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- [00:01]
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- [00:32]
Rob
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- [01:07]
Dave Smith
What's up? What's up everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. I am home. He is still on the road. We just had a fantastic weekend in Nashville together. That sounds more romantic than I meant it to say, than I meant it to be. But anyway, we had some great shows out there. How you doing, Rob?
- [01:29]
Rob
I'm doing well. Still on the road between gigs, staying at this nice placemaker, which I'm enjoying. And then I got a Chickamauga on Wednesday, Atlanta on Thursday, Friday in Sandpoint, private show in Spokane, and then Saturday outside of Seattle. And then I fly home so I can do red eye flight so I can do Monday's episode and then home for three days. And then you and I are already out in Florida.
- [01:51]
Dave Smith
That's right. We'll be out in Florida on July 30th and 31st. We were out at the, the Improv out there. It's the Dana Beach Improv. I believe it's out there. Yeah. Comic Dav Smith.com for those tickets. Oh, and then what's the other one? I have the, I'm speaking at the, the Young Americans for Liberty Yale Con in, in Cincinnati on next week. It's a weekday. I'm speaking on July 28th. I think they're having the, the, the convention runs a few days, but that was, I think the only day I could do because we got to be out at these gigs and in, in Florida, but so 28th I will be there. I'm giving a talk, I believe it's the I'm giving the last talk of the night on the 28th, and I am haven't figured out my topic yet, but I'm thinking about it. Sometimes they give me a topic. This year, they didn't give me one. And no one's told me what to talk about. So I'm thinking maybe Thomas Massie, maybe Tucker Carlson, who knows, Maybe democratic socialism. I don't know. I think about it for a little bit anyway. Yes. Porch store.com comic Dave Smith.com okay, so we were just before, literally before the show started, I was just saying something and then you said to me, just start the show with that. And we were just talking about how it's been, I don't know, just like it's been a challenge covering this war. And a big part of it is because it is, it's so ridiculous. It's so circular. I don't mean like, I mean, it's circular in terms of the pattern. Like, we keep going in the same round. And Trump is so, so cartoonishly unserious that it's almost hard to even cover the latest thing he said this morning, no matter how crazy it is. But then you're also kind of, on the other hand, left in this position where, how do we not start every show by at least talking about this when, hey, we're in a position like we are now, Rob, where, like, there's been major escalations over the last few days. Desalination plants, power plants and bridges have started being taken out now, not at, like, levels that are taken down all of civilization, but we're in this very, very weird moment of seeing, like, very dangerous, precarious moment of seeing, like, how bad this can get. And yet what can you say when you've already, essentially, from our perspective, I'm not being a dick, when you've won the argument 100,000 times over already, what are we even talking about? Everything we were arguing about. And I mean this literally over the last year, Rob, everything that we've been arguing about has already been abandoned by the hawks. Like, they're not even arguing on any of those things anymore. We're already onto some whole new thing. And so anyway, it does just, I got to say, at least in my time of running a show where we talk about these things, this has been a particularly challenging one.
- [04:49]
Rob
Well, the issue is it's too consequential to ignore. I mean, this is literally the biggest risk on our plate. And the biggest abandonment of a political campaign or the base that you were supposed to represent that you and I have ever seen. And he changes what he's saying and looking to do every single day because he's being an asshole and he makes us look like an asshole because it's very hard to predict what he's doing and untangle his lies because he abandons them within 24 hours. And then things become kind of circular and repetitive, but it's kind of hard to just go, all right, we're going to, we're going to wait this out. We're going to, we're going to wait and see if he nukes Iran and then we'll comment because there's just too much going on. It's too consequential.
- [05:30]
Dave Smith
Yeah. And of course it's, it's as important at every phase to have as many people against this thing as possible because that's the same reason he's lying to everyone, is to get as many people on board as possible. So, hey, as long as we got a platform and some microphones, we might be, might as well be trying to do the opposite. But yeah, you know, it's like also, he's telling you all along that everything's going great, that they're about to bend, that we're destroying them, that we're tremendous, that they've been totally devastated. And then it's like everything on the ground, Rob, again, everything. It's hard to even imagine if you try to just think about the public debates I was having about this five months ago before we launched the war, when they were flirting with doing it and just what a disaster it's been at every stage. But so Donald Trump saying the same thing. We won, we're awesome. This is great. They're about to capitulate. What are the actual things that we know on the ground, Rob? This totally destroyed military just killed at least four of our, our guys this weekend. Three boys and a young girl, a 19 year old girl are dead over this destroyed military. The Houthis have joined in now in terms of like threatening blockades. We know that the, the, the, the blockading and the bombing has been way up from even the periods in the, in the second phase of the war. What, what about this looks good? Meanwhile, Donald Trump is throwing out this empty. We're going to control it, we're going to take it. It makes absolutely no sense that he has the ability to do that now and has just not done that for four and a half months. And so he's throwing out that it's all going to go well. That and everything. Every factor that we can actually look at tells us this is actually pretty clear here. We're in a no win situation and every second we stay in it, we're risking more and more catastrophe. And the question is essentially at this point, are we going to accept that there's no win or are we going to take it all the way to catastrophe? That's it seems to me to be that much of a binary at this point and for no defensible reason at all. The, the official policy right now is let's keep flirting. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is the Wellness Company. And they've just launched their new product, Smile. Say bye bye to receding gums. Gum recession is not just cosmetic. Millions of people deal with bleeding gums, tooth sensitivity, and even tooth loss. And once gums start pulling back, most toothpastes do absolutely nothing to help. But now meet Smile, the Wellness Company's next generation toothpaste. Designed to support gum repair, strengthen teeth, reduce sensitivity, and gently whiten your smile. Smile is powered by healing peptides like BPC157, known for helping reduce inflammation and supporting the repair of gum and bone tissue. The result of using Smile is stronger gums, healthier teeth, and a brighter smile. So head over to TWC health problem and use the promo code problem to get 10% off. Once again, TWC Health slash problem, promo code problem for 10% off. All right, let's get back into the show.
- [08:52]
Rob
It seems like we're actually at the worst point we've been at yet in terms of the way that this is escalating. America kind of started it with targeting civilian infrastructure in Iran. Iran is targeted back at desalination plants. I think I forget which country. The only upside is at the moment it seems like Iran is not targeting really American warships or Israel because they're trying to respond without directly escalating. But you've got Red Sea is supposedly being closed, which means that there's going to be even more of a squeeze on oil. And it seems like it's bomb and hope that's the American strategy, is just bomb more things and hope that some sort of a solution just presents itself. But that hasn't worked for four months. And it just seems like you're going up. What Robert Pape's been talking about with the escalation trap is now you've got American troops killed and you go, all right, well, now we got to Hit them even harder. And that's just a game where you just keep going up and up and having more and more war.
- [09:49]
Donald Trump (clip)
Yeah.
- [09:49]
Dave Smith
And, like, I do got to say, you know, I still, at this point still, even in my analysis, the way I just laid it out there, I go. I don't think that, like, the escalation trap is right. You know what I mean? Like, I don't. I just. I still don't think we actually end up with boots on the ground or using nuclear weapons or going to World War Three. It's still. But the way. Don't get me wrong, we're flirting with that, and, God, you cannot overstate how criminally insane it is to even be flirting with that. But I do think Professor Papen, I don't mean to, like, I don't mean to mischaracterize his work. I think I'm accurate in saying that he almost builds it in as an inevitability in this model, that we get up to those phases. And I still go, nah, there's just too much destruction for no benefit, and it hurts everybody involved. And I think at some point, Trump walks away before that. And as you know, Rob, Trump's capable of doing that.
- [10:54]
Rob
There's still an easy solution on the table, which is walk away and let boats pay a $2 million fee. Yeah, take the L. That still is, like, just sitting there. You can do one of those old dying cats video for 3 cents a day on your gasoline. We can avoid World War 3 and the Straits can be open. But Trump seems unwilling to walk away. And I don't see them sitting down to forge another deal after what just happened with the mou.
- [11:21]
Dave Smith
I mean, look, I. I agree with that. Look, I was. I was saying all that about Professor Pape as the. The disclaimer, as the setup to then just say, but, like, my God, his model looks so good. You know, like, it's. And I will say, the thing about, you know, Professor Pape. Did I mention this on one of the previous shows? But I knew about this dude way before other people do, and I knew about him from the work he was doing 20 years ago. And his book Dying to Win is phenomenal. It was one of the books that Ron Paul was promoting back when he was running for president. But he did this essentially, like, a gigantic, like. Like the biggest scientific study. I think they created the biggest database that's ever been created on suicide terrorists, and, like, overwhelmingly concluded that it is just simply not the case that Islam or even, like, culture or any type of religious Fundamentalism is the major driving factor. And there are places that are more, you know, Islamist, that are not able to convince people to become suicide bombers, even when they want to. And then there are totally secular suicide bombers, and then there are atheist suicide. And then. And like, and it's a huge database, this huge, like, he just totally proves the case that actually it's this tactic that people use to repel. To repel in oppressive, you know, occupation and stuff like that. So anyway, he's just. The guy does incredible work. He's really worth looking at. I want to think that we're not actually going to move into that direction. But I do agree with you, Rob, that this is perhaps kind of the darkest hour of the whole thing, where you're, you're just at a point where the fact that Donald Trump has walked away from all of the war aims, the fact that we're. No, you know, Rob, when you just think that we already moved from regime change and unconditional total surrender, that was the initial demand. And then we ended up with a memorandum of understanding, basically going like, hey, you got to play nice for 60 days. And then you're a much more powerful country ever that controls the trade. And we're going. But they didn't play as nice as they were supposed to in those 60 days. That's the war we're fighting now. That's what you're telling me. It's not anymore about regime change. It's not about that. It's not about any. It's not about nuclear dust. It's not about, you know, and I'll tell you that there's something, you know, when Donald Trump. I know we've talked about this. I think we've talked about this, Rob, but I know you've heard Donald Trump tells the lie now that, like, if he hadn't launched the war, and it sounds like he's Talking about the 12 Day War, it's not exactly clear, but that it's. Iran was like going to have a nuke in two weeks or two months and they would have already nuked Israel. You've heard him say that, right? Yes, that this is the new lie. And I think there's something about that lie that is kind of interesting to me because, well, number one, everyone knows it's a lie. Everyone, like, there's no one. Nobody thinks that's true. There's not a single defender of the war who believes that's true. There's not a single. I mean, okay, may maybe, like, maybe you could say you could find really uninformed, dumb people who, like, believed the. But generally speaking, none of the people selling the war, none of that, the pundits who go along with. None of them actually believe Iran was about to have a deliverable nuclear weapon and use it. Like, that's just too crazy. But it's interesting that he has to tell that lie, because in a way, Rob, that's the only thing that would kind of justify how crazy all this is. You know what I'm saying? Like, you almost have to present it in a way where it's like we were about to get nuked. And so we had to do this because the only way it could ever possibly be justified to even, like, embark on this action would be something along the lines of, like, nukes are headed toward us. And since we all know it's a lie, doesn't that kind of prove the whole thing in itself? Does that make sense?
- [15:17]
Rob
Yes. I mean, that's. I think he was even saying going to nuke Europe or he was going to nuke the United States. And so we're lucky that we stopped them when we did. And now his lie is we're just, we're still just playing for bonus points here because the mission was that Iran does not go nuclear, and we've already prevented them from, from doing so. If they try and hit anything, if they try and rebuild anything, we'll bomb them again. And so we're only over there for bonus points. It's.
- [15:40]
Donald Trump (clip)
It already.
- [15:41]
Rob
We already won.
- [15:43]
Dave Smith
Yeah, that's right.
- [15:44]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
That's right.
- [15:44]
Dave Smith
That's kind of the new thing. We already won bonus points, you know, and, and I will say, by the way, there is. So I think, in fact, I think one of the clips we have here is him getting at that, that new point that you're, you're making the bonus point argument, which is a really hilarious one. It's already won and over. Don't worry about it. I'm just like, I'm just running up the scoreboard right now, so don't, don't worry. But there's something, you know, like. Do you remember, Rob, in the. When, when the trans debate was raging on in this country way back three years ago or what? Yeah, whatever. It was like, it seems like another lifetime now of crises that we were in back then as compared to now. But so when, when, when the trans debate was raging on, one of the points that the people who were critical of the movement would make, so a lot of, like, right wingers and people would say is that it's like, hey, Insisting that we lie just for the sake of like, like, that is wrong in and of itself. Like, like just saying, like, in a sense that I remember people used to say, I thought this was a very powerful point. Jordan Peterson used to make this point a lot, but he would say that, like, there's something about when you go like, trans women are women, like, even if you smuggle that in under the guise of, like, I'm just being nice to this one person who's a little bit different and so, like, don't make them feel bad about that. You're asking someone to like publicly affirm a lie in a sense. And there's something, whenever people are doing that, particularly when they start mixing that with very authoritarian status policies that they're pushing, where you should kind of question that, you know, like, don't like lie. You know, like if I just, if there's a chair with four legs there and I have to get you to say there's three legs on that, like there's something powerful about just getting just me publicly lying, getting you to repeat the lie and then like, we're all living in a lie. This just isn't good for anyone. It's not good for any of us to find answers because you can only really find solutions if you're dealing in the truth. And what really is the difference between that and Donald Trump saying Iran was about to nuke the world if we didn't do this, when everyone listening knows, just everyone knows that's a fucking lie. And to even think about the fact that, like, doesn't it just make you in some way lose respect for everyone else in his government, like everyone in his government. Everyone but JD Vance to Pete Hegseth to Tulsi Gabbard, who I guess she may be out now, but you know, all the people who have been there this whole time, all of the people who are like adults who wear suits and ties and have professional titles and collect six figure salaries and just overall, like look in the mirror every morning, have children and spouses and families and like you serve a man who just blatantly lies, it's as much a lie as a boy, as a girl, or up is down or anything else. If every one of you know that on the matter of selling a war of choice that's going disastrous, that the commander in chief who you serve is lying through his teeth, no question, you know it for a 100% certainty and you do nothing, it's, it's, none of you have an inch of, of integrity, then all right, Guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show. This is for listeners and viewers 21 years old or older. And the sponsor is IndeCloud, the online cannabis dispensary. They've got gummies, exotic flower, premium pre rolls, zero sugar, thc. So energy gummies, extra strength sleep gummies, Essentially everything you need, everything you could get at a dispensary. And it's all online, so it's much more convenient. So instead of getting in your car and driving around, just jump right on your phone or computer and go check them out online@indecloud co. That's co. Not. Com. Indecloud Co. And make sure to use the promo code problem for 30% off. Your first subscription order. That's IndeCloud Co promo code problem for 30% off. Delivered routinely and discreetly to your door, plus free gifts and free shipping on qualified orders. So once again, if you're 21 years old and you enjoy cannabis, well, go check out your online dispensary for all your needs at indecloud co promo code problem for 30% off. All right, let's get back into the show.
- [20:18]
Rob
I think at the core of it, that was the problem with the MOU and why it wasn't going to last was Donald Trump needs to go. This was a mistake. And if he really wants to cleanse the country, he needs to go. These are the influences that I had that led me to this mistake. And here's what we need to clean up so that people don't make these errors in the future. But he was trying to LARP and pretend it was a win. Then you had a lot of people who were willing to go along with that just because, hey, let's walk away from the war or the loyalists who just want to pretend that everything that Donald Trump is doing amazing. You had some people who were so into this war that they were furious at Donald Trump for doing an MoU. But at the end of the day, the MoU is built on a falsehood of Donald Trump trying to pretend like there was a victory here. And I think for as long as we're trying to LARP and pretend like everything's going amazing and that Donald Trump is the greatest, smartest, most common sense individual ever. You know, we're stuck in the exact mess that you're talking about, which is we're not living with truth.
- [21:14]
Dave Smith
Yep, that's right. Well, I mean, and another major truth that I got to say because. Because we're. Look, we're wondering how this is actually going to play out. And we, both of us are essentially saying that, like, look, man, you're, we're flirting with real disaster here. But, hey, look, there is an option to just get out of this. And hopefully he takes that. And yes, it would be best, I agree, if it could be acknowledged that this was a mistake here. But no matter what, we want to stop this thing. But, okay, so in this, this world, the best case scenario is we stop this, we reach some type of agreement. It's not going to be any better than the. We're not doing any better than that. We're in no position to demand further, you know, concessions. And so you, you find yourself in a situation where the goal that Iran wants to achieve looks like it will be achieved, which is that essentially, shit, no one's ever going to want to try that again. Right? This is, this is the goal of what they're trying to do. And this is why the hardliners in Iran never wanted to sign to the MoU, why it controversial over there, and why a lot of them are, have now gained even more political influence. Because, yeah, the. America's making them look pretty good right now. And so my point essentially is this. Look, just the facts we know on the ground, Rob, the, the biggest justification, the only justification for this war, the thing that Trump goes back to over and over and over and over and over again, Rob, is Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And he says that one over and over again. And it's for very specific reasons. There's a reason why they said WMD is with Saddam Hussein. There's a re. They know this is the thing that sells. Americans are scared of nuclear weapons. They'll do a lot if you threaten them with the idea that someone could touch them with a nuclear weapon. But this fundamental lie that the entire war is based on, it's a weapon that they don't have, that they were not intending to produce. Again, like we said, Rob, you killed the old ayatollah who put the religious fatwa on building nuclear weapons. There are and have always been factions within Iran that want a nuclear weapon precisely for this reason. And the biggest deterrent for Iran getting a nuclear weapon, getting a nuclear weapon outside of, well, okay, you put whatever value you want to put on how genuinely religious the leaders in Iran are and whether the old ayatollah genuinely believed that it was against the wishes of Allah to have nuclear weapons. Now, I'm not saying, I'm not taking a position on that one way or the Other, I really don't know. Like, I wonder sometimes, Rob, like, religious kooks in power, how religious are they really? Are they just using that to control their people? Do they really believe it themselves? I don't know that, you know, any of us know the answer to that. And you'd have to like read biographies about the individuals from people who knew them to even get a gauge. So I'm not sure I would say that, like, there are a lot of people who just, just don't believe in nuclear weapons for moral reasons. It's not the craziest thing ever that someone would be against it. Then again, he wasn't the nicest Ayatollah ever. I don't know if I buy that. So anyway, just saying, the big real world deterrent that we know of, of why Iran wouldn't develop a nuclear weapon because look, short of the moral issue or whatever, every nation kind of wants a nuclear deterrent. No one with you. If you have nukes, you have more power if you have nukes.
- [24:50]
Rob
Right?
- [24:50]
Dave Smith
Everyone wants them. It's why our country has them. So Iran certainly would have liked them and they wanted them for a very specific reason. The reason would be to avoid this. But also, Rob, and this is the weird thing, right? This is the kind of strange dynamic, but this is both very, very much true. The number one reason why Iran would have wanted nuclear weapons was so that this wouldn't happen. But also the number one reason why Iran didn't break out to get nuclear weapons was because this would happen. So, and this is, by the way, this is beyond. Nobody is contesting this. Not a single intelligence agency across the entire world, not a single hawk or any anti war person who knows what they're talking about. Iran has been able to develop nuclear weapons for I think at least 20 years, something like that. They've, they've proven that they can do it. They just haven't. But like they can enrich uranium, master the fuel cycle, do all the steps that you need to do. They can spin it all the way up to 60%. So obviously they could go to weapons grade. They've let. So okay, why have they not done that? Well, because this might happen. But Rob, that deterrence off the table. And the ayatollah who declared the religious fatwa is dead and the country is more radicalized than ever before. And if this war ends, then they've also now essentially, you know, remember when they said the, the ballistic missiles are a nuclear shield? Well, they actually have a crazy nuclear shield now. Like if this war Ends. Why would they not? Maybe they are already. But why would they not break out toward a nuclear weapon at this point? Seems to me that deterrence been completely destroyed.
- [26:28]
Rob
Yeah, I mean I think clearly the threat of don't pick a fight with America was a better threat before we engaged in this activity and showed that we can't, we don't really have the resources or means to step in and actually bully you around.
- [26:42]
Dave Smith
Excellent point, excellent point. Excellent point too. Because it's not just the threat, it's also right. We revealed to be somewhat of a paper tiger. But even look, I mean even it's we're a paper tiger in some sense. But like not to downplay like the air campaign. Trump isn't completely wrong when he says every day It'll take him 25 years to rebuild and we've destroyed their, like we've destroyed much of Iranian civilization and that's, that is still a price to be paid.
- [27:08]
Rob
And we're also a paper tiger relative to how convinced the American people are that you're an existential threat. So if you actual evil dictator, you know, came up tomorrow, let's say he was before nuclear and he started invading other countries and we thought we were coming here. Yes. People would pick up their guns. We could have a force of a million people and go decimate that problem.
- [27:28]
Dave Smith
The thing is, dude, this is really America. I think Rob, it's not even necessarily that people would pick up their guns. It's that look, we have a military, okay? Now we, we have a military that essentially, and this sounds kind of harsh, but if we're just being really blunt, we have a military that is what we call a volunteer force. But what volunteer force really kind of meant in effect was it's not everybody's problem. It's the poorest, most disenfranchised, most optionless young men mostly in our society. We will bribe, slash, propagandize them into doing the military service. And so like that. Now don't get me wrong, it's in many ways preferable to a military draft and overall preferable to a military draft. But it also becomes not really like middle class families problems anymore. Middle class and above, you really don't in America, you really don't know too many people who are in the military for the most part. It's really in, in more in poorer rural areas where everyone you know is it's done some military service. If there was a real threat that boomers home values would go down by 5%, boomers would support nuking a country like, it's. It's not that they're gonna pick up a gun and do it. It's just that we got the arsenal to blow up the entire world and we got enough people, and if it really came down to it, boomers would support them conscripting your Gen Z, you know, nephew, also if they needed to. So, like, it's, it's just. It's just a matter that if there was anything that actually really upset America, sure, there'd be tremendous support for us to just take the gloves off and go World War II style on them. But, yeah, we don't have anything like that here, and for good reason, you know, so we will. Yeah, I mean, I don't even know. Maybe I guess we don't even need these clips. We can move right on to the Hassan piker one, because I was going to talk about that, but here's, I guess, where we are in the world. I'm sorry.
- [29:31]
Rob
I would say the clips are each only about a minute long, and I do think they add some context to where.
- [29:36]
Dave Smith
All right.
- [29:36]
Rob
At the moment.
- [29:37]
Dave Smith
Fair enough, Rob. I'll, I'll defer to you on that. Let's hear. Natalie. Let's throw to the first Donald Trump clip that I sent
- [29:47]
Rob
that Iran is
- [29:48]
Dave Smith
ready to stop fighting. So. So what is the plan? Is the plan.
- [29:51]
Donald Trump (clip)
How would you know? How would you know if there are no signs? What, you know something that I don't know?
- [29:56]
Dave Smith
Well, they continue to attack our allies,
- [29:58]
Donald Trump (clip)
but you don't know what the dialogue is behind the scenes that they want to meet desperately to try and end it because they're getting decimated. You don't get that when you listen to your fake station, but you don't know. You don't know anything. You know something that I don't know. You know something I don't know.
- [30:16]
Dave Smith
Well, tell us.
- [30:17]
Donald Trump (clip)
I will tell you. They want to desperately meet, and until they're ready to meet in a meaningful way, we have no interest in even
- [30:27]
Dave Smith
or no signs. All right, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll throw it to you. I'll just make one. One point. That is honestly the first thing that came to my mind watching it this time. So, you know, in all the. One of the most valuable things about Donald Trump, one of the greatest things Donald Trump did for America was just make the corporate media look so bad. And he would just call them out for how much the liars that they were, you know, and, yeah, he always focused on the lies about himself a little bit more than the Lies, just about the country. But he did call them out for the liars they were and then he'd expose them and they'd say some lie, you know, question about Russiagate. And he'd be like, you're fake news, you're lying. But like, if there was value in that because the corporate news were liars and Donald Trump called them liars and then it, years later, everyone went, oh, yeah, Donald Trump was right, they were lying about that. If there was any value in that, well, then there's equal opposite, you know, costs to Donald Trump sitting here and just making the corporate media look good. You know, he's sitting there lying, they're asking an obviously correct question and he goes, that's why you're fake news. That's why you're a liar. You know, that does, that does every bit as much damage as it ever did help in making the corporate media look bad. Because of course, Rob, obviously. Well, what do you mean they're not ready to capitulate? Who told you that? I don't know. The families of the 4American service members who were killed by the Iranians this weekend. Maybe them. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Ultra pouches. You guys know about ultra pouches? I've told you about them. They're, they're truly the guilt free pouch. They've got nothing bad in them. There's no nicotine or caffeine or anything like that. It's all just nootropics and good stuff for you. Well, now they have the ultra sleep pouches. That's right. If you are one of the millions of people who struggle with getting sleep, I know a lot of people are always trying different things and some of them leave you feeling foggy the next morning. But if you're looking for good sleep and you're looking to not feel foggy, you're looking to feel refreshed the next morning, check out the ultra sleep pouches. You see, everyone is using pouches for increased focus and energy. But ultra, they took that idea and they flipped it. These sleep pouches, they help you wind down, fall asleep and stay asleep. It's 1 milligram of melatonin dosed at the clinically optimal range. They have magnesium for relaxing your muscles, chamomile, passion flower and lemon balm extract to support sleep maintenance. Basically, it's all just really good stuff for you that's going to help you get a good night's sleep. Nothing that's going to leave you feeling less than optimal the next day. So ultra sleep pouches deliver better, deeper sleep with properly dosed and natural ingredients. And new customers can use the promo code problem to get 15% off@take ultra.com. that's take ultra.com. and for 15% off, use the promo code problem. All right, let's get back into the show.
- [33:21]
Rob
Yeah. And then, of course, he got, you know, he's calling them out. You guys are reporting fake news. What am I supposed to be reporting? You keep telling me something that's happening and then it's not happening. You've said multiple times that the Iranians have already given up or they're, They've admitted defeat. You're going to see a signing tomorrow. And that did not happen. At the moment, we seem to be seeing the most, I mean, the biggest amplification of this war and that now there's more civilian infrastructure being taken out. And you're telling me that Iran wants out of this fight. Can you give me any more information about that? Yes, they called me. All right, I guess if we're back to the Donald Trump said so standard after that being not true, since he's in office and particularly on this war, it's such an incredible way to spin this lie of. Well, do you know something I don't? Because I'm the president. I'm telling you that they just called me. All right, well, do you have any evidence of that? Because we can't really just work with you saying it. You've said that a thousand times.
- [34:14]
Dave Smith
Times, right? I mean, look, I mean, I guess I'm trying to, like, be as generous as I could here, I suppose, like once for maybe a period of 72 hours from a president who had some, had, had built up some, some goodwill and, and trust, you know, if they were like, no, look, this thing's almost. But we're talking behind the scenes. We got that. But you're like, dude, you think you can just go for like, well over a hundred days of just trust me. We're on the phone, the straight closed the whole time. They're desperate to open it up. There is no tangible sign of that that he can look to. The only signs we have so far, right, are, look, like I've said this from the very beginning of the war. And this again, guys, this isn't rocket science. That's why me and Rob, we're not journalists. We're still better at it than most. You know what I mean? It's just like, because this isn't rocket science, you look at what the governments are doing. You look at what the governments are saying. You look at how those things interplay with each other. Iran has been saying the same thing the entire time. We are not capitulating. We're fighting to the last man. And by the way, we're winning. Okay? The only in terms of what they've done, it's backed that up. They've responded to every attack. They haven't gone down. They've continued just decimating our bases, killing Americans, attacking our allies where our bases are stationed, all of that. And, of course, closing the strait. Iran came to the table twice. Both times when Donald Trump completely capitulated to them. And then when Donald Trump was like, no, no, no, I'm not completely capitulating. Both times they went great back on. So he could sit here and say, no, no, no, no, no. Someone's calling me on the phone. Okay, Rob, I don't know who's on the phone with him. I don't know what he's talking about. But in terms of what the. Like, even if that is true, which I don't believe, but even if it's true, well, what the Iranian government is officially saying and doing is not what they're telling you on the phone, sir. And we have long established that at
- [36:13]
Rob
this point, sir, if they're actively begging for a deal, but it's not good enough for you to take it, do they continue. Are they going to continue to engage in warfare? Because it sounds like you're not in agreement.
- [36:24]
Dave Smith
Yeah, like what? I mean, I don't know. It's the guy. They're still shooting at us. Everyone knows that. So if they're so terrified, they so want to make a deal, why wouldn't they? Like we are again, this is. We used the best example, Rob. We used to love this one so much. But it's when they would tell you, Covid is the worst illness ever. It's the plague. The vaccine is the greatest cure ever. It's the cure. It's 100%, and you can't possibly get hurt by it, and you can't possibly get the plague with it. And we're really having trouble convincing people to take it. Our biggest problem is vaccine hesitancy. And we would go, just think about the story you're telling right now. Just like, on the face of it, it makes no sense at all. You just.
- [37:07]
Donald Trump (clip)
You can't.
- [37:08]
Dave Smith
You're convincing me there's the plague and you found the cure, and you can't get people to take the cure. This just. It can't be all of those things. Either the germ has to be not that dangerous, or your cure has to be not that good, or something else is going on. Then Alex Jones convinced everyone in the middle of the plague not to take the cure for it. Right. And it's like the same thing right here. They're desperate and trying to get out of this, and they just want to make a deal. But you're also telling us that they just violated the last deal, that they just broke this agreement that we just had, and that's why we're back at the. In the war. Well, why would they do that? If they felt the way you're saying, why would they possibly. I'm sorry, like the guy who's begging you to not fight anymore isn't also swinging haymakers. You can't tell me he's both of those guys. Here, let's. I'm sorry, did you want to add something?
- [38:01]
Rob
We can roll till the next one.
- [38:02]
Dave Smith
So let's jump to that next Trump clip.
- [38:05]
Donald Trump (clip)
They can't have a nuclear weapon right now. It would take them years to produce it. And we will absolutely attack. We. You know, the. The new site that they're talking about. I mean, how about these people? They're in this because of nuclear weapons, that they're trying to possibly reconstitute a site. We'll hit that site. Any site where they're even thinking about nuclear will be hitting it very, very powerfully. Now, nobody knows except the Iranians, the damage that we've done to them. We have done damage that will take them 20, 25 years to recover from. So if we left tomorrow, we had a big. We had a big success. But we're not leaving tomorrow. I can't have a good.
- [38:50]
Dave Smith
Well, there you go, Rob. There was your. The outline of the new Trump doctrine that you were alluding to before. Bonus point war. We're just in. You know, you ever go to the arcade and you get like a couple rounds in the game in, and then it's like bonus rounds, like you already got what you paid for. You're just trying to get a few more extra tickets now. Maybe. Maybe get out of here with that big water gun you got your eye on. That's all we're doing.
- [39:14]
Rob
Yeah. And of course, the bonus points are the straights that we're not getting back.
- [39:18]
Dave Smith
Yeah, right, right. I mean, look, it's. You know, it's just. It's. It's cartoonish. It's ridiculous. He's really, you know, as. As we said through this whole war, you know, you're watching something, you're watching a, something truly self destructive and you just kind of wonder how much destruction is going to be done by, by the end of it. He's, he's obviously lying, he's obviously trapped and he obviously doesn't know what to do. And he's going to continue, he's going to keep lying, at least for now. We'll see. All right, you want to transition and talk about this, this Hasan clip. So I guess the, the transition there would, the, the almost the best way is that look, one of the, one of the costs here in a way of this war, you know, that cost of war project, they always come up with great numbers on excess mortality and, and money spent on munitions and stuff. But they never factor this cost in is that people who, who oppose the war but have really bad views also end up gaining a lot of traction. So there's a, there's a Hasan Piker little clip here that's going super viral around social media and I thought we would respond to this. Now I don't want to, this is a short clip and I don't have all the context around this and so I don't want to do a thing here where we're like taking this out of context. It's more something that just like there's this thing that's going viral. A lot of people are freaking out about it or loving it to be honest. And, and I just feel like there's an interesting conversation me and, me and you could have about this Rob, and kind of different than what other people are saying. But one of the first things I'd say is that look, I think it seems pretty clear to me that Hassan Piker is like ascendant right now. He's, I think he's the biggest lefty streamer in, in America and he's. I think he's very influential in this, the kind of democratic socialist wing of, of the, you know, political movement, whatever you want to call that. I don't know, you know, as I've said before, I don't know that democratic socialist is exactly the right term to call it like the Mamdani wing or whatever. And I know some of those guys are affiliated with like the DSA and stuff and some of them aren't, but I just kind of broadly mean that that wing. I think he's very influential with them. He's become a guy who like politicians are, are either denouncing or refusing to denounce. And anyway he's got you know, he's got some momentum, it seems to me right now. And I think a huge part of that has got to be because, well, he has always been several clicks to the left of anything, you know, kind of establishment inside the Democratic Party. And I think he's, I think it's fair to say he's an open communist sympathizer. And so because of that, he hasn't had to tie himself to the awful positions of the Democratic establishment. And he's been against the wars and against some of the, the corporate Democrats kind of policies. And as they've, you know, as the wars have given you nothing but what genocides give you, and as the corporate Democrats ended up giving you Donald Trump and J.D. vance, the Mamdani wing has a lot more credibility than they otherwise would have. And so now we got to deal with some of the other ideas that they bring along with them. Anyway, here, let's, let's play the clip. And then there's, there's a good amount we could talk about here. Rob. I got stopped by a cop who thought I was like making fun of, of Mao Zedong, which I never would and never will. Mao Zedong is a, is a, one of the great leaders of, of this world, ok? A man who changed the entire universe, the entire planet.
- [43:15]
Donald Trump (clip)
Ok? For real?
- [43:17]
Rob
For real?
- [43:17]
Donald Trump (clip)
Yes.
- [43:18]
Dave Smith
I mean, there was a lot of fucking excesses.
- [43:20]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
Let's be real.
- [43:21]
Dave Smith
But the People's Republic of China would not exist without Mao Zedong. I got stopped by a cop. All right, so this is the clip that of course is going super viral. I do not understand the context of this story. Was he in a communist country or something? I don't know what it is, but there was a cop who was angry that he was making fun of Madagas. He's like, I would never, would never make fun of the great Ma Dong. Anyway, this, this clip, it seems to me this has gone super viral on, on, on social media. And it seems to me, I was looking through, you know, Rob, by the way, this is a little bit of an aside note, but I gotta say, it's one thing I don't like as much about new Twitter. You know, when videos, Twitter used to have a thing where if you shared a video, like whoever the original person, you know, you put a video clip up. Now, like if, say I shared that same video, like if I shared your video, the view count would be the total number between your video and my video. And then if someone else shared my video, any one of their videos, you would look at so like, if it was the most popular viral video ever and some random account with 20 views showed it, he'd be sharing a video with 20 million views on it. You know, now it. Everyone gets their own count anyway. The problem with this now is you can't see how viral a video is going. You used to be able to look at this and go, whoa, this spread to like 40 million people. But now it's like you have to go find each one and tally it up, which nobody is going to be capable of doing anyway. A side note, it's just, it was a better system the old way because you could kind of get a gauge on like, like how broad the, you know, the viewership of something was. Anyway, there's basically two reactions, as I could say, and this one's supervised. The, the DSA1 account that I saw it shared, it had like 10 million views just on that one account. I saw another one with like, that had like 13 million views. Like, it was. A lot of people had seen this. And it's. Almost all the reactions are one of two things. It's either yes, we love Mao, or oh my God, you monster. You know, how could you possibly say something like this? And in some way I just find both of those reactions to be fundamentally wrong. And well, like, I guess the pro Mao one is kind of obvious why it's wrong, but we kind of could get into that. But even the people who are acting hysterical, I find them to be wrong too, because that's just not. What are you. You're almost saying that. It's like, oh, that's the correct thing. The, the anti communists should also get our panties in a bunch and cancel him. It's also why I hate this whole new thing. There's like this new thing where they say, deport, you know, deport Hasan Piker, deport this guy, deport. You're like, guys like, this is just, I don't know, it's just like some right wing version of Snowflake. It's like just decimate them. If you're in the political sphere where you're making arguments about why things should be a certain way, just like, I don't know. So like, if you want to look, I understand. Rob, people have been pointing out forever what hypocrites, you know, people like Hasan Piker are. Because what's really the difference between saying this about Mao or saying this about Adolf Hitler or something, you know what I mean? And okay, fair enough. That's a reasonable point to make. But at the same time, I Don't know. I guess in some ways I just find it more effective to like, open up that conversation and just be like, how much do you want to own this? How much do you want to own that you're supporting the biggest mass murderer in human history? That you're supporting the biggest police state that was erected in human history and perhaps the most vicious one? I don't know, I just. The correct answer here, Rob, can't be that we're supposed to screech, you know, oh my God, you're horrible, or something like that. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Ridge. You know, I've been telling people for years about the Ridge wallet. It's the coolest wallet out there. It's minimalist and sleek and metallic. It's a great conversation piece. But that is not all that Ridge does. Ridge has a five in one travel power bank. You know how you have several devices that have different chargers with ridges? 5 in one travel power bank. Now you got all your charges for all your devices at the same time in one power bank. No extra cables. Problem solved. And with 20 watts of power, it charges your phone as fast as it possibly can. And with 10,000 milliamp hours capacity, you've got up to three full phone charges in your pocket all the time. 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- [48:36]
Rob
I mean, yeah, I guess from let's cancel or censor this guy because this is violent political rhetoric. And this guy believes that communism or socialism or whatever he wants is so desirable that even if you need mass murders to accomplish it, that's a worthwhile cost. I would agree with you that I don't believe that speech is violence or that anyone needs to be censored. But I think to highlight this as, hey, guys, here's what the core of this philosophy is. And you guys are pretending we're nicer people here's. What you really believe. And here's a guy who's even pretending to be, hey, I just care about the poor and we need more socialism here. And yet he's celebrating a mass murderer. So to me, well, to be clear,
- [49:18]
Dave Smith
to be clear, man, not a mass murderer. The biggest mass murderer in human history by orders of magnitude. And that really is the case. The estimates of how many people now killed are. I think it's. I've seen estimates from around 40, I think is the lowest you'll get to over 100. Like they really have no idea, dude. There's entire. There's like, like the biggest war in human history. Worth of margin of error in how many people Mao Zedong killed needlessly.
- [49:50]
Rob
So I think it's worth highlighting as, hey, this is not a person that either this person's completely evil and you probably don't want to get your. Where can I. How can I be a nicer person and advocate for more government so that I can feel like a night like this is not actually a nice philosophy or this person is so ignorant and stupid that they seem to be praising a mass murderer. So I think it's more highlighting the stupidity so that people realize, oh, this is not actually worth listening to or platforming or, you know, taking seriously as a political movement.
- [50:26]
Dave Smith
Absolutely, man. No, I think that's kind of my feeling with it that, you know, look, I'll say this, okay. There is obviously as, as anybody who's familiar with like social media or, or a comment section of any sort would know, there are a lot of like, there's, there's a lot of like right wing comments online. I'll say. I think it's, it's a reflection of people who are feeling this way, who flirt with support of Adolf Hitler and with the Nazis and with kind of like, and even, even to a lesser extent, you see this with like Pinochet and people just, there's almost this kind of celebrating of some of the, the right wing governments in history who kind of historically have been known for their brutality. But there's this kind of. Now that we're going with them anyway, I will say, you know, a lot of people made the, the comparison to Nick Fuentes who has also made comments about like Adolf Hitler being a great man or Joseph Stalin being a great man or stuff like that that I guess I would say, I guess I could be wrong about this. When I see right wingers do it with Hitler, there always seems to be like a little bit of a smirk, like they know they're doing something naughty, there's a little element of like, trolling involved in it with, in my experience with the vast majority of guys like that, when you talk to them one on one and you go, what do you actually believe? They come way down from like this kind of Persona of like, oh, I actually believe in. In death camps, or like that. Now, again, I'm just giving you kind of my experience and maybe I'm wrong about this. When I hear Hassan Piker do this, I don't think there's any element of that. Like, it doesn't seem like there is any element of like a Nick Fuentes smirk. And I'm trolling a little bit. I'm being a little sarcastic. I'm saying something to get a reaction. This seems to me like it. And I could be wrong. I'm kind of guessing someone else's motivations here. But this seems to me like, like this is Hasan Piker's genuine analysis of Mao. Like, I wouldn't make jokes about him. He's a great man in history. And I will tell you, I've. And I'm somebody who, like, you know, I swim in politically radical circles. I've talked to a lot of radical right wingers and a lot of radical left wingers about politics in my day. And I have seen this is a thing that a. If you get into that world, Rob, where you're talking about people who are like DSA and or democratic socialists in general, whether they're part of the organization or not, you do get a lot of this. You'll find some kind of communists apology, you know, some kind of like. Well, and the. They much more so than I've ever really seen right wingers, like, legitimately defend Hitler or something like that. I have seen a lot of left wingers go, you know, oh, MA wasn't really so bad. Or they talk like this, Rob excesses, the excesses of Mao, 40 to 100 million people. Those were the excesses. And then this, this, by the way, I find fascinating because in some ways you almost like, empirically can't even argue with these people because look at the track record. You're talking about the biggest mass murderer ever. You're talking about the person. And Rob, also, like, like, it's not just that they were brutally authoritarian. If anyone doesn't know much about ma, go, go Google the brutality of the Ma Tong regime and go, go look into it, right? And so not only are they this brutal, brutal regime that tortures in the sickest ways, dude, like, cuts ears off and cut, like just tortures political dissidents, cracks down on all speech rights. But also at the same time, it's an economic program. The great leap Forward right now, the, the Cultural Revolution is to cover up for what a disaster that was and propagandize all the kids to go kill all the adults who are talking about what a disaster that was. But this was an economic program. The vast majority of those numbers of deaths, Rob, you understand, came from starvation. So, like, the result of it is mass starvation plus no political liberty. And so empirically, that's not enough to get you to go, like, you know, we turn away from this or something.
- [54:46]
Rob
I would also think, and not my field of expertise, so people can, People can bash me for having this wrong. But even, and this is disgusting, but let's say you even wanted to say, hey, China's now a better place for all of these individuals. And I understand it took 100 million people to die in order for the current state of China, but now China is this incredible place. Well, for one, I'd love to see an economic study of the standard of living of people who are living in Hong Kong during the same time period, just to kind of showcase the differentiation between these two economic models. And then you'd also be forced to look at the current situation in China and say that, I guess that's such an ideal landscape that it justified. I'm saying, even if you wanted to say, listen, it took authoritarian efforts and it took a sacrifice of 40 million people, but look at what we ended up with. And I think that this is the most fantastic form of government you could possibly have. Compare that to the economic growth in Hong Kong and then look at the situation in China and tell me that that's the absolute best model, that it justifies that level of. Not that anything would justify that level of death, but I'm just saying, as a thought experiment, if that's what you're saying.
- [55:57]
Dave Smith
Dude, there's almost a. There's two points in what you just said, and I think they're both really important. I want. Yeah, I almost. And let's almost like go through both of those, because that's a really, really important point here, Robin. I almost, like, would challenge every leftist, like, every leftist who I like. Like all the crystal balls, Ryan Grimm's and like all you guys. Like, and I don't even mean this is like a rhetorical question. Like, please answer this. Like, I actually want to, because, you know, look, the neocons, right, who were also, by the way, former Communists, just saying and from our perspective, they didn't shed enough of it. But so, like, if you remember, I've mentioned this a bunch on the show, but I guarantee you, like Crystal Ball and Mehdi Hassan and Ryan Grimm, I bet a bunch of them have covered this and done segments on it. But because this, this got a lot of us people talking about it. But when Brett Stevens wrote for the New York Times this piece in 2023, that was Iraq 20 years later. And he was asking the question, was it worth it? You know, I was a cheerleader of the war in Iraq. Was I wrong? Did I get this huge foreign policy thing wrong or not? And literally the whole thing, you could, you could read it. The whole thing is a comparison between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Iraq of today. And he makes the argument that Iraq of today is better, therefore he was justified in, in, in the war. And every single one of those people, Crystal Ball and Ryan Grim and, and Zoran Mamdani and even I want to believe Hasan Piker, if he was really focused and rubbed all his brain cells together, would be able to tell you why that doesn't work. Like, methodologically, why you're leaving out a big thing here. Because, like, what about the million people you killed?
- [57:45]
Rob
Huh?
- [57:46]
Dave Smith
You're not even gonna kind of take that? Like, okay, you killed a million people. A million people are dead. 13 million people had to flee from, from their homes. You know, like, you, okay, you destroy an entire country. And I don't even know if you get into the numbers of like, how many hundreds of thousands of people were like, critic, you know, were wounded and had severe injuries and all that stuff and the trillions of dollars that it cost, right? And then you got to think about the, the scene versus unseen. What could have been done with those trillions of dollars that now isn't done because of that? Like, what about all that calculation? She just gets a yada yada over that. It, like, that's a real goddamn human toll. And if the goal of the thing is human flourishing, well, then what about all these humans who not only didn't flourish, but met the, the worst fate ever? You have to factor that in. And so in this breaking eggs to make an omelet argument, which essentially it is. Well, he's a great man because he made, you know, whatever. China ended up being a thing because of him. Which to some degree is because there's some truth too. But like, okay, yeah, you're yada yada ing over the biggest bloodbath in human history. And so, yes, there's that. That is one argument right there. Like, are you really prepared to embrace this, like, gotta break some omelets to make an egg argument? And by the way, people like me and Rob, who forgive us when we're good on the war question, but we're a little bit hesitant on your.
- [59:14]
Donald Trump (clip)
We.
- [59:14]
Dave Smith
We can break as many omelets as is, we want to make an egg. We may have some questions like, is there a limiting principle to that other than you say the word democracy? Like, you know, because, because like, hey, Hassan Piker, if you're so into the idea of, like, whatever, this breaks some omelets to make an egg. You know, we could save like seven people's lives by murdering Hassan Piker and harvesting his organs and then giving them out other people who need, you know, a new liver or a new. I don't know how kind Hassan's been to his liver, but I'm sure he's got some good stuff in there that someone could use. You know what I'm saying? Like, where exactly do we go with this theory? And then the other point, though, that you, you really got at there. And I, I think this is a really, really important one that I wanted to make because this is. There is this thing where. And I've seen this, where this. The Stalin apologists and Mao apologists will do this thing where they go, but he industrialized. Like, hey, man, say what you will about Lenin, but when he found Russia, it was an agrarian society. And when he left it off, they made it into a, you know, they had factories and stuff. Mao Zedong built factories or whatever it is. And it's like, first of all, there's a couple things here, Rob. Number one, isn't it interesting to watch Communists celebrate someone for building factories? You just gotta, you gotta really juxtapose the way they treat the industrial revolution in the west, which, by the way, Rob, came without tens of millions of starving dead people. Like, but. And all they can think, all they can think when they see that is, is. Is child labor and a capitalist taking advantage of somebody. But yet, if the biggest mass murderers in history build a factory, all this. Well, look, they industrialized the country. So let me just get this straight. In Britain, in America, in Germany, in France, we had industrial revolutions. In Belgium, we all had the Industrial revolution. Okay? Different phases of it, I suppose, but like it. Okay? It was capitalist societies. Now, Rob, when I say, just to be clear for the discussion, when I say these are capitalist societies, me and you, I'm sure, could go through the Federal Book of regulations in any of these countries or whatever and find some things we didn't like. But I just mean for the sake of the argument here, since we're talking about Mao Zedong, then, like I'm saying, they were private business owners who owned factories and built factories. It wasn't. When you talk about the industrial revolution in the United States of America, you're not Talking about Washington, D.C. opening a whole bunch of factories and having a program of we're industrializing the country. You're talking about people opening factories. Okay, so explain this to me, Rob, a capitalist in America in 1879 or whatever, okay? You've got a bunch of money. You could use this for present consumption, right? You could go out and buy all the finest amenities that 1895 or whatever year I said it was 1879 has to offer. Okay? But let's say you choose to defer that and you go instead, I'm going to open a factory that will provide 5,000 people with work and it will make me money. I'll get to consume things, but in the future, I'll sacrifice my present consumption for more future consumption that will also provide a whole bunch of jobs for this community. You're evil. But the fucking murderous dictator who says, I put up nothing of my own, but I'll take this poor peasant shit and fucking insist that he go into labor to build a factory. That guy gets credit for building the factory. Just think about this for a second. You had. Yes, yes, it is true that there was some degree of industrialization in Russia and China under Lenin and Stalin and Mao Zedong, but it was also true that we had industrial revolutions all throughout the Western world without the communist bloodbath. That's preferable. Also, can I. I'm sorry, Rob, I know I rant for too long, but this is another one that's kind of interesting. That also. And because none of them, no one fucking. This is why I say Austrian economics is the only real economics. None of these guys even understand what they're talking about. And it is unfortunate because I do like some of them. Them, not so much Hasan, but some of the other ones. But like, also, you're not always supposed to industrialize. Like, it's not. Everybody knows you can. Nobody. Rob, if I enslave everyone in the country to build a factory, there might be a factory at the end of it, but it's not clear that that was the right. And in fact, that's kind of the whole point, at least certainly in China, is that they weren't ready to Industrialize, right? It. So like, this is essentially what happened. And this is, you know, I'll just say this on the caveat because we're getting toward the end of time that there's historians who could explain this way better than me, but it's, this is very interesting, right? So essentially, England, where the Industrial Revolution first happened was very, very capitalist at the time. America, when the Industrial Revolution happened here, after the civil rights, like, we didn't have a central bank, we didn't have an income tax, we didn't have fake federal regulations, we didn't have federal spending. Like, it was just, you know, these were, these were free market countries, relatively speaking, that had industrial revolutions. And so what happened there? Like, Rob, if you could imagine, right, let's say, like me, you and Natalie and, and 10 of our closest friends, we all move out to like it's 1886. Okay, if you've seen that show, we go out on the, on the Oregon Trail or something there. The Industrial Revolution's happening in the, the cities, but it's not happening out there. So we're no Industrial revolution, right? So we go out there and we're going to homestead a piece of land together and you're going over jobs, like what we should all do because a winter's coming in a couple months, and I go, I think we should industrialize. Rob, let's start building a factory. You very likely might go, hey, hold on there, Dave. Like, we don't have any steel. You know what I mean? Like, we don't. We are not at all. We will starve to death if we start putting our time and resources toward building a factory. We're nowhere near ready to do that. And you know what happened? Again, this is a little bit above my pay grade, but go read about this because it's very interesting. What preceded the Industrial Revolution in England is what's known as, I believe the British Agricultural Revolution or the Second Agricultural Revolution, I can't, I can't remember, but it's, it's something like that. And it's basically this period of time where they figure out all these things. And Rob, I'm not the expert in. I know figuring out the steam engine was big in the British Industrial Revolution because they could move the shit on the boats. And then I know it was the, in the internal combustion engine was huge in the American Industrial Revolution. Like, I don't know all the details of this at all, but I know that this Agricultural revolution, it led. They for the first time started producing way more food than they needed and the population in England exploded from like 5 million to 40 million. And for the first time ever, there was so much food that they didn't need as many people working in agriculture to make make food. Like, that was a really important precursor, Rob, to everyone going and investing all of these resources and building factories and doing factory jobs. And you know what happened in China? They weren't at that point. And so Mao just ordered everybody to stop being farmers and start fucking building factories. And then, you know what happened, Rob? They weren't producing nearly enough food, and people starved to death by the tens of millions. Like, look, if you want to say he was a great man, just meaning he was a powerful man in history or something like that, well, then, fine, yeah, he was. But you're not saying anything if you're saying that. So I don't think that's just what you're saying. You're saying you won't make jokes about this guy because there were some factories. At the end of the day, just think about that, Rob. You gotta. You gotta break some eggs to make an omelette, but if you built some factories, then that's worth it, man. Could a capitalist get some of that love? I'm sorry, that's too long of a rant. But go ahead, Rob, anything you want.
- [67:31]
Rob
Hasan's got to get back on the Mountain Dew. I think he. He's lost his touch. He needs the black fingernails and a fresh Mountain Dew to clear his head there.
- [67:39]
Dave Smith
There you go. Well, you know, dude, I gotta. I would still love to debate him. We had talked about doing that, and then he got in all his legal trouble. I'm gonna reach back out to try to make that happen. But there you go. Let's debate Maoism. What a. What a wonderful thing it was for China. Oh, and by the way, I guess the last thing to add is just that people give Mao the credit for modern China. It's like, yeah, when he died, and then they decided to allow business, you know, like, why didn't all that happen while he was alive? Why not? They try to make it out like, this is. Oh, no, they did communism for a long time, and now they're much richer than they were. Yeah, they were at their poorest after doing communism for a long time. And it was around the time that they decided communism meant fascism, you know, it was around the time that they go, communism really means big business and government just work together a lot. And then that worked a bit better than communism, where they had no prices, you know. Oh, and by the way, I should. Robin, all that shit that I was saying about moving out to we go, homestead, when do we industrialize? When do we do this? All that shit? How do you tip prices? That's how you do it, a pricing system. You go, oh, steel's really cheap. That means we should start doing a project that involves steel, you know, why did Mao Zedong decide they were going to produce steel? Because he wanted to. He thought. He decided that would be best for China long term, would be to produce a lot of steel. So he took all the people and then what did he need to do in order to enforce that type of economic policy? Be the most draconian, authoritarian, brutal mass murderer in human history? Straight. All right, all right. Communism sucks. And the Republicans who launch stupid wars are actually giving them a lot of ammo. So that, I guess, continues to be the theme. All right, catch you guys next time. Peace,
- [69:40]
Donald Trump (clip)
Foreign
- [69:43]
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