This is the Babylon Bee Interview Show. In this episode of The Babylon Bee Podcast, Kyle and Ethan talk to YouTube influencer and Libertarian advocate, Julie Borowski. While working at FreedomWorks, Julie rose to YouTube and Facebook fame by being a young voice for the Libertarian Party. She has since written two children books titled Nobody Knows How To Make A Pizza and The Peaceful Porcupine. Kyle and Ethan talk to Julie about the failing Libertarian party, spanking kids, and anarchy. Be sure to check out The Babylon Bee YouTube Channel for more podcasts, podcast shorts, animation, and more. To watch or listen to the full podcast, become a subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans Topics Discussed What does Libertarian mean? Children's book about Libertarianism Making inside jokes about Libertarians How did Julie get into politics? Free State Project conference Daycare Failure of the Libertarian party Jo Jorgenson Vice President Candidate Spike How Anarchy would play out Cops and Libertarianism Perfect world vs reality Mormon method for Libertarians HOA Bitcoins Morals for a Libertarian Parenting kids Spanking kids Another Calvin story Subscriber Portion Creative parenting Attack on the capitol Joe Biden authoritarianism Voices on Freedomtoons 10 questions
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 Ryan 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 B interview show.
Libertarians, drugged out wackos, Bitcoin collectors, a little bit of both.
We're going to find out today as we talk to Julie Borowski.
Borowski.
That's right.
She's a mother.
She's a children's book author.
She's a YouTuber.
And she tweets.
She is the face of the libertarian movement.
Let's go talk to her.
Hello, Julie.
Thanks for coming on.
Hey, thanks for having me on.
So Julie's a libertarian, which I feel like 10 years ago you could say that and you knew what you meant by that.
But we keep bringing libertarians on and then they're like, but actually I'm a MAGA Trump supporter.
And you're like, oh, so that's not.
Yeah, I'm a quasi-lino-dibidibi libertarian.
Like they add a bunch of stuff.
Yeah, or they're just a Bitcoin enthusiast and call themselves a libertarian.
It also used to be kind of okay to say you're libertarian, like, oh, okay, you smoke a lot of weed.
I get it.
But now people are like, you're what?
So that's one reason people are backing off libertarian because you because they get that like glazed, angry look in there, libertarian.
Well, vote for Trump.
I think the tipping point was when they got naked at that conference at the presidential nomination thing.
I mean, the guy ran around that after whatever.
Yeah.
And so, Julie, what kind of libertarian are you?
Are we talking weed, Bitcoin, running around the conference naked?
I mean.
So I like to joke that I'm too libertarian to be libertarian because when you say you're libertarian, you get grouped in with a bunch of people and some people that you don't particularly like, like people who strip at conferences and stuff.
And you get kind of conspiracy theory people and all kinds of just weirdos.
And a lot of people don't even know.
They call themselves libertarian, but they don't even know what libertarianism means.
It bothers me so bad when I post something on Twitter that's just like, hey, stop being a jerk.
And they're like, I thought you were a libertarian.
How dare you tell people what to do?
It's like, no, the whole point of libertarianism, at least what I thought when I got involved back in like high school, was that libertarianism was all about the government.
The government can't force you to do stuff, you know, as long as you're not hurting anybody else.
That's what libertarianism is supposed to be about.
But, you know, over the years, I think it's devolved into a bunch of different kind of sects of libertarianism.
You have, you know, the Ron Paul people, you have the left libertarians.
Yeah, you have the Bitcoin people, the weed people.
You have all kinds of people.
But yeah, I joke that I'm too libertarian to be libertarian.
So I kind of call myself just, I'm independent.
I'm just me.
I'm Julie.
I have these views.
That's it.
We can force, we the people can force each other to do things.
It's just not the government.
Well, I'm just trying to figure it out.
Well, I mean, consent is like the whole point of libertarianism, right?
You can't force people to do something they don't want to do.
Unless they defy the non-aggression principle.
Yeah.
Are you just saying for ages that you're just trying to act like I get?
Isn't that what?
So you wrote a book.
I can still have opinions on stuff is what I'm trying to say.
Yeah.
Like, I dude, I don't smoke weed.
I definitely would say, don't do heroin.
If you ask me, I say, hey, don't do heroin.
It's bad for you.
That doesn't mean that I'm not a libertarian.
It's just like I have opinions on stuff, guys.
What about DMT?
Have you ever done DMT?
No.
I don't even know what that stands for.
I'm just, yeah.
I don't either.
I don't either.
I know DMX.
I don't know DMT.
I don't know.
Okay.
Yeah.
So you wrote a porcupine book called Porcupine.
The Peaceful Porcupine.
And it's about, is it about the non-aggression principle?
Is that correct?
Yes.
So I'm writing children's books about libertarianism, but it's not cringy.
Okay.
Okay.
So immediately when you tell somebody, because I guess I'm a kind of a political commentator person that I'm writing children's books, it comes off as kind of cringy, like Colt.
Like, I don't know, that's kind of indoctrination.
That's weird.
But my books, I've written two, are pretty like, I'm not forcing anything down kids' throats.
It's more teaching them about economics and morals.
So non-aggression principles.
It's kind of like Baron's name bears.
It's really something that parents should teach their kids, but in case they don't have that.
The non-aggression principle, yes, libertarians talk about it a lot, but like it's pretty, it should be universal.
Like it's basically don't hurt people and don't take their stuff.
So the peaceful porcupine, if you don't know, porcupines are kind of like the libertarian mascots because porcupines, while they look scary, they have all these spikes and claws and stuff.
They're really, the whole motto is don't hurt me and I won't hurt you.
If you aggress upon a porcupine, like you're going to have regrets, okay?
But if you leave them alone, they're not going to mess with you.
So it's like the libertarian animal.
So I wrote a book about that.
And it's a story.
It's not talking about the non-aggression principle.
Like it never says the non-aggression principle to kids, right?
This is like three to seven-year-olds, guys.
But it basically talks about how the friends in the forest are kind of scared of the porcupine because they think, oh, look at those spikes.
That's scary.
But eventually he comes across like this orphan bunny and the rabbit and they become friends because the porcupine protects him.
So it's kind of saying, hey, this is a good thing.
And it's all a happy ending because storybooks should have happy endings.
And it's all, it's all cute and it's adorable.
I would recommend you get it.
Even if you don't like me, the illustrations are absolutely wonderful and it's adorable.
Do they preemptively nuke the porcupine?
And then they're like, because you know, it looks dangerous.
That's the gritty sequel.
They basically just stay away from him.
And this is a sad story at first because the porcupine has no friends.
The porcupine wants to be friends with these animals.
Just like libertarians.
Yeah, you know.
Ouch.
I wish I could say that wasn't true, but okay.
So it's kind of has my books has a lot of inside jokes within libertarianism because I want this book to be something that libertarian parents will like, but also I can give to my nieces and nephews and stuff and they won't, their parents won't get mad at me for doing so.
So the porcupine's name is Napo, the non-aggression principle, P.O. Porcupine.
So libertarians will understand that, but like my, you know, my brother, my cousins will not understand what that's about.
And also the whole no friends thing, that was kind of a thing.
I didn't know if other people would think that, but you did.
I picked up on that right away.
So the porcupine doesn't like storm the Capitol building at the end.
And no, no, are there like two chipmunks named Ron and Paul?
No, but in my first book, yeah, maybe the next book, but in the first, the first book I wrote is Nobody Knows How to Make a Pizza.
It's modeled on iPencil by Leonard Reed, which is an essay.
And I give the characters names like Leonard, Edward, Reed.
Okay.
But only libertarians will understand that.
Yeah, we're not a libertarian.
Yeah.
You're like, but yes, I sneak stuff in for the libertarian parents and the kids who will not know.
So I want to kind of figure out like where the heck you came from because you did this like popular YouTube channel and you've got a bunch of Facebook followers.
And when I first started getting interested in Liberty and all this, you know, you kept popping up.
And so is this something you meant to do or is this like, oh, I guess I have all these followers now?
I got involved in politics big time in college through the Ron Paul campaign on 2007, 2008.
I was the Ron Paul girl on campus.
So I was really into this and I really wanted to work in a political think tank, DC type.
So I did.
I got a job at Freedom Works, which was a, which is a, which was, is a tea party organization.
And I worked for them for a while.
And while I was working for them, I started a YouTube channel on my own just because I have opinions and I kind of wanted to get them out there.
And kind of, it was mostly me fooling around.
And then they started kind of going a bit viral in the liberty communities.
And it was kind of weird because my boss had no idea that I was making these videos.
So it was a good thing.
But I was like, oh, yeah, I've been doing stuff on YouTube.
I hope that's okay.
Yeah, that's bizarre.
I know you and I both spoke at a Free State Project last February.
Oh, you guys are in the basement.
We went to the drug den together and smoked a bunch of weed.
But no, not really.
That is false.
That's not true.
That's not true.
Don't spread the rumors.
That is false.
But it was bizarre to me because I run the Babylon Bee and nobody knows who the heck I am.
And I'm like, hey, it's Julie.
I know who she is.
And so, you know, I mean, you have much more of like a recognizable face in the Liberty movement.
But my face is all over.
Your face is everywhere.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, those conferences are wild.
This is one thing that's interesting about Liberty.
Like, you're talking about people that you don't like to necessarily associate yourself with.
They're like drugs.
You know, you're like, oh, I don't do drugs and I think that's bad.
Those conferences are super interesting to me because it's just like this bizarre eclectic mix of all these people who appreciate liberty for different reasons.
And you're like, okay, I'm not really in with this crowd, but that's cool, I guess.
That kind of appeals to me about the libertarian thing because it seems like both parties, the Republicans and Democrats kind of, they do, Republicans have become a lot more of a big tent than, especially under Trump.
It seems like, but yeah, there was always like the clean cut guy in a suit was that they wanted everybody to be for them.
And then the Democrats were always, you know, whatever hippies with our paper.
Yes, I remember that conference and I actually really appreciated that conference because I went there with my son who was a year to he's two years old now.
But it was so cool because they actually have like a kids room for kids that parents can drop their kids off.
And I've never seen that in any libertarian political conference I've ever been to.
And that was cool to actually see kids running around because I know as a mom, like it's hard to get places because you're like, okay, who the heck's going to watch my kid for me?
Especially if I'm a speaker.
Like I can't have my kid up on stage with me.
So I actually really appreciate that.
I want more conferences to do that.
Yeah, not even libertarian conferences.
I haven't seen that in any dad's moms just have someplace to put your kids.
And it was so cool because the kids are kind of getting involved in this community too.
I saw, like, there was like, I don't know, lollipops and pens and stuff, and the kids were kind of walking around the booths and looking at stuff.
And I thought that was really cool.
Yeah, I was in a room listening to a guy talk about how he 3D prints guns.
And then in the next room, you hear all these little toddlers screaming, you know, and they're like running through the room and going back and forth.
And that's because they had Vermin Supreme running the daycare.
Vermin Supreme ran the daycare.
He kept hitting them all with his boot, calling him biting children.
No man, we take this boot off.
The kids all got rabies, but hey, it worked out though.
Yeah.
So what's your thoughts?
They survived.
So what's your thoughts on the incredibly failing Libertarian Party?
Oh my goodness.
What are my thoughts?
Yeah, you know, we're still trying.
Like I said, we say we're talking to a libertarian and it's like in the Libertarian Party.
I understand the connection there.
So, you know, it is kind of disappointing to me because Joe Jerkinson, I know she was kind of relatively unknown to libertarians before she became the Libertarian nominee.
I generally liked her.
Maybe there were some tweets that she probably shouldn't have sent that was kind of pandering to the left who are probably not going to vote libertarian ever.
But generally, I liked her on policy.
I thought she thought she was like a normal person.
I thought she was just, I liked her personality.
I think she was a very welcoming person.
Spike Cohen, I actually like him more now that he's not the vice presidential nominee for the Libertarian Party because he's kind of like a crazy character.
It's kind of like you shouldn't have like a kind of a joke candidate a little bit, but I like him now because I think it's good to have a sense of humor, just maybe not representing your entire party.
Republicans got a joke candidate and like worked out for that.
Worked out.
Okay.
I guess we can start talking a little bit more about that.
But he was a real, yeah.
So like, but Spike, he was talking about, oh, free, cheesy bread for everyone.
He was Vermin Supreme's, like, vice presidential candidate.
And yeah, it's funny.
It's a joke, but like, if you want people to take the Libertarian Party seriously, like, that's not the way to do it.
I don't know.
And Joe Jerkinson, I was kind of hopeful maybe, you know, of course, she was going to lose the election.
You know, I realize that I'm not in denial about that.
But I was hoping she would kind of be more of a spokesperson afterwards.
I haven't heard that much from her after the election, which is disappointing, especially, you know, not to do the whole identity politics thing, but it was nice to kind of have another woman because they all people, of course, you're going to ask me this question.
I know you're going to ask me this question.
Why aren't there more women in the liberty movement?
I think it's kind of cool to have kind of a woman leader in the libertarian movement because women can see that and be like, hey, I'm going to get involved too, that kind of thing.
So I don't know.
I don't know where she's been.
And I wish you would be more active because it involves because I do like her.
So you didn't vote for Trump?
I didn't vote at all.
Oh, okay.
And the reason why people get mad at me for this, but like I feel personally responsible when I vote.
I hold it over myself.
So whether Trump, if I voted for Trump or I didn't vote for Trump or no matter what, what happened, I would have held myself responsible for it.
And I do not live in a swing state at all.
So it was kind of like, I'm not going to do that to myself.
I am just going to troll on Twitter about it.
You know, you feel personally responsible and the person you may have voted for might have won, and but you just don't.
I know.
And it's like, no, if I vote or if I don't vote, the results are going to be the same, but I'm going to feel a guilty conscience.
You know, people say, oh, if you don't vote, you can't complain or whatever.
But like if I voted for someone, I'd be like, I am directly responsible for the capital if I vote for Trump, you know?
And I would hold myself like, what have I done?
Now I'm like, okay, well, I wasn't involved in any of this.
Don't blame me.
Beautiful.
Yeah, I'm kind of on this in the same boat as you, except I did cave and vote Trump at the last second.
But I've always felt that way.
This is the first time I ever voted.
How pure of a libertarian are you?
So are you like Mad Max anarchist tetopia?
Or are you like, you know, just less government?
I am just kind of a very realistic person in that I am not somebody who is going to promote anarchy or anything like that.
Not because I don't think it's a bad idea.
Like I think it'd be cool to see it, see what happens in anarchy.
Like I would think it's cool if they had like, they formed their own nation or had an island or, you know, they talk about seasteading and stuff like that.
I think it would be awesome.
I love seeing what would happen in the experiments and what pros and cons and all that kind of stuff.
I would love to see anarchy.
However, I don't think it's going to happen without them going away somewhere.
Like for me, it's kind of what's going to happen in the United States in my state and my community and that anarchy is not an option there.
So I do think for me, it is more government, more freedom, because I care about the future of like my children.
What are they going to live in?
And I know they're not going to live in anarchy.
And I'm afraid they're going to live in a more status society than we even live in now.
So I think pushing back on that is my first priority and not talking about anarchy for, you know, some kind of points online, purist points, when it's not, it's not a thing that's going to happen right now.
Right now.
Right.
You can go to your island and do anarchy, but how the heck are you going to convince people about anarchy when even saying, hey, we should reduce the government is met with shock?
So you're not a pure libertarian.
Sad.
I'm not a pure libertarian at all.
Like I said at the beginning, I'm too, I'm not even a libertarian.
I'm too libertarian to be libertarian.
I'm just me.
So do libertarians believe that there should be any cops?
Or are they want to be a little bit more?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It depends.
Then we go into like the perfect world and it's like, we don't live in the perfect world.
So we don't live.
We're close to the perfect world.
So, you know, a lot of libertarians, especially the men in the movement, they just like to go on for hours and hours on Facebook threads and, you know, call each other names and, you know, the perfect world is what happened, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, okay, you're wasting time here.
This is not going to happen.
So for me, one of the things is with my children's books is hoping that we become more free in the future with the children because I feel like so many adults are just, they don't get it.
They're never going to get it.
They're set in their ways.
They're stupid.
If we could, if we could introduce liberty to the younger generation, maybe we'll have a hope in the future.
Yeah.
And again, going back to that libertarian conference where they had all these kids running around, that was interesting to me because I see the libertarian as the neckbeard with the fedora and no kids.
Yes.
But to see, you know, married couples with kids, like at, you know, it was just like, oh, okay, that's, that's an interesting, I don't know if you want to call it a strategy or a value, you know, that you would more breeding.
Yeah.
It's the Mormon strategy.
You know, it is the only strategy that's really going to work because you are influencing your kids with your morals and teaching them.
And you can't teach just this random dude on Facebook about your morals.
He's not going to listen.
He's setting his ways, but you can actually influence your kids.
So, yes, I would like libertarians to actually shape up, get married, have sex, and have some kids.
Well, we just found the name of the episode.
We're always on the lookout for the name of the episode.
Usually, have kids just implies that you have sex.
Oh, did you say both?
Yeah, it's thorough.
Yeah, I guess adoption is also an option.
You don't say have acquire kids.
Yeah, acquire kids, but not kidnap them.
That's a violation of non-aggression principles.
Acquire kids legally.
Acquire kids legally.
Well, not legally, but consensually, and yes.
Wait, but legally too, right?
Okay, well, depending on what it is.
Probably want it to be legal.
Do you have laws in a libertarian?
Do libertarians have laws?
I'm still trying to understand the ultimate libertarian because I can't speak on, I can't speak for every libertarian, right?
Yeah.
For me, yes, I support laws against, you know, don't rape people, don't kill people, do not kidnap kids.
Okay, it's bold.
I'm on board.
Bold and controversial.
Bold, yeah.
Yeah, everybody?
Yes, yes.
But okay.
Yeah, I don't know.
Okay.
I always feel like the dumb guy when it comes to libertarian.
No, it's great.
No, just like, okay, so like people, my always, my question that I always get to with libertarianism is: isn't it like the idea of it is everybody's free to kind of like have their own philosophy and thing?
And it's just like you, you, you would think, right?
Right.
But then like you're free to create your kind of your own, you know, however you want your little society to work with everybody there kind of agrees on it or whatever.
But isn't that just lead to whatever the parties are in?
You know, couldn't libertarianism lead to Democrats and Republicans?
Like, didn't they, maybe they use their libertarian freedom to become not libertarians?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I understand where you're coming from.
So it really depends.
I know there's some libertarians say that society should be ran as like an HOA.
Like you have your own city.
I know that's, I was about to say, I purposely live without an HOA because I hate them.
So libertarians say, oh, let's have this like a citywide HOA where everyone kind of agrees to the roles here.
And if they don't like it, you can move to the other HOA.
But I'm just like, oh my God.
Because I think, yeah, I think there will always kind of be a power vacuum.
Right.
And there's always going to be, you know, busy buddies and old people who don't have anything better than to do than kind of boss people around, right?
In HOAs.
So I don't know.
It really depends.
I personally, my philosophy is, you know, don't hurt people, don't take their stuff.
I think that should be the whole libertarian viewpoint as opposed to, you know, we consent to all this weird stuff.
And I don't know.
And then you have like libertarian socialists, libertarian communists.
I'm like, I accept those with oxymorons, right?
Yeah, that's not something that I like.
No.
Well, the thing you're talking about with the HOAs is kind of, I mean, that's kind of what states were supposed to be, right?
Like in federalism.
Yeah.
Like, you don't like California, move to, you know, Missouri.
So, yes, I would be kind of like a, if we don't have a libertarian society, at least have more decentralization so people can vote where they're feet.
I think that's more of a realistic option.
Yeah.
Yeah, I kind of arrived in a similar place where I used to be more pure like anarchy, man, you know, and then I grew up legalized problem.
But It did come to the point where I'm like, well, philosophically, I can say from just to remain purely libertarian, like, okay, taxation is theft, and you know, police are illegal, or you know, the police should be banned, and you know, fire fire should be privatized.
And then you start thinking about it, and you go, well, right now, the fight that we're having is a different fight than that.
It's that the federal government has done so much, has expanded so far from that.
I'm like, if we could just get back to just police, fire, and roads, I would actually be fairly happy with that.
So, from a realistic perspective, I think, you know, I think you, I think you can make an argument for liberty and say, you know, no cops, no fire, no roads.
It was all privatized.
But it's like, that's not going to happen in our lifetime.
And so, let's fight about the things.
Let's fight about the government, you know, the federal government controlling public education and all, you know, let's do stuff that we might make some headway on.
Yeah, I think so.
I think it's nice to win stuff every now and then.
If you a lot of libertarians kind of get burnt out because you're talking about all these ideas and stuff and they're never going to happen, and you just see disappointment, disappointment.
And it's like, okay, let's focus on something that we can actually win.
I know it's kind of like a cliche, it's a libertarian pot thing, but it's actually a battle that we're starting to win.
A lot of places are legalizing marijuana statewide.
So I think, yeah, that's something that it's nice to win something every now and then.
And I know like Bitcoin and stuff, it's really taking off right now.
That's kind of, you know, libertarians had different viewpoints, but it's a lot of, there's a lot of overlap there.
And so that's kind of nice to see.
So I think, yeah, focus on a battle that actually is winnable is a good thing.
You're not wasting your time.
Well, you join the wrong party if you wanted to win something.
I know.
How many Bitcoins do you have?
Are they buried all over your town and certain locations?
They're physical.
Okay.
Well, I'm not going to answer that question.
However, I will say that I got some Bitcoins from libertarians like 2012, 2013.
And that as like a donation, I didn't ask for anything.
They just kind of like in Coinbase, you could give donations to people and they would give it to me.
And it was like, you know, maybe five, ten dollars.
I was like, okay, cool.
Thank you.
But I didn't think much about it.
And it wasn't until like maybe two years ago that I actually checked on how much it was worth.
And I was like, wow.
I didn't think I completely forgot about it.
And then I checked the Coinbase thing and I was like, I'm rich.
Yeah, what are they at now?
Like $30,000?
I'm not telling you.
Generally, I always try to get libertarians to tell me where they've buried their gold.
And Ron Paul wouldn't tell us.
It's very sad.
Yeah.
I don't think he understood what I was asking him, though.
So, where are you coming from?
Are you a religious person or you got a philosophy of what are you coming?
Where do your morals come from?
Because libertarians got to have morals.
Libertarianism doesn't tell you what right and wrong is.
How do I avoid this question?
You're in the hot seat.
You got to tell us.
I feel like it's a very personal thing.
It's something that I have shied away from talking about because I feel like I'm still on a journey of discovery.
Is that a weird thing to say?
But it's something I don't really want to talk about.
I also don't want to loop it in with my political stuff because I don't know.
It's just, I feel like you can be a, you know, a person who likes liberty and peace and all this stuff without being religious.
When you can be religious, it's not something I really want to tie together.
That's just my opinion, though.
People can have different stuff, but it's not something I want to talk about because I feel like I feel like I don't know enough.
I feel like my opinion is still kind of evolving and my views and stuff on religion and stuff like that.
So I just completely avoided your question.
That's fine.
We'll start rattling off denominations.
Yeah, we can just give you a quiz.
I will tell you also a lot of people have seen my wedding photos.
I did get married in a Russian Orthodox church.
Oh, wow.
So you're Russian Orthodox.
Got it.
Got it.
My husband is Russian.
I am a Russian.
Yeah.
I married a Russian.
I was okay with being married in the church because I like tradition.
And I thought that was a good thing to do.
Tradition's good.
Yeah, I guess the only reason I talk about that is because, well, because, you know, where the Babylon be, but also because I feel like any system of government, it only goes so far.
Like the people have to have a re, like, even just the idea of liberty.
Like, you can just tell everybody, we all have to agree on this principle, but we just made it up or whatever.
Yeah.
You know, what convicts people to hold to a value.
And I don't, that's one reason I sit back and watch the world burn and kind of chuckle because I don't think politics they only go so far to get us in the right direction.
If the people that are in the society have no moral convictions or don't have something guiding them to hold to that, then there's not a lot of hope, I don't think.
It's kind of like, you know, it's controlled chaos.
I can see that.
Yeah.
I even know some libertarians who talk about the ideas and non-aggression principle and they don't live up to their values in their own lives.
And they may not be religious.
I think not all religious people are good people.
Not all non-religious people are bad people.
But I think the threat of burning in hell for the rest of eternity is a good rational factor for some people to kind of shape up their lives.
Not everyone needs that, but it definitely helps for some people to be like, okay, I'm going to do the right thing.
Yeah.
Sure.
Sure.
Well, I mean, I do think it's something that the libertarian movement has struggled with because if you don't have a moral absolute outside of it, even if you don't want to call it religious, if you want to say there is good and bad and there is good and evil, and it's not just something that just, yeah.
I think that's kind of what you're saying.
It's not something that just evolved and we're all like, oh, this sounds good.
Yeah.
Like this is good for somebody.
Yeah, I see that.
Like if you're like, like imagine taking your political philosophy and trying to apply it to just like a group of like roving bandits.
Yeah, why is this good thing?
Like how is it going to control them if they have no desire to, I guess, yeah, create some kind of military to fight them or something.
I don't know.
Anyway.
Yeah, like don't aggress upon people.
Okay, why?
You know, all the smart people are yelling.
Why is it the right thing to do?
And it kind of goes on and on and on because, yeah, I see that.
If I can quote John Adams off the top of my head, our Constitution was made only for immoral and religious people.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
See?
Throwing it out there.
Wait, is he a libertarian?
Sure.
No, that's not.
I mean, I think that's well, maybe it's.
He was a soft libertarian.
A soft libertarian.
He wouldn't have done mushrooms.
Just got this little weed.
So you have a non-aggression principle with your children.
Do you never, you never spank?
Wait, wait, how old are you?
You have one kid.
He's almost three.
Oh, okay.
So, I mean, are you even there yet?
I mean, yeah, the actual having to really decide we're going to, we have to talk about your cow.
We have to ask how she would handle the situations with Calvin.
Oh, no, no, no.
So I do not spank.
I think there are parents who spank, you know, two and three-year-olds.
I've seen kind of stats about it that spanking starts at even like six months old.
And I think that is, to me, is unbelievably, even if you believe in spanking, like spanking a six-month-year-old because they touch something they don't know.
right from wrong at that point.
They're exploring, they're discovering things.
And I do not spank.
You know, people say it's against a non-aggression principle.
That's not where my viewpoint comes.
I kind of think it's just lazy to spank.
Am I going to get in trouble for saying that?
No, everyone's entitled to their opinion.
I just, when I think of parents who spank their kids, it's just they're not, you know, talking to them.
And, you know, I know a lot of people say, oh, that's permissive parenting.
Well, not really.
I think you should hold kids accountable.
Like, I tell my kid no all the time.
I'm not somebody, oh, do whatever you want to do, but I don't, I would never hit my kid.
It's just, it's lazy.
It's just not good parenting, I don't think.
It's just, I just see kind of like a parent spanking their kids.
Like they don't care.
And it's really effective spanking.
And I think that's part of the problem is that it's effective because it's like the first, it can become really addicting to spank their kid on any little thing they do.
It's the same thing with like yelling and stuff.
And I've had to work on this myself because yelling is really effective at getting kids and your spouse and everyone to listen to you, but it's not the right thing to do.
So I've tried to be like, okay, don't spank, don't hit.
Just, you know, talk to some talk to your kids with respect because kids really learn from the way you act.
The way you, you don't really teach your kids as much as you do from them watching you and modeling your behavior.
So I want my kid to, you know, treat people with respect and things like that.
And I can't treat him poorly and expect him to treat other people with respect, including myself.
So, no, I don't spank.
I've been spanking my kids since he was in the womb.
I was going to say, you spank Kyle?
You're spanked?
Yes.
We found it was effective with certain kids, right?
And other kids have four.
So other kids are like, oh, sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I know, I know I only have one kid.
So people are like, oh, you only have one kid.
You don't know.
You don't know what's coming and stuff like that.
But like, I don't know.
I just, I couldn't see myself doing that.
I feel like I would feel just terrible by doing that.
Yeah.
I think it comes to you're like, you know what?
I feel really terrible because he's gotten out of bed 17 times.
And then you're like, yeah, maybe I will spank.
Just try one little swat.
Holy crap, that worked really well.
That's why I don't spank them because I know if I get really frustrated and stuff, like I'll go, I'll be like, okay, well, hitting him is an option.
But I want to tell myself that's not an option.
When I get really frustrated, hitting, it's spanking.
Okay.
You know, tomato tomato.
Well, I think hitting implies you just like walk up and like, bam.
Yeah.
And it's, well, because you sit there and say, I don't enjoy doing this.
And I don't want to do it, but I'm going to do it.
Well, I'm not trying to convert you to spanking.
It's an interesting discussion though.
And I do think you, I do think there's a difference between like what you're talking about of a parent in the store like, hey, bam.
Yeah.
And when we see.
I see so many parents like that.
It just drives me crazy.
I hate parents at the grocery stores are just so just mean and terrible to their kids all the time.
I don't judge people.
I don't know.
I just feel like they're not enjoying their kids.
They're really worried about how their kids act in public.
They're worried about other people judging them.
They're worried about their kids.
You know, kids are going to do dumb things and they're like really nervous about other people judging them.
So they have to be on top of their kids all the time.
Hey, don't touch that.
Don't do that.
What are you doing?
That kind of thing.
It's just chill out.
Okay.
Like kids are going to do stuff.
They're going to yell and stuff.
And just, I don't know, just peacefully try to solve the situation.
And if it's getting really frustrating, I know it's what it's like to be frustrated.
Just kind of take a breather, step away, and be calm.
That's what I try to do.
What if your kid announced that he's voting for Bernie?
Spanking be okay then?
I have to think about that one.
It's defensive at that point, right?
It's that's definitely for the future of the country.
I mean, I take a little SWAT to save the countries.
I do think I've found like the thing is, like, spanking it, they don't want to be spanked.
So it becomes it, you don't do it a lot.
It's that you have to make it a rare thing.
If you do it too much, they'll build up a callus, you know, right?
Because it needs to be a special occasion.
Yeah.
Because I mean, because I actually agree with your criticisms, but I would say that that's a misapplication of like, because for me, spanking is not like all the time and it's not an addiction.
It's like, it's like I haven't spanked.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
It's like there's deliberate disobedience and it's like, hey, go to your room, think about it.
And I'm going to be up there to talk to you.
Yeah.
And then you talk, you have a conversation.
So you know there's a consequence.
Swat.
Because one of the unexpected things is when you like seriously discipline your kids, it actually grows your connection grows with them.
If you, if you don't see it as a separation, like they don't feel like you've separated yourself from them.
But I know that when I seriously discipline my kids and then come and hold them, there's a it feels like a deepening of our relationship because it's like it's very secure to have somebody that you know loves you, protects you, has,
you know, lives to provide you life to both, you know, they put you in that scary place of getting spanked or whatever and being disciplined, but then suddenly, but then they are your safety.
And there's a it's more well-rounded than just like, well, well, Johnny, we're not going to do that, are we?
It kind of makes you just now you're straw manning her position.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm always saying that's the straw man in all our heads.
No, I get it.
I feel like spanking my kid would like hurt the parent child bod though, because I feel like we are so close.
I'm pretty much, I'm pretty much a stay-at-home mom that we're together like 24-7 and hitting him would kind of break that connection a bit.
I don't know.
I just think that he would be like, well, what are you doing?
Like, I can't come to you all the time.
Like, I want my kid when he's in trouble to actually be able to come to me and talk to me.
And, you know, let's figure this out.
Let's come up with a solution.
That thing.
And I think that I don't want my kid to be afraid of me, afraid that, oh, I might hit him if he did bad.
Like, I want to have this kind of open line of communication with him.
And I feel like that would kind of break the bond.
I don't know what you're talking about because I never spanked him before, but I don't know.
I feel like it would hurt that.
Because I think I want my kids to fear me.
So, yeah, they should have a respectful fear, right?
I want to clarify: like, a lot of people say, oh, look at these rioters, especially over the summer.
It's because they weren't spanked.
You know, they need to be spanked.
They need to be whipped.
Harder to do, harder girl.
And they say, yeah, and then they look at me when I'm talking about non-spanking, like, you're the problem.
Okay.
The problem is permissive parenting.
The problem is parents who let their kids do whatever they want to do with absolutely no consequences.
What I'm saying is, I think kids should have consequences.
Think they should, you know, have some punishment and they should be told no, and all this needs to happen.
But it doesn't need to be, and I know you're going to be like, That's that's a stretch, but it doesn't need to be violence.
Yeah, there's a certain range that's at a certain age where you like can't like you can take away the iPhone or something or something at a certain age, and there's oh my gosh, it's worse than getting spanked at that.
Yeah, but there's a certain age, there's a window where it's hard to, there's nothing that makes them upset like that you can take away.
Like, you can even take away a certain toy, but then they'll go for a different toy or whatever.
Like, it's like to really, it's hard.
It also depends on the kid, but and it depends on the parents and whatever.
But anyway, I thought I wasn't going to spank, uh, but yeah, I totally did.
So, we all agree that Antifa needed better parents.
Yes, yes, she doesn't agree on them.
You just needed a father.
We have other parents here.
Daniel spanked Dan, Dan spanks, Matt, mother doesn't, dad does mother doesn't, dad does.
All right, in our house, does mother disapprove of the spanking?
Or what about oh, wow, she does not a fan?
Oh, man.
Oh, this is gonna start a fun.
Does she listen to the podcast?
That is crazy.
She doesn't listen to the podcast, so we're good.
Okay, okay.
Well, I had one, I had one other because I was trying to be creative.
I didn't want to, because one time I did he kept getting out of bed.
I spanked him like a few too many times, and there's like a little bit of a purple hit mark.
I don't want to mark him up and say, I'm scary.
So, I was trying to be creative, but also, one thing you need to understand: boys, is like boys we react differently to physical, like it's not, we don't.
There's almost like a, there's a thing where like you think I'm tough, you like you roughed me up.
I feel like it's like there's a there's a line, but like it's not, it's different anyway.
So, anyway, are you saying men and women are different?
Yeah, what do you see?
There's some, okay, there was some masculinity, and there could be some masculine girls who feel that way too.
But anyway, so it was my creative, I was trying an alternative, and uh, I created this thing called scream juice because my kid had screamed, he had come to this thing where he to get whatever he wanted, he'd throw this giant demonic fit, you know, and so I couldn't, I needed a way to cut that off.
So, I concocted this cup and I put a picture of a guy going on the cup, and it was called Scream Juice, and it had some lemon juice in it, it had a little bit of hot sauce in there, it was just the grossest little spicy, it was, you know.
And so, I would just make him take a sip of that if he threw a giant fit, and uh, and yeah, he hated it.
I was trying to think, is this abuse or is this, you know, because it's no marks, it's not, you know, it's just a little bit of spice on the tongue, right?
What do you think?
But, like, scream juice, pro or con, scream juice.
I wanted to know what people think.
We only did it like two or three times.
He hated it, just a bit of hot sauce on there, and uh, you know, so it was just disgusting.
A little ghost pepper, yeah.
I tested a few different hot sauces.
There was one that was a bit too fast, but what is he learning from that, though?
He's learning not to scream, but like to say, are you worried about him as an adult?
Like, screaming his head off, like no, it's impulse control.
Like, they have this, they can't, they don't think ahead, they just go like, I want this thing right now.
Yeah, they need to have that thought that goes in, like, I need this right now.
I should calmly talk to my mom and dad about this because I shouldn't throw giant fits because that makes me a terrible person.
And my parents are trying to get me to not be a terrible person.
Scream juice.
I like when our guest just checks out.
I'm sorry.
This is the most interesting part of the conversation for me.
Yeah, with the kids.
Yeah, it's fun.
What's the worst thing Calvin has done?
Oh, man.
So many options.
I know.
I'm trying to think.
It's all noise.
I mean, here's poop everywhere all the time.
He's always trying to strangle our dog.
Oh.
I always look over, and he'll either be stepping on its throat or he'll have his hands on its throat.
I cannot get him to stop.
He has some fascination.
And our dog's super submissive.
So he's always just like, I guess I'm getting murdered right now.
I guess I deserve this.
So if you just mail Calvin to Julie, she'll take care of it.
She'll get it in like six months and send mail.
I'll become a spanker very quickly.
Like you murdered my son.
She jumps straight to murder past spanking.
I've learned the one thing you need in parenting is just patience.
That's true.
It teaches it.
Yep, absolutely.
All right.
Well, we're going to move into our subscriber portion.
Check out Julie's new book, The Peaceful Porcupine.
It's on Amazon and elsewhere.
So Peaceful Porcupine.
Check it out.
Yes.
All right.
Subscriber portion.
Let's go.
Let's go.
We're going into the secret libertarian drug den.
Uncensored.
Okay.
Yeah.
Coming up next for Babylon Bee subscribers.
You did.
This says you did voices on Freedom Tunes.
Is that true?
This whole Capital thing that started all this.
That fits with the non-aggression principle, right?
Is that non-aggression?
I hate all that.
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