Damon (5:18)
Yeah, so Frank Turk will be there and of course he tells. It's just unbelievable story of trying to get Charlie to the hospital. I don't know if he'll tell it again tonight but so TP USA at Berkeley chapter, University of California at Berkeley. So they'll be I think around 9:30 or so we'll turn it over to them. So a little bit of a compressed show tonight, but we have lots to do. But as we always do, let's start tonight with tonight's first word. Well, Milton Friedman said whenever you have capitalism you have freedom. Capitalism is a necessary element of freedom. Not the only element, but a necessary element. Now we have Silicon Valley billionaires playing dress up as socialists. Yes, I'm talking about Peter Thiel, the PayPal pioneer turned PayPal for liberals, telling some wide eyed scribe at the Free Press that get this, capitalism ain't working for young folks. He says capitalism not working. Pass the smelling salts to Peter please. The same system that turned a bunch of scrappy immigrants into the richest nation on earth is suddenly the bad guy. See folks, an attack on capitalism is an attack on freedom. That's why you have people all over the world, particularly in these socialist totalitarian paradises, trying to come to the United States in essence voting with their feet for not only freedom, but capitalism. Let me tell you something my friends. Capitalism is the most humane economic system of all economic systems. Capitalism works. It works every blasted minute of every hour of every day for everybody. Whether it's grandma's knitting in Florida, kids scrolling TikTok in their parents basements, and yes, even those tattooed baristas in Brooklyn, New York whining about their avocado toast. It doesn't care if you're eight or you're 80. It's the great equalizer, the rocket fuel of human ingenuity that says go build something, go risk something. Dream something bigger than your government issued participation trophy. It's not just the greatest economic system ever invented, it's the most moral one. It rewards the doers, the makers, the risk takers who drag the rest of us kicking and screaming into prosperity. The opposite of capitalism is a growing centralized police state, the usurpation of your constitutional system spreading poverty and despair through redistribution and the dehumanizing of you, the individual. Socialism is an essential element of tyranny. Now capitalism isn't Perfect. But it's perfectly American. Freedom to fail, freedom to fly. And freedom from the nanny state telling you what to eat, think, or twee. Now let's rewind the tape of history, because if Peter Thiel's forgotten why this puppy always fetches. Well, I sure haven't. Take the Industrial Revolution. Yes, you know, the dusty old chapter your kid's public school teacher probably skipped to lecture them on systemic oppression here in the U.S. well, back in the late 1700s, James Watt tinkers with his steam engine and boom. Suddenly you've got factories churning out textiles cheaper than a king's ransom. Railways snaking across continents like iron veins, pumping life into dead economies. What happened? Well, poverty rates that had been stuck at 90% for centuries. Yes, nine out of ten scrape, scraping by on bread in despair. Well, those plummeted life expectancy. It doubled. Literacy skyrocketed. Kids who used to toil in fields or die by the age of five. Now they're in schools dreaming up their own gadgets. And it wasn't just for the gray beards and top hats. It worked for all ages. Granddads got pensions from booming industries. Instead of begging on street corners, teens apprenticed into trades that paid enough to start families. Even the elderly, those useless eaters, by liberal standards, benefited from the wealth explosion that funded the first real safety nets. Fast forward to the Gilded Age. That liberal boogeyman that they love to demonize. Carnegie and Rockefeller, well, they built steel empires and oil rigs that slashed the cost of everything from bridges to buggies. By 1900, the average American workers wages had tripled since the Civil War. Tripled. And that included immigrants fresh off the boat, women entering the workforce, and yes, the young whippersnappers like the ones Peter Thiel is now fretting over. No government handouts, just pure capitalistic magic. Innovation meets market and suddenly you've got electric lights, canned goods for the masses, and Model T Fords putting wheels under every family's dream. The post World War II miracle. That golden era when capitalism went supernova. The GI Bill, funded by war bonds and tax revenues from a roaring economy. The suburbs sprouted like weeds on the seeds of Levittown assembly lines. Capitalism's answer to affordable housing without a single zoning czar in sight. Boomers, well, they got jobs in factories, TVs and living rooms and college tuition that didn't require selling a kidney. Their parents, the greatest generation, traded foxholes for foreman roles, retiring on pensions fatter than a politician's Rolodex. And the kids they surfed the wave of transistor radios and rock and roll, all powered by the same system that turned rubble into rocket ships. Five massive waves from steam to silicon, each one lifting billions out of misery. Without capitalism's greedy genius, where do you think your iPhone would be? Your Netflix binges your DoorDash at 2am well, you'd be bartering chickens for bandwidth, folks. So what's really buckling under the weight here? Not capitalism. No, for sure. It's the liberal Frankenstein monster piled on top like a bad Thanksgiving feast. That's regulations thicker than a phone book. Taxes that would make Robin Hood blush, and government programs that promise utopia but deliver unemployment lines. See, capitalism understands man's imperfections. Socialism insists on the perfection of man. Capitalism respects individuality. Socialism demands conformity. Capitalism empowers the individual or groups of individuals. Socialism empowers a ubiquitous leviathan. In capitalism, the individual is the master. In socialism, the state is the master. Capitalism is about voluntary arrangements. Socialism is about coerced conduct and arrangements. Under capitalism, decision making is dispersed. Under socialism, decision making is centralized and exercised by only a few. Capitalism relies on the people making their own decisions. Socialism. Socialism relies on a benefit mastermind making decisions for the people. Capitalism is compatible with constitutionalism. Socialism destroys the constitutional order. Peter Thiel, bless his contrarian heart, knows all of this. Capitalism has bulldozed its way through two centuries of progressive potholes and still should make young people feel the rush, the wealth, the wonder, and the why not me? Kind of grit. It always has for every age, every stage. So next time some Silicon Valley visionary whines about it not working, tell them, lighten up. Capitalism is the cure, not the curse. And that's tonight's first word.
