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- [00:00]
A
Foreign what's up? What's up everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How you doing today, Rob? Aside from some technical difficulties.
- [00:20]
B
Well, I'm coming to the fans from a totally new studio that I'm building out from scratch. And it's not because all my equipment's broken and I'm having technical difficulties. So, you know, it's nice to show you guys the new green screen that I have and all the stuff that's coming together. And other than that, I'm looking forward to not being here and doing comedy on the road where you can pretend like your whole life is working out perfectly.
- [00:41]
A
There you go. Well, the day after tomorrow, me and you head out to Tacoma and then to Spokane, go in and check out Washington, the good Washington. And we had a great time there last year. So really looking forward to going back. Comic Dave Smith.com for tickets. If you want to come, come hang out this weekend. And then we got a bunch more stuff coming up. We'll be all over Place.
- [01:01]
B
Comic Tapesmith.com and I Porch year round. Summer might be over, but the Porch tour continues. And I think the next run of shows is something like Birmingham, Alabama, Atlanta, and then Anderson, South Carolina. And then I got more coming and looking for Charleston, South Carolina. Hit me up Charleston, people.
- [01:17]
A
All right, porch tour.com go check out that site. Go check out the Porch tour. All right. I hope everyone had a had a great Labor Day weekend. Nice. Nice. Last weekend of the summer or at least what feels like the last weekend of the summer. Okay, so as we are recording the show right now, it's now we, we're a little bit late. It's 1:25 and on, on Tuesday afternoon, a little bit of technical issues. But we also started the show a little bit late because evidently at 2pm Donald Trump is giving some type of live announcement slash update or something. We'll see if they start on time, if they on time. We'll try to extend the show a little bit and, you know, just maybe cover it live and react to it. There is a wild amount of speculation right now about what exactly is going on with Donald Trump. I'm all since this is one of these things where it's like we're going to have the answer, at least we'll have some degree of the answer by the end of this show or if not by the time you're watching this show if you're not watching it live. But if you are, thank you very much for joining. The rest of you, I highly encourage you to go to partoftheproblem.com and sign up, help support the show. But, you know, we'll at least know what the announcement is going to be or what he's going to say relatively soon. I'll stick my neck out on the line and I'll, you know, gladly admit if I'm wrong about this. I don't, the people who are like, speculating that he's going to announce he's, he's stepping down. I think this is probably not going to happen. I don't think it's going to be something like that there. You know, I don't know if you saw Rob, but there were like hundreds of thousands of tweets that were speculating that Donald Trump had died because he didn't. He, he did almost no appearances for the last week and I guess there was like a three or four day period where he hadn't been seen at all. The, he, he reemerged. They got a picture of him leaving to go to the golf course, but then the reporters weren't allowed to get very close to him at the go golf course. It all just seemed, you know, something seemed a little bit shady. I'm curious to get your thoughts on this, but I will say, and I'll, I'll just kind of start with this. I have, for a while now I have thought that Donald Trump doesn't look good. He's like, I just mean physically speaking. He's, he, he, he looks like, you know, he's aging and he looks paler than usual. You know, it's very strange with Donald Trump because there's so many things going on. Number one, he is a cartoon of a human being. And I, you know, whether you love Donald Trump or hate Donald Trump, you know that that's true. Like, he's just a cartoon of a human being. His skin color is different than other humans. His hair color is different. The way he talks is different. Everything's different. And in a way. So it's like when Donald Trump, like, I've thought he just looks really pale for the last few weeks. But then part of me was also like, is he not using the bronzer that he's always used for the last 40 years? Like, I don't know exactly what this means. But there's also the fact that Trump is, that Trump is such a unique figure that not just personally unique, but politically unique. And the reaction that he elicits is, is unique. There's also the fact that Joe Biden just in the most kind of comical way in a dark comedy, but in the most comical way, just collapsed as the President of the United States of America. And we all kind of watched them trot this senile person out day after day for years, and then toward the end, a really, really senile person. And, you know, so a lot of those things kind of distracted from the obvious fact about Donald Trump. And, you know, the fact that Joe Biden was so weak and frail, number one, that gave a lot of protection to Donald Trump because it was just like, well, look, I mean, he's obviously a lot more, a lot stronger and sturdier than that guy. So, you know, and then there's just so many other things about Donald Trump that are such distractions that are so different and he looks so different and acts so different that it's, it's just a lot that can just distract from the very obvious, which is that Donald Trump is really freaking old. And if you take Joe Biden out of the equation, he's like the oldest president we've ever had. And I think, I think, double check me on this, I think he's older than Reagan was when he, when he ended his second term. And he's, you know, like, he's, he's almost 80. And that is just like crazy old age to be the President of the United States of America. Like, I don't know how many, how many 80 year olds, you know, but even the 80 year olds who are in really good shape, this is a huge ask to do a job like this. And so I will say, and I'm not saying this like, because I am not happy with the job Donald Trump is doing, which is also true, but Donald Trump doesn't look good to me. And so while I think, you know, there's been a tremendous amount of speculating online that, you know, you always got when people are speculating based off, you know, it's not like you have a coherent case that you're laying out here. You're going, look at this picture, look at this picture. They didn't have an event here. So like, okay, you know, you don't have that much tangible evidence. You shouldn't draw like a firm conclusion without that. But I do think it's reasonable to go, the guy, he really doesn't look good. And it is uncharacteristic for him to be out of the public eye for this long. Something's up there. It seems like there's probably a reason for that. Now, I wouldn't jump to Conclusions. But it does seem to me like something's up with the President of the United States. Luckily, our real president, Benjamin Netanyahu, is doing fine. He will never die. But Donald Trump seems to be struggling. Yes, I'm sorry, Natalie, did jump in here? Yes. Ronald Reagan was 77 when his presidency ended. Trump is 79. So that is something where Ronald Reagan was known for being like the oldest president ever. And that was kind of the running joke. Old President, this was eight years into it, he was still only 77. And Donald Trump is 79 with three plus years to go. Anyway, Rob, take it away.
- [08:11]
B
Well, I have a joke in my act about how youthful Donald Trump is. So I'm trying to ignore all evidence to the contrary because there's nothing worse about topical jokes that you get real cooking and you're like, shit, do I have to throw that out? With that said, you know, that's what sucks about wanting to be on television every four minutes is that, I guess if you have one day with diarrhea, everyone freaks out. How come this guy isn't on television? He must be dying. And he had that incident with like the blotches on his hand or whatever else. But, you know, he's still tweeting, he's still up at 3 in the morning. I'm just assuming because I saw a tweet that they were at 3 in the morning. And my guess is if they're doing a press conference today to show how youthful they are, maybe they'll roll out some of those Biden drugs that they kept from him at the debate. I do not see Donald Trump going down without a fight. So I haven't heard that yet that he was actually. I mean, unless he had a serious stroke where he's incapacitated and it gets to the point that they can't lie about it anymore. I don't think he's walking away from his hard fought and won presidency because, my God, he still has tariffs to impose and then take away and then make greater and wars to escalate. So he hasn't finished his job yet.
- [09:16]
A
Yeah, Donald Trump's like, I didn't come this far and then completely sell out just to quit. That's Donald Trump's new motto.
- [09:25]
B
I would have made it great, but I got a stroke.
- [09:29]
A
I don't, I don't think that's happening either. But again, hey, we will see. We live in crazy times. There are, there were a couple things that caught my eye so over this Labor Day weekend that there were like two things that I Saw, at least in my algorithm, that were totally dominating these kind of, like, viral clips. And one of them involved Adam Friedland sitting down with Congressman Torres, who. And this was. This was a wild one because it really did just. I mean, it was one of those things, like, you know, there's viral videos all the time, but then there's like, a different level of viral where, like, I mean, this thing was just. I was seeing this thing shared all over the place and just like, millions of. Of views on all types of little clips from this, and it really seemed to strike a nerve with a lot of people. It's also kind of interesting from my perspective because, like, me and you, like, we know Adam. I. I mean, I. I know, you know, the. The Cometown guys were always like, I'm not super. I was never super close with any of that. Like, I don't know them that well. I don't know Nick or Stav like, that well, but I know them. And we've. We've kind of been in, you know, broadly speaking, the same universe for a little while now. And so it's kind of interesting from my perspective to just have like, someone I know, but, like, who's. I don't know, almost in like, the. The lefty verse of, like, inverse of where we are. It was interesting to see them kind of having this moment. And of course, there were. There were things about it that were like. Like, the whole interview was, like, left wing in character. I. I don't know exactly how else to say that, but just like, the tone of it and the way they argue. These is all, like, from like, a left wing perspective, which I do think is a little bit different than what we are used to, but it was. I mean, Haretz had a. Had a huge piece about this. Almost every, like, news outlet was covering it one way or the other. When I say news outlet, I mean, like the. I mean, the Internet news. Not. I don't know about the corporate media, but. But this made major waves, and it was a very interesting moment. I just curious if you saw any of it, Rob, or what your thoughts were.
- [11:58]
B
I don't know how, because I did my homework today and really read through everything, and I was not aware of this until you sent it to me.
- [12:05]
A
Okay, well, that kind of takes away from my point about how viral it went, but, you know, we all live in our own algorithms.
- [12:11]
B
Listen, with that said, maybe I saw a headline and just skipped it, so. So I don't know. It's possible that I just had skipped it.
- [12:19]
A
Well, there were I did want to take a look at and play, like, maybe one or two of these clips because I thought I found them to be particularly interesting. Um, they.
- [12:28]
B
They.
- [12:29]
A
One of the things that was just interesting about it was that Torres, Richie Torres, at least it seemed to me, went into it completely unprepared for this to be what he was going into. And now you might, you know, if you were dealing with, like, a human being, like two human beings doing a podcast together, like, it might be like, hey, you shouldn't, you know, bring someone into something when they are completely unaware that it's going to be this thing. Although I don't know that. You know, he probably should have because, like, Adam's kind of known at this point for having this opinion. It's not like he's, you know, I know he had Norman Finkelstein on, I think, and then he had, like, I don't know, he's. He's done a bunch on this topic. But, you know, politicians aren't people, and so it's totally cool to ambush them anyway. But there's also, I don't know, if.
- [13:26]
B
You work in government, you should be able to, and, I don't know, you prescribe to a certain philosophy or you're okay with certain government activities, you should be able to defend them against a podcaster.
- [13:38]
A
Yes, 100%. And I think that there's something, you know, there's something about ambushing, and I'm not even, like, suggesting that Adam ambushed him. I'm. That's probably the wrong word. I'm just saying, like, there's something interesting about getting someone's reaction unprepared to something, you know, like unprepared. You know, I'll tell you for all what, people can say whatever they want to about the Piers Morgan show. And look, it's. It's a little bit of a circus at times, for sure. I would also argue there's been some really, like, unbelievable moments on that show where you're like, oh, Piers Morgan is actually doing a really valuable service for the world. Like, dude, he had Scott Horton and. And General Wesley Clark debate, and. And they pushed him on the seven countries in five years thing. And then at one point, he just started talking about how, oh, actually, the plans, he had first seen them 10 years earlier and blah, blah, blah. And like, it's. It was like this crazy. This is like, world breaking news happening right here, you know?
- [14:36]
B
Anyway, I think I'm saying it's a little bit like when Ted Cruz was with Tucker Carlson and he didn't know the basic details on Iran while you're trying to defend possibly having a war with Iran. That's unacceptable. And so if you're in government and this is one of top five issues in the country right now, you need to be informed on that and be able to have a conversation and particularly if you have an opinion of I only saw the clips you sent me, but it sounds like he is defending that. Criticizing Israel is anti Semitism or at a minimum, America needs to be supporting what Israel's doing in Gaza. You're not allowed to be uninformed on that. That's not acceptable. I'm just saying you're, this is your job.
- [15:19]
A
Well, with the Ted Cruz one, which may have been the case in this one too, but with Ted Cruz, what was even more crazy about it was like you had to see where that was going. Like, you showed up knowing you're going to do battle with Tucker Carlson on these issues. This one of the things, the point I was going to make about Pierce Morgan was just like one of the things personally I liked about doing the show for a while. It's a little bit different now because I've become like, I'm kind of like one of the guys. They do like one on one debates with me more now. I, I, I did a panel the other day, but that's usually what they're trying to set up with me now. And in that case, you do go in knowing who you're going to debate and what. But when you would do as, as a person doing the show. When I would do the panel, they used to give me like, no information. It was like the only show I've ever done where they would just be like, are you free tomorrow to do the show? And I'd go, sure. And then you'd find out when you got there what the topics were and who the other people who you were going to Deb sometimes in the middle of a panel, he'd go, okay, now let's gonna, now we're gonna bring in so and so. And it'd be someone else. You have no idea. Like, even once you got into the panel, you're like, okay, this is who I'm on with. And then all of a sudden I got someone else here that I'm. And there just was something kind of fun about that. It's just different. You know, you do a lot of shows where you know who's gonna be on and you know what you're gonna be talking about. There was something like, about that challenge that I kind of liked. And I almost feel like people should get to see that. People should get to see. Like, if I'm gonna be up here and I'm gonna be talking about and being like, it's like this, not like that, then I should have to defend that. And you should also get to see me in. In a situation where I wasn't prepared for what the. The challenge was going to be. And maybe I'm caught off guard. And hopefully I've thought about this enough that, you know, I have something thoughtful to say back. But anyway, it's just you. You get something different revealed out of somebody in a situation like that that's very different than what is revealed, say, giving a stump speech at a campaign event or something like that, where everything is rehearsed and prepared. And I completely agree with you, Rob. I mean, to have, you know, to have a policy like this that is so consequential, it's like, you better be prepared to at least offer some defense of that. So let's. I sent a couple clips. Let's. Let's play. Let's jump into those, and we'll kind of give our thoughts.
- [17:44]
C
If you have disagreements with the Israeli government, you should voice your criticism of the Israeli government. But there is no justification for intimidation or harassment against American Jews.
- [17:53]
A
I'm telling you as a Jew right.
- [17:54]
D
Now that we are receiving a lot more hate because of what the people with a flag that has a Jewish star on are doing to other people right now. And I'm telling you as a Jewish person, how painful it is for us to say. And it hurts my stomach to say this. You're going to say, I just reacted, that this is a genocide. And that hurts to say that a Jew can do that. It hurts because we grew up with learning about what hatred is. We grew up learning about this. And the same year the state of Israel was established in 1948, the world saw the Holocaust and they established standards for what a genocide is. It was the same year, and the world said that this shouldn't be a thing that happens, you know, And I just wonder, like, it doesn't make sense to me. Like what? Like, I don't know. It doesn't track to me why there's this fixation with kids at a school that. And two examples of people at a restaurant that. That there was banging two examples.
- [19:05]
C
I mean, there are. You're getting surveys.
- [19:06]
D
Give me the.
- [19:07]
C
Read the EDL surveys.
- [19:10]
D
It's hard. It's hard for me to talk about this.
- [19:14]
A
You're being.
- [19:15]
D
That's Mean.
- [19:18]
A
All right, I know. I. Again, you probably understand, Rob, like, why I was saying, like, it's like the. It's a left wing conversation. And so it's just done a little bit different than the way we would do it, I guess. I don't even know how else to say, like, but I do think there was like, just something interesting in this moment where he's like, the Richie Torres is here and he's arguing like, how horrible anti Semitism is. And then, you know, you've got this Jewish guy who's like, dude, what are we talking about? Like, someone said something to someone in a cafe once, and that's our major concern. Like, there's a genocide going on over here. And like, that's so much more serious than this. And then even just to make the basic point of like, they go like, okay, well, it's a point like, I've been trying to make myself for years. It just seems so obvious. But, like, to go, hey, there's been this crazy rise in people not liking Jews over the last couple years. And then for Adam to go like, well, there are these guys who hold we are the Jews flag and they're doing horrible things. So, like, that might be related to it. And the response to that that Richie Torres has is like, yeah, yeah. And it just. Even the thing he did at the end that was so catty and so just like, yeah. Oh, yeah. You do seem to be having trouble with this. It was like, okay, but like, what. What response do you actually have here? I don't know. I thought it was just like, I thought it was an interesting moment. And I do have to say I think it's good, you know, like, I. I use the example, Rob, for a long time that I was like, look, like if a group of like, let's say, let's say there's like a neighborhood with white and black people and there's a bunch of violent crimes where black people are, like, violently assaulting white people. And then I were to say to you, do you think that the level of hatred toward black people is going to go up or down as a result of that? I think it'd be a fairly obvious human thing to predict that probably you're going to have more resentment toward black people if there's this spree of violent black crime. Now, if you want to be an individualist about this, which I always suggest being okay, that doesn't justify hating black people because the black guy who didn't rob anybody isn't guilty just because he has the Same color skin as the people who did violently attack someone. But we can still recognize on a human level probably it's gonna go up, you know, like that that's the way human beings work. And given that not saying that that justifies you hating anyone who didn't have anything to do with the thing you're talking about. I do think there's something valuable about people. Like in Adam's position, you're like a Jewish comedian who's known and just like kind of just being on record is like, yeah, well, I'm not comfortable with this shit here at all. I think that's good. That I think actually does a lot more to help the problem of people, like hating Jews. That was spiking because the state that claims to be the Jewish state is slaughtering people. It's like in the same sense that in my analogy, like in the neighborhood, if there was some, you know, black guy who stood up and said, hey, I think this is really wrong that black people are violently assaulting these guys, that's probably going to help the situation as much as anything that you could do in when you're in that position. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is crowd Health, a great company. I've been telling you about them for many years. What would you say if you could get health care for under $100 a month? I want to tell you about six something new that crowd health has just introduced. You can finally rid yourself of the bureaucracy of the health care system and take agency over your own health. Crowd health just introduced the Black Swan membership. It's the health care alternative for people who want autonomy over their care, their costs, and their lifestyle. They just need a little help with the Black Swan events that happen in life. Well, now for just $95 a month, you get access to a team of health bill negotiators, low cost prescriptions, lab testing tools, and a database of low cost, high quality doctors vetted by crowd health. You stay in control without insurance and their networks dictating your care. And what if something major happens? You pay the first 15k and the crowd steps in to help fund the rest. It feels like the options that we used to have before Obamacare messed everything up. And now if you use the promo code POTP, it's only $80 for the first three months. Go check them out at JoinCrowd Health.com and don't forget to use that promo code POTP. Crowd health is not insurance. Opt out. Take your power Back. This is how we win. Let's get back into the show. Any thoughts?
- [24:18]
B
Yeah, and I wouldn't take much. Is it the ADL or the jdl? I think it's the adl. Right.
- [24:23]
A
Adl.
- [24:24]
B
Yeah. I wouldn't take much from the ADL because they were pushing. Yeah. They were looking to expand the definition of anti Semitism as being just criticizing Israel, which is outrageous. And also, if you're running Twitter polls or taking your information from Twitter, Twitter is not real life. People are more than go watch Lewis J. Gomez's feed of who's trying to fight him on Twitter and is actually showing up for scrap in real life. And you can see the difference between talking shit on Twitter and actually the way you'll engage with a man in real life. So that's a fair point. I'm just saying both they're working with faulty definitions to try and expand that there's an anti Semitism problem and to run cover for Israel and group anti Semitism in as if it's the same thing as criticizing Israel. And two is Twitter is just not a very good metric for people's actual thoughts and feelings. Go listen to the way 12 year olds are talking on Xbox Live and tell me that the 12 year olds in America are the most reprehensible demographic of male boys that ever existed.
- [25:24]
A
Yeah, no, that's, that's a good point too. But yeah, the, the appeal to the eight, it's like they always. I don't know what I was debating. Alex Barron said. And he's like, he's like, that's, that's according to the Holocaust Museum or something like that. It's like, guys, but you're picking, like, come on, you're picking the most biased sources and then claim and then making some appeal to authority off them, like, because they say it, therefore it's right. And how do you even measure any of. By the way, Adam also was not claiming that there hasn't been a rise in any of that. He's saying like, yeah, there's a reason for it and it's really horrible to think this, but you also just. There was, there was one point in there where like, now again, left wingers don't, I think in some senses have the freedom to kind of say some of these more harsh things that the rest of us all just know. But, you know, there is, there was one point where Adam's like, why are you doing this? And I did feel like it was like, there's a certain point where you're like, hey, Torres, like, look, I don't know a lot about this Richie Torres guy, but like, I. What is. He's like an Afro Latino from the Bronx or something like that. You're like, why is it that you feel so deeply connected to Israel and why you must, you know, at all, like, regurgitate their talking points and defer to the ADL and talk about the rising anti Semitism, like, what is this exactly? And by the way, I'm not even to going claiming like some like, oh, he's bought and paid for, which is quite possible. But I'm not saying that's the case. But I think it's more just like the game where like, ah, you know the thing you got to say in order to hold on to political power, you know what city you're in, you know the things you got to say to go, like, make sure that there's a future involved for you. And you know the thing that you could say that'll get you ruined tomorrow. Look, dude, think about, think about the reaction to Mamdani, who has still not managed to get the endorsement of like a huge percentage of Democrats in like Democratic leaders in this country. And what's going on there? What are the vote blue no matter who. People like, all of a sudden, they just won't support this one guy in New York City. And he just cannot get the establishment on his side. And don't for a second think that their objection to him is the socialism. I promise you, I promise you that's not what the Democratic establishment's like, objection to him is. And it's not like, it's not that. This isn't Bernie Sanders running for president. It's not like he'd have any real authority to get in there. And like, you know what I'm saying, like, he doesn't have any power over the big banks or over big industry from being a mayor in New York City. Doesn't matter how many of Wall Street's companies happen to be in that city. Those are federally regulated companies who are in bed with our federal government, who own our Treasury Department and our central bank. That's not anything Mamdani is going to do there. Everybody knows. And they revealed it. Look, they revealed it in the way they went after him. What did they go after him for? And nobody in the Democratic primary, nobody was going after mom, Donnie, because he's such a socialist. They were all saying he won't promise to go visit Israel. That's the issue. So like, you're, you're picking on, you're you're deciding to go to war with the establishment if you're critical of Israel. And yeah, most people who are congressmen simply. That is simply not a wise business decision to make. And I think, in a way, that's just what's revealed throughout this whole interview.
- [29:06]
B
I like the. Let's roll the next clip. I thought the next clip was even better.
- [29:10]
A
The next clip was very good. Let's roll that clip.
- [29:13]
D
The Israeli government, Hamas, wants to eradicate the Jewish people in the Jewish state. Is that right?
- [29:19]
C
That's what Hamas has said, yeah.
- [29:20]
D
Okay, then why would they directly give Hamas money, literally bags of cash in suitcases, through the Qataris nearly, I think, over a billion dollars in cash during this last 17 years.
- [29:38]
C
That's a fair point. It's a great question. If.
- [29:41]
D
If one of those kids at Columbia wrote a $5 check to Hamas, you'd say, send them to Gitmo for being a terrorist.
- [29:48]
C
It's a fair point.
- [29:49]
D
Does that make Benjamin Netanyahu a terrorist? He's supporting terror.
- [29:54]
C
The United States, it seems to me the United States and Israel could have shut off the spigot and did not do so.
- [30:01]
A
I don't know why.
- [30:01]
C
But. But that was a failure. There's no question.
- [30:04]
D
The Israeli government.
- [30:07]
A
All right. Yeah, that was. I. Again, I just, you know, I've. I've personally kind of like, you know, I've mentioned this many times, and I've done a lot of, like, Israel debates over the last couple years, and I've brought this up a lot in. In a lot of them. And there is simply just never a response to. And I at least appreciate Richard Tory just waving the white flag and going, yep, you will not get a response from me. But of course, as I always say, this is why this is such an amazing clip. That's really a devastating blow to their. Like, you. You simply don't get to not have a response to that. This is crazy. You know, like, I remember when I'm. I'm trying to think of, like, all the responses I get, I remember Dennis Prager tried his best where he goes, well, we partnered with the commies to beat the Nazis. Because sometimes you have to make these calculations and you're like, no, no, no, that's not the calculation here. This is. This isn't. However you feel about partnering with the commies, this isn't. Oh, we. There are two evil groups we partner with the one who we think is less evil to beat the one who we think is more evil, which. Let's just say there's Some problems using that justification for World War II as well. But there is. This is propping up intentionally the worst group so that you can say, look how terrible these people are who supported this group. That is a whole different thing. And that is. I mean, I got to say, Adam did a very good job there with the point that, like, yeah, you know, you'll. You have. People are being deported, you know, and legal residents have been deported because they supposedly support Hamas, but actually supporting Hamas gets you billions in American aid. So what's up with that? You know? And, I mean, there's so much about this. Just knowing this one detail about the conflict. It does. Like, I'm not sure I've ever. I could think of an example. I guess. Like, the thing I, you know, I. That comes to mind is almost like, when they would. When they were trying to justify the vaccine passports, and then, you know, they would use the thing of, like, you know, if you get the. You have to get the vaccine, because if you get it, you can't get Covid and you're completely safe. And then they'd go, but we have to protect the vaccinated people in the restaurant from unvaccinated people coming in. And you're like, but I thought your whole case relied on the vaccine being protection. Like. But, like, it's. It's hard to think of another one where there's just like, if you have. If you know this one piece of information, it's just like. Like, there's, like, walls of narrative around you, and this one fact just shatters all the narratives. Like, they all just fall to pieces. Because, like, I'm sorry, but you can't. You know, I forget who it was who said it. God damn it. This is a really good quote, and I'm sorry for not crediting whoever it might. It might be Aaron Matei. I think it might have been an Aaron Matei quote, but he said that the entire justification for Israel's war is basically, it relies on the idea that Nothing can justify October 7th and October 7th justifies anything, you know, which, like, when you think about it, is a pretty wild train of thought. But the whole idea that, like, October 7th was so horrible, and so the group who did that must be removed from power. And I'm sorry if some innocent civilians get killed along the way, but that group is so bad and they did this to us that we have a right to now destroy you to get to them. That whole. Which, look, that just doesn't. That's not justified on the face of it. But that whole thing is really destroyed when you find out that actually you were keeping those guys in power so that you could use them as an excuse to never give these people their freedom to begin with. Sorry. That changes the equation drastically. This episode is sponsored by better help. BetterHelp is an incredible company. They've been a sponsor on this show for years. Guys, if you are thinking about starting therapy, as I've told you many times, I have benefited from therapy in the past, and I know many people who have benefited from it as well. And if you're thinking, if you're on the fence, give Better Help a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire, and they match you with a licensed therapist. And you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. So rediscover your curiosity with better help. Visit betterhelp.com problem today and you'll get 10% off your first month. That's B E T T e r h lp.com problem for 10% off your first month. All right, let's get back into the show. Any thoughts on that, Rob? And then we'll. We'll move on.
- [35:26]
B
Yeah, I think. I think your Covid example is a perfect example. Similar question could have been, well, what about if you have natural. Natural immunity? And the same tragedy took place during COVID that. I don't remember a single interviewer Fauci answered for that or answered for why? If you sit down in a restaurant, you can suddenly take off your mask. And there are other. Just simple questions that could have been asked. And it's almost incredible that I think this is the first time to date other than when Liam did his man on the street and he was asking Congress people who were able to just go, I'm not familiar with that, because they weren't formally sitting down at an interview. It's amazing that we're two years into this and every single politician that's been on the news justifying this hasn't had to answer this question.
- [36:07]
A
Yeah, I mean, it's just. You're going around like it's almost. Yeah. I was talking about this on Rogan's podcast the other day, but it was like when, you know, I just said the thing, like Ronald Reagan came up, and we were talking about this. I think Iran Contra came up or whatever. And I was just talking about how, like, they were shipping cocaine into the United States of America or at the very least, allowing it to be shipped in. Although there's been real deal allegations that it was much more than just allowing it, like, that they were involved in shipping it in while they're ramping up the war on drugs. It's like you're going around and prosecuting some dude with five rocks in his pocket on the corner of the hood somewhere. You're throwing the book at him, and then yet you're letting this off. It's like, you know, when, when you'd see, like, you know, the, the lengths that they went through to prosecute the, the people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th. The lengths, like the facial recognition technology and all of that and all this stuff. And then you look at, like, what they're doing with, like, crime in major cities, and it's just like, like, you can just. A lot of times you can just look at something and see where the political will is. And it's like, if you're so outraged by this offense of supporting Hamas, well, then, okay, but how is that not enough of a reason to cut off support to Israel then? It's just. It makes no sense. Like, you know, in the same sense that you go, like, how can the Reagan administration say that shipping cocaine into the United States of America is an acceptable, you know, like, trade off and also say that we have, like, any moral right to throw an American citizen in jail for decades for the crime of getting the stuff and distributing it once we've distributed it in? It's just too wild. The contradiction is too much. All right, let's see.
- [38:06]
B
Before we switch topics, I just want to know. I think my left earpiece just died. Can you still hear me?
- [38:11]
A
Yeah, I still hear you.
- [38:13]
B
Hopefully we got another half hour of battery left in these.
- [38:16]
A
I wouldn't say I hear you good, but I can hear you. Yes, we're. Things have not changed since that. That ended. All right, let's. Now, I'm a little hesitant here now because I wanted to do this other video, but that might take a little time. So what do you think here, Rob? Should we start that up and then we can, we can cut over to Trump if Trump comes on.
- [38:38]
B
What was the other.
- [38:39]
A
What was the other video there? Well, this was.
- [38:42]
B
We also. I mean, we don't. We don't have to play Trump from the beginning, so there might be some bullshit before Trump. So I would just. Natalie, if you want to monitor that, and if Trump's up and either healthy or dying, let us know.
- [38:54]
A
Yeah, let us. Let us know in the chat. But for now, why don't we play? Because there was this other thing where. What is it called? I forget what it's called, but these. It's the thing that's become popular now where they. One person sits at a table with another chair, and then there's a group surrounding them, and then people run up to the chair and you do this, like, debating everybody thing. But Patrick David, my guy, he. He went over and did one of them, and it was, I thought, very interesting. There were a few moments that are going, like, super viral. This is more. Listen, I guess this is. This is in the camp of beating up on the left, which is something that, you know, we still have to keep our eyes on. And I have said, you know, there's. I'm. I don't know, sometimes you get torn over what the priorities are. And I. I try to spend the appropriate amount of time on the things that I think are most important. But there is, as. As me and you have. Have touched on over the last few months. Rob. There is this. Oh, do we lose Rob there? Yeah. All right. Rob dropped out. Well, it was a nice. A nice run we had there.
- [40:10]
B
So I'm still here. I'm still here. My. My bad.
- [40:13]
A
They're still here. Okay. Well, there's something where. Now that the establishment Democrats have been just utterly eviscerated to a level that we've never seen a political. One of the major political parties at in my lifetime, there's. The energy is. Seems to be much more back with kind of like the socialists and not, you know, there's different kind of strains of this, but not the woke insanity of the last few years. It seems like that's receding in most quarters, even of the left, but the. The kind of economic socialism, what. You know, what socialism originally was, that seems to be kind of growing. And I think part of this is that, you know, Wokeism was kind of the mask that the corporate democratic establishment was. Was wearing for a long time. This is why you see all those. You know, you see Nancy Pelosi, like, kneeling in a dashiki while she makes another $100 million in the stock market. You know, like, that was kind of the game for a while. That's kind of fading. But now you. It does seem like there's a lot of energy back with a different group of populist socialist leftists, Mamdani and AOC and people like that. And, you know, they're. They're also really, really wrong about a lot of stuff, and it's quite dangerous. And so it's kind of interesting to me particularly to see there was one part where I don't know if you saw this, Rob, but where there was this one guy complaining that he can't get a job. And then Patrick with David was like, how about I offer you a job right now, you come to Florida, you're going to work for me, I'm going to give you a job at a reasonable salary and blah, blah, blah. We come here and immediately the guy's just like, well what is the company even do? And what is this, this? And then just complains his way through for like two minutes till Patrick B. David goes offers off the table. And it was just like, it was a great moment of just like, yo, look dude, you can't, I'm sorry. You could be that guy too. Like, you could either be the guy who's like, no, not accepting that job or the guy who's complaining about what a, what a bad spot you're in, but you really can't be both. And there is with a lot of this stuff, when it comes to these far left wing views, it does seem to me that in a way what you're. It. It just feels like I remember at one point Tucker Carlson said when it comes what he was talking about like the trans kid stuff and the abortion debate, but he was particularly talking about the like where, where it had gone to. Like he, he basically said something where he was like, look, if you're, if you're having a conversation about abortion and your conversation is, well, think about the case of rape or incest, you know, think about a 12 year old girl's raped, are you really going to say it's illegal for like we're going to force through the, you know, the power of government her to carry the baby to term. Like if you're saying that you're having a political discussion and a very difficult one and one that almost all people involved would have to admit that like there sure are some competing, you know, values in that question and there's merit to a discussion about that. I think even pro life people would acknowledge that for the most part. But if you're having a conversation where you're screaming like I'm proud of having 17 abortions and you should shout your abortion. And abortion is wonderful. Tucker goes something along the lines of this. He goes, we're not having a political discussion anymore. We're having a theological discussion now, like you're arguing for child sacrifice. This isn't in the realm of politics anymore. And so anyway, I guess there's something where sometimes when it comes to the economic Stuff, and these guys are arguing for socialism or communism. In the clip that we're about to show, it feels like this isn't as much of a political discussion as it is just a demonstration in an infantile mentality. Like, this is just being a child versus being a grown up. That, that, like that guy who's going, I have it so hard and blah, blah, blah, this. And then Pat offers him a job and then he starts going, well, what if I don't like the job? That's just infant shit. There's nothing to do with left or right. You're just a child. Like, if you're a man, then what you do in that situation is you go, shit, I'm having a tough spot right now. And a fucking guy worth hundreds of millions of dollars on fucking national television essentially just offered me an opportunity where there's going to be. Dude, if I go and like, kill it for him right now, he's going to think about how already just if you have any. And I'm not like an entrepreneurial minded type of guy. I'm an artist who's into ideas and jokes. Like, I'm not. I'm not like a sharp, shrewd businessman. But immediately you would go, oh, dude, you know, you see the opportunity in front of you, right? Rob Patrick bet David is going to be totally incentivized now to be like, I made this guy a millionaire. Like, if I go kill it for him, he's going to want to document this and show that he sat in a circle of left wingers and like, offered one a job and actually like, pulled him into the stratosphere. Like, it's just like you would see that opportunity right in front of you. And that's just like what a grown up does. Like, because you. Because you have a responsibility to get your life together and to people around you and like all of this stuff and there just seem it. I don't know, it seems a lot like that. Like, this is just a conversation between, like, living in the real world as a grown up and being a child. That's what most Marxist arguments seem to come down to, to me. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Brunt Workwear. These guys are incredible. They've cracked the code on workwear boots. No more choosing between comfort or durability. Brunt Boots are built to handle the gnarliest job sites while feeling like you're in your favorite sneakers. No break in period needed. I. They sent me a pair of their Marin soft toe boots. They're great and they're incredibly comfortable and they're like real durable work boots. So if you need yourself a good pair of work boots that feels comfortable, definitely go check out Brunt. And here's a deal. For a limited time. Part of the problem. Listeners get $10 off at Brunt when they use the promo code problem at checkout. Just head to bruntworkware.com and use the promo code problem and you're all set. And after you buy, tell them part of the problem sent you helps keep this show going. Get to work in gear that works as hard as you do. Bruntworkware.com promo code problem all right, let's get back into the show. I don't know any. You want to anything or you want to just jump into the video, Rob?
- [47:03]
B
No, let's jump in.
- [47:05]
A
All right, let's, let's play the clip.
- [47:07]
E
Some would be a transitionary state between capitalism and communism where the means production are specifically owned by workers, not privately. The idea that any country now is, is anywhere near socialist, let alone communists would, would simply be ridiculous and just. It wouldn't reflect theory whatsoever.
- [47:24]
F
What is, what is the definition of communism to you?
- [47:27]
E
Stateless, moneyless class of society.
- [47:28]
F
And you, you prefer that?
- [47:30]
E
Yeah. So I think that we should be moving towards, you know, communism. Yeah.
- [47:34]
A
So you, you don't think, imagine the idea. I mean just think about this like that a stateless, classless, moneyless society. And just think about how ridiculous an idea that is. Just how, how impossible it is. Just like on, it's, on the face of it, like you, it just like there's just no. And this is why I think it's infantile is you go like you're not, you are regurgitating words you read and saying this sounds nice to me without even pretending to grapple with anything like what the hell. First of all, okay, so things are going to, we're going to have a. Let's deal with this for stateless. Okay, I'm on board. There's no government. I'm not a big fan of government. Okay, so there's no, there's no government now. But it's also classless. So nobody can be in a different class. Human beings even take this. I mean you're going to have, I don't know, children and adults. Right. Will there be 8 year olds and 35 year olds in your society? Because already that's kind of a different class. But. Okay, you mean economically there won't be people in any different Class, Okay. There's also no money. So I guess we're just barter. We're trading goods, right? Because we don't have a store of value. Now, forget the fact that obviously it would take about five minutes of thinking about this to go, oh, man, that's going to cause enormous problems and like, really create much more poverty than you would otherwise have. Because it's a wildly less efficient system. Like, if I, you know, if I'm. If I have, you know, if I write books and I need eggs now, I can't just like sell 10 books and then go buy some egg. I gotta find someone who wants to read my book, who has eggs to offer. So that's gonna be an issue. How about this? Let's say we're living in this society, and me and you, Rob, we decide, you know, it'd be easier if we had money. Like, let's just say there's a group of people who go, like, I don't, you know, I. I want, I wish to trade in money. How about this? We'll all agree that this money is a store of value or even gold coins or something like that just used. That'll be our money. And you all agree? Oh, you give me that, I'll get you a book. This way I can give it to the guy for eggs. Just makes everything much easier in life. Okay, so now one of your three is falling apart. Who's going to enforce? Who's going to enforce that? We don't do that because you only got two out of three now. So now how are you. You're going to have to stop us from trading in money in order to make sure that your society doesn't have money anymore. Who's going to do that? Seems like you'd need a class in the business of forcing people to follow the rules. For that matter, how are you going to have any rules? Like, how are you going to have a rule about, you know, you can't murder somebody? Who's going to enforce that? You know, because you're always going to have a criminal class unless you think you can cure that too, which. That seems infantile to me. So, like, again, now the other thing here is, like, what if somebody even just working, what if somebody just outperforms others? What if somebody's really good at farming and they produce enough food for like, to have a surplus? Well, and then someone else isn't good at it, who's going to take it and force them to give it to the other people? Seems like you're going to Need a whole nother class here. Because everything, including private property rights or public property rights or workers property needs to be defended. What if someone comes and tries to take it? Who's going to enforce the rules in your system? Okay, what is that group called? A police force. You're saying they can't be private, so they'll have to be a workers police force. But who gets to dictate that? All of the workers at once? You know, like already. Look, even if you just think about it like this, right, you go, the workers own the property. Okay, well, let's say you got a plant and there's a thousand workers. What's the policy, what the workers want? Let's say 80% of them want one thing and 20% of them want another thing. Well, who's that 20% now versus that 80%? Seems to me like that's a class difference. 80% has the power, 20% don't have the power. Seems to me like there's a power disparity. Seems to me like there's a difference. Who smooths all that out? By the way, has a group of a thousand people ever voiced their opinion as one collectively, ever in the history of the world? No, because we're individuals. We all have differences all the time. And so you'd probably have to have, I don't know, like a representative, right? Like a representative of the people. You know, like every single union that's ever existed in the history of the world has had union reps. That's a different class. That's now the represent. That's the representative class. The idea. The idea of having a classless anything. Has there ever. Has there ever been a classless team in a team sport? Like, there was no captain, there was no coach, there was no. You know what I'm saying? Like, no. No matter what you do, you always break down into hierarchies. And that's because hierarchies are inevitable. They're simply part of life. They're part of everything. They're part of how this podcast is done. They're part of how this rant is happening to you. We're constantly choosing that. I talk about this thing rather than this thing we're constantly choosing. And because it's. This is the only way to act in the world. And this is also true in the realm of economics, that sometimes people are. There's going to be a manager's class, there's going to be a workers class, there's going to be an owner's class. No matter what you call it, there will still. There is still. And by the way, an owner is really what the final decision maker and there's always going to be someone who's making the decision and that's the owner. Any thoughts you have Rob? Just on that first little bit?
- [54:02]
B
Well, I think that was a fairly comprehensive breakdown. The only thing that I might add to the list is that without prices and with a work, working class that owns the means to productions, who's making the forward looking decisions of what actual investments would be necessary for society. And then the only other flaw that I see in this, which is kind of funny to me is like if the workers own the means of production. So let's say I work in the tech factory that would typically see a billion dollars in profit and you're in the shoelace factory and you make a million dollars of profit. So does that mean I'm just an owner in the shoelace factory and I better figure out how to get a job in that other factory? And then you got the same enforcement problem or is it just everything socialized so it doesn't matter what the profits are from your factory versus the other factory? And then you get back to what you already said, which is what's the labor? What's your incentive to actually engage in labor at that point? Because there's no incentive structure for better or worse labor.
- [55:01]
A
Yep, 100%. No, the, the, the, of course the price calculation problem and the incentive problem are really, and you that it's good that you added those because they really are death blows for, for this whole theory. I mean I'm, you know, you just, if you, when you truly remove incentives, like look, there's, there can be no class differences. So I guess nobody can be paid differently. Right. And that would have to be, that would have to be whether you're working or not. Right Rob? Because otherwise that's a class difference right there. There's the unemployed versus the employed, there's the people making money versus the people not making money. That's a class difference. Um, but if so now just think about that for a second. I mean there are, you know, and I think also this is part of the reason why socialism like flourishes intellectually, flourishes in privileged circles and has always, you can go look into who Marx and Engels were and you can go look at socialism for it always. Because when people are in the realm of thinking about like a job that they love, that you know, they're kind of like, why can't we all have a job that we love? But the Vast majority of people don't do jobs that they love. They do jobs that need be done. There's a difference, you know, like in the, in the whole history of coal mining, there weren't too many people who woke up every morning and they were just like, man, I just feel artistically inspired to go mine some coal mine. Coal today is just. Society needed coal to run and it was hard, brutal work. But the men doing it knew that they could support a family for doing that and help support society. And so they did it. You know, and if you're telling me that all of there is no financial incentive for that, you know, in the same way that like, I don't know, there's, there's some of these different jobs. But like, I, I know when I was a kid, like garbage man was kind of famously known for being like, it's a job that pays well and has good benefits, like if you're willing to be. And the reason is because most people don't really want to be a garbage man, but they'll be willing to do, you know, if in, in the 90s you could make 80k plus benefits or something like that, you'd be like, well, there's, you can get your family a middle class life, you know, and so they'll do that to give that to their wife and kids or whatever. But it's not because they love the smell of garbage. Well, how do you get that? If you're paying the same thing to sit in the park and write poetry as you are to be a garbage man, are you going to get people to want to do it? But again, these are questions that adults have to grapple with, not children. All right, let's keep playing.
- [57:36]
F
A person like me should exist with the amount of wealth that I have.
- [57:39]
E
Yeah. Because I think that we're getting to this point where we're creating fake scarcity for people like you to accumulate the wealth that you have on the basis of private ownership.
- [57:46]
F
Okay, so you're not even, you're not even not counting capitalist. You're definitely not capitalist. You're not socialist. You want to go full communism.
- [57:54]
E
So what do you think? That looks like? That was a thing. Right. So what Marx actually wanted was for us to reach a point where we no longer have the scarcity of resources that has kind of predicted, you know, history as it looks like now. It wouldn't happen now. It would happen as we automate. At this point in time. We can decommodify housing and food and education for around 5% of the government budget. That's 1/5, a little bit over 1/5 of what we spend on the military already. We don't. Because we were living in the state where we. It almost seems utopian that things.
- [58:23]
F
How old were you the first time you thought you wanted to be a communist?
- [58:28]
A
Listen, first of all, anytime a commie starts talking numbers, just, just let that go in one ear, out the other ear. The numbers are not even kind of true. No, no, no. We could. And it's, it's, it's a big deal because. Do you remember Rob? There was that one. I know we did this a couple times. Sure, go ahead.
- [58:44]
B
Just the concept of fake scarcity. There's a lot of vagina in the world. There's not infinite. I can't have yours. It's scarce. I mean there's a finite amount of everything. Now some items, we might get to a point with AI development where robots can build them so cheaply that they're more easily attainable, but they're not infinite. There's no, there's no concept of fake scarcity. Human desire is infinite. And so I mean, are you anti environmentalist at that point? Are there infinite trees for us to cut down and turn into paper? No one should be concerned with ever take. Is there infinite amount of pollution we can put into the ocean before it'll be a problem? Is there infinite carbon that we can release into the atmosphere? Before you start getting concerned with global warming, I'm just trying to say that your statement of there is no. There could be instances of false scarcity such in a sector as diamonds, or it could even be that oil is actually geologically produced and so we're not ever going to have peak oil or run out of oil. There certainly could be instances and probably because of the government interfering in markets and giving people fake monopolies that wouldn't otherwise exist, or removing substitute goods. But I'm just trying to say there could be instances where goods are made to look more scarce than they are, or government policies that make them less attainable, such as zoning laws for housing. But the idea that there are scarcity is just a false, is a falsehood. I don't know. Go to an area that doesn't have a lot of water and tell me that that's artificial and that there's actually infinite water. Or go to the North Pole and tell me heat isn't scarce, there's actually infinite heat here. It's the energy company that allows me to heat my home that's artificially pretending like there's not infinite heat here. It's just simply not true to say that resources are finite. That's not, I mean, are infinite. That's like, it's, it's a false premise.
- [60:46]
A
Well, 100%, but it's not. Look, it's, it's. She actually says at one point that people claim they think of communists as utopian, but all Marx wanted to do was get us to a post scarcity world.
- [61:02]
B
Well, yeah, I mean, go live on another planet. We've got gravity here and other rules of our reality. And one of them is I only have one penis.
- [61:11]
A
Look, I, well look, here's the thing, right? I like that. There's, I, you know, I say this literally. I've said this to my daughter. My daughter is, you know, six and she gets this, you know, because you can explain this, you can explain this to a bright six year old. But she, because she'll say sometimes as she, she's said to me before, you know, like, she doesn't love that I have to work all the time, you know, and like, but I don't love it either, you know, I wish I could always spend time, but I have to try, you know, it'll be just like, oh, you just, you were just at work, you have to go back to work, you have to do this. And like, why do you have to work so much? And I explained to her that I'm like, look, this is, and this is the way I say it to her. And I go, look, you see everything that exists, like everything. You see the houses on our block, you see the supermarket, you see the roads, you see the bridges, you see the doctor's office, the. All of this, like, all of this is here because people work, people got to work to make this happen. This doesn't just happen. And so everybody's got to do something that they find that, that other people find of value. And that's the way that we can make all of this happen. So that when you, when you, you know, get, you know, strep throat, we go to the doctor, there's antibiotics, we go here, we get that, you know, we, everything's taken care of. You go to school, there's a roof there, there's heat on during the winter, there's new books, there's new game, there's, you know, everybody's got to work for this. And I even explained to her like, well, she'll be like, yeah, but you tell jokes and do a show and how does that. And I'd be like, yeah, but you know, a lot of the people who, who build that stuff, they like to laugh at a joke at the end of the day. And so they see value in that and they're willing to pay some money to come see me. And so that, and she gets it like you can explain this to a 6 year old and going, that's the thing, right? Grownups have to enter the grown up world and we have to contribute, you know, like we have to. That's the way if I want to give you nice things in life that I have to contribute to the world and add value. I wouldn't get this massesian with her. She's still six, but. And value is subjective. But people subjectively believe I add value and then I can get some money for that and we can go to the grocery store. Like that's essentially the way this works. And the idea of just sitting here and going, well I have another proposal. And my proposal is that all that stuff just gets done and no one has to do it. I mean that's about as serious as saying we just want to live in a post scarcity world. Oh man, I never thought of that. Well, why don't we all just be trillionaires then? Well, I mean like what is, oh, there just would never not be everything. What is the opposite of saying like I want everything without having to work for it? It's like, okay, but again there are these things called like the laws of nature and reality and we must live within the confines of that system. And this is something that left wingers really do seem to try to buy Buck. But we must live in the confines of reality. And that is not us imposing that on you, that's God imposing it on all of us or nature imposing it, however you choose to, to view it. But I must say again, I just, I, it seems like it'd be crazy for me to not just point out that this is a, this is literally an infantile mentality. It is, it is the, it is like a 6 year old shouldn't have this anymore. A 6 year old should have a dad who gave him the talk I just gave and start to understand the way the world works in infant. This is appropriate. This is an approach. Yes, that is where there, there is no thought not to say there isn't scarcity, but there's no thought of scarcity. What you need ought be provided by someone else. And you ought in a way expect that. Just expect if I'm, if I shit my diaper, someone ought to change this. And if I'm hungry, someone ought to feed Me, and if I'm tired, someone ought to put me to sleep. Like that is the appropriate feeling for an infant. However, as you start to be a little kid, you should get out of that by the time you are an adult. I just feel like the feeling is like, look, we all have so much because other people worked. Like everything we have is because other people came before us and worked. You know, I was up, I was on vacation. This, this, just yesterday, this last weekend for, for Labor Day. Just a little vacation with the family. And I was up in this area. It was like we went on like a cruise through. It's like this area that's been completely preserved and untouched. Just like there's mountains and rivers and like, it's really. It was really cool and beautiful. And I don't like to say exactly where I take my family for vacation publicly, but anyway, there was something. So I'm sitting there and I was having this whole. I was there with my father in law and my wife and mother in law and the kids and you know, it's just me and him in the back on this cruise ship and we're just talking about, it's such a dude thing. This is just the way men's brains work. But as soon as like you start, like, if you can imagine, Rob, you're like, like passing like these big mountains and, you know, totally untouched by humans, just in the state of nature. And then you're sitting there and they're talking about the Native American tribes that lived up here a few hundred years ago and like, what happened with them and all this? And you're just like, you. Right away as a dude, you just start going, imagine just showing up and you show up to this and you're like, okay, we gotta build society now. You know, like, what do we do first? What do we go? You know, like, here's what you got. You got a lake and a whole bunch of trees and probably some bears and some snakes and some. You know what I mean? Like some things you got to contend with and this. But you just think about that because real people were in that situation, but we didn't inherit that. We inherit this. And we inherit this because so many people put so much work into it. And how is your feeling after you feel it to not be like, as an adult, you go, well, I guess I got to contribute something. Like a lot of other people worked. I got to work too. It just sit here and be like, what if I had everything I wanted and there was no limitations? Like, what does that even mean? No scarcity. Like, for there to truly be no scarcity, the level of technology that we'd have to get to rob would be like, well, first off, there'd always be scarcity in time, right? I mean, I guess we could get to. We're immortal now, and we can live forever. If I want a milkshake, I would just have to think about a milkshake and one would appear in front of me. Because otherwise you're dealing with scarcity. Like, no matter what, if it's not just completely abundant with no cost in time or effort or anything, because as soon as you have a cost in time or effort, then it's scarce, then there's something else you could be doing with those resources. So again, if you're talking about hundreds of years in the future with some crazy technological advance, then okay. But again, the point is that then you got to work toward that. You can't just be like, hey, I'd like to live in that world. Okay, so you've contributed nothing. What are you, a child that doesn't contribute anything to the conversation? We'd all like to live in that world. Do you have a plan to get us there? Oh, no, you don't. You're just gonna say, let's go there. Let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Cal. She. We've been telling you about them for weeks now. This is not your grandpa's stock market. It's a prediction market. The first one in the US that's fully regulated. It's CFTC approved. It's available in all 50 states. You can basically bet on anything that's got a clear outcome. Will inflation top 4% this month? Does Bitcoin hit 100k this year? Who's winning the next? Elections? All types of stuff. And what's cool, what I really love about you can see where the markets on all these things are. So you can see where people are putting their money, which I've always found to be a more interesting and dependable statistic than just about anything else. So jump on, Kelsey. See what people are betting on. Some. Some people are trying to make money. Some people are hedging their bets. Some people just want to know what the world thinks without all the spin from the corporate media and what people are putting their. Their money behind. So definitely check them out. I've been having a lot of fun with them. So go check them out@calshy.com Dave. See what people are betting on. Maybe lay down a few bets yourself. Kelsey.com Dave all right, let's get back into the show. All right, here, let's finish this. Let's finish this clip.
- [69:43]
E
Is that a response to any of the statistics?
- [69:45]
F
No, because the statistics are against you. The statistics never worked. There's so many Cubans that move to Miami. Politics in Russia.
- [69:55]
E
Do you know how much. Do you know how much money?
- [69:57]
F
Because it didn't work.
- [69:58]
A
It killed.
- [69:59]
E
So is that almost. Almost like it wasn't communist?
- [70:01]
F
It's almost.
- [70:02]
E
Yes, there was a communistic argument. It's almost like you're not replying to any of the statistics. I think that's the biggest problem. Dictator telling me dictators would not be allowed under communism.
- [70:12]
F
Dictators end up, of course, running communism, but they weren't. If somebody is taxing 100%, what is a dictatorship again?
- [70:17]
E
How much money do you think?
- [70:19]
F
100.
- [70:19]
E
How much money?
- [70:20]
F
Taxes. What is communism?
- [70:22]
E
How much money?
- [70:22]
F
Dictatorship.
- [70:23]
E
How much money do you think would it take to, I don't know, allow everyone food, shelter, water and education in this country?
- [70:29]
F
How much money would it take? Yeah, but going back to your question here with communism. Stay on that pointer with.
- [70:34]
E
Everything I say is responding. But I'm trying to.
- [70:36]
F
I'm trying to find out from you here. You're saying communism is not dictatorship.
- [70:40]
E
No.
- [70:41]
F
Define dictatorship.
- [70:42]
E
Yeah, so when one person or when one small entity.
- [70:44]
A
Right.
- [70:44]
E
You know, is able to, you know, enforce its will on. On the people. When we have a private ownership, when we have a. When we have a system based on private ownership, that's what happens. Yeah. So we.
- [70:54]
F
Dictatorship is private ownership.
- [70:55]
E
Yeah. So private.
- [70:55]
F
So let me. Under communism can.
- [70:58]
E
How much.
- [70:59]
F
Under communism doesn't Elon Musk exist?
- [71:01]
E
Yeah.
- [71:02]
A
No, no.
- [71:02]
F
So that's dictatorship. Thank you.
- [71:04]
E
That's completely incorrect. Under capitalism, we don't have, you know, freedom for people to.
- [71:09]
F
You do.
- [71:09]
E
Okay, so under capitalism, Right. We don't. We don't see that commodification.
- [71:15]
F
Would you consider China Communism right now? Would you consider China communism or water.
- [71:19]
E
Or education with 5% of the budget? Why don't we say that?
- [71:23]
F
Would you consider China communism?
- [71:24]
E
Why haven't you answered any of my questions?
- [71:25]
F
Would you consider.
- [71:26]
E
Why haven't you responded to any of my statistics?
- [71:28]
F
Would you consider China.
- [71:29]
E
It's almost like we're not having a conversation.
- [71:30]
F
We are having a conversation where you have an argument. Argument that's been proven that it's not work.
- [71:34]
E
It's almost like I just gave you a definition of communism for you to critique and you haven't been able.
- [71:39]
F
If it's such a great system. Why are others.
- [71:41]
E
It hasn't happened yet because it's never. We've never been in a point for.
- [71:43]
F
It to happen because we've not found a noble person because can do it the right way.
- [71:47]
A
That's not.
- [71:47]
E
If you were to read the plain text of Marx we would see that he wanted.
- [71:50]
F
I've read Communist Manifest.
- [71:52]
E
I promise you, if you have that capitalism.
- [71:56]
F
Have you read wealth of Nations?
- [71:57]
E
So I've read Das Kapato at all. I've read the Communist Manifesto as well. Angle's Collective Works, etc. What do you think? If you think that communism is in any way.
- [72:07]
A
Oh dude, it's so bad. Oh, it's so bad that she does. But this is just how. Like this. I mean it's infantile. It's. She's so. Yes, I know you've read Das Capita. Obviously I don't think she read it closely enough. Like the term dictator of the proletariat was Marxist term. So it's not as if dictatorship. Dictatorship was supposed to be the pathway to that ultimately leads to communism. That part never happened. But you know, it's crazy that you design a system where everything's centrally controlled by the state and you have a dictator running it and then the dictator is supposed to wither away and create the stateless, classless society. Like somehow that guy always hangs on to power. He decides not to wither away. That's a bit of it. But he goes, he goes, I have read. Pat goes, I have read the Communist Manifesto. Have you read wealth of Nations? Being like, have you read the other side of it? And she goes, I have. I've read Das Kapital. She names another communist book. She doesn't even know who Adam Smith is. She doesn't even know that he's suggesting a capitalist book rather than a commie book. But regardless of that, again, this is, you know, the. She's saying that he's not responding to her point. But of course this doesn't. It doesn't mean anything. Look, the point I think that Pat was trying to. To get at there. And it's hard to make these points when people are talking over each other and stuff. But it's like, look, you can look at this in a very simple way. Forget even the idea of a dictatorship or whatever getting into that. But just in terms of the idea of force. There has to be force in any society. Now libertarians like us might argue that it should, to the largest extent possible, you should try to limit aggression and force should be used defensively but like, there's, there has to be force and there has to be an area where force is allowed. Like, if someone breaks into your house, are you allowed to forcefully evict them? Or if someone you know tries to kill you, are you allowed to defend yourself? Someone tries to steal from you, are you allowed to defend yourself or outsource that and have protection of some sort, whether it's state police or private police or whatever. Think about it like this. And this is like almost what I would say to any of these communists who go like, oh, it's just the people. And it's things like that. It's like, okay, like, I have a big house. I have bigger than I need. I have more room in my house than, than my family needs because I like having a big house. Am I allowed to have that or no, I have a garden in my yard. It produces, let's say it doesn't, but let's say it produces more food than my family needs. Am I allowed to have that? Am I allowed to have that excess wealth? And if not, who's gonna stop me? And how are they gonna stop me? Because I'll tell you, I'm not giving any of it up voluntarily. So, like, who's gonna come take it from me? You know, like, I make, I make all of my money voluntarily. All of my money comes from people buying my tickets at comedy clubs, people signing up to my podcast, the advertisers advertising on my podcast. That's where I make all my money from. It's like, okay, do I get to keep that or are you going to come take it from me? And how are you going to do that? Because you're not taking it from, like, you can't just ask me for it. The government currently gets a nice chunk of it. And they don't do it by asking, they do it by forcing. And so, okay, how are you going to get that? Seems like you're going to need like, you know, some force behind that. And I'll tell you, it's gonna, you're gonna need more than just like a neighborhood non armed, you know, patrolman telling me that he doesn't think scarcity should be a thing. So that's, it's like your whole system falls apart right there. But anyway, final word to you, Rob, and then we'll wrap up. I guess Donald Trump still has not taken the podium.
- [75:57]
B
Maybe really did have a stroke.
- [75:59]
A
Yeah, maybe. Listen, it's not. If we had, if we had live odds going, they've improved a little bit, but I'M still, I'm still listening toward my. I don't think it's that.
- [76:08]
B
This was supposed to start 35 minutes ago. These kids should take less Adderall and make their arguments slower so I can more easily follow it.
- [76:16]
A
There you go. You have there. All right, guys. Well, look, we will I'm sure if there's some major thing here we'll, we'll jump back on and give our thoughts on it at some point in the next day or so. But if not, you'll have to wait till tomorrow to to hear from me. All right, thank you guys very much for listening. Catch you next time. See you out in Tacoma and Spokane this weekend. Comic Dave Smith for tickets to see me and Robbie the Fire in Tacoma and Spokane, Washington this weekend, Thursday through Sunday and of course porch tour.com to come check out any of the porch Rob Porching it up for full year all year round now. All right. Thanks for listening, guys. Catch you next time. Peace, Sam.