Dave Smith (43:49)
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Download the app today and use the promo code POTP to get $50 in lineups after you play your first five dollar lineup. Once again, the code is POTP to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks. It's good to be right. All right, let's get back into the show. Yeah, it's amazing, like how much they will just lie about these things. You know, I was thinking I didn't get a chance to make this point, but I was thinking I was on Piers Morgan's show earlier today and they were, you know, they were talking about this, the military parade that they just had over in, in China and kind of like a broader conversation about like the unipolar moment being over and stuff, which is a very interesting, you know, topic. And I, at one point I was thinking to say, but there were, there wasn't really, really a good hawk on the panel for me to argue with. But it's just like the thing just came into my head was just like, hey, remember when you guys were lying and saying that China was committing a genocide five years ago? Remember that? Remember like this like came up for like a little bit. I even remember like, even in, in like, you know, different, like, like circles of libertarians or something, like they'd be like, oh, they denied the, the Uyghur genocide. And it was all literally just that Mike Pompeo told you so. Like Mike Pompeo just said it in 2020. His one source was that Adrian Zenz, who just, like, no opinion either way, just objectively just got the numbers wrong. Like, just didn't carry a 7 when he was supposed to, and, like, got. Came to a completely wrong conclusion. And now that's not even a thing that they even use. Even when they're trying to ramp up, you know, be hawkish on China, they don't even say that anymore. It's just like, they lie, they move on, then it's whatever. Then they come up with another excuse for it. But again, and this is to your. The point that you started with there, that it's like, this is where reading anti war.com helps, is that whenever there's a. And. And sorry. And just in general, whenever there's. I apologize. I'm having some work done in the house. And so if you hear some of that, I do apologize, guys. But whenever there is, you know, these conflicts come up. They've almost always been going on for a while, but everybody's not paying attention to them. You know, it's a big advantage if you're me and you interview Scott Horton all the time. Scott Horton was talking about the maid on Revolution on my podcast, like, for years before Vladimir Putin invaded the country, but no one's really paying attention to that. Then when Vladimir Putin invades, they all start spinning their propaganda and, like, it's a. It's a big advantage if you're like, oh, I've actually been paying attention to this since before you just started lying. And so what happens is that you realize that, like, even the way you just said it, it's like, look, there are. I'll. I'll say this. There's a lot of people of good faith who really do just look around and see how many lives fentanyl has. Has ruined or how many ruined lives, you know, then get more ruined by drug addiction and things like that. And there's definitely some people who I think are good people, like Cubans who moved to America, people who really hate communism and, like, because they understand firsthand how destructive and oppressive it is. And so these people, like, get sucked into this. But you're like, look, if the goal here was really to keep fentanyl out of the United States of America, why are we picking on Venezuela? Why does it happen to be the regime that you already wanted to overthrow now happens to be the target of this military strike? Like, I'm sorry. It's just. It's like when they said they wanted to Fight the war in Ukraine to protect democracy or something like that. And you're like, wait a minute, if you're all about democracy, well then why are you propping up the King of Jordan and the House of Saud and the like, this just doesn't pass the basic smell test. And so they manipulate people with this like, oh, protecting democracy, that does sound like a noble enough goal. Hating communism, that sure does sound like a noble enough goal. But again, also, if you really hated communism, like at a certain point, wouldn't you go, we've run this playbook and it doesn't work like we've got with Fidel Castro right here a few miles off of our coast. We had the toughest sanctions, multiple assassination, regime change attempts. It only made the people support for that regime stronger. And of course, this is a point that I think only like us libertarians, the non interventionist libertarian types are really making. Maybe there's some other people outside of this, but like, can't you like, as an American almost understand that, oh, just think, think about how much right wingers hated Joe Biden in this country. Like just, you know, like thought the man that most, the average right winger in America thought that the election in 2020 was stolen, that Joe Biden was senile, that he was, you know, the other shadowy pedophiles were really running the government and Joe Biden was just their fate. But like, if the Chinese came in and tried to overthrow Joe Biden, those same right wingers would have grabbed their guns and taken to the streets to defend him. Because screw that, you're not coming in here and telling us what we're allowed to do. Like, you don't get to just rule over us people. Like autonomy and sovereignty is something that matters to human beings. And so of course, if you really cared about, if you really cared about, you know, people dying of drug deaths, you would just call off the drug war. And if you really cared about, you know, Venezuela becoming more capitalist, then you would want to just trade with them. It'd be the best move. They never try that, but that's, that would be by far the best move.