All Episodes
Previous Next
April 19, 2023 - Dinesh D'Souza
49:20
RON vs. MICKEY Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep561
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
This episode is brought to you by my friend Rebecca Walser, a financial expert who can help you protect your wealth.
Book your free call with her team by going to friendofdinesh.com.
That's friendofdinesh.com.
Coming up, I want to commend Ron DeSantis for upping the ante in his battle against Disney.
I'm going to outline what he has in store for Mickey Mouse.
California is developing a new way to charge people for utilities.
I'm going to show you why the state seems to be going full communist.
I'll resolve the mystery of how Antifa raises money.
You'll be a little surprised at who's paying the bills.
And Dr. Joel Brown joins me from England.
He's going to make a case from the Christian perspective for the irrelevance of race.
Hey, if you're watching on Rumble or listening on Apple, Google, or Spotify, please hit the subscribe button and I'd appreciate it.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza Show.
The times are crazy, and a time of confusion, division, and lies.
We need a brave voice of reason, understanding, and truth.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast.
Ron DeSantis just had a press conference in which he talked about new measures that he is taking or considering taking to bring Mickey Mouse to heel, to bring Disney to a recognition that it is the Florida legislature and the governor and not the Disney Corporation that runs the state of Florida.
Disney has been sort of thumbing its nose at Ron DeSantis.
Not only did they claim victory, our lawyers were so clever.
We made a secret deal with the old oversight board.
We've got this contract that now gives us autonomy over the Disney properties.
But Disney is also having, for the first time ever, a kind of official Pride Week event, which they're now publicizing.
So clearly Disney is on a path where they're basically saying, okay...
We're going to take on the governor and we're going to prevail.
And Ron DeSantis is like, that's actually not going to happen.
And in the press conference, there's actually something to watch.
Very different from the Trump press conferences, which are more whimsical.
Trump is more of an attack dog in his rhetoric and in some ways more of a comedian.
DeSantis is very measured.
He's very methodical.
But he outlines. Here's step one.
Here's step two. We might even do step three.
And so let's look at these steps because they're actually fantastic.
First he goes, we're considering the state of Florida maybe building a competing theme park.
And that would be, of course, a very interesting challenge to Disney.
Number two, we could increase taxes on Disney World.
Number three, and this I think he meant a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but maybe not.
He's like, we could maybe think of locating a state prison right next to the Disney properties.
Think of what that would do to Disney's business.
And then he goes, this new oversight board is going to get together and fire the staff that worked for the old board, take over this development oversight, and we're going to take the so-called agreement that...
That Disney claims to have made.
DeSantis goes, this agreement is a legal fiction.
Because the Disney people are like, we've got an agreement.
It's a contract. It's for 20 years.
It's for a long time.
And you can't do anything about it.
And DeSantis is like, actually, this is nonsense.
He goes, quote, To give themselves the ability to maintain this self-governing status.
What he's getting at is that the old agreement wasn't in fact a genuine negotiation with the state of Florida.
It was essentially Disney kind of navigating the process, having a sort of a de facto, but almost a public hearing that wasn't really a public hearing.
It's managed by the Disney team and the Disney lawyers.
Okay, we've had a public hearing.
Okay, fine.
Now, this is what we all agree to.
So DeSantis is saying that's not really going to fly.
When the legislature steps in and they pass laws, the courts are obliged to respect those laws and those laws, by the way, have overriding significance.
In other words, think of it, you can have a contract with your employer, but if the federal government steps in and decides to impose a tax, for example, there's no way You have to pay the tax. Similarly here, whatever agreement is made, that agreement is going to be subject to laws passed by the state of Florida.
And DeSantis now runs the oversight board.
It's five of his own appointees.
He's also talked about doing state inspections of the theme parks.
I didn't know this, but evidently, the state of Florida does inspect theme parks.
But there are certain theme parks, Disney, Universal Studios, SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, that have an exemption, that are just by the grace of the state of Florida, not inspected in this way.
So DeSantis goes, not necessarily that we're going to inspect them all, but we're going to inspect you.
Now, of course, the left is howling and screaming, oh, he's singling out Disney, oh, he's punishing Disney.
And my point is, sure, if I went to Santa, well, yeah, I am singling them out.
I am trying to teach them a lesson.
And so this becomes, at some level, a contest of power between a very powerful corporation that basically thinks it has the run of the way of, you know, it makes its own rules, it runs its own operations, the state of Florida can butt out, you know, And Ron DeSantis is saying that's not actually how it works in a democracy.
Debbie and I started eating better this year.
We're on the road to losing some weight.
But one of the foods we can't seem to get enough of, and it's a requirement, are veggies and fiber.
Now, there's no better way to get all your fruits and veggies plus fiber than with Balance of Nature.
Balance of Nature Fiber and Spice, right here, it's a proprietary blend of 12 spices for digestive health.
The intense flavors and deep colors of spices are the most condensed whole food source of phytonutrition available.
It's recommended to be paired with their star product right here, fruits and veggies in a capsule.
Select the whole health system for the best price.
Start your journey to better health right now.
Take advantage of Balance of Nature's great offer.
Get $25 off plus free fiber and spice.
With your first preferred order of fruits and veggies when you use discount code AMERICA. The offer can end at any time, so act now.
Call 800-246-8751.
That's 800-246-8751.
Or go to balanceofnature.com.
Use discount code AMERICA. Fox News is paying a very high price for its own colossal stupidity.
And normally, as someone who has appeared on Fox News more times than I can count, I would be a little more sympathetic and feel like, wow, this is a case where Fox News was covering an election, they were in the heat of it, and And now they are saddled with this settlement.
That's really what I want to talk about, the Fox News settlement with Dominion, a very expensive settlement, as it turns out, $787 million.
Well, that's about a half of what the Dominion company was trying to get out of Fox.
And the case was on the verge of going to trial.
And Fox decided, for reasons I'm going to go into in a minute, it was more prudent to avoid the trial.
I am not sure if this is because Fox News thought that they were in legal jeopardy in the suit.
I'm assuming that there was some of that.
And the other factor is also that Fox News, it seems, did a lot of embarrassing internal stuff during the election.
This is communications back and forth between some of the top Fox News hosts, communications with other Fox executives, communications involving Rupert Murdoch, And they didn't want to put all of that on trial.
Now, Fox News, I think, on this election stuff has kind of got it absolutely upside down.
Initially, they were heavily into this Dominion coverage, and apparently that's really what led to the suit.
And then when I went to Fox News and said, hey, listen, take a look at my film, 2,000 Mules.
And my point is, not only does 2,000 Mules not increase Fox's legal liability, it's the opposite.
It's that, first of all, the movie doesn't mention Dominion.
It's not about the machines.
It's completely different.
It's a movie about mules and geo-tracking and official surveillance video.
But 2000 Mules could have helped Fox in its defense.
Fox News could have said, there was a lot of talk about fraud, we covered it, we weren't exactly sure where the fraud was, but hey, take a look.
This idea that somehow the election wasn't stolen, this idea that, for example, there was no fraud, the idea that you even knew there wasn't any fraud and Trump knew there was no fraud, it was a big, all of this stuff, Fox News would have a case, but instead what Fox News does is they push away 2000 Mules.
Can't even mention 2,000 mules.
And instead, they are now saddled with the fight with Dominion.
And again, it...
Turns out that Rupert Murdoch was evidently a little more involved than he wants to let on.
Fox News obtained discovery.
They did, I'm sorry, Dominion obtained discovery.
They did depositions.
And so the Fox News guys decided that the odds are sort of not looking good here.
The judge that they had, by the way, a fellow named Eric Davis, also seems to have been a real leftist.
I mean, very anti-Fox.
And then finally, the media.
The media played a role in this.
I thought it was interesting when I was watching the Dominion lawyer talking about the settlement.
She made an interesting observation.
She said, I want to thank the media for its role in helping us, in effect, get to this point.
Words to that effect.
And I was thinking to myself, wow, how interesting it is in a case that's supposed to be covered on both sides.
The media is really doing Dominion's work for it and lambasting Fox News.
Now, the irony is in fact compounded when you think of the fact that the media is supposed to be the defender of the First Amendment.
The media is supposed to protect the press against these kinds of suits on the idea that, listen, even news organizations report things that They sometimes get things wrong.
But unless you can show actual malice, which is to say either knowledge of the fact that what you're reporting is untrue or reckless disregard of the truth.
By the way, some of the stuff I've seen, one Fox host saying to another Fox host, you know, that Sidney Powell doesn't really know what she's talking about, to me, doesn't prove that the network or its coverage as a whole was somehow reckless.
It simply means that some of the people who are reporting things and interviewing Sidney Powell and interviewing other people are privately skeptical of whether she has the evidence.
Oh yeah, she claims to have the affidavits.
What's really in those affidavits?
We don't really know. So I'm not quite sure that Fox had a bad case.
But I think Fox decided, and remember, Fox is a massively profitable corporation, even though this looks like a big number, it's not that big of a number for Fox.
And so Fox can make the whole thing go away by essentially writing a big check.
It's kind of like when the two other guys from Harvard sued Mark Zuckerberg for a big amount of money.
They're like, we really invented Facebook, you didn't.
It turns out that the three of them were initial collaborators, and Zuckerberg is like, okay, listen, I'm going to write you a check to go away.
I don't want to hear from you again.
And it was a big check, but it was a check that Zuckerberg could easily afford to write.
So that's where we are with all this.
Fox is not totally done with all this.
There's evidently a Smartmatic suit that is also out there, and we'll see how that goes.
But for now, it seems that Fox has taken a blow and perhaps even a blow to its image by settling this case with Dominion.
Inflation has consequences not just for the country, but for you.
As the Fed raises interest rates to combat out of control government spending, long-term bonds have diminished in value, crippling banks, depositors are holding their breath, investors are bailing on bank stocks, so diversification for your portfolio has never been more important.
The recent surge in gold prices shows why gold has historically been a great hedge against the stock market and against inflation.
The only company I trust to help you diversify into gold is Birch Gold Group.
Now, I buy my gold from Birch Gold because I want a safety net for my family.
You can do the same.
Get the process started.
Text Dinesh to 989898 to get a free information kit on gold.
Birch Gold can help you convert an existing IRA or 401k that's tied to a volatile market into an IRA and physical precious metals, gold and silver.
And the best part, it's tax sheltered.
Text Inesh to 989898 to claim your free information kit on gold today with an A-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau, thousands of happy customers.
Birch Gold is who Debbie and I trust to protect our future and yours.
Text Inesh to 989898 today.
What does it feel like?
To live in a socialist society, in a socialist state.
Well, we don't have to go to North Korea to find out or China.
We can look at California, which is the closest thing that we have.
And it's the direction that California is moving.
I'm not saying California has implemented full socialism, but it's clearly headed in that direction.
In that direction.
And here's the latest example of it.
Three of the biggest utility companies are saying, they have in fact been pushed by the California Democratic Legislature, but they're also now saying this of their own initiative, that they want to institute starting in 2025, so not next year, but the year after this, a program in which they charge for utilities, Based upon how much money you make.
And let's think about this because of how absurd it is.
Imagine if you were to go to the grocery store and you pick up a carton of milk and the carton of milk says $3, $4.
You walk up to the counter and you say, what's the price of this carton of milk?
And they say, well, how much do you make?
And it turns out that if you make under $50,000, you pay $2.
If you make $100,000, you pay $3.
And if you make $300,000, you pay double that.
Well, this is the socialist principle.
Let's remember what Karl Marx said, from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs.
And so the rationale of socialism is that for people who have needs, I need milk, I need utilities, I I should be able to pay what I can afford to pay.
So again, this is a little different than the state providing a kind of a subsidy or basically people who have a very low income receive a card in which they can go to the grocery store and buy some groceries.
That is a government handout.
But to create a proportional structure in which you pay a utility bill.
Now, California utility bills are high.
And I remember when I lived in California, I would always kind of balk at the electric bill.
But this idea is being advanced now by Southern California Edison, by Pacific Gas and Electric, also by San Diego Gas and Electric.
It was reported on by ABC7 in Los Angeles.
The three utility giants filed a joint proposal for a flat rate charge based on income.
So in other words, it's not calibrated exactly to what you use, but if you're in a certain bracket, you pay this.
And if you're in another bracket, you pay that.
It's almost as if these utilities have decided that they are like a taxing structure in California.
And they're probably going to want to try to raise the same amount of money they do now.
This is the key point. So this is why the utilities...
Which are in the private sector, which are regulated by the government, but here they're proposing their own form of regulation.
Well, it turns out that regulation is beneficial to them because it guarantees that they can hit up the rich people of California and the well-off people of California to pay their bills.
It's kind of like why the insurance companies went along with Obamacare.
Why? Because Obama told them, listen, the great thing about this law is it's going to force people who don't have insurance and may not even think they need insurance to buy insurance.
And so who gets to sell them insurance?
You do. We're creating compulsory customers for it.
And the insurance companies are like, we're in.
We like this approach.
I mean, all businesses would love to have.
I mean, think about it. Dinesh, you could make a movie.
Here's the great thing. You can force every American to go to the theater and see your movie or at least watch it at home and pay you.
I'd be like, this sounds like a system that I find appealing.
So socialism brings the compulsion of the state, and in this case, to the advantage of these private companies.
I spoke yesterday, last night.
And University of Texas in San Antonio.
And the issue of fascism came up.
And I was explaining that fascism is a kind of an unhealthy merger or collaboration between the state and the private sector using the same forms of compulsion.
So typical socialist regimes like Cuba and North Korea, the old Stalinist regimes, they just impose it by the state.
But the fascist move is to have a state that works in concert with private corporations to impose censorship, to set prices, to control the liberties of citizens.
And California, quite obviously, is moving in this direction.
Incentives are all wrong because the message to Californians is, listen, if you make more money, we will punish you.
We will make you pay more.
So you're incentivized to make less.
And conversely, if you do nothing, if you're at the bottom end of the barrel, you're incentivized to stay there.
Because you're gonna get all kinds of benefits as a result of being there.
So you couldn't have a more unhealthy formula, a more destructive formula, but in a one-party state, which is what California increasingly has become, that's how it is.
Bank failures, record inflation, spy balloons, mass layoffs.
This is a recipe for disaster if your investments are with a typical financial advisor.
But my friend Rebecca Walzer is different.
You've seen and heard her on the podcast.
She's a wealth strategist, a tax attorney.
She has a global MBA from the London School of Economics.
Rebecca told her clients to get out of equities back at the end of 2021.
She got it right when most advisors got it wrong.
And who had to pay the price?
You as the consumer.
So don't let blind loyalty leave you losing money.
Call Rebecca's office today to protect your wealth from this volatile, uncertain market.
Debbie and I just did a call with Rebecca's team to talk about our investments, and you should too.
Go to friendofdinesh.com to book a call with her team today.
That's friendofdinesh.com to protect your investments and your future.
We see every time there is a racial incident or even a concocted racial incident, we see these Antifa protests and Antifa riots.
And the question arises, and it arose also in the context of Black Lives Matter, who funds Antifa?
Now, corporations...
Kicking money into Black Lives Matter.
And of course, the Black Lives Matter officials buy new homes and they have luxurious lifestyle designer handbags there.
It's a racket. But what about Antifa?
Corporations, as far as I know, are not funders of Antifa.
And some people think, well, it's obviously George Soros today.
She's putting the money into Antifa.
Well, actually, no.
Not so much and not so directly.
I believe there was one report that I read some time ago about Soros' connection.
But by and large, what Soros does is he doesn't fund Antifa.
He funds the DAs, the district attorneys who refuse to prosecute Antifa.
He funds the biased media that reports on and in a sense does cover for Antifa.
He funds legal groups that work hand in hand with Antifa, but he doesn't fund Antifa itself.
So who funds Antifa?
Well, as it turns out, We do, or at least the taxpayers do, particularly in democratically controlled cities.
Just recently, the city of Philadelphia agreed to pay $9.25 million, almost $10 million, to 343 left-wing protesters who said they got physical and emotional injuries from the cops.
How? The cops used tear gas and pepper spray.
I mean, again, think of the difference with the January 6th protesters.
Are they receiving million-dollar settlements to compensate them for the pepper spray, for the flashbangs, for the batons that were rained down upon them?
No, not at all. So what you have is an Antifa riot, a Black Lives Matter riot.
They damage all kinds of property.
They block highways.
In some cases, they hurt people.
And then what happens is they sue the cops.
Now, how do they sue the cops?
When they're organizing an Antifa riot, they have legal collaborators, typically from the National Lawyers Guild.
And these are guys who wear sort of these lawyers' hats, these green hats that designate them as legal observers.
And they pretend like they're Neutral legal parties collecting evidence.
Well, what are they doing? They're ignoring evidence on the cop side.
They are collecting evidence that they can use on the Antifa side.
And they're often working hand-in-hand with the media.
And in some cases, when there's independent media, they even try to block the independent media from recording things that could be seen as damaging to Antifa.
That's the first part of it.
It gets worse. The second part of it is, then the lawyers, in a kind of lawfare, they file lawsuits against the cities, and they know that these are democratically controlled cities.
So the cities decide, we're not even going to fight the case, we're going to pay.
And pay they have been doing.
So, we have seen now in a number of cities, Denver agreed to pay 1.6 million to seven people.
I mean, think about it. That's almost $200,000.
I mean, that's over $200,000 per person.
Austin agreed to pay $17.3 million to a bunch of protesters and rioters.
And so what's happening is that this is a kind of operation in which Antifa is, while seeming to be fighting against the law enforcement establishments of these cities, the The political establishment overrides the law enforcement establishment.
They basically leave the cops out to dry.
It demoralizes the cops, and then they take taxpayer money and they give it to the leftists, and this is what keeps Antifa in business.
And so, to the question, who funds Antifa?
To some degree, to some significant degree, you could answer, it is U.S. taxpayers in these democratically controlled cities.
Because of a cozy arrangement, and in fact, I would say a highly unethical, although not illegal, arrangement.
Cities have the power to enter into these agreements to make lawsuits go away.
But in this case, even if they can win the lawsuit, they want to pay.
And this is what keeps Antifa in business.
Debbie and I started taking Relief Factor a couple of years ago.
The difference we've seen in our joints, nothing short of amazing.
Aches and pains are basically gone thanks to this 100% drug-free solution called Relief Factor.
Relief Factor works by supporting your body's fight against inflammation.
That's the source of aches and pains.
The vast majority of people who try Relief Factor become regular customers.
They order more because it works for them.
Debbie's a true believer she can now do the exercises that for several years she wasn't able to do.
Relief Factor's been a real game-changer for her, her aunt, other members of our family, and for many other people.
You too can benefit. Try it for yourself.
Order the three-week quick start for the discounted price of only $19.95.
Go to relieffactor.com or call the new number, 800-4-RELIEF, to find out more about this offer.
The number again, 800-4-RELIEF, or go to relieffactor.com.
Feel the difference. Guys, I'm really happy to welcome to the podcast somebody that I, well, sort of met on social media, but a very interesting physician.
His name is Dr. Joel Brown.
He's a practicing family physician.
He's from the UK, so we're actually doing this connection to the UK.
He's a Christian husband, the father of two daughters, writes about culture, politics, faith, family, and the values of democracy.
You can follow him on Twitter, at JoelBrownMD, and he also does a sub stack, joelbrownmd.substack.com.
Dr. Braun, thanks, and welcome to the podcast.
It's great to have you.
I've been enjoying your posts on social media and not just commentary on kind of motley issues, but rather a sort of a single theme that runs through a lot of your posts.
And that is a critique of the idea of race.
Let's start by talking a little bit about how you got involved in all this and what got you thinking about this.
And then we'll turn to this issue of whether race matters or doesn't matter and why.
Dinesh, for that introduction, for the opportunity to engage with you on this issue that is there to my heart and with your audience today.
Like you rightly said, you know, I'm based in the UK and the conversation about race has exploded onto the scene.
Social media has created this sort of almost like this universal platform where any Anybody from anywhere can come in and bring in their kind of contribution to the conversation.
But we mustn't forget that, obviously, the way that race is understood is so complicated and it's nuanced by so many factors, political sort of Persuasions, where you are from.
You know, as I said, I'm from Jamaica originally.
That's where I grew up, then came to the UK. So for me, race has kind of evolved on this side of the Atlantic, though I have spent time in the States visiting family and friends and very much engaged in American culture.
But for me, why I care about this topic so much, to be just frank, I saw the way that my own personal life, in terms of my evolved understanding about race, took me through some very significant turmoil, frustration. There was a kind of identity crisis that landed me in a place where I wasn't happy with what it did to me.
I think it created a lot of anxiety.
It created a lot of I think that this critique of race for me comes from a very personal place.
It comes from a place of me wanting to make How do we actually have better conversations about race?
Because I think the way that race is discussed in the public sphere at the moment is oftentimes unhelpful.
And yeah, that's kind of summer really.
Would you say that your Christian faith has been instrumental in shaping the way you think about race?
And how would you apply that?
Yeah, for sure.
So, one thing that would help me to answer this question is the way in which the kind of views that I started to adopt about race, probably, I would say, at a later stage in my life as I went through a kind of...
A racial identity sort of journey where I became aware of the kind of social meaning and the social narratives, political narratives around race and what that should mean about who I am and what I'm angry about, what I'm frustrated about.
And as a result of that, despite growing up with a Christian heritage, you know, literally growing up in the church and having two loving Christian parents that gave me a great example, I started to read history differently.
A certain vengeance took over me in the way that I started to look at the lens of, okay, well, Christianity seemed to have been aligned with the European Empire and contributed to this, you know, the enslavement of African people, and therefore I should see Christianity as complicit with these past evils.
And I started to wrestle with my faith, and there were There are other factors and other things, other questions that were part of the rest of the book.
The question around my racial identity and my frustrations around race as sort of read through the kind of more kind of leftist, woke sort of ways of interpreting race and reinterpreting and revising history led me to reject my faith.
And I went through a journey of, you know, really kind of stripping and deconstructing and eventually abandoning faith altogether.
So it really has been through a healing process.
I'm grateful that I've come out of that.
I've seen the kind of error of my ways and the ways in which the ideology captured my mind and caused me to disabuse my faith.
I would certainly say that my faith has been restored and is an important part of how I... How my views about race are now and the priority that race should have in the way we interact with each other as human beings.
I think what you're saying that to me is very interesting is when people talk about race, they're often talking about colorblindness as a matter of public policy.
What they mean is that in university admissions or signing jobs, that shouldn't be based on race.
But you're describing a journey of...
A personal journey of saying that, listen, in my life, I don't want to make race that important.
In fact, I want to diminish it because race is, I'm assuming that you think it is, a civil rights activist going back to the 1960s called it the painted face.
And I think what he meant by that is that that's like having dark or bushy eyebrows.
It's kind of like having broad shoulders or narrow shoulders.
What the heck does that have to do with your worth as an individual or how you interact with other people?
Not that it's not something that's observable, but it's not something that should matter all that much.
Is that kind of your position?
Yeah. When I talk about race, I understand that there are layers and nuances.
Sometimes when we say race, what we really mean is ethnicity.
There are times we're talking about culture, and it's this really kind of muddy admixture.
As I said, there are lots of narratives and assumptions, and it can be quite confusing and emotional.
When we talk about Denying the relevance of race.
Some people interpret that to say, well, are you telling me I need to deny my culture?
And I think that it's important that we parse these differences.
I'm not at all suggesting that, you know, this notion of colour blindness or cultural blindness or You know, ethnicity blindness.
I'm not advocating that.
I think we can see differences between us, and there's a difference between acknowledging those differences or, like you said, making the way that race, as we understand it in the culture, it makes larger of a lot of these differences in a way that separates us when there is so much more that actually we share, so much more common ground.
And that's my problem with race.
It's the way that it It dissolves or prevents us from seeing the enormous common ground we have with each other.
Let's take a short break when we come back more with Dr.
Joel Brown on the irrelevance of race.
Good news from Mike Lindell and MyPillow.
Mike Lindell and MyPillow have launched My Mattress Topper 2.0.
The new 3-inch MyPillow Mattress Topper is made up of three unique layers.
Layer 1, MyPillow patented foam, which provides superior support and durability.
layer 2, transitional foam which provides optimal comfort, evenly distributes body weight and helps relieve pressure points, and layer 3, the cover made from a special material to keep your body temperature regulated through the night. Wow! This MyPillow mattress topper is washable and dryable.
It's made in the USA. It comes with a 10-year warranty and a 60-day money-back guarantee.
The incredible 3-inch mattress stopper is as low as $219.59 with promo code Dinesh.
So go ahead, call 800-876-0227.
The number again, 800-876-0227.
Or go to MyPillow.com, but make sure to use the promo code D-I-N-E-S-H Dinesh.
I'm back with Dr.
Joel Brown, physician.
He's also a singer-songwriter.
He's joining us from the UK. His Twitter, at JoelBrownMD, and Substack, JoelBrownMD.substack.com.
We were talking about how race gets mixed in with culture and with ethnicity.
Now I think most people would understand right away that race and culture are different.
Race is in fact physical, it's biological, it's the way that you look, it's the way that you're put together.
Culture is your habits, your mores, your values.
But a lot of people I think would be a little more baffled about the distinction between race and ethnicity, which I think is true and very important.
So can you explain what is that difference?
How does race differ from ethnicity?
Right. And I will, you know, make it very clear.
I'm no biologist or anthropologist, but from my sort of understanding of the, you know, the terms and certainly how they're used in society and colloquially, you know, I think I would say that ethnicity speaks to the sort of values.
The heritage from which one comes from, where you can say genetically, so a Jewish person, their ethnicity.
Or even if we talk about people who come from African descent, West African descent, if you want to speak about Nigeria, Ghana, the different tribes, we can acknowledge that ethnicities exist and these ethnicities have their distinctions.
And as it relates to, oftentimes, people from a certain ethnic background will have shared heritage, values, cultural practices.
And then race has sort of more become a way in which to kind of generally...
Groups of symptoms of darker colored skin or a certain shape of the nose or a certain hair type and there's this sort of assumption then that you have the black race, the white race, and we used to talk about yellow and red, but less so these days.
But as I said, the problem with race is that it tends to homogenize and it tends to You know, as opposed to recognizing distinction.
And then I think it also, it's sort of, we lump in together this assumption that people who share, therefore, the same skin complexion must, therefore, you know, share all of the host of other things we've been talking about, culture.
And I think that too many Things have been misconstrued because of that.
And, you know, personally, I mean, yes, there's a lot that I may share, common ground with people who are, you know, similar complexion to me that live in Australia or, you know, America.
But actually, invariably, there are lots of differences.
And so that's my issue with race is that it's the way it often erases complexity and the nuance in which we look at.
And I think ethnicity is often...
But I think, again, anything can become an idol, you know, and I think it's important that we recognize differences at the same time embracing the unity and race has been so much more divisive.
The old American idea, which you don't hear much about very much anymore, is the idea of the melting pot.
And the metaphor captures the notion that people come to America with different backgrounds and different cuisines and different interests.
But the idea is that you, without entirely erasing those, nevertheless you create a sort of a melting pot in which these differences come together into a national identity.
It seems somehow paradoxical to me that at a time when racial discrimination, racism, at least in any overt sense, is less obvious than ever.
Think of young people on a college campus.
The campuses are very multiracial.
There's a lot of interracial dating.
And yet race consciousness appears to be more intense than ever.
Why is it the case that when these distinctions seem to, as a practical matter, matter less, that people's consciousness appears to be even more infected and intoxicated with race?
Yeah, I mean, that's a fantastic question.
And I want to mention just quickly, because you talked about the melting pot, similarly, from my just mentioning that from Jamaica, our motto is out of many one people.
Again, Jamaica has a heritage.
Similarly, you know, we have those of African descent, Indians, Chinese.
So I already had that introduction to this, to appreciating the value.
Of what I think is you can have a diverse mix, but you can always find, if you find a Jamaican, regardless of what they look like, they will identify themselves as Jamaican, that strong national identity.
But further to your question, very crucial question about the resurgence or the seeming intensity in which Race consciousness has emerged.
I mean, I think it's clear to me that a lot of this is ideological.
We are aware, for instance, of the critical race theory and a lot of the movement around centering one's identity on these particular groups that have been deemed by Marxist philosophy as being oppressed or having a sort of They have something to be able to say,
look, we've endured this or we are enduring this and we therefore have a chip on our shoulder and we deserve to be able to use this sort of collective vicarious experience of oppression to demand certain things in society and to kind of forge our entire identity around that.
And again, I want to make clear, I'm not denying the fact that racism does exist and there are people who experience the trauma that shouldn't be.
And I think as a society, like you said, we are better.
We are moving away from that kind of heinous history of that past.
But there is a strange sense in which, but we're still moving towards this, as you said, this intoxication of kind of racial identity.
And one of the things that I just want to really touch on as well, I've noticed that Race tends to be used in a means to assign sort of blame and to cultivate resentment in society, you know, and you particularly see these sort of tactics where, you know, white people generally are seen to be the only people able to, you know, Basically be racist.
And as a result of that, they should, you know, take vicarious sort of blame and shame for racism that ever existed or still exists.
And then so-called black people who are the kind of You know, the sort of perpetual victims of racism, regardless of whether they even experience anything, the obsession that they should therefore wear this sort of robe of, I am a victim of racism perpetually, and any kind of issues in my life can be scapegoated to that.
And that's the other problem as well.
So it's the wearing of victimhood And I think it's such a problem and it creates such toxic resentment in society between groups that didn't need to exist.
Very interesting stuff.
Hey, Dr. Brown, thank you very much for joining me.
And clearly this is a topic with a lot more to it, but I think we've given people a little taste of it and a taste of your work.
On Twitter, follow him at JoelBrownMD.
Thanks, Joel Brown, very much for joining me.
Thank you. I'm continuing my discussion of the philosopher and scientist Blaise Pascal, also a mathematician, and his famous proof not for the existence of God so much as for why it is rational to believe in God.
And in fact, why no rational person should not believe in God.
Kind of a remarkable claim by Pascal.
Now, this is how he goes about it.
He says that there really are two options.
God exists or God doesn't exist.
And when we think about the fact that we can't, using reason alone, know for sure which of these two options is correct, he goes, you've got to look at the downside in each case.
So he goes, let's say you have faith in God, and it turns out God doesn't exist.
What's the downside? Well, the downside is nothing.
You've committed, let's call it metaphysical error.
But you're pretty much in the same spot as everybody else.
There's no afterlife.
There's no God. You were just wrong about an opinion that you had.
And that's it.
But, says Pascal, what if you reject God for your life?
And it turns out that God does exist.
Then what? Then Pascal goes, now you face a terrible risk, which is eternal separation from God.
You have essentially cancelled out your own eternal future prospects by taking a position that...
You were wrong when you couldn't afford to be wrong.
Let's put it that way. So Pascal says, based on these two possible outcomes, it is much less risky.
It is, in fact, infinitely less risky to have faith in God.
In the face of an uncertain outcome, no rational person would refuse to give up something finite if there's a possibility of gaining an infinite prize.
Here's Pascal from the Pensee, quote, "'Let us weigh up the gains and losses involved in calling heads that God exists.
If you win, you win everything.
If you lose, you lose nothing.
Do not hesitate then, wager that He does exist.'" Now, the real power of Pascal's argument, if you think about it, is that it emphasizes the practical necessity This necessity is imposed by what?
Well, it's imposed by death.
It's imposed by the fact that there comes a day when there are no more tomorrows, and you then have to sort of cast your vote for the proposition or against it.
The unavoidability of this decision exposes the kind of foolishness of the so-called agnostic or even apatheist.
These are people who go, well, this doesn't really matter.
I'm not going to make a decision because I don't really know.
Pascal goes to you, there's no option to abstain here.
Basically, when you die, all abstentions are converted into no votes.
So, an abstention is really a no vote, and at least be aware that that's what it means.
There are also atheists who like to say, you know, I'm a lonely man, I'm standing on the top of the mountain, I'm bravely facing the abyss, I'm a realist.
Well, Pascal says that big pose is only impressive if you know for a fact that it's an abyss.
But let's say it's not an abyss.
Let's say that you could be wrong.
Let's say you're standing on a mountain and there are a couple of options.
And now you recklessly say, I'm ready to face the abyss.
Let's say, for example, you're in a room.
And in the next room, there may or may not be a lion.
And you go, I'm a brave man.
I think I'm going to walk into that room because after all, I know there's a lion.
You don't know that there may or may not be a lion in that room.
And so given the fact that you don't know, this so-called pose that you're ready to face death, you're ready to be eaten, you're ready to face the abyss, you're going to be brave about it, is nothing more than a kind of play-acting or even over-acting.
Now, this is really what Pascal shows.
And the proof is limited in a sense, because as I say, it doesn't demonstrate independently God's existence.
But it shows that in a condition of uncertainty or doubt or not knowing for sure, this is the rational way to go.
But of course, it begs a question that I want to discuss, and I'll probably just touch on it now and get into it tomorrow.
And that is... Why does God hide himself from us?
In other words, why are we in this condition where we don't know for sure?
If God is a loving parent, well, our loving parents show up.
They're right there. They're unmistakably present.
or even if they're wrong in the way that they discipline us, nevertheless, their presence is palpable.
We have no doubt about it.
Why do we have doubts about God?
Why does he hide himself in this way?
Why is he invisible to us in the first place?
So here is the scientist, Carl Sagan.
He goes,"...God should have engraved his name or his presence, or even engraved the Ten Commandments, on the moon." So Sagan's point is if God did that, you look at the moon, there's the Ten Commandments, people would be like, yeah, obviously there's a God.
He wrote the Ten Commandments on the moon.
So God should make himself more obvious.
But Pascal offers a very interesting reason for what he calls the hiddenness of God.
Basically, Pascal says this, maybe God wants to hide himself from those who have no desire to encounter him.
While revealing himself to those whose hearts are open to him.
So in other words, what Pascal is saying is God doesn't actually want to force himself on anybody.
If God were to declare himself like beyond our ability to reject him, he would be kind of compelling us to believe.
Here I am. I'm God.
I'm the Lord of the universe. You have to accept me.
There's no other choice. But Pascal says that maybe God wants to be known not by everyone, but only by those who genuinely seek him.
Subscribe to the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify.
▲
Export Selection