Dave Smith (8:42)
It's not going to hurt, Rob. It's not. So I'm just saying it's worst case scenario. We're right back to where we are now. No, but. So essentially what happened was I was. I thought Natalie, by the way, had the best organic reaction to this. When before we started the show, I was like, oh, I'm going to. I'll address this controversy of people being mad at me because Jake Shields posted a meme and she goes mad at you. And I was like, yeah, no, it. That's right. It is ridiculous that. But anyway, so what happened was Jake Shields, whose show I've just did, well, I guess it was back at Skank Fest. So it was back this fall, early fall. So a few months ago, I did his show. So he posted a meme that was very offensive to a lot of people and, you know, certainly insensitive to Jewish people. Let's say leave it at that. It was a meme of a Jew kind of like eating Uncle Sam's intestines or something like that. It's pretty graphic. And for the record, I don't think kosher. But that's. That. That's the real outrage, if you. If you ask me. Although, I don't know. There could have been a rabbi who blessed Uncle Sam. I'm not sure. I don't. You probably know this better than me, Rob. But then there was a call of a bunch of. Bunch of people. I was getting swarmed on Twitter to denounce Jake Shields for posting this meme, which is anybody who knows me knows I refuse to do, because I just don't. First off, I don't throw people who I'm friends or friendly with under the bus. I don't denounce people on command. That's just not. I don't play that game. The only reason why I'm even addressing this is because after a few interactions with people who are like, you must denounce Jake Shields. And I'm like, wait, you're saying what, someone I did a show with posted a meme you don't like, and therefore I must jump? No, fuck you. You know, in my kind of typical fashion. But then there were several people who were, like, following me on social media. I don't know how you know if they're fans or not, but they're following me on social media who were like, hey, Dave, I love so much of why. What? You have to. But come on, man, can't you just call this out? I mean, this is pretty gross and wrong. And so. You know what? I mean, there were enough people like that that it kind of did make me think, you know, okay, look, if you're. If there's somebody who's, like, supports what Israel's doing to Palestine right now, and then they're just trying to get me on this outrage, it's like, fuck you, dude. You know? But if there is somebody who's not that, who's going, well, wait a minute, this is a little weird. I mean, don't you want to separate yourself from that? Or don't you. Don't you not agree with this? Like, why. Why can't you just give it to us straight and say how you feel? There was enough of that that I was like, all right, maybe I should at least address this a Little bit. And so here's what I'm going to say. And this is me and you have talked about this before, Rob. I'm sure we'll be forced into talking about this at some point in the future, but for now, let this be the thing. If you want to clip this and post it, here's, here's my opinion when it comes to all of this stuff. First of all, I think that the entire, the way that people view racism or, and bigotry and prejudice and all of these things is somewhat twisted and not healthy. And of course, this is in large part because this has been for many, many years the cardinal sin of the dominant progressive culture searching for racism or sexism or transphobia or homophobia, in this case anti Semitism, which again, a lot of these words I just hate. I don't like. Anti Semitism to me is like homophobia. It's just a really bad word. It doesn't even mean what it's supposed to mean. What you mean is Jew haters, but Semitic people are not just Jewish. And then it's so it just. Particularly when all of the people involved in this conflict, or at least all of the Palestinians are, or most of them are Semitic, and then a lot of the Israelis are debatably, whatever. It's just, it's not a good term to me. But as I've said for many, many years, I just think that there's, there's a huge kind of problem with prioritization of outrage when it comes to these type of issues. The example I always gave was, know, Barack Obama or Donald Trump or Joe Biden or someone like that could literally drone bomb a wedding and kill, you know, six children. And if the same day they said that, you know, if you're born a man, you're a man, and there's no such thing as transgenderism or something like that. We all know what the outrage of the day would be. The outrage of the day would be that they said something offensive to trans people. And the fact that six kids got killed at a wedding in Yemen would be like 27th on the list, if it's on the list at all. And I find that to be sick and perverse and backward and insane. Like, it's not, this isn't a libertarian or a left right question. It's like, if you are at all a sane human being, you'd go, that, that's just like, what type of monster upside down world are you living in where the slaughter of children is not more outrageous than like someone having an offensive view that may or may not be right anyway, when it comes specifically to, you know, look, me and, me and Rob are both Jews. We're not like currently practicing religious Jews. But you know, we're both Jewish in the way that everybody means it, including the pro Israel side. Whenever they talk about, you know what I mean? Like, it's not, it's not as if, if, if there were terrorist attack on atheist Jews that Ben Shapiro and, and you know, Netanyahu would all be like, oh, this wasn't an attack on Jews. You only become not a Jew when you're criticizing Israel. And then they go, are you even a Jew really? Anyway, that for another day. But as two people who are Jews who have been very critical of Israel over the year, it's, it's an interesting spot to be in. It's, I've compared it before to be like kind of similar to being a black conservative or something like that. Who's critical? Black Lives Matter. There's a kind of, you know, in some ways you're protected because it's a little bit harder to smear you. But in some ways, you know, your identity is weaponized and it's kind of vicious the way they, they come at you, but whatever, not the end of the world. But I've always kind of thought that I have, I have the attitude that I think a lot of conservatives pretend to have when they're talking about every other group. So, you know, like I've, I've used this example before. In fact, I think recently I said this, that, you know, Ben Shapiro has this famous clip of when he was much younger and he's on the stage with like three like progressive black professors and he, he gives them all a dose of bitter medicine. He looks right at him and he goes, hey, you know, you guys are complaining about systemic racism this and that. Let me tell you something. Black people are 13% of the population and they make up 50 of the homicides. The black illegitimacy rate is over 70%. The black illiteracy rate. Is this the black, this just taking the gloves off? This is what's wrong with the black community. And it's not white people's fault. This is your own community and you need to police that. Right? But if anyone ever took the gloves off with Jewish people the way he does with black people, he would immediately turn into that pink haired 20 year old feminist chick and just start shrieking anti Semitism. I mean, Ben Shapiro may not have the same, you know, views that me and you have with like say the military industrial complex or the banking sector or something like that. But certainly at least if you're talking about like the corporate media and academia, he's been railing against those things forever. There are, there is a disproportionate, disproportionate amount of Jewish people involved in those institutions. Like a wildly disproportionate amount. But if anyone ever just started blaming Jews based on that, he would, he would flip out and say you're an anti Semite. And by the way, it's very similar logic to the blacks are 13% of the population but 50 something percent of the crime. It's like, okay, but that doesn't have like I'm an individualist on these things across the board. I don't, I'm like, okay, yeah, that might be true of there might be black people, but that is not, that's not a reflection on some black guy who has nothing to do with that. And I feel the same way about Jews.