Joshua Smith from Break The Cycle | How Can Libertarians Win Against The Deep State? | OAP #29
Chase Geiser is joined by Joshua Smith from Break The Cycle.
Joshua Smith is a political commentator, podcaster, at large Representative of the Libertarian National Committee, and blue collar working class person who is trying to break the cycle of two party politics.
EPISODE LINKS:
Chase's Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/realchasegeiser
Joshua's Links: https://linktr.ee/breakthecyclejs
PODCAST LINKS:
Anchor: https://anchor.fm/oneamerican
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/IAmOneAmerican
We are live, FYI in case you didn't pick up on that.
Oh, nice.
Nice.
Just thought I would let you know.
How are you doing?
You look good.
I love your uh setup there, dude.
It looks awesome.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, it's it's uh it was a lot of work, man, for sure.
I for sure.
But uh how long have you been doing your own content uh podcast stuff?
Well, I just started doing the show like four months ago.
So I think we started March.
Congratulations.
I think March 3rd was the first show.
Um but I did I started doing Break the Cycles and audio podcast like last year, like um January of 2020.
Um and I was like recording it with my phone on anchor.
Yeah, I I use anchor myself, but I I obviously don't use my phone.
Yeah, I use I use anchor now still to publish to my RSS feed, but I just I just ripped the audio from the the live show and then uh split it up in the middle, drop a couple of sponsors and then and then stick it to the RSS feed.
I don't I don't edit it almost at all.
So yeah, I'm kind of the same way.
Uh you know, when I first started doing this podcast, I would do all the calls on Zoom and record them, and it was like a nightmare in terms of um editing them, adding in an intro, and then exporting them from Final Cut and then uploading them to YouTube, and then the time that it took was hours and hours and hours.
So I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna start live streaming it.
And if I need to touch anything up, I can later, but it's it's where I am too.
The the live stream, it really kind of amped up my content, you know what I mean.
Like if I hadn't if I hadn't done a live show, I don't think it would be half as good as it is.
So yeah.
Um and the nice thing about the video is that you just get to put your content on more platforms, like the YouTube exposure is is a great asset that if you just stick with the audio stuff, it's hard to kind of get we'll see.
I have Ryan Dawson coming on tonight.
We'll see if they keep me on YouTube after that or not.
Man, I can't believe after a couple of the people that I've had on.
Uh I can't believe that they they kept it.
I had Tony Schaefer on, and he was talking about how Bill Barr called him and uh told him to stop looking into election fraud.
And I was like, Oh, geez.
Oh geez, yeah, I've been I've been pretty good so far.
We've talked about you know conspiracies and all kinds of stuff.
So hopefully uh Ryan and I can navigate a conversation that's not so bad for YouTube, but we'll see.
We'll see what happens.
And it and and and all things considered, if we lose YouTube, we got Odyssey.
So yeah, absolutely.
So at what point in your podcast growth did you did you get to a place where like people started having interest in being sponsors?
Just I was just curious.
It was pretty quick, it was pretty quick within the first couple of shows.
I already had Top Lobster.
Um Lauren Zotti Coffee hit me up probably within the first couple of shows, and uh and then Anthem Planning uh became executive producers within the first month or so.
And um, you know, financially it helps these businesses which are all libertarian-owned.
Um very yeah, you know, at least libertarian or or or pretty close to libertarian as far as top.
Yeah, exactly.
And uh, and so um they've been great, and uh I love to promote their businesses and and stuff like that.
So I haven't had any issues doing it.
Um I think I'm gonna get another sponsor, a C B D sponsor.
That's of course, because every podcast needs a C BD sponsor, you know.
Yeah, well, they can't advertise anywhere else, so it's not gonna have to do the influencer sponsorships.
Yeah, it's gonna be I own an advertising business, and I've had so many C BD companies reach out, like, hey, can we do Facebook and Instagram ads?
And I'm like, no, can't do it.
Not really.
Yeah, so uh North Spokane CBD.
It's a good friend of mine, also libertarian-owned.
Uh Michael, Michael Pickens, C. Michael Pickens from Washington's good guy.
So um, and then uh my daughter starting an Etsy uh account.
Oh, cool.
Congratulations.
She takes old shirts and makes cool stuff, and she's 16, and I was like, you know, we'll help we'll help you try and promote some stuff.
It'd be cool.
Are the shirts cool?
Yeah, I mean, she takes like my old t-shirts and other people's old t-shirts, and she does all these cuts and ties and like turns them into you know fashion accessories.
So hopefully uh when I was coming up, that was you you had to have like every band, you know.
Like there was a kid with the Sabbath shirts and the kid I had the doors shirts.
I had the one shirt that had Jim Warson on the stage, you know, the black and white picture of him just laying down on the stage.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and it's like everybody had that shirt.
If anybody else had the same shirt as you, it was like, ah, yeah, it was funny.
I even had some shirts of bands that I did I never really uh particularly cared for very much, like the misfits.
Like I uh there was a couple of misfit songs I really like, but he had to have misfit shirts, you know.
And it I was came I came up in the punk rock scene playing punk rock music and stuff, and you know so you're a musician?
Yeah, yeah.
I play bass and drums and I've sung in a sang, sang, singed uh in a bunch of bands.
So uh yeah, yeah.
You don't have any musical projects now?
No, no, I got uh focus on the libertarians, yeah.
It's seven kids.
I got seven kids, you know.
So seven, are you are you like are you Mormon or something?
I you know, I wish that was the case.
No, I uh I so when I met my now fiance, she had two daughters, uh, eight and three.
Um she was two at the time, seven and two at the time, but they're eight and three now.
Um, and uh then we she got pregnant in April with our son that was born New Year's Eve.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
And I had a 16-year-old daughter that didn't live with me that I got custody of back in October, and she had two small siblings um that were uh nine and six, and uh they were they're my ex-wife's not mine biologically, but they were gonna go to foster care basically or into the system somewhere, and so we were able to get custody, yeah.
And then uh on the way down there to pick up my daughter, we found out that my 15-year-old daughter at the time was pregnant.
Um are you grandpa yet?
Yeah, I think she gave birth to my my granddaughter Scarla on uh on uh March 14th, the day after my birthday.
So um congratulations, man.
Seven kids, two babies, four school aged.
Uh it's it's wild, man.
So what do you what do you do as a libertarian uh with seven kids in terms of schooling?
Uh so well, here's the thing.
So um one uh one of Julia's daughters, my fiance goes to a uh really cool um kind of crunchy organic uh hippie like the word crunchy, yeah.
Like a private school that she goes to out in the kind of the country, and uh it's very homeschool based, but they have like you know, right um cool things, but they have like their own cow and like all this cool stuff that she gets to do that's not um but my two my daughter uh goes to an alternative school, she's 16, she just wants to get her uh she wants to try and get her diploma, but she hadn't been to school since the eighth grade.
Um, and then the two littles uh the six-year-old had never been to school, and so um, and then the nine-year-old had only gone to one day of first grade and no other school since he was supposed to be in the fourth grade.
So we moved into we live in Iowa now, and uh, you know, Iowa's got a pretty decent public school system uh as far as states go.
Uh they're they're uh they they're not pushing politics here in the schools, which is nice.
They're they're uh CRT is banned in the public schools here, um stuff like that.
And so we moved into the nicest school district in the state, uh, and I I pay way overpay for a house so that we could um get them into you know, we we couldn't homeschool them.
They needed they had too many needs.
Um we didn't really have the money to send them all to private school, and uh so we found the best elementary school we could find that had the you know uh they they don't wear they don't have to wear masks, there's uh there's religious exemptions for for vaccines.
Um they they're banned CRT.
I mean it's it's a good school.
And so uh we put them there because they needed the help that they they needed, and the the two that really need it, and then my daughter's going to uh uh uh uh continuation school type thing to try and get her diploma, but if not, she'll probably end up getting her GD.
She's already worked, uh she spent some time working at Wendy's and uh you know, babysitting, and now she's trying to start the Setsi.
So I I I hope um, you know, my entrepreneurial spirit.
Yeah, that's my hope.
All you need is hustle, man.
Yeah, yeah.
And she's got she's got the hustle.
Uh she's gotta she's gotta stick a little more with the the follow-through.
Um, and I you know, I try to push her in that direction.
Like, look, if you're gonna do something, do it, because that's that's how you, you know.
I wish I was 16 talking about starting my own business, man.
My life would be infinitely different at at 38, you know.
Um, because I I believe in the entrepreneurial spirit.
I think it's a it's an amazing thing.
I I don't think there's a better way to uh to make a life for yourself than becoming an entrepreneur, and uh I I have Purb Island coming on and in at the end of the the month, and we're gonna that's we're just we're just gonna talk about entrepreneurial spirit the whole time.
You know, and the thing is it's it's really it used to I had a really smart guy that was sort of a mentor to me, tell me one time, and it it it holds true to a certain extent today, but it was certainly true a generation ago.
He's like, Listen, he's Italian guy, big guy.
And he's like, There are three ways you make money.
He's like, You either be a politician, you get high up in the military, or you start your own business.
It's like those are the only three ways you can make money.
I'm like, all right, I don't know about the military.
I guess if you're high up in the military, you can make money.
But uh he's like he's like, don't work in politics.
He's like, but if you are the politician, you can make the money, right?
Of course, which is just blows by your mind, right?
If you think of it, right, but it yeah, of course it's problematic.
But the it's so true though.
Like if you if you really want to make money, there's really only a few ways to do it other than being a business owner.
It's the only way that you can sort of not get locked into a salary or or get it get stuck at a certain mid-level position.
I mean, if you if you really need the a sort of work environment where the sky is the limit, you have to do your own thing.
Well side hustle of your day job.
Yeah, as far as the sky's the limit.
And then if you don't have what it takes to start a business, uh get into the trades, man.
Uh you know, especially as a as a male.
Uh, you know, I was lucky enough to start in the trades when I was 15.
I dropped out of high school, uh beginning of sophomore year.
I started digging trenches for a multi-billion dollar, a multi-million dollar uh construction company that built huge custom homes.
Uh we actually built one for Dave Dornseife, who who owns the a monopoly on the still girder business in this country, and it was a 16,000 square foot home with glass Y-ways to the master suite and the maid's quarters, and um that's that's where I cut my teeth.
And now that I'm in my you know, my late 30s, I'm I'm so advanced in a lot of trades.
I've worked in so many different trades.
I can work with HV HVAC, I can work with electrical, I can do you know, uh building, I can grade.
I mean basically, you're basically a contractor.
I mean, that you are your own business.
Yeah, well, and the cool thing is is you know, whenever whenever I need extra money or anything like that, I can take five dollars, post on Craigslist, these are my skills, and and random people call me all day.
Hey, I need this fixed, I got a bathroom vent that's going bad, I got this, and I can go over on a weekend and make an extra 500 bucks.
You know what I mean?
And so so that's that's been the benefit of learning trades is it's a skill that's highly needed.
Um and you can start your own business or do you know, even just do a bunch of side work to make more money.
But you can make a lot of money working for other companies in the trades too, if you if you're skilled, you know.
It it all depends on your skill level in the trades, and you can make you know, you can become a superintendent, you know, even if you're union or not union, making over a hundred thousand dollars a year easily, you know what I mean.
And so um, I've been really lucky in that aspect, but now I'm doing the show too, which is is become another revenue stream for my family.
Um, and you know, now the goal is uh to make the show the full-time job, and that is our own business, you know.
Uh and I have a small team of people who work uh with me or or do stuff for the show like social media um that get paid, you know.
People are actually I'm actually creating jobs now.
It's not a lot, it's not a lot of money, uh, but I am creating if you need any help with that.
I uh I own a small advertising business.
I know I saw that.
I and I it's funny because I had this, I just had this really great uh advertisement made for the show, and I tried to put it on Google ads, you know, for for YouTube.
Um and uh they kicked it back for election uh it was like said that it was some kind of election advertising, and I was like, There's no elections in this whatsoever, nothing zero.
Did you appeal?
I did it twice, twice.
Yeah, they said they denied you both times, yeah.
So I don't know what's going on there.
I'd pump it on Instagram if I were you.
Yeah, that's that's what we're trying and and and truth be told, my my fiance actually runs the Instagram and the Facebook, and so uh she's put them both up there.
Um finally Facebook just let me have a Facebook again uh after being kicked off since October.
Um, your personal profile was restricted.
Yeah, I had a I had a I had a personal profile for 11 years.
I mean, I had pictures, uh final pictures of my grandfather on there, pictures of my daughter when we she was a baby and and very young with me, pictures of my son when he was very young and a baby with me, and that I'll never get back because they're from old cell phones, and I was like, Oh, well, they're on Facebook, I always have them.
And then they kicked me off after 11 years uh during the the uh election.
I was stumping for you know, I I sit on the Libertarian National Committee, I'm an at-large rep. Uh and and of course I'm gonna stump for my candidate.
I thought, you know, if I had to if I had to think about a candidate that I wanted to win the election, it was Joe Jorgensen, and it, you know, I get a lot of shit for that, but I still believe that she would have been better than uh definitely better than Biden.
There's no doubt about that.
Um she did go a little woke.
I wasn't super happy about that, but I I you know it was my job uh to work for the campaign.
And and so I I stumped for Joe a little bit, and uh within a couple weeks I was kicked off off uh YouTube or off uh uh Facebook, but I also uh dared to make the statement that maybe this virus had come from uh lab in China and uh I think that's why they initially that's why they eventually pulled me, which is funny because now that's the approved narrative and everyone's talking about it, it's totally fine.
Um so here they have let me back on, uh, but not my old profile, it's gone, it's completely gone, everything's gone.
11 years down the drain.
So man, you know, man, I it might be too late.
Um, but I think within the first 30 days, you can have them send all your data.
Right.
And I tried.
Well, I do you you can actually download your own data and I tried and they wouldn't let me into the account to even do that.
So wow, I'm sorry to hear that.
Yeah, it's uh I I've got some contacts at Facebook after after this.
Let me I'd be happy to reach out on your behalf, see if they can pull some strings.
Yeah, that'd be great, man.
I'd love to.
I'll see what I can do.
Um but wow, so so how did you get involved with the libertarian party and movement just as a whole?
Oh man, well, so uh so uh you know, I was uh on the USS Constellation during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
We were in the middle of the the Persian Gulf when George Bush declared war on Iraq.
Um and uh I was really jaded on the military industrial complex, you know.
I saw I saw the the wasteful uh actions that the military uses.
Uh we dropped hundreds of millions of tons of ordinance on Baghdad, in my opinion, for almost no reason whatsoever, other than uh macro economics issue over the petrol dollar.
I didn't know that at the time, but I knew that we were dropping uh weapons on homes and and you know, uh there's family pets there and kids with dreams and goals and aspirations that would love to start their own business and do the kind of because the same kind of things that I wanted to do, you know.
Um and so it was it was kind of it was kind of a bummer uh for me and definitely jaded me on the political parties because when I got out uh in 2005, I didn't see a party that really represented my my anti-war ideals uh especially.
Um, you know, I I you know I I don't know that I'm necessarily against national defense completely, but I am against these forever wars uh that we've been experiencing in the Middle East for a long time.
Um and uh and so I was really jaded and just really didn't find my myself in the Republican Party.
I was still a Republican, still registered Republican voter.
Uh and then in 2007 I found Papa Ron Paul, you know, and uh that just absolutely changed my life.
You know, he was calling Congress a bunch of psychopaths, he was talking about blowback and and he was essentially speaking to how I felt completely with with even the Republican Party.
I mean, he was even going off on the Republican Party, and uh so I decided to get involved with Ron Paul campaign.
I worked on the Ron Paul campaign in 2008 in uh in California.
Um and then again I think it was brutal, dude.
Very brutal.
Uh he did he did all right, you know, he did a knocking and walking.
Uh I did yeah, I did that, and I did a lot of events and stuff like that as well.
Yeah, a lot of lots of slammed doors in my face, and um and uh and I didn't take your freedom and get off my property.
Yeah, exactly.
California's rough.
If you go if you go to the outskirts, you're all right.
But when you're yeah, you know, I'm from I'm from Oakland, California, you know.
And yeah, it's you gotta go to the inland empire if you want to get any any love.
Yeah, or the Central Valley, or like way up north by Mount Shasta and Weed and Waireka and all that stuff, and so um so it was rough.
And then uh I I watched how the Republican Party treated Ron Paul.
I watched how the media treated Ron Paul, it was uh disgusting.
Um, you know, and and in fact, uh, you know, they actually had delegates getting arrested trying to get into the caucuses and in New Orleans and all kinds of it was just it was wild.
Um they changed the rules at conventions, uh to screw Ron Paul and his delegates.
I mean, it was just I was like, there's no way I can support the Republican Party after this anymore.
They've made it very, very clear to me uh that they do not support my ideals.
So um in 2010, I joined the Libertarian Party.
I said, you know, here's a party that that you know supports mostly what I want.
I think the platform's pretty great, uh, as far as you know, personal freedoms, economic freedoms, um stuff like that.
I said, We'll see what we'll see what happens.
You know, it's it's still a new party, it's only 40 years old, you know.
Um, and uh and so uh I started reaching out to the city.
Yeah, well the yeah, the real libertarian party, right?
But then the actual National Libertarian Party is it was 1970.
Uh and you guys should start saying founded in 1776 as part of the training move.
We should it would be awesome.
Uh and there's a there's a big push to make the Libertarian Party more libertarian right now, which has been nice with the Mises Cox and stuff like that.
But um, so I joined the party and I started reaching out to the national uh committee.
I sent him a bunch of emails.
I was like, you know, I'm this hyped up activist, tell me what to do.
I'm ready to go.
I'm I'm done with the Republican Party, show me how to do this.
And I it was a wall of silence, dude.
I mean, didn't get a single email, nothing.
And I was like, Well, this sucks, you know, and so uh um I dropped my problem with libertarians, man.
There's no cult leader.
Here we go.
Yeah.
Uh I dropped I dropped my donations after like three months um and just kind of did my own thing.
I helped found a couple of publications, including Think Liberty, which is pretty successful uh now.
Um, and then in 2012, of course, I stumped for Ron Paul again, even though I was a registered Republican or a registered uh libertarian voter at this point in California.
Um, and then in 2012, when when uh they they just dashed right over Ron Paul again.
I uh I supported Gary Johnson, you know, and it was uh what it was Aleppo.
Yeah, but this was the first Gary Johnson campaign, which was much much better than the second Gary Johnson campaign.
I don't have a problem with Gary Johnson.
I just I think he's a little bit of a dweeb, but I don't know.
Yeah, he's a total teasing.
He's a total dweeb.
And uh and uh but the 2012 campaign was different.
And I talked about this on my show the other night.
Uh 2012 Gary was was sturdy.
He knew what he was doing, he did pretty well.
Uh it was in 2016 he smoked way too much weed during the campaign.
I mean, just it was and I know people is that really what he was doing.
Yeah, a lot, a lot of weed.
100% a lot of weed.
And uh and I just talked about this, how he showed up to to endorse Larry Sharp for governor in New York, and then he was basically like towel y at this point.
He was like, This is Gary, Larry Sharp.
And Larry Sharp used to be the last governor of New York.
And I'm like, God, shut up, Gary, you know.
Uh but I like Gary.
Libertarians would stop doing whatever you want.
You could actually earn the right to do whatever you want.
Yeah, and Gary's a nice guy.
He's he's pretty smart.
He did really well as the governor of New Mexico, two-term new governor.
He cut taxes 13 times.
He really made that state a lot much more inhabitable uh for people who like personal freedoms.
Um, but he just he wasn't a good candidate for president.
And in 2016, I supported him again.
Obviously, I I couldn't I could support the the reality TV star or the lady who has people murdered for her uh her own political game.
And so uh and uh so I joined I joined the party again.
I joined the Libertarian Party.
I became a regional rep uh for the state party of Washington.
Um I started building county affiliates there, and then uh in 2017, Nick Sarwark stepped way, way out of line and started talking shit about uh Tom Woods and Eric July and all these great libertarian people.
Um, including Ron Paul.
And uh so I was like, you know what?
I'm gonna find someone to run against this guy for chair.
You know, and I started calling all these big name libertarians that I knew, and everyone's like, You're crazy, man.
This guy is the most popular chair the party's had, he's he's running for a third term.
Like, no way he's a trial lawyer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, I don't care, someone's gotta do it.
No one would do it.
Well, I had Think Liberty at the time.
We had about 16,000 daily followers and readers, and I was like, I'm gonna do it.
So I put out a I put out an intent to run statement.
I I ran, I traveled to 25 states.
I spoke behind Ron Paul at the uh roads to freedom unconvention, all shit I had never done before.
Uh and and I didn't do well.
I mean, I took like 24% or 22% of the the vote at national.
That's not bad, man.
That's for a guy that didn't do bootstrapping it.
Yeah, yeah, no one knew.
Uh and then in 2020 I ran again against his little henchman, Joe Bishop Henchman, who just resigned actually as our chair, national chair.
Um, after I'd served two years on the board as an at-large, and uh I decided I was gonna run one more time, and I lost by like a hundred votes, unfortunately, at national convention.
Yeah, but now there's some you know, there's some people who think that they they cheated uh and they wanna, you know, they want to stop the steal, but I'm not I never pushed the stop the steal thing.
I just I I ended up back on the board again anyways.
I I have a uh crazy life right now, seven kids and the show, and it's like I'm kind of glad I'm not chair right now, you know.
Yeah, but I I can do it.
Life has slowed down a little bit for us now.
So now that uh Joe Bishop Henchman has resigned, I have been nominated to chair the the committee until uh until the next national convention in next year.
Um, but I haven't, I mean, we'll see what happens.
The the votes are going out now.
So you know, it's interesting how the um the party structure is in the United States because obviously every party has uh leverage over how it operates to a certain extent, but there are federal and state level requirements for how the districting is supposed to be set up and how the leadership is supposed to be established.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Because I don't think people realize how difficult the existing parties have made it for any new parties to form because I was sure well and yeah, and so for for the Libertarian Party, our our biggest uh hurdle always is is ballot access.
You know, it just never it never it's a war that we will always fight until we're a major party nationally.
Um and and we get close.
I mean, in 2016, we were uh we're about uh 700,000 votes away from getting debate access and becoming a major party in the in the country and all this stuff, and then you know, Joe really kind of took a step backwards as far as uh presidential votes go.
But um, yeah, I mean, we have states like Tennessee where we just can't get ballot access, no matter how hard we try.
Uh, they want, you know, s uh an inordinate amount of signatures that are impossible to get uh in the time frame allotted.
Uh Illinois has been really bad, uh Alabama has been really bad.
Um and it's a state-by-state case.
You know, there's some states where you have to run a gubernatorial candidate or or a state rep candidate that gets a certain amount of votes, and it's been really easy in those places for us to get a you know the required amount of votes for a good candidate like in New Hampshire or something.
Um and then there's states like like Tennessee where it's we you know, we haven't had ballot access for like the last three um election cycles or something.
And uh so it's it's just different.
It's that's the problem is they've made the states it's you know, really it's up to the states uh for most things.
Um, you know, ballot access for presidential uh uh campaign is different than the federal campaigns different, right?
Um it that depends on uh what we got in the last uh uh presidential uh election.
That depends on some states we just have to petition.
Um, but but some states as far as statewide races go for state ledge and and uh and governor and um you know stuff like that, uh, or any partisan race, um just to get an L next to your name is almost impossible.
And and it's it's our biggest hurdle, you know, and they do it once you just see a lot of libertarians that run as Republicans, right?
And then you know, then it kind of waters down the movement.
And that's what the Republicans are supposed to do, you know.
That's why they fight that's why they fight, that's why they fight the ballot access stuff.
It's like they want it to be harder on other parties because they've already got, you know, they've already got the their foot in the door and can do whatever they want.
And so if another party came around, we start threatening their their positions.
And now that the Libertarian Party is actually becoming this united front, uh with the Mises Caucus kind of taking over, we've taken over over 25 state boards in the last year, and there's still a whole nother year of of state convention season before the national convention, it's ours.
The party's ours now.
Um, and that was what I set out to do in 2017.
And uh it's coming.
Congratulations.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I never had to win chair to do it, man.
You know, that was the thing.
Yeah, it's funny how how much you leadership you can have with without a formal authority position.
Like, you know, MLK wasn't elected at all, but he was a hell of a leader.
Started a movement, right?
And I kept telling people I'm trying to start a movement.
Like I want I'm running for chair because it afforded me the opportunity to travel around the country and get people hyped on taking the Libertarian Party away from this these these loser brigade types who uh only want to focus on the the the culturally woke issues instead of the the the serious issues like ending the wars, ending the drug war, ending the Federal Reserve, um, these kind of things, or at least even just once in your life Libertarian Party, just at mention at least audit, you know what I mean?
Like uh, you know, it's it's what made people like Ron Paul and and Thomas Massey and uh and Rand Paul, it's what made them popular was they used this rhetoric um that resonates with people all over the political spectrum all over the country in the Libertarian Party.
We have the principles, we have the principles, we just don't have the mouthpiece.
And so it's nice to see people like Dave Smith and Tom Woods and you know the the funniest thing about Ron Paul and me is he gone a rant about uh fractional reserve banking and inflation.
It it it like a brilliant rant about the whole problem with the Federal Reserve.
And then the only response would be so what you're saying is everyone should be allowed to use heroin.
Of course.
Of course.
He's like he's like you know, but his response to that is even great.
He's like, So you're telling me that if we legalized heroin, everyone would use heroin?
Because that's not how you know that was that was a good response, but uh it's just it's just so funny how they can totally like straw man and pivot the uh the the narrative.
And I I just wish that you know, both libertarians and republicans.
I wish that there was more thought put into and this is one thing that Trump was really talented at as an individual.
There's more thought put into how you can manipulate the media rather than just trying to win the argument because logic doesn't win votes, it's good it's good policy and it has it is a very important to have the the best logical argument, but you don't get somebody to vote for you by convincing them intellectually until you've convinced them emotionally.
Sure.
You know, and it's and I'm in marketing, so that's that's how I think in terms of uh advertising is concerned.
It's like you have to emotionally appeal to the consumer with your advertising uh before you logically convince them about the product.
So if if I ran an ad for a computer and all I did was list the specs, nobody would fucking buy it.
But you know if the ad for the computer is like showing like somebody making you know an an album in a recording studio and then it cuts to them editing a video in another studio and then it cuts to them gaming with like all you know what I mean it's like and then providing for their child and like exactly so you know and and that the problem I have with the Democrats is that they only do the emotional and they have no logical they have no good reason behind the policies it's actually trash and especially in terms of economic policy.
And then uh with the Republicans uh you know they're not they're not perfect logically either but they are better in terms of hey maybe lower taxes are a good idea like that's pretty reasonable position but they get branded as greedy for saying low taxes because people just assume that low taxes means rich bailouts.
Well, of course, but it's so funny because like I was just talking about this today, the Democrats were running.
So the Democrats were pushing to defund the police.
Right.
The Republicans have actually ran on defunding the police.
You know what I mean?
Not defunding the police in the sense that the Democrats talk about.
But the Democrats get into the office and say, no way in hell, actually, we're going to pump up the funding for the police.
And these Democrats are still acting like this is what this is what, you know, they're actually defunding the police.
police they're not they're not doing any of the things that the Democrats wanted them to do.
You know, the Republicans actually, you know, cut taxes in some places, cut regulations in some places, cut funding for some programs like that's that's what they do.
That's what that's what a conservative does.
Right.
And that's what libertarians would do if we could ever get the fucking office.
But the the the the Democrats don't do any of that shit.
They run on that stuff.
They campaign on that stuff.
They make an emotional appeal to all these people and say, yes, you're right.
You know, George Floyd is a savior and this is how we're going to do it.
And then they get in there and they're like, you know, and and they don't you know, they don't deschedule marijuana.
They don't do any police or prison reform.
They don't do any.
uh anti-war they don't they don't slow down the wars at all you know you know Joe Biden's taking this credit for ending uh the Afghanistan war but do does anybody really think that it's gonna end?
Does anybody does anybody really he's already he's already pushed out he's already pushed out the the leave date past the time that he was told he needed to leave by so he knows that's doing on September 11th for PR purposes.
Which is gonna cause if we go past that date it's gonna cause uh more it's gonna cause more problems in the way of hold on did I turn my mic all the way down I can hear you okay it's it's gonna cause more problems more tension and it's just going to continue this war that's been going on for 21 years.
You know what I mean?
The longest military uh intervention in the history of the of the United States and we were lied into it.
I mean rosy pronouncements lied into it the government knew we couldn't win the war uh they lied to the American public and said that we were gonna go and get all the terrorists and round them up and it was going to be over and here we are 20 almost 22 years later still fighting in Afghanistan does anyone really think that Joe Biden who has been in national politics for 40 years is actually going to do this?
No.
Absolutely not and the and the Democrats are always championing um uh criminal justice reform which is a good thing to champion because there's a hell of a lot of people spending years and years of their lives in prison for nonviolent crimes.
So yeah let's say I saw I saw a tweet uh the tweet yesterday was uh listen when when uh when weed stores are looking like Apple stores it's time to release a lot of people from prison a lot a lot yeah well and that's what I was gonna say it's like when was the last time you heard of mass pardons from a governor or from a president.
It's like if you really want to yeah if you really want to like for example I this might kill me later if I ever if I ever run for any office but if I were president of the United States I would be very tempted to instantly pardon everyone in jail for nonviolent crimes.
Sure.
Sure.
And that's the libertarian thing with the with with some with some exclusions like you know if you were selling drugs to kids like may I don't know I don't know what I would do.
There might be some I'm just I'm shooting from the hip but that would be a priority to me.
Sure.
Well and here's the thing this here's the thing that really upset me about Trump and and in fact you know I I actually enjoyed a lot of the things that Trump did.
I think the regulation cuts were really great.
I think not starting in new any new wars for the first time and I don't know how long was really important uh He could have rolled a lot of those wars back.
I wasn't happy that he didn't do that.
That's not something I'm gonna praise him for.
Um but the thing that on the way out of office, he knew he was out, he knew he was leaving, he had the opportunity to show or to keep to his principles that the the uh corporate media is the enemy of the people and release uh you know Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and maybe Ross Olbrick too, right?
And he didn't even he didn't even entertain the idea of releasing Julian Assange, who was who is like one of one of the last great uh um uh media uh uh press people less.
Do you think he knew something that we don't know about him?
Like he wanted to do it.
I I don't I don't understand how you pardon Rod Bigoyovich and not Julian Assange.
I mean he was literally stealing money from like the kids or something, like he was moving minority.
Well, I think there's just too many, there's there's the swamp is still full in the Republican Party, and and Trump knew that.
Um, and that's his people now, you know, the the Republican Party is his people now.
And so if he wants to run again in 2024, if he wants to have any kind of say in the Republican Party anymore, then he's got to do their bidding still, you know.
And I think that uh unfortunately when he had the chance to be brave uh on the way out the door, he chickened out and cowered out.
And uh, and that that hurt me as somebody who was like, ah, you know, I like when he triggers people, it's kind of cool.
I was like, oh, that's fucked up.
Oh, you know, I don't want to, I don't wanna uh I don't want to ever see a president talk about how the corporate press is any of the people and then not free somebody who's literally in jail for being an honest journalist, you know.
So I don't know, it's pretty hard.
Pretty hard for me to why he's actually being or why Assange is actually being held because you know, at first there were allegations of like sexual assault, and I thought those got dropped.
Well, they did that same thing to this guy here, you know, the guy who started the putting out the uh the ghost gun um uh blueprints.
Yeah, you know, they did that's what they do.
If you go against the government, dude, they are looking for they will do anything that they can.
They will uh they will try to pin you on other shit.
Uh they did this to Ross Olbrick, who started, you know, Ross is is for me the free Ross movement's one of the biggest things for me because this man started guy, yeah.
He started a commerce side uh business.
Was he hiring Hitman or is that just made up?
Uh so here's the thing the guy who had the hits taken out on him literally said 100% that Ross did not take that hit out him.
There was several admins for for Silk Road, they just took an admin account and and said that there was some people trying to send Bitcoin to have this one guy murdered who could have been a test of a witness, and they put it all over the media, all over the media.
And then when they went to to court, federal court, they dropped entirely.
Yeah, and and with prejudice, so it can't even ever be brought up again.
Right.
So they it was dropped with prejudice, so that he could never be charged with that crime again.
He could never be charged with that crime.
They knew that they had no proof that it was him, but they dragged it through the media to crucify him before he got to court.
Then when they got to court, the the they just did all kind of the the judge, you know.
I did a whole episode on this on my show.
Um the judge did so much underhanded bullshit that they couldn't even present their case.
Like they literally kept the the uh olb case from being presented in court.
And and uh so they they crucified the man in public, court of public opinion.
He's uh he's hiring people to kill people.
Ross would never have done this.
I mean, anybody who knows Ross knows Ross would have done this, not personally, but anybody that you talk to that's known Ross, even the person who had the hit taken out on him, right, said that he did there's no way in hell that Ross would do this or did this.
Um he even tested he tried to testify they wouldn't bring that testimony in the court because they dropped the case.
So or they dropped it, they dropped the the murder for hire charges, right?
Completely.
So they couldn't even they couldn't even defend against those charges that had been dragged out for over a year before court, you know, and so the whole thing was just a farce.
Uh they tried to make a they tried to make uh an example of Ross Olbricht because he was working in commerce outside of the federal government.
Well, he and and you know, I I'm I tend to have libertarian perspective in terms of whether or not people should be allowed to um use drugs or do whatever they want with their own body.
I'm not like a traditional Republican in that sense where I'm like just say no, I'm not just so say no guy.
Okay.
But um federally speaking, it it has to be against the law to get earn kickback on on trade that's um uh illegal trade, right?
So if he was an admin of Silk Road, wasn't he earning a like a percentage of every single time you know an eight ball got mailed from Maine to New Mexico?
It's it's possible.
I don't know.
I had to look more into that.
Um but but here's the thing to even find him, they had to they essentially had to violate fourth amendment, right?
To even find the guy.
They hacked us, they hacked a server, um, and and you know, completely violated his civil rights.
But here's the thing, this is what they did.
And and I didn't I didn't ever ever think about this until I started diving into the Ross Olbrick story.
I watched the really good documentary called the Deep Web that was put out actually by the guys from uh from uh uh Bill and Ted's excellent adventure, Keanu Reeves and and um the other guy who played Bill.
But uh so they actually this is what this was strange things are put at the circle K. No, they they really did good, they really did good.
I think I might have seen it.
Was it 10 years ago?
Uh he was around that, yeah.
Seven years ago, maybe really well done documentary that showed all of the facts.
Um, and so but here's the thing.
This is what they this is what the American government can government can do.
They can't use these tools to spy on you.
Supposedly, but what they can do is they can send these tools to Europe or the UK, where they can use these tools to spy on you, and then they can give them back the information that they've taken legally, right?
And so that's actually how that's actually how they found um that's actually how they found the servers, and then how they used that to hack the servers, violating Ross's fourth amendment and uh tracking them down to San Francisco where they uh found some some some fake IDs coming across the border from Canada, intercepted them and showed up at his door.
So well, the government's pro at outsourcing uh rights violations, and yeah, I think that I think they're essentially outsourcing the First Amendment violation to big tech right now.
It's like we can't censor you, but we can certainly leverage our relationships with these three companies that you rely on.
Yeah, uh acting like the big acting like the big tech companies are not part of the cathedral at this point is is pure ignorance, in my opinion.
Uh, you know, I when when Curtis Arvin talked about the the the cathedral consisting of of um academia, the corporate news media, and the government, uh he was working in big tech.
And so I think he might have there might have been reason why he purposely left big tech out of there, but you cannot at this point say that these are private industries.
I mean, these are monopolies on the on the digital town square, they've taken all kinds of government money that's our tax funds, you know.
Um, and uh and now they're uh completely pushing a political bias and narrative by push by kicking people off.
Now, is it a one a violation?
I don't know.
I see Ron Coleman's in your chat.
That's kind of cool.
Uh oh, yes, I love that guy.
Yeah, yeah.
He's coming on the show on the 19th, man.
And I'm like, I'm like, oh, he's a great guest.
Yeah, he's uh he's a badass.
Yeah, he's a badass.
I'm nervous about having the money.
Last night, last night I I was uh awake in bed and I I actually uh tweeted, I I didn't post it, uh but I was like, it's uh I wrote it out and I saved it as a draft.
I was like, it's 3 30 a.m. and Ron Coleman's a badass.
And I was like, yeah, I'm not gonna post it right now.
But I typed, I had the thought I should have, I should have.
Yeah, that's uh come off weird, you know, like I just chase thinking about Ron Coleman at 3 30 in the morning.
Yeah, those I get I get nervous about a few guests here and there, you know.
I I yeah I'm not a big you know, I I'm not a huge platform, and my YouTube videos have been doing really good.
My my audio streams from the videos are doing really well.
I mean, everybody's getting over a thousand listens uh now, which is great.
Um, in four months, that's great.
It's really good.
Um, but there's some guests that I get really nervous about, and and Ron's definitely one of those ones.
I'm like, man, this guy's very knowledgeable.
It's gonna be yeah, well, I'll make it easy.
All you gotta do is let him talk, you know.
You know, just let you gotta let the pros do what the pros do.
Well, it's cool.
I learned I learned something from everybody, and uh and and I have like really great people on that have written books, and they always send me the book first.
Um, so I get to read the books, you know, like uh Carol Roth just sent me her new book, The War on Small Business, uh, and and I got it before it came out.
She's great.
Yeah, she'll be on the show.
Yeah, before it came out.
Oh, yeah, she's a great guest.
I had her on uh a couple days ago.
Yeah, she's great.
Yeah, she's she's doing the rounds right now because the new book just dropped.
But I yeah, I got the book.
Uh I got the book like two weeks ago before it came out on the what the sixth or something or two days ago, and um and uh so she sent me the book and I've been at work reading it because I worked these 12 hour shifts with a lot of downtime at work, so I'm like reading, reading, reading, reading.
Um, and it's been it's been it's a very good book, and and so it's great, it's really cool like getting to know these people, and I learned something from everybody that I have on, which is really nice.
He, you know, and and uh the the show is doing well, so yeah, that's great.
Did you read um uh my uh Papadopoulos' book, The Deep State?
I have not, no.
That's that's pr are you familiar with that story at all?
No, huh?
So you mean the deep state?
Am I familiar?
We could do a whole show on the deep state.
Yeah.
Well, uh Papadopoulos was um uh basically convicted of lying to the FBI about Russian involvement with the Trump campaign.
And he was coerced into a plea deal, basically.
So um convicted, you know, sort of the wrong implication, I think, of what happened there.
Um and uh uh he wrote he got pardoned by Trump, so he's sort of famous for that.
And he got um he wrote this book about his whole story what happened, and it was basically a setup.
It was it's really good book.
He came out a couple years ago, but I had him I had him on the uh podcast, and so I I read that, but that's another good one to read.
I'll have to check it out for sure.
His DMs are open too, so if you hit him up, um he might be interested in coming on.
Nice.
I hit up a lot of people through DMs, and most people don't get back to me.
Uh Ron Coleman was one of the ones that got back to me from a Twitter DM, and I was like, Yeah, you rule man, thank you so much.
So that's how I book all my guests, man.
Yeah.
Well, Aaron July started following me recently.
Yeah, absolutely.
But Eric July started following me a couple weeks ago and then has not responded to my DMs.
I'm like, why did you follow me?
You're not gonna respond to my DMs, man.
Come on, you gotta come on the show.
Just show up on his at his house, dude.
Yeah, I know, I know.
But I've had I've had some great guests on.
I had Zuby on, uh, you know, I've had I've had oh he's amazing.
I had Scott Horton on twice.
The actually my most watched episode is Scott Horton too, uh, where we actually talked about Waco, which was a lot of fun because Scott is very Scott's very knowledgeable on like the mid the Middle East stuff, but he knows a lot about domestic issues and the uh the the Waco stuff.
He could he could talk.
I mean, it was like a hour and a half long episode, man.
It was just great.
Yeah, I made some controversial tweet about um uh what what's what was the guy's name?
Um David Jim.
David, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I made some controversial.
Oh, David Koresh defending him.
David Koresh defending him, and people were just like lit up my my replies, you know, talking to him, oh you know, he's a he's a statutory rapist pedophile.
I'm like, yeah, I looked into it.
Not true.
It's like technically you could marry somebody who was 16 if they if you have consent of the parents, and he didn't.
Well, it's well and here's the thing.
There was several local agents.
I actually did a whole episode on Waco by myself too.
And uh and uh there's a really good documentary there too called uh the the Waco Siege, the rules of engagement, um that that Scott actually knows a lot about.
But uh they there was several local agencies that had investigated these claims that he was a pedophile, and there was zero, zero evidence to back that up.
Um and but they use that against him, and then you know, the scary guns thing, right?
They were licensed gun dealers, they were FFAs, right?
They were licensed to do gun shows, and that's was how they made a lot of their money.
Uh and it's Texas in in the 90s.
I mean, it was fine, you know.
Everybody's now it's still fine.
Yeah, yeah, everyone was selling guns in Texas at the time, and now still, and so that's how they were making money for their con their commune, and uh, and you know, that they you know, sell vegetables at farmers markets.
I mean, they did everything the communes do.
Uh, they just were FFAs and selling big time guns.
And they they use that in the media to to disgrace to they know they had all these weapons of war, and it's like they were selling AR-15s at gun shows, dude.
They had one guy that took a trailer to gun shows and sold guns at gun shows.
Like this was totally legal, and they they vilified him through that.
And so they they got this uh during Waco, they got this whole um oh what do they call it, the sinful messiah uh imagery put up for for David Koresh.
And it was like they dragged him through the mud, but there was PhDs there, there were Harvard graduates there.
I mean, it was you know, there was like really great people there.
They made it all seem like they were all on drugs, there were no drugs at the at the uh at the commune.
Like it's just like this is what the media does to people that they don't want doing the things they that you know are legal, these are legal things.
And so uh that was a great episode with Scott, man.
If you get an opportunity to watch I'll have to listen to that.
Yeah, it's Scott Horton again on my on my YouTube or my on my podcast.
I'll definitely listen to that.
Yeah, yeah, that's fascinating.
It's it's scary too because every time this happens and and the media gets caught in the act or the government gets caught in the act, uh, there's no accountability.
So it's like, all right, yeah, you caught us, we lied.
And but it's you know, nobody reads the retractions, and there's no check, there are no checks and balances on these these law enforcement agents.
Like, like who whenever the FBI gets in trouble, they do an internal investigation.
It's like I made this this quip the other day.
It's like, would you would you hi would you hire Jeffrey Epstein to investigate Epstein's island?
It's like, why would you rely on the FBI to investigate itself?
It's exactly right.
Exactly right.
And it's the same, you know, there's a reason there's a reason why there's uh this mass movement of of uh pushing back on journalism now too, and and calling journalists the the you know, they are the enemy of the people.
They no longer report the truth.
Uh and I it who was I that I just had on the show.
Anyways, we were talking about how you know these these DC reporters and um and publications, uh the the CIA and the uh and the FBI and these people are actually getting their narrative from the journalists, like the the the publications now.
They're like getting this and bringing in into briefs and stuff.
Like that's not right.
That's not how this works, you know.
That's that's you know, that's really really bad shit.
Um and and so it's like the journalists and the the law enforcement agencies.
It's like this this country needs a mass, mass overhaul in all these areas.
And how do we get how do we go about that?
You know what I mean?
How do we how do we do that other than just wake everybody up to these to these things that we can you have to establish financial independence and you have to establish um information independence?
So I'm really hopeful, though I don't I don't know that it's gonna be the case, but I'm really hopeful about blockchain tech and crypto because if we can have decentralized hosting uh information, then we don't have to worry about Amazon web services shutting down websites that are controversial.
We don't have to worry about um you know inflation if we can just get uh if we can get an economy going.
Gotta look in the library, man.
Library and Odyssey.
They're you know uh library is essentially a decentralized um uh file uh storage.
I mean, that's what it is, you know, and and it's used, yeah.
It's a crypto that has its own blockchain, and they're actually storing this information on the blockchain, right?
And so uh my shows get stored on the blockchain, they're decentralized, no one can take them, no one, you know that nobody can you know take them down.
Uh and and Odyssey, Odyssey has some moderation, but not very much.
Um, and I had the founder of both of these things on my on my show, Jeremy Kaufman.
He's actually a free stater in New Hampshire.
And um, they even have a protocol on the blockchain.
So if somebody puts like illegal content on the blockchain, right?
So, like we're talking, you know, lolly stuff or whatever, SCP.
Um the the nodes or whatever can like surround it and keep it from getting back out, which is kind of cool, but it has to be like illegal content.
They have like a whole protocol for it and everything.
It's like a smart contract thing, so nobody has to make a judgment call, it just happens.
Right, and then no, and then it tells you not to go the don't go to this part of the the blockchain or whatever, which is kind of cool to think about, you know.
And it is and he doesn't know he I don't remember if we talk about a way for that to be reported.
Um, you know, but uh in my opinion, I think they got a pretty good like digital wood chipper protocol on there already, you know what I mean?
So uh that's pretty neat.
But yeah, you you know, you nobody can take that down, nobody can take the stuff down from library.
So there were that's that's what's coming.
You know, at the end of the day, that is what's coming.
When Silk Road got shut down, um hundreds of Silk Roads, and they're all decentralized now.
That's that was the difference.
You know, Silk Road wasn't decentralized.
Ross was running Silk Road with 11 other people or whatever.
Right.
So when it got shut down, all the smart people were like, oh, okay, well, let's do this not decentralized, and no one can do shit to us.
And that's what they did.
They created a bigger market for it by taking down the the actual good market that was there.
So now you got this black market decentralized uh thing that that no government can stop, you know.
Yeah, and uh in a bit faster than they can regulate.
And we should we should keep doing it.
That's the trick.
We need the smart people.
Yeah, they're out they're out there somewhere.
Not here, not me.
Not me either.
So um, where can people find you?
Oh, yeah, man.
Well, uh, you can follow me on Twitter.
That's where I I uh I lead the war against the blue checks.
That's uh at Joshua at large.
Uh that's that's a fun place if you want to follow me there.
I'm always always at war with somebody there.
It's a good time.
And then of course the show, uh, you can check out uh I'm all on every single podcast at catcher except for like a few very small amount.
Um I'm on YouTube at at youtube.com slash fight the despots.
Um you can find me there or Odyssey, uh, just look up Joshua's uh break cycle Joshua Smith, you'll find me all over the place.
And um check out the show, it's a good show.
Uh I put a lot of uh time and effort and and blood, sweat, and tears into building a good set, bringing on great guests.
I'm doing five shows a week now, Monday through Friday, uh, on top of working a more than full-time 12-hour a day job.
So uh much appreciated, man.
Or join the Patreon and subscribe star.
Got all kinds of cool uh uh tiers there that you guys get all kinds of cool shit and extra gear and and uh what else do they get?
Uh oh yeah, the exclusive content.
We do I do uh an after hour stream for uh uh at least 20 minutes after every guest that all exclusive members get.
So it's good, it's good, it's a good thing.
I'm I'm happy to have it.
I hope more people will check it out.
And uh thank you for for talking that Liberty shit, Jason.
Really, we really appreciate you, man.
Absolutely, man.
Thank you so much for coming on.
I appreciate you taking the time to um help support this show too.
And um, I hope that we stay in touch.
And if you ever need anything, just let me know.
I'm here for you.
All about it.
Absolutely.
Maybe maybe we'll have you come on next month, man.
