Transcript
David Pakman (0:00)
Forever. Welcome to the show. Hope you had a good weekend. Going to start with something a little different today. You know, I've received a lot of emails lately, especially, I think, because with the book out, there are people who are hearing about me from reading the book and not the show. And so I've been getting asked the question, what exactly are your political beliefs? Yes, you're on the left, but can you really lay it out? Where do you stand on different issues and different principles and ideas? And I think that this is an excellent opportunity to kind of lay it out and sort of like this will be what I can refer people back to in a context where I've been critical before of those who just want to talk about principles, principles, principles, ignoring difficult policy decisions. I have a chapter in the book about avoiding these philosophical black holes for two reasons. Number one, if I tell you my values are liberty, individual autonomy, and egalitarianism, what does that really say in 2025 about what policy should be? So one reason that I favor an approach of always talking about our beliefs in the context of policy is that the beliefs alone don't actually tell you what policy you should support or oppose. And secondly, we have right now in the American right wing, a movement that claims certain virtues and principles, but then they abandon them immediately when those are politically inconvenient. So for those, those reasons in the book I've said, don't get sucked into the black hole of exclusively talking theoretically, abstractly about principles. So I'm going to talk a little bit about principles and policy and kind of lay out where I am. The big picture is I consider myself an anti authoritarian, socially responsible, pragmatic, progressive. Oh my God, David, that's such mumbo jumbo. Yeah, it is. But the point here is just saying I'm on the left, especially as left and right have become pretty useless shorthands for political beliefs, right now is kind of meaningless. So I'm going to lay it out for you. When I say I'm anti authoritarian, what that means is that I favor libertarianism, but not capital L. Okay, not, not the Libertarian Party. What I mean is, on the spectrum of authoritarianism to libertarianism, both lowercase, I believe we opt for the more limited but effective government, meaning I want to be able to make a clear case as to why I think government should be involved in certain areas. We need government to protect civil rights. We need government to provide essential public goods and regulate markets where necessary without going any further into controlling people's lives where the government has no business being so in that sense, I'm anti authoritarian. I'm a progressive when it comes to ensuring a baseline of dignity for all. What do I mean by that? Food, health care, rights and opportunity. We need government involved there. I'm a libertarian in my attitude, which is I am deeply opposed to authoritarianism. I am against overreach by governments, I'm against ideological rigidity, and I'm against coercive systems of any kind except where they are necessary in societies that are quite frankly, bigger than 150 people based on sociological and anthropological data. I support a version of capitalism that has guardrails, that defends equality of opportunity and global cooperation by consent. But I'm against purity politics. I'm against forced collectivism, which is why I'm not a socialist. So I see my politics as pragmatic, anti authoritarian and predominantly rooted in the real world. Now let me give you some principles. Number one, I see government as a tool, not as a savior. So we should centralize certain societal and economic activities when necessary, either for reasons of scale or of justice. When we talk about should we have a bunch of mercenary armies or should that take task the military be centralized for the government, I believe that for scale and justice insanity, we should just have one military that the government runs. Education, health care, etc. Okay, but I want the government staying out of areas where society can self or organize pretty effectively. And I think markets are okay there. And that gets me to principle number two, capitalism with exceptions and safeguards. My view is that markets work well in a lot of areas. Tech, consumer goods, etc. If they are properly regulated. But health care and education I see as public goods and not commodities. So I want government involved there. Third, I am an advocate of equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. We have normal distribution. Imagine a bell curve. In any aspect of life we expect normal distribution. Outcomes will vary and will be normally distributed along this curve. So what I want is to eliminate systemic barriers to get rid of rigged rules that don't really provide equality of opportunity. That's my focus. Number four, on free speech and being against coercion. I don't consider myself a free speech absolutist, but I basically want to not restrict speech as far as governments are concerned. And also we have to accept that speech has consequences which are also speech. This is one of the areas where a lot of these free speech right wingers get mixed up, which is they have one version of free speech for the speaker and then they want to limit or constrain the speech of those reacting to that Speech. Speech has consequences and it might be, I'm not going to do business with you anymore, that's a form of speech, etc. I am against ideological enforcement and I'm against purity tests on all sides. Number five, dignity as a baseline. No one in a wealthy country should go hungry, be homeless or go without health care. So we need a strong safety net. It's not optional. It's one of the sort of parameters of social democracy, regulated capitalism as I see it. 6. International cooperation without imperialism. I favor alliances, I favor treaties. I favor shared action. I am against acting as the world's self appointed enforcer, spreader of democracy or policeman number seven. And if you've read my book, you know this. I'm about reform over revolution. I want to fix broken systems instead of giving people the idea that by tearing it all down we will get to some utopia. You really don't want to burn it down unless you know exactly what you're building and who will do the building. Many times the burn it down ends up in the wrong people rebuilding it. It ends up being even worse. Number eight. I am consistent in my anti authoritarianism. I'm against strongmen, I'm against dictators. I'm against centralized coercion. And as a result of this I also am against imposed socialism, forced collectivism. I would welcome individual businesses choosing to organize as worker co ops etc. But much like we see in the successful economies of Denmark and Sweden and others that I talk about in the book, I don't want a government to come in and impose. We are going to collective eyes or socialize. Now in terms of what I support versus what I oppose in terms of policy in a lot of these areas, okay. Government's roles that I think are valid. Public health care, yes. Civil rights protection, Yep. I believe in progressive taxation. I don't believe in central planning or government control over most industries with markets. I want regulated capitalism with real competition and innovation. I don't want unregulated monopolies, which is often what capitalism turns into. And I don't want health care as a profit driven market. Those are examples. When it comes to equality, I want anti discrimination laws, educational access and safety nets. I don't want quotas without merit or forced equality of outcome. Doesn't, doesn't work, just simply doesn't work. Civil liberties, free speech rights to protest privacy protections, not fringe interpretations of cancel culture, state censorship or ideological silencing on policing and surveillance. I want police reform, judicial oversight, de escalation practices to be a bigger part of policing. I don't want militarized police. I don't want mass surveillance. I don't want warrantless spying on immigration. I favor legal pathways to citizenship. Skilled immigration probably needs to increase to the United States. I am not an advocate of so called open borders which we don't have. We need to also consider that these mass deportation schemes will be economically disastrous aside from whatever your moral and ethical feelings are about them. On culture and identity I recognize identity in history, so people's identity brings a unique perspective and that should be considered. I don't want identity based gatekeeping or the exclusion of groups, foreign policy, naito and alliances, aid to allies, a diplomacy first approach. I favor spreading democracy by force and unilateral military action. I'm typically against authoritarianism. I always said voluntary cooperation and pluralism over dictatorship, over forced socialism and over ideological dogmatism. And finally, I don't believe in one size fits all answers. I believe in the principles I've told you human dignity, civil liberty, shared responsibility, the value of voluntary systems over coercive ones. But also one society gets beyond 150 people and certainly beyond a thousand. You need a central taxing authority, you need central law enforcement. We just need these things at a certain point. So I'm a progressive in goals. I'm a libertarian in the sense of being anti authoritarian. And I'm sort of grounded in the idea that it's not freedom versus fairness the way that a lot of right wingers talk about. Freedom depends on fairness and fairness depends on freedom. These things go together. That's my view. Those are my principles and how I would apply them to policy. There's a lot more about that in my book, the Echo Machine. And thank you to the more than 300 people who have already left. Reviews the reviews are critical right now. Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Goodreads. Maybe tomorrow, maybe Wednesday. I will finally have data as as to how this first week of books book sales went. Optimistic. Cautiously optimistic. Thanks to everybody who reviewed. Already the weather's warming up. It's just about time to start enjoying the outdoors again. If you live in a place that has seasons and it's time for the upgrade you've been thinking of. Our sponsor, Fast Growing Trees has you covered. It's America's biggest online nursery with thousands of different plants and 2 million happy customers. Fast Growing Trees has all the plants your yard needs, from fruit trees to privacy trees, flowering trees and shrubs. They make it easy to find whatever fits your climate and your space. Everything's delivered directly to your door in just a few days you'll get support from trained plant experts on call to help you plan your landscape, choose the right plants and care for them. I have some beautiful white hydrangeas on the way from Fast Growing Trees right now. They are going to look great. Really looking forward to having them. And right now they have some amazing deals at fast growing trees.com including up to half off and my audience gets an additional 15% off when you use the code pacman. That's fast growing trees.com use code PACMAN for 15% off. The info is in the podcast Notes Another day, another Tesla Story. What is going on with this company? Well, if you go to Ground News slash Pacman, you will see how some outlets are covering Tesla and Elon Musk compared to others. The story really is one story, but the way it's told really can change your perspective and this is the exact problem that our partners at Ground News help to solve. Ground News is the only site that shows you how political bias and financial incentives and even blind spots shape the narratives in the news that you read. Otherwise, you're letting billionaires and political agendas shape everything from public opinion to policy. See every side of the news story, read the news from multiple perspectives and see through the media bias with reliable news from local and international sources. Go to Ground News slash Pacman to get the same top tier vantage plan that I use at nearly half the cost, just five bucks a month. The link is in the description. The David Pakman show is an audience supported program. We are primarily funded by your memberships. You can read about them and sign up@join pacman.com if you are a new listener, a new viewer who just heard about this show, either for example through Tik Tok where we hit a million followers over the weekend, or because you bought my book, that is the primary means of funding the show and I invite you to get the full experience. The bonus show every day, the commercial free audio and video feeds by signing up@join pacman.com Quick, easy and directly supports the work that we do. All right, listen, this is not a drill. Donald Trump told NBC News he is not joking about trying to get a third term as President, which to be clear is unconstitutional under the 22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution. Now this is not just another Trump rally sound bite where he's tossing red meat. Well done. Obviously because it's Trump red meat to the base. This is Trump to a national news chain saying, I have been thinking about ways to circumvent the two term limit in the Constitution. And when Kristen Welker from NBC News pushed himself, suggesting he might try the JD Vance workaround, all of which I will explain and define for you in a moment. The idea there is vance wins in 28 and then immediately resigns and hands the presidency back to Scrumps. Trump said there are other ways. So let's start with the transcript. Here's the transcript. Welker says, well, let me throw out one where President Vance would run for office and then would basically, if he won at the top of the ticket, would pass the baton to you. And Trump says, well, that's one. But there are others, too. Kristen Welker says there are others. Can you tell me another? Trump says, no. And Welker says, ok, but sir, I'm hearing you don't sound like you're joking. I've heard you joke about this a number of times. And Trump says, no, no, I'm not joking. I'm not joking. Trump was then asked about the very same thing, seemingly on a plane yesterday. And here is what he had to say.