All Episodes
Previous Next
April 13, 2021 - Dinesh D'Souza
01:04:04
THE DEVIL IN GEORGIA Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep67
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
If an ID isn't racist when you show up to fly or go to the bank, why is it racist when you show up to vote?
What's the deal with these woke corporations?
And Daniel D'Souza Gil joins me to talk about what happened to the art of conversation and debate in America.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza podcast.
The times are crazy.
In a time of confusion, division, and lies, we need a brave voice of reason, understanding, and truth.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast.
Georgia is now the tip of the spear.
the spear.
And what I mean by that is that Georgia is leading a nationwide movement To reform election laws.
These reforms are underway all over the place, according to the Brennan Center, which has been tracking this stuff.
Lawmakers in 47 states have introduced 361 bills for voter integrity.
Of those bills, 55 are moving through legislatures in 24 states.
29 have gone through one chamber.
And 26 of them have made it through committee.
Five bills have already been signed into law.
So this is an important movement to, you may say, secure the vote.
Now, from the left's point of view, it is restricting the vote.
Not really. How do you restrict the vote?
Well, they say, well, voter ID. By requiring an ID, you're restricting the vote.
Well, let's think about it.
How come voter ID is racist, but ID in every other context is not racist?
Travel ID isn't racist, apparently.
American Airlines and Delta aren't restricting travel access for minorities by asking people to show an ID. When you purchase a gun, you need an ID. How come that's not racist?
When you make a medical appointment, you need an ID. That's evidently not racist.
Aren't they restricting medical access?
Latinos and blacks won't be able to get proper medical care.
When you buy liquor, you need an ID to prove that you're a certain age.
How come that's not racist?
When you do transactions with the government, when you get welfare, when you get stimulus checks, social security, you need to show ID. When you deal in credit card transactions, you're often asked for your ID. So here's something very mysterious.
Evidently, ID is non-racist in all these other contexts, but becomes racist, mysteriously, in the one context where the left really doesn't want to have ID requirements at all.
They say, well, you know, there are people who have real trouble getting an ID. Who does?
Who really has trouble getting an ID? Who can't get an ID? In fact, if there was a problem of people getting an ID, make it kind of easier to get an ID. Make it possible for people in all walks of life to have easy access to getting an ID. Now, around the world, I can envision people who, like, don't have ID. In the outskirts of India there are these sort of tribal peoples who live in remote areas.
They live by their own laws.
They can't get ID. If you go to the Amazon rainforest you literally have people who live sort of in trees and in forests.
They're not part of mainstream society.
They don't have ID. But apart from those segments of people in the world...
It's really hard for me to think of groups in America that can't get an ID. This is a little preposterous.
So why is it the left so eager to make it that you don't necessarily have to produce an ID? Well, you don't have to produce an ID. You can vote multiple times in person.
No ID. You can vote whether you live in the state or not.
No ID. You can send in multiple mail-in ballots.
No ID. You can vote on behalf of dead or fictitious people.
Jane Austen. No ID. So no ID paves the way for all kinds of shenanigans.
Now here's Governor Kemp in Georgia talking about the fact that the Georgia law, far from restricting access, far from being a legacy of Jim Crow, actually does a lot of reasonable things.
Listen. This bill that I just signed is expanding the opportunity for people to vote early here in Georgia again with even additional potential for people to vote on Saturday and Sunday.
It's further securing the absentee ballot process by simply adding a photo ID requirement or number from your ID that will actually speed up The absentee balloting by mail process, which was very slow after this last election, take the arbitrary part of that away.
So really it's an election integrity bill, but also expands access.
So it's kind of ironic that the president would be against that.
The Georgia law is by no means extreme.
In fact, Georgia has voting requirements that are more open, more easy, or in some cases similar.
Even the requirements that you do this and you do that, you produce an ID. This is similar to what occurs in many blue states.
Let's look at a couple of examples.
New York allows for 10 days of early in-person voting.
Georgia allows for 17 days.
New York requires voters casting absentee ballots to provide a reason why they can't come to the polls on Election Day.
Georgia doesn't even do that.
Delaware. Biden's from Delaware.
He calls the Georgia voting law Jim Crow in the 21st century.
Biden's home state of Delaware has never allowed early in-person voting.
They're supposed to start doing it in 2022.
But even when they do it, Georgia provides seven more days of early in-person voting than in Delaware.
Colorado. Major League Baseball says we're going to move the All-Star game from Georgia to Colorado.
Are things any better in Colorado?
No. Colorado basically allows for in-person voting, early in-person voting, two fewer days than Georgia.
In Colorado, as in Georgia, you need photo identification if you're going to do...
Mail-in balloting. New Jersey.
Stacey Abrams appeared with the New Jersey governor.
Phil Murphy, a Democrat, they were praising this new law in New Jersey, claiming that it contrasts favorably with the Georgia law.
Not exactly. The New Jersey law allows nine days of early in-person voting.
Georgia has 17 days of early in-person voting.
Rhode Island. The new Georgia law requires voters to request absentee ballots 11 days before the election.
Rhode Island requires absentee ballot requests to be submitted 21 days before Election Day.
And on and on you go. Go to Minnesota, another Democratic state.
Minnesota requires a driver's license or other ID for absentee ballot verification.
Wisconsin. The Badger State requires absentee ballot applications to include photo identification, and that's actually tougher than Georgia.
Georgia doesn't require photo identification.
It requires you provide your driver's license, the last four digits of your Social Security, or some other form of identification.
So, bottom line of it is that Georgia's laws resemble in many respects and are more liberal, if you want to use that term, than in many other blue states.
So, for the left, it's all about making an example out of Georgia and they're doing it in a hypocritical and dishonest way.
You may say that the devil has gone down to Georgia in order to try to stymie.
It's not just about Georgia.
They know that if they can do a killer strike on the Georgia election reform, it will stymie election reform in all these other places.
So what the left is up to, they're trying to stop the nationwide reform movement to make election laws accessible, But also safe.
To strike that balance between encouraging more people to vote, making it easier to vote, but at the same time making sure that people who are ineligible to vote don't vote.
And that's what the left is most afraid of.
What's going on with these woke corporate CEOs?
I'll tell you what's going on with them, and it's not what meets the eye.
Now, recently, this past weekend, a hundred of the nation's top corporate leaders met on a Zoom call.
Apparently, this is sort of a First of its kind, there were CEOs calling in from the Augusta Golf Club, where they were part of the Masters Golf Tournament.
This was organized by Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, and he got a lot of the top CEOs in the country to attend.
Let me just name a few. Arthur Blank, the owner of the Atlanta Falcons, James Murdoch, and his wife.
Adam Aaron, the CEO of AMC Theaters, Brad Karp.
A big law partner, Doug McMillan, the CEO of Walmart, the CEOs of United Airlines, American Airlines, the chairman of Levi Strauss Company, Levi Strauss, Reid Hoffman, the CEO of LinkedIn.
This meeting, one of the organizers was this woman.
You can kind of see her standing in front of her horse and her estate.
One of the richest people in America, Lynn Forrester D. Rothschild.
D. Rothschild. She was part of the Rothschild family.
And so you've got these sort of unbelievably rich, successful people who are making a lot of money, millions and millions of dollars a year, a net worth, I'm sure, collectively well into the billions.
And they're all coming together to fight against voter reform.
Their target is Georgia, but their target is other states that use the Georgia example.
And here's what they say they're going to do.
They go, CEOs who participated, this is from a joint statement issued afterward, indicated that they will reevaluate donations to candidates supporting bills that restrict voting rights.
And many would reconsider investments in states which act upon such proposals.
Now... What is really going on here?
Are these CEOs, I mean, in one or two cases, like Levi Strauss, you might have, there's an activist company, there's an activist CEO, he's on board with the left, but I think for most of the others, something bigger is going on.
Let me give you a couple of indications of what I think is going on.
Here's an article in the Wall Street Journal.
CEO pay surges in a year of upheaval and leadership challenges.
Think about it. Most people are out of work.
Many people have suffered damaging losses to their business and their income.
And this has been not by any fault of their own.
It's mandated government shutdowns.
But median pay for CEOs has surged.
It's now $13.7 million per year.
And shareholders might object, but they looked at 322 CEOs and they've all seen massive rises.
Now, very interestingly, even CEOs of companies that have been completely, in effect, shuttered, crippled during the pandemic.
Let's look, for example, at Norwegian cruise lines.
$4 billion loss last year after sales basically, salings just stopped.
Revenue just collapsed, went down 80%.
But the CEO, Frank Del Rio, his pay doubled to $36 million.
Now, you might say, well, Dinesh, you're supposed to be a conservative.
Isn't that capitalism? Well, actually, no.
CEO pay is not set by, quote, markets.
CEO pay is often set by a board that is of cronies appointed by the CEO himself.
The CEO actually picks the committee that decides on his pay.
So is it any surprise that even when the companies are doing poorly, the CEO board goes, Well, we really like Frank Del Rio.
He's one of the boys. We all go down to Augusta every once a year.
He's got a tremendous way with the way he swings a golf iron.
I really like the guy.
I'd like to give him some more money.
Obviously not my money, but the company's money.
So the bottom line of it is these CEOs have realized that they might be facing a massive public outcry, a massive reaction from their own workers who go, how the heck?
When I'm struggling to feed my family, you're doubling your salary.
The company's not even doing any business.
The CEO goes, well, yeah, but you know what?
I'm against the Georgia law.
I'm fighting the Texas law.
I'm woke, man.
Get off my back.
So this is a get off my back strategy.
What the CEOs are doing is they're changing the lens in the camera from class, class here referring to income, to race.
And by striking an enlightened stance on race, they turn the topic away from class.
Reporters won't attack them because they go, reporters themselves are woke.
So they go, oh man, this guy's on our side.
He's a woke CEO. He He's doing our bidding.
He's fighting the Georgia law.
So the bottom line is these CEOs gain a certain immunity by doing it.
Here's another article, by the way, Washington Post.
Sugary drinks link to 180,000 deaths a year.
Think about that. This is a study that's done by researchers at Tufts University.
Sugary drinks like Coca-Cola are killing nearly 200,000 people a year.
Why? By basically putting into their bodies something that is just toxic for them.
This is sort of like Coca-Cola is like a tobacco company.
It's putting poison into your system.
And by the way, these deaths are occurring disproportionately in poor countries.
About three-fourths of these deaths are in developing countries, according to this study.
Latin America has the highest death rates, with Mexico topping the list.
So here you've got the Coca-Cola CEO, by the way, this smarmy British guy.
And he knows that his product is actually toxic.
He's killing people all over the world.
He doesn't want to have to answer for it.
So how does he get out of that?
How does he get out of the, why are you killing people with your sugar water?
Why are you contributing to obesity at a time of an epidemic?
And his answer is... Wait a minute.
Get off my back, guys.
I'm fighting the election law in Georgia, can't you see?
I'm really busy. Don't call me right now.
I'll call you. So all these woke CEOs, many of them treacherous characters who are doing a lot of harm in the world, but they're trying to cover it up and change the topic and get lavish media attention by being woke.
So, this is not a case where these guys are even submitting necessarily to fear.
It's not the case that they are enlightened and they're basically trying to do the right thing.
These are horrible, corrupt people who are raking it in at the expense of their own workers and their own customers and to escape accountability.
They're all taking a collective sense.
Don't worry, I've got an easy way out of my problems.
I'll be on that Zoom call.
Do you think our nation's economy is going to be insulated from Biden's planned massive tax increases?
Think again.
There's only one way to protect your savings.
Do what over 10,000 other smart investors have and convert a portion of your retirement accounts into gold and silver with Birch Gold.
When inflation hits, and it will, gold and silver are your safe haven.
And Birch Gold Group is the company I trust to help you convert an IRA or eligible 401k into an IRA backed by gold and silver through April 30th.
On qualifying purchases, when you buy physical gold or silver or open a precious metals IRA with Birch Gold, they will send you a free home safe.
Text Dinesh to 484848 for your free information kit.
On precious metals IRAs or to speak with a Birch Gold representative today.
With 10,000 customers, an A-plus rating with a Better Business Bureau, countless five-star reviews, they can help you too.
Text Dinesh to 484848 for your free safe with qualifying purchase.
I want to talk in this segment about BLM, Black Lives Matter, and the art of the racial shakedown.
Now, kind of what prods me to go into this is I spoke yesterday on the podcast about Patrice Concalore, one of the three founders of Black Lives Matter.
And she is going all over the world buying real estate, apparently dropping millions of dollars.
She has a million dollar plus property in LA. She's bought some other properties in America.
She was spotted in the Bahamas looking at five million dollar estates in a community that apparently includes Justin Timberlake and Tiger Woods.
Her place in Georgia is a 3.2-acre ranch that includes a private airplane hangar and a runway where you can land private planes.
So here is one Marxist who has been taking in the money while not really telling a lot of people about it.
Well, some people are finding out about it.
So Hank Newsom, the head of Black Lives Matter in New York, has called for an investigation.
He goes, You have to ask how much of her own personal money is going to charitable causes.
It's really sad because it makes people doubt the validity of the movement.
Yeah, exactly. And then here's Michael Brown Sr.
By the way, this is the guy whose son Michael Brown Jr.
was killed in Ferguson. This is part of what propelled the Black Lives Matter movement.
And he basically says that he's got no money.
So it's all raised in his name.
But the bottom line of it is he goes, why hasn't my family's foundation received any assistance from the movement?
The answer is because Patrice Concalores and her buddies are really busy in the Bahamas.
Don't call them.
They'll call you, Mr.
Brown. So this whole thing is a racket.
BLM, by the way, raised $90 million last year, so there's a lot of moolah to go around.
But part of what I want to go into is the art of how they get this money.
And this has to do with the shakedown.
And the shakedown, by the way, was not invented by BLM, although they've carried it to a new level.
They've perfected it.
They have essentially created a ransom system in which, to avoid being accused of racism, you have to pay up.
And by paying up, you go in their good books.
And they don't attack you, and in fact, they attack your competitors.
So it's just kind of a business deal built into it.
They will attack your competitors for bigotry while exonerating you for bigotry, but you have to pay.
Now, I kind of stumbled into this scheme myself in the early 1990s, if I recall.
I was talking to a guy who's very high up in NASCAR. This is the NASCAR car company and he was talking to me about how Jesse Jackson had sort of invented this racket.
So Jackson invented it.
People like Al Sharpton then got into the game and now BLM has taken it to a whole new level.
But I think if we look at the original racket you get a pretty good sense of how this stuff works.
So it turns out that the guy who founded NASCAR was kind of a blue-collar guy, Mr.
France. And he had made some insensitive statement about why there weren't enough blacks driving cars, driving NASCAR. And he said something like, well, blacks don't have any money.
And what he really meant to say is that, by and large, this is a sport that requires—it's very expensive to be part of it.
You require sponsorships.
It's inexpensive to be a driver— And because blacks disproportionately don't have as much money, they're less likely to be driving.
But he didn't say it that way.
He said it kind of in a crude way.
So then what happens, according to my NASCAR source, is that Jesse Jackson shows up and he goes, Mr.
France, you know, the brothers are, they're very angry.
They're very angry. And Mr. France is like, well, I didn't mean anything.
And Jackson's like, I know, I know you didn't mean anything, but listen...
The brothers are restless.
You need to kind of bring me in because I will smooth them over.
I will calm the brothers so they won't be, you know, protesting outside your company or calling you a racist.
So Mr. Francis is like, you know what?
That sounds really good, Mr.
Jackson. How... How can you help me?
And Jackson's like, that's it. I just want to help.
Well, listen, my associate from Atlanta will visit you next week.
He will lay out the terms and conditions and we'll work all this out.
And so the two men sort of shake hands.
And so, well, the associate comes in from Atlanta the next week and he's like, listen, here are our non-negotiable demands.
Number one, You, NASCAR, will write a $250,000 check right now to Operation Push, which is the Jesse Jackson organization.
Number two, the Reverend Jackson will have access to the NASCAR airplane on a, quote, as-needed basis to do his wonderful philanthropic and charitable work.
Number three, NASCAR will agree to hire this many people in this many management positions and pay for these training programs.
So it was basically kind of a list of demands.
It reminded me of the mafia showing up on Canal Street in the early part of the 20th century and telling business owners, listen, we'll offer you protection.
But you have to pay.
And if you don't pay, we'll come and we will destroy your store and you'll find your son with a knife in his back.
And this is similar.
The threat here is the threat of racial blackmail.
And the offer is that if you pay, you'll be protected.
You'll be protected by who?
By the very people who are threatening you.
But here's the key point.
The main difference between Black Lives Matter, let's say, or Jesse Jackson on the one hand, and the mafia on the other, is that the mafia didn't pretend to be the good guys.
They would just come in and go, we're bad guys, we're gonna beat you up if you don't pay, whereas these guys come in wearing a halo.
The Reverend Jackson, his philanthropic work.
He needs your airplane to do his much needed social missions and so on.
So what happens is that the gangsters in this case are gangsters who come in with robes and with a halo.
They're bad guys who pretend to be good guys.
So their thuggery is masked by the veil of social justice.
And that's the key point for people like Patrice Kahn-Kalors.
All the Marxist rhetoric, we tend to read all this stuff and go, oh, you know, these are people who are following a dangerous left-wing ideology and so on.
For them, it's claptrap.
They no more believe in it than Hugo Chavez believed in it.
For Hugo Chavez, who died a billionaire in Venezuela, it was all about the money.
Similarly for Lenin, for Stalin, it was all about the money.
One of the first things Lenin did when he came to power, he bought a fleet of Rolls Royces.
And according to a recent documentary that I saw, when Stalin came in, he had a big disagreement with Lenny.
He didn't like the idea of the Rolls Royces.
He preferred the Packard, so he bought a fleet of Packards.
So the bottom line of it is, these are thugs who see in the rhetoric of social justice and the rhetoric of Marxism itself.
They probably think, who is that dunce Marx with all this rubbish that he was talking about, this mumbo-jumbo about the proletariat?
We don't care about any of that.
Communists and other societies have been perfectly happy to, you know, they make a symbol, the hammer and sickle, which represents the worker and the farmer.
Well, they don't hesitate to kill the workers and kill the farmers.
And similarly, here today, the left in America, they don't care about the farmers.
They don't care about the working class.
Who do they care about? One group of people, themselves.
I'd like to introduce you to Nutramedics, a professional supplement brand trusted by doctors since 1993 and now available to you.
It's critical to have a strong immune system.
Nutramedics' immune support kit of vitamin C, vitamin D, K and zinc will give your immune system the boost it needs.
The best part about Nutramedics, every year they donate a minimum of 50% of their profits to global charities and missions.
That's right, 50% of profits.
Many of you take supplements already.
Switch to Nutramedix.
It's the highest quality and they donate 50% of their profits.
Get 10% off by using the code Dinesh10 during checkout.
Go to Nutramedix.com and order the Immune Support Kit.
Support your health while helping others in need.
Go to Nutramedix.com and use the code Dinesh10 for 10% off.
Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has caused a big stir on the left by saying that not only will he not vote to end the filibuster, but even to weaken it.
And this is now causing, well, a big fluster on the left.
Here is someone from the group called Young Turks reacting in a very negative way.
Listen. Conservative lawmaker who's still somehow registered as a Democrat, Joe Manchin, has now backed away from his openness to possibly reform the legislative filibuster in the Senate.
In an op-ed that was published in the Washington Post, Manchin argued, quote, there is no circumstance in which I will vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster.
The time has come to end these political games and to usher a new era of bipartisanship Where we find common ground on the major policy debates facing our nation.
Wait, how exactly do you find bipartisan solutions to issues when the Republican Party literally tried to overturn the results of the election?
How do you work with them?
How do you have the, I'll say guts, To speak to the American people and argue that the people playing the tricks are the ones who want to do away with the legislative filibuster that effectively allows for bills to go to the Senate to die.
It's just so pathetic and ridiculous.
I can't stand this man. How can you have bipartisan?
Well, I'll tell you how you can.
Let's take the issue of voting reform.
The way you can have bipartisan progress on this is that each side brings what is most important about it to the table.
So Democrats care most about expanding access.
Republicans care most about making sure that the people who vote are eligible to vote.
Now, isn't it possible to meet both those goals at the same time?
Isn't it possible that each side's legitimate concern can be addressed?
But that process is not taking place.
So that's what Joe Manchin is talking about.
Well, the left isn't interested in any of this.
What they're interested in is how can we browbeat Joe Manchin?
What can we get out of our grab bag that will make him change his mind?
Can we sort of strong-arm him?
And the answer is, let's play the Jim Clyburn card.
Let's sort of bring in this African-American guy who's going to start talking about...
My grandfather was sitting on a rocking chair and he couldn't vote.
Let's try to intimidate Joe Manchin by playing the good old race card.
Now, I wish that Joe Manchin, like me, would have heard this a hundred times and would basically let out a massive yawn.
Or fire something out of my rear end because we're not exactly impressed by this kind of nonsense.
You know, I would respond with a massive swall.
Well, if I heard from Jim Clyburn, this is not your great-grandfather.
Well, let me tell you about my great-grandfather in India.
You know, he ate a lot of beans, let me tell you.
Well, so the race card is the big thing that they're trying to play.
And there's a The basic fallacy that's going on here, the basic fallacy is that the filibuster was used by Southerners.
Here's an article on the racist history of the filibuster.
It's by a guy named Jonathan Baird in the Concord Monitor.
And he keeps talking about how Southern senators did this and Southern senators did that.
Now, I notice a very notable omission.
He never says Democrats.
He never points out that the racists who used the filibuster to try to block civil rights laws were in the main Democrats.
He talks about Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia spoke for over 14 hours.
Democrat. Somebody who has been called a mentor by both Obama and Hillary.
So suddenly Robert Byrd is on the outs because he used the filibuster, a racist tool, and so on.
The article also points out that the filibuster was used against, to fight against anti-lynching laws and the author pretends to be like really indignant about this.
Now what he carefully leaves out of his article is the fact that FDR, the sainted progressive, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, cut a deal with democratic racists in his own party to block anti-lynching legislation.
So this was a deal made inside of the Democratic Party by the most lionized Democrat of the 20th century.
This is what was going on.
So the problem again here is not the filibuster.
It's Kind of like saying, you know, a car slammed into the sidewalk killing three people.
The car was used for a terrible purpose.
Let's outlaw the car.
Now, the reason no one says that is because they realize that the car isn't the problem.
Cars have multiple perfectly good uses.
The filibuster has multiple perfectly good uses.
It's an effort to balance the power between the majority party and the minority party.
It's to make sure that there is discussion and an attempt to sort of meet the other side.
So the filibuster serves all these So, the filibuster was racist when it was in the hands of Democrats.
The filibuster was racist when people like FDR were able to manipulate it to their own end.
But there's nothing about the filibuster itself that's racist.
And so just as cars were driven by other people for other purposes, like going to the grocery store, taking me to the airport so I can get on a flight, Those are benign and normal uses of the car.
The Republicans are attempting normal use of the filibuster for political purposes with a whole range of legislation, legislation that pertains to guns, legislation that pertains to taxes, legislation that pertains to the budget.
And on and on and on.
So to pretend like this is all about a racial agenda, that the filibuster is nothing more than a tool of white supremacy, the Democrats actually know better.
Why? Because they were the very gangsters that misused the filibuster in those ways.
And now the very same people who did that are showing up pretending to have erased all that history, or at least to take that history and use it to blame the country, blame the Republicans.
They're blaming the other party.
For trying to do all the mean and racist stuff that is a part of their own history.
Mike Lindell, the founder and inventor of MyPillow is not only a genius in making products, but he's also a genius in marketing them.
Listen. Now, you're kind of a household name, I think, for a simple reason, and that is your all-over television.
Right. And your face, you.
Right. And so you're unusual, perhaps, in that you market your own product.
And so that tells me that there's a third thing you do.
You thought of the idea for it, you organized it, but you also sell it.
Hello, I'm Mike Lindell, inventor of MyPillow.
Thanks to your support, you've helped make MyPillow become one of the fastest-growing companies in America.
Debbie and I really love Mike Lindell's pillows, but we also love all his other products.
We've gotten the robes, the dog beds, the throws, the blankets, the towels, and the sheets.
Right now, Mike Lindell is offering buy one, get one free on his sheet sets.
Mike has come out with the world's most comfortable bed sheets.
He found the best cotton in the world in a region where the Sahara Desert, the Nile River, And the Mediterranean Sea all come together to create the ideal weather conditions for growing cotton.
His new Giza Dream bed sheets are made with this long staple cotton and Mike guarantees and I guarantee they'll be the most comfortable sheets you'll ever own.
The first night you sleep on them, you'll never want to sleep on anything else.
The Geezer Dream sheets are available in a variety of colors.
Like all of Mike's products, they come with a 60-day money-back guarantee and a 10-year warranty.
Right now, you can buy one, get one free by calling 800-876-0227 and use promo code Dinesh.
Deep discounts on everything, but buy one, get one free on the sheets.
Call 800-876-0227 or go to MyPillow.com, but make sure to use promo code D-I-N-E-S-H, Dinesh.
Liz Cheney, the number three Republican in the House, was recently interviewed by CBS News on Face the Nation, and she made some striking remarks about Trump on January 6th.
Listen. Is he really the best messenger for the party?
The former president is using the same language that he knows provoked violence on January 6th.
As a party, we need to be focused on the future.
We need to be focused on embracing the Constitution, not embracing insurrection.
Now, this stuff is getting very hard to take, and the Republicans had an opportunity to remove Liz Cheney from the leadership, which they should have done, but they didn't do.
There is a movement inside of her state of Wyoming to get rid of Liz Cheney, and I hope that movement goes forward because that's a safe red state.
We really don't need Liz Cheney.
This is not the direction of the party.
Now, she is Evidently someone who continues to use this kind of incendiary and preposterous language.
I mean, we're not the party of insurrection.
We have to embrace the Constitution, not embrace the insurrection.
There was no insurrection.
All of this language of sedition, which was used very promiscuously after January 6th, used by the left for opportunistic purposes.
And they were lying when they said it, and they knew it.
One of the chief prosecutors went on television to talk about, oh yeah, we're going to be doing shock and awe and arresting all these people and we're going to be charging them all with sedition because they tried to overthrow the government.
Well, let me ask you this.
How many of the January 6th defendants are charged with sedition?
Here's the correct answer. None.
You know why? Because as the prosecutors have looked at it, they saw there's no sedition.
None of these people were remotely trying to overthrow the government.
This wasn't the attack on Fort Sumter all over again.
Even the guy who was sitting at Nancy Pelosi's desk is laughing and taking selfies.
Another guy running off with her podium.
People chatting with the cops.
These are not the hallmarks of insurrection.
So as the prosecutors look at this, and even Obama and Clinton judges look at this, and they go, wait a minute.
This guy wasn't even at the Capitol.
This guy didn't even do anything.
This guy didn't even break a window.
This guy did nothing but wave his arms and shout.
So, it's one thing for the dishonest, diabolical left to be knowingly disseminating all these falsehoods, but what is a bit much to take is when you have someone in Republican leadership essentially endorsing, embracing, and repeating the falsehoods, thus ratifying them, thus giving them an air of legitimacy.
I think this is actually something bordering on a crisis for the Republican Party, because you've got a Republican base that has now become completely disconnected from a party leadership.
And this, by the way, includes Liz Cheney, but it also includes people like Mitch McConnell.
Who continue to have this idea that somehow Trump provoked an insurrection.
True. Nothing he said was about insurrection.
He didn't call for an insurrection.
By the way, had Trump called for an insurrection, there would have really been one.
But he never did. But nevertheless, because these people went to the Capitol and they found their way inside, even though apparently meeting token or no resistance, since that happened and since Trump spoke before that, therefore his statements must have caused it to happen.
I mean, you have...
Logical fallacy, psychological fallacy, and just sheer idiocy all coming together.
And again, this is something that we expect now from the left.
We're ready for it. I spend a lot of this podcast not only exposing it, but ridiculing it.
But then it sort of breaks my heart to see people on the Republican side who are either out of cowardice or ignorance or some mystical combination of the two, embracing these ideas and disseminating them on our side of the aisle.
We should all be concerned about email surveillance and the risks that come with free service providers, i.e., companies can sell data to target people with intrusive ads, opening you up to identity theft and phishing attacks, etc.
That's why Debbie and I use Startmail.
It makes us feel safe again.
Startmail keeps my email private, period.
Every email can be encrypted, even if the recipient doesn't use encryption.
When you delete an email in Startmail, it's gone forever.
And Startmail uses their own servers, which means you can't be put out of business.
Switching to Startmail is seamless, too.
You can easily transfer all your current email data, so there's no starting from scratch.
We love using Startmail because we know that all of our private conversations will stay private.
In this hostile environment we live in, it's always reassuring to know that an email service has your back.
Secure your email privacy with Startmail.
Sign up today and you'll get 50% off your first year.
Go to Startmail.com slash Dinesh.
That's Startmail with a T. S-T-A-R-T-M-A-I-L dot com slash Dinesh.
For 50% off your first year, startmail.com slash Dinesh.
I've sometimes wondered what it might be like if I could be a fly on the wall and listen to some of the most interesting conversationalist exchange ideas.
I feel this especially now because we've seen really a disappearance in our society of real discussion, real debate.
We don't get this in academia.
We used to get a smidgen of it in the media, but no longer.
Even on the political floor on the Senate and the House, you have people shouting at each other, but not engaging each other in discussion or debate.
Well, there are a few times in history where great figures got together and talked.
We can think of Socrates talking to people in the 5th century BC on the streets of Athens.
We can think of the American founders getting together around a table in Philadelphia.
But there was also such a group, and I think if I had to make a contest, this would be the greatest group of eminent figures ever to get together in a single place for ongoing regular conversation.
The conversation actually took place in the pubs of London, particularly one, one pub, and the figures are, well, we'll get into who they are.
I want to actually bring on board my daughter, Danielle de Souza Gill, author of the book The Choice, a book about the pro-life argument, the abortion divide in America.
But Danielle also has done research into the exact group that we're going to talk about.
A group that met at a pub in London called the Cheshire Cheese Pub.
Daniel, welcome to the podcast.
Good to have you as always.
Tell us who were some of the luminaries who met together at the Cheshire Cheese Pub and other pubs and why did they get together?
Yeah, so the pub really was a place that people met in London to talk about ideas, to sometimes just hang out with friends and so on.
But this really came about at a time when, before that, there was mostly monarchy.
The idea of having a democracy was really new, with even America not being independent yet.
So when people met and discussed at the pub, this was kind of the beginning of sort of the common man, I guess, developing their own And this was actually the time when the term of public opinion was coined and when statesmen started using it in England.
And so I think by looking at some of these luminaries at the pub, we can see how this discourse started.
Now, obviously, the luminaries we're going to talk about were not sort of common folk in the sense that this wasn't like a mason, a tinker, a carpenter.
These were eminent figures in the leading fields in London and in England, to some degree in the world.
Let's go through some of these characters.
Let's start naming them. Who are some of these folks?
There was the most famous, Samuel Johnson.
He was sort of the founder of the literary club or the most prominent member.
He was also joined by his biographer, later biographer, James Boswell, who was one of his closest friends.
There was also the actor David Garrick at the time, Adam Smith, David Hume, Edmund Burke, and a lot of other famous and influential people.
Now, let's pause for a moment because we're dropping names and each figure you could almost do a whole show on or write a book on.
So James Boswell writes the greatest biography in the English language called The Life of Johnson.
I actually have it here.
I've got the unabridged version, so as you can see, it's somewhat massive.
But it's very well worth reading, and it's absorbing.
You almost laugh out loud on every page.
Why? Because of Johnson.
Johnson is this giant, morbidly obese, but unbelievably learned and witty character.
And Boswell is the...
I would say Boswell has this unbelievable ability to bring out Johnson's Witty irritability.
How does Boswell do that?
He oftentimes asks him questions that bring about some of Johnson's humor.
I have one example where they're discussing some students being expelled from Oxford, and so Johnson is in favor of them being expelled.
But Boswell says to Johnson, But was it not hard, sir, to expel them?
For I'm told they were good beings.
Johnson replied, Sir, I believe they might be good beings, but they were not fit to be in the University of Oxford.
A cow is a very good animal in the field, but we turn her out of a garden.
So he made a lot of witty responses like this, and he was sort of known for his humor.
I think the key with Boswell was...
And sometimes Boswell would irritate Johnson.
I have a funny quote from Johnson where he basically says to Boswell, he goes, you know, he goes, stop asking me questions.
He goes, don't you consider that these are not the manners of a gentleman?
I will not be baited with what and why?
What is this? What is that?
Why is a cow's tail long?
Why is a fox's tail bushy?
So Boswell had this ability.
He would see something that he would know is out of place.
At one point, of course, famously, he sees...
A woman preacher.
And he knows this is going to irritate Johnson.
So he goes, Hey Johnson, you know, what do you think of this idea of a woman preaching?
And then Johnson utters his famous line.
He goes, Well, this is sort of like a dog standing on its hind legs.
You're not surprised that it's not being done well, but you're a little surprised it's being done at all.
So here's Johnson being slightly misogynistic, but reflecting his view of the very traditional view that preachers should in fact be men.
Now you mentioned the other characters, the great Shakespearean actor David Garrick, the playerite Oliver Goldsmith, but you also mentioned David Hume, Edmund Burke, and Adam Smith.
So say a word about Edmund Burke and about what Johnson thought about Burke.
Um, Johnson really looked up to Edmund Burke, and I think Edmund Burke might be one of my favorites of the group, just because he was correct on his analysis of the American Revolution versus the French Revolution.
At the time, he had said that the French Revolution was not good, it was very radical, because they wanted to create this sort of I think that was really correct, because he kind of interpreted it.
Well, this is important, I think, because a lot of people think of Burke as the enemy of revolution.
You know, Burke is somehow this traditionalist.
He wants the Ancien Regime.
He defends the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette.
And so they think that because of this, Burke doesn't like change.
Burke is against revolution.
But as you point out, not really true.
Burke opposed the French Revolution, which he thought was a revolution against the church and against morals and against property.
But he supported the American Revolution because he said that the Americans know how to run the country on their own and they will benefit England far more as trading partners than they will as sort of serfs of the British Parliament.
So what does Johnson say about Burke?
Yes, I have something written.
He says, Johnson said of Edmund Burke, You could not stand five minutes with that man beneath his shed while it rained, but you must be convinced you had been standing with the greatest man you had ever seen.
On one occasion when Johnson was with Boswell, he was tired and told Boswell that Burke calls forth my full faculties.
For I to see Burke now, it would kill me.
So Johnson v.
Burke is very intellectual and he really respected him.
Well, I think this is particularly significant because Johnson, of course, was the ultimate Englishman, the ultimate Londoner.
He kind of looked down on Scotland.
Remember the jokes that he makes about Boswell, where he basically says, you're pretty intelligent for a Scot, that kind of thing.
And of course, Burke was Irish.
So for Johnson to compliment Burke in that way, an Irishman over an Englishman, very rare of Johnson.
We're going to take a short break.
When we come back, more about the group of luminaries of very different backgrounds, having real conversation, real argument.
At the Cheshire Cheese Pub in London.
We'll be right back. If you're thinking of replacing your carpets due to pet stains and odors, you must try Genesis 950.
The reviews are amazing.
This is one product that actually works.
With water, it breaks down the bonds of stains and odors so they are gone for good.
Its antibacterial component removes pet odors from carpet and padding.
It can be used in a carpet cleaning machine and it's green so it's safe for your family and pets.
Genesis 950 is made in America.
One gallon of industrial strength Genesis 950 makes up to seven gallons of cleaner.
But Genesis 950 is also great for bathrooms, floors, upholstery and grease stains.
Debbie uses it to clean the kitchen and recently got ink all over her pants and Genesis 950 took it right off.
Genesis 950 has great customer service.
Order one gallon direct at Genesis950.com to receive a free spray bottle, free shipping, and a $10 coupon code using the code Dinesh.
That's Genesis950.com.
Coupon only available for one gallon purchase.
Genesis 950.
It's much cheaper than replacing your carpets.
We're back with Danielle D'Souza Gill, and we're talking about the art of conversation, focusing on an amazing group of people who got together in the 18th century in various pubs in London to talk about politics, they talked about literature, they talked about religion.
Dee, when we think about this group, you almost feel like we're born in the wrong century because...
These kinds of conversations, which we would be happy just to eavesdrop on, let alone participate in, they just don't happen today.
They really don't, and that's what's so special about that period.
This was around the same time as the American founding.
It was just a really special time when people were able to discuss different ideas, were able to aspire to A higher ideals, things like that.
And I think today we just have this cancel culture.
We have a country where you have really no discussion, no debate with anyone of different views.
And I think even though a lot of these men had different views, some of them were Christian, some were atheist, some were of different political parties, they were still able to have discussion and debate because there was still some common foundation that they had between them.
Whereas today, we really don't have that with the left.
And so I think when we look back to those times, it almost seems very foreign to us.
You mentioned Samuel Johnson's high opinion of Edmund Burke.
Well, Johnson is a Tory.
He's a member of the Tory party, the kind of party of throne and altar, you might say, in England.
Now, Burke is a Whig, so it's almost like you could say, Johnson's a Republican, Burke's a Democrat.
And then when we turn to the matter of religion, we find that you've got Johnson and Boswell who are pretty devout.
Now, Boswell is a renegade in practice, but he's a believer.
So you've got Johnson and Boswell on the one side, but then you've got Adam Smith who's kind of a deist.
And then you've got an open, I would say, atheist, David Hume.
And so you've got the believers and the infidels kind of having it out, but having it out even though they sometimes insult each other in a witty manner, they're nevertheless engaging in conversation.
Absolutely. And I think that's because if you even look at this group, there was no one in it who was a Marxist or a communist or just really anything that's outside of the pale.
And even the liberals of then, we would say, are classical liberals and would probably be in line with them today, actually more so than the Tories or people who supported more of the monarchy.
But today, the left is just so, so far.
And they obviously have no respect for philosophers or people like this.
And of course, they don't have respect for the founders.
So I think that if we were living in their time, we'd be able to have those discussions and debates.
But today, I think that even they would find that impossible.
But today, I think that even they would find that So I think that if we were living in their time, we'd be able to have those discussions and debates.
One of the things I find most amusing, and this is very telling about Boswell, is Boswell is not himself, I don't think, in the same league as Burke or Hume or even Johnson.
Johnson, not as well known today, but of course he's known through Boswell's great biography.
But Boswell was immensely curious, and I think this is the heart of learning, is this intellectual curiosity.
So many people have told Boswell that there are people who are atheists and talking.
They're big talkers.
But no one's a real atheist on their deathbed.
Because on your deathbed, you're facing the true prospect of extinction.
And so Boswell sort of says, I want to put this theory to the test.
And Boswell learns that David Hume is really ill.
He's actually on his deathbed in Scotland.
And so Boswell basically gets on a boat, makes his way to Scotland.
Why? He wants to check out Hume on his deathbed to see if Hume makes a deathbed conversion.
It's pretty amazing. Boswell wants to be there.
He's sort of a journalist in the true sense.
And I think when he sees Hume, what does he find?
Because what he finds slightly discombobulates him.
He's a little disconcerted to find out what.
That Hume does not convert.
He doesn't want to be seen as someone who was a skeptic, but then upon their deathbed, you know, became religious or something.
He wanted it to be documented that he was not religious at the end of his life.
So this is from Boswell's account of it.
Boswell says,"...I asked him," meaning Hume,"...if the thought of annihilation never gave him any uneasiness.
He said not the least, no more than the thought that he had not been." So basically Hume thinks that after his death, he will go back to the exact same position he was in before he was born.
And since nobody regrets the time that they didn't exist before they were born, Hume goes,"...why should I regret the time after I die?" Now, of course, Boswell comes and tells Johnson about this.
Here's Johnson's reaction.
Johnson basically goes, Hume is just putting on a show for you.
Hume is just pretending that he doesn't really care.
Johnson goes, it is more probable that he lied than that so very improbable a thing should be as a man not afraid of death, of going into an unknown state and not being uneasy.
At leaving all that he knew.
So Johnson thinks that Hume, who had the reputation of being unflappable, he's so cool, he never gets flustered, that Hume was kind of putting on a theatrical performance for Boswell, even though privately Hume was a little worried about what's going to come after the final gate goes down.
Yeah, no, I'm sure.
And I think it's really interesting how people, even then, they cared so much about the afterlife and really pondered and discussed these issues.
They really had very strong opinions on that.
And then today, it seems like people kind of had this, you know, wishy-washy, just kind of roll-through-life attitude to a lot of these big questions.
So I think it's really fascinating to see how they examined those issues.
What would be the prospect of trying to bring back this kind of conversation?
Do you see it happening or do you think our culture has become so reified and so intolerant that in the end each group is only talking to itself and the possibilities of this kind of exemplary engagement?
The philosopher Charles Taylor uses the phrase a social imaginary, and by this he means people who don't really necessarily know each other or come from the same background, but they're connected through a web of discussion.
So public opinion for Taylor isn't just a poll, the opinion of the public.
But rather it is the conclusion of a process of refined conversation that occurs that elevates the debate and the discourse.
Can we ever get that back in America, do you think?
Have you ever seen it in your brief adult lifetime?
I don't think that we will ever have a situation where the entire society is having those kinds of conversations.
And it doesn't even really bother me that half of the society is somewhat not engaged with the other half.
I mean, we're not going to start reasoning with the radical left.
They obviously are not open to reason.
and they obviously vehemently hate our side.
So no, I don't really see that ever happening, but I hope that we can convince a lot more people who are in the middle and a lot more people who maybe actually do care about bringing back some kind of a good America where we resemble more of the founders rather than these radical leftists.
But I think that even then this group was very rare.
It wasn't like everyone was having the same discussions as them.
So I think that's a pretty high bar.
But I think that we can definitely emulate that.
Well, I think what it shows in conclusion is that the high bar is something that we can learn from.
And to the degree that we can read these great works like Boswell's Life of Johnson, we get a sense of what those conversations sound like.
I mean, I agree. Even if you look at Socrates and Greece in the 5th century, that's not a conversation among equals.
Socrates is talking to a bunch of young men.
He's clearly the dominant figure.
Now, there is another dominant figure in the group, and that's Plato.
But amazingly, in all the Platonic dialogues, you don't get one word of what Plato said to Socrates or what Socrates said to Plato.
Plato, somehow, when he writes, takes himself out of the conversation.
And I think he wants to put full attention to his teacher, Socrates.
So, Socrates dominates the day.
But here in the Cheshire Cheese Pub in the 18th century, we see people who are clearly equals engaging in an exemplary conversation.
Hey Dee, thanks for joining me.
This was really awesome. I really appreciate it.
It shows us that even in a world that's divided and intolerant, nevertheless through learning, we can get a sense of what true conversation sounds like.
Yes, thank you.
Do you ever feel the urge to push back against the leftist media narrative of cops being your enemy?
If you support our American law enforcement, I want to share with you a very special and very stylish new way to show that you have the back of the police.
Is an unapologetic supporter of police and is taking a very strong stance against the defund police movement.
He designed a commemorative police watch that is beautiful.
I noticed special details like the engraving and quote on the back.
Elon shared with me that in consulting with officers on the watch design, they asked for an image of St.
Michael on the piece. Egert Watches gives away 15% of all sales from this model to police charities.
If you haven't seen Elon's Speak Truth short film on this topic, it's a must-watch, and you can currently find it on the Eggert website.
Remember to apply this podcast's unique promo code Dinesh to your police watch order so you can save over $30 at the checkout.
Visit eggertwatches.com, E-G-A-R-D watches.com to make your order.
It's time we support companies that stand up for what we believe in, and Eggert is a company I'm proud to recommend.
It's time for our mailbox, so let's hear our question for the day.
Listen. One of the things that I personally love about listening to you speak and reading your books is that you're very eloquent.
You convey the message clearly, concisely, but very nicely.
Your utilization of grammar and the English language is awesome.
It's amazing.
And I'd like to know if there's anything you've used over the years or any sort of educational pathway you can recommend.
For those that aspire to convey themselves in such an eloquent way as you and Debbie and your daughter all do, what can you recommend to those of us who aspire to be like you?
Thank you. Well, first of all, how nice of you to say that.
And let me suggest sort of three ideas that I think could be really helpful.
The first one is improve your vocabulary.
The second one is cultivate a love of learning, a kind of almost childlike curiosity, but a childlike curiosity about adult things.
And the third is try to develop an eye for the ridiculous.
And let me say a word about each of these things.
Now, a lot of people try to improve their vocabulary.
In fact, I did when I was a kid by, like, reading the dictionary.
I challenged my brother and sister to, like, I would call out words and I would tell them what it means and so on.
It's not the best way to learn words.
The best way to learn words is to read and when you find words that you don't know, you know, you find them right out of Jane Austen or you find them right out of a novel or right out of a political track, circle the word and look it up and look it up and then go back and look at it in context.
And not only try to memorize the word, but try to use it three or four times in the next couple of days.
Because if you just learn it once, you'll forget it.
But if you use it, and you use it again, and you use it again, you'll find that at some point, that word becomes part of your arsenal.
And you now know it, and you'll never forget it again.
The second thing I want to recommend is curiosity and learning.
And the way to do that is to pick ideas and books.
And I do this even with philosophers.
I find someone who really interests me.
I'm really interested in Socrates.
And so I'll read everything that Plato has to say about Socrates.
But pretty soon I realize that Aristophanes, the comic playwright, wrote about Socrates.
And he gave a very different...
His Socrates is sort of like a complete moron who tries to, like, suspend himself in the middle of the air and measure the rear end of a flea.
Aristophanes is ridiculing Socrates, but he's ridiculing a different Socrates, clearly, than Plato.
And then there's a third figure, Xenophon, who writes about Socrates.
And his Socrates is completely different than Plato's Socrates.
So, to me, it's sort of like, Wiz, would the real Socrates please stand up?
Or is it the case that the Socrates that we see in Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes are really reflecting their creator?
It tells you more about Plato, more about Xenophon.
What does it tell you about them?
So, learning. And I think through learning, you begin to start making connections.
You start being able to think more clearly and put things in a better light.
And finally, I want to recommend the Eye for the Ridiculous.
You spot something and everything seems kind of normal, but you notice the thing that people either don't notice or are not willing to say out loud.
So for example, I'm looking through a bunch of Antifa mugshots and I go, man, these people are like unbelievably ugly.
Is this a coincidence?
I mean, is it just, you know, happens to be?
Or is it the case that there could be some connection?
This is where your ideas really take off.
Between the manifest physical ugliness of this group and the political ugliness that they're producing on the street.
Could there be a psychological link?
Could it be that these people, instead of protesting social injustice, are somehow raging against nature, protesting their own ugliness?
They look in the mirror and they go, ah!
So it could be, this is a way of thinking that combines not only the effectiveness of vocabulary, where you're able to put things in a sophisticated way, the density of learning, where you're able to make arguments, but a third element, which has been key to my debates and my work, which is sort of the horse laugh.
You bring in the element of humor, because after you have basically exposed that you know more than somebody else, you've completely refuted their argument, it's kind of worth spending just a few minutes just laughing at them.
▲
Export Selection