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A
What's up? What's up everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I'm very excited for today's episode. Real quick before we start guys, Friday, one night only. May 5, I will be with Robbie the Fire Bernstein up in Toronto at the Parkdale hall theater. Uh, the shows are almost sold out, so if you want to grab tickets, make sure to go do that right now. Comicdavesmith.com I haven't to Canada since. Oh, I did. No, I did one little day trip there but I haven't performed in Toronto since like pre Covid days. So Canada. I had to put you on timeout for being tyrants for a few years. But I'm coming back to you now so you have a second chance. All right, today's show, very special guest who I'm very happy to welcome back to the show is Jeremy Kaufman, somebody who I always really enjoy talking with for many of you I'm sure already know Jeremy. Jeremy is an entrepreneur and a political commentator and activist, a champion of the Free State Project up in New Hampshire and strategy for. For people who don't know, the Free State Project is a strategy for libertarians physically consolidating in order to improve liberty in New Hampshire. They've made some huge strides and had some huge victories and he is also a. You're the. The chair of the Libertarian. The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire. The most, I think fair to say the most successful and also the most perceived as controversial state affiliate Libertarian Party. Maybe not a state affiliate anymore. Maybe it's the entire Libertarian Party now. I'M not exactly sure, but we'll get to the bottom of it. How are you, Sarah?
- [02:47]
C
I am doing great. I think. That was all. I think that was all correct. You know, I think the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire is actually the only Libertarian Party still standing. You know, the woke. The woke Leftists have sort of taken over the rest of us.
- [03:00]
A
Yeah, yeah. Well, we can, we can get into some of that stuff. It sure is. It sure is something. You know, I don't know who likes
- [03:07]
C
talking about the Libertarian Party, you know, either. I think, I think decent people kind of recognize what it's become.
- [03:14]
A
Yes, I agree. That's why we have to, like, you know, we'll, we'll. It's the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. We'll talk a little bit about issues that matter and then we'll give you a little bit of LP talk as well. You know, I was thinking about you, but. Well, because, so I'm, I'm, you know, obviously I'm interviewing you on the show today and earlier I was on the Pierce Morgan show and we did a panel that was all about this horrible stabbing in, in the uk which is from last year. But the body cam just came out, so that's the whole topic. And I was on with, um, Mark Lamont Hill and what's the guy's name? I can't remember. It's like Wajkat Ali or something like that. They're like two, two real, like kind of race hustling leftists.
- [04:02]
C
Yeah.
- [04:03]
A
And I don't know why. I guess I. Because I knew I was going to be talking to you later. I was literally, while I was filming it, I was just thinking about talking to you about it because I just kind of. Well, I couldn't. Kind of. Well, look, you've been a libertarian who's been very outspoken, I think, on some of these issues that get you in a lot of trouble. And there was something about listening to both of these guys and they're both going, guys, like, let's not make this a racial issue. Let's calm down temperatures, let's. And, and like on the surface there's something like kind of like, oh, okay, fine. But I said at one point in the thing, I go, hey, Internet, could you guys go clip together some stuff of what these guys were saying right after George Floyd died? You know what I mean? Like, I'm just saying, like, like on some level you just know, like, don't sit here and tell me for a second that if this story had been a A black kid walks down the street and a white guy walks past him. The white people are allowed to have knives, you see, but the black people are disarmed by the state and then the, the white guy stabs him five times and then the cops come, agree with the white guy, handcuff the dying black guy. And in their last moments, the last thing they hear is them going, no one stabbed you. Like my gut tells me Mark Lamont Hill would not go, let's not make that a racial issue. You know what I'm saying?
- [05:22]
C
It's an, it's an, it's an unbelievable case and it's, it's example after example of this, you know, where the mainstream press of course is not talking about it. This is a case that's way worse than like any of the racial hysteria cases that have happened over the last. This is worse than Trayvon, this is worse than George Floyd. This, this is worse than any of these cases. And we're not going to see anything like this. And we still have today in America, not even just in the uk, massive racial discrimination. This idea that wokeness has been defeated, I think is completely false. I think it's fine to say that it's been on the retreat a little bit, but it has not been defeated. We still have, quote, institutional racism. And then this is the funny thing is the right struggles to really address these issues in ways that aren't embracing the leftist. Yes, inherently in how we even talk about them, you know, when we say, oh well, you're being racist, you know, or this is an example of institutional racism or systematic racism or whatever, you know, and so even when we're arguing against them, you know, we're meeting them in their own frame. But of course they don't play by their own rules. Their rules are completely one sided and they only use these rules, you know, basically against, you know, against the right. And so I think this is still a major problem. I think the idea that it's over is completely ludicrous. And I think this is also a winning issue for libertarians to talk about. You know, Libertarian Party on New Hampshire does talk about these things. Free Staters are comfortable talking about these things. You know, we, we have a multitude of ethnicities, you know, here in New Hampshire, but I think there definitely is a recognition that, that things vary a little bit by ethnicity in terms of, in terms of beliefs. And you know, and so I, you know, I think all this stuff has to be in bounds and the right has to find a way of talking about it in Ways that aren't just talking about it inside of a leftist frame, which is self defeating.
- [07:12]
A
Yeah, I think, I think that's right. It is a bit of a challenge in a way, because even as I laid it out to you, I mean, I'm essentially doing like the Dems are the real racist thing. But I don't know how else to describe this other than even as you said, as you pointed out, far more egregious than Trayvon Martin for. Far more egregious. Like whatever you think of those situations, let's, let's grant like the most charitable interpretations of both. We'll go with the one autopsy for George Floyd that says the cop killed them. We'll go with his murder conviction that absolutely should not have had his knee on his neck for that long after he was subdued. Still, still, he was a guy with a criminal record who was committing a petty crime. And the idea that he had an interaction with law enforcement that went bad after that is not like just on the scale of outrages. And he wasn't just a college kid walking downtown who just got stabbed five times. And you can just. I guess the point is that you, you kind of. The part of the reason why this story is blowing up so much online is because it does get to this level that it's just intolerable, man. It's intolerable to expect people, largely meaning white people, to accept this. I mean, the way I said it on Pierce Morgan today was I go, just try to imagine that there's, there's literally the rule in the UK is that Sikhs are allowed to carry swords on them, but the population is disarmed. And so. And I go, so you've. And think about this, think about also, like just the historical irony that the UK has rigged the rules of self defense. Not on behalf of Englishmen, on behalf of Indians. What world are we living in here, man?
- [09:04]
C
You get a special line if you go to the stadium. If you want to go to a sporting event where no one's allowed to bring knives in, if you're a Sikh, you can contact the stadium. You get a special entry queue so that you can bring your knife in to the sporting events. And this is like, it's so absurd that I'm like, if I like, I, I honestly, this is one where I was like, this can't be real. I was like, this has to be someone's like, exaggerating or like making this up. I was like, no, it's. It's real. It's real. And so this Is okay. And so this is the hard part. And this is something I think libertarians need to get through. All kind of right thinking people need to get through. And I don't, I don't know exactly what the answer is, but there's this weird aspect where you're sort of what's special about Western civilization and you know, sort of Western European culture is it has this incredible importance towards fairness that we're going to be fair towards people who aren't our kin. You know, we're going to have, we're going to, we desire this sort of universalized morality. And I think, you know, the Catholic Church and Christianity deserves a lot of credit for sort of creating this both culturally. I think it also exists in the genetic record. I think it's partially hereditary as well. You know, if you evolve under the, if a population evolved under a set of rules for a long time, that becomes part of their constitution. In the same way that if, if a different culture evolves in the high altitudes, you know, if the religion requires universalized fairness and treating strangers in a certain way, then people who are more compatible with that religion are going to be. We're going to find more of them in the population. And so there's this weird aspect where what's really special about Western European culture is this desire to be fair, is this desire to cooperate. But now the thing that's great about it is kind of being exploited and taking advantage of, you know, and it's not just a matter of intelligence. It's not just a matter of an ability to contribute economically. There are all kinds of aspects of our society that, you know, our jury trial system depends on people's willingness to be impartial and fair. But if you could be a very intelligent person, but come from a clannish culture where your view of morality is, is very focused on your family, is very focused on who's close to you, who's in your immediate family, you know, and, and so there are all kinds of aspects, I think, of things that will break down or at risk of breaking down and are more fragile than we appreciate and we need. You know, and I'm, I'm worried. You know, I do feel like the system is increasingly exploited. The train has no brakes and no, it's not included anyone's even at the wheel at this point. You know, we have this runaway set of, of, of mores and norms that is suiciding us. And it's become this problem that I think about, you know, more and more.
- [11:43]
A
Yeah, you know, I was the point you're making. I remember thinking about this a lot during the, the Derek Chauvin trial, which, you know, I, I'm sure probably a lot of right wingers disagree with my take on all of that, but I more or less like, you know, I just don't, I don't really work up a lot of sympathy for cops in, in his situation. You know, I kind of feel like this, this, this cop is like a guy who you took that job. If somebody had literally had a gun just to defend themselves with and had brought it across state lines and you stopped them, you would have, you wouldn't have lost one wink of sleep over ruining someone's life for defending themselves. I just don't, you know, ah, you kneeled on the guy's neck, whatever. But even I, maybe, you know, disagreeing from most right wingers on that, even I, just as an honest person, you couldn't help but look at the dynamic of that trial and go, look, dude, if you can put yourself back in what the culture was like at the time, everybody involved knew that if they, if every juror knew that if you passed a not guilty verdict here, your city was going to burn. Like, people you knew around you were going to be hurt, have their businesses destroyed, people would die, people would be, you know, get viciously beat up and all this type of stuff. And there's really no such thing as a fair trial in that type of environment. And it seems so silly to pretend that that's not, you know what I mean? Like, this isn't a major problem. And I do think that there is a tendency amongst many left libertarians which seems to be a convenient tendency to go, oh, we should only care about law. We shouldn't at all care about culture. Meanwhile, they still really do care about culture and they just kind of want to shoehorn their degenerate culture in. But I think people can recognize that like, yeah, you kind of can't have a culture. You know, you could the idea that, oh, you have this cultural problem, but then we go, there's still an impartial trial. No, you really can't have both of those things. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is my Patriot Supply. I love this company. Love having them on board As a longtime sponsor. The bugout bag, designed for elite survivalist preparedness experts and field tested professionals, is now available to the public. That's right. Our friends at my Patriot Supply have just announced they're fully stocked go bag with everything you need to escape a crisis and survive on your own. Including multiple days worth of food, a water bottle with built in filtration tools and gear for starting fires, making shelter, staying warm, catching fish, trapping small game, cooking off grid, and much more. It's everything you need whether you're facing a natural disaster, power grid failure or civil unrest. And it all comes pre stocked in a tactical backpack with so rugged and durable it's practically bulletproof. The kit was designed with elite survivalists in mind and now it's available to you. And here's the best part. When you go to preparelike Dave.com you'll unlock a limited time $100 discount. The world is getting crazier by the day. Preparedness is no longer optional. Get your survival go bag today for $100 off the regular price at preparelike Dave.com that's preparelike Dave.com all right, let's get back into the show.
- [15:02]
C
Yeah, so I have two sort of comments and response to that. One is that culture is clearly important. Culture is in many ways upstream of politics. One of the reasons that I still, despite having plenty of specific problems with Trump on policy, still kind of like him overall is I feel that he's positive for the culture, that he's willing to say these things and introduce these things into the culture that otherwise wouldn't happen. And so in terms of, in terms of combating your sort of egalitarianism or gay race communism, which I use as almost synonyms, you know, this is that, you know, he, that, that, that he's a positive, you know, force for this and we have to care about these things. You libertarians, the left, libertarian types will often do this two step where they're like, well, you know, we don't want the state to be involved with these things, but it should be handled through, you know, through private, you know, approbation or, or, or whatever. But then when, when you post about how, well, hey, you know, it's better to be straight than to be gay, or, you know, it's better to have children than to not have children, you know, they then condemn you for passing judgment. And it's like, well, you know, I think I can tell what you really want here. You know, you just want everything to be allowed. You want everything to be permissible. You know, your morality is essentially that if it's agreed to, you know, that it's okay or that it's good. And that's certainly not my, you know, morality. You know, I, you know, so I wouldn't, I wouldn't agree with this kind of thing, you know. And then also I may, this may be a break from some of the libertarians, but I think this idea, like people are different, you know, the average cop, look, I think they're bad cops. I think they're cops who abuse their authority. I'm not like a wholly pro cop guy in the slightest. But at the same time I recognize that this is a job for, you know, an average individual essentially. Okay. And the idea that I want, I'm not saying their conscious should never enter into it, but like to some extent the idea that they are just following orders is not, is not a wholly wrong idea to me. Like, I don't, I, you know, like we want, we want cops to be enforcing the law, not constantly making entirely, you know, subjective judgments and just doing what they want all the time. And so, you know, to me, like something like in the Chauvin case, like, well, was he trained to do this? Is this what he was supposed to be doing? These are highly relevant facts to, you know, to how I would judge, you know, a case like this.
- [17:19]
A
Well, I certainly, you know, in a weird sense he's even as you say it, I mean, you know, people mock the, the Nuremberg defense of just following orders. And of course it was ruled at Nuremberg that that is illegitimate. But also this is kind of a bit of history that's lost is that we did accept that defense for millions of Germans, like literally they only prosecuted the top level Nazi guys. And then essentially at a certain level on down they went without saying it, they went, yeah, just taking orders is actually a legitimate defense because like, but it was almost like, well, what are we going to do? We're going to trials for every member of the society. But that being said, it also doesn't, that doesn't then remove the morality or the moral equation of what any Nazi may have done to somebody else. You know what I mean? So I get your point. I wouldn't say that it's wholly irrelevant what the training is. That being said, I mean, I guess the answer is if the job of law enforcement is going to be something that the regular person does. Well, that's kind of why me and you are libertarians and want there to be kind of as few laws on the books as possible and as little interaction between that regular guy and the citizenry as possible.
- [18:36]
C
Yeah, I'll give you an example then. I don't know if you'll find this thought experiment interesting, but it's an area in which like my thinking has changed as, as a libertarian or As a, as honestly, like I, you know, I came from, I probably wouldn't consider myself a classical liberal anymore, but like, I came from that school of like, we want all the laws to be written down, we want everything to be fair. And, but you know, I've come to realize that this can also be an exploit of sorts. You know, if I look at why. Why for example, is, is drinking not allowed in a public park? Well, this is really because there's a certain type of person we don't want to allow drinking. And it's not easy to write a rule that says, you know, a couple who wants to set out a blanket, a blanket and you know, and bring out a bottle of wine and have a nice picnic in the park, well, that's allowed. But the bum, you know, drinking out of a paper bag, we don't want that to be allowed. You know, and there's all kinds of, what we're, what we're actually trying to do is come up with these bright line rules to police a norm that doesn't always have these bright lines. And you know, I thought about it more and like, if I, you know, let's suppose that I still, like, I, you know, I live in a, I live in a city, at least by New Hampshire standards, you know, and we have parks all over the place. How do I actually want these parks to be policed? Well, what I would actually like is a cop who, or other, some other agent, you know, who roughly matches my values, who has a decent amount of subjectivity, but who has like a camera on him, you know, so that, right, so that he can be audited in terms of whether he was enforcing community standards or not. But there's a lot of things that we can't do because we, the rules have to be universal for everyone. But these rules are really just about preventing a certain sort of like lower class behavior, you know, or whatever, and everyone's getting punished because that's the only way we can stop the thing. And I think this is like, you know, this is a problem to me and I would like to find better solutions than the, you know, status quo.
- [20:26]
A
But. Yeah, well, look, I mean, I, I, I agree with you and I think that, you know, this, I, I think a lot of this was why I, and I, I understand, like, it's kind of played out at this point, but this was why a few years ago I got so big into all those like homeless guy in public school or just the homeless encampments or even talks about immigration with, with libertarians, because it Seems like there is this thing going on that's kind of at a crisis state in the country where like, there's this major problem kind of with public property in general. And even the example that you're giving there, it's like, yeah, the fact that like our cities have become disgusting and overrun and completely like unregulated public spaces. And then what ends up happening is this very weird dynamic where like, look, I know this for me personally, it ends up as, and I'm sure you can relate to this as, as a father, it makes you almost care about money more than you otherwise would have to. Because I feel like I have to keep making a ton of money to make sure that I can afford to opt out my family from all these public spaces that are such nightmares and get them into like a more expensive community, a more expensive school, a more expensive thing. Because the state of the public everything is essentially that we, we, we either like have to have maximum rules for that that need not apply to you, or we essentially have to have no rules because it would be offensive for us to enforce any rules. Again, to people who are not you. It's kind of infuriating.
- [22:04]
C
No, I, I, this is a huge problem and it's so many things, it underlies so many things. Even, you know, even something like housing costs, I think is frequently driven by this, where, you know, a lot of the reason, of course, if you talk to the residents, they would never say it this way, but if you really dig in, you know, a lot of the reasons that these areas are expensive is why have they zoned out cheaper housing? Why they zoned out apartments is because they don't, they don't want, you know, lower class people living in that area. And, but even truthfully, it's not even just lower class people, it's just this portion of the lower class. And you know, and there's no way of dealing with them. Like, there are, I, you know, I want to be clear that like, there are plenty of people who are lower in income who, you know, nonetheless, you know, they're not littering and you know, they're not committing crimes and they're not making their neighborhood worse. So I want to be clear that it's a minority of them that are doing this, but they are disproportionately lower class people and there's, and, and they ruin their neighborhoods. I mean, they, they create like such outsized negative impacts and it's, it, it's, it. So it's, it affects property prices, it affects our public transit it affects our school systems, you know. You know, it's, it's everywhere. And I, you know, I see it as like, one of the root problems that we're not addressing or not getting to, you know, is, is, is how we do it is, you know, is how we deal with this. And it's something that makes everything more expensive, too. And we're talking about, you know, affordability is obviously a big issue with younger people. And part of the reason the nice areas are expensive is because this is a way of solving this problem. But there are potentially much cheaper ways of, of, of solving this if we had the will to do it.
- [23:35]
A
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with that. So you had mentioned kind of, you know, your attitude toward Trump and maga, and I think there's a big gap between me and you on this issue. So let's kind of talk about this a little bit. I mean, it seems to me that while I, So if we were zooming out and speaking of Donald Trump, or if we were speaking about Donald Trump five years ago or four years ago or a year and a half ago, I mean, there's no question I would have agreed with you that, like, yeah, there was real value in Donald Trump, just not even politically, but just culturally being this huge, like, giant middle finger to PC orthodoxies, wokeism and gay race, communism, whatever you want to call it. And I think that there was real benefit in that. I basically, at this point, think all of that benefit has already been achieved. And if anything, the direction Donald Trump's going in now is just kind of tarnishing the whole brand. So it's kind of a negative. But I don't know. I mean, I see, I think, I don't know. I think we see this pretty differently. I do not at all think, like, I know when we were tweeting back and forth, you had sent me the video, which I believe was Chris Ruffo and a host over at the Blaze saying that really, libertarians shouldn't be, like, so harsh and criticizing Trump. They should recognize that we're junior partners here and we'll still get something, just not that much, but we should still kind of be more agreeable. I really don't see things this way. So what, what am I missing? Pitch me on why I should still love Donald Trump.
- [25:14]
C
Well, like, again, I, I, if we, we, I'm not going to be here and be, like, a wholesale defender of Trump. So there's all kinds of specific things you could point out that he's done that I wouldn't like. And wouldn't appreciate, approve of. And that was, that was Rufo and Loma as Jonathan Keeferman talking. And I am a fan of his. He's doing, actually, his publisher, Passage Press, just put out a great book on the whole George Floyd case and died there. What he's doing with his work is great. But the, from New Hampshire's perspective, right, like from the world that I want to live in, I think, you know, Trump is a socialist, right? From the perspective of what is possible in our political reality today, I don't see someone who is better than him, who is feasible to center around. And to me, politics is the art of the possible. So who's better? You know, like, even Massie, who is clearly better than him in lots of ways from a libertarian perspective, is actually not better than Trump on key areas of the culture war or pulling the culture, you know, rightward. Like, Massie is going on, you know, testifying to Congress and talking about, you know, how this gun control legislation is racist, you know, or whatever. And maybe it is. I'm not saying Massey's argument is wrong, but this is not an argument you would get from Trump. This is attempting to win inside of a leftist, you know, kind of frame. And so to me, it's always like, well, who's better? You know, who can do a better job? I don't even see someone behind Trump who's ready to talk the way that Trump is, you know, about immigration. Like, Trump is willing to be like, yeah, we don't want anyone from Somalia. How many Republicans are willing to say that today? This is not something that has really. How many libertarians are willing to say that, you know, today this is not something that, you know, we're just trying
- [27:05]
A
to get, we're just trying to get him to stop bombing Somalia. But you're right, it's a fair point.
- [27:10]
C
Again, as I said, when we get the specifics, like, I don't, I, I would prefer that gas was not 450, you know, like, I, I.
- [27:18]
A
Sure, sure. Well, I would just say, number one, I mean, look, personally, I don't like, as you said it, the point, I mean, I don't know the specifics, but I bet Thomas Massey's right about what he's saying. And like, I don't personally mind someone pointing out that if there is a law on the books that actually is being used in a up way against one race, calling it racist in the same way that I wouldn't mind calling DEI laws racist, even if that is okay, you can say that's embracing the left's framework. I mean, I get your point on that, but I mean, Donald Trump embraces the left's framework on a lot of different issues. He's a boomer liberal essentially. But if your point is that Donald Trump is more crude and crass and in some ways, in being that way, it does just tear down the kind of facade of woke politeness or something like that, I would not argue with you on that. There's no question that there's, there's no individual who does that like Trump.
- [28:15]
C
Like, look, I, I still huge fan of Massie, still a huge fan of Rand Paul's. I, but they're not, they don't talk about certain issues, immigration being a key one in the way that I would like them to talk about it like that. They, you know, the views that they have are rare to find worldwide and they still, you know, aren't, aren't sort of recognizing, you know, this, this issue. And, and this is part of what I think is really hard. You know, I like and I still, by the way, I'm not, I still like the idea of, quote, you know, certain types of high skilled immigration. I recognize that there are talented people all over the world. I'm very pro building, I'm very pro technology, you know, advancing into the future productivity. Like I, you know, I'm not a pure GDP, numbers go up kind of person. But I, I am the kind of person who recognizes that, that you know, talent is rare and we want to be an America that's being exceptional and achieving things. But there's massive, you know, there's massive sympathy not just on the left but among huge portions of the right, you know, towards, you know, the oppressed, immigrant, you know, class or whatever. And I think that a huge amount of politics is downstream of culture and demographics. And so having a leader who is good on those issues like Trump has, you know, Trump has reduced, I believe we're like negative migration. People who ought to be leaving America are leaving. We're bringing in people from, you know, South Africa who are way more likely to be compatible American on average than the types of people who were bringing in before. And I, you know, I think this is all very, very positive stuff. You know, I'm very pro New Hampshire. I think you're not entirely the reason New Hampshire works. We are different from Vermont. But part of why New Hampshire works, you know, is the, is the demographics and these issues matter. They're not, it's not random. Political beliefs are not random. And so to be ignoring this, I think is. Is. Is foolish.
- [30:18]
A
Well, certainly, I think no one could even argue that in a democratic system. The democratic. The democratic. The beliefs of the demographics in your geopolitic, in your geogr area are the whole thing. I mean, that's. And what ends up, you know, making the difference. I would. So. Okay, so here's where I would kind of agree with you. I think that. I think there is something to guys like Massie and Paul. They're almost a little bit limited in their own. In their own vocabulary about how exactly to talk about what we're really dealing with here. You know, there was an old, an old tweet of mine that people.
- [31:04]
C
It's.
- [31:05]
A
It's like taken out of context and going viral now by people who don't like me, but where I said, I said something like, I'm not for closed borders. But what I was actually doing was arguing back with another libertarian who was like, well, you're for closed borders. And I was like, well, no, I'm not for open borders, but I'm not for. And essentially what I meant by that is, like, I'm not saying there should be no immigrants ever coming in. I'm saying having a system where millions of people from third world countries pour in in an unaccountable manner against the wishes of the domestic population is, Is suicide and is insane. And what, what people are. It's like the conversation isn't even really about immigration here. We're talking about mass migration. We're talking about what I, I know it's become the dirty word, but replacement levels of immigration, where you're 10 sending in like over a few short decades, tens of millions, and then over a few short years, another 10 million or something like this. No, this is. And, and there is something about, like the, to capture, like, that is such a profound crime. You could argue it's the most profound crime that a government could commit against their citizenry is to actually replace the culture and the people against their will. And so it's important to have language to really oppose that. Okay, but like, so, like, there is some truth to that. But also essentially what Donald Trump's done a good job on is securing the border. He hasn't really been getting the people to leave who have deportations really aren't the strong suit of this administration. But he did secure the border, and that is true. But then there's also a lot of other really important things. And so to me, you got like, even in. Look, I'm trying to say this. I'm not in the. In the context of this show. I'm not a political actor. I'm not, like, thinking about, like, what, you know, sometimes I try to be one, but I really just talk about how I feel about all these things. But even if I was being a political actor, I would say that Donald Trump, you know, by launching this, you know, disastrous war, by going in the direction that he's moved here, he's ended up blowing the whole coalition that's, that's surrounding, you know, people like that. And for libertarians, if we were going to play a role of saying, like, hey, we will support you if you give us some promises, it makes sense, just as a political action that it would be. We also then oppose you if you break a bunch of those promises. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Body Brain Coffee, of course, the brainchild of Louis J. Gomez, the great Louis J. Gomez. Body Brain Coffee is awesome. I drink a cup of it every day and I've never felt better. So I highly do recommend this stuff. If you're a guy, you're around my age, you looking for a way to naturally boost testosterone, you don't have to take pills or powder or any of that. It's just you always drink a cup of coffee every day. So just drink a cup of coffee every day. That's it. And they just launched the creamer as well, which is delicious. So now you got all types of different options. Also, as I always tell you guys, Louis J. Gomez made this company, he created this product. It's genuinely really great. And he's the guy who convinced me to start podcasting. So if you love this podcast, you do, in a way, owe a little bit of a debt toward Lewis. And here, here's a great way to pay it. We blow this coffee brand up and you get yourself a delicious cup of coffee that naturally boosts testosterone. So go to bodybrain coffee.com, use the promo code Dave20. That will get you 20% off your order. Once again, that's bodybrain coffee.com promo code Dave20 for 20% off. All right, let's get back into the show.
- [34:45]
C
Seems to me I'm not, I'm not here to be on the show and, and, and try to argue. Your audience should be, again, supporting everything that Trump does. You know, I'm, I'm still very anti interventionist. Some of this stuff, you know, really does seem unnecessary, you know, to me. I also will say, you know, my foreign policy chops, you know, almost certainly aren't as good as yours. So, you know, when, when we get into the, to the play by play of everything happening, I'm not going to know as much as you do, but my inclination is that, yeah, some of this stuff was unnecessary. You know, at the same time, it's like, look, I, I just don't know another. I just don't see a better strategy. You know, Libertarians are, in my opinion, well, nine out of ten libertarians are on the right by the data that I can find. And then on inside of the right, libertarians are maybe 10% of the right, 20% of the right at the upper side. And so it's like, well, you know, how are we getting what we want? How are we negotiating? And what would be nice is if we had libertarian leaders, whether that's Massie or Paul, who were centering around them or even, you know, at least Angela Ricardo was trying to do this. I don't know, it all worked out great. But she was, I think, directionally trying to do the right thing of, okay, become a coalition. Let's horse trade. Look, I'll tell you, we have a, we have a Rothbardian, ancap, Mises educated guy. His name is Jason Osborne. He's the House majority leader in New Hampshire. And he is constantly getting our, telling our guys, whipping our guys. He's like, look, we just got to vote Republican up and down the board. This is how we get what we want. The more that we show that we play ball, the more that I can negotiate on. And it's not, of course, we have almost 100 libertarians elected here, but he's the guy we coordinate around and he's the guy who, and the more that, the more we show that, hey, we're playing ball with the team, the more that he's able to get our priorities passed. And it doesn't mean that we get what we want 100% of the time. Sometimes our Republican, you know, we were very close to getting Campus Kerry passed this year and it was other Republicans who shot it down. We were very close to getting this other, like school, it's not even school choice. We already have a great school choice, but this like, school swap program and it was Republicans who shot it down. And so, you know, and this is disappointing that our priorities are not happening, not even because of the Democrats or because of other Republicans at times. But you know what Jason would say. And I'm, we're going to, I'm going to do a video with him in a couple of weeks on this on on the Free State Party channel, which I would encourage your audience to check out, is. Is explaining some of this stuff. And it's like, it's hard. Libertarians are disagreeable. We're independent minded. We like to speak our truths and say where we're at. But I just don't see a better strategy. And this is like, you know, I don't like it, but, like, what am I supposed to do other than hold my nose a little bit? Because I just don't see a better way. I just don't see a better strategy. Like, if I start being like, you know, Trump sucked. Like, it's not like it would. Things would be better if Kamala was present. Even though there's stuff I don't like with Trump, it's not like that would be better, you know?
- [37:48]
A
Well, I guess. Okay, well, let me. Let me say it like this. So, because I listened to your. I just earlier today listened to your interview on our good mutual friend Tom woods show over there, and you were kind of talking about how, like, you know, like, at the startup phase, you want, like, more radicals, and then as you're getting bigger and bigger, would be the time to moderate the message kind of, and things like that. So I think that it's quite. It might be quite reasonable in the state legislature in New Hampshire, where you have a real presence and you really have been building momentum to be like, listen, guys, this is the time where we're going to have to moderate. In fact, I think I remember talking with you years ago about how I almost go that like, like, more of the, like, Nick Sarwalk types in the Libertarian Party. I go, they kind of would have a point if Gary Johnson had gotten 32% of the vote. And you were like, guys, we just need to, like, get a few more points here. But when your big win is that you got 5%, it's like, no, dude, this is the time to be more radical because you kind of have to go for it. So I do think there's just like, that might really make sense within New Hampshire state politics. But on the federal level, and especially when you get when, again, this is all a balancing act, right? Like, if it felt like in mo, in almost all ways, Donald Trump was a huge improvement over the Democrats, but there were a few issues on the margins that weren't very good. I would agree with, like, I'm saying it's not. I would agree with the principle. Like, nah, come on, dude, we're getting some huge wins here. We got to stick by it. Let's Stay in the coalition. When you're spending more money, he's probably spending double what Obama was spending when he was in. He's spending more money than Joe Biden did in the wake of COVID and you're launching wars of aggression. And again, fair enough that you, you know, I focus on the foreign policy more than, than other stuff. But like, I mean, dude, like the amount of devastation that this thing has already caused, it's not just like there's a few cents up at the pump. It's like the global economy has been starved of energy for two months now. This is going to cause major problem anyway. I just go, at a certain point, I don't think this is the correct strategy. I think essentially what ends up happening is that libertarians lose, essentially we lose our reputations, we lose any of our standing as truth tellers, which then undercuts our ability to have political options going forward. But I would say isn't it the case then like for someone from your perspective, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but you really think the Free State Project is the best thing, is the best libertarian strategy?
- [40:29]
C
Right?
- [40:29]
A
I mean, that's the most important thing to you is kind of like the health of that project first?
- [40:34]
C
Yeah, for sure. So I mean, well, I just think I see libertarians as, and I'll use some leftist language here, they're like, they're a dominated minority. You know, they are preferences marginalized. Yeah. If you're a right wing libertarian, you're 5% of the population in America, you know, and so 5% of the population never gets what they want. But when 5% of the population concentrates in one place, you know, the most successful anarchists in America are the Amish. The Amish don't have to pay Social Security, they don't have to register for the draft. They did this by being a physically concentrated population who, you know, was willing to stand up. You can look at what the Mormons have been able to achieve in Utah. You can look at, I wouldn't always endorse everything they do. You can look at what the Hasidic Jews have done in, in New Jersey and you know, New York where they've, you know, sort of taken over these local town. And this is a real strategy that works. It does work here in New Hampshire where, you know, again, if something happens, I have a whole team of people behind me. Not just people, I have people in positions of power. We have influence and control over various institutions. You know, we're doing our own sort of march to the institutions here, it's right. To me, this is a real strategy, a democracy in general, whether it's the free state movement or something else, by the way, it might be something else, but a democracy has never voted itself out of socialism. We haven't seen. We basically continue to expand the franchise. What I call the scariest graph in the world is to look at the percentage of GDP that is controlled by governments, not just in America, but across Europe. And it's a line that just goes nothing but up for 120 straight years. And so how do we get out of this? We managed to stay afloat, quite frankly, thankfully, to entrepreneurs and innovative people that continue to make us more productive. And so I will say, like, yeah, my life is nonetheless better, despite this increasing parasite load of my government. My life is better than it was in the past. So I'm not here dooming about it. But this doesn't seem sustainable over time unless we're expecting just infinite productivity gains to always save us. And so something new has to come about. It's inevitable. The pressure and the incentive to create something new is higher than it ever is before. This is also what I'm working on. I don't. I don't know how much you want to get into on the show, but it's actually a big part of what I'm working on with, with the Free State Party, which is my new. Which has been my new. My new venture. And if we're talking about saving America, you know, it's got to be centering around someone who can actually solve these problems, which as much as I would like to happen in this purely voluntary way, I think if you're talking about saving America, you need someone with like, a little bit more of like an energy, like a Malay or even a Bukali, who, I want to be very clear, is not a libertarian in many ways, but there has to be someone who's willing to, you know, look, I. Trump disappoints me in this area. I wish he was stronger. He doesn't do enough, you know, but we are in a system that is so against us, that is so weighted against us, where it's not just the government, but it's like it's all of the bureaucracies, it's all of the universities, it's all of these institutions. And this is again, also why, despite not liking a lot of what Trump does, I'm not eager to condemn this, because he's like the first thing I've seen in my life, and I didn't even get this at first I wasn't like a huge Trump fan in 2016. I was by 2020, but I was not a huge fan of Trump in 2016. It took me a while to get this, to understand that he's the first, he's the first thing that is disruptive to the system, that threatens the system like even a little bit. And, and so I'm just not eager to jump away from that until I see my ability to jump to something better. And someone like Massey again, who I love, like his popularity, I'm glad he's getting more popular. I would love if he could become present. But he's not getting popular by talking about cutting spending. Right. He's gotten popular by talking about Epstein stuff and the war in Iran. And I think a lot of this popularity is coming from people who are happy to support him because they see him as oppositional to Trump. But if it ever came to Massie, enacting a right wing libertarian agenda would turn on them in a second because they don't wanna cut food stamps or spending or shrink the regulatory state. They just like that he's sticking his thumb in the eye of Trump, which I'm not saying Trump is entirely undeserving of. So I'm not here to like condemn Massey and say he's Donald Trump, but
- [45:06]
A
Donald Trump is the guy like when Thomas Massie did vote against the giant spending bill in Covid that caused so much of the inflation. Trump's the guy who's going to demonize him and send all of his people to attack him. So yes, it might be the case that Thomas Massie appeals to a lot of people, but then when it gets down to the business of cutting food stamps, they're going to have a problem. Donald Trump's, there's no illusion conclusion that he's ever even going to get down to the business of cutting food stamps or anything like that.
- [45:32]
C
I will say yeah, but my understanding is that Trump wanted more cuts than Congress was willing to deliver for him. That this was not that. I'm not trying to portray Trump as a Massey like figure in terms of, in terms of the budget, but, but I've seen, I'm trying to remember the top of my head, but I've seen some solid evidence that like what Trump wanted more cuts than Congress was willing to deliver. And so it was actually Congress that has been inhibiting the, the ability to more of that.
- [46:01]
A
First, the first spending bill that Trump signed Into law in 2017 was the highest spending bill in the history of the country at the time and he promised that that was the last one he would sign this one, but he would never sign another bill that blew up the. The budget. And then he's signed like five more since then. So anyway, but regardless of that, I think there's. Okay, I think that. Well, let me say it like this because I. Listen, I endorse the Free State Project. I've always thought it's a great idea and in fact if it, if it. If you're a listener of the show or if you really believe in libertarianism, I think it's a great thing to consider. If you got a family, you got the means and you can do it, or if you for whatever reason can. If you're a young single guy and you can do. I think it would be a great thing to do. You kind of a built in community and I think you guys have made some real tangible wins for liberty and it's great. I would also wonder, and honestly this is a question I don't really know the answer to but like how much do you think Ron Paul running for president helped the Free State Project? Like how many people in New Hampshire who are there because were introduced to these ideas or convinced of the ideas by Ron Paul and then found out about the Free State Project? I'm not saying it's like the whole thing or anything like that, but my guess would be like that was a substantial help. No?
- [47:20]
C
Yeah, for sure. And I think and, and my attitude towards Massey would be, look, if Ron. Similar to if Ron Paul was running again and be like, well, like look, you know, this, this probably isn't gonna work, but I hope that you know, you try your best and if in a couple of years it didn't work, consider this other solution that might work and hopefully there's.
- [47:40]
A
But I'm just saying like I would even argue just on from your perspective for just like caring about the Free State Project, dude. I mean the thing, the Thomas Massie what the thing about it is this, right? It's like you could, when Ron Paul was first running for president, you could have said, yeah, dude, he's talking about all this anti war stuff and that's gonna, that's gonna mean that people like me, like a young leftist. Yeah, I like him for that, but I'm not gonna like him for his economic stuff. But the truth is that I liked him so much for that that I went let me read a couple of these books he's recommending about this economic stuff. Now again, I'm not saying we're gonna get 51% of the population. But you have it set up right now where, look, the entire country, and in small part the libertarians, played a role in this. The entire country recognizes the global war on terrorism as an absolute catastrophe, just a disastrous failure of the 21st century that. That did so much damage to this country. It was damn near unanimous outside of the Israel lobby that the last thing we want is another war of choice. The young people now hate Donald Trump's guts. Thomas Massie is maybe the most popular political figure amongst young people in the country. And if he runs for president right now, just because of the way things are set up, he's going to have a huge run. I'm not saying, like, we don't know what would happen. It will be a big run with major. Bigger than corporate media covering it. You're going to see an army of young people get interested in these ideas again. It's the best recruitment tool for the Free State project imaginable.
- [49:14]
C
I'm not here to say Massey shouldn't run. I effectively think that Massey running would be beneficial for the reasons that you say. I would hope that he incorporates, at least as part of his messaging, you know, some of the stuff he's gotten away from, I think, in the last year or two. Not because I think he doesn't believe it, because, look, I think Massey is a very savvy political actor who's playing a game, who. I don't think he wanted to lose his primary, but he was trying to set himself up as someone who could stand up to Donald Trump, who wasn't under Donald Trump's thumb, who had enough of an audience and enough of a following that he was an independent man. And that would have put him in a very powerful position, you know, going into a primary two years from now. I think he maybe still can do well in that primary. I think I, you know, I would. I would say I support him running for much of the reasons that you say. I would hope that he talks more about some of the stuff he's gotten away from about, you know, to the degree to which the regulatory state is inhibiting things, the degree to which we need, you know, free markets to bring down prices, that, you know, that it's social spending. Like this is something that it's like you're 80. It's something like 80 to 85% of federal government spending is social welfare. You know, and so the wards, again, clearly very bad. And it can be difficult to tabulate all the costs because I think there are costs beyond the exact Sticker prices. But it's. It's. It's social welfare. I mean, this alliance between the people receiving social welfare, the politicians who give it to them, and this massive class of. Of. Of either bureaucrats or sort of pseudo government workers because they're in the healthcare industry or all this stuff. I mean, you know, this is what we're up against. I mean, it's. It's in the school districts, too. You know, you have these. These massive. All these bureaucrats, all of these teachers, the unions, they're all whipping their votes. They get more money for themselves, extracting more money from the pie. This rot that exists in America. This is definitely, at least for me personally, the more animating issue. And I want to see politicians talking about this and bringing attention to this because I think if we don't get through this problem, we're not going to sort of strike the root, you know, as it were.
- [51:28]
A
All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is sheath underwear, the underwear of legends. I have been telling you guys about sheath underwear for, I think, four years now. They've been a long time loyal sponsor of this show, and the product is amazing. They're the most comfortable pair of underwear you will ever get. They're the only boxer briefs I wear. They're incredible. Dual pouch. You feel great. You feel like a million bucks when you put a pair on. Genuinely, they're. The only thing in my underwear drawer is sheath underwear because they're that good and they're a loyal sponsor of the show. So if you want to get the best pair of boxer briefs you will ever own, go to sheath underwear dotcom. Use the promo code problem for 20% off. That sheath underwear dotcom, promo code problem for 20% off. All right, let's get back into the show. I completely agree with that. I completely agree with you on that. And I also think there's just such a golden opportunity for, say, a Thomas Massie to talk about this stuff because, you know, even like, the kind of unaffordability thing that is in the popular lexicon now. He's just got such a great explanation for. You know, just look at monetary policy and regulatory policy and look how much our own policies make things so much more expensive. So I completely agree. I hope he would talk a lot about that stuff, but I also think he's the only one who maybe even would. And he is good on that stuff. Whereas without him, that'll just never even become an issue that anyone talks about. It'll Kind of be as if it doesn't, you know, as if it doesn't exist. There, There's. Were there other things, like, because. Okay, so fair enough then. We don't really have that much areas of, of disagreement, I guess, on that. As if you're also rooting for Massey to run. You did say, is one of the topics that you like. Israel would be something to talk about. Because again, I don't know exactly where you stand on this, but it does seem like there's. There's a gap between me and you. And I think. I think I've seen like, you be kind of critical on what you might describe as libertarians putting too much emphasis on Israel. Is that fair to say?
- [53:25]
C
Yeah, I, I mean, I'm. I'm probably a bit of a centrist, maybe on this issue. Like, I do. I do see there being disproportionate. Well, we, it's this also the terms get very overland. So we have Israel, you know, we have sort of a Zionist, which we might say is a person who supports Israel politically. I, I feel like Zionist tends to mean supports Israel politically rather than just supports the idea of a Jewish state. I think Zionist is more used modern, you know, and then, and then we have, you know, Jews generally as, you know, as an ethnic class, which in America mostly means Ashkenazi Jews, but could. Could mean, you know, could mean other types of, you know, could mean other types of Jews. I think this is, you know, I wish the whole thing would go away. Like, to me, this is an area where, like, people kind of get brainworms on both sides. And so there's this class of people who are. Who have become very anti. Well, anti. More than anti Israel. I think being against Israel, if you're just cleanly against Israel, that's an understandable position. I think some people extend it beyond that, you know, to being anti Jewish, you know, generally, which here I think I actually would both defend and disagree with you. There's a stance, there's a sense in which, like, I think anyone who's against all Jews, I think it's kind of crazy. Jews have contributed tremendous amounts to economy, to innovation. Like, the amounts of, like, Jews are just do seem to be remarkably able people in terms of contributions to sciences and various areas. They also are disproportionately progressive. They're disproportionately socially progressive. And so if you're a social conservative, I think it's fine to say, you know, I wouldn't want to live in an area that's Too Jewish. This is something people should be allowed to say. I think Jews seem to have a disproportionate influence on politics. We could debate those reasons why, but they seem to bat above their population level. Almost the opposite of Asians who, like, seem to bat below their, you know, their population level. And so whether this is because of cultural reasons, ethnic reasons, you know, it's unclear. I, you know, and I wish we could just kind of talk about this stuff, you know, more frankly, I think. But, yeah, I think the people who kind of see Israel or Jews around every corner, I think these people are kind of crazy. I think they tend to be a little bit schizo and, and they're very angry and disagreeable people. And I also think this is a coalition that it's like, tough to get anything done with like angry, disagreeable, schizophrenic people just like you. They'll end up being that way towards you in the future. You know, you can't just build.
- [56:03]
A
Yes, I agree.
- [56:05]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [56:05]
A
You know, I completely agree with that. Yeah.
- [56:08]
C
I think even Nick Fuentes has seen this.
- [56:11]
A
Oh, yeah, well, there was one of the. It was one of the real interesting dynamics of my last conversation with him is seeing that. No, listen, I mean, the people who, again, as I've said it before, you know, I think we saw this with wokeism and, and kind of the anti white racialism that was very popular there. And I would argue that you see this with kind of like neoconservatism or like old, like Frank Gaffney kind of like right wing radio, you know, when they'd be talking about like they're gonna build a mosque where 911 was. When actually when you look into it, it was like three blocks from 9 11. It was this tiny, you know, like there's something about racialism that becomes like low IQ catnip. And like, people just really get into it. It. It hits something in our tribal. And again, that's not to your point. That doesn't mean, like, you couldn't have, like honest high IQ conversations about, like, the differences between different racial groups or. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's. There's that, but there is something where it just becomes like in the hands of the wrong people. It does become that. So I completely agree with that. I do think, though, that there's a kind of separate world that I think is more representative of my camp. And I think people who listen to this show at least likely who do kind of recognize that, like. No, like, it is. It is absolutely the case that this one foreign lobby has a nearly ironclad grip on American foreign policy to the point that we are involved in conflicts that we like, need not be involved in at all. Like, like conflicts like with Iran, where there was a completely reasonable deal that was on the table. And it is this lobby and this foreign government who worked so hard to break it up and draw us into this war. This is such a big deal. Not just because war is like one of, if not the worst things that governments do and that people are dying, but also it's enormously expensive and also the entire young generation is against. Just seems to me that obviously libertarians should be leading the charge and opposing this stuff too, because, yeah, it's everything we're against and it's kind of the issue of our time. So I, you know, like, I, I get your point. I don't think I disagreed with anything you said. There's. But I still feel that, like, being against this makes all the sense in the world.
- [58:27]
C
Yeah, I think, I think it makes sense to be against it. I think, as you basically said, like, the people who are always looking for like a scapegoat or this attitude that things are being done to them. You know, I think that's the area where I would tend to disagree because, like, this stuff and this isn't an endorsement of it, I want to be clear. This is not an endorsement of it. But if we are looking at like, well, where the, you know, where's the blame actually, you know, lie? Like, look, there are a lot of evangelical Christians who are very sympathetic to the cause of, you know, to the cause of Israel, you know, and there are a number. There's even. This is basically increasingly a right left issue where it's basically the left tends to be more sympathetic to the Palestinians, you know, versus the Jews. The right tends to be more sympathetic to, or I guess I should say the Israelis. The right tends to be more sympathetic to the Israelis than to the, the, the Palestinians. It used to be that both sides were sympathetic to the Israelis versus the Palestinians. And now on the left, this issue has, has, has kind of flipped, but generally.
- [59:38]
A
But you got to throw in the generational caveat there because honestly, the young people on the right are totally against Israel too. I mean, it really is the boomer, everyone else at this point, which is why the, you see the overall approval is like, so bad for Israel now.
- [59:53]
C
Yeah, well, look, I, this is, I never. Again, similar to the Trump kind of thing. I'm not going to. I bet. In fact, I know that Israel has a number of things that I would disagree with. Would not like my money to be going to. Israel is also a wealthy nation. Like, you know, my view, I'm like an anarcho capitalist at heart. Like, look, let Israel buy these weapons on the free market. Like, let's stop putting our tax money to it. Let's stop supporting it. Let's stop endorsing it. You know, let. Let Israel take care of, you know, let's. Let Israel take care of itself. Israel can buy weapons from American weapons manufacturers and help boost our economy and help get people jobs, but we're not going to pay for it. You know, we're not going to subsidize it. That would certainly be, you know, my preferred answer to this kind of thing. Not an endorsement of what Israel does. Nor is Israel. I would much rather live in America than Israel. I'd rather live in America than Germany. I would rather. I also wouldn't have a problem saying that Germany or Israel are both nations I would prefer to live in, you know, compared to. Compared to Palestine or compared to much of the, you know, compared to much of the Middle East. And so, you know, to be on the continuum of, like, Western civilization versus barbarism, you know, Jews are closer. Israel is closer to the kind of nation that I would want to live in. Again, not endorsing the whole thing just seems like a mess. It just seems like it's. You have this intractable conflict that both sides continue to, you know, sort of break what I would consider to be decency or the ways that I would want, you know, ideally that both sides would be behaving. And you now have this conflict where it's very intractable. There's a lot of hatred on both sides. And I, you know, I would prefer to just not be involved at all and let them sort of fight it out. I hate, I hate that. This is agreed?
- [61:46]
A
Agreed. Yes. All right, listen, let's. Let's use that because it's a good transition because we're coming up against the end of time here. But I do want to at least talk about the LP for a couple minutes here. And you just said intractable conflict. That is a waste of time. And so this does seem like a fitting, A fitting transition. So you did this thing, which I'm sure a lot of the listeners had seen, where you went and you ran for chair of the Libertarian Party on the platform of abolishing the whole thing, which of course is a suicide mission. I mean, you're well aware that obviously you're not going to win a room full of people who are all dedicated to doing a thing, that we should stop doing this thing. Which is pretty hilarious. There it is. But you had this moment where you kind of went off and it went viral of you kind of calling out the LP membership to their face and saying that, like, look, a lot of you guys are the problem for why you. I mean, look, I've said, I said when I was on Liam McCullum's show the other day, where I was just making the point that like, like, for example, it's not like I, like, let's say I am like a more right leaning libertarian or you're a more right leaning libertarian. And you know, you, you go do podcasts and talk about this stuff, or I go do podcasts and talk about this stuff and then Chase Oliver is a more left leaning libertarian. But like, so if I get on Rogan and Tucker and talk, he gets on, you know, you know, the big left wing podcasts or whatever. But it's like they don't even do that. They're not even like involved in a bigger conversation on the left the way we are on the right and, or in the middle or wherever. And you're like, it almost seems like you guys only exist to be an albatross around our necks. Like, I don't see what else, I don't see what else is accomplished by the existence of Joe Jorgensen and some of these people, other than just when me and you will be talking to, like a right winger, they go, oh, yeah, well, what are you, like Chase Oliver or something like that? And then you got to go, no, we're a whole different thing. Like, I don't know, it just seems so. It was, it. I will admit there was something very cathartic about that moment where you told all of them that, like, no, the problem here is you and you're embarrassing the rest of us.
- [64:05]
C
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I knew they were kind of coming after me and I'm not one to play defense, so, you know, I knew that they were gonna attempt to disaffiliate New Hampshire. And so, you know, my opening offer was, I'll disaffiliate you. I don't know. I don't know how to do anything but offense. So, like, that's my opening offer. I just, you know, look, I mostly shoot from the hip and just say what I think is true. And one, this is an easier strategy. I don't have to, like, plot.
- [64:37]
A
Yeah.
- [64:38]
C
And then two, it's Mostly worked for me. You know, like, even, even all this, I, I, you know, this is. We now will have this, like, big, you know, legal fight, but it's not clear to me that I'm not getting what I want. Like, now it's New Hampshire Libertarians are set up against the rest of the lp. And, you know, when I was out there, we were talking on the plane right out and on the trip out, like, well, you know, the freeze. There's like 15 freestyers who went out there. And we're like, well, you know, how many people from the LP do you think you would, like, even want to move to New Hampshire? And we were like, well, you know, maybe like a third. And, you know, and we were out there, and then we're like, well, maybe a tenth. Like, it's just like, a lot of these people aren't the kinds of people who I'd even want to come to New Hampshire at this point. Similar. You said you were listening to Tom Wood podcast. Like, Tom was saying, like, these people exist in, like, their own island that's, like, completely severed from the rest of the libertarian movement. It's like, who are these people? And then they do exactly. What you said is they maintain the system of, like, epistemic closure where they won't engage or talk. You know, like, Chase Albert was of course, invited to go on the Tim Pool show with me. He's invited to go on a number
- [65:45]
A
of podcasts on this show. I invited him on this show. He didn't do my show. I mean, it just. Dude, you're running. You have. I don't know, it seems crazy and
- [65:56]
C
because, again, my mentality is the exact opposite. I would. I'll walk into a den of lions. You know, I even did. I shouldn't mention them on your show, but I will. I did, like, the faker. Terry, it's podcast, like, three years ago, and it was like, it was six on one. It was six of them, like, attacking me at the same time. Like, this is fine, because I know it's true. It's not going to be a problem. But these, they, they're like, it that something that is part of actually pushed me towards being more right where it is. Like, the left just exists in this hive mind where there's things that, like, you can't even talk about. They. And they maintain they have these tools and methods with, like, maintaining closure so that the ideas don't even enter their brains. And it's like, well, if this is what I'm dealing with, then we. There's no cooperation to be, you know, had. Like I was always open minded about the idea of cooperating with these people. I can cooperate and find ways of working with people, you know, even if we disagree in many ways. And I've said this before, I'll say here, like, look, Chase Oliver would be the best Democrat in the country or like near the best Democrat in the country, you know, of course, but they're not interested in doing that. You know, they're interested in taking libertarianism and painting it as, you know, this very different thing. And it's like, well, this is what creates all of the conflict. I think the whole situation is unfortunate. I think what LP national is doing is of course unfair to New Hampshire. They're trying to disaffiliate. We're the most successful affiliate, we have the most membership per capita. We have the most following on social media. We have all these elected people. Like what we're doing in New Hampshire works, you know, we generate earned media all the time. Like and, and so a lot of it is bitterness from these people seeing something that works that they can't do. And so I think the whole situation is unfortunate. But from the perspective of the Free State movement, from the perspective of New Hampshire, I think the more we differentiate ourselves, you know, it's not, it's not clear this is bad for what I want either. So.
- [67:44]
A
No, I think, I think, listen, I agree with you and just to back up your point, I mean if you remember when they're literally, what was it, what year Was this in 2021 when they literally like tried to seize the New Hampshire party and straight up like committed actual crimes and violations of libertarian like principles, like the most basic libertarian principle, like stole data. And that dude Bishop Henchman had to like delete all of his emails and resign immediately. And there weren't calls to disaffiliate over that. Like they. So the idea that just like, oh, you have some opinions that national doesn't like. I mean, I don't know, this is just like it is, it shows you, man. And this is again Rothbard wrote about this in like 1987. But the thing is that the Libertarian Party, what ends up happening is that it's this fringe movement, it attracts some fringe people which hey listen, me and you could probably fall into that category. So whatever. But like that's okay. But it's these fringe people who are really driven by like just anti bourgeois norms. That's really what they're driven by. And they will use libertarian philosophy in this very manipulative way. So like, if I say something, if I go like, oh, there's no such thing as a, a trans woman, like gender is biological, you know, that you can't switch your, your sex. And then they'll go, it doesn't violate the non aggression principle. Why do you care? And you'll go, hey, what I just said doesn't violate the non aggression principles. Why do you care? Like, no, you're just using this in a manipulative way. Really what you're against. And the thing is that guys like me and you believe in private property and voluntary interactions. We believe in peace and business and prosperity and civilization. And we have no problem with bourgeois norms. We think those are kind of great. We are dads, and dads have expectations about how others are to behave and dads have rules on their property. And so there is this thing where it's like, hey, dude, we're using the same term, but we're not the same thing. And so I think your, your point kind of is that like at that point, and this is the, the conclusion that Rothbard came to and this is when he started calling himself Paleo Libertarians. At that point you're like, it probably makes more sense to accent the differences here and make it clear that like, we're not on the same thing. And I guess perhaps in that sense, I think maybe it's a good thing that New Hampshire was disaffiliated at least just to create kind of like a separation of publicly in people's minds.
- [70:24]
C
Yeah, well, the disaffiliation is not official yet. That will be an ongoing fight. You know, we're not interested in giving up our name. We do feel we're the rightful affiliate. We have a website up@savelpnh.com for anyone who's interested in learning, you know, learning more about the case. But yeah, there's something to. I've. We, we had Kevin Dolan out recently. He posts on Twitter as Extra Dead jcb who. That's how most people know him. He is like a hundred thousand or so followers. And he was talking about being, you know, sort of like your post ideology where it's not like I, I, there might be one of these people who like I agree with on political philosophy, you know, 98 of the way. But it's like, well, would I want you to be live next door to me? Like what I, you know, like would I trust you as my neighbor? You know, here's a name you, you know, maybe haven't heard in a while, but you know, Read, read. Coverdale, who's. I love doing very well. He's married.
- [71:24]
A
Congratulations. Reed just got married. Yeah. Congratulations, Reed.
- [71:27]
C
Yeah. And you know, he was talking about how, like. And by the way, the libertarians in New Hampshire tend to not be this type, but Reed was talking about how, like, well, like, you know, who would I rather have as a neighbor? Like one of these, like, left libertarian people or like the conservative Christian who wants to bomb Iran, you know, and, and, well, you know, Reed might theoretically agree, or I might theoretically agree more with the left libertarian policy, but like, I don't want this guy as a neighbor where it's like the Christian who wants to buy my man. It's like, oh, no, it's the overall decent person. They're going to be a good neighbor, you know?
- [71:59]
A
No, that's right. Listen, there's a whole lot. Not Fox News watching dads who are just great people, you know, who are just like, I don't know, they're getting their news from Mark Levin and so that's what they think the story is. It's. And it's an important thing. It's an important thing to understand also. I think that in life, because, look, libertarians essentially believe that none of this shit should exist at all anyway. Right? Like, even when me and you are talking about Israel, if we have slightly different opinions, the thing we both agree on is like, we shouldn't even be talking about any of this because none of this should be a thing at all. Right. Like. Like an abolitionist doesn't think we should even be having conversations about slavery, ideally, because it just shouldn't exist. And then if all that stuff didn't exist, what you're talking about would kind of be all that's left. And that would be like, the most important thing. Is this guy a good person? Do I want to live next door to him? Is he a contributor to his community? Like, these things are actually in many ways more important values. Like, I would not. If there, if there was someone who was. Let's just say they were a. The exact type of libertarian that I am. They agreed with me on every single issue. But that person didn't take care of their kids, cheated on their wife, was, you know, was in debt to a bunch of people in the neighborhood. And then there's some socialist over here who just likes listening to, like, Majority Report and, and Ben Burgess podcasts, but is like a good dude. Yeah, that actually matters more in terms of your moral character than what you say your political view is, in my opinion.
- [73:32]
C
Yeah, I know.
- [73:33]
A
You didn't like the example, being a leftist, more often than not, the example would be a right winger. You know, the example would be. And look, this is one of the things that, like you could say, even though on all of the areas where they disagree, I agree with Ron Paul more than Pat Buchanan. However, I'd probably rather be neighbors with the. If I just had to be like the average Pat Buchanan fan, like just throw a dart and I don't know what I'm gonna hit. There's a lot more risk in that Ron Paul pool than there is in the Pat Buchanan one.
- [74:06]
C
Yeah, I think this is very true. And something I've come to realize about politics is like, you know, libertarians like to pretend that their positions are like purely philosophical. I think, I think this is actually true for very few of them. I think ultimately, like, pretty much everyone's politics are about, well, you know, what would things look like on the other side. And so, you know, to me, I am a libertarian because I believe if there were greater competition, I don't believe, even if I'm a borderline anarchist, but to me anarchy means competing authorities, competing voluntary authorities, not, not some stateless society where there's no structure. And so I, I am a libertarian or a right wing libertarian because I believe like I want there to be more order. I believe if they were, if they, you know, at least in some ways, maybe not in always, but yeah, like, you know, but I believe it's like the government. I believe greater competition would result in, you know, more prosperity, would result in cleaner parks, cleaner streets, things working better. There are other types of people who are like, well, they are libertarians because they want to exist in a world of no judgment. They want to exist in, you know, a world in which everything is permissible and nothing is judged. And that's not why I'm a libertarian at all.
- [75:18]
A
And so if we go through except New Hampshire's Twitter account, weirdly, you know, like, except, except when it comes to any semblance of right wing culture, in which case it's not anything goes, they're actually very kind of cracked down. So it's this weird game that they play. But exactly to your point, part of the reason, listen, like in the same sense that we all recognize there, there is some role for welfare in society, like, you know, whether private or public, like, we recognize that like there is a little old lady who's a widow who falls down and breaks her hip and doesn't have money for hip surgery. And like some, the community in that case or something would have to kick in or something like that. Part of the reason why I love the idea of private voluntary charity rather than a welfare state is because they can have much stricter demands on you for receiving that welfare. You know what I mean? Like your local church can have all types of demands on you before they, they help you out. Whereas like the government, they're demand is like that you, I don't know, maybe forge a piece of paper or something like that. Hey listen Jeremy, I do I, I gotta cut off here just because we're overtime but I always really enjoy having all these conversations with you. Let's, let's make sure to do another one real soon and please let all of my listeners know where they can find your your stuff.
- [76:32]
C
Sure you follow me on X and my full name Jeremy Kaufman. I if you're interested in some of what I'm doing in New Hampshire, you can follow Free State Pty on X or especially we have a new channel on YouTube, Free State Party doing some long form conversations with some really interest people. And so if you're interested in the kinds of people that have been influencing my thinking, we've been inviting them out to these live in person events, live audience events. They're really interesting and so you can check that out on YouTube at Free State Party.
- [76:59]
A
Awesome. Jeremy Kaufman thank you so much brother. Really enjoyed it. Thank you everybody for listening. Catch you next time.
- [77:18]
B
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A
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