add up. And he asks questions that I don't know what he just asked. So what am I supposed to answer? Now, I would have taken a different direction of Malus and I think Malus misses some opportunities, but I'm not saying that as a criticism of Malus because I know a little bit about what it's like to sit in front of Jordan Peterson and, you know, have to deal with the kind of arguments and the kind of questions he asks. All right, here's another one who listens regularly and thinks I'm a phony and a hypocrite, and why are you here? God, I attract the strangest people. All right, some of you are very normal. I'm glad some of you are here because otherwise if all I had was like some of the people in the chat, I would think, yeah, I'd retire. Is there any evidence, Liam says, of people being horrified by their own nihilism, nihilism? I think so. I think it comes later in life. I think a lot of people realize that they were nihilistic in their youth and are horrified by it. I think it's very hard to do it while you're in it, while you're during a nihilistic period in your life, but I think afterwards you can reflect backwards and be horrified by it, and I think people are. No, you simply call me names. You don't make arguments, Richard. Give me a break. You just don't make arguments. I'm looking back at your comments right now. No arguments, nothing. Zero, zilch. So go and pretend and evade somewhere else because it's not gonna work on me. These people in defense of now, this is good. I just disagree sometimes, Edward says, no, you don't. You actually made arguments about what I said that is just wrong. I don't like people because they're on the right, whatever the hell that means, and I dismiss everything that's libertarian. Those are not just you disagreeing with me. Those are large-scale statements about me and about the way I think about the world, which are plainly wrong. If you've listened to any of my shows, you would know that if you did that honestly. Mark says, I plan to listen to your lessons on brief history of the Middle East. Excellent, Mark. I think you'll enjoy them. Thank you for the $20. I think you'll enjoy them. I encourage everybody. I have two courses that I think are really valuable if you want to understand what's going on in the Middle East. One is a brief history of the Middle East, which I'll catch you on how many chapters it is, but it basically starts with, I think, Muhammad and you know, Muhammad and then basically the history of the Middle East from that point on. And it's a short history, so obviously it's a condensed history, it's short. And then the second one is a history of Islamism, Islamic totalitarianism. And that talks about the Wahhabis and the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia. And then it talks a lot about the Muslim Brotherhood and the birth of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1920s. And then it talks about all the spin-offs of the Muslim Brotherhood. And then, of course, the Iranian Revolution and the impact the Iranian Revolution has on the rest of the world. So those two courses I highly recommend. Both are available for free on YouTube. Just check out the history of the Middle East. I think I've got a playlist for courses. There's a course on the Middle East. There's a course on Islamic totalitarianism. There's a course on financial crisis. There are other courses, but those are the two that I encourage you to listen to if you're interested in this topic. Fagan, on the other hand, says that I'm anti-Christian and he calls me 666 and I am anti-Christian. I don't, that he's got me exactly right. I don't deny it. And him calling me 666 is kind of a compliment, so. Laren, regarding the Israel War, it seems many people want to spin ancient history in favor of one side of the other. At what point is history irrelevant? Is there a statute of limitation? Yes, I mean, there is a statute of limitation, but it's very contextual and it's very hard to figure out in any particular conflict when it should be applied. But there's a sense, a very strong sense in which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the history, is irrelevant. Really irrelevant. Which relevant is the present. And what's relevant is the Statue of Israel is a basically free moral country. And the Statue of the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip ruled by Hamas, which is that of a theocratic totalitarian regime that doesn't value individual rights at all. And even if you know zero about history, all you do is you show up today and you look at these two, it's clear, obvious who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. It's clear and obvious who should be supported and who should be rejected. You don't need to know about 1948 and the Six-Day War, Yom Kippur War, the Intifada, the Second Intifada. You don't need to know any of that. All you need to know is the nature of Israeli society versus the nature of Palestinian society. One is good, one is bad, one is free, one is totalitarian. One, you would want to go to vacation and one, you would run for your life from, that's it. That's the standard. Where would you consider living? That's not a bad standard. So history's, in that sense, Statue of Limitation is long past. What's relevant is what happened and if them all is the practical, which I believe it is, then the fact that Israel has evolved into this free country and actually was founded as a free country and was attacked, that's history, is consistent. Freedom is generally countries that are free and not aggressive countries and countries that are not free tend to be the aggressor. Ed, what do you think would happen if Biden tells Israel they have to have a long ceasefire to provide aid to the Palestinian people or the U.S. will not rearm Israel for some time? You know, I don't know. I don't know enough about where Israel stands in terms of its ammunition and its capacity and capabilities to resupply itself without American aid. I just don't know. And if it turns out that that's what causes Israel to have a long ceasefire and therefore to lose the war, then that is a lesson Israel has to learn from. Israel is, to one extent or another, as we stand today, dependent on the United States. It shouldn't be in that situation. It should have enough reserves of weapons systems, of ammunition to be able to withstand a fairly long war and several fronts. That should have been a strategic requirement. And if it's not, that is a failure, another failure of the Netanyahu government, which has been in the government for the last 16 years, basically. So, I think Israel would have to do a ceasefire if it really depends on those weapons. Israel can't fight a war without arms. And if it really needs to be re-armed in America, won't do it, really won't do it, seriously won't do it, not as a negotiating, but a serious one, then Israel will have to do it and it'll have to rethink its strategic positioning in the world in the future. It doesn't want to be a complete satellite of the United States. It doesn't want to be an independent country that can defend itself. And if it wants to be an independent country that can defend itself, it better have enough reserves of ammunition and weapons to be able to sustain itself. Fendt Hopper, not my wife in Votford, oh, we did that already. All right, Hopper Campbell. And if politics is downstream from culture, if the Persian culture is so Western-Oriented, why is the government so medieval and backward? So two things, one is, it's not that Western, but given the right circumstances, it's Western enough that it could be, that could become dominant. But it's also true that while politics is downstream from culture, authoritarian political force can suppress a culture for a long time, for a long time. The culture of Iran when the Mullahs took over was ready for the Mullahs to take over. Culture was no good. The Western elements, the Mullahs used those. Khomeini was very clever in using the Western elements against them. Then he got rid of them, he killed them all. And he basically changed the culture and made it very, very religious. And it's only when, it's only more recently when the culture's shown a backbone in standing up to those Mullahs, but that's taken a long time. But now that part of the culture that's more Western is not armed. And it doesn't have an overwhelming majority. It might not even be a majority, it might be just a vocal minority. But it's not insignificant, it's much bigger than it is in Saudi Arabia or Iraq or other places. So I'm not saying Persian culture is just like that. I'm saying that if you weaken the regime enough, that element could be the element that dominates. Still be a fight. And there's still a lot of people in Iran who if you had free and open elections would still vote for the theocrats. I just think that overall the Western element would be much more significant. Now I might be wrong if the regime was hurt significantly. But culture doesn't turn into politics instantaneously or even in the short run. Or even necessarily, who knows how long it takes. I mean, the Enlightenment had a, there was a very good culture of the Enlightenment and yet the politics were horrible. It took another 50 years or 100 years for the politics to catch up with the Enlightenment ideas, with the culture. I am the enemy of Christianity. I view them as the enemy. Yes, I view them as the enemy, almost. There's very few enemies that are more significant in Christianity in the West. And more insidious and more difficult to defeat because it's everywhere, right? So that is my position. Ed said, at this point, would the world turn against us or if they said their war was with the Palestinians? Yes, but they could have framed it October 7th that way. And they didn't unfortunately. I mean, think about all those rapists and torturers and murderers. How many of them were trained Hamas operatives? And how many of them were just opportunists to happen upon a, you know, that there was pillaging going on? Why not? Let's join the, let's join the whatever, right? The pogrom, just Palestinians. It could have been framed that way, but it wasn't. It's now, and now, yes, now the world would turn on you like that. But that's what has to be done. Yeah, you're not gonna win this without turning the world against you. All right, von von, sorry, but your argument stands on assumptions that they want what you want. They don't. Those who live in other worldly rewards don't care about logic. I know, that's why they need to be defeated. That's why they need to be crushed. I'm not arguing that they should be argued with, that they should be debated. I'm arguing that they should be crushed militarily. They should be humiliated. They should be broader than ease. They should be forced to acknowledge they're completed out of failure. And they can change, right? Very few of them are committed Islamists to the point where they're willing to die for it. Very few. Very few of them are committed Islamists to the point where if they see Islamism is losing, they'll stick with it in spite of that. You see, people don't like losing ideologies. It's not because they're like me. They just don't like losing. I said this about ISIS. I said, ISIS, there was a period where terrorist attack after terrorist attack after terrorist attack, and it appeared they were gonna take over Europe, and Europe was a scary place. There were so many terrorist attacks in Europe, and Muslims were coming in, and more ISIS, and I said, look, if ISIS is destroyed in Syria and in Iraq, the terrorist activity in Europe will stop. And it's exactly what happened. Because nobody in Europe wants to be a suicide bomber. If the ideology of ISIS is a loser, i.e. they lost territory, they're not the Islamic, what is it? ISIS was the caliphate. If they can't literally form a caliphate, then it loses. They're being crushed by the Americans. They're not bringing about the coming of the Messiah. So as soon as it was clear ISIS was losing, terrorism fell off a cliff. What you need to do is defeat the Islamists, defeat the Palestinians, and they will realize, oh, okay, that's not the right way to do it. All right, in sumo, I Canadians see a slow shift in public opinion from Israel being a perpetrator to being a country that has no choice but to take military action to preserve itself. Too slow a shift in my opinion. Wow, I mean, I'm impressed that you're seeing a shift. I'm glad you're seeing a shift. I'm surprised. Frank says, what is back September? Please talk of the Palestinians and the 11 Olympic athletes in 72. This event may be pro-Israel. What did it mean to you? Well, Black September was September, I think, 1970. It's called Black September because it was the month in which the King of Jordan, King Hussein at the time, decided he'd have enough of the Palestinians. They were just creating problems inside Jordan. And he basically kicked them out violently. He fought against them and forced them out of Jordan. The Palestinian refugees and forced them, through use of force, to move to Lebanon. You could even date the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War to that date as the Jordanian Civil War ended. So Black September was a name that the Palestinians gave it because for them it was black. They were basically killed by the Jordanians and forced to leave Jordan. It was then picked up as a name of a terrorist organization that functioned under the name of Black September. They were part or related to the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization. And one of the terrorist attacks that they committed was the kidnapping of 11 Olympic athletes at Munich in the Olympic Village during the Olympics of 1972. They were kidnapped. They were taken hostage. And then they demanded transportation out of Munich. So the airplane, helicopter, and then an airplane, or an airplane, and then, so they were taken in buses to the airport. And then as they were loading up, I can't remember if it was helicopters or airplanes, the German special forces tried to rescue them. And in the rescue attempt, the terrorists killed all the athletes, all the Israeli athletes, 11 of them died. This is why the Olympics are happening. It was, I mean, it turns out Israel offered the Germans help that the Israeli special forces would do it. They had experienced, the Germans turned them down. Israel wanted to guide them in terms of the operationally, where to attack, how the Germans turned them down. The Germans refused to accept Israeli help. That's partially what led to the failed operation. But anyway, the terrorists killed the athletes and they all died. Later, Israel basically hunted down the people who planned this September. Some of the terrorists, I think, were captured by the Germans. And then some other terrorists, I took some German hostages and the Germans actually released them. Israel then later caught up with them and killed them and also assassinated all the other planners of the Munich attack. So everybody associated with the attack or at least up to a certain level were killed by the Israelis, assassinated by the Israelis. What did it mean to me? I mean, it was a pretty profound event for me. I mean, I was 11. I was glued to the radio. That's where you got your news and everything at the time. The whole thing was shocking, but it wasn't surprising. It wasn't the first terrorist attack that I'd lived through. It was shocking because it was the Olympics and it got international attention. It didn't change my mind about anything because it was one in a series. The early 70s were series of PLO terrorist attacks against Israel. Many of the victims were children or teenagers like I was later. So the whole thing, you know, talked me a lot about the state of the world and the preciousness, how precious life is. So I think it had a profound impact on my growing up and my maturing as a human being. And ultimately, I think it had an impact on the kind of ideas that I embraced. Martin says, have you watched Michael Mouse with Jordan Peterson in their most recent episode? I just spoke about that. So I'll take that as I answered that question and I might do a show on it, we'll see. Brownie, how did you become so knowledgeable about the history of the Middle East? The only way one can become knowledgeable, read, read, read. Just read. We had a ton of books. I mean, I grew up in the Middle East. I know a little bit about the Middle East from just being there and learning the history while growing up and in school. But I think most of the history I learned, I learned post 9-11 by basically reading. I don't know, I read 30 books about it. Did the research, like every intellectual should do. Ex-OVNT, what is all the best countries to live in if your income is all online? I live in Canada now and it's fine. But I guess I'm just curious about what you think. I mean, as a Canadian citizen, you can live anywhere. So the nice thing about that is because Canada doesn't tax your global income. The only thing you care about is the local level of taxation. So there are a lot of places around the world that are pleasant places to live that have good internet connection and where taxes are lower than they are in Canada. I don't know, one that comes to mind is Portugal. I think Portugal has a deal where you pay very low taxes if you come there and are like an online worker and just live in Portugal. I think another place is Georgia, Tbilisi in Georgia. I think that it's 10% tax, that's it, flat 10% and that's it. Maybe it's even less than there, maybe it's 7%, I can't remember. There are other places, of course, Monaco, I think there's no income tax, but it's very expensive to live in. Puerto Rico is not a big advantage for Canadian. The real advantage of Puerto Rico is for an American because, again, Canada doesn't tax your worldwide income. So America is particularly brutal in its violation of our rights. That is, you can go to live in France and America will still want to tax you. Gail says Cyprus, Cyprus is very good. In terms of taxes and very low taxes and good internet and great weather and a pleasant place to live. I mean, you could probably live in Thailand pretty cheaply and good, again, a good high quality of life. Estonia, a lot of places in Europe, I think. Montenegro, I think, has a deal for people who are coming in and want to work, want to live in Montenegro and work online. I'm sure there are a few Caribbean islands. Go to Cayman Islands, you could go to a bunch of different Caribbean islands. If you wanted to live in South America, there are probably places, I don't know what the tax systems are, though. Costa Rica, a lot of people go to Costa Rica. A lot of people love Costa Rica. So lots of options if you're Canadian. Americans, no options, because you pay in America, no matter what. That's why Puerto Rico is really the only option Americans have because it's the only place you don't pay federal income tax. All right, thank you, everybody. Appreciate the support. Don't forget, don't forget to like the show. Don't forget to subscribe if you're not a subscriber. Don't forget to share if you like what we discussed today and you thought it was a value to other people, please consider sharing it. Remember December 31st, 2 p.m. East Coast time. Join us for the fundraiser. It'll be fun and hopefully you'll bring your checkbook. Also, what else do I want to remind you of? Oh, yes, probably no shows tomorrow, but Thursday there'll be a morning show, I mean, early afternoon show, Friday there'll be an early afternoon show, both of them will be new shows and then we'll do the 31st. So a thin schedule of shows for the next few days, it's the holiday season and I'm on holiday. All right, guys, have a great night. I will see you all in the next few days. Bye, everybody.