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Dec. 24, 2020 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:21:32

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #33

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	Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Seaters for Thursday, December the 24th, 2020.
	I'm on my own again today, but that's okay.
	We're going to struggle through this together.
	Before I start, though, I've got some news and updates that I think I should probably share with you.
	The first one is, of course, that we have a bonus podcast that we didn't feel that was suitable to be put on YouTube.
	not because there was anything we said in it that was wrong but because it's a contentious subject regarding demographics in the United Kingdom but there's a lot of good information in there and you can see the hypocrisy and the inconsistency in many people's perspectives on this and we've got all the receipts and that will be live I think it's tomorrow or the day after hopefully as a Christmas present but you can get access by becoming a premium member on lotusseaters.com
	And for the gold tier premium members of LotusEaters.com, we'll be doing the Zoom call, the monthly Zoom call that we have promised to do before Christmas.
	We'll be doing today at 4pm.
	So in about two hours time, I'll be sat down.
	You guys can join a Zoom conversation with me and we'll just talk about stuff for an hour.
	So you can join that because we've now, I think, got functionality on the website that allows us to post things to tiers of membership.
	So we can actually send you a link to the Zoom call.
	Obviously, please don't share that because, you know, you've paid for it.
	I don't know why you would.
	And because, in fact, because we have had so many people sign up to be members, we are actually looking to expand the team.
	So in the new year, I would like to be able to hire a video producer slash editor and a social media manager.
	So if you feel that you would be appropriate for either of those roles and you have relevant experience, you'd be good at the job, Do email us at contactlotuseaters.com and we'd like to see your CV, your social media history, and if you're applying for the social media manager.
	And if you want to be a video editor, well, send us examples of your work and we'll be in contact.
	The one real proviso is that you will have to work from the office in Swindon.
	So you will need to be able to either travel here or live in the local area to be able to work here.
	But we look forward to hearing from you.
	So, what's been going on today?
	Well, it's a very Britain-centric podcast we have today, so I apologise for any of our American listeners or elsewhere.
	Unfortunately, I couldn't find out whether Mike Pence had done the thing that he was required to do by yesterday.
	It wasn't well reported, and frankly, it seemed that I was getting a lot of contradictory information from different angles.
	So, I'm not going to cover it now.
	I'm going to cover it in four or five days time.
	I think we're back on the 29th because obviously we're going to take a short break over the Christmas period because of those pesky labor laws and family commitments and all the other things that prevent us from doing the fun thing here.
	But seriously though, we're back in four days, but we've got a bunch of weekend podcasts lined up for the time that we're not here and a bunch of other stuff that's going live on the website that's scheduled to go out during that time.
	So you can go check out lotuses.com if you'd like to see more from us.
	Anyway.
	The most important thing on the ticket today, I would suggest, is possibly the final stages of the Brexit negotiations.
	Because these are really coming down to the wire, and everything still seems to be up in the air.
	And this is very much breaking news, where we are at the moment, and we're actually still waiting for the results of this, but you'll see why in a minute.
	So, as the BBC and everywhere on their mother has been live reporting, here's just an update from the BBC on where things were when I got up this morning.
	Negotiators are in the final throes of agreeing a post-Brexit trade deal, with the fish being the last thing on the menu, and also quite a contentious thing.
	The call to finalise the deal between the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was expected at 7 o'clock this morning, but it's been delayed.
	They're expected to continue talking, etc, etc.
	The UK Parliament will then be recalled on the 30th of December to vote on the deal, and once they've voted on the deal and it's been sent to various member states, Who also have to agree to it, then assuming everyone is happy with the way things are and it gets voted through, the UK will have a deal.
	Otherwise, on the 31st of December, we will be leaving.
	We've left, in fact, but the transition period will end, and it will be a no-deal World Trade Organization scenario.
	So, in expectation of a deal, the pound has risen, so it seems the markets are in favour of us having a deal.
	And I'm not against us having a deal.
	I'm against us having a bad deal.
	I would rather have no deal rather than a bad deal.
	The BBC, so just to refresh everyone's memories, how does everyone feel about Brexit?
	Well, in the referendum, it was 52% for and 48% against.
	And the recent polls, according to the BBC, suggest that 39% of voters said that Brexit was the right decision and 49% have said it's the wrong decision.
	But another poll also suggests that people would vote to stay out rather than to rejoin if there was another referendum.
	So, I don't know, revealed preferences, I guess.
	So, the question really seems to be coming down to the issue of fish and fisheries.
	Now, for anyone who's familiar with the European Union's consequence on the British fishing industry, the best way, I think, to describe it is disastrous.
	Us being an island surrounded by coastal, you know, covered in coastal cities that used to have thriving fishing industries, it seems to have been something that has been robbed from Britain as part of being in the European Union.
	But as BBC Europe reporter Gavin Lee says, as he understands it, this was very recently, it's 10.30 almost, so a few hours ago, talks haven't yet finished between negotiators and they're still talking about fish.
	Through the night, the lights have been on and they've been talking species by species, herring by herring, mackerel by mackerel.
	I kind of feel that if the discussion is this far into the weeds of the thing, then we're on the losing end of it, because really, I mean, these are our waters.
	There should be only so much we need to talk about.
	But anyway, so the fish compromise, as reported by Joe Barnes, the Daily Express Brussels correspondent, he says, This is seen as a significant concession by the EU side and is likely to anger Brexiters in Britain.
	As a Brexteer in Britain, I just want to say I am angered by this.
	I don't understand why we're letting them catch any fish in our waters, or at least, you know, not without paying us significant amounts of money.
	Delving deeper, the PM says he's reclaimed control of British waters.
	After the transition, the UK government will be free to decide access.
	It appears the EU has given way on its punishment clause to demand that Britain would be slapped with tariffs if EU boats lose access in the future.
	It's also worth noting that EU was previously asking for 15-18% phased in over 10 years.
	It looks like a good deal on fish and has been used tactically to secure a number of concessions across the deal.
	Okay.
	I haven't seen the deal.
	No one's seen the deal, in fact, yet.
	So, I guess this is positive to a certain degree.
	I mean, you know, you've got to give a little if you want to get a little.
	So...
	Can't make a judgement.
	But everyone online is very much worried this is going to be a rehash of Theresa May's surrender deal from 2018.
	As the Gatestone Institute, they wrote a fantastic article on this back in the day, and I can just summarise it accurately here.
	As they said at the beginning, the deal will cost the taxpayer 60 billion euros, require that British still comply with EU rules without having any say on what those rules will be.
	And, I mean, you might say, well, that sounds quite one-sided and quite aggressive, and it's like, yes, but it's also an accurate description of what the EU is aiming for.
	But so on our side, the British side, the Brexiteer side primarily, how do they feel about it?
	So the Brexiteers are actually feeling pretty good about what we know about Boris' deal so far.
	Excuse me.
	For example, David Davis, who was Britain's lead Brexit negotiator at one point, former Brexit secretary, says he tells LBC that he is not too bothered about the repatriation values of fish, but rather that end of the fish transition period,
	which is just the term we're using, I guess, At the end of it, the UK is in control of its waters, and he suggests that he is prepared to accept an agreement which means that Britain chooses to go by EU rules and regulations as long as Brussels doesn't get to unilaterally decide at some stage that we have broken those rules and then impose tariffs on us as a result.
	Which is fair, but again, it seems that we've given an awful lot in concessions here.
	Farage himself, though, the Mr Brexit, the king of the Leave campaign, is surprisingly positive about all of this.
	We'll just play this clip.
	He and Michael Gove were the two senior Conservative politicians When the referendum came, albeit late in the day, but that's not the point, they had the guts to back Brexit, and thank goodness they did.
	So, yes, Boris will be seen as the man that finished the job.
	Perhaps not perfectly, but yes, he's done what he said he'd do.
	On the big picture, I suspect on some of the detail, such as we'll be back in charge of our fisheries, history may judge some of those aspects a little more harshly.
	But on the big stuff, the war is over.
	It has gone on for decades in this country, from the Masoretic Rebellion onwards.
	It's never ever gone away.
	The fight over whether we should be part of the European structures or not.
	And now we're out, arguably with a new treaty that's a bit closer to a partnership agreement.
	It's not perfect, but goodness me, it's still progress.
	Okay, so, I mean, good news.
	If Nigel Farage is generally...
	Approving of what Boris has achieved so far.
	That's a good start.
	I just have to say, I find it interesting how all of the other major Brexit supporters were made lords and Farage hasn't been.
	I think that's actually something the Conservative Party needs to get over themselves on and actually help him out with that.
	Because I think that Farage...
	I mean, he dedicated most of his adult life to fighting for leaving the European Union and now it's happened and we're at the very final point I think Farage deserves some recognition for his services to the United Kingdom.
	I think that really he deserves to be, I mean, a very least sir.
	Come on, if not Lord.
	And Lord Farage sounds great as well.
	A real thing that'd stick in the craw of people like Andrew Adonis.
	All of the other heavily Remain MPs and Europhiles who apparently have been on suicide watch all over Twitter today, blocking people relentlessly because things have not been going brilliantly as far as they're concerned.
	Because it looks like we might get a deal that doesn't actually bind us to being the serfs of the European Union forever, which of course is the worst thing that these people can imagine because that means that Britain would be independent and be able to chart its own future, etc, etc.
	But it's not all rosy.
	So members of the European Research Group, which is a conservative sort of think tank made up of Conservative MPs in Parliament, are very, very sceptical about this.
	And apparently a bunch of them are expected to vote down the deal.
	Twenty members of the New European Reports of the European Research Group are expected to vote down a Brexit deal when it comes to the House of Commons.
	Allies of Boris Johnson have calculated that a significant portion of the backbenchers would vote against any deal.
	Among the ERG Spartans are Mark Francois, Ian Duncan-Smith, Andrew Bridgen and Peter Bone.
	People who have held a very consistent line in all of this.
	But the Daily Mail has apparently reported that 100 members of the group are likely to back the Prime Minister, so it can't be that bad if such a large number of ERG are in favour of it.
	So, when will we actually know?
	Well, we don't know.
	We were told earlier, as reported on The Guardian, that we should expect a press conference from Boris and Ursula today, but there was one meant to happen this morning, but it didn't happen.
	It's been postponed and we should be expecting another one.
	Keir Starmer, Labour have apparently decided they're not going to vote against the deal in the Commons because Labour will effectively deal at any cost.
	Soft Brexit, shackled Brexit, whatever you want to call it.
	Labour have been in the middle, very much radical fence-sitters when it came to the Brexit question and that was really something that cost them in the previous election, in my opinion.
	They should have come out hard on the side of Brexit.
	Because at the end of the day, it was a huge number of their own constituents were saying, we want to leave the European Union.
	Because a huge number of their own constituents are working class British folk who consider their national identity important.
	And that means the sovereignty of Britain is important.
	And that means that Brexit is important and there are lots of other values that are packaged into this that are important to these people and Labour knew that this was the case but kind of had to also go in the globalist, technocrat, socialist direction as well and found themselves bifurcated.
	But anyway, so Keir Starmer, obviously being aware of all of this, has said that he will, strongly hinted, sorry, that he will whip his MPs to vote in favour.
	He has said that the party will vote in the national interest and that no deal, the alternative is clearly not in the national interest.
	So let's hope to God, assuming that you're a believer or just...
	God, if you're an atheist, I guess.
	Pray to Sam Harris that we get a vote that isn't a deal that isn't in the national interest, because otherwise we're going to be stuck with it, and we're going to be stuck with it for a long time.
	So...
	I don't know, man.
	I'm not terribly optimistic, to be honest.
	I don't think Boris is a very strong character, strong-willed character, but I mean, hopefully on the subject of Brexit, he holds the line.
	But apparently, according to Gavin Lee, the BBC News Europe correspondent, it's going to be a good few hours until we get any info, and this was tweeted out just before midday, so...
	I mean, you know, who knows?
	I mean, there's speculation that it's going to carry on through Christmas.
	I don't know.
	But we're not going to get any information today, I suspect.
	Or if we do, it'll be later today.
	So, fingers crossed.
	I wish I had better news, to be honest.
	I wish I had more that I could give you.
	But in fact, I do have some better news, just not on the Brexit front.
	There was an altercation in the Parliament yesterday where Priti Patel, I was going to say manfully defended her position there, but maybe I shouldn't use that term.
	But even then, I mean it as an honorific, because she does a fantastic job here, confronting Labour on the issue of Black Lives Matter and statues.
	These are the sort of thick cultural issues that have many dimensions to them, and very few Conservatives seem to have been able to really properly stand up and articulate themselves well on the subject.
	And this was a really great example of how to handle these things by Priti Patel.
	I want to go through a bunch of clips of this, because the attitude and the approach from either side is very, very different.
	So it begins with a Labour MP called Nadia Wittem, who I hadn't previously heard of before, and I'm not very impressed with after seeing the way that she conducts herself.
	Let's play the first clip.
	Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	We'll try again.
	Will the Home Secretary agree with me that the government should remove statues of British figures involved in the slave trade?
	Further, will she agree with me that the lives of black people who have died following contact with police, like Sarah Reid and Rashant Charles, are worth more than any statue?
	What a question.
	Is a life worth more than any statue?
	Well, I mean, technically, sure.
	Of course, we would never...
	If it came to a question of prioritizing, right, do we save this statue or do we let someone die, then the statue goes, right?
	That's obvious.
	But that's not what the question is.
	There's not a dichotomy between black lives and statues.
	And this kind of labour midwit, and you can tell she's a midwit, not only from the ridiculous framing she's presented, but I think there's something to the accent and the mannerisms.
	There's a kind of insecurity about what she's saying, and a lack of moral force that comes with this insecurity that reveals her position as a midwit.
	It comes across more like a childish temper tantrum.
	Like, what do you have against these statues?
	Well, we know you are annoyed that they're involved in things in history you didn't approve of.
	To be honest with you, that probably goes for the same for me.
	But that doesn't also mean they didn't also do things that were good and useful and noble.
	But anyway, Priti Patel just comes back hard against this, in fact.
	Let's watch Priti's response.
	Madam Deputy Speaker, the Honourable Lady will be well aware and perhaps she would like to lobby local authorities across the country to bring about the changes to statues.
	And I noticed the Honourable Lady celebrated the violence and criminal scenes that we saw across the weekend.
	I thought the politics of protests and placards have left the Labour Party with the departure of the right-handed member for Islington North.
	Boom.
	The face, the face on that, I was going to say girl, because she does seem childish.
	But this very, very upset that Priti Patel is just like, look, you can lobby the local councils to remove statues all day long, not my problem.
	But this kind of radical commie politics surely should be leaving the Labour Party with the departure of Comrade Corbyn, right?
	And as you can see, that was not well received.
	But the discussion didn't end there, because then a Conservative backbencher stood up and made a point about All Lives Matter.
	Let's go on to that.
	Madam Deputy Speaker, in regards to public order, can I ask my right and my friend to continue the policies of stop and search and get knives off the street, which not just black lives matter, but all lives matter?
	My humble friend is absolutely right.
	Madam Deputy Speaker, one of the most extraordinary...
	Order!
	That was great.
	I love the scathing look from Priti Patel there because, I mean, at the end of the day, I don't know who was interrupting, but whoever, and I assume it was probably Nadia Wittem herself, whoever was interrupting, that's a massive violation of parliamentary procedure.
	I mean, you're not addressing one another.
	You're addressing the Speaker of the House.
	So you be quiet and wait your turn because that's how things should be done.
	And so when the Conservative MP at the back says, well, all lives matter because that is a statement of principle, yelling back, well, all lives don't matter until black lives matter.
	A, this isn't a street protest, so shut up.
	And B, what we're saying is not that some lives matter.
	All Lives Matter.
	These are dichotomous moral worldviews.
	You can't try and claim Black Lives Matter as a component of All Lives Matter because you literally set it apart from the concept of All Lives Matter.
	Trying to sneak it in there?
	No.
	And also, obviously, the Conservatives, at least, well, I say obviously, in theory, they're not a bunch of communists, but Black Lives Matter is a communist movement, so don't give us any of that nonsense either.
	But, yeah, Prince Patel's scathing response there.
	And again, like, all of these issues being mushed up together.
	Because, I mean, Black Lives Matter seems to have been given new life from the death of George Floyd, which happened, like, 4,000 miles away in a different country.
	And there's still no evidence to suggest that it's racism that has caused this.
	Whereas things like Stop and Search and youth deaths in London, I think it was something like eight or nine out of ten young people who are in custody for this from ethnic minority backgrounds in London.
	So, I mean, it is just one of those things where these two issues get lumped up together and mushed in together.
	But, again, the Conservatives speaking from a procedural point of view, as in, look, we need to stop and search to get these knives off the street to stop these kids from killing each other.
	That's true.
	And that's not something that Black Lives Matter surely would want to object to, unless they've got this big ideological framework of white supremacy and racism and all this other nonsense.
	But in the practical day-to-day reality of kids stabbing each other on the street, and this genuinely happens every day, what can Black Lives Matter do?
	If everything were given to Black Lives Matter in exactly the way they want, and the white imperialist capitalist patriarchy was dissolved around these communities so it didn't affect them in any way, shape or form, do we think that that would be an end to the violence?
	Because I personally don't think that would be the end to the violence.
	I think it's bad parenting and a bad ethic that's in these kids that needs to be addressed.
	And one of the things that has to be done is disarming them.
	So I do think the Conservatives are right here.
	But anyway, let's go on to the next one, because Priti Patel, of course, just beats back the arguments for Stop and Search quite effectively.
	One of the important facts about Stop and Search, which I've experienced myself when it comes to meeting the parents of young black men who have been murdered on the streets of London, is the significance of Stop and Search when it comes to taking weaponry off our streets.
	It is.
	And I think it is important for all members of this House to recognise, and when I've seen those parents and when I've sat with them and heard of their stories, they themselves call for more stop and search, to stop more young black lives being killed and to prevent more criminal and violent activities on the streets of our city.
	Probably true.
	I mean, whenever ethnic minority communities in the United States are polled about whether you want to defund the police, they overwhelmingly come back as, no, we do not want to defund the police.
	It's a small fringe of radical activists who want that.
	In the same way that it's probably over here a small fringe of radical activists who want...
	The police to not disarm gangs of young people with knives?
	I don't see where the disadvantage to the young people comes from by doing this.
	I guess they might feel profiled, but at the end of the day, they're only feeling profiled because of the crime statistics that we have.
	But this was enough for Nadia Wittem to snap.
	That was it.
	She's had enough.
	And as you can see here, she just marches unceremoniously out of the Parliament.
	Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	My inbox, like many's, is full of emails from constituents demanding we decry racism and police brutality, and I absolutely applaud that.
	One such constituent, Zora, second-generation British Indian chartered accountant and mum of three children, asks me, according to Inquest, the proportion of BAME deaths in custody where restraint is a feature is twice as many as other deaths in custody.
	To build Trust with communities?
	What can the Secretary of State tell us government is doing to end this injustice?
	Right.
	That is an amazing little exchange that I really wanted to share with you because it shows the Conservatives are capable of doing something useful.
	Nadia Wittem gets no satisfaction and storms out like a child.
	And I don't know who this, the white lady who stood up to give the impassioned plea about the brutal multicultural police of diversity and tolerance and the way that they oppress black people, presumably in London and Manchester and Birmingham.
	And this is just not true.
	This is not a fact that black and minority ethnic people are more likely, twice as likely, to die in police custody than white people in Britain.
	It's just not accurate.
	And thankfully, Priti Patel just steps up and has these facts to hand.
	And it's good that she's able to marshal them.
	Let's go for the last clip.
	Madam Deputy Speaker, I think it's important to understand the facts and figures around deaths in police custody.
	In 2018-19, there were 16 deaths in custody, of whom 15 individuals were from a white background and one was black.
	It is important that, obviously, the IOPC looks at all investigations in the right way and holds to account police forces when deaths in police custody take place, and that is exactly what happens.
	LAUGHTER Boom.
	That's it.
	Enough of your nonsense.
	Out of 16 deaths last year, one was black.
	Don't give us this nonsense about black people being massively overrepresented in the numbers when it comes to police brutality in Britain.
	It's just not true.
	And to be honest with you, I don't think it's actually true in the United States if you're going for people who are unarmed either.
	I think it was the New York Times recorded this for 2015-2016, and they found there were 995, I think it was, deaths by police in the United States for that year, and they were almost all armed.
	They were almost all armed.
	So this narrative by Black Lives Matter doesn't seem to be borne out by the facts.
	And let's put aside the American argument for now.
	It certainly is not borne out by the facts in the United Kingdom, and it's good that the Conservative Party can stand up and actually rebuke the Labour Party for spreading lies, because that's what they're doing.
	My inbox is filled with people who are concerned about racism and police brutality.
	Well, where did they get the idea that this was a particularly racist country or there was a lot of police brutality?
	Oh, they get it from Labour MPs and left-wing voting and supporting papers and activists who are just spreading lies.
	It's just not true, at least according to the numbers that we have that are the official statistics that everyone's using.
	It's not true.
	But one thing that I find interesting about all of this is it's kind of It's being done in service of a general moral attack against Britain.
	And it's done by communist agitators right at the very bottom of it.
	Of course, you know, the midwit Labour MP has no idea what the origin of Black Lives Matter is.
	They have no idea.
	I mean, and if they do, they have no real grasp on what the problem of race activism like this is or communist agitation.
	They'll undoubtedly be one of those sort of smooth-brained people who think that the labor theory of value actually holds merit or something.
	But that's – and that's giving them a charitable interpretation of that they know anything about the history of Black Lives Matter, the people who have founded it, or the reasons for founding it.
	And so what I would be inclined to charitably ascribe to them is the position of useful idiot, The kind of person who Peter Hitchens used to be and now roundly and stridently condemns for not really caring about these issues, but really having a hatred of Britain.
	And a hatred of Britain for being, quote, right-wing, which means built out of tradition rather than revolutionary left-wing ideology.
	And so, Black Lives Matter is being used as almost all of the very left-wing labour movement that was under Corbyn has been doing for years, just attacking Britain as an entity, as a concept, as a moral structure.
	And so, I'm just going to talk, finally, about the latest attack on Britain and her previous empire, which has come from a magazine called The Print.
	This was published today.
	And I saw it this morning, and I was like, right, okay...
	I want to talk about this.
	This has been something I've wanted to talk about for a while.
	This kind of continual demonization of the British Empire.
	And it's interesting how it's done.
	So this is an excerpt from a book called Time's Monster by Priya Satya, who I'm guessing is from India.
	And it's interesting, as a reflection of Priti Patel on the other side, supporting the British conservative view of the world.
	This, again, comes from the opposite side.
	And just show that it's not about race.
	It's not about one race or another.
	It's way more complicated than that.
	The British Empire was...
	A vast and in some ways incorporative project.
	But in other ways, there are complaints about it that do resonate with me.
	Just to sidetrack myself very quickly, I listened to Afua Hirsch.
	She did a podcast series on audible.com called We Need to Talk About the British Empire.
	And in one of them...
	Her and the person she was interviewing were complaining that the British Empire effectively created open borders for their countries but not for Britain.
	And so one of the reasons that they want open borders for Britain is essentially so we can know what it feels like.
	And I am actually sympathetic to that because I do disagree with the idea of open borders.
	And I do think that it does do damage to the populations and to which have to suffer it.
	So I'm not unsympathetic to the argument that that is something that happened.
	There are obviously upsides and downsides to that.
	There are opportunities presented that would otherwise not have been presented.
	Things change.
	But anyway, I love the way this is framed.
	Priya Satya says, Countless anti-colonial thinkers and historians have proven the British Empire's morally bankrupt foundation in racism, violence, extraction, expropriation, and exploitation.
	Okay, let's stop there.
	That's like her opening gambit.
	Compared to what?
	And as soon as you ask, what was it, Sol's second question, then suddenly you realize, well, hang on.
	We're comparing to what?
	The Arab slavers?
	Or the African slavers?
	Or the Magal Empire in India?
	A Turkic-Mongol warlord conquers an empire in India?
	He's the grandson, I think, of Tamerlane, Tamerlane, and then imposes this vast bureaucratic empire in India, Under which something like 65% of the people were peasant serfs and they had to pay 50% taxes on whatever they'd earned.
	Like, it's not like the British Empire turned up in the Garden of Eden, kicked down the gates and was like, right, okay, you're all going to work for us now.
	You know, put down the fruit that you're plucking from the trees and get in the fields or something.
	It's not like this wasn't built on racism either, because it was an ethnic aristocracy and an ethnic conquest of India from non-Indians who imposed an Islamic regime on India, which previously was not an Islamic subcontinent.
	So the British did very little that was actually different in this regard to the previous conquerors of India.
	But really, all empires are rooted in conquest, which means violence, racism, extraction, and exploitation.
	That's what an empire is.
	It is the domination of an ethnic group over other ethnic groups.
	Not all of these empires have the same character and qualities and Methods of governance or anything like that.
	And that's actually one of the things that distinguishes the British from other empires that we'll get to in a minute.
	But this isn't exactly a surprise.
	But even then, the attitude that it was just purely extractive is not really true.
	The British Empire wasn't really like the Spanish or Portuguese empires.
	It much more was a trading empire.
	I mean, Britain came to occupy India But anyway, we'll get on to the major defenses of the British Empire shortly.
	She says, That's not high enough, is it?
	I'm joking.
	I'm joking.
	A 2020 study showed that Britons are more likely than people in France, Germany, Japan, and other former colonial powers say that their country should still have an empire, or would like their country to still have an empire.
	So, okay, well, I mean, there are probably good reasons for that, right?
	Like, Germany and Japan were just openly genocidal terror states that were exercising power...
	For the desire for power.
	But that wasn't really what the British were doing with empire, because the empire wasn't directed by the state.
	The state was catching up to the expansion of British society.
	But anyway, the thing I find very interesting about this, though, is that the standard by which previous empires and Britain's empire itself is being judged are the standards that were invented by Britain itself.
	And so without the British Empire, why would we agree that these standards are good or necessary or just?
	You may well do it in an abstract way, but when it's on the ground, when you're dealing with the imperial power, whatever imperial power it was, any previous empire is not going to say, well, actually, maybe we should be concerned about the human rights of the people we've conquered.
	That's just not something that people thought about, because they didn't necessarily have the same kind of moral values that the British did.
	I mean, there is certainly an argument that the British Empire did spread concepts like liberty and human rights, and that the British were conscious of doing so as they were in the process of conquering their empire.
	So it's not that they did anything unusual when it comes to cruelty or malice or anything like that.
	What they did that was unusual and set the stage for this very criticism was the self-consciousness and the moral impetus that underpinned the Empire.
	I mean, a lot of Christian activism is left out of the history of the Empire, where missionaries would go to these places and try and help people.
	They would obviously try and convert them to Christianity.
	But in converting them to Christianity, they were trying to end customs that were just deeply harmful.
	Again, in India, one custom the British outlawed was the burning of a widow after her husband had died.
	Not very human rights conscious, is it?
	But that was just fine under the Magals.
	Why didn't the Magal Empire?
	They'd conquered into India.
	Why didn't they put an end to that practice?
	Why was it the British that put an end to that practice?
	Well, it's because the British came from a Western Enlightenment tradition of human rights, and they were very concerned about these things.
	They had a long, long history, in fact, in England of constitutional and the rights of Englishmen that gets externalized and universalized into human rights, into What we end up with today.
	In fact, the world we have today is very much a product of the British Empire.
	The things we value today are a product of English political thought that was spread around the world by Britain.
	And this is the very basis upon which Britain is being criticised for her empire.
	And I just want to be clear.
	I'm going to take a drink because my throat's getting a bit dry.
	But I just want to be clear.
	It's not like there weren't British people at the time who were not conscious of their own failings when it came to empire.
	And the necessary things that they felt they had to do in order to maintain the Empire.
	And again, compared to what?
	And we'll get to the compared to what in a minute.
	Because Britain gets condemned for the compared to what as well.
	Not only did you not do this perfectly, but you allowed these other people to do things after you stopped doing what you were doing.
	And it's like, well, how can we win?
	How could we ever redeem ourselves?
	So one example of this is in Orwell's essay, which is Shooting an Elephant.
	And this is fantastic.
	Orwell wrote this when he was young, and he was stationed in India as a European in India, which was not, in his description, a very envious thing to be, because he would get booed and jeered by just Indians.
	They would recognize him as being white, and they would effectively be racist towards him.
	But there was a way that things were done in British India, in the Raj.
	And the Europeans, the Brits, were meant to act in a certain way in order to maintain this kind of facade that they were stoic men of invincible discipline.
	because this was admirable and was something that they felt allowed the native populations to at least justify their right to rule, rather than just having it being done on brute force, which is, again, an interesting aspect of British rule.
	They actually felt there should be some kind of moral impetus behind it, whereas the Mughal conquerors, they didn't have any kind of impetus behind it.
	They were just, we're stronger, which is very much the central Asian tenet of leadership.
	But anyway, this is a quote from Shooting an Elephant, where he, being like the governor of whatever town it is he's in, is told by one of the locals, well, there's an elephant, a domestic elephant that's gone nuts.
	And it's rampaging through the marketplace, it's destroying houses.
	You need to come and deal with it.
	And he's like, oh God, what am I going to do?
	So he gets his rifle and marches down.
	And as he's marching down, he hates it.
	He hates what he has to do.
	But he knows that he has to do it because there are loads of people watching.
	Not just his fellow Brits watching him do what should be done, take action and responsible leadership, and make sure no one's hurt by this elephant.
	Because already one person has been killed by the elephant.
	And so the elephant needs to be put down and protect various other pieces of property.
	But also because the Indians themselves are following him.
	He ends up gathering like a crowd of like 2,000 Indians who normally would hate him.
	But now he's going to go and do something that's interesting.
	So it's kind of like a show.
	And he says, well, this would have happened in England as well.
	And it doubtless would have done.
	Like, why wouldn't you want to watch this happening?
	This would be an interesting thing to happen in your daily life.
	But this is the quote.
	As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear.
	In a job like that, you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters, the wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lockups, the grey cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of men who had been bogged with bamboo.
	All of these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt.
	But I could get nothing into perspective.
	I was young and ill-educated, and I had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is imposed on every Englishman in the East.
	The business of empire is never pleasant.
	But why, when it comes to the business of empire, should the British be judged differently to others?
	If they can be judged differently to others, by what standard are we judging them?
	And of course...
	This author has adopted the British standard by which to judge us.
	The very standard that Orwell was judging himself by and yet felt confined and compelled by or against, sorry, because of the nature of what an empire is.
	Anyway, she carries on.
	Balance sheet attempts to show the pros and cons of the Empire, that the pros outweigh the cons.
	Pros like trains, dams, and the rule of law outweigh the cons, occasional violent excesses, racism, despite the...
	Sorry for the...
	Every day.
	Despite the ambiguous impact of many alleged prose, the deeply flawed premise that we can judge an inherently illegitimate and immoral system by anything other than its illegitimacy and its immorality.
	Well, I mean, why would you...
	From what grounding are you claiming that empires are illegitimate?
	Because up until this point in history, in fact, you know, the modern post-World War II consensus is that empires are bad.
	Up until that point, literally nobody thought that empires were bad.
	Nobody thought the concept of empire was going to go away.
	The main complaint was really, well, we should be in charge of the empire, not you.
	We don't want to be oppressed by you.
	And that's everyone's contention, obviously.
	But the very concept of empire wasn't really something people were complaining about.
	And the only place that really this had been settled, to my knowledge, was in Europe with Westphalia, the Treaty of Westphalia, which established the sovereignty of the nation states of Europe.
	But even then, that didn't work.
	It's not like there weren't enough empires across the continent of Europe that violated these principles.
	So again, it's all being done retrospectively.
	Britain is being condemned retrospectively by the set of values it championed.
	I mean, and other empires, like, they didn't operate through the sort of Western Enlightenment view that Britain did.
	It might be, in the case of the Magals, they're an Islamic empire, so it might be obedience to God.
	Or in China, it might be the will of the emperor.
	Or in Germany, it'd be the triumph of the race.
	Or, in the case of Britain, liberty and human rights and the rule of law.
	So, pick your poison, but one of these is going to have to be picked.
	And at the end of the day, I think that there are many people, presumably people like Priti Patel, who, again, were involved in the Empire themselves, like, you know, Indian families were involved in this, who would have preferred that than the alternative.
	She says, historical analysis...
	Sorry, I'm going to have to have another drink.
	One of the things I find really interesting about this, though, after what I would describe as this...
	One-sided attack on Britain and her empire.
	I mean, an inherently illegitimate and immoral system seems to make it sound like this is total condemnation and nothing good came of this.
	Historical analysis, framed as the unmasking of hypocrisy, acquires a prosecutorial tone that vitiates understanding.
	Not all rationalizations are cynical and transparent.
	We have to take the ethical claims of historical actors seriously to understand how ordinary people acting in particular institutional and cultural frameworks can, despite good intentions, author appalling chapters of human history.
	Yeah, there's nothing prosecutorial about this.
	The idea is, well, we don't want to amass people as hypocrites, which they were.
	This is what Orwell's guilt is founded on, the hypocrisy of having to be an oppressive force and yet having to take part in this, and this going against his own deeply held liberal values.
	So, yes, it is hypocritical, but yes, you are still being prosecutorial.
	I could go on, but I don't think I will, because we're kind of getting towards the end, and I want to answer some questions.
	But basically, what she's arguing is that the British Empire is essentially as evil as Nazi Germany.
	And she does actually say things like this, that Britain essentially shouldn't be redeemed after its empire.
	But Britain's empire was not worse than others.
	It was not markedly significant in any other distinction than its concern for human rights and the liberalization of the world.
	So I don't see why we should be ashamed of that.
	I don't see why we should condemn it.
	And I think that this just comes from a kind of sense of my team lost and I'm upset about it.
	But really, I don't think her team did lose.
	I think that you've got modern India where you've got, I believe they have common law.
	They definitely inherited many British institutions and preserved these.
	So at the end of the day, I don't see why you would be so resentful, why you would need to say, oh, this colonization.
	And if you're going to do that, why stop at Britain?
	Why not keep going?
	India's got a long history of empire and colonization.
	Keep going.
	Anyway, let's go to a video question that someone had emailed to us for some reason.
	Do we know who this is from?
	Vicky?
	Do you know who this is from?
	I'd like to be able to give the person's name, if possible.
	It's from Sean.
	If you want to send us video questions or if you'd like to join in on the Zoom call that we're doing in about an hour's time from now, you can become a gold-tier member of LotusEaster.com and we will happily answer your questions and happily talk to you on the Zoom call.
	Anyway, let's watch the clip from Sean.
	I am interested in tactical solutions to wokeism.
	I want to very quickly help people understand that this diversity, inclusion, equity nonsense is actually racist ideology, and these people don't have the time or the inclination to read the available literature, such as cynical theories, the coddling of the American mind, the rise of victimhood culture, or even the racist ideology itself, such as white fragility or how to be an anti-racist.
	What I've put together here is a collection of YouTube videos for this purpose.
	You can see them on this page, and I've emailed you a link.
	My question to you is, what are your favorite resources, not necessarily videos, to raise awareness with people who habitually go along with collectivist, postmodernist, and racist ideology just because it comes from the institutional authority of their workplace or political party?
	That's a great question.
	I love the liberalist website he sent here.
	I assume he runs it.
	The ideology that every other ideology comes running to and it's their turn to be oppressed.
	That's totally true.
	That's totally true.
	That's exactly what they do.
	Again, a great bequeathing of the British Empire on the world, liberalism.
	But I don't have any particular go-to resources for this, because I am of the opinion that you need to judge the situation, the context you're in, relevantly to where you are and where you're trying to go.
	But if I were to give a sort of general normie an introduction, I'd probably give him a Jordan Peterson lecture, because he's first credentialed, you know, a tenured professor of...
	Psychology in University of Toronto seems to be, you know...
	Well-liked, well-respected, very popular, and he's also a fantastic communicator, but he's also a very sympathetic man.
	He doesn't deny and rationalize other people's moral claims.
	He engages with them and then tries to show that, look, these things end up getting synthesized together and go hand-in-hand.
	Again, very much like I've tried to do with criticism of the British Empire here.
	I've very much, you know, yeah, there are definitely criticisms of the British Empire.
	I mean, Orwell's description of the thing on the ground is very real, you know.
	It's But there are also the other side of things, and these things both exist.
	And this tension, it still exists for both of them.
	It's not just one or the other.
	But for general principles, I guess I would suggest you worry about knowing your target audience more is more important than actually the material itself.
	Because it depends who the target audience is as to what you should recommend to them.
	So, I mean, you could produce a long paper that's the most well-documented, well-argued case that someone might not read or pay any attention to, but they might love watching Steven Crowder owning the libs, you know, in his Change My Mind segments or something like that.
	However, you can't exactly send that to, like, your...
	EU-loving, lefty, Corbyn-voting, Remainer-uncle, right?
	He's not going to enjoy Steven Crowder owning the Libs, but he might approve of the well-documented, well-argued case.
	So you've got to choose your sources and your material and tailor it to the target audience that you are trying to persuade.
	But I think the important thing is about this as well.
	This is a very individual thing you can do.
	This is just your individual action.
	And even if you only persuade one person, if there are like 5,000 people listening to this and you all persuade one person, well, that's another 5,000 people who agree with us rather than previously.
	And if you do the same next year, that's another 5,000, another 5,000.
	And this is how the sort of slow diffusion of these ideas progresses through the culture.
	People, people like rag on the anti-SJW cringe compilation videos, but man, those got huge views all over YouTube.
	And I think that they had a significant impact in making social justice uncool in the culture.
	So I, I, again, it depends who you're trying to persuade, but you, you will, you need to be the person who judges based on what they're like, what would fit their worldview the most.
	And what, what their temperance, temperance, yeah, temperance and character of that person the most.
	So, right, let's go through some other questions.
	So Alexander Cross, just wanted to wish you and the team a Merry Christmas.
	Well, thank you and a Merry Christmas to all of you.
	I know that was yesterday's one, sorry.
	But thank you anyway.
	Stigma of the Road, oh, Jack of Spades, sorry.
	We missed that one yesterday, Ryke.
	Every good neighbourhood I've lived in, in every cart was always returned, in every bad neighbourhood, carts were left all over the place.
	You're correct.
	I know, thank you.
	I wrote a thinkpiece on Lotuses.com called The Shopping Trolley Problem Explained, because this has been going around.
	Go check it out.
	I'm really pleased with the job I've done on it.
	But basically, it is about trust and appreciation and concern for the quality of the civilization you're in.
	And the...
	As Jack said there, it changes depending on where you are.
	Stigma of the Rose.
	Thanks so much for the audio-only stuff on the website for premium content.
	I love this stuff.
	Keep it up.
	Hail Sargon Sims.
	That's Vicky, by the way.
	She's the one who got all that figured out and the guy making the website, so thank you to them.
	Again, if you're a video content producer who wishes to work in Swindon or you are a social media manager...
	Or could be.
	Do email us at contact at lotusseaters.com because in the new year, because so many people have been signing up, and thank you everyone for signing up, we would like to expand.
	Aaron says, There's a one-minute Simpsons clip on YouTube called Abe Simpson Stories That Go Nowhere.
	Reminds me very much of old Joe.
	You say that, right?
	But I'm very much reminded of the Family Guy clips of the old guy who's very interested in the kids with the thing.
	That's what more reminds me of old Joe.
	I mean, Abe Simpson isn't a dangerous or threatening character, you know?
	JJHW says, EU deal will be overseen by a Partnership Council and subject to arbitration, so the EU will get to make more decisions about the UK's future, not Parliament.
	I don't doubt that there are going to be many, many sort of bureaucratic clauses and oversight like this.
	I'm sure I'll be able to do a follow-up on this when we have more information.
	Jesus Fried Christ says, Merry Trumpmas and a happy second term, Carl and team.
	I tell you what, man, it better happen because I'm sweating bullets just like pence.
	Whatever you have to do, make sure you do it, lad!
	Aidan B sent us a super sticker for $50.
	Thank you, man.
	I can't really see what the sticker is, though.
	Some guy rushing?
	Right, okay.
	But thank you, Aidan.
	Thank you.
	you.
	Merry Christmas.
	Uh, chrysal 28 says young Arthur drawing Caliburn from the stone is a powerful symbol.
	It chose him, but only after he consciously chose to become the king himself.
	That's a great point.
	Uh, I will be doing more stuff on medieval legends.
	You can go check out the Greenwood podcast as well that I do with Scott Mannion.
	Once a week normally, but not this week apparently.
	Because we go through all of that sort of stuff and it's very, very nutritious.
	FuzzyCreature says, I'll see what I can do.
	I'll see what I can do.
	I will try.
	Because I haven't done just a relaxing stream on my old channels for ages.
	But I'll see what I can do.
	Weaversburg says, Merry Christmas from Southern Merlin, Maryland.
	I can't even pronounce it right.
	Alex Master says, greetings from a fellow Windsor School alum.
	Oh, hey man, how did you know?
	Do you think living among the foreigners helped you define being British?
	Yes, absolutely.
	And it definitely has helped me understand why mass immigration has been so mishandled in this country, and what at least we should be trying to avoid in future.
	We were the product of colonization, and so we should be able to see it when it's happening.
	And I just want to be clear, I'm not in favor of colonization at all.
	But I do miss Windsor.
	Miss the old concrete table tennis tables.
	Torella says, no, nothing, but thank you for the donation.
	Matthew Hammond says, I will simp for Carl.
	His shirt looks nice.
	Thank you.
	Merry Christmas to all the people in the US and the UK who are locked down.
	May you enjoy visiting family while ignoring the questionable edicts of authoritarians.
	Well, I probably can't encourage people to break lockdowns, but...
	Next.
	Next.
	Non-Irish John.
	Northern Irish John, I guess that is.
	I can't believe the cowardice of Boris and the government time to declare war on Europe.
	I guess I'll wait to reserve judgment until I see the deal and see what we've committed to.
	I mean, Farage being optimistic about it is good, and it's making me more optimistic, but there's a part of me that thinks they're going to sell us out, aren't they?
	The Earl of Longford says, Wish I could stay, but I'm in a pub for the last time, for a while.
	But I look forward to watching after.
	Is there a PO box that I can send a flag to?
	Not yet, but I believe Vicky's looking into getting one set up.
	So I will let you know when we have one.
	Eric Edward says, I'll send for Carl this one time.
	Love the show.
	Found you all the way back in 2014 with This Week in Stupid.
	Well, interestingly, we might, before the end of the year, do sort of a yearly recap.
	It's a lot easier to do when you've got a team of people who can research things that have happened during the year.
	Because otherwise, when it was just me doing it, man, it took days and days and days.
	It was so much work.
	But it will probably be a lot more practicable to do now.
	So hopefully we'll be able to do a nice yearly recap podcast on the 31st.
	White Bro Engineered says, DAPS coin is the only completely private cryptocurrency.
	Won the market when they come to cryptocurrency.
	You'll wish it was private.
	Possible Pilot Deviation says, My family has a tradition of meeting on Xmas Eve afternoon to celebrate, eat an open presence.
	So Merry Christmas, Carl, crew and online simps.
	Well, thank you very much, and I hope you have a good time.
	Sail C says, Picking ankle chains over neck chains isn't ending EU enslavement.
	End EU fishing in your waters or admit England owns the fish, but EU owns England.
	Yeah, I have to say I'm not happy.
	I'm not happy at all.
	I mean, it's our water.
	I don't see why this is something that's difficult to understand, or why the EU would even make a claim to it.
	But again, I'm going to wait until we can see what the final result is before inevitably condemning it.
	convincing reality says four years of trump in office for entire years for our feckless politicians to negotiate a good deal yet instead it gets finished after trump's term you know what they're like coffee time general says the next soup chat is ccp propaganda and disinfo chad harris see that would that would have worked if chad harris hadn't asked the question would you ever move to america um i don't want to move away from my country I like England.
	I like where I live.
	I'm happy here.
	I guess if things got so bad that I had to, then yes, I of course would move to America.
	And if I was going to move anywhere, then yeah, it'd probably be America.
	But I don't think that does the cause of liberty any good if we all flee our countries and retreat back to the last bastion of freedom because they actually have a constitution.
	We should be pressing outwards and expanding.
	We should be demanding our own constitutions that are suitable to our own persons.
	MuteStream says, it's no podcast without simping.
	Merry Christmas and may Hugo be with all those who are celebrating alone this holiday.
	Me first, please.
	Hashtag team Hugo.
	Well, we have two podcasts, weekend podcasts with Hugo that are lined up over the Christmas period for when we're away.
	So you'll have your dose of Hugo.
	Possible pilot deviation again is, If I were president, I'd tell Boris to leave and get the UK the best trade deals possible while sanctioning the EU. I'm deeply sorry about Biden.
	Yeah, Trump was basically going to do that, wasn't he?
	Like, it's...
	I don't know.
	There's a part of me that thinks that the forces that are against the populists are so titanic that they can't be stopped, but that kind of thinking makes it inevitable that they won't be stopped, and so we can't allow us to have these kind of doubts.
	Hold the line.
	Cooldudes says, Merry Christmas from Canada.
	A proud member of the Commonwealth and holder of a silver Duke of Edinburgh.
	Hell, congratulations.
	I was always way too lazy in school to do a Duke of Edinburgh award.
	Carl, any plans on covering Canadian politics in the new year?
	I don't personally because there's only so much I can focus on.
	But again, who knows?
	I mean, if enough people sign up, then maybe we could hire a Canadian correspondent.
	Who knows?
	Jedi Time Lord 42.
	Merry Christmas.
	I just want to say thanks for everything.
	Been a subscriber since 2015.
	Your videos have kept me sane.
	You saved my life.
	Thank you.
	Well, thank you.
	And have a good Christmas.
	Eric Edward says, Can't hold out.
	Need Hugo pillow when?
	Well, who knows?
	Who knows?
	Possible pilot deviation.
	Every statue costs more than something which has no value, i.e.
	the life of a communist.
	I simp for Priti Patel, and rightfully so.
	Yeah, I'm not going to lie.
	She's a fine-looking lady, isn't she?
	Pretty.
	But yeah, let's assume we're talking about people rather than communists for a minute.
	But, you know, you weigh up a human life, yeah, sure, you're going to choose a human life over the statue every time.
	But again, the point about procedure is completely correct.
	It's not just that it's human lives or statues.
	Make your choice.
	It's ridiculous.
	EZE, "Hey Carl, 'tis the season, so here's some Christmas shekels.
	Thank you so much.
	I read the article on the shopping trolley.
	I've noticed more leftist people tend not to return them, and I'm quick to cite the cart wrangler job.
	Any thoughts on this?" Yeah, the job of the cart wrangler only exists because of the moral failings of what I'm going to term now leftists in failing to return the shopping trolleys.
	If people were good citizens, cared about civilization, and the social institution that is the supermarket, they wouldn't need trolley wranglers.
	You wouldn't need to have to put your pound into the shopping trolley to get it, because this would all not be a problem.
	These things are a product of our immorality and our lack of commitment to civilization, damn it!
	But I hope you enjoyed the piece.
	And the good thing about having a few days off over Christmas is I'll doubtless have time to write a few more interesting things like this.
	I like doing kind of like, you know, whenever you're presented with these things, generally they're quite flat and I like to be able to pull them out and get to the dimensions that are in it.
	And I think that was one of the things that made that piece quite good.
	Ripperman says, Merry Christmas.
	Sorry I don't subscribe here, but I don't like channels that upload more than two or three videos a day, spamming my subpage.
	Well, what you could do is subscribe on lotuses.com, then you only get one podcast spamming your subpage.
	But don't worry, I understand.
	Possible pilot deviation, I'd like to congratulate Mr.
	Floyd for being seven months drug-free tomorrow.
	Quite the accomplishment.
	Well, I'm disavowing that comment, and moving on!
	Andrew Bishop for $50 Aussie dollars.
	Thank you, Andrew.
	Long-time listener, first-time Super Chatter, love the content, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
	I hope you're having a nice time on the beach.
	It was bitterly cold here this morning, but you're probably on Bondi Beach putting a shrimp on the barbie, I guess.
	Which sounds awesome, to be honest, now I say it.
	But maybe not under the sort of tyranny of the coronavirus stasi you have out in Australia.
	Maybe you're forced to do it in your back garden.
	Which still sounds quite good.
	Stephen Wells says, I love the barbecue.
	Barbecue's great.
	And they're keto-friendly as well, which is great.
	Oh man, I really want a barbecue now.
	Now I've made myself hungry.
	Stephen Wells says, I've been watching since 2015.
	Love how far you've come.
	Well, thank you for still being here and joining us, man.
	Stephen Armouray says, Yeah, I mean, there are so many other more important issues that Black Lives Matter could be addressing than statues of people who died hundreds of years ago.
	So many more important issues.
	And yet, this is what they're actually in Parliament, the midwits in Parliament, they're banging their heels and stamping out like children.
	Over a bunch of statues that, like Priti Patel said, they could just go and lobby these local councils to take these down.
	I don't doubt the local council will be like, well, I guess we'll do whatever, you know, we'll have a little vote in the parish or whatever it is, and if people say yes, then we'll take it down, and if not, then you've got your answer.
	Christopher C says, anyone else worried about the number of potential weebs who are inspired to go into government in the hopes of being predated upon by a Chinese spy?
	Just me?
	Love your work.
	Guys, keep it up.
	Yeah, it's a good question, isn't it?
	I mean, like, there are lots of people who are suspect in this regard.
	But yeah, no, like...
	I don't really know what we can do about it either.
	You're not allowed to have sex with Chinese people.
	I mean, the government's already banned us from having sex with people we don't live with.
	It's only one step further, isn't it?
	Matt Colossa says, What are your thoughts on large cities in the West becoming independent city-states such as Monaco and Singapore as a solution to the urban-rural-political divide?
	Merry Christmas from Australia.
	I mean, it would be a sort of practical utilitarian solution.
	But again, it feels like we're ceding territory.
	I don't really want to give our major cities up to the globalists and then huddle in our...
	I mean, how are we going to protect our borders?
	If anyone can just move into one of these cities, then what prevents them going from the city to the countryside, even if the countryside is ostensibly independent and self-governing?
	And even then, I'm not really in the countryside.
	I'm just not in one of the major metropolitan cities.
	I'm in a very large town in Swindon.
	There's 250,000 people here, but it feels like a small town.
	But even then, we're going to be in the same position.
	We need to roll back the philosophy that is overriding the common sense that usually ruled the day.
	Cool Dude says, gun and knife crime skyrocketed in Toronto when we stopped our own stop and search here in Canada.
	Yeah, the same thing happened in London under Sadiq Khan, which is why it's back.
	And the same thing happened in New York after Giuliani was ousted and this came back in.
	So, we know.
	We've got more than enough experience and enough evidence and practical effect of it being done.
	So, look, stop and search works.
	You know, it is good to take guns and knives off of young delinquents.
	You know, it's good for them.
	It's good for the wider society.
	It just needs to be done.
	We can't just allow them to be armed and killing each other.
	I saw this awful story yesterday.
	I think it was yesterday or the day before, about this young lad.
	You know, he's like a chubby, soft-looking young lad who is being...
	He's victimized by a gang in his school.
	And he'd already been stabbed once, scary enough, but he'd survived it.
	And then the other day, he'd got caught in a doorway or, you know, in an area by a bunch of them.
	And they just stabbed him a bunch of times and he died.
	And it's just like, this kid didn't look like he was threatening.
	He looked, you know, soft and like he should have just been getting on with his life.
	And yet, now he's dead.
	And it's like, right.
	This can't go on.
	It just can't go on.
	It's awful, what is happening.
	Like, the absolute inhumanity that is happening on a daily basis.
	It just has to stop.
	Anyway, Marcus Horne says, I don't know if I can be bribed that way.
	Sorry, I don't know if I can.
	I'm incorruptible.
	You know, when it comes to this.
	Krizzle says, We'll unlock my potential in 2021.
	Work, learn basic weapon skills, and have a few art prints that speak to me like Starry Knights.
	Good.
	Good.
	Myopia says, Psalm 2.9, King James Version.
	Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron.
	Thou shalt dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel.
	Hashtag Pottery Shards 2020.
	Krizzle again says, Rebel, ask yourself, am I Spartacus or Mordred?
	that's a good question Not a Band Account says rule Britannia Britannia rules the waves Britain will never be slaves the nations not so blessed as thee must in their turns to tyrants fall yeah and this is an important thing Like...
	All of the sort of Enlightenment revolutions were essentially looking at the English model of constitutional governance and trying to replicate this.
	This is what I went through.
	In the next few days, we'll have Tom Bingham's The Rule of Law book club up.
	Where I talk about all of this, because you can see how the American Revolutionaries who took part, the French Revolutionaries, before they were American Revolutionaries, took part in the American Revolution because they were against Britain and her interests, but also there were a bunch of them who were in agreement with the principles.
	But really what they were trying to do is achieve the kind of constitutional government that England had achieved after hundreds of years of being oppressed by Norman tyrants.
	But yeah, it was something that Britain was consciously aware of in the era.
	Anyway, Mokosh says, As a Slav, I find the current woke Inquisition disturbing.
	Shall I send reparations billed to Rome and Ankara for centuries of enslavement?
	Empires come and go.
	It's a fact of life.
	Double standards.
	Exactly, right?
	And one thing I found interesting, I should have made a video about this, I saw an article going around that was being suggested that Slavs are actually people of colour because of their historic status as oppressed people.
	And it's like, but that doesn't make sense because Slavs are white.
	And Turks aren't.
	And Turks were oppressing Slavs.
	And so the people of colour are now the white people.
	And the white people are now the people of colour based on the power dynamic between one empire and the people being ruled over.
	Why do we have to frame things in terms of race when it's just not relevant?
	Like the Turks weren't enslaving the Slavs because they were white.
	They were doing it because they were Christian.
	Niall says, Carl, why do you dye your beard?
	Why do you assume I dye my beard?
	Why would my beard be so white if I dyed it?
	I'd dye it black like it used to be.
	It used to be amazing.
	I saw a picture of me from like four years ago, and I'm holding my infant son.
	My beard is just this huge black thing, and I'm like, oh, that's amazing.
	I wish I could go back to that.
	Anyway, 2A says, the question isn't the British Empire good or bad, the question is British Empire or French or Dutch or...
	Exactly.
	It wasn't like Garden of Eden and then the British turned up.
	Alexander Cross says, Britain gave the world the idea that there were rights other than might dictated rights to rule.
	America decided to ask the people what was wanted.
	Yeah, well, the American Revolution is very much just the tradition of English constitutionalism, which is understandable considering it was English colonies and they were Englishmen.
	But yeah, exactly.
	It's not just Britain, but it did start in Britain.
	It started in England, and out of this came the Enlightenment and the idea of the rights of man.
	But anyway, I'm looking forward to doing the premium look at the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen.
	Very interesting contrast.
	Anyway...
	William Woodburn says, coming back on Guy Verhofstadt in yesterday's podcast, imagine having him as your Prime Minister.
	We did sadly.
	Yeah, he was the Prime Minister of Belgium.
	But I mean, at least the good thing about Guy Verhofstadt is he says what we know that they're all thinking.
	Ursula von der Leyen isn't going to come out and say, well, actually, we just want to crush Britain under our heel.
	This is what we're going to show you.
	But Guy Verhofstadt will just come out and say that, which I approve of.
	I like honesty.
	Marcus Burney says, I write about the US military's collapse into critical race theory ideology at heterodoxsoldier.com.
	It's becoming an institutionally enforced religion.
	We have Broken Arrow's situation.
	heterodoxsoldier.com.
	Check that out, guys.
	Marcus for $50, so thank you, Marcus.
	Taito Amadeo says, It's after midnight in Australia, so Merry Christmas to you and the crew.
	Cheers, and here's to a better New Year's.
	Let's hope so, man, and Merry Christmas in Oz.
	Richard P., hashtag British Empire Matters.
	It very much does.
	Paige in PA says, Merry Christmas, and to you.
	TF Allspark says, Merry Christmas from Norway, fellow meme veteran.
	Not a Band of Count says, how can Britain be condemned as an oppressive empire when freedom is in the song?
	Wasn't perfect, but nothing is.
	Well, actually, the dreams of utopia in the head of the communists that are criticizing the British Empire and trying to make us ashamed of it, well, they've got a utopia there.
	That's perfect.
	Dwarf Posse says, compare COVID predictions from so-called tinfoil hat mob in April-May versus official state line at the time.
	Who was the most accurate eight months later?
	Well, I mean, I suppose it depends on what the predictions from the tinfoil hat mob were.
	But, I mean, if it was all of society was going to be locked down, everyone's going to be ruined, and the government is going to have totalitarian authority over the entire society, then, yeah, they were right.
	Like...
	The English Loyalist says, Merry Christmas, Carl, and I thank the British Empire.
	Without them, I would not know English literature, history, philosophy, and a better way to live with liberty.
	Love from a Navajo.
	Honestly, this is how I feel about it, right?
	So, I've said this before, and I'm sure I'm going to be forced to say it again.
	Part of my ancestry comes from an island called St Helena, and the reason my surname is Benjamin is because at some point in the ancestry of my father's side, I would have been descended from slaves who had been freed by the British Empire, which is how I came by the surname Benjamin, Because that would have been the first name of the person who had owned my family, or at least part of my family.
	And so the idea for me that the British Empire can just be categorically denounced as an evil enterprise is just flat out wrong.
	Because if it wasn't for the British Empire, I don't see why I would think that my family wouldn't still be on slave plantations.
	Why would I think...
	That my family would have otherwise been emancipated, at least on that side of it.
	But Britain made it happen.
	And that's a great thing.
	It was great time, great effort, great expense, great moral force made that the case.
	And you can see it in Orwell's view of things.
	He's...
	In all of the times, in all of the places, the single legitimating factor was power.
	Are you strong enough to rule?
	And everyone's like, well, they are strong enough to rule, and they're not, so we're going to revolt.
	But when it came to Britain, there were other factors.
	And I think that's noble, and I think that is worth defending.
	Evanes says, the question is, is Scotland, England's Canada, and Wales your Mexico?
	Also, I'll join the website where you get David Starkey on staff.
	Man, I wish I could afford David Starkey on staff.
	Is Scotland, England, Canada?
	No, no, no, no.
	If the United States paid for Canada, then yes, but no.
	And is Wales on Mexico?
	Yes.
	In the Southwest, you get a lot of...
	I mean, my mum's family is Welsh.
	So I'm the descendant of Welsh immigrants to England.
	I'm only like a quarter English, which is my nan on my dad's side who recently passed away.
	So for me, it's not about blood or anything.
	God, anything as gorsh as that.
	It's about principles and values and the kind of society you produce and the kind of people you want to be.
	And I don't think this is something that's racially exclusive.
	I'm a product of it.
	I know it's not racially exclusive.
	So I'm kind of sick of the leftist and the sort of Nazi types who will say, well, culture is tied to blood.
	And that is very much both their perspective.
	And I don't think they're right.
	I think culture is tied to upbringing and values.
	In a word, ethics.
	Anyway, Eric says, Will we get a podcast in summer with you all around the barbecue?
	Well, we can't have a barbecue in here, but I'm certainly not adverse to having a barbecue in summer and filming it.
	Chrissy Starsky says, How can I stand against this tyranny?
	Service guarantee, citizenship, marry Yuletide.
	In small ways, I would suggest at first.
	But mostly I would think that the best thing that you guys can do is, and I speak purely out of self-interest here, support alternative media.
	Obviously not just us.
	Any alternative media.
	Any content creators, any platforms.
	We've got to make sure that these things can exist.
	The whole point of this project is to make something that can exist outside of the mainstream, that can comment on it, that they can't just get rid of.
	And so anything that's trying to exist out of the orthodoxy is worth supporting, even if you don't agree with all of it.
	But in the meantime, take the opportune moments when you can.
	When a subject comes up, don't just, you know, Labour Party member style or Democrat just rabbit and stop picking fights over these things, because that's definitely the wrong way to go about any kind of persuasion.
	But when a subject comes up like it's on the news or, you know, your uncle says this, oh, what's this about?
	You know, When it comes up, you should try and persuade people.
	You should at least try and put the argument for, you know, the common sense liberal argument across to them to try and persuade them to our point of view.
	And again, you do this enough times with enough people, you might see, you know, incrementally in aggregate a change happening.
	I think that's our best way to start with.
	Anyway, JetGram, thank you very much for the donation.
	Eric Edward, the EU motto should be expend or die.
	Probably is, behind closed doors.
	OnSiteDragon says, I'm a 100% disabled US Army paratrooper Iraq war vet.
	I'm raising my two-year-old boys in upper...
	is that Wisconsin?
	Yeah, it is.
	WA, I can't remember off hand.
	I should know.
	No, I can't remember.
	But he's in a farm area with guns and life skills in mind.
	Government wants to take these rights away from parents, homeschooling and guns.
	Your thoughts?
	Your government, the government, Washington, right, thank you.
	The government does not own your children.
	You own your children.
	And I mean this in the literal proprietarian sense.
	They are yours.
	They do not belong to someone else.
	You're responsible for them.
	You're the one who's supposed to take care of them.
	If you outsource their education to the government, fine.
	But you should have the option to homeschool.
	Very much in support of parents' rights in this regard.
	And your gun rights, obviously.
	Gregor Chopin says, Merry Christmas, Carl.
	Wish you and your family and the team a great time.
	Get ready for Emperor Carl Schwab and his mulled couch of great resets are pressing you soon.
	Greetings from Bratverse land.
	Man, that's the best bit about Germany, though, is bratwurstland.
	But yes, it looks like Emperor Schwab will be presiding soon, doesn't it?
	I mean, we are in the middle of the Great Reset.
	Everything that they asked for is happening, so it's like, great.
	And Matt Hancock's in favour of it.
	Gavin Death says, Bring back the Empire.
	I would look good in a scarlet coat and a musket on my shoulder.
	Also, way too many Geordies and Scousers in Perth, Australia.
	Way too many Geordies and Scousers in Britain as well, mate.
	joking Edward of Woodstock says enough of Saxon victimism we're all English now the Dane, the Angle, the Saxon, the Dute, the Norman, the... and more Merry Christmas from a London exile well I agree actually And I like the fact that the English don't tend to try and ethnically segregate the components of the English.
	I think that's important, because they are all something that's come out of history into one thing.
	And I also appreciate the fact that you don't want to be a victim.
	I agree.
	We shouldn't be victims.
	We shouldn't view ourselves as victims.
	This is a deeply enervating worldview.
	And it really is, honestly, above all other things, why I don't like Black Lives Matter.
	Like, teaching black people that they're just perennial victims of history is not a way to help them improve their lives.
	End of story.
	And it doesn't matter what the argument is from there.
	That's where I just simply cannot agree.
	Matt C says, thanks for everything, Carl and crew.
	What's your favorite Christmas movie?
	Oh, Die Hard, probably.
	Can't beat Die Hard.
	I only watched it a few years ago, actually.
	I wasn't someone who grew up watching it, but I really enjoyed it.
	Matt C says, bring back the Empire and the Black and Tans, aka Tier 5 COVID Patrol.
	Merry Christmas to everyone, by the way.
	I probably have to disavow that, so...
	Mr.
	Twisted Frenzy!
	Hey, man!
	Merry Christmas, Carl!
	Please read up on some Irish history and lore if you get the chance.
	I'd love to hear your opinion on the subject.
	Yeah, I know.
	I keep getting requests for this, and I really need to as well.
	But the thing is, there are so many other things.
	I'm still, like, pounding through the French Revolution and the Paris Commune at the moment.
	It's very detailed and very interesting stuff, and it's very much helping to inform what I'm doing here.
	But I will get to it.
	I will get to it.
	Krizzle28 says, Fate portrays Mordred as a Kane figure, taking rejection as potential king to be a rejection as a knight in person, the ideal that had to die in that rage.
	I mean, there are multiple, there's the alliterative and stanziatic Death of Arthur, in which Mordred features prominently, and they're both very different stories, and there are different motivations for Mordred in them.
	There's something I'll get into, again, I've been doing the work, see?
	This is something I'll get into on the Greenwood podcast at some point with Scott, or just in my own sort of musings on the subject at some point, but I won't, I'm going to it now, because we've got stuff we've got to do, haven't we?
	And Brad P., biological sex is a cultural construct, but culture is biological.
	The left.
	Exactly.
	This is exactly what cultural appropriation is concerned with.
	Like, oh, you can't have dreads.
	They're black people hair.
	What the hell are you talking about?
	You can't eat that food.
	That's, you know, yellow people food or whatever it is.
	You know, whatever the latest complaint of cultural appropriation is, it's this race's food and therefore you, being the wrong race, are not allowed to enjoy it.
	So it's ridiculous.
	But anyway, folks, thank you so much for joining us.
	If you'd like more content, you can go to lotuses.com and sign up and remember and keep us going.
	We will be back in four days, but there will be more content to come that's scheduled over the Christmas period.
	Thank you everyone who's joined us, and if you're a Gold Tier member, we will see you in about an hour or so, about four o'clock, where you should find a post on Lotuses.com that only you can access, which will have the Zoom link.
	And if it doesn't turn up, it's because of a technical problem, and I will make it up to you.
	I'm really sorry if it doesn't work, but I think it'll work.
	I guess we'll find out in about an hour.

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