Editor-in-chief Kyle Mann and creative director Ethan Nicolle welcome back popular podcaster and resident expert on anarchism, the "new" right, and North Korea: Michael Malice. He is the author of Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jon Il and The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics. He is also the podcast host of "YOUR WELCOME" and Night Shade. Kyle and Ethan continue their efforts to convert him into Michael Mercy and discuss strange sea creatures, visiting North Korea, and why anarchists hate Presidents so much. Pre-order the new Babylon Bee Best-Of Coffee Table Book coming in 2020! Topics Discussed Anarchy Hecktopia Owned Your house is burning down, do you put the fire out with liberal tears? What would the children pledge allegiance to? Who would indoctrinate the children? Who would deliver Amazon prime? What war criminals would we print on money? What would we do with the Hall of President? What would we call Lincoln Logs? What would they rename Washington State? Who would take my money and tell me what goods and services I need? Who would kill Jeffrey Epstein? Who would shoot the dogs? Who would you rather have run national parks? Costco or Sam's Club? Who would be the best anarchist president? North Korea You've been to North Korea. Tell us about that. What was it like getting off the plane? Isn't there a travel ban to going there? Western journalists endangering North Korean citizens' lives Thought crimes when you're always being watched Kim Jong Un worship. Was it real? What dystopian novel gets closest to the reality? Black markets North Korea's cult of the gun and military How is Trump's handling of Iran and North Korea? Anarchy and Political Theory Michael Malice tries to think of top 5 Presidents and ends up rating his 5 worst Presidents, and mentions something weird about Grover Cleveland Michael Malice delves into the heart anarchy Miscellaneous The power of social media and the strange alliances against progressivism, strange sea creatures, and how sometimes it is a sin not to eat the ham. The entire interview is available for Babylon Bee subscribers only… Become a paid subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans
I just have to say that I object strenuously to your use of the word hilarious.
Hard-hitting questions.
What do you think about feminism?
Do you like it?
Taking you to the cutting edge of truth.
Yeah, well, Last Jedi is one of the worst movies ever made, and it was very clear that Brian Johnson doesn't like Star Wars.
Kyle pulls no punches.
I want to ask how you're able to sleep at night.
Ethan brings bone-shattering common sense from the top rope.
If I may, how double dare you?
This is the Babylon Bee Interview Show.
Yes, bone-shattering common sense.
That's right.
From the top rope.
And in my crosshairs is Mr. Michael Malice.
And we're excited because he's here in person.
We had him on long ago over Skype.
He was one of our first interviews ever.
He was gracious enough to join us, even though our podcast was nothing.
I'm such a fan of you guys, like an enormous fan.
I mean, the Babylon B name was big, but the podcast was a lot.
I'm a fan of Ethan's too.
Ethan hadn't done my show.
Yeah, I was on his show.
That's true.
It's so weird.
I've done his show in New York, and he's now on our show here on the other side of the.
That was hectic for me.
Of course.
And the Eraser watched, because I had not driven to New York ever before, and it was a huge mistake.
And so the story's on your show, so I'll leave it for your show.
But I was so sweaty and like frazzled.
And I got into your show like three minutes late, I think.
Like you were already trying to get recording.
And yeah, you can watch it on you.
I think it was on YouTube.
now it's on gasdigitalnetwork.com for the archives but yeah if you want to hear Ethan talk about his jars of pee and somehow you're talking about urine on his show too oh yeah it's And somehow, just by looking at him, I knew that there was a jars of pea story in his background.
And yet, here.
Correct again.
We always have to stop him.
He's always talking about bodily fluids on this show.
They don't talk about his gout on the V2.
No, the gout.
That was a different story than I've told on this.
I've told this.
I haven't heard the gout story.
Yeah.
Incredible.
This is about Michael Malice.
Yeah, this isn't about the gout.
I had this friend who had gout once.
This is his name, Ethan Nicole.
Maybe.
I see what you're doing.
All right.
So if anyone isn't familiar with Michael Malice, we had him on our new show earlier this week.
And he is the author of some interesting books, including Dear Reader, The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Ill.
It looks like the second based on this in this font.
And The New Right.
The New Right, A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics.
And you have a podcast called You're Welcome, which is spelled purposefully with Y-O-U-R.
Correct.
Welcome.
All capitals and quotation marks.
And Nightshade.
Yeah, that's my nightly news show for compoundmedia.com.
All that to say, Michael Malice is a dangerous anarchist.
I am.
I am.
So we have some hard-hitting journalism here for you on anarchy.
We have a list of things that are completely going to own you because we're going to blow your mind with anarchy even do.
Well, not self-owner.
This is going to be Babylon B ownership.
Okay.
Yeah, you're getting owned.
So your house is burning down.
Do you put the fire out with liberal tears?
Anarchy's not necessarily, you know, anti-liberal per se.
I think.
Yeah, I don't get that.
I actually don't get that question when I asked you.
Yeah.
Well, because you can't call the fire department because he's an anarchist.
What do you use?
Do you put it out with...
You've used it with...
You've put it out with your tactical nuke.
Anarchy hair gel.
That would take care of the problem.
Yeah.
Fire extinguisher, maybe.
Privately purchased and produced.
That's like the meme, don't have to worry about house fires if you nuke your house.
Anarchists really like hair dye and like spray on hair dye and like hair gel.
So things are very flammable in anarchy.
And you're not going to have fire apartments.
I don't think you're thinking of anarchy.
I think you're thinking of nothing.
I'm thinking of like in every 80s movie, there's always a gang of bad guys, and there's always one guy that has like crazy hair.
And he's like, yeah, yeah.
Like, he's the guy, he's the crazy guy.
But he's not the anarchist.
He's going to cut you.
That's my vision of what anarchists are.
That's no, no, no.
They're the kids who shop on a hot topic.
Oh, no.
No, they are not.
Like on the Charles Bronson, his main movie.
Wait, isn't there a Christian hot topic?
There is.
I think there's a there is.
Yeah.
Is there?
Kill me.
I would like to know about this.
I'd like to know more.
What do they call it?
Is it just like the same things as hot topic, but 10 years?
Yeah, I think they probably could have it.
If it exists, then I'm not making this up because I think it does.
Because I know there's an overweight people hot topic.
What's that called?
I don't know.
Fat topic.
Big fat topic.
But if there's a Christian one, I really hope it's called Stigmata.
That's a pretty good Christian hot topic.
All right.
So in your anarchist utopia.
This is what I love.
I got to stop.
What?
Because when people criticize anarchism, it's both a utopia and Mad Max.
Like simultaneously.
Your utopia is Hell on Earth.
In your Hell on Earth utopia.
I mean, that's heck on Earth.
Yeah, sorry.
No, no.
When it's anarchism, it's all cursing by law.
Okay.
In your anarchist hell topia.
Heck on Earth.
Doesn't sound so bad.
Yeah, it sounds nice.
Let's go.
It's kind of sunny.
It's a little warm.
You got to wait online a little too much.
Who would the children pledge allegiance to?
That's great.
Okay, that's such a good question.
In an anarchist ectopia, the children are pledging allegiance.
Yeah.
That's a good title for this.
I don't.
I don't.
Why would there be?
I don't think.
I mean, let's make this down.
Mike dropped.
Because I have to convert the verbiage to anarchism.
So if you have pre-owned adults, who are they swearing fealty to?
I would say the whoever they choose to.
Okay.
At the point that you say, I pledge allegiance to, and then you just hear like a bunch of rabble because everybody says different things.
Well, yeah, yeah.
All right.
Next one.
Well, they wouldn't be in schools together.
I mean, public schools are the first thing to go.
That's true, but they'd be.
Well, that goes into our next question.
It does.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I missed one.
Who would indoctrinate the children?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, this is something else that I'm really pleased that Christians took the lead on: is recognizing that public schools are there to break your children and teach them values that are complete anathema to the values of the family.
So who would indoctrinate the children?
The networks.
There's still, yeah, I guess there would be networks.
Yeah, of course.
But they'd be doing a much worse job than PBS, though.
That's for sure.
Who would make Sesame Street?
Whoever's making it now.
It's not PBS.
They sold it.
Oh, yeah, it used to be.
It's HBO now.
Right.
HBO.
It never would have existed.
Yeah.
Nobody could have that successful show in the free market.
Just made literally $8 trillion.
Never could have survived.
Who would deliver all the Amazon packages?
Drones.
Would the drones have Hellfire missiles on them?
Tech Fire, sorry.
Tech Fire.
Tech Fire 2s.
There wouldn't be weaponry because you're going to have competing companies with their own counter drones.
They could shoot each other down like Amazon drones versus UPS drones or something.
Blasting at each other?
Yeah, I think that would happen.
And what about money?
What war criminals will we print on money?
You guys are good.
You guys are good.
Emperor Norton.
Emperor Norton.
Emperor Norton the first.
Norty bucks.
Just to throw back to our last episode.
That's okay.
Yeah, I don't.
I don't.
It would be, well, you'd have as much money as you like, you know, as many currencies as you like.
You just print whatever you want on your money.
And I think paper money, although money is not technically paper, is kind of an anachronism.
And I think some countries have gone away with it entirely, is my understanding.
So you think we wouldn't have it.
We have little credit chips.
We have a chip implanted in our arm.
No, no, no, we're not going to do that.
It's not going to be the arm.
It's in the forehead.
The mark of the piece.
Yeah, the forehead.
Are you a crypto guy?
I am a crypto guy.
This wasn't on my list.
I was just saying.
I am.
Absolutely.
Very much.
One of the things I talk about in the new right is this is a great example of, let's look at, I'm not an advocate of democracy by any means.
So you have your point of view about my life, and I have my point of view about my life.
Cool.
So we're not having this conversation.
And the only thing that is keeping you from implementing your point of view on me is a disparity in power.
And technology is the one thing that limits and equalizes people.
Like, God's a great example.
No matter how big the guy is, you're a small lady.
You have a gun.
Why did you point at him when you said how big the guy is?
I'm talking about gout and jars of pee big.
Not just like a big dude.
I mean, like, doop.
That's actually, I was, I was like 80 pounds heavier during that story.
Yeah.
Sorry, didn't mean to derail you.
No, no, no.
So that has happened now.
You derailed me.
You complained to Rail me.
It was fine and then I mentioned the derailing and then it...
Yeah, that has like rebooted me.
So in conclusion, Libya is a land of great contrasts.
You were talking about technology?
Oh, yeah.
So technology is the thing that will liberate everything.
And crypto is a great example of this.
Like, oh, you know, you're going to force me to have this stupid money.
Cool.
I'm going to do what I want, and I'm going to electronically, privately send it to somebody, and they're going to send me stuff.
And that's too bad.
I don't understand cryptocurrency at all.
Yeah, I don't even.
I'm so confused.
I don't get it.
I just don't understand what it is.
There's nothing to get.
It's like when you play Monopoly, right?
There's money there.
You take that money, you give it to somebody else.
They give you money can be exchanged for goods and services like peanuts or steaks.
So it's the same thing.
For example, just enunciate people.
You understand credit cards, right?
There's nothing tangible if you use a credit card on the internet, right?
I thought there was actually a guy that walked over to your vault and picked up the cash.
What's the difference in your mind between nine monocles?
Yeah, but I guess it's weird because isn't it all like mined and crowdsourced to all these different computers?
Yeah, it's mine.
So basically how you get a Bitcoin is you have an algorithm and the algorithm, you run the math.
It takes a long time on a computer.
It generates a Bitcoin.
The more Bitcoins there are, the fewer Bitcoins there are available mathematically to produce.
And it's asymptotic because the more that have been mined, the less the more expensive they're going to get.
They're going to be in circulation.
So these are two kind of mechanisms to keep the supply of the money stable and finite.
And the market is keeping it stable and finite through mathematics.
If I understand it correctly.
There's a great video.
It was Your Rivals The Onion, I think.
Watch this man mumble incoherently about Bitcoin for three minutes.
Bitcoin, the blockchain.
I'm lost.
What war criminal would we print on the Bitcoins?
Pinochet.
That's easy.
The helicopter reference again.
What would we do with the Hall of Presidents at Disneyland?
And you're anarchist.
We'd miss out on that awesome ride.
What would happen?
Ooh, this is a good one.
Is Trump in the Hall of Presidents?
I remember seeing it, and it looks like they had built a Hillary one and they tried to alter it into Trump.
It looks really weird.
Have you seen it?
I have not.
Would Michael still stump?
I feel like it would be, you know, like you go to those museums that are like serial killer houses.
So like you just look at like all the, so they'd be all lined up and all their atrocities and their lies would be.
Oh my gosh.
I'm showing the picture.
That looks like Hillary.
You're right.
I'm telling you.
It looks like they made Hillary then they take it back and make a Trump.
We didn't think this was going to happen.
No way.
Wow.
Horrifying.
They pulled the skin out a little.
Yeah, yeah.
Took out the lizard eyes, put it in some real eyes.
Smush it up a bit more.
I went to the Museum of Communism in Prague, and the Czechs are not fans of the commies, to say the least.
And what was amazing is like, unlike an American museum, where even if you go to the Holocaust Museum, it's going to be very serious and austere.
You know, this is about the horrors of communism.
But the way they were captioned was complete contemptuous and irreverence.
It was above a McDonald's, too.
And they're like, according to Marxism, communism would result in plenty and no one would ever be hungry.
In reality, this demented ideology meant that we were all starving and forced to wait online for hours.
So it was very much like not both sides, but like this is evil and ridiculous.
It was very wonderful to see.
Yeah, that's great.
Highly recommend it.
What would we call Lincoln logs?
We never had president.
Lincoln logs.
Something we never did, but we have to get rid of probably.
I was trying to think of if we're always anarchists.
Can I say the word turds?
Yeah, you're allowed to say turds.
Turds, I think.
A Lincoln log would be a euphemism for a turd.
Turd logs.
Yeah.
I'm guessing.
What would they call Washington State?
Oh.
We have to get rid of all the president-named things.
Yeah, I think you guys have a little bit of an idiosyncratic understanding of what anarchism is.
It's not like in an anarchist culture, like presidents have never existed.
And they're inherently have to be down the memory hall.
Like there's never been a presidency.
That's just lies that they teach you in those public schools of your.
Sounds like you're bending things around to kind of fit your name.
It would be called Washington society.
The state's the issue that's the problem there, not Washington.
Who would take my money and tell me what goods and services I need?
Your accountant.
Or your wife.
Your wife, obviously.
The same person who does now.
Yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
Oh, geez.
Who would kill Jeffrey Epstein?
Oh.
Gosh.
You had to make me be the one read that.
It would have to be.
I mean, it would still have to be Hillary.
Did you?
Yeah.
Oh, that's a good one.
You guys had a must have field day with this one.
Who would shoot the dogs?
Are you allowed to do this?
How are you more savage than me, even on this subject?
Oh, my God.
To be honest, we had about three minutes to rest.
He did a great job.
The neighbors.
For trespass.
Who would you rather have run the national parks, Costco or Sam's Club?
There's a Costco by my house.
I'm not a fan.
Sam's Club.
What's the difference?
Are they just basically the same?
It's the Walmart knockoff of Costco.
Oh, I'm going to go with Costco then.
And finally.
Yeah.
Who would be the best anarchist president?
Who would be the best anarchist president?
It would probably be, let's see if all the anarchists.
Would it be very failed podcaster Tom Woods?
I'm going to go with that.
I'm sure a lot of yours.
Tom Failed podcaster.
Yeah, I'm sure a lot of yours.
You were on his show, right?
I was.
Yeah, so very failed podcaster Tom Woods.
Yeah.
All right.
We'll let him know.
We'll tag him in the.
I'll text him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He knows.
Failing Tom Woods.
Very failed podcaster.
Very failed.
It's like a thing when you're new at screenwriting, you constantly put very on everything.
I'm just a young writer.
Very.
He's very, very angry.
Add an extra very, make sure they know.
More adverbs.
Needs more adverbs.
All right.
So go ahead.
I don't know if we were actually.
I didn't tell you, because you went to North Korea, like physically.
You've never been?
No.
It's the new Milan.
I've always wanted to go.
Yeah.
So what was that like?
You went to North Korea.
How'd you get there?
It was legal at the time.
So you could just buy a ticket.
No, So what you have to do is there are a couple of organizations and they partner with the North Korean government.
So the North Korean government at a certain point after the Cold War and the Soviet Union and China stopped subsidizing them.
Well, what do they have to produce to earn currency?
Very little.
So eventually they're like, all right, we can have tourism.
And Kim Jong-il was actually caught on tape saying we don't want hordes of tourists coming here, destroying the country and spreading AIDS.
Like that was his line.
So it's very expensive.
You have to go through China.
You have to get approved.
But I mean, it is impossible.
I wrote an article for Reason Magazine my week in North Korea.
It's impossible to accurately portray what it's like to other people because every aspect of the environment is foreign and artificial and different.
So the air, the architecture, the people, the sidewalks, like wherever you look, something is off.
So when something is so pervasive in its disorientation, you can't really replicate that experience verbally.
Right.
I saw the famous Vice video where the guys go over and they show kind of the bizarreness of like he goes into a tea shop and it's all set up for like lots of people, but clearly like they're just waiting for him to come in.
That's kind of that Vice documentary had some inaccuracies.
Okay.
Like that thing that you were saying.
Vice?
That's shocking.
Yeah.
I mean, it's useful because it exposed people to what North Korea life is like.
But like he basically implies that he smuggled, got smuggled and he did not.
And here's another example in that documentary.
So in North Korea, you can't criticize the government.
It is an absolute heresy and taboo, like to a religious point.
And there was this one scene where he's in the ballroom at the hotel and they feed him and they have like food for other people.
And Shane goes, well, where's everybody else?
And the woman's like, oh, they just left.
And he's like, you know, haha, how stupid they are.
It's like you're putting her on the spot on the camera, asking her to explain an apparent anomaly.
She can't say we don't have customers here.
So she's doing pretty good improv in her own way.
So, I mean, there's no First Amendment there.
You don't have freedom of speech and they punish your whole family.
So you have to be very, very, very, very paranoid about what you say.
And that's why a lot of times they say things that seem absurd because someone is watching them.
So you better, you know, if someone, let's suppose, you know, one of us was a hostage, right?
And we have to make a videotape to send to our family.
And we're covered in bruises and a black eye and broken nose.
And you're like, I'm fine.
I'm great.
And they're like, what happened to your nose?
You're not going to be like, they broke it.
You have to be like, oh, I was playing Frisbee and I fell.
That's what it is.
That's the reality of the situation there.
And that's what people have to keep in mind.
There was this Laura Ling or Lucy Ling, I forget her name.
She was there with a family in Pyongyang, and to be in Pyongyang in the capital, you have to be very, very trusted by the government.
And she says, oh, can Kim Jong-il do anything wrong?
Like, she's on camera asking them to criticize their leader.
And they pretended they didn't understand her.
And it's like, you are really an evil human being to do this to these people.
Yeah, I mean, they've got to be having their lives threatened.
But what can they say?
If they say no, then it's like you're making him out to be a superhuman.
And if you say yes, you're criticizing him.
Just awful.
So I saw a documentary that's on Netflix.
You've probably seen it where these medical people come over and they help them lift the cataracts.
So they basically gave all these people their sight back.
And the craziest thing about this whole thing is like, as each person gets their sight back, they see a picture of Kim Jong-il on the wall and they start bowing and crying to it and thanking it as if he gave their sight back, not these people came over to.
What you have to appreciate is these people are on camera.
Right.
And so as I was wondering, you think it's more that?
Of course, if you're on camera, you know, they had these, here's another example.
They were playing soccer in South Africa or, you know, whatever, some soccer game.
And the coach said, oh, you know, Kim Jong-il was basically the one who told us how to win.
And they go, how did he communicate?
It's like, oh, we have the cell phone, like this magic cell phone.
And they're like, you know, haha, what an idiot.
How crazy.
It's like, you're putting him on the spot.
The guy has to make up some cockamame-y thing about how it's actually Kim Jong-il who's coaching this team.
Now, how much do you think is there like genuine people in North Korea that really you think he's God?
Very much.
Okay.
Very much.
That's my curious in that scene where they're worshiping his picture.
It's like America.
You're going to have urban versus rural.
And you're going to have earnestness versus, are you kidding me?
Like, I know a refugee, and there's a very famous North Korean story that they tell the kids where Kim Jong-il's in kindergarten.
This is all in my book, everything I'm going to mention.
And the teacher says to him, one plus one is two.
And he's like, not always.
And she goes, what do you mean?
He goes, well, if I add one drop of water to another drop of water, I don't have two drops.
I have one bigger drop.
And like, therefore, communism, right?
And this refugee I know, she's in kindergarten, first grade.
She thinks to herself, this is the stupid thing I ever heard.
Like, what are you talking about?
But she knew to smile and nod and be like, oh, yeah, this is what a genius.
This is amazing.
So there is, you know, when they're teaching now that Kim Jong-un knew how to drive a car at age two or four, which is physically impossible.
How's he reaching the pedals?
It's getting harder and he invented.
It's getting harder and harder for the, we talk about fake news in the cathedral here to maintain their hegemony.
Because if I tell you lies all the time, as soon as you catch me in one, the whole thing falls apart.
And especially if you have more and more people from outside who like escape or you communicate with outsiders, you realize, okay, this is ridiculous nonsense.
And we want to listen to crappy music from South Korea.
As soon as I, what you're saying was like, you know, if you catch somebody in a lie, you catch the media in a lie, that's how you start to realize that maybe they lie a lot more than you think.
I see that, like, when I actually know something about a topic.
Oh, yeah.
You know, and then I read an article on it, and I'm like, you guys have no idea what you're talking about.
Right.
And then I think, okay, all the stuff that I don't know about that I read and I just assume they know what they're talking about.
You know, I don't know.
I feel like that there's probably a term for this phenomenon.
There's, I mean, I'm very big on animals and zoology.
And, you know, I totally spurred out.
There was an article that there was like, you know, every outlet covered it about that this Galakobos Galapagos turtle, this one male kept the species from extinction because they bred him with all these other females and blah, blah, blah, blah.
And they only preserved a subspecies, of which there are, I think, like 12.
So there's such a profound difference between a species and a subspecies, where a subspecies can something be like, it just happens to be geographically located here, or like the lip is a little bigger, or this one's blue and yellow, and this one's just blue, right?
I mean, it's the same, they can interbreed the same species bill account.
But all the headlines are like, oh, turtle saves a species.
And then immediately it starts talking about subspecies.
It's like, what are you doing?
Do you not have someone with like a high school information of like a zoological taxonomy there?
Yeah, well, we see it like when they report on the church on their prayer religion.
And we read it and we're like, this person has never been to a church in their lives.
I was reading this article on my show, Nightshade, about they passed a pro-life law in some southern state.
Maybe it's Alabama or South Carolina.
You guys will probably remember.
And they quoted someone from like some pro-choice organization about why this bill is a bad idea, but they never quoted a pro-life person explaining why it's a good idea.
And I just read it.
I'm like, well, I want to hear what the pro-life defense of this is, because as you're framing it, it sounds pretty egregious.
But nope.
Nope.
Yeah.
So is the media better here or in North Korea?
Should it go on record saying our media is better than North Korea?
Our media is far better than North Korea's.
Yes.
Yeah.
Did you have any interactions in North Korea that were like real moments with anybody there?
They're not robots.
If they were robots, it would work.
So when you see how normal they are and vapid, it's terrifying because we like to think that people in these weird countries, and I'm going to sound like a whatever, but it's true, are totally alien to us.
And you see grandmas with their grandkids, you know, doting over them.
And you see the teenage boys in their adidas track suits who have attitudes.
And you're like, wow, like these, they're all in prison.
And they've been in prison for decades.
And most of them know they're in prison.
And that is what makes it really, really disturbing.
And the fact that everyone I've met when I was there is still there.
Like, I'll see people I've seen like on Instagram.
And it's just like, they're rich.
They're in Pyongyang.
They're like the richest ones.
And they're still trapped.
They can never.
And if they leave the country, their family will be killed publicly and made examples of.
That's crazy.
So do you see any end to the North Korean government?
Yeah.
I think things are spiraling much quicker than people realize.
I think when these regimes go down, they go down hard and fast.
Like Libya is a good example.
Like that was very, very quick.
Despite Hillary Clinton's defense.
Yeah, despite that video on YouTube, which caused writing.
So what any state needs, especially a state that's that kind of religious in its nature, is earnestness and belief.
And at a certain point, it's like, if you're hungry, I don't care.
I just want food.
So the increasing understanding that there is an illegitimacy to this government and that's not providing what it promised, that's the healthiest thing.
And the fact that so much of it's happening through black markets, which is a great mechanism, and this is my anarchist brain talking, but it's the truth.
It's a great mechanism for undermining any kind of totalitarianism.
Because if you're getting your food through alternative mechanisms, your loyalty is going to be toward your stomach.
Yeah.
And I always think that, I mean, I know there's a lot in it for him, Kim Jong, to be keeping, you know, getting to be in that position, but like a kid of a like a cult or a super far in one direction religion, you know, each generation kind of starts to see the And then also, because now they have the internet and they're so connected to the rest of the world.
Well, they don't have the internet by law, right?
It's illegal to be able to.
I assume Kim Jong.
Kim Jong-un.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
He knows who's going to.
I always forget which Kim Jong is up right now.
Yeah.
Uno.
But he's number dose.
Number Trace.
Oh, Trace.
Yeah, he's third, right?
Yeah.
Kim Song was first, the great leader.
Yeah.
I love how you guys think anarchism means hating presidents.
Anarchists, what does that even mean?
He hates presidents.
Well, no, I think we were playing.
I think we went two different directions.
One was like, what if we never had the government?
And then we're like, what's all this?
Where's all this great stuff going?
Yeah, yeah.
Like the Hall of Presidents.
And that's our one example of future years.
It was really mixed up.
Don't bring up presidents around him.
It really sets him off.
Yeah.
I had to hide my Abraham Lincoln tattoo before you came in.
So which dystopian novel.
Wait.
Why are you laughing?
My Abraham Lincoln tattoo?
Dystopian Heckscape.
Heck escape.
Yeah.
No, which dystopian novel got it closest to what North Korea is?
Like 1984?
Oh, closest to North Korea.
Yeah, to North Korea.
I mean, how many dystopian novels are there?
There aren't that many.
There's a bunch.
But I guess what I'm thinking of is like, when I read 1984 and then I watch one of those North Korean documentaries, to me, that's like a.
But 1984 was like high-tech.
Yeah, this is what Ayn Rand gets right, the vampire novelist, is that when you have these totalitarian regimes, technology doesn't keep pace.
And there's that joke about what the socialists used before they used candles, light bulbs.
So you don't have electricity in Pyongyang, the capital.
So this 1984, almost Gattaca-like country is not a thing.
I don't know.
I don't think there, because all of these dystopian novels take place in the future.
And like I mentioned in my article on reason, when you go to North Korea, you're going to another planet back in time, but it's also different times.
So like the first thing I saw in the parking lot at the airport was a woman dressed in like, like she was like a rich woman, but that meant like 80s clothes and talking to a military guy who was stopping her, which was like 50s Russian.
So you're not having any sort of futurism at all.
Everything is old and wearing down.
So I don't think there's many dystopian novels, which is counterintuitive, that focus on like decadence and decay, although ostensibly they all came from a better place.
Yeah, I guess that's true.
All the dystopias are like, we have advanced far enough where now the government controls everything.
Yeah.
But that place is like the government controls everything, but they don't have the technological running water.
Yeah.
So how long are you there for?
Oh, I know.
The dystopian novel that most resembles North Korea is Dear Reader.
His books.
I set you up.
I teamed you up to promote your work.
I was there for a week.
Okay.
Yeah.
Got any cool stories?
Sure.
We're the best interviewers.
Andrew Doe got mad at me for asking him that, but like, I was like, I was like, sometimes you have a cool story you want to get to that you could get to, and I don't know the questions to get to it.
I just want to get any cool stories from North Korea?
He really mocked us hard for that question.
Like, oh, great interview, guys.
So you got a good interview.
You just asked me to do a snob.
Yeah, it's those British.
I'll give you a good story about North Korea.
I'm going to get all earnest on this air quote satire show.
Okay.
Yeah.
Be like Ernest.
I was doing, I was on Fox and Friends or Fox and Friends First, where there were those recently those hostages were released in North Korea, and they got off the plane and they were kissing the ground in America and Trump had freed them.
And the interviewer asked me, what is your big concern with the upcoming summit?
And I said, the ongoing enslavement of the North Korean people.
And they were like, oh, duh.
So my story is, you can hate Trump or Obama.
I don't care.
Whenever you hear a story about North Korea, realize you've got 25 million people in constant fear for their lives and their families.
And the only thing that matters is their peaceful liberation.
And I'm not even saying they got to be some Western democracy.
I'm saying get them to the point where they have a passport, access to information, and they can get drunk and eat their kimchi.
I'm not being racist.
They're obsessed with it there.
On their recliner, like everybody else, and watch three channels.
Like, that's it.
Then we're done.
Like, that's my list.
So that to me, and I haven't found anyone who really disagrees.
Whenever you hear a story, think, what does this mean for these people?
And why is this being presented in this way in terms of the government maintaining salt control?
Because this didn't happen overnight.
It's not an accent they've outlasted everybody, you know, since the 40s till 2020 now.
Remember, they had that Facebook group.
They were like, let's mob Area 51.
We should do a Facebook group.
Let's mob North Korea.
That's going to end well for everybody.
Good idea.
Just throwing ideas on them.
What do you think about how brainstorming?
North Korea is so pro-gun that Kim Jong-il's mom, anti-Japanese heroine Kim Jong-suk, that's always how she's pronounced with an epithet.
She's pictured in this hambok, which is the Korean traditional dress, which people are familiar with, I'm sure.
And she'll be standing in front of a lake with like cherry blossoms or whatever, but she's holding a gun.
So she's always portrayed holding a gun because she was supposed to be.
They're like in like children's songs and stuff.
Yeah.
And plus bombs.
They're all about bombs.
So there's a lot of, like, but it's just very weird because very traditional, Asian, old school, but she's holding a pistol.
So there's a lot of that conflation that's unique to North Korea and really bizarre by our sense of.
But the citizens don't do they have guns.
No, but a lot, I mean, they have the fourth largest military in the world.
Yeah.
You know, so joining the military is a huge, huge honor.
And basically, Kim Jong-il's ideology was called Sung Bun, which means military first, which means the military eats first.
So they have a cult of the gun.
And Kim, there's a story about the great leader, Kim Il-sung, sat down, little Kim Jong-il, and was like, you know, a gun is every revolutionary's best friend.
A gun will never betray you.
And he gave him his gun as this token of whatever.
So it's very much venerated there.
Wow.
That's how Ethan was raised.
Yeah.
Except for it was the baby back ribs, just making fat jokes at my own expense.
And the jars of urine.
It was the pencil drawing.
The sketch pencil.
I've got the gout.
So how, what are your thoughts on how Don, Don in the White House, is handling North Korea.
I'm disappointed that it's at a stalemate.
I am ecstatic that he's made this a topic of conversation.
I could not believe it.
Ann Coulter got very butthurt at the State of the Union when you had that North Korean refugee who I think they ran over his leg or something.
He's holding up the crutch, you know, in the State of the Union audience.
She's like, this isn't our problem, North Korea.
It's like, sure, I get that argument.
It's still good when people escape dictatorships.
We can still be like, it's great this person survived and is healthy.
Let's applaud that.
So I am very sad.
There was a lot of momentum happening.
I am very worried that it's going to be on the back burner.
And that just is more time for these people to be suffering.
Well, I know a lot of us got real concerned.
You see Trump tweeting back and forth with North Korea, like, you know, threatening nuclear war and all this stuff.
And for those of us who are really concerned when Trump was elected that he was going to be this crazy guy, it was like, oh, this isn't going to work.
He's going to.
Sure.
And it didn't happen.
You know, it actually worked, it seemed like, as a deterrence.
And what were you thinking when Trump started doing this kind of stuff?
I was thinking he's speaking their exact language because they're very big on, in their own words, going up to America and slapping her across the face and making her do what we want, right?
They talk about this.
They compare themselves.
This is also my book to an anthill, and we're an elephant.
And they say explicitly, the ants can't kill the elephant, but we can guide it to the way we want it to go.
So we forget North Korea has this secret weapon that gives everyone amnesia.
North Korea sentenced President Trump to death in absentia.
And they were going to Guam or Alaska.
And then six months later, they're holding hands.
So this is you're speaking to any kind of conversation, negotiation, you want to meet that person on their level.
If someone says, oh, you know, I want to buy a fancy car.
No, you don't.
You want to get a cheap one.
That's not salesmanship, right?
You can maneuver them being like, well, this fancy car is really blah, blah, blah, but you have to be in their context.
So he did that very effectively.
Obama didn't seem to care one way or another, which was very sad.
But Trump obviously cares and he cares about it on a humanitarian level.
So again, I'm just sorry it's not more of an issue recently in a good way.
Have you ever been a car salesman?
I have not.
No, no.
I've never been a car salesman.
I don't even know how to drive.
Really?
Yeah.
What are some.
Everyone a dishwasher?
No.
What are some jobs you've had in your day?
Like the first job I had was writing for an Aquarium magazine.
I got an applause for that.
Yeah, well, thank you.
Thank you.
It's fun coming to California with people.
Your first job was writing in a magazine.
Yeah.
Wow.
And then you just.
And I went to college.
Huh.
I never had grunt work.
Wow.
So you had real world work.
I know you're such an elitist.
Yeah.
Of course I have.
I have that piece of Alexander Hamilton's hair hanging in my office.
Did you buy it with troll money?
No, I bought this like 20 years ago before he was such a thing.
Oh, before the play.
Yeah, yeah.
Who are your top five presidents?
Ooh, that's a good one.
Top five.
I would say Harding.
I don't know.
I don't.
Harrison.
Why?
William Henry Harrison.
I hate that joke.
I hate it.
We want to abolish the presidency, not the presidents.
Does it make sense?
Did you just tell me you hate my joke on my show?
Well, it's yes.
It's not your joke.
You know why?
Because it's not your joke.
This is a silly cliche that you see on the internet that these libertarians throw up.
My favorite president is William Henry Harrison because he's mockingly.
I hate my joke.
I was doing an accurate impression of your voice.
People are always surprised what they sound like when they hear themselves.
Layla say he talks like Cart with a frog.
I don't see it.
I got devastated by Miguel Alexander in our last interview.
He's like, oh, is that he's a South African guy?
And he goes, oh, so is that supposed to be a joke?
And I was like, oh, he said it so politely, though.
Yeah.
Yikes.
And now Michael Malice.
Yeah, I don't have five.
You don't have five?
I don't think I can five.
What are the bottom five?
Wilson, by far.
Okay.
Two would be FDR.
Three, maybe LBJ.
Who else is horrible?
Teddy Roosevelt?
That might be.
That's four of them.
That's four.
Andrew Jackson might be up there.
Andrew Jackson.
Yeah.
So no Bush, Obama.
Populist.
No.
They're no one near as bad as some of these other ones.
What about Polk?
I don't know.
No, he got Mexico, didn't he?
I don't know what he did.
He professed the Polk?
Yeah, I thought he got like a lot of land.
I have no idea.
Hey, fact checker, let us know.
Do you know who is really a disturbed president and no one knows about talks about this?
Grover Cleveland.
Do you know about this?
He's the really fat one, right?
No, that's William Howard Taft, who's going to be played by Ana Navarro in an upcoming biopic.
Grover Cleveland adopted a girl as a baby and married her like the month she turned 21.
Wow, that's bizarre.
That's really creepy.
Wait, was the law 21 back then?
I'm assuming.
Why did he wait to 21?
Well, he doesn't want to give off the wrong impression.
That there's some kind of impropriety here about marrying your daughter, who you've raised since she was a baby.
Or I don't know if he raised her so much as he was the head of her estate, but yeah, he knew her since she was a baby.
It was like Woody Allen.
Yeah.
Woody Allen thing.
Love knows no age.
I guess.
We need to use this on the teaser for this episode.
Love knows no age.
Wow, that's not good.
Yeah, are we into the subscriber portion yet?
Nixon might be there, top five.
He's powerful.
Bottom five.
Yeah, Nixon might be up there.
Okay, so now we got your five.
That's six, I think, I threw up.
Yeah, that's six.
Yeah.
Who's this?
I missed the fifth.
Jackson.
Jackson, that's right.
You said Jackson.
What do you want to promote?
If you want to promote anything, you need the new right or.
I guess if people want to read the books, the new right is about the non-conservative or unorthodox right wing and the history of it.
So that came out in May, which it did very well.
And my other book, if you want to know everything you need to know about North Korea in one sitting, it's Dear Reader, the unauthorized autobiography of Kim Jong-il.
And I figured out a way, which you guys would appreciate with what work you do, is to take the story of North Korea and find humor in it, even though it's very, very, very dark humor.
But that makes it palatable.
And then you can be followed.
Michael Malis, we'll put that all in the show notes.
And I apologize in advance to all the God-fearing listeners.
Coming up next for Babylon Bee subscribers.
Government can't be our morality, right?
It can with nefarious concepts.
Yeah, like pure force.
If anybody in the NSA is listening right now, I just want to be clear that me and Ethan lump removed.
It's only thanks to social media that people are pointing out their malfeasance and depravity.
We've talked about why they hate Joe Rogan.
People just sit there for three hours and talk.
And it's like there's no gatekeeper for telling you this is what he believes.
Right.
Or framing a headline.
Enjoying this hard-hitting interview.
Become a Babylon Bee subscriber to hear the rest of this conversation.
Go to BabylonB.com slash plans for full-length ad-free podcasts.
Kyle and Ethan would like to thank Seth Dylan for paying the bills, Adam Ford for creating their job, the other writers for tirelessly pitching headlines, the subscribers, and you, the listener.
Until next time, this is Dave D'Andrea, the voice of the Babylon Bee.
I'm thinking of like in every 80s movie, there's always a gang of bad guys.
And there's always one guy that has like crazy hair.