#056 - Firas Modad - How Trump Is Reshaping the World

Summary

The Peter McCormack Show #056

Guest: Faraz Modad

Title: How Trump Is Reshaping the World

Date: March 6, 2025
Host: Peter McCormack (with guest Faraz Modad; Peter is nicknamed "Bernie" throughout transcript)

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Brief Overview

This episode explores the global and domestic political shifts catalyzed by Donald Trump’s policies, with deep dives into populism, oligarchy, geopolitics, Western decline, and the underpinnings of social breakdown in liberal societies. Faraz Modad, a geopolitical analyst and Christian convert, provides a sweeping, provocative analysis—from experience in Lebanon to broad critiques of Western decadence, Western Christianity, the role of oligarchy, the dangers and uses of strongmen, and the spiritual crisis in the West. The conversation is frank, often confrontational, mixing geopolitics, theology, social commentary, and biting critiques of both left and right.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Social Responsibility, Welfare & Dignity

Timestamps: [00:00], [34:04]

• Faraz opens by critiquing Western welfare systems:

  "If you allow people to be on benefits indefinitely, you actually end up corrupting them... force people to work because there's no other alternative, they prosper... that's good for them. I don't think it's good for us as a society...you impose responsibility on people instead of infantilizing them." – Faraz [00:00], [34:04], [35:15]

• Faraz frames “tough love” as a necessary corrective, referencing both Christian doctrine (St. Paul) and a practical critique of Western welfare ("If St. Paul says if you don’t work you don’t eat, I’m going to agree with St. Paul...").

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2. Lebanese Society, Corruption, and Community

Timestamps: [01:27] – [07:00]

• Faraz recounts Lebanon’s fractured sectarian society:

  “There are 17 different sects...having different religions is a problem because it means that different people have different loyalties...their first loyalty is their own community, not the administrative apparatus of the state.” – Faraz [02:34]

• Wealth accumulation by politicians is framed as security for future conflict, not prosperity:

  “The mindset that you need to thrive in that kind of society is primarily security based. It’s not prosperity based.” – Faraz [03:17]

• The tradition in Lebanon of maintaining homes in both Beirut and the village is linked to profound distrust and preparedness for catastrophe.

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3. Oligarchies, Elites, and Populism

Timestamps: [07:01] – [17:25]

• Faraz argues Western elites have abandoned connections to land and people, making them unaccountable compared to traditional aristocracies.
• Loss of manufacturing and exporting jobs offshore is presented as a symptom of rootless financialized elites.
• Rise of populism is traced to the pain of the squeezed classes while the elite “don’t really want to put their head above the parapet.”

  “HR has become the new inquisition...you can no longer be employed in a large corporation. So the people end up being torn...maybe I should just nod along...” – Faraz [09:36]

• On the real nature of political hierarchy:

  “There are three players, at least, not two...the conflict is often between the executive, the oligarchs, and the people.” – Faraz [14:24]

• Faraz claims core social dogmas (transgender rhetoric, climate activism) are modern “political loyalty tests” that arbitrate who is loyal to the ruling oligarchy.

  “If I can make you say a man is in fact a woman, I can make you say anything...It becomes a political loyalty test.” – Faraz [15:57]

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4. Trump, the Strongman, and the Structure of Power

Timestamps: [12:57], [31:52], [53:56]

• Trump is interpreted as a genius at two levels: as a political tactician, and as someone consciously working to realign oligarchic alliances.

  “In the conflict between oligarchy and state and public, Trump has selected a better oligarchy to work with which knows that it needs him much as he needs them... and he's using that to dismantle the administrative state…” – Faraz [31:52]

• The West’s previous decades of foreign policy errors (Iraq, Libya) are presented as creating the present alliance between Russia, China, and Iran.

  “Because of Western sanctions and Western military pressure and I would argue Western arrogance, a de facto alliance between Russia, China and Iran…” – Faraz [41:12]

• The rationale behind Trump’s hard pivot on Ukraine and Gaza is explained as realpolitik, not emotion or principle.

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5. Authoritarianism vs. Liberal Pluralism

Timestamps: [19:10] – [29:13]

• Defending (to a degree) the logic of authoritarianism in Russia and elsewhere:

  "The alternative to authoritarian rule is literally civil war and chaos and it is oligarchs running amok..." – Faraz [23:11]

• The necessity of strong central control in highly diverse societies, versus chaos in attempts at Western-style liberal pluralism.
• Western claims to freedom and democracy are scrutinized as fragile and hypocritical.

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6. Geopolitics, Islam, and Enduring Conflict

Timestamps: [49:31] – [62:23]

• The Israel/Palestine impasse is presented as essentially theological:

  “The existence of a Jewish state is a theological insult to Islam... Islam defines itself as a religion of government and as being fundamentally entitled to rule over Christians and Jews because Christians and Jews don’t obey God’s law properly...” – Faraz [49:33]

• Trump’s “pragmatic” solution is presented as a historic inevitability—harsh, but not new.

  “Trump is saying, I’m going to be practical about it and ethnically cleanse the weaker side... It’s cruel, but it’s not the first time.” – Faraz [53:31]

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7. Christian Roots, Decline in the West & Social Fragmentation

Timestamps: [85:56], [92:09], [94:03], [111:44]

• Faraz makes an extended argument that many modern Western values—universal dignity, charity, equality, welfare—are distinctively Christian, not universal or rational innovations.

  “The idea that the poor inherently have dignity and the weak inherently have dignity cannot be accepted without Jesus Christ. Not genuinely, not fully.” – Faraz [94:03]

• Loss of Christianity is argued to be a key driver of current Western malaise, confusion, and susceptibility to “woke” pseudo-religions.
• Western "rights culture" is reframed as an expansion (and perversion) of Christian moral roots.
• The rise of radical Islam is explained as a recovery of religious confidence, contrasting with the West's post-Christian drift.

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8. Free Speech, Censorship, and State Power

Timestamps: [71:05], [73:31], [120:33], [126:30]

• Faraz is not a “free speech absolutist,” arguing that truth must be protected speech, and that speech can and should be curbed if it risks civil conflict in diverse societies.

  “If you were to go around and say things that would provoke a civil conflict... preventing civil conflict is actually an important responsibility.” – Faraz [72:49]

• Bernie's discussion of Tommy Robinson, Assange, and censorship highlights the Western establishment’s nervousness, likening it to the kind of political repression seen in Russia.

  “This government, this country is terrified of the risk of rioting when you want to understand they’re terrified of a revolution. Yes. As they should be because of their own behavior. But like good autocrats, they are trying to fortify themselves in all kinds of ways and make sure that they show you early on that there is an enormous cost to dissent.” – Faraz [120:40]

• The “cancellation” and ex-communication of political and cultural heretics is likened to religious purges.

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9. The “Lies” Underpinning Modern Society

Timestamps: [125:28] – [129:53]

• Faraz frames Western social dogmas on gender, climate, and equality as fundamentally untrue, unsustainable, and ultimately destructive:

  "The foundation of lies is quicksand, and it can't hold all of that weight and all of that bs." – Faraz [126:58]

• His prescription for social renewal is not political activism first, but uncompromising truth-telling, calling out lies one by one: “Dismantling their lies is the best thing that you can do against them, because eventually people will see that the emperor has no clothes.” – Faraz [128:59]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “HR has become the new inquisition...you can no longer be employed in a large corporation." – Faraz [09:36]
• “If I can make you say that a man is in fact a woman, I can make you say anything.” – Faraz [15:57]
• "There will always be people who are wealthier than others...What you want to do is to ennoble the oligarchy and give it aristocratic sentiments..." – Faraz [17:43]
• “In the conflict between oligarchy and state and public, Trump has selected a better oligarchy to work with…” – Faraz [31:52]
• “The alternative to authoritarian rule is literally civil war and chaos and it is oligarchs running amok...They are operating on a different morality.” – Faraz [23:11]
• “Geopolitics is the connection between geography and politics. It’s the admission that where we’re from affects us.” – Faraz [45:09]
• “Reality doesn’t care about your feelings.” – Bernie [48:21]
• “Every atrocity that Islamic State committed was scripturally justified by at least two...Sunni Muslim authorities. They checked, and then I checked their work. They were right.” – Faraz [77:46]
• “Socialism is a Christian heresy. Why should the poor have anything? Why should the downtrodden have political influence? Says who?” – Faraz [94:03]
• “The foundation of lies is quicksand, and it can’t hold all of that weight and all that BS.” – Faraz [126:58]
• “You need genuine Christianity for there to be reform, we need genuine love of your neighbor.” – Faraz [115:54]

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Important Timestamps for Reference

• [00:00] — Opening on Welfare & Work
• [02:34] — Lebanon as a microcosm of divided, corrupt society
• [09:36] — HR as the new inquisition; populist uprisings
• [12:57] — Trump: Genius or madness? Both, but at a higher level
• [15:57] — Modern social dogmas as loyalty tests
• [23:11] — The necessity of authoritarianism in diverse nations
• [25:33] — Consequences of liberalism in non-homogenous societies
• [31:52] — How Trump is “reshaping” American politics
• [34:04] — Welfare, dignity, and the case for “tough love”
• [41:12] — The West’s strategic errors; Russia, China, Iran alliance
• [49:33] — The theological core of the Israel/Palestine conflict
• [62:42] — Christianity, sin, and the roots of social breakdown
• [94:03] — Christian charity vs. socialism; Western values’ origins
• [115:54] — Why reform now can only succeed with genuine charity
• [126:58] — “The foundation of lies is quicksand...”
• [128:59] — Prescription for the future: relentless truth-telling

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Flow & Tone

• The episode is frank, combative, and discursive, mixing history, personal experience, theology, and political philosophy.
• Faraz’s tone is unapologetic, analytical, occasionally biting, but always on a quest for root causes.
• Bernie (Peter) acts as both devil’s advocate and everyman, bringing personal experience and skepticism while letting Faraz elaborate.
• Both are deeply concerned with societal rot, loss of direction, and the hollowing of the West, but differ on whether activism or spiritual renewal is the solution.

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Conclusion

Faraz Modad’s thesis is that Trump’s reshaping of the world isn’t accidental but emerges from a deep crisis in Western societies—one of faith, leadership, and social cohesion. Populism, oligarchy, and the return of the “strongman” are neither aberrations nor optional but the almost inevitable consequences of societies that have lost their moral and spiritual roots. Bold, provocative, and bracing, this conversation is essential listening for understanding today’s turbulent global order.

Check out Faraz’s work at:

• monadgeopolitics.com
• convertordie.net (“How Islamic State Made Me a Christian”—upcoming book)

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This summary omits sponsor messages, advertisements, and non-content banter, focusing solely on the episode’s substantive material.

Transcript

[Faraz]

If you allow people to be on benefits indefinitely, you actually end up corrupting them. And it is in fact harmful to allow people to keep on functioning in society without giving them responsibility. Whereas if you force people to work because there's no other alternative, they prosper. I don't think you should allow people to simply exist in society without work. I don't think that gives them dignity. I don't think that gives them health. I think that, I don't think that's good for them. I don't think it's good for us as a society. Whereas if you say, look, you're going to have to work a few hours every day in order to earn your keep, you impose responsibility on people instead of infantilizing them.

[Bernie]

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[Faraz]

One time I was speaking to 50, 60 clients in Lebanon, and it was right after the Beirut explosion. And then in the middle of the day, a bunch of fireworks go off and, you know, had to explain to the clients that it was not another explosion. It's just the kind of noise that you hear in Lebanon, which is why having a digger doing its work while we're talking isn't much of a bother, really.

[Bernie]

So were you in Lebanon when the explosion happened?

[Faraz]

I was in Lebanon, but I was in one of the few places in Lebanon where you couldn't hear it. I was in the Beqaa for the day. It was actually our, our wedding anniversary. So we'd gone off to a hotel, my wife and I, and we heard about the explosion and then had to drop everything and get back to work.

[Bernie]

Yeah, because we went there. When was it? A year and a half ago. A couple years ago we went there. I mean, we had a great time. I love, I loved Lebanon.

[Faraz]

It's a beautiful country.

[Bernie]

Beautiful country. The people are great, the food's Incredible, right? Despite everything, people still upbeat, working hard, partying. The cash economy blew my mind. Yes, but the levels of corruption.

[Faraz]

So this is one of the consequences of diversity, because this is a diverse society. It is not in fact one people. There are 17 different sects. And if you accept that a people is brought together by ethnicity, religion and language, having different religions is a problem because it means that different people have different loyalties. So everybody who goes into government, their first loyalty is their own community, not the administrative apparatus of the state. They are just parked temporarily in this state apparatus with the objective of serving their own people, not the state.

[Bernie]

Yeah, but come on, man, they're not serving their own people, they're serving their own pockets, isn't it? The 10 richest people in Lebanon are all politicians and they're all billionaires.

[Faraz]

They all end up involved in politics. Some of them made their money before being involved in politics. They are billionaires. They also provide all kinds of services and charity to their people to get political loyalty. And because this is what is seen as the right thing to do. So these guys think in terms of planning for the next civil war. They must accumulate an enormous amount of wealth because when the war inevitably comes, they're going to need resources. When they need those resources, they had better have them or they will lose and be eliminated and a chunk of their community and its power along with them. So the mindset here isn't the mindset that you have in a homogenous society, a homogeneous society. We're all one. We're all working for each other. We understand that. We have. We're one big family. We are a family of families. We're one community. That's what you have in a homogeneous society. In a diverse society, your enemy is potentially your neighbor next door. And you see this all the time across the wars in the Middle east, neighbors would have friendly relations for a generation, maybe two generations, and then it all breaks down and neighbor turns against neighbor. So the mindset that you need to thrive in that kind of society is primarily security based. It's not prosperity based. Thinking about prosperity is a luxury. So if you're thinking about security first, what you must do is accumulate resources that you can tap when the civil war breaks out. This is why the president of Yemen before he was overthrown, Ali Abdullah Saleh, he was able to pay state salaries for two or three years out of his own pocket. That's how rich he was, that's how corrupt he was. But he'd been building that wealth for that day.

[Bernie]

Bro, I'm thinking about that in the UK right now. Honestly. Look, it's. I'm a proud British man and I want our. Yeah. And I want our country to get better. As you should. I think we're in a very bad time at the moment, but not. I don't think it's as bad as everyone. People who don't live in the UK make it out to be online.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

And I. I think there are things that we can do to make it a better country, but to do. At the same time, I. I do think about my exit plan. If things really go like to shit. If war was to break out or there was a complete collapse in society, I do think about how would I get out and where would I go and what do I need and how do I transport myself, my family and what I need to survive out? Do I hold the money in Bitcoin? Do I have it in gold? Do I have money in foreign bank accounts? Do I have cash? Should I buy another passport for another country so I can get out? But that. It was funny. I was chatting to a friend of mine, very wealthy person, who's been thinking of leaving the UK because there's a problem. And I say, no, we should stay and fight. We're lucky to have the ability to just get up and leave, but because we've got that ability, we have more of a reason to stay and try and help others. It's a really weird position to be in, though.

[Faraz]

I have a couple of things that I want to try to organize my thoughts around. If you're in Lebanon and you are trying to think of the day the disaster comes, you think in terms of your own village and your own community.

[Bernie]

Yeah.

[Faraz]

You build up your resources very close to home so that you can withdraw. So whenever there's a problem in Lebanon, Beirut gets empty. Because there's not many people who are from Beirut, although everybody lives there. What happens is that when trouble comes, everybody goes back to his village. And that's why everybody maintains two houses, one in the village, one in Beirut.

[Bernie]

Right.

[Faraz]

And the idea is this is the only place where you're safe with your own people who are related to you by blood and who share your faith. That's your bolt plan. That's your exit plan. When you had, in this country, landed aristocracy, it was immediately understood that the place that you would run to is home, the village, the manor, the town that you belong to, because this is where your people were. And if you were wealthy, you would have done a good deal of charity and you would have taken care of the people around you, so that when the bastards come for you, there are others who are loyal to you, who would defend you. What's happened with the transference, with the transformation of wealth from being physical, asset based, land based, to being financial is that people with a lot of cash that they can spend anywhere aren't attached to a place and therefore don't think about it the same way. So as Western economies got over financialized, the thinking of Western politicians and Western oligarchs changed. An aristocrat would understand that he needs to have healthy peasants who he can muster into a militia. And his ability to muster a militia is the source of his value to the king. And therefore this is why the king doesn't mess with him, because he will need him one day. Not that there aren't all kinds of conflicts between them all the time. Human nature doesn't change. Fair enough. But the mindset is now different. If you end up with financial assets, when the proverbial shit hits the fan, the wealthy person isn't going to be you. The wealthy man is going to be your bodyguard because he is the one who's going to be able to control your wealth. So there's been the separation between wealth, land, people, and military prowess. So that wealth is purely financial. And I think that's been extremely detrimental to how people think about their own countries. This is why it was fine for the elite to export manufacturing capacity into China. This is why they didn't care when there was a rust belt in the north or a rust belt in the United States, because their power no longer came in this way. Hmm.

[Bernie]

And is this why, in some ways, the kind of populist uprising comes from the peasants, from the poor, because they're the ones who feel the pain? Yeah. If you're part of the elite, you kind of don't really want to put your head above the parapet. You don't want to criticize what's happening because there's no upside to you.

[Faraz]

You don't want HR talking to you. Yeah, you really have no reason to provoke hr. HR has become the new inquisition. HR will check to ensure that you have the correct dogma and that you profess the correct beliefs. And if you do not, you can no longer be employed in a large corporation. So the people end up being torn. They don't want to think every day that I'm stuck here and I have different values from the people leading me and I hate their guts. So they actually end up figuring out maybe I should just nod along when they tell me the trans women are real women, and maybe I should just keep my mouth shut, keep my head below the parapet, exactly as you said. But for the rest, who don't have much to lose anymore, this is a very raw deal that they're getting, which.

[Bernie]

Is why populist uprisings or revolution come from the peasants when they've been so squeezed, they're like, fuck it.

[Faraz]

Absolutely.

[Bernie]

This is why I wanted to talk to you, man. Your writing's brilliant. I'm gonna send it to everyone who listens to this to read it. But the reason I really wanted to talk to you is I think we're in a. We're in a weird time at the moment, right? I. I haven't felt a time like this in my entire adult life. And I. Rather than have just my own dogmatic views, I'm always interested about how other people think. And we have this kind of split in society, and I think a lot of it is kind of around Trump, but other similar leaders around the world. We've seen it in Brazil, we're seeing it in France, we're seeing it in Germany. We're seeing this kind of, know, rejection of liberalism, this kind of growth of the strong man. And I'm really intrigued on the Trump thing because I think. I think Trump was a hope vote for some and a protest vote for others. And certainly his approach since he's returned as president and the things he's been doing is. It's just wild. It's so different. We're so not used to it, you know, for everything from his negotiation for Ukraine with Gaza to the video he posted yesterday of Gaza, that was a bit obscene. But, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's kind of vile what he did, but if the.

[Faraz]

But there's a purpose.

[Bernie]

There's a purpose, right?

[Faraz]

There's a purpose.

[Bernie]

I can't decide if he's an absolute genius playing 7D chess. He is a lunatic who's just trying some crazy wild. But it kind of doesn't really matter, because what I'm really interested in is that whatever he does and Musk does, I would say the majority of the people who supported them or voted for them are. Are agreeing with or rationalizing every single decision. And then there's a flip side. Everyone who hates Trump and who didn't vote for him, the majority of them are kind of rationalizing the opposite side and assume in the worse, he's Putin's agent. Yeah, but there's this slither of people who did vote for Trump who are also like, oh, hold on. I'm not so sure about this. That sounds like ethnic cleansing in Gaza. And then there's a slither of people who didn't vote for him. Like, actually, some of the stuff he's doing is kind of okay. And so I'm sat there trying to figure this all out. Is this genius? Is it crazy? I just don't know. I don't know what's going. It's genius.

[Faraz]

It's genius. And it's genius on two different levels.

[Bernie]

All right, tell me.

[Faraz]

Today I wrote something that libertarianism is the blank slatism of politics because it assumes that the conflict is between the people and the government, and the government leaves the people alone, and the people therefore prosper. This is obviously not true. It's not true that because the conflict is often between the state, especially the executive branch of the state, the oligarchs and the people. The guys who wouldn't let you have bank accounts because of your views on Bitcoin, the guys who banned a bunch of my Twitter accounts. These were not the state. These were the oligarchs. And the oligarchs, because they're big banks, they're big businesses, they are much wealthier than you and I. They control massive resources. Because of the amount of resources that they control. They are able, especially in a liberal system, especially in a relatively open system, to control elected officials, to influence the judiciary, to control media assets, to outright own media, and to therefore have an enormous amount of political power that they will use in all kinds of ways.

[Bernie]

So the hierarchy is different from what a lot of people perceive it to be. Quite so that.

[Faraz]

So there are three players, at least not two.

[Bernie]

And most voters think they're voting for politicians. Politicians should be controlling, regulating business, and providing services for the people. What you're really saying is the oligarchy sits above quite the political system.

[Faraz]

The elected politician. The elected politician. Because in a mass party system when you can have multiple parties, you can therefore acquire media assets and literally just buy politicians with donations. A lot of the green energy stuff that we are seeing is directly coming from individuals, industrialists in green energy, who find it in their personal financial interest to promote this end of the world dogma that the world is ending because of climate change. We must therefore carpet the countryside with solar panels. That's the idea. Does it make sense? No. Does it make sense in terms of political economy? Yes. These are people who are paying for opinions to be broadcast and to convince the public of this new idea. Trans. The whole transgender issue. This is a wonderful Tool for the oligarchy. If I can make you say that a man is in fact a woman, I can make you say anything. Therefore, if you're a small corporate cog, how do I test your loyalty? How do I test that you will obey the agenda of the firm and that you won't become a whistleblower and that you won't expose the rotten things that we're doing?

[Bernie]

Is it planned or is it organic?

[Faraz]

I don't know. But it functions in the same way politically, and it functions in the same way in our political economy. It becomes a tool to suss out who is disloyal, who is going to be a dissenter, who might not fully approve, but he'll keep his mouth shut, and who will absolutely embrace the new dogma and say, yeah, I can look at you, Peter, straight in the eye and tell you you're a woman now. Congratulations. It becomes a political loyalty test. So when you see that there is an oligarchy involved, your views change, and then your view on Musk changes. He represents the Silicon Valley oligarchy, which is fighting against the Wall street and old defense companies. Oligarchy. That's part of what he represents.

[Bernie]

Is that just a new oligarchy, though?

[Faraz]

It is new, yes. And it is an oligarchy. I mean, Jeff Bezos isn't changing the policy of the Washington Post out of the milk of human kindness. He's changing it to favor free markets because free markets benefit him. If Amazon can import cheap stuff and sell it to people at discounted prices, it makes him richer. So there's a connection between what these people believe and say they believe and their financial interests.

[Bernie]

So this hierarchy of a political system with an oligarchy and. And the peasants, is that a reality we just need to accept so we understand how it plays? Or should our objective be to destroy any existence of an oligarchy?

[Faraz]

Absolutely not.

[Bernie]

Okay.

[Faraz]

Absolutely not. There will always be people who are wealthier than others. There will always be. The poor will always be with us. And as Christians, we will always have a duty towards them. Okay, what you want to do is to ennoble the oligarchy and give it aristocratic sentiments, because you're never going to end up with an egalitarian system. We are not equal. We're equal in front of God, but we're not equal in any other sense of the word. You have different potential, you have different abilities. You are unique. So the idea of leveling the playing field is nonsense. And you see it from labor's own side. They are involved with their own oligarchs. They take money from hedge funds, they take money from green entrepreneurs, they take money from unions who want to boost their political power. Wealth will always translate into political power. What you want to do is to have an executive that is strong enough to bring the oligarchs to heel and force them to behave in a Christian way. Which is what, incidentally, Vladimir Putin succeeded in doing in Russia. The reason he's popular in Russia is because he took on the oligarchs who had a free reign in the 90s, who absolutely looted the country and he disciplined them.

[Bernie]

Is he popular in Russia? How would we know? There are no free elections. They murder opposition politicians. There's no free press.

[Faraz]

The press is controlled. You hear some genuine criticism of people around Putin and you see the state reacting to it. But what isn't tolerated is outright disloyalty, because this is a country with dozens of different ethnicities, with three major religions that can really fragment and break up if it isn't held together. This is the problem with countries like Iran and Russia especially. They are quite diverse. Different ethnic groups can, at any moment in time, go their own way, as the Ukrainians are trying to do right now, as the Chechens did in the 1990s with Western backing for insane jihadi suicide warriors. And this is something that they have to constantly face.

[Bernie]

But how do we know if he's popular? If he murders, he manufactures popularity.

[Faraz]

Well, as does any system.

[Bernie]

But then how do we know? You say he's popular, but then you're saying it's manufactured popularity from the people.

[Faraz]

I know who regularly visit Russia, they tend to use the stupid Thomas Friedman taxi conversation, and they tend to find that people publicly are fans of Putin. If you look at the fact that Putin has only had to mobilize once, whereas the Ukrainians are constantly in mobilization mode. If you look at the fact that the Russian army keeps on growing because of people volunteering to take contracts with the Russian military, this would suggest that there is a baseline level of popularity.

[Bernie]

I'm not sure, man. If Putin was popular, he would allow for free elections.

[Faraz]

Let me flip the question. How popular is Labor?

[Bernie]

Oh, terribly unpopular.

[Faraz]

But they were voted in.

[Bernie]

Yeah, they were voted in at the time. But you can explain that. What you can say is there was a general election at a time when conservatives were hugely unpopular. In some ways, Labour was a protest vote because it can't get much worse than the conservatives, and we've proven it can. Yes, that was based on a 60% voter turnout. So of the 60% that turned out enough voted for labor. And, and they democratically won. And, and yes, it's terrible. But I can go and stand outside down the street with a placard. I can say that Keir Starmer is useless, Angela Rainer is useless, Rachel Reeves is ignorant.

[Faraz]

How much can you freely say in Britain today?

[Bernie]

Quite a lot. Yeah, I.

[Faraz]

Quite a lot. But there are certain topics where if you touch them, including topics of diversity, including topics of religion. We just had somebody in Scotland admit that people could be arrested in their home for praying. We have people in the United Kingdom getting arrested because she stands silently not too far from an abortion clinic and stands still and prays. And this woman has been arrested twice. So the whole that we are a free society. If you want to extend your house, you have to ask the permission of 50 different people.

[Bernie]

Oh yeah, the planning.

[Faraz]

The state is constantly involved in your life at every level.

[Bernie]

Yeah. Look, don't get me wrong, I would. I mean I even tweeted about it today. There are attacks on our freedoms in this country. People are being arrested for posting things on social media. There are people saying we need blasphemy doors, but there are people rejecting these and arguing against it. But I can stand outside down the street and I can say, Rachel, reason is incompetent for. I can say it on this podcast, I can broadcast it and in four years time I get another election, another chance to vote them out. In Russia, if you're a dissenting voice, you can end up with a bullet in your head, thrown off a bridge or put in a Siberian jail and murdered.

[Faraz]

And people have ended up dead because of their opposition to Putin. I think we are. You've put me in a difficult position where I'm forced to defend Putin. I'm not trying to do that.

[Bernie]

No, I don't think you.

[Faraz]

Here's what I want to try to convey. There are two different moralities operating here. As a Brit, you are operating on a notion of individual liberty, which is fair, which is fair in a diverse society. The alternative to authoritarian rule is literally civil war and chaos and it is oligarchs running amok. Looting the public, looting the state, doing whatever they want. Shootouts in Moscow every day between different gangs, parts of the country engaging in full on warfare with foreign backing to separate total disintegration. Now this is true of a country like Saudi Arabia, Libya, Syria, Iran, Russia and a whole bunch of other countries where the alternative to the existing structure is so bloody and chaotic that I suspect in their minds, and I'm not saying this to endorse it, but I'm saying this because my job is. My job is to understand the people that I'm analyzing. This is my job. So I sort of matured in this industry by learning to understand Islamic State and the IRGC and Hezbollah and Hamas and these kinds of groups. Okay. If you have a alternative in a country between civil war and chaos and gangsters and oligarchs running the streets, or authoritarianism and getting rid of what you believe are dangerous voices that are highly destabilizing, you choose the latter, especially when they come with liberal ideals. Because if you were trying to be liberal, if you were to try to be liberal, politically liberal in a country like Saudi or Iran or Russia, within a generation, it would fall to civil war. So they are operating on a different morality than yours, is what I'm saying to you. I'm not saying this is the right morality or that's the right morality. I'm saying they are operating on a different morality.

[Bernie]

Yeah, no, this is what I want to understand. So I think what you're trying to say to me is that a secular, liberal society will eventually descend into chaos and anarchy and civil war unless it's extremely homogenous.

[Faraz]

And even then, democracy does tend to pull society apart.

[Bernie]

And so a strongman authoritarian, his modus operanda is to. Is for control and stability.

[Faraz]

Quite.

[Bernie]

But the stability comes with authoritarianism. It's a bit like the debate I keep having with people who are like, dubai is amazing. Dubai is brilliant. I'm like, yeah, cool. But you have no democracy. You can't criticize the state. Women don't have equal rights rights, migrant workers are exploited, and being gay, being homosexual is illegal. What they've traded is those more Western liberal ideas and democracy for rule of law, safety, et cetera, much more.

[Faraz]

Because the tolerance of dissent in the Gulf states is much lower than it is in Russia. In Russia, you can be a communist strongly disagreeing with Putin. You can be a nationalist strongly disagreeing with Putin. What you can't be is a liberal, because that actually threatens to tear Russia apart. Because too much nationalism in Russia, too much Russian nationalism means that there will be a counter nationalism from the other ethnic groups, and that becomes too destabilizing. So as an authoritarian, Putin ends up relying on a mix of religious legitimacy, performance legitimacy, and I'm keeping control. This is what keeps him in power. So he relies on a different mix. Here, you rely on public support. But if you look at what Western governments have been delivering to their people, not much of it has real public support, but the game keeps getting played because the politicians are answering to the oligarchs. Which is why it's better to end up in a society where oligarchs can be imprisoned or thrown off buildings or poisoned, than in a society where the oligarchs are the ones completely in charge. And they use democracy as a fig leaf to sort of keep the people, you know, appeased for longer as they loot more. Which is what's happened to the West.

[Bernie]

Well, the oligarchs have looted Russia.

[Faraz]

They did. And then who put a stop to that?

[Bernie]

Hold on, didn't they looted power? The oligarchs. If they backed him.

[Faraz]

He made a deal with them. Yeah, he took a big chunk of their money, some say half. And he disciplined them and stopped them from going into the extremes of violence and depravity publicly that they were engaged in previously during the Yeltsin years.

[Bernie]

Is this similar to China where in China you're allowed to be rich, successful, but you can't step out of line or you disappear a hundred percent.

[Faraz]

Whereas in the west you end up with a weird combination of permanent bureaucrats and big corporates who are telling you what you can say on Twitter, what you can say on Facebook, what you're allowed to express, and then they manufacture consent with a massive media machine that keeps pumping out the kind of BS that you get on the BBC.

[Bernie]

But it's still interesting that most people would rather live here than in Russia.

[Faraz]

100%. I would rather live here. I would rather live here. I would rather have the freedom to have this conversation. Freedom is truly valuable and it is unique in the West. It's just that the west has given up its heritage in a particular way and decided to go into the Christian heresy that is wokeness as opposed to understanding that a society requires a level of stability and management to function.

[Bernie]

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[Faraz]

So in the conflict between oligarchy and state and public, Trump has selected a better oligarchy to work with which knows that it needs him much as he needs them. And he's using that to dismantle the administrative state, the bureaucratic state, the security state, the so called deep state which has bought into the WOKE groupthink and adopted it as its own religious dogma. And he is in doing so creating massive economic benefits for the United States if he keeps on going, which will allow a big reduction in the deficit, which will allow therefore the repayment of a lot of the debt, which would, if pursued to its conclusion, would create a balanced budget and a healthier economy that actually delivers to Americans.

[Bernie]

Yeah, but his new budget, which is promising what, four and a half trillion in tax cuts to billionaires that I read is going to see an increase in the deficit by 20 trillion over his administration.

[Faraz]

Yes, but if you mix that in with tariffs and if you mix that in with an industrial policy, you can make the rich recycle their money. Or at least this is a theory.

[Bernie]

Is this why? So the tax cuts themselves look kind of horrific in that it seems like a big tax cut for the rich, a big tax cut for the billionaires whilst attacking Medicaid and slap or something. I can't. Something else. These.

[Faraz]

Snap.

[Bernie]

Snap. What is, I don't know what snap.

[Faraz]

So that's some kind of food benefits and things.

[Bernie]

So he's attacking the. So he's cutting the benefits, the social benefits, the poorest whilst offering tax cuts to the billionaire. So at a face, especially if I was a leftist, I'd be like this is horrific. You're making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Is this a gift to the oligarch class?

[Faraz]

In some ways.

[Bernie]

In some ways.

[Faraz]

And it's also a gift to some.

[Bernie]

Of the middle class and some of.

[Faraz]

The middle class because they're also getting big tax cuts.

[Bernie]

Yeah, but what's the explanation for cuts to the poorest, most vulnerable in society?

[Faraz]

I can't, I'm going to sound a bit vicious here. No, no, no, do it. I mean if it's a healthy understanding of human nature.

[Bernie]

Yeah.

[Faraz]

If you allow people to live on benefits without working, we're all afflicted with original sin. We are all willing to be slothful, we are all willing to put in the minimum effort required so long as we can, you know, take care of day to day life. If you allow people to be on benefits indefinitely, you actually end up corrupting them. And it is in fact harmful to allow people to keep on functioning in society without giving them responsibility. Whereas if you force people to work because there's no other alternative, they prosper. You see that for example in Muslim migrants. Muslim migrants in Europe are much, much worse to the state and to society than they are in the United States. In the United States they can't get welfare, they can't get subsidized housing in central London, they can't get a paycheck at the End of the month, no matter what they do. So they end up having to work and to commit themselves and to apply themselves.

[Bernie]

So this is tough love?

[Faraz]

Frankly, yes. I don't think you should allow people to simply exist in society without work. I don't think that gives them dignity. I don't think that gives them health. I don't think that's good for them. I don't think it's good for us as a society. Whereas if you say, look, you're going to have to work a few hours every day in order to earn your keep, you impose responsibility on people instead of infantilizing them.

[Bernie]

So what is it? Your buddy Alistair Camp? Actually, let's bring that up. Could you just bring that up, that tweet, because this is how I, I found you. I, I saw this reply that you put to Alistair Gamble. I just, I cannot stand the man. And I sent it to Joe and it was Joe who came back to me and said, oh, you need to talk to Faraz. He's brilliant. Have you got, have you got the one just before that where the guy actually, what he actually says when he quotes tweets? This. I think you go back one. Yeah. A truly magnificent assassination of Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart and their nauseating moral pretensions. So they have Trump derangement syndrome. Yes, but I listen to what they say. I want to see their opinions, I want to understand them. If they've got a criticism of Trump, I want to go, well, is this valid? I'm not just going to get out the pom poms and celebrate everything Trump says. Yeah, if you click on. Actually click on. Yeah, if you scroll up. So, I mean, I have big issues with Alastair Campbell because I think he took us into an illegal war. I think he was part of manufacturing that war, and I don't think he's ever truly answered for it, but. So Alistair Campbell was on a back and forth with J.D. vance. He said, very odd that the Vice President of the USA has nothing better than to do than troll my podcast partner, Rory Stewart. Okay, Perhaps he has not been given a proper job by the narcissist in chief. And your reply, come on, Alistair, you understand exactly what Vance means by hierarchy of obligations. That's why you are helping your son with his unlicensed betting scheme, because you have greater obligations towards him. You would do that for a stranger? Him you just send to warn. Fake pretext.

[Faraz]

I mean, it was 5:30 in the morning. I just woken up.

[Bernie]

It's genius.

[Faraz]

I don't wake up like everyone else, I wake up thinking, I need a fight. Now you can see my reply. And you are my new hero. That's how I ended up on this podcast.

[Bernie]

Oh, yeah. Honestly, that. That was why. I mean, that blew up for you, right?

[Faraz]

But look, this is. It did. It did.

[Bernie]

But.

[Faraz]

But this is the reality of society that people try to theorize away. Of course you're more loyal to your kin than to strangers. Of course that's just built into you. It's not even a choice that you make. If you make a choice to not be loyal to your kin more than strangers, then you are, in fact, a horrendous human being, you know, so by our very nature, we like people who are similar to ourselves. And the people most similar to us tend to be our family, much as we might disagree with them. So that's our first loyalty. The next loyalty is the people we've chosen to live with. Our neighbors, our friends. The one after that is our country because they speak our language, they understand how we think. They share our faith, they share our belief system. We are part of an extended family with them. If you are a thoughtful human being and. Or a good Christian, then you must accept this hierarchy of loyalties, which is what JD Vance was arguing for. He was arguing that the responsibility of a state is first towards its own citizens, then towards complete strangers. That's the correct order of responsibility. That's the correct order of charity. Which brings us back to the point earlier about aristocracy and how aristocrats think. Of course they're going to be first loyal to the people around them.

[Bernie]

By the way, what was his son's unlicensed betting scheme?

[Faraz]

Some kind of weird football betting thing where they apparently lost a lot of money. And then he brought in another labor big shot who was maybe involved in treasury during the labor years, during the Blair years, in order to help comfort these betting investors and tell them, no, no, everything's okay. But apparently he lost maybe 5 or 8 million pounds. I don't remember the number.

[Bernie]

I mean, I don't understand how the man has any legitimacy anymore. I think I want to be. I should be careful what I say because I don't want to end up getting another libel lawsuit. But it was referred to as a dodgy dossier. Yeah, it was referred to as being sexed up to give a mandate for war. We had the biggest protest. I don't know if you were here then. We had the biggest protests we've ever had. I think a million turned out to protest on street. Nobody wanted to go to war. We shouldn't have gone to war. He was part of the administration that tried to justify going to war.

[Faraz]

He was instrumental.

[Bernie]

He was instrumental. And that's a war that destabilized the region, led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people that he was part of. And now he's a co host of the biggest political show in the UK where he opines on, you know, on what the state is doing. And, you know, it's pretty condescending to the rest of us. It's like, hold on a second, how do you have any legitimacy anymore? I personally think him and Blair should have been tried in the criminal courts in the Hague. I mean, why not?

[Faraz]

I don't think there should be a criminal court in the Hague, but that's a different discussion for later.

[Bernie]

If there is one, I think he.

[Faraz]

Should be tried in. In Britain.

[Bernie]

Fine. For the same.

[Faraz]

What he did. This was a.

[Bernie]

Hold on. If there's. Is there a statute of limitations here?

[Faraz]

I don't know what would apply.

[Bernie]

I could civilly prosecute him. Can you see this what the statute of limitations is in the UK because what are we, 20 years beyond that?

[Faraz]

Yeah, 21 years now.

[Bernie]

21 years now. It'll be 22. 22. It'd be fun to civilly try him.

[Faraz]

Yeah. Look, I mean, this takes us to the geopolitical genius of Trump in a way, and this is part of what Alistair and others are raging about. Why is Trump doing this? Here's what the policies of people like Alistair Campbell and Tony Blair and Biden and Bush and the intervening British prime ministers did to the West. We've ended up in a situation where there is now, because of Western sanctions and Western military pressure and I would argue Western arrogance, a de facto alliance between Russia, China and Iran. Iran's power grew enormously because of the removal of Saddam Hussein. It was able to extend its influence all the way to Syria and to Lebanon. This has been turned around now, but at some point it was much more serious, and it still controls Iran and southern Iraq. What this alliance does is that it delivers natural resources at a discount to the Chinese industrial machine, while allowing the Chinese to have a monopoly on the export of industrial goods to two major natural resource countries. And between the three of them working together, they can dominate all of Central Asia. So the amount of resources that therefore gets to China at a discount on favorable terms and the size of the market that China gains is enormous. If you think of the strategic logic of World War I and World War II, part of the reasoning behind that, aside from the moral considerations and all of that, is that the west believed, especially the British and really the Americans, that you couldn't have German industry combine with Russian resources, because the beast that would then be created would be far too powerful, and it would be able to dominate the world. Now, instead of Germany and Russia, you have China, Russia, Iran, and all of Central Asia. And therefore a much bigger beast to separate this alliance and break it up. It is really an issue of minor consequence where the border between Russia and Ukraine sits and whether the Russians of cities like Kharkiv and Odessa have their capital in Moscow or in Kyiv. It's not important in the big picture. What is important is to make sure that Russia is separated from China so that Russian resources could go to the west, but also go to South Korea and Japan, who are as terrified of China as everybody else. So Trump is absolutely correct to say that it doesn't matter which state the Russians of Ukraine sit in and how much territory of Ukraine is conceded, because we've already accepted from wars that Mr. Campbell was involved in, including Iraq, including Serbia, including Kosovo, including Libya, including Syria, including, that we don't always care about national sovereignty and we don't always care about territorial integrity. The point has already been conceded before the Ukraine invasion even began in 2014. It just has not been conceded that others can act in exactly the same way that the west can. And this is what's upsetting people. Narcissists such as Mr. Campbell believe that they are the only ones who are allowed to overthrow regimes and destabilize regions. They don't want the Russians or the Chinese or others to behave in exactly the same way that they behaved. That's what's bothering them, really. It's their own pride, and it's their own arrogance.

[Bernie]

What about us who don't agree with any of it?

[Faraz]

Look, my view of the world is that I do not object to empires and to hierarchy and to inequality for the same reason that I don't object to the existence of hippos or elephants or crocodiles. It's just part of nature. The idealistic framework that says we are all going to be equal has its roots in Christianity. But then it means that we are equal before God and hopefully before the law, rather than actually equal in the resources that we have access to, in the potential that we have, in the work that we do, in the way that we use our potential. We're not equal in that sense. Okay? And therefore, different countries are never going to be equal. If you're living on the doorstep of an empire. You're stuck. You're going to have to obey some of their rules. The Scots learned this in the United Kingdom. The Irish learned this for a while, and then they managed to gain their independence. The Canadians are in the process of discovering this. The Ukrainians decided to switch sides, and they're paying for the consequences. And we in Lebanon had the same exact problem with the Syrians and before them with the Ottomans. If you happen to be stuck next to an empire, there you are, and there are consequences to that. And part of skillful politics is navigating how do you deal with the beast that's living next to you. You can try to slay it. Good luck. But if you succeed, you will inherit their empire. You won't become a great egalitarian, you will just become the replacement empire. And somebody else will look and say, look, there's a beast living next to me. What am I going to do about it? And the imperial potential stems in large part from geography. If, like Russia, you're all around the Arctic and you have one foot in the Pacific and the other in the Baltic Sea, you are by definition an empire. If, like America, you are surrounded by an ocean on either side and you have a continent with no real civilizational challengers, you will build an empire. So what is geopolitics? Geopolitics is the connection between geography and politics. It's the admission that where we're from affects us. It's a confession that if you are living in a Mediterranean climate that is temperate, that gives you a lot of good food and some harsh winters, you will behave in a certain way, which was going to be different from how you behave. If you're stuck in a Nordic climate with winter for six months a year, where you're snowed under constantly, your mindsets are going to be different. You are going to form different peoples. With God's grace, we will all become Christians, and we will be able to overcome some of these differences. But until then, here we are. You're.

[Bernie]

You're basically saying reality doesn't care about your feelings.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

Yeah. Your feelings. Yeah. Because a lot of opinions come from where you position your moral framework, and often your moral framework can provoke emotional responses.

[Faraz]

Quite.

[Bernie]

And a lot of the debates about current geopolitical shifts with Trump and what his administration is doing is that it's challenging moral frameworks, and therefore it's provoking emotional responses. We stand with Ukraine, we stand against Putin, and we support Gaza. Yeah. And I'm not even criticizing that. I feel sorry for I know a lot of Ukrainian people. It's tragic, yes, tragic. I'm very sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

But. But we've had endless wars that haven't solved these issues. And I think what you're saying is this new world order that Trump's part of is accepting reality over feelings.

[Faraz]

So if you want to.

[Bernie]

It's a hard shift of people.

[Faraz]

It's a very hard shift because the Americans were pushing the two state solution from maybe the 80s onwards as being the answer, but they refuse to admit certain realities. The existence of a Jewish state is a theological insult to Islam. Islam defines itself as a religion of government and as being fundamentally entitled to rule over Christians and Jews because Christians and Jews don't obey God's law properly. And God revealed his final law to Muslims, and it's the duty of Muslims to go out and conquer and govern. When you end up with a prosperous Jewish state in the Holy Land, that kind of upends that claim. And that's the fundamental problem here. And that's why it's so difficult to see real normalization. And that's why even countries that have peace treaties with Israel, like Egypt and Jordan, find that the peace treaties are absolutely rejected by the public and that the public still hates the Israelis. They don't necessarily hate the Jews as much, although a fair amount of them do. It's that the Israelis being there and prospering as Jews is on some level an attack against Islamic dogma. And few people manage to articulate this or understand this. So it's been tried and tested and shown that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians want peace. Because on the opposite side in Israel, the stories of the Bible didn't take place in Tel Aviv. They took place in places like Hebron and the West Bank. That's where it actually happened. So there is no point in a Jewish state if it doesn't control the actual bit that's holy to the Jews, which, incidentally, is Jerusalem and the west bank. And that's where a lot of the fighting is focused on. So neither side can live with the other at peace, in large part because they're not Christians. A Christian accepts, okay, we have a new Caesar. Here we are, we're stuck. For Islam, you must fight for Judaism. This is their first experience in government, governing their own State in 2000, 3000 years. And frankly, they don't know how to do it very well in some ways. In other ways, they do quite all right, especially in the bits that they've kept on from the Ottomans like allowing different communities to have their own religious law governing their personal affairs. So the two communities have tried peace. The biggest opponents to peace were Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, who won an election against the peace treaty, and Hamas, which is the only party that would win a fair election in the Palestinian territories if one were held. And we're stuck in this situation where unfortunately, the speeches that come out of Hamas tend to emphasize how cheaply they view their own lives and the fact that no matter how many people you kill, we will not stop because God tells us to. There's this religious dimension to the conflict and I don't think it's resolvable. So Trump is saying, I'm going to be practical about it and ethnically cleanse the weaker side. Firstly, if you take a bit of historic view, this is something that was being done by the Babylonians, this is something that was being done by the Persians. It was done well. The Persians also returned the Jews to the Holy Land. This is something that was done throughout Europe as recently as World War II and that Stalin continued to do well after World War II. So this is something that's been done and happened a lot of times. It's cruel, but it's not the first time. So we need to have that historic perspective. What a lot of people are bothered by is, is it right? I can't say that it is right.

[Bernie]

I understand it because ethnic cleansing is objectively cruel. Wrong, perfect.

[Faraz]

But you also. It is cruel, it is wrong, it is horrific. And there is a tragic reality that if Hamas won, they would absolutely ethnically cleanse, if not genocide, the Jews. And so it depends what winning is.

[Bernie]

Because look, my entire life since I can remember, all I've known is conflict between the Palestinian territories, primarily Gaza and West bank against Israel.

[Faraz]

I.

[Bernie]

It's all I remember. Yep. It's all I've known. And yeah, you know, there's been different, you know, people on the Palestinian side. There's different leaders, different people. We've seen in negotiations, talks of two state solutions. But all I ever remember is every five to 10 years, the, the, the even confrontations, sometimes every few months. Yeah. And there's always been these scenarios whereby like this relative police and there's something will trigger something. I don'. There may be a protest in Gaza and I know some 14 year old gets shot or there's a bus bombing or a knife attack in Israel and then it sparks and then we have, then Israel will attack Gaza and you know, 10 times the people, 20 times, 100 times the people get killed there. Then we. We have peace talks and, you know, some hostages are released, and it's been a cycle. I'm 46. That's all I've ever known.

[Faraz]

Yep.

[Bernie]

We've never got to the point of peace. But I do wonder what Hamas winning means to Hamas. Is winning the complete destruction of the Israeli state, or is it having its own state and peace?

[Faraz]

For Hamas, within their ideology, this Holy Land was initially given to the Jews, but then the Jews rejected Jesus and rejected the prophet of Islam, and as a result of that, their patrimony was turned over to the Muslims. And it's not up to individuals or politicians to relinquish this land. It must be under Muslim control, and it must be governed by Muslims. It doesn't mean that they necessarily go and kill all the Jews, although we saw on the 7th of October a willingness to kill quite randomly. But it does mean that there can't be an autonomous, sovereign Jewish state. That, again, would bring us back to this being a theological insult to Islam and a fundamental challenge to Islamic dogma. There's no way Hamas can accept the Jewish state. What they offered one time was an extremely long truce, but not recognition of Israel. And the Israelis said no, because they believed that Hamas would use that truce to build up its power to attack, which, if you look at some of the previous conflicts that took place between 2020 and 2023, it always surprised me back then that Hamas wasn't using all of its capabilities, that it seemed to accept truces very quickly. The Israelis believed that Hamas just wanted to govern Gaza and this was okay, and they don't want to attack. It turned out that Hamas had been husbanding resources and trying to build up its capabilities precisely for this kind of offensive. So, in a sense, the Israelis understood the situation correctly. There's not enough trust for there to be peace, because the values of either side dictate that you must control all of this land. In the Muslims case, you can also control the people and treat them as a subjugated but protected minority under Islamic rule.

[Bernie]

So if we look at the historical movement of the borders since 1946 through the 70s, it would appear then Israel is winning this war of attrition because they gradually taking over more and more of the Palestinian territory. And I'm not supporting this, but the dogma for Trump appears to be an acceptance of the end game, which is neither side can really win.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

And certainly the Palestinians can't win. And so he hints at this idea of they'll go and live in Jordan and Egypt in camps, and we will redevelop this and it'll be a beautiful land. And you can come back and if you want to live in Gaza, you can live in an apartment and come and work in this new American owned or Israeli Gaza, which is a beautiful tourist destination that looks a little bit like Dubai.

[Faraz]

He's trying to sell an end game. The expulsion.

[Bernie]

Yeah.

[Faraz]

The problem is that this wouldn't necessarily be an end game, because the rising empire now in the Middle east, just as Israel is expanding its territory, Turkey is also expanding its territory. What Erdogan did in Turkey was brilliant. He saw that Turkey was falling into the middle income trap. The middle income trap is whereby you get to a stage where your people can build up a consumer society and then you stagnate. And he decided, no, I want a lot more industrial capability. So he decided to adopt the zero interest rate policy. Now, I accept that Erdogan is smarter than I am. And I accept that he knows that if you adopt a low interest rate policy, if you adopt an interest rate policy that's lower than inflation, you are going to have more inflation.

[Bernie]

Yeah. Which they've seen.

[Faraz]

Which they've seen in Turkey. But he decided that this is okay, because what it did for him was expand exports from 20% of GDP in 2011 to 40% of GDP today. He was able to build up a lot more industry on the back of this policy, while also improving, to some extent, the life of the worst off in Turkey through handouts, through other policies. So he decided to build up industrial capacity. Why? Because he wants to expand further. The ideologue behind Erdogan, who is now his political enemy, Ahmad Davut Uhlu, believes that the Turkish sphere of influence should extend from Central Asia to Grozny in Chechnya, in Russia, to Tirana and Albania. So taking over the entire Balkans to Libya and onwards south towards Africa and maybe to parts of Europe. And he views the Muslims of Europe as part of his future potential influence, shall we say. Because Muslims will always be more loyal to other Muslims than they will be to other communities. It's just human nature. It's not a slur against them. It's just how we are built. So what Erdogan might benefit from is the destabilization of Egypt and Jordan that would follow the expulsion of the Palestinians, because the alternative government in either country would be the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the organization that he, Erdogan, comes from. And having a ring of states that are linked together industrially, that share the same ideology, that are united under One leadership would solve the fundamental problem that the Arabs have faced in fighting Israel, which is that they were too disunited. They always betrayed each other. They were too concerned about their own seats and positions rather than what they believe is the principled stand of attacking Israel. So be careful what you wish for. If you destabilize Egypt and Jordan and end up with Muslim Brotherhood governments there, then you have an even bigger problem than just Gaza. That's what the Israelis and Trump and people like that aren't seeing, in my view. Hmm.

[Bernie]

It's. It's. Everything you're saying is. I heard Kurt saying, glass half full, glass half empty. I don't think you see the water, you just see the glass and you know there's some water in it.

[Faraz]

I'm not a pessimist because I'm a Christian.

[Bernie]

Yeah.

[Faraz]

But I also accept that this is a fallen world and that so long as we are in this mortal coil, these are the problems that we will be facing.

[Bernie]

Back when I was a kid, Right. Used to play these computer games.

[Faraz]

Yeah.

[Bernie]

They're all about global warfare. And there was always like the blue side and the red side.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

And it feels like that is where we are descending towards, where there's two different worlds. It's like, which one are you part of?

[Faraz]

But it was always this.

[Bernie]

But, but, but what it feels like is what you're saying is that we are in a period of empire building.

[Faraz]

Quite.

[Bernie]

The US Empire's fragmented and fallen in certain areas, I would say over the last decade or two.

[Faraz]

Troubled.

[Bernie]

Troubled, yeah. I think people look at people like President Xi and Putin in very different ways than they've looked at the President of the United States. And it feels like one of the things Trump is doing is trying to be the same player as Putin and Xi on the world stage. There's three main strongmen at play. This episode is brought to you by ledn, the only Bitcoin backed financial service that I personally use. So whether you're looking to earn interest on your Bitcoin, get a loan without selling your assets, or buy more Bitcoin with ease, Leden has the tools to help you manage and grow your wealth. Now with ledn, you can earn interest on your Bitcoin and USDC holdings or unlock the value of Bitcoin with secure low interest loans, all without needing to sell your stack. Leaden is built for bitcoiners who want more flexibility with their assets. So if you want to find out more, please head over to leden.IO mrobnoptious to get started. That is leaden mrobnoxious. This episode is brought to you by river, the best platform for Bitcoin investing and financial services. Now, whether you are just starting out or managing a large holding, river has everything you need to maximize your Bitcoin journey. Now with zero fee recurring buyers, you can stack sats automatically without worrying about hidden fees. And for high net worth individuals, river offers private client services giving you personalized support, secure custody and deep liquidity that can help you manage and grow your Bitcoin portfolio. And for businesses, river provides business accounts allowing companies to securely hold and manage Bitcoin as part of their financial strategy. Visit river.com today and find out more. That is river.com which is R-I-V e r.com this episode is brought to you by Ledger, the most trusted Bitcoin hardware wallet. Now, if you're serious about protecting your Bitcoin, Ledger has the solution you need. Their hardware wallet gives you complete control over your private keys, ensuring that your Bitcoin stays safe from hacks, phishing and malware. And I've been a customer of there since 2017. Love the product. Use it for my bitcoin. I use it with my Castle multisig for protecting the football club's Bitcoin too. Now with Ledger's sleek, easy to use devices and the Ledger Live app, managing your Bitcoin has never been more secure or convenient. And whether you're a longtime holder or new to the world of Bitcoin, Ledger makes it simple to keep your assets protected. So if you want to find out more, please do head over to Ledger.com and secure your Bitcoin today. That is Ledger.com which is L E D G-E R.com that is Ledger.com Yes.

[Faraz]

In a real way, yes. So again, going back, are you really sovereign? If you are stuck at the doorstep of an empire and the answer is no For Europe, the problem is that every time there's an economic crisis, it needs a bailout from the Federal Reserve. Every time there's a military conflict, it needs American military support. They couldn't handle Yugoslavia on their own. They had to get the Americans involved. They couldn't even handle Libya on their own.

[Bernie]

Well, I think they could have handled Yugoslavia on their own militarily, but I think in those scenarios you want to build a coalition of support. America could have handled Iraq on its own, but it still wanted a coalition of support 100%.

[Faraz]

But if you take the example that I'm slightly more familiar with Libya, they needed American refueling, intelligence Targeting all kinds of technical support to enable their jets to actually operate. They needed the Americans for everything in terms of capacity. This means that Europe is not in fact sovereign, but Europe is sitting there moralizing about Trump, lecturing him, while at the same time it's bankrupting itself with immigration and welfare and it is incapable of defending itself. So what Trump is going to do to the Europeans is try to show them who's the boss and try to impose on them changes that are in line with his views, including his own way of defending Western civilization, which I have to say I don't fully agree with, and his own way. I don't want to get into a religious discussion, but I would be happy.

[Bernie]

Most of this has been a religious discussion, though.

[Faraz]

Let's park that for now. Okay, let's park that for now.

[Bernie]

But is this how JD Vance has come across? He came across the security conference in Munich and expressed his thoughts on free speech. And what we're doing is that's part of the street strategic thing to try and get Europe in alignment with what America wants.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

And the talks about defense budgets and percentage of gdp. There's this kind of realization in Europe at the moment where I think a lot of European leaders realize, hold on, we can't just rely on America. We have to come together.

[Faraz]

And even if they did come together, they would end up with a huge problem, energy security being the primary one. European energy was deeply reliant on Russia and on the resources of Russia in terms of natural gas, in terms of oil to some extent, and in terms of coal. And you can't have a prosperous economy without cheap energy. Cheap energy is the bedrock of everything else.

[Bernie]

Tell me about it, man. I own businesses.

[Faraz]

There you go. There you go. So the consequence of what Trump is doing might 20, 30 years down the line be the old fear of the Anglos, Germany and Russia reaching an arrangement that empowers German industry, that empowers the rest of Europe, that makes it into a competitor. But right now, Europe is so far behind on every metric relating to prosperity, to military capability, to policy, to the quality of politicians, that it just seems rather bleak for now.

[Bernie]

Fucking damn right it does.

[Faraz]

The good news is that so much of it is self inflicted and in fact, resolvable. The good news is that a lot of it is genuinely self inflicted and can be reversed. And what Trump is doing is showing that you can actually reverse a lot of this stuff rather quickly if you're willing to be aggressive against the administrative state and against the security state. If you're Willing to go to the judiciary in the right way and perhaps even tame the judiciary and impeach a lot of judges. And if you're willing to control the elected politicians using a different oligarchy.

[Bernie]

Well, that's what Bukdi said to Trump. It's what he did in El Salvador.

[Faraz]

Look, the idea that the judiciary is sacred is nonsense. Individual judges are not sacred. The law is. Which brings us to a question of where does the law come from and what should it obey? There is a deeper, older natural law that should define how judges think, which is violated. Every time a judge says no, this is a protected characteristic, you can't criticize it. No, you can't say this about homosexuality, transgenderism, Islam, Judaism, whatever it is.

[Bernie]

So this is the, the push for free speech isn't just a principle that comes from the US Constitution. It's also a recognition that in Europe, free speech has been under attack, which is arming the wrong side of the oligarchy which is in control here.

[Faraz]

One, I completely agree with you and you're absolutely correct. Two, I'm not a free speech absolutist. My belief is that the truth is protected speech. But then that brings us to the question of what is the truth?

[Bernie]

Yes. Subjective speech.

[Faraz]

I don't agree with that. I think that there is an objective truth that comes from God.

[Bernie]

Well, look, there are objective truth. Two plus two equals four.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

Some people would say man is a man, woman is a woman. I'm more interested in what you're saying with regards to, say, defamation laws.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

You know, if you, you know, there.

[Faraz]

Should be limits on defaming people.

[Bernie]

Well, but, but some, you know, unless it's true, if it's free speech, it's this. There's civil free speech and there's free speech with regards to the government. And many free speech defenders would say you should be able to lie about the government you free. Your free speech should include the ability to lie because the government shouldn't have any control over speech. But in civil society, whether it's between you and I and we're business dealings and I was to defame you and that was damage your career. There should be the existence of defamation laws to allow you to protect your, your reputation. But the, but you should be have the ability to lie about government because otherwise the government can censor you because you get into the gray areas of what is truth and what isn't.

[Faraz]

Yes. Well, I think when it comes to lying about the government, this brings us back to diversity in a diverse society. Lying about the Government can instigate rioting, mass unrest, civil war, which are much more damaging than saying to this one person, be quiet. You can't say this. Okay, so there is an issue of proportionality and damage here. If you were to go around and say things that would provoke a civil conflict in a diverse society, preventing civil conflict is actually an important responsibility.

[Bernie]

But this is what Starmer's done, and he's been criticized heavily for during the south, which is why if you have.

[Faraz]

A homogenous society and you can keep it that way, you should do everything that you can to keep it that way.

[Bernie]

Sure. But we had Southport riots, people instigating more riots, and Starmer came down hard on Facebook posts and Twitter posts because he wanted to end the civil unrest.

[Faraz]

Yes, yes.

[Bernie]

But he's then been criticized from people within the US State about that being attack on free speech.

[Faraz]

Which it is. Yeah, which it is. Especially if the people who were rioting were saying things that were objectively true, such as having a big Muslim community in the west is going to cause enormous problems.

[Bernie]

Well, actually, it went further than that, Bernie.

[Faraz]

Tweet.

[Bernie]

I can't pronounce their surname. Spielfu. I can't remember her name. Bernie. She's brilliant.

[Faraz]

Right?

[Bernie]

She tweeted after the Southport stabbing attack something along the lines of, I might get this wrong, but if this turns out to be a Muslim, all hell will break loose. It was something along the lines of that. And she got a knocker door. She got arrested for it. Which is a fair question.

[Faraz]

Yes, because. Because you got to remember, in the west, diversity was imposed in a particular way by the oligarchy and the elites. In the Middle east, people just got conquered. And then we had the Crusades, and we tried to fight it off, and then it didn't work. Now here we are, and there is a price to pay because you're in a diverse society. In the west, you were never conquered. But it looks that way, and it's certainly provocative to the public that it looks that way to this extent.

[Bernie]

Well, some of their language. I mean, I can't remember which politician said. But referred to immigrants crossing the channel as an invasion.

[Faraz]

Which it is. And it's. It's the worst kind of invasion because they're not coming in with weapons, but they are receiving the bounty of war without even having to gain the dignity of fighting one. Wow. You know, okay, if you just rock up to a house. Peter, I'm going to be living in your house now. I think I'll take the master bedroom. You have to buy me these foods because there are certain foods that I don't eat. There are certain things that I might do that really offend you culturally, but you're going to have to accept them. What would you call that? Other than a home invasion? Other than subjugation.

[Bernie]

I kind of like you. I'd probably have you in my home.

[Faraz]

Thank you.

[Bernie]

As long as we can have these chats over breakfast in the morning. No, I understand what you're saying. Yeah. Look, I understand why people are upset. I do understand why people are upset. And they are upset.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

But there is a half or 40 percentage of the country who sees us entirely differently. They think it's our moral duty to accept people, to bring people in, to support people who are coming from war.

[Faraz]

If St. Paul says if you don't work, you don't eat, I'm going to agree with St. Paul, not with some woke guy who only woke up to morality five minutes ago.

[Bernie]

But what I'm trying to get to is how do we as a society shift to a different understanding of this reality?

[Faraz]

Do you respect human nature? You accept human nature for what it is? This for me was one of the biggest shocks in my career. I was a horrendous atheist, the worst, nastiest kind of atheist.

[Bernie]

You know what's a nasty atheist?

[Faraz]

If I see you wearing a cross, I'll start a conversation that ends with you being quite upset. Okay, let's put it this way. But I had to contend with things that taught me that the devil is real and that original sin is real. That we are somehow wired in a way that that makes us prone to wrath, to envy, to sloth, to lust, to pride, to all of the other sins.

[Bernie]

Is that not just evolution of our brains learning different survival?

[Faraz]

There is a hundred percent compatibility between saying that we are afflicted with original sin and that 98% of our DNA is chimpanzee DNA. Especially if you look at the behavior of chimpanzees. The only time the chimpanzees are silent is when they're going out on military like patrols around their territory where if they find a female, they might take her, and if they find a male, they will viciously murder him and rip him to shreds. So I don't see a contradiction between saying that we're afflicted with original sin and saying that 98% of our DNA is chimpanzee DNA. I don't see a problem with that. You want to get to this conclusion from this root or from that route, all Roads lead to Rome, no problem. But this is actually how we are. And we are also able to use our talents in a way that is so evil. And I really learned this by looking at Islamic State for a while that I also ended up accepting that the devil is also real. If you look at Islamic State, the way that it's presented is that these are a bunch of ignoramuses and that they don't know what they're doing. They don't understand Islam. They have no clue. They're just angry young men trying to express themselves, you know? No. When Islamic State decides that it wants to invade a particular community, they will send in agents in advance. These guys will collect information on every family, on every business, on every household, how they interact with other households, who hates whom, who is rich and we can tax and take money from, who's involved in criminality, who we can also benefit from, who is too far gone and will probably need to be killed early on. They gather this big wealth of information, get really organized, then they attack. If you've gone through some of their training manuals, I remember going through the training manual of a guy called Abu Ubaid Abdall Adam. This man literally wrote the textbook as to keeping secrecy, as to knowing who to trust, as to how to build cells, terrorist cells, as to how to conduct security operations, how to conduct assassinations, how to do everything. For each of those, there was a religious dimension. And I checked. His religious interpretation is valid. I'm not saying it's the only one, and I'm not saying that it's the only correct one. I'm saying that it's valid. Every atrocity that Islamic State committed, including the rape of Yazidi women and the sale and trade in Yazidi women, including the taxation policy, including the way that they managed resources, was scripturally justified by at least two of the main four Sunni Muslim authorities. They checked, and then I checked their work. They were right. One of the things that shocked me was reading their newsletters in English. Couple of things that really stood out to me and still stand out to me. One, when reading some of the Quranic verses that they had translated into English, I thought, I didn't recognize this translation. So I went through all of them. They had translated it themselves. Why is this impressive? Because the level of language skill that you need in English and in Arabic to translate the Quran or verses of the Quran is really quite sophisticated. Okay, so these were not stupid people writing fluff. They had very solid arguments, and they had good enough minds that they could translate the Quran, which only maybe a dozen people have done in the past. You know, then you see the quality of the media that they produced. I asked our graphics team back at the company that I was working at at the time, before setting up on my own, how long would it take you to produce this? Well, it would take us three, four weeks maybe. They were producing this kind of content sometimes every week. So they had high quality, high potential people. Even administratively. They managed the oil quite well. They had a good contracting procedure. They managed the smuggling of artifacts quite well. They managed the smuggling of drugs quite well. They were administratively astute. And for the people that they governed back before Islamic State took over, if you wanted to cross between five or six towns in Syria, you'd have to stop maybe at a dozen checkpoints and pay a bribe to each one of them. And you wouldn't know how much the bribe was. Each one of them would try to negotiate whatever he could from you. When they took control, you paid once and it was recorded and it functioned. They built a better governance system than much of the Syrian opposition. So these were people with talent and potential. I'll never forget a beheading video where you would see the people who were getting beheaded extending their two index fingers, which is a Muslim's way of saying, there is one God and Muhammad is his messenger. This is what you're supposed to do when you're dying. Such was their faith that even where they were slaughtered in the name of Islam, they were genuinely. I mean, this is the moment of death. Doesn't get more real than this, you know, and you see this potential and you see what it was used for, and then you understand, well, yeah, the devil is real. There is something animating these people to do something that horrific and it's not rational. The violence that they exercised was so cold, so calculated, so perfected. I genuinely admire them. I abhor them, but I genuinely admire them. And I see the skills and I see the potential. And I think, what is animating you to use this potential, this organizational capability, this administrative capability in this way? Yeah, I guess the devil is real. That's what made me stop being an atheist, Realizing that human nature is the way it is, realizing that we can genuinely be possessed into using brilliance and capabilities and talents that were given to us by God in the most horrific ways. You see that? What am I going to do about this? The only answer is, okay, carry your cross and move on. So this is why I do what I do. I want to explain that there is a spiritual dimension to everything that the way we think and operate is informed by dogma that we often don't understand. Hence our emphasis on equality and all of that. Which is fair enough from a religious perspective. Not quite true in a social and potential perspective, and in what you do with that potential. I want to be able to understand the Putins and the G's of the world. I want to be able to see their worldview. But I don't want to lose myself. Because if you stare at the Middle east for long enough, you end up with two choices. I ended up with two choices. I hate you all and I want to genocide every last single one of you. Or I am going to be Christian in the hope that at least one other person decides to be Christian and in the hope that I don't become this, the monsters that I look at every day.

[Bernie]

Can you be Christian without believing in God? Can you follow Christian principles?

[Faraz]

I don't think so. I think this is something that I personally struggle with. Okay, I accepted that I need Christianity. How do I actually behave like a Christian when I know that I'm a shit human being? You know, you have to pray. You have to do the rituals, accepting them for what they are. You have to obey. You have to practice your faith in order to actually believe it. Because it. You don't wake up one day and you go, well, I'm a Christian. You go, well, I'm really struggling with this, but I don't see another option. How do I conform Better, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. You have to try to practice it as best as you can so that you change within. And I'm not saying I've changed within. I accept that I'm a genuinely horrendous human being. I know what I'm capable of. But I hope I know God knows that I'm trying to. I know God knows that I'm trying.

[Bernie]

A journey, man.

[Faraz]

Yes. Thank God I am.

[Bernie]

My. My mother was very religious. I was. I was an altar boy when I was a kid.

[Faraz]

Right.

[Bernie]

Used to follow the priest, carrying across as you walk in front of him and wear a red gown. Go to church every Sunday.

[Faraz]

Yep.

[Bernie]

Christened. I've been confirmed. I've been to church twice in the last 20 years. Both times for my children to be christened, which for me was a ritual that I wanted done. I don't think of going to church. I'm intrigued by Christianity.

[Faraz]

Well, come visit me. I'll. I'll come with you.

[Bernie]

Yeah. No, no. I'm like. I'm Intrigued by it. But I'm intrigued more about the moral compass. Yes, I'm. I struggle to believe in a God and I struggle. Yeah, I just, I don't struggle with it. I just, yeah, I'm more science based. So I've always struggled with it. But I'm intrigued by, I'm genuinely intrigued by it. I've sat down and a couple of times tried to read the Bible and get about 10 pages in. And I'm like, well, I.

[Faraz]

Before being baptized, I did read it cover to cover. I also read a Catholic thinker who was mentioned by Nassim Talib. And then I was like, well, I have to show off that I've read him, Joseph de Mestre. He did a great job of dismantling all of the assumptions of the French Revolution. And I became convinced that this is the correct way to see the world because analytically, every time I thought about things from a purely material perspective, I got it wrong. Not that material things aren't important. You need to have an appreciation. How many soldiers does he have? How many planes, how many tanks, how many drones, how many, whatever. You must remain tied into the material, you know. But I also realized that thinking about things from a material perspective gets you pretty much nowhere. You have to account for original sin, you have to account for human nature. And my sense is that for the west to adopt realistic policies to try to thinking about welfare sensibly, pensions, health care, things of that nature, these aren't rights as such, our thinking about human rights is flawed. If you were to tell a Viking or a Roman that you have a right to welfare, he just. It would make absolutely no sense. If you were to tell a Muslim that you should apologize to the people that you conquered and how you conquered them for not being Christian enough towards them. He would say, but God told me to conquer them and I'm obeying God's commands. Why should I apologize? If you were to say, apologize for slavery, well, are you saying that Muhammad was wrong to own slaves? That's blasphemous. So the assumptions of the west are fundamentally Christian. We need to recognize this. And part of recognizing this is recognizing that your talents aren't your own. It's not just because you were brilliant. If you have a wonderful singing voice, there's the odds of you discovering it without somebody teaching you how to sing and about music and how to play an instrument and what music is, are very, very slim. And even if you just had raw talent, you're not going to be as good as you would be if you were properly trained, if that talent was properly nourished, you owe something to the people who trained you, who in turn owe something to the people who trained them. You owe something to a society that's stable enough to allow us to have a conversation on a podcast, as opposed to be fighting for survival every five minutes. You owe something to a society that lets you inherit wealth, as opposed to when you're old and weak, somebody's going to come and kill you and take away your wealth. And in order for you to have any conception of rights, you must have a stable society. Which brings us back to the question of morality in diverse countries.

[Bernie]

Just let me just pause you there and ask you, or note. And observation I've had. I've observed many people, like many public faces, who I've seen drift from traditionally being maybe more on the progressive side, on the left, who've become conservative over the last five to 10 years. And of that group of people, there's a segment who then become Christian.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

Why does that happen? Why is there that correlation between conservatism and Christianity?

[Faraz]

Because.

[Bernie]

And is the left the devil?

[Faraz]

I wouldn't go that far. But I would suggest that when you become conservative, part of it is accounting for human nature. And the best way to understand human beings is. Is to accept that we are afflicted with original sin and that we are given divine grace. And these are fundamentally Christian ideas. What we think is good in the west, taking care of the poor, taking care of the weak, fending for the needy, fighting against injustice.

[Bernie]

These are Christian values.

[Faraz]

These are Christian values. And they don't make sense in a Muslim moral framework. They're not making sense to the Israelis with their Jewish moral framework. They wouldn't make sense to pagans. These are fundamentally Christian ideas. So when you understand what it is that you're trying to conserve, you realize that what you're trying to conserve is a Christian way of life and that this comes with responsibilities as well as privileges. Whereas in the west, the culture of rights has been so focused on privileges. You have a right to a safe space. You have a right to kill unborn children. You have a right to kill people because they're sick. You have a right to welfare. You have a right to the labor of others, which is what we mean when we say we have a right to education or a right to healthcare. These aren't rights as such. These are expansions of Christian ideas that only make sense in a Christian society.

[Bernie]

So Christian charity itself is a better framework than socialism.

[Faraz]

100%, 100%. Socialism is a Christian heresy. Why should the poor have anything? Why should the downtrodden have political influence? Says who? That isn't found in an ancient Greek society. Rather, what's found is contempt for the poor. In Hinduism, there is an emphasis on charity, but if you're born poor or if you're born absolutely miserable, there's a good chance that you did something in a past life to deserve it. You know, this is karma acting on you. So the idea that the poor inherently have dignity and the weak inherently have dignity cannot be accepted without Jesus Christ. Not genuinely, not fully. It's Jesus Christ who said these things to us. They were revolutionary at the time. They're still revolutionary today. But we take them for granted to such an extent that we don't think that they're revolutionary anymore.

[Bernie]

The comments in YouTube are going to be wild. They're gonna be wild, man. Well, at some point, we have to sit back and reflect on why our society is fragmenting and breaking so badly at the moment. And it is. It is bad.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

My favorite question to ask people at the moment, not in an interview, is friend to friend is, you know, when I'm like, fuck the government. I hate the government. You know, and they struggle with that idea that I'm so negative towards the government. And then I say to them, can you tell me something that's improved under the government in the last 20 years? And I really. I'm amazed at how I usually expect people to come back with something, oh, like, you know, healthcare's got. It's like, objectively, the NHS is broken.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

And so I. I'm struggling to get them to put articulate a response which is a good defense of government, because objectively, everything's going to shit. We're paying higher taxes, everything's got more expense, expensive. Crime appears to be up, public services are collapsing, there's more corruption, we're being lied to. Like, everything is. I feel like it's like unwinding. And I feel like that's what America recognize. And there. There are. They are one election ahead of us, and there is a demand here in the UK for something different. Now that demand in the UK really is just. Is just pointing at a political party which is reform, because they feel like reform is essentially our Trump in that the Conservatives failed, Labor are failing, Green and Liberal Democrats can't be taken seriously. Who is speaking my language of reform? And it's reform. And it's a really interesting thing to just sit back and observe, like, the Overton window shifted on reform. It was a thing that people in Paris would admit. Well, you voted for Nigel Farage.

[Faraz]

Yeah.

[Bernie]

The man who took us out of Europe. You voted for him. You can't vote for now. It's like people are just out there saying, now, fuck this, I'm voting for reform.

[Faraz]

Yeah.

[Bernie]

I don't know if that's a. There's a question.

[Faraz]

I'll tell you two things. The first thing is that I'm now a paid up member of Reform.

[Bernie]

Interesting.

[Faraz]

The second thing is that I'm not sure Nigel Farage is the man for the job.

[Bernie]

Okay.

[Faraz]

I'm not convinced by the lack of accurate policy right now and the lack of a plan. What I want is a plan that identifies which government departments are going to be shut down. How many civil servants are you going to sack? What are you going to do to get rid of the NGO complex? What are you going to do to get rid of things like perhaps Ofsted or the media regulator Ofcom people? Exactly, Ofcom. What are you going to do to dismantle the legacy of Tony Blair and to dismantle the idea that you will have unelected, unaccountable administrators sitting in very comfortable, very well paid jobs overseeing how.

[Bernie]

We live our lives, working against the government.

[Faraz]

Working not just against the government, working against the people, which I think is substantially more important. What are you going to do to get rid of Wokeness completely? What are you going to do to expose it? What's your understanding of Wokeness? Do you understand the Christian roots of Wokeness? Do you understand that the alternative to Wokeness is Christianity undiluted as opposed to this nonsense? Do you understand what is actually needed in terms of reforming defense, reforming policing, reforming the nhs? Do you understand the role of charity versus the role of government? And are you confused about the two? For me, I accept that reform is the best hope, but I also worry that reform is the best hope. It bothers me.

[Bernie]

They're early then built their infrastructure, they might have the right people. I've been very impressed with Rupert Lowe. I am, yeah, very impressed with Zia.

[Faraz]

There's real zeal there, there's real enthusiasm. There's a. What people love about Trump is how unashamed he is about loving America and Americans. The British have a different mindset. They don't express their emotions in the same way.

[Bernie]

Yeah. I mean, look, we've got this unfortunately historical context of violent football thugs walking around with St. George's flags and being very nationalistic. And that's a history where we struggle with. But I've Noticed a more British patronage that's starting to. Starting to happen.

[Faraz]

I hope it grows.

[Bernie]

Yeah, I'm feeling it myself, to be honest. Like I said, I put this tweet out this morning. This guy's going, oh, you always criticize Dubai. I was like, I criticized Dubai for these reasons.

[Faraz]

It's a police state.

[Bernie]

Yeah, it's a police state. But. But. But I'm very proud to be British. I like it here. I like the people. I think we have the best sense of humor in the world. We have. We have the best fried breakfast in the world. We have, you know, the best football in the world. We.

[Faraz]

Yeah, we have plenty of countryside with this countryside. I truly love this country. I, you know, not that I read as much as I should or that I read literature as much as I should, but I remember my English literature classes and how much I enjoyed them and the true art of English literature. I look at British villages in the British countryside, and I think, why is this working so well with seeming minimal effort? Because of a particular genius of the British, because of something that is deeply ingrained in this culture. It has Christian roots. It has other roots, and you have to respect it for what it is, and you don't want to transform it. The idea of forcing diversity down people's throats, as Mr. Campbell and Mr. Blair had done, why would you do that? That's an act of sabotage. That's an act of vandalism. For Britain to function as Britain, it has to be British, and it has to be clearly, massively majority British. And there has got to be a ruling elite that genuinely loves this country. But because of the way elite formation has changed because it's so financialized now, it's become extremely difficult to do that. If you're living in the SW1 bubble, that's your life, and that's all you think. It's terrifying. A man tried to burn the Quran.

[Bernie]

Outside the Turkish embassy, attacked him with a knife.

[Faraz]

He was stabbed. And then another guy jumped on him and attacked him, too. And this was 10 minutes walk from Buckingham Palace. This was 10 minutes walk from Buckingham Palace. How outrageous is it that there will be somebody willing to stab you at the drop of a hat without any sort of prior arrangement? 10 minutes outside Buckingham Palace. That's insane.

[Bernie]

It is insane. I also think you're a bit of a dick for burning the Quran. It's a bit unnecessary, but I understand provocation and whatever, but I'm just. Come on.

[Faraz]

But if you're going to defend free speech here, you've got to defend it there?

[Bernie]

No, I defend it like I defend free speech. But I also will point out, I will use my free speech to point out if someone's being a dick with it.

[Faraz]

Fair enough. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. I will say that I think it's just wrong. I don't think it comes from God. I don't think it's true. I think it contains enormous wisdom. I think some of it is beautifully written, but I also think that some of it is the idea that heaven contains women for you to enjoy endlessly is perverse. It doesn't say 72 virgins in the Quran. It says it in the Hadith.

[Bernie]

What's the difference between the two?

[Faraz]

The difference between the two is that the Hadith are the collected sayings of Muhammad which sort of grew over time. And if you look into them carefully, some of them are proverbs, some of them are from Christianity, some of them are from Judaism, some of them are from other cultures. And some of them seem to be there's a chance that they're authentic. The Quran is the holy book of Islam that is supposedly revealed by God through Muhammad. There is a fundamental difference between Islam and Christianity, a deep theological one which I find that it's underappreciated and it's. For Christians, the word of God is the Son who chose to incarnate as a man. And the church is the body of Christ with Christ himself as his head, as its head. So the Word of God is the head of the church and it's inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit and it's protected from error by the Holy Spirit. However, revelation is not contained, all of it in a single text. The Bible says that there were many, many other things that Christ did that were too voluminous to include within it. There is much more there. The church's role is to develop it. And it's the Church that decided what goes into the Gospels and what goes into the Epistles and to include the Book of the Apocalypse and all of that. Okay? In Islam, the word of God is the Quran and it's preserved in a stone tablet. And that stone tablet is eternal because just as Christians believe that Christ is co eternal with God and with the Holy Spirit, with God the Father and with the Holy Spirit. Muslims believe that the Quran is co eternal with God and that it is uncreated. So we agree on that detail, except that we believe that one of them is living and they believe that it's a stone tablet. Imagine having a stone tablet as your head. It's A problem, which is why Islam tends to be extremely scriptural. So it says that the Jewish dietary laws no longer apply, but these dietary laws do. It says that some of the Old Testament punishments still apply, including stoning, including. Well, there's no beheading or cutting off arms or crucifixion. But these are accepted punishments within the Quran. These are legitimate punishments. You can crucify somebody for certain things, but sometimes they're crucified after they're already dead, just as a sort of display, part of the art of violence of Islamic state that I mentioned to you earlier. I think that this difference is very, very important. I think the difference between a living word and the word being in a stone tablet has effects on how we treat philosophy and how we treat science. And if you look at the Muslim golden age of science, it happened at the period where Islam was still in dialogue with Greek philosophy. And a lot of the Muslims who were themselves leading scientists, a, they themselves weren't Arabs and B, they were subsequently considered heretics by people who were better informed about religion and scripture than they were because they adopted interpretations of the Quran that were considered heretical or took theological positions that were considered heretical. So at some point, I would argue because of the nature of Islamic scripture, there was a breakdown in the relationship between Islam and philosophy. For Christians, it's fundamentally different. When we think of the three wise kings worshiping Christ, we think of philosophy, science and mysticism. Accepting to submit themselves to theology, allowing them to develop and grow independently while accepting that there's something that sits on top of them. This didn't happen in Islam. What happened instead was Al Ghazali wrote a book saying the ridiculousness of philosophers and that philosophy is ridiculous because it doesn't lead to God. We must accept scripture. He ended up saying that the beauty of the Hajj, the Islamic pilgrimage, was that we have no idea why we turn around the Ka' Bah seven times, the rock in Mecca. But it shows our full and complete obedience. And therefore it is good. We are invited to obey God, but also to love and to even love our enemies, which is often misunderstood. You love your enemy by seeing the world as he sees it, by fully understanding his perspective, by correcting yourself. If you, when looking at yourself through his eyes, you accept that you've made mistakes by repenting for your mistakes. And then if he's still your enemy and you must fight him, then you're fighting him for God. That's why Christ didn't say, do not have enemies. He said, love your Enemies, because of all people, obviously, Christ understands human nature. So there's this difference here between Islam and Christianity that in my view, makes them difficult to coexist. But to be completely fair, when Muslims take government, as they did in the Middle east, they do treat Christians as a subjugated but protected minority, or as a subjugated but protected group, in some cases a majority. So they do open up this space. Whereas for Christians, our impulse is if we conquer somebody, we need to convert him. Not to sound overly intolerant, but I prefer our way. If I've discovered something good, I'd rather that you also ascribe to it, not to accept forced conversions, because these wouldn't be valid. But it is actually important to convert people and to lead them to Christianity. I think that's a very valid moral standpoint. Much more valid than saying, well, live in your error, just pay your taxes and I'll leave you alone. That seems too pragmatic for me. And I'm pragmatic about some things, but not about everything.

[Bernie]

We've drifted a long way from Christianity in this country.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

I mean, I don't know the numbers of people who go to church or young people who go.

[Faraz]

Yeah.

[Bernie]

It's not something that's discussed amongst my friends, really. I know people who are Christian or have become. Come closer to their faith, certainly as they've got older.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

How important is it to political reform, or can it happen without it? Anyway, Is it important? There are Christians with.

[Faraz]

For you, there's something that I want to explore in the book that I'm working on.

[Bernie]

Because I don't feel any of the political reform that people are calling for we're seeing is coming from Christian faith, is coming from pragmatism. Pragmatism. Fucking fed up at a uni party wanting something different.

[Faraz]

I think at the very least, understanding that this is a Christian society and that the greatness of it comes in large part from its Christian values is a prerequisite for true reform.

[Bernie]

So we can have some kind of political reform, but there's every chance that that party becomes, you know, goes down the same path as other parties and.

[Faraz]

Quite. Yeah, quite. I think some acknowledgement of the role of Christianity is a prerequisite.

[Bernie]

And so I'm not saying we all.

[Faraz]

Need to convert and everybody in reform needs to become a practicing Catholic, but I am saying that understanding where our ideas about welfare and charity come from, where our ideas about equality come from, where our basic assumptions are coming from and what are they rooted in, is a prerequisite because it appears for me.

[Bernie]

As an outsider, I haven't traveled to much of the Middle east, but it appears for me that they are much more fundamentally religious countries. From leadership throughout their societies, most people appear to be openly and outwardly acknowledge whatever religion it is they are, whether, you know, whichever path of Islam they followed. Yet here we appear it's Christianity is a bit niche.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

Is that a strength of the Middle east, that they are guided by their own religion versus ours?

[Faraz]

It's why Islam is presenting such a challenge right now. Remember, there was a period where there was a good degree of Muslims drifting away from the faith, where you would have forms of music and of belly dancing and of entertainment that would be seen as quite un Islamic. This period did happen and it did pass.

[Bernie]

Happened in Iran, Lebanon.

[Faraz]

Exactly. And then there was a shift in the opposite direction. So the most successful organization in the world, I would argue, has been the Muslim Brotherhood because it believed that we need to Islam re Islamize society for Muslims to rise up again. And if you look at Turkey building up its industrial base and probably soon expanding its borders, you are seeing the fruits of that labor. You know, Muslims are not post Islam. Christians seem to be stuck in a form of post Christianity that's neither pragmatic nor Christian, which is why we see so many tragedies here in the west in terms of how we are governed. I would say that an acknowledgement of the role of Christianity is a prerequisite for things to begin to get better. And I would say that there is a very long way for things to get better. Trump has shown that there are many, many shortcuts that are available and that they can be applied and that there is hope to his credit. And that's a great and brilliant thing that he's done. I enormously admire him and Vance and the whole team that they've assembled for that. And there needs to be more of that.

[Bernie]

Who's the crack team for the uk? Who's the UK Avengers?

[Faraz]

I, I don't know.

[Bernie]

See, that's the thing.

[Faraz]

They will emerge. I have faith that they will emerge.

[Bernie]

I was again, I was chatting to somebody I know, wealthy, successful person, brilliant person. I've really admired them and talking a lot about just what's been happening here in the country. And I, I said, I think we need a, a middle class Tommy Robinson and I think we need a upper class middle Tommy Robinson in that Tommy Robinson. What I miss with Tommy Robinson, I didn't really get. Forget your judgments on whether you think he's a criminal or not. Or whatever he's explained it's relevant what he's become. He's become a leader and a voice of the working class who have been shamed. They've been called chavs, they've been squeezed by society. Yes, they have. They've seen their industrial bases eroded. They've seen. Yeah. Inflation has crushed them. They've been forgotten about. You know, you see it in small towns or inner cities. And I, what I realized is that it doesn't matter what you think of Tommy Robinson. He's a voice for those people, he represents those people. And so when there are riots or protests or there's a rising of the, of the peasant. Peasants. And I don't mean that in derogatory, I understand that. What I mean is he's a representation of them and actually he's a leader for them. And I completely missed that. And I was like, fuck. And what I realized is that we have a middle class that's now being crushed and eroded, being destroyed, fundamentally being destroyed. I can see it happening. I see it across friends who are going out less, they've got less money they're struggling to get. And these are middle class people. They now can't send their kids to the schools they were sending them to. They can't afford the holidays they had. They're being crushed. Yet it's much harder for somebody to come forward and be a representation of the middle class. And it is the working class, because they've still got, they still got stuff to lose.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

They still might have a well paid job in London. They might still have standing in their community. To stand up and, and speak against the current dogma is very difficult. And it's even harder as you got the wealth scale, it's even harder to put your foot forward and go, fucking had enough of this.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

But actually that's what we need. We need it through every section of society.

[Faraz]

Isn't it horrific that the people preaching charity to migrants are so uncharitable to their own working class?

[Bernie]

Yeah.

[Faraz]

And doesn't that tell you that we need genuine Christianity for there to be reform, we need genuine love of your neighbor. I accept that there might be a place for a middle class Tommy Robinson and for an upper class Tommy Robinson. I think for the middle class it's a little bit hopeless for the reasons that you enumerated, because we'll see what comes out. Now with the increase in economic pressure on the middle class, with the pushing down of the middle class, with ridiculous taxation, ridiculous energy policy, ridiculous immigration policy, ridiculous everything Ridiculous. Everything, really. You're going to start seeing a backlash. I think people should be charitable to Tommy Robinson. I mean, this guy educated himself on the issues that matter, understood the problem well before a lot of other people were willing to acknowledge it. Showed a considerable amount of courage and showed a considerable amount of judgment. He did his best to steer away from the genuine neo Nazi types. That would worry people. And they wanted him and they wanted him and they desperately wanted him. They would have loved to have him. And he showed genuine skin in the game. The number of times this guy has been to prison for, I don't think, very justified reasons at all.

[Bernie]

I applied to go and see him.

[Faraz]

Did you?

[Bernie]

Yeah. So I wanted to go and meet him just for myself.

[Faraz]

Yeah.

[Bernie]

It's not for an interview, not for any real journalistic purposes. I just. I wanted to ask him questions myself because, yeah, the Overton and Window and him's changed and I, you know, I'm trying to understand him as a person. I'm trying not to just hear all the. You've heard about him. I just wanted to meet him myself, man for man. Just ask some questions.

[Faraz]

Yeah.

[Bernie]

Just. Yeah, and meet him. And I was rejected because you'd have to keep bringing up Connor. See what it says. I got a letter. Actually, I was quite nervous. I got the buzzer at the door. When we've got a letter, you need to sign. And whenever there's a letter you need.

[Faraz]

It'S usually a lawsuit.

[Bernie]

And then. So I open it and the first thing I see is, HM Prison Service. I'm like, fuck, what have I done? Or what has Connor done? He had the same feeling when he looked at it and it said. Yeah, can you click on it? It says, Dear Mr. McCormack, revisit at HMP Woodhill. Thank you for your request to book a visit with Mr. Yaxley Lennon at HMP Woodhill on 4th of March, 2025, based on security information indicating your visit may be used for journalistic purposes. Your visit has not been approved.

[Faraz]

Journalism is a security threat.

[Bernie]

Well, that's. I mean, that's the interesting. That's the thing.

[Faraz]

Isn't that. Isn't that wonderful?

[Bernie]

Yeah, I mean. I mean, why they would be so.

[Faraz]

Transparent by saying, oh, you could be a journalist. You can interview mass murderers and write books about what they've done. You can't interview a guy who organized a few protests.

[Bernie]

Well, look at the first reply. Do you realize there's no right for a convicted inmate to be able to give interviews? Well, firstly, I wasn't going for an interview. I was going to meet him actually as part of it. I wouldn't have been allowed to interview him and I would have had to sign an NDA that I wouldn't speak about my visit. Now I haven't had a visit. I can talk about it. But I hadn't mentioned this, hadn't mentioned I'd applied. Who would have thought incarceration actually means incarceration. Dump take. Now, I think that's a dump take, because I think you have to be. You have to allow for journalists to talk to prisoners. You have to, for a couple of just very obvious reasons. The first one, there are miscarriages of justice.

[Faraz]

Right.

[Bernie]

So, you know, we can, you know, we can look at the broad history of, you know, of our judiciary and foreign judiciaries. There are endless miscarriages of justice. There are people who are locked up. So I think you have to allow that. But secondly, the reports coming out is that he's in solitary confinement, that he's being restricted access. We know you can break somebody in a prison.

[Faraz]

Yeah, that's what they're trying to do. It's very transparent. That's what they're trying to do.

[Bernie]

They did it to Julian Assange.

[Faraz]

Yeah.

[Bernie]

You know, the judge even said in the Julian Assange case that the way he's being treated. I can't remember the actual words. I don't want to get it wrong.

[Faraz]

Yeah, sure.

[Bernie]

And then I think it was Preeti Patel who stepped over that and said, no, we're going to listen to the Americans. If they want to extradite him, we're going to allow it. But you have to allow journalists to go in.

[Faraz]

I agree.

[Bernie]

And even if you're not allowing someone to report, at least I can go in. Or a journalist can go in and just say, what's the reality of what's happening to you in this prison? But because the funny thing, when they said for journalistic purposes, my first thought was, I'm not going as a journalist. But then I thought, well, it doesn't fucking matter if I am going as a journalist.

[Faraz]

I should be allowed the fact that they would Thai security and journalism tells you everything.

[Bernie]

Well, what is the security threat? I mean, look, we're going full circle.

[Faraz]

Because you might actually say what's going on? And that that might upset people and drive them to act and that becomes a security threat. This government, this country is terrified of the risk of rioting when you want to understand they're terrified of a revolution. Yes. As they should be because of their own behavior. But like good autocrats, they are trying to fortify themselves in all kinds of ways and make sure that they show you early on that there is an enormous cost to dissent. This is the purpose here. They're trying to say, if you disagree, keep it to yourself, shut your mouth.

[Bernie]

But this is. We're going full circle because this is. We're actually doing similar things. So what Russia and Putin has done.

[Faraz]

Yes.

[Bernie]

You know, imprison Navalny, break his spirit, send him to the toughest prison in Siberia where he dies. Yep. You know, I mean, they'll make a martyr of him if he dies, but. But we're kind of doing the same thing. But to me, it's fucking insane.

[Faraz]

It is. People don't understand how extremist the behavior of the government has been. If you go to an Islamic country and try to establish a Christian network within the civil service, you will survive a grand total of five minutes. Okay, cool. If you go and say to the Chinese, you are all racists, you're all bigoted, your whole history is full of slavery and abuse of other people. You are nasty, you are overly privileged, you are prone to rape and evil and all kinds of things, they will spit in your eye, and if you're lucky, they will throw you out. If you're unlucky, they will keep you. The idea that the discourse that is permitted against the whites, and especially against the white working class in the west is normal is itself an extremist, unusual, fundamentalist idea that doesn't have a parallel. And this comes down to the fact that the Western public misses Christianity. They have replaced original sin with racism and homophobia and sexism and the legacy of slavery and all of that. They've replaced Christ as the holy victim with various groups that are supposed to have been downtrodden, ethnic minorities, women, LGBT, etc. There's an Armageddon which is the climate disaster, and there's a paradise which is net zero. And it's constructed in a religious way, because to get to net zero, you must consume less, you must fly less, you must eat less meat fasting, you must enjoy less dairy, you must live at a lower standard of living in order to do penance. This is why they look the other way when China is building a coal plant every week and say instead, no, no, no, we really need to work with China on climate change.

[Bernie]

They fly to Davos in their private jets and they tell us to fly less.

[Faraz]

But this goes back to a Christian idea, because they are not being. These people are accepted even though they fly to Davos on private jets because they espouse the correct dogma, therefore they are not canceled. On the other hand, if Tommy Robinson were to say, islam is a bit of a problem, guys, and it's serious and it's a threat to the way that we do things in this country. That is heresy. You get excommunicated for heresy and for blasphemy, not for regular sins. You don't get excommunicated if you're a sinner. The Pope has a confessor. The Pope is a sinner. We accept this. What you get excommunicated for is blasphemy. Therefore, Tommy Robinson is a blasphemer. He must be locked up and he must be punished and he must be broken so that he can repent and recite the correct dogma. Once he accepts the dogma again and the authority of the new woke church, he's welcomed back in.

[Bernie]

It's. Yeah, it's polite. It's, it's. It's cancellation at a political level.

[Faraz]

It's excommunication.

[Bernie]

Yeah, it's excommunication, but it's breaking. It's not working as much anymore. Like, I don't give a.

[Faraz]

Because it's built on lies.

[Bernie]

Yeah. And. But I, I'm feeling the break come in. Just everywhere you go. Everyone's so sick of this. We just need. I think we need protests on the streets.

[Faraz]

I think what you're feeling. What you're feeling is the weight of the lies coming crashing down.

[Bernie]

Yeah.

[Faraz]

The lies about feminism. The idea that the biological differences between men and women do not imply social, political, and economic differences, which is absurd. If we're that different in our role in the family, we are probably also different in our role in society. The ideas about marriage, the idea that you can have a marriage when there can be no possibility of a family. What's marriage for? Marriage is there to organize family and to organize how we reproduce and interact. You can have marriage without that possibility. That's absurd. Net zero. You can't have a prosperous society without high energy consumption. And simply outsourcing the energy consumption to China impoverishes your own people. The lies that we have about aristocracy and oligarchy. No, we're going to have equality. Money and power are never going to be connected again. Where is that real? Where does that ever happen?

[Bernie]

It's never happened. Even in the worst communist states, you still had an oligarchy.

[Faraz]

Exactly. So everything that we are being told by the governing classes is based on a lie. And what you're Feeling coming crashing down is all of these lies together because they've built lies on lies on lies, on more lies. Ultimately, the foundation of lies is quicksand, and it can't hold all of that weight and all of that bs.

[Bernie]

Foundation of lies is quicksand. I fucking love it. Well, look, I feel it, but I don't feel. There's not enough. There's talk. We need more action. Actually, I think we need more protests. I think we need to be on the street. We need to be yelling at these people. We need to say it's unacceptable. Ultimately, I think we get rid of them through democracy, which a lot of people don't like, but ultimately I think we do. But. But. But this cannot. We cannot continue on this path.

[Faraz]

I think, for me, I take a different approach. I rarely join protests. I've only joined a couple. I tried to organize one. Anti transsexuals reading to children. What the hell is that? What kind of vileness is that? And who takes their parents to see an overly sexualized transsexual reading perverse books to them? I don't understand it. So I tried to organize a protest against that. Incidentally, Pierce Corbin, if you're listening, I still have your megaphone. I will give it back if I can find you. Pierce Corbin's brother.

[Bernie]

His brother.

[Faraz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bernie]

You stole his microphone.

[Faraz]

I didn't. I didn't. He left, and he left it in my hands, and I was like, where is he? I need to give this back. It's still at home. I'll give it to him whenever he asks for it. But I don't necessarily. It's your business. I'm not British. I'm administratively British. I'm paper British. It's your business whether or not you want to protest. My approach is this. My approach is that we need to tear down the lies one by one and everything they. By speaking, by having this kind of conversation, by saying, no, a man can't become a woman. I know you're trying to subjugate me. I know you're trying to break me. I won't. I won't break. I will never say that. I will never say that a man is a woman.

[Bernie]

The rise of independent media. Because the rise of independent media is not doing it. Sky is not doing it.

[Faraz]

BBC has no interest in doing it.

[Bernie]

GB News is doing a little bit, and they complain to Ofcom all the time.

[Faraz]

Free speech, dismantling their lies is the best thing that you can do against them, because eventually people will see that the emperor has no clothes. Eventually people will see we've built this edifice on what we've built it on people abandoning Christianity while still longing for it. Accept that this is a Christian country. Accept that this is where the values of this country come from. Accept that it's unique, that it's exceptional, that it's unusual. There is nothing like it. Accept that this is the role God gave it to be Britain and to be British and you'll be fine. But unless you dismantle these lies one by one, you're not going to get anywhere. That is much more important than taking power, because what will you do with power when you take it?

[Bernie]

Stop lying. Stop fucking lying.

[Faraz]

Power. Unless you respect the truth and you're genuinely committed to it, taking power won't help you.

[Bernie]

Well, I didn't realize we would talk about religion so much, but it's been fascinating, absolutely fascinating. Thank you. I am. My mum, my mother Mattel is a Christian. I'm not a practicing Christian. I'm certainly intrigued by it and I'm definitely going to think a lot about what you've said today. But I agree we've got to dismantle the lies and be as loud as we can and hopefully this will be part of it. Fascinating, man. Listen. Anyone listening? Please go and check out Faraz's work. We will put it in the show notes. I really appreciate you. We've been going for nearly two and a half hours. Amazing.

[Faraz]

Oh, wow.

[Bernie]

Thank you so much.

[Faraz]

Thank you.

[Bernie]

Appreciate it.

[Faraz]

Thank you for having me.

[Bernie]

Do you want to send anyone anywhere?

[Faraz]

Your blog, monadgeopolitics.com and convertordie.com net sorry, convertordie.com convertordie.net okay, this was going to be the title of my book, Convert or Die, with the subtitle being How Islamic State Made Me a Christian.

[Bernie]

Okay, well, I'll read that book as.

[Faraz]

Well when it comes out.

[Bernie]

Thank you, man.

[Faraz]

Thank you.

[Bernie]

And thank you everyone for listening. See you all soon.