"You're not allowed to watch the kids," she said. "I think I am," I replied.
This week we discuss the MDC stuff in the news before diving deep into two topics strongly animating American Libertarians: Tipping service workers, and the right to look at children Support the show for only $3.11/mo at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult and get a bonus episode every week while helping us raise money for abortion access. Every subscriber will be entered to win one of 12 giveaways we're raffling off this month. 100% of the sales from our abortion rights bumper sticker go to abortion access groups. http://miniondeathcult.com Music: Viagra Boys - Troglodyte Three 6 Mafia - That's Right Jethro Tull - Aqualung
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It's not beautiful when you go across that border.
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All their environment, stay tuned.
I'm Alexander Edward.
And I'm Tony Boswell.
And we are Minion Death Cult.
The world is ending.
Karen teachers and Karen security guards refusing to allow me access to the children on the playground are responsible.
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What's up everybody?
It's your show for the week.
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Yeah, yeah.
Very good stuff.
Very excited to see how that's working out.
I'm really excited to be able to do this.
Very cool stuff.
Uh, we have a fantastically deranged episode for everybody, uh, that I'm very eager to get into, but, you know, of course, uh...
You know, there's Minion Death Cult stuff that happens that's funny, and then there's Minion Death Cult stuff that happens that's really not funny.
Of course, referring to the racist white supremacist mass shooting that happened in Buffalo, New York over the weekend at a supermarket where it appears an internet Nazi targeted a, specifically targeted like the most What is it?
How would you say it?
Like the most black supermarket in the area?
Yeah, like a supermarket in a heavily black area where it's known to like that's a black market.
Yeah uh he posted a manifesto online 180 pages detailing uh his thoughts about essentially white birth rates and the like sketching out pretty much to a t the great replacement theory which posits that
uh you know forces evil forces mostly the democrats and the jews are conspiring to bring in other races to supplant uh the white race in this country and it's like well first of all are you are you admitting that like the white race being the most popular race has its advantages yeah yeah yeah do you realize that you're saying that
And you guys are having like a lot of a lot of you is kind of a thing that's like helping um and it yeah it's a it's a popular thing that uh people have been worried about uh since y'all decided to bring us over here uh since the jump and yeah it's yeah This is, you know, very obviously white nationalist philosophy that is not just constrained to 4chan or, you know, other sewers on the internet.
This is mainstream conservative thought.
This is mainstream Conservative politics, I mean you can go to any mainstream conservative website, you can go to any mainstream conservative politician, and they will tell you that yes, the Democrats are trying to bring illegal aliens over here to shore up their votes so that they can rule over the rest of the white people.
Yep, yep.
Taking the power away by thinning out the bloodline and whatnot, too.
It is such a popular thing, and it's more than just conservative.
It's kind of just like the American mentality a lot of people don't realize they have.
And if you're not sure and you want to test that out, go ahead and bring a black date to Thanksgiving this year.
See?
Just feel the vibes.
You might have a progressive family, but just feel the vibes out.
It's more common than you might think.
It's really hard to talk about this stuff because, like, who has a prescription for vigilante fascist violence, right?
Certainly not the Democrats because, yeah, just as conditions worsen in this country and the Democrats...
Being literally incapable of putting forward an actual material political agenda that would confront the rise of this fascist ideology.
When I say incapable, I don't mean that in the sense that... I don't mean that in like a hyperbolic sense or making a joke sense.
I mean that their politics conflicts with the politics that would be able to combat Uh, this sort of, this sort of politics.
They're not, they're not able to put forward an actual universal good for everybody.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's not, that's not an option.
Cause like you say, it does, it doesn't serve them.
These are the people who will just say, oh yeah, sorry, we didn't have the votes to stop fascism.
Guess we'll just continue making millions of dollars at the expense of everybody else, like we were doing already.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like, hey, you didn't vote for me hard enough is a common thing.
You know?
And it's like, it's the people who are already there saying, like, you need to vote for me harder.
I couldn't do it because you didn't vote for me hard enough.
uh and it's so clear that they have no what's the they have like there's no it wouldn't benefit them no to fix this and it's so blatant Yeah, it's not in their material interest, and it is that thing of, like, the frog and the scorpion.
Yeah, yeah.
Where it's like, you can't even really blame the scorpion because they're a scorpion.
Like, this is what material interests are for people.
People will act in their own material interest without even thinking about it, just as an act of self-interest, right?
And yeah, that's not where the Democrats' self-interest is.
Yeah.
No, not at all.
And this is going to be ran and it's going to be like, oh cool, we've got to take care of the guns, you know, got to get rid of the guns.
And I think that maybe there is some gun law to be taken down here.
Maybe if you see people writing the word nigger on their AR-15, take that gun.
I'm going to say go ahead and take that one.
That's the only mod I'm not here for.
But yeah, this shit's so blatant and they get to just ignore it and call it fringe, but it's not fringe.
It's the people that they're getting lunch with.
The people they're getting lunch with during their little breaks in DC.
They're the people who are allowing this and pushing this stuff.
I mean a lot of them will call out you know I guess rightfully who cares who they call out calling out considering that it doesn't do shit yeah to call out somebody but they will call out you know Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingram on all these far-right Talking heads, these far-right pundits with giant followings who are pushing this stuff.
They'll call it out, but knowing that they're not going to achieve anything by doing that.
And yeah, their policies, I mean they are the ones who are militarizing the border right now.
Yeah.
They are the ones who are sending extra money to police forces.
That's going to be their... because, I mean, New York already has strict gun laws, right?
Yeah.
And I know this wasn't New York City, this was Buffalo.
I bet you dollars to donuts, pun intended, there's a ton of fucking cops in Buffalo.
Oh yeah.
In fact, there was an off-duty or retired cop at the Topps grocery store who was killed.
Yeah.
Who was killed in the shooting.
Yeah.
What's the answer for Democrats?
A cop at every door.
In every neighborhood.
That's the only answer they have.
And of course, that's not really meant to stop gun violence against civilians.
It's meant to eventually tamp down a population that is going to be dealing with an increasing number of crises, right?
Breakdowns in the supply chain because we've We've yielded, we've ceded total control for the supply chain to private interests who, oh whoops, we contaminated, we put flesh-eating bacteria in a bunch of baby formula, oopsies, gotta shut down, oh no, we'll only make $2 billion instead of $3 billion this year while, yeah, babies are literally starving.
When all that stuff starts happening, when your reproductive rights go away, when the wage that you're paid goes away, when the right to privacy goes away, a lot of people are going to be mad, and it's going to help Democrats to have more cops in the streets.
Yeah, absolutely.
To have more cops in front is really going to help, because that's who's going to be defending them.
The right wing is just pretending that this is a joke.
They're pretending to pretend.
You know, you have people like Wendy Rogers from Arizona who's just saying, oh yeah, that's feds.
The mass shooter was a fed.
Who could possibly imagine a guy being mad at declining birth rates?
That's fed shit.
And also, if that's feds, then why are we not more mad at the feds?
If that's what you think, then why are you not livid with the feds?
Well, they don't like the FBI unless they're citing their crime statistics.
Yeah.
They hate the FBI.
They don't trust them unless they're looking at their black crime statistics.
Yeah, exactly.
In which case, those are, yeah, love them.
Those are the good ones.
Yeah, it's exhausting, really.
I haven't really seen, I've very carefully managed to avoid those takes.
I don't want to see, much like Kendrick Lamar reactions, I've also ignored those from certain corners because I just don't give a fuck what you have to say about it.
I just don't.
I just don't give a shit.
And I do want it to not be forgotten what this was.
This wasn't just a shooting.
This was a blatant, racially motivated, anti-black, murderous event.
And it was successful.
And it was just anti-black.
Don't get it twisted.
This was anti-black.
It was just anti-black.
It was, it wasn't a, like, don't get it twisted.
Like, this was anti-black.
And, like...
He killed 13 people and 11 of them were black.
Yep.
And, um, and, and so, like, don't, don't get that, don't get that twisted.
And, like...
Don't forget that, because this is still America.
We've got a lot going on.
A lot of awful shit's going on.
But that's still the backbone.
That's still the backbone of what's keeping this ship running, is anti-black hatred.
Just really quick before we move on to something far more amusing, or at least entertaining.
We talked about the Democrats' response, what the inevitable Democratic response to this is going to be.
The right-wing response to this is, yeah, going to be to pretend that it's fake, it's a false flag, or that, oh, like Mike Cernovich said, he said, oh, this guy wasn't right-wing, he was actually under the influence of demons.
He wasn't right-wing, he was actually just a devil guy.
Oh, that's weird because I was just reading about these demon crats.
I wonder if there's a... that, whoa, it's right there in front of us.
I mean, it's got the Latin prefix of demon in both words.
Yep.
Let's look it up in the dictionary.
Let's see what the dictionary has to say about that.
I'm still waiting for this new one me and my friends are working on.
We're going to make our own dictionary.
It's got like 113 words in it.
I guess 14 words would have been maybe a joke too.
Yeah.
So the response is either, oh he's a fed, or oh he was actually an agent of hell.
Was actually what he was.
No politics here.
They're going to just do this every time it happens.
They're going to pretend they had nothing to do with it, pretend he doesn't share any of their beliefs at all, until they can do it on a mass scale.
Yeah.
Until they can do it on like an actual institutional scale, which to be fair, they already are through the justice system, the carceral system in particular, the policing system.
That's already the industrialized white supremacy killings that are taking place.
But yeah, they're just going to pretend like, you know, and it's funny because the edgier ones aren't even pretending to find it offensive.
They're just joking around about how it's Feds.
Oh, this is oh, hey, what's up feds?
Hey fed boys.
Oh, wow.
This shit is glowing and it's like 11 people got killed.
This is pretty fucking real if it is the FBI that's still a huge fucking problem Exactly.
That's I'm saying like if you really think it's the FBI and you're but you don't you're just deflecting cuz Like like, you know, like I said you you in order to acknowledge what's going on here.
They need to acknowledge How close they are to it You know, like I said, the reason why people don't want to read this manifesto is because this manifesto is constructed of copypasta that we have read on this show from people's aunts.
Like, straight up.
In order to acknowledge this is happening, you are also acknowledging that what you're doing on a regular basis, that your bumper stickers are part of the problem.
Um, any, any amount of like chagrin they experience at this event is just because he did it alone by himself.
Yeah.
He's a shooter, he thinks about his gun at home.
One day he's gonna be a shooter, he's gonna bring his gun to work.
He thinks about the ones that wronged him, and the punishments they'll face.
But things they will play out much different back in the time when we were apes.
Tony, you might remember a couple weeks ago when we did a Facebook post about Elon Musk, making fun of Elon Musk, and like how many that feeling when two intelligent guys that post brought out to defend Elon Musk.
I never thought I would say this, but nothing.
That was nothing compared to what I've experienced over the last four days.
I made the mistake of making fun of Libertarians for their anti-tipping policies.
You done fucked up.
You done fucked up.
And I mean, if you just want to never hear the end of anything, ask a Libertarian what he thinks about tipping.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you know, or suggest that you should tip your, your, uh, for service.
But before you ask them, remember they don't like tipping, so they don't care about your time.
So they were going to go ahead and go in and let you know exactly how they feel about it.
So I saw this post from, uh, this page called like a libertarian and What that means is it's a libertarian page but they're riffing on the meme that's the like a boss meme where it has the stick figure sort of leaning back and strutting kind of like doing a pimp walk you know like hey like big man walking and it says like a boss you know.
Every time you give me that little like extra internet layer of explaining the origins of something it just makes it worse.
They have that as their avatar and it's like I was like why why do they have this meme as their avatar because this meme is like 14 years old and then I realized oh they're a libertarian page so of course they love a 14 year old meme.
They posted they posted this meme that was like It said, it had a picture of a guy with like a big chin on it.
Like they stretched out his chin.
Yeah.
And it says, uh, coffee shop baristas waiting for you to tip 37% for handing you a cup of water and a microwaved bagel.
I hate everything about this so much.
you ordered a bagel and water, right?
When they say 37% tip, you're supposed to, as the reader, you're supposed to be like, damn, that's like a huge fucking percentage until you realize they mean a dollar. - Yeah. - You bought a bagel and you got free water.
You made the server do work for free for the water and you're complaining about tipping a dollar to them.
I'm going to be generous.
I'm going to be generous and say that they're saying a cup of water is still coffee because coffee is water and that still doesn't help them out at all.
That doesn't help them out at all.
Like you said, it's not much.
It's not a lot.
37% of a lot of numbers is not more than a dollar.
And this one response in particular is the one that I loved.
I mean, just to this meme, Evan says, I don't understand tipping for takeout.
You literally hit some buttons on a computer.
Does Evan think that you just hit the buttons on the computer and everything else is just magic?
It's the coffee computer.
And it's got a touch screen now.
You don't even need to hit the buttons that hard.
Why would I tip you?
Grubhub put this in the bag and tied it up.
Why would I tip you?
Why would I do that?
Yeah, I think Evan thinks the coffee comes out of the computer.
I think he thinks it's a coffee computer.
Internet elves can't even spend American money.
Why would I give them more?
Uh, so I reposted this on the Minion Death Cult page.
I said, yeah, shit libertarians say.
Yeah.
Like literally thinking that the whole coffee shop, all they did was, uh, they, they what conjured a microwaved bagel out of thin air.
Just like they pulled out a bag that already had the bagel in it microwaved for them.
Yeah.
And I love, I like, I don't even think this person goes to coffee shops.
I don't think, it's funny that they use the word barista.
It's funny they use the word barista and they're talking about like microwaving bagels in like cups of water.
Well that's how useless a barista's job is Tony.
All they do is microwave bagels and put water in a cup.
I could do that.
My five-year-old could do that.
Man, back when I was a barista, I just wanted the respect of people knowing that's what I was called.
That's all I want.
You can keep your tip.
Just don't call me Coffee Boy.
In the same vein, Jerry Smith, whose profile pic is the NPC meme, and I'm wondering if Jerry Smith is a reference to the dad in Rick and Morty.
Is that his name?
That's his name, but it's ironic because you see the NPC meme and you're like, okay, oh, this guy's making fun of people without, you know, original thoughts in their head.
But his name is the name of the coolest, you know, one of the characters in the coolest, most individual epic shows ever that very few people like.
You have to have kind of a high level of intelligence to get it at all, let alone.
Watch it.
So it's, you know, a bit of dissonance internally when I look at this.
But Jerry says, I don't tip takeout dot dot dot.
They don't make the food.
They don't box the food.
They grab a bag and hand it to yo.
Who do they think is doing the things?
Who do they think is making the food?
Do they think that like the futuristic machines that we see in so many movies where you place a pill in there and then it hydrates it and that becomes like, that becomes your, I don't know what's a popular, that becomes your birria tacos?
Like that becomes that?
That's not how this works!
And now, there's all these shops, they have a mechanical arm that drops the pill and then waters it.
Like, the barista's not even doing that part of it.
Yeah, they're just barely monitoring those things.
Like, those things aren't even getting maintenance the way they should.
I don't understand, like... There's either two things going on.
It's like, you think that the person at the front who hands you your order Is literally only doing that all day.
Yep.
That's all they're doing is handing you your order.
Otherwise they're on their phone or they're, you know, uh, they're doing genders in their head or something.
Why am I going to tip you if you're going to just be TikTok-ing the whole time?
I know you're just TikTok-ing back there.
And then B, they think that that tip goes directly and only to the person who handed you your order.
Yeah.
Which, I was never allowed to receive tips at the two food service, well, the first food service job I had, nobody ever tipped me out.
This was back in the days of cash, folks.
And I worked at Pizza Hut, and I bagged every order, cut, prepped, bagged every order, and never got tipped out by any of the drivers.
But... Well, yeah, all you did was hand them a bag.
I don't know why... Right.
Are you not paying attention?
Those guys are these comments.
And then I worked at Subway where we weren't allowed to take tips.
Which is awful.
That's the worst corporate move.
Because it hurts nobody.
No.
It's just a dick move.
Yeah, it's just a dick move.
When I sign for a tip at the coffee place, like A, when I order a coffee, the person who takes my order is the person who then goes and makes the coffee.
Typically, yeah.
Like half of the time.
The other half of the time, there's people like rotating on the register and then going and doing other stuff, right?
So it's like, even if that specific person didn't make your coffee, that person is making a ton of other coffees that day.
Yeah.
Right?
And also not understanding just no object permanence, right?
Oh, I saw the guy by the counter.
That's where the guy is all day.
He's by the counter.
He doesn't even touch a coffee.
Yeah, he doesn't even touch the coffee.
He's like, you're just there to, I don't know, check my name, make sure I'm not stealing, I guess.
Like, that's all you're there for.
But again, they just must think it's magic.
Everything else is magic.
Or the other thing they might think is, no, no, the people who made the coffee and made the takeout, they're actually getting paid really well.
We don't see them because they're getting paid well.
They make a living wage in the back, and that's why we don't need to tip them either.
Well, a lot of people try to use the argument that, oh, well, at a coffee shop, you're not subjected to the tipped minimum wage like a server at a restaurant might be.
You actually do get to make the minimum wage, which, yeah, at the federal level is still fucking $7.25.
Yeah, exactly.
Even if it's $15.
Not enough to live on.
Nope.
Sorry.
Nope, not anywhere near that.
Sorry, that's the way the fucking economy works, man.
But it is, you know.
I always tip on, you know, I don't buy coffee.
I mean, I don't buy coffee anymore at all, but I don't buy like pre-made coffees or not pre-made.
What do you call it?
I don't go to a coffee shop that much.
But when I do, I tip like five bucks, man, on like a single coffee.
I tip like five to $10 because where I'm getting coffee is in downtown Seattle, where those baristas have to deal with a lot of shit, a lot of stuff, and it's fine.
They deserve it.
And it sucks because like you know these people they're over here probably saying if you were to really press them they would be like well if you don't if you're not getting paid enough to get another job but the truth is and you know you got it you got a tip if you if you can't if you can't give like if you can't give a dollar a drink which is like as a barista that was kind of the standard as a bartender that was the standard at least at I mean I'm saying at least obviously yeah
Um, at least do a dollar a drink, um, then you don't get to, you don't get to get the drink.
That's part of the price.
If you're quibbling over the amount of a tip, uh, because you can't afford it, then like stop eating out.
You know, there's nothing wrong with eating at home.
There's nothing wrong with making your own coffee.
If that's, if that's where you draw the line, uh, then you're either making up problems, you're pretending to have a problem or your problem is, you know, is real and you shouldn't be getting a coffee.
Yeah, absolutely.
When I go out and I get my coffee, it's very pricey.
It's worth every penny I tip.
But when I'm at home, oftentimes I'm drinking really cheap coffee.
I just brew it nicely.
But I'm drinking like Cafe Bustelo.
I'm not drinking nice coffee.
That's the balance you have to strike with yourself.
If you can't tip, you don't get to go get the... I don't know what the fuck these people are drinking at coffee shops, but it's probably something awful.
All these people ordered blended drinks too.
Every single person here orders a blended drink, even after the coffee shop says, we don't have a blender.
They go, no, no, no, no.
I want to... They say a frappe.
Let me get a frappe.
How would you normally say that?
I mean, that's just not a thing.
That's just like a trademark.
That's just a trademark that Starbucks did a long time ago.
Frappuccino.
But, um, it's a, yeah, I mean, you would just say blended, I guess.
But, you know, what I'm saying is that's a pretty, that's a milkshake.
But it's also the more labor intensive thing.
It's also really annoying to make.
And you know, they make the most annoying, they order the most annoying drinks, all these people.
But that's the job!
I order the simple, I go up to, you know, whatever coffee shop I'm going to, I go up and I order one McCafe, please.
Can I get a McCafe?
Can I get a Carmel McCafe?
They'll be like, what?
And you're like, sorry, I don't quite know how to pronounce it.
McAfee?
Can I get a John McAfee?
Oh wait, did that guy die?
I think that guy might be dead.
I'm sorry, are you out of him?
Is he gone?
Did you call the moisture from his body?
Is it gone now?
Can I just get the one of the dolphins he had sex with instead?
Michael replied to me direct because I made the observation where it's like tipping is like it's perfect.
It's the perfect encapsulation of Like the libertarian ideal of, hey, everybody can just choose to give each other enough to survive on.
Everybody can just, you know, voluntarily, I mean, it's either called volunteerism or voluntarism.
I can't remember.
It's a stupid ideology.
So who gives a shit?
But the ideology is that, oh, we're only entering into voluntary contracts that aren't that aren't enforced with force, that are, you know, maybe if you sign the contract, you can sue somebody for violating the contract.
But nobody's ever forced to enter into a contract.
It's all voluntary.
And it's like, well, okay, so that's what tipping is, right?
It's like, okay, all You know, you have the option of giving this person who made you food enough money to, like, get through the day, put some fucking gas in their car, you know?
And I'm not talking about their whole tank, but, you know, contribute to that fund at least.
And, oh, wouldn't you know it?
Over fucking 75% of the comments are like, I don't fucking tip.
Absolutely not.
Or maybe they'll be like, I tip a strict 12%.
And so that would be 15, that would be 12 cents on this order.
What I actually do is I write a little note that I tell them.
I say, I will tip when the price of ammunition goes down.
It's like we already have a pretty good experiment about, oh, we'll just let business owners decide what to pay their employees.
And it hasn't worked out so well.
Right?
And so my comment was just, oh, it's so awesome to see how voluntarism just means I'm not going to do that.
Yeah, no wait, that's really what it means, yeah.
It's never a reason to do something, it's a reason to not do something.
It's never framed in a way of like, you know, good welfare.
It's always framed in a way of like, oh, that just means I don't have to do it.
Not I get to do it, it's I don't have to do it.
That means you can't make me, and I will fucking kill you if you even suggest that I should.
Yeah, yeah.
Which we'll get into.
But yeah, so this guy Michael replied to me saying that.
He said, so what you're saying is that nobody tips and the solution is to force people to tip at the threat of violence?
Yep, yep.
What is it that you're advocating for?
Is it good that we have an option to tip or not?
It's personal responsibility.
It's personal responsibility to be fiscally conservative and not waste your money on tips.
Not waste your money on a tip.
It's personal responsibility.
The dude made a fair judgment, and that judgment is to not tip people who don't do shit.
Because remember, that guy didn't do shit.
He just touched the computer.
But like, neither did you.
If you disagree, you're free to tip.
We just don't want you to force others to tip.
Welcome to volunteerism.
Yep.
Well listen, I'm not going to force you to tip, but I do have the tip jar hooked up to a flamethrower that will only not go off if the tip jar is filled.
So that's on you.
Whatever happens after this.
Somebody replied about me and said he never said that.
He never said, I'm going to do violence on you if you don't tip.
Which is just great.
Just me making fun of somebody not tipping.
It's like, oh, so you're going to call the state?
You're going to call the jackbooted thugs on me for not tipping?
Huh?
Is that where we're at?
I'll fucking stand my ground.
I'll die for this shit.
I will die.
They're gonna superglue their hands to the counters because they didn't want to tip.
Yes.
Because of the tip jar.
They super glue their hands to the top of the tip jar.
Oh, you want me to hand money over to you?
Yeah.
How am I supposed to do that?
Splat.
Just put both your hands on the counter.
For the record, that dude's a fucking idiot.
I'd be paying for my non-dairy milk alternatives.
I do think that's stupid.
I think it's cool people don't charge for that.
But yo, my guy, you got a little position of power.
You got a little bit of clout.
There's bigger fights to fight.
You mean Cromwell?
James Cromwell?
Yeah.
He's been fighting.
He's a good guy.
But he's been fighting for a long time.
But this one's corny.
If you're going to superglue yourself to the Starbucks counter, do it because they need to unionize.
Sure.
There's bigger fights in that building.
Yeah, good point.
We do like James Cromwell.
We do like James Cromwell.
He's cool.
But that was just a corny one.
He's been arrested probably, like, well, I don't know.
I was gonna say he's been arrested more than any other actor, but there is that one non-binary Flash person who keeps getting arrested for, like, spitting on women.
Oh, I don't know what that one is, but that's interesting.
But also, I just get so stressed thinking about that old skin in Superglue.
Oh yeah.
But I guess you could just superglue it when you tear it off.
You could just put more superglue on it to cover it.
Sure.
Um, yeah, and so when dude came to my defense and was like, he never said anything about violence, man.
This is everything right here.
Michael replies, well, it's implied as that's the alternative to volunteerism.
It's funny cause like, I don't know.
It seems like you understand that this is something that can be applied to a lot of things, you know?
The reason why we follow a lot of laws and do a lot of things is because we know the alternative is that when it comes down to it.
But they don't understand that in that grand sense of everyone.
They understand that and this is like a personal thing.
Like, oh, so you're going to kill me then?
Because that's the only way I'm doing what you want me to do, is you're going to kill me.
Well these people don't understand the idea of social pressure because they can't possibly imagine society hating them more than we already do.
Yeah, yeah.
There's nowhere left to go for these people.
These people have, like, no clout or no reputation to lose.
They're not worried about being shunned by society because they also hate society.
And they love society.
These people are, like, very clearly upset, angry, unhappy people.
Yeah.
Who, yeah, decided to take it out.
Hey, we can take it at Minion Death Cult.
Please.
Please.
Uh, if, if this is going to spare, you know, some, some 19 year old barista from getting dressed down for 15 minutes, uh, in the coffee shop, please come on over to the Minion Death Cult Facebook page.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Let it out.
Let it out.
Go for it, please.
Uh, yeah, it's implied as that's the alternative to volunteerism and it's, it's like, okay, first of all, If I were making policy, if I had my, you know, magic policy wand.
You need to get that thing back.
My gavel.
If I had a magic policy gavel where I was like, bang, bang, bang, policy.
I told you not to let the wizard touch that thing and you let the wizard, and they never gave it back.
You should get that thing back.
Uh, it wouldn't be to make a law forcing all customers to tip.
No!
That's probably not the way I would go with it.
In fact, that kind of sounds like, I don't know, the democratic technocrat A regressive sales tax idea that is already being, you know, that is already a policy in multiple states where it's just like, oh yeah, we're running out of money because we've slashed taxes for the wealthy for 30 years.
Let's just, let's charge people for buying sugar-coated cereal.
Let's charge people more for that.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, my policy prescription would be to, like, throw Howard Schultz in prison.
That would be probably my policy prescription.
That would at least be part of it, no doubt.
And that's the thing, it's like, no, no, we're advocating tipping because we live in a structure where they need tipping to survive.
If they didn't need tipping to survive, we'd not be advocating for tipping.
If we knew that people just could live without having that other pressure, then we wouldn't be asking for that.
But we don't live there.
We live in this place where people get by on their skin and their teeth.
Well, it's just funny because when I ask you to tip, when I say, hey, you should tip that person, A, they made you fucking food and they listened to your little snide, under-the-breath comments.
You know, they wrote John Galt on your coffee cup for you without even laughing.
Your response is, oh, what are you going to do, kill me?
Yeah.
However, when somebody working food service is working for you know the tipped wage of what is it like 325 250 something like that or when somebody is working a minimum wage in a fucking urban center with millions of people that pretty much revolve revolves around the service industry uh when they
have to work for barely over minimum wage and scrape by because the alternative is dying of hunger or being thrown out onto the street.
That's not violence.
That's volunteerism.
That's volunteerism.
They volunteered for that position.
Exactly.
That's the thing.
If they didn't want that, they would have just got a better job.
They would have simply got paid more.
I'm not going to tip you.
Why would I tip you if you don't respect yourself enough to tip yourself?
Have you thought about that?
How about you tip yourself?
When they see these states, they're just like, oh yeah, another Lib in Southern California or the Bay Area or Seattle or New York City or whatever.
And it's like, no, those people are getting shit on way more than you are in your red state because you watched five minutes of Rachel Maddow or something like that.
And also like, you know, we grew up in these places.
It takes up a mobility in order to move.
So this was another response to the volunteerism thing, which is from Dakota.
Who says, there's enough people that actually do tip, dot, dot, dot.
You understand that, right?
And I mean, yeah, maybe he said, like, those are people that are actually, like, uh, contributing to society.
Those are people that are, you know, if there are enough people that tip, which I don't think there are.
I don't think there are.
You might want to ask a server about that.
There definitely, I will tell you, I will tell you that most people don't.
That's what I'll say.
Insane.
Insane.
Most people don't.
And if they do, it's, Rare that it's what it should be I used to tip 20% even when I was only making like 16 17 bucks an hour I would yeah 20% every single time and then once I started making Union like full-time Union wages I tip like 50% dude.
Yeah, I know because it's like I'm going out I'm I'm going to be spending, you know, I'm going out with somebody, we're going to get drinks or we're going to get nice food or whatever.
I'm going to spend like $75 or whatever.
That's already almost $100.
I'm going to, I'm going to put like another $40 on, on the tip.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And like, but like, that's so rare and that's what's like, you know, people, and that's a real thing where the more money people have, the less they give.
Everybody who I've met, all my favorite customers who tip the most, they were either in the industry themselves or working people.
The people who I still got big tips from were only doing the 20% but they were spending $500.
So it's like, fuck, you suck.
It's regular people who tend to give more, that's a real thing.
Dakota goes on to say there's nothing wrong with volunteerism.
I'd rather have the choice than be forced to do something.
Yeah, we know like that's, that's obvious.
I'd rather have the choice than be forced to do something.
For example, I never went out before COVID.
Government told me not to and I went out every weekend.
What was your...honestly?
Literally, like, the worst argument for volunteerism I can even imagine.
Oh, you know what volunteerism is?
It's when the government politely asks you to stay home for both your health and the health of others, and you say, absolutely not.
I don't even want to go out, but I'm going to now.
So, like, for most people... You just argued for, like, China.
You just argued for what China did, man.
I actually, like, I'm really envious of Dakota because most people as we grow up, as we get older, you know, I'm in my like mid-30s now, I've really culled my friendship group down.
It's slimmed down very much.
I don't go out nearly as much as I used to.
I just, you know, it's more, it's more...
Purposeful when I do do things now, you know?
Dakota never did anything, right?
He had no social life, never did anything, decides to go out, and it just happens to be in nothing but rooms of like-minded people, and makes all the friends.
For the first time in his life, he looks pretty, he looks like he's a little older, and it's like, you know, mid-late 30s, is just now for the first time making all the friends in the world and living his best life.
I'm just envious of Dakota.
I can't even hate on my guy.
Yeah.
The united crew of elevator button lickers.
And then it also went really fast for him because he met friends.
A bunch of them died from COVID.
He had to go through that grieving.
But he lived through it.
Now he has less friends still.
The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.
Dakota's life must have been thrilling in 2020.
This was a real good comment from Ben on the Minion Death Cult Facebook page.
Ben Smith says, you're a wage slave, our word, with no skills.
Fuck yourself on a phone post, assuming you know what that is.
And I replied, I said, no, what is it?
And then he never got back to me, so we're left to our interpretation of that.
Does he mean like a phone post?
I was like, what do you think you're reading buddy?
You think I went over to the desktop PC to upload this photo on the internet?
Yeah, I was like, does he mean like to post from a phone?
Or does he mean like that giant wooden thing that's wider than any body?
Yeah, he means a telephone pole.
A telephone pole.
Which is how we call it in the states.
I don't know where Ben Smith is from.
It sounds a pretty American-ass name.
Could be from another state where they call them phone posts.
I think this person's wishing death upon you.
What if he's British and by phone post he means a text message?
Oh, that's true.
I received a phone post in my inbox today.
He was like, well you should just go sext.
That's what fucking yourself on a phone post is, is go sexting.
Uh, yeah.
Really mad.
Really mad.
Mad at the idea of tipping.
Acknowledging the idea of a wage slave is acknowledging the idea that we're not getting paid enough.
Right, so it is, they are sort of, what's the word, like refining their politics.
The right wing is becoming aware of class politics.
But are still identifying with the capitalists.
Of course.
You know what I mean?
So, like, I would argue that most capitalists in the United States, at least as insofar as they, like, belong to polite society or have to interact with, you know, people who aren't the ultra wealthy every day, I would say that those people probably don't think about their position in class struggle and class warfare in explicit terms.
They're probably not Like internally malicious about, you know, their position in society.
They just know what benefits them and they know what feels good to do.
Yeah, right.
Exactly.
And that's all that's all that capitalism needs is it just needs for these particular elements of the relationship to act in a way that feels good.
And then capitalism keeps working.
And you know what's funny?
Tipping feels so good.
It's true.
It does feel good.
Tipping feels great.
But there is a subset of, yeah, capitalist strivers.
People like, mostly younger guys, I would say.
There's some older guys and gals who are catching on to the meme lingo.
But yeah, like millennials and, you know, Gen Z, you know, wagey.
It's a very common insult for them to use.
And some of it is just jokes.
Some of it is memes like, Uh there's there's like some subreddit that's like landlord appreciation subreddit where everybody is just like kind of pretending to be a landlord.
I think they're like not probably not actually landlords but they like making fun of poor people.
Is there like a roller coaster tycoon game for landlords?
Like a landlord tycoon game?
It's called Monopoly.
Yeah yeah yep my bad.
I knew there was one as soon as you started saying it.
I knew there was one and I was like, which one is it?
Oh, yeah, it's the big one.
And you are talking about online monopoly, the computer game monopoly, because that shit was tight.
I never played it.
I've only played the McDonald's Monopoly.
And I go to Starbucks and I say, give me a McAfee with the McDonald's sticker on the side, please.
With the Monopoly sticker on the side.
And you know what you do is you ask for a double cuppet.
Oh boy, crossing my fingers for Park Place.
One day, one day.
Wow, what if I got Park Place at Pike Place Market?
Man, I remember like playing Monopoly, like McDonald's Monopoly, being like, we gonna make it out the hood.
We gonna get out of here, mama.
We gonna get you a car that runs, mom!
We gonna get a Kia Sportage for Monopoly and McDonald's!
My memory of that sort of thing is going to the grocery store and having the cashier, while they were handing me the receipt, say something incomprehensible about some sort of contest.
And I was like, what?
Yeah.
And then they said it again and I still didn't understand.
And then after like the third or fourth time, I realized there was some sort of chit that you could cut out of your receipt and use it to play a game that I had no intention of playing.
And I was like, okay, you can have the receipt.
Yeah.
I mean, I also would have settled for a PlayStation.
I also would have been good with the PlayStation.
Either a ticket out the hood or a PlayStation, either one would have been fantastic for me.
That's how they buy us off, Tony.
Mom, we got to get breakfast at McDonald's.
You gotta care about our future.
This is an investment.
You're scared to make money moves, mom.
This is like, I mean, this is, you know, a good answer.
You're a wage slave, our word.
Um, it's a good answer because this is what they mean.
They just, they just don't like service workers, right?
They just, they look down on these on, you know, on service workers, uh, people who, you know, do very, provide very fundamental services to society.
Um, I wonder, I was reading about the history of tipping, which we'll get into in the next comment, but part, you know, part of this I really do think is that, guess, you know, when it comes to tipped workers, guess what, like, demographic makeup two-thirds of tipped workers are?
Um, not dudes.
It is women.
Yeah.
Women, according to a study done in 2019, I was reading this Time article about it, this Time Magazine article about it.
Yeah, two-thirds of tipped workers, tipped servers, are women.
So it would explain why all these libertarians have such strong feelings about tipping.
It really kind of gives the game away when you look at that statistic.
And I guarantee you all these volunteerism motherfuckers, like they wrote down $5 on their $125 margarita party with their boys and then wrote their number down.
Like that for sure, like all of them did that.
Tyler says here, and this was, I got this comment a few times, I got this response a few times.
Tyler said, tipping is historically a racist institution put in place to keep from paying newly released slaves a wage.
We should stop this racist reminder of our past and put an end to this caste system.
And I 100% believe Tyler, that Tyler is very concerned about racism.
He probably expresses that and acts on that every day in a myriad of ways.
And I'm just seeing this one small slice of his anti-racist activity, which involves not tipping service workers.
You know, I just got a notification.
I actually just got a Venmo from Tyler.
Tyler says, just for being you.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, that seems kind of hypocritical.
I didn't know that you can send less than a dollar on Venmo, but apparently he found a way to send me 85 cents.
That's pretty close.
It's close to a dollar.
Um, uh, yeah, a lot of people were like, actually, uh, I'm the most anti-racist guy because I didn't tip the black server.
Yeah.
They, they like, they like looked at the server.
Acknowledged the zero in the tip bar, threw a fist up, and said you're welcome.
Yeah.
We're gonna get through this together.
Yeah.
One check at a time.
Yeah, we're going to continue to not tip you because I respect you.
Because I need you to make so little money that you finally get pissed off at your boss and demand a raise or violence.
Yeah, well that's what they're doing is they're putting sanctions on service workers.
Yeah, exactly.
We're doing this for you.
We're going to make you stronger.
It's tough love, baby.
A lot of people were like, you know, where does this stop?
God, I gotta tip everybody.
And it's like, no, you literally don't have to tip anybody.
Everybody here is complaining about not wanting to tip people and also are not tipping people.
It's perfectly legal to be an asshole.
Yeah.
That's like what your politics revolves around.
It's legal for me to be an asshole, actually.
You can be an asshole and you can even gloat about it.
You're allowed to do it because you're doing it right now.
Yeah but for some reason uh not tipping somebody just like it didn't fulfill me in any way so I also have to pretend that I am uh you know a victim here because then at least I can feel something about it.
Yeah yeah exactly because like you're you're you're being like Look, you know what sucks?
I can't even go on dates anymore without tipping.
Every time I don't tip, these people I'm on dates with get mad at me.
That's fucking bullshit.
I should be able to live my life.
It's because society is telling them I'm an asshole and I'm not.
I'm not.
Those are the groomers, Tony.
They fucking groom these children at a young age to make you think 2% tip isn't enough.
Yep, exactly.
It's disgusting.
I hate to see it.
But yeah, people are like, where does it end?
Are you going to tip your mailman?
And it's like, yeah, plenty of people do that at Christmas time.
They give a little something to the fucking person who carries their paycheck to them, who carries their important documents to them.
It's a good person to have on your side.
And it's okay if you do think of it selfishly.
Go ahead, think of tipping like bribing.
That's okay, because it's true.
Think of it as making money moves.
If there's somebody who comes in who like does tip me all the time, they're gonna get a nod from the back of the line.
They're getting a drink made.
It's gonna be ready by the time they pay.
You feel me?
And like, yeah, because they earn that.
Like, go ahead.
Think selfishly about it.
That's fine.
That's the thing is, like, these people, they don't want to make those human connections.
No.
Those human connections are actually, like, either disgusting to them or just have been denied to them, uh, you know, for their whole lives because they are this kind of an asshole.
So why would they ever contribute to another person's happiness?
Because it's that social equity that you have to get by actually being cool and a good person.
Not like the weird power dynamics that just come with being, I mean for a lot of these commenters, like a white male.
It's the other one where it's like, I'm not respecting you because I have to, I'm engaging with you because I like you.
That social equity, they don't get that.
It's so funny because, yeah, now that you're talking about, like, the power dynamics, another part of this, like, the history of tipping is that it pretty much originates with the idea of, like, I mean, well, it originates with the idea of unpaid, quote, workers You know, by which I mean black people who had to work for zero pay under the assumption that they would be then tipped by whoever they were providing service for immediately.
Yes, but the feeling that that evokes is the same feeling that You know, being a slave owner evokes or being, you know, a high at a higher tier of society.
You get to decide when somebody has pleased you enough to earn a living.
You get to bestow upon them, you know, and that's what kind of what we're talking about, Tony, when we're talking about how it makes you feel good.
Yeah.
That's kind of like what that feeling is tapping into.
I mean, with me, I like to think it's like, oh, I made somebody happy or, oh, I helped somebody get by.
Like, yeah, sure.
That's a selfish feeling.
But I think it's a little better than, you know, oh, I got to dictate the terms of my encounter with this employee who's not quite my employee but has to act like it.
And what's funny about that mentality too is, so yeah, you're saying that the roots of tipping were basically an opportunity for abolitionists and anti-racist people to contribute to these people's livelihood, right?
And so the people who were originally tipping were probably good people, because I think the bigots continued to not tip for a very long time, and they still do.
So the people who were originally tipping Like, they were probably decent people, and they would probably still be tipping today.
But the people who we need to be mad at are the people who weren't paying them in the first place.
Well, I would say that the idea of tipping, whether people did it or not, especially as it pertains to unpaid black servants, it allows every customer to, this is gonna be, this would appear on Breitbart.
If Breitbart hears me say this, if Ben Shapiro hears me say this, it's gonna be on their Instagram this week.
But tipping, the way it was, I think it honestly gave every customer The feeling of being a slave owner, of being like, yeah, you do this, maybe I'll give you a little something.
You do that, maybe I'll give you a little something.
Maybe, you know, I'll, if you're one of the good ones, I'll help you get by.
You get an extra corn muffin or whatever, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think it gives the feeling of having your own waitstaff.
You get to be surrounded by servers, you know, at your beck and call, and they have to do a good job or else you're not gonna give them that tip.
Yeah absolutely.
It is this feeling of like being weighted on.
It's like an aristocratic type feeling.
It's the guy that puts 20 ones at the end of the table and takes one off every time you like blow it a little bit.
Sure.
Every time you forget his name.
Yeah so that was I think probably had something to do with the origin of tipping but now we're so like we've regressed so much that now even that boon that you got to lord over somebody that you were giving them an extra dollar or extra two dollars or whatever now that is even too far for these people yeah they don't even want to do that fucking part of it yeah yeah and it's funny too is just like
Not much has changed in the way of tipping.
Because like you said, a lot of these states where they have the minimum wage law set up, these people are still getting paid five dollars, sometimes a little bit less.
And really, truly, that's, and like, go ahead and run your inflation.
If you go all the way back, that's still, that's nothing.
Yeah, it's absolutely insane what the federal minimum wages are.
I can't believe it.
It's criminal.
This was a really good one.
Thomas Chang.
Is replying to somebody else who's like, Hey, I'm a barista.
It's hard work.
You know, it's not like as easy as everybody's pretending it is, which of course it fucking is.
I mean, of course it is hard work.
Thomas Chang says, Hey, get over yourself.
Most baristas deserve to get shot in a mass shooting.
You aren't essential.
Go away.
I hate this so much.
What the fuck?
Most normal, most well-adjusted libertarian.
You know what's funny too is I think there's a lot going on here.
I think they're not only talking about, because the barista, I think the barista stands for a lot more than just like a service worker.
I think it's also like a little bit queer.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
Like this person is awful.
Barista is synonymous with gender studies major.
It's a young person, it's a person with colored hair, it's somebody who's either gender or sexually non-conforming.
Even though there's all kinds of baristas, there's all kinds of people doing this job, all ages.
There's Black Rifle Coffee Co.
That idea does not work, does not pan out at all.
The biggest coffee exporter in America is in cahoots with Saudi Arabia.
It's not that at all.
Yeah, so completely normal reaction as far as libertarianism goes.
You think your job is hard?
Actually, I'm going to do a mass shooting.
You should get shot up.
And then there was another comment that he replied to somebody else saying, oh, people get shot for that kind of thing.
And the person had just said like, I think I deserve to make a living wage or something.
And I went to Thomas Chang's profile, and oh wow, wouldn't you know it?
He's got Rooftop Korean.
Okay, so for people who don't know, Rooftop Koreans, it's a meme about the Rodney King riots.
Korean shop owners post it up on top of the roofs of their stores with guns.
Basically, you know, threatening to shoot protesters, people in the street.
They've become a meme on the right wing.
They're basically the pre-Kyle Rittenhouse meme.
They're the precursor to the Kyle Rittenhouse meme.
It's the roof Koreans.
Rooftop Koreans.
And ironically, the only person they actually killed was another Korean who was also attempting to, you know, quote, protect the store.
So oops.
Oops.
Sorry about that.
Kind of happens when you're doing vigilante violence on behalf of capital.
It's like nobody really wins.
But This guy, Thomas Chang, if you're a barista, you know, etc.
He's got the photo of the Rooftop Koreans as his cover photo, and then his bio says, Roof Korean Consulting LLC.
Um, and these guys are like, I already posted, I posted this on Twitter because I saw another thread about like rooftop Koreans.
Uh, just some of the most embarrassing people.
Like, yeah, sure.
They're talking about, you know, uh, spectacular and horrific and racist acts of violence.
Um, still pretty cringe, pretty embarrassing.
Uh, like Providing less to society like less like active less proactive than your average Weeb your your average like Japanophile some guy who's obsessed with anime and shit like that person's probably like drawing Yeah, that person's probably like doing something constructive.
There's at least like sick merch to buy Yeah These people they just want to kill people That is the entire personality.
I feel justified about it.
That's the whole thing.
It's an excuse to kill people and specifically black people.
Yeah.
So, big personality point among these types.
Big motivation for them.
It's dork.
It's dork stuff.
It's real dorky.
Last one from this amazing response we got from the libertarian nooks and crannies of Facebook.
Unregulated Memes for Your Libertarian Needs says, I happily worked without getting tips in my younger years.
I say fuck em.
And I said, yeah, we know what libertarians say about people in their younger years.
Yep.
Yep.
Fuck em.
Fuck em.
If you think I'm crazy, that's right.
If you think I'm lazy, that's right.
Cause it don't really matter what you think about me.
Fuck you baby, that's right.
Speaking of libertarians and people in their younger years, we have an article here from Reason Magazine.
This is the number one libertarian publication, I think in the world, probably, but definitely in the country.
The headline, I stopped to watch kids playing at recess.
Security was called.
It's like, well, were you wearing your press badge?
Could they see what magazine you wrote for?
Because, I mean, we need to know all the information.
It sounds like they might not have been overreacting.
Were you taking those or taking pictures?
This is really important.
Shout out to The White Paul Rudd for tagging us in this.
It's a good name.
I like that name.
So, reading from Reason Magazine.
Hey, so we're a libertarian publication.
What should we write about this month?
Oh, I know, trying to watch kids at a school playground.
Let's do that.
I just can't do anything anymore.
Don't you think this is a little on the nose?
Yeah.
Haven't we done this article before?
Yeah.
Isn't it a weird move here?
Listen, try not to drop your jaw in shock, but I want to write about kids again this month.
Aren't you the same ones worried about adult bathrooms?
Aren't you the same people?
Okay, alright, you're just going to say it out loud.
Okay, go ahead.
The sub-headline, the second headline, is so good.
Quote, I really think I'm allowed to stay here, I explained in vain.
Yep, I think I'm allowed to stay here.
And then, against all odds, something that should be absolutely illegal, they've used a photo of actual children as their thumbnail.
Wild move.
I'm hoping the author of this, Lenore I'm hoping she just sees a black box where this photo should be.
I hope they know what her IP address is.
Oh, wait.
This wasn't written by Larry Clark?
If it was written by Larry Clark, I was going to say this is bass, but it's written by Lenore Scanese, so I'm pretty stressed right now.
I don't think I like it anymore.
Okay.
It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
That neighborhood being Queens in New York City.
Hey Queens, baby, they got everything.
They, they got your, uh, you got your deli.
You got your, uh, what else do they have in New York?
You got your taxi cab.
You got your kids playing outside.
It's got, it's got swings.
It's got monkey bars.
It's got slides.
It's got everything.
It's got a pole.
You can slide down like a fireman.
Listen, we're trying to get some regulations passed to make sure the slides are at least 10 feet longer.
Just give everybody a little more time to see what's happening.
Can we put windows on the tube slides?
Windows on the tube slides.
You know what I remember from growing up in Queens?
Those big fans that would blow straight up in the air.
It was great.
You walk over it and you play with your buddies and you'd throw a cup of water and the water would float.
Can we bring back sprinklers?
Can we bring back sprinklers on the playground?
Just random sprinklers.
You wouldn't know when it's going to happen but all of a sudden out of nowhere there's going to be a bunch of water out of nowhere.
Just running your car into the fire hydrant in front of an elementary school, hoping the water sprays the children.
It's New York!
Only in New York, baby!
Summertime!
It's summertime!
We used to do this all the time.
Okay.
I was walking by one of the local elementary schools.
There's more than one around you.
Oh no.
Oh no.
No.
And slowed down to watch the girls doing cartwheels at recess.
Wait, you were walking and you slowed down?
Yeah.
You were walking and you slowed down to watch the girls do cartwheels?
You shouldn't be doing... Don't slow down from a walk when you're going by a school.
Don't do that.
Fucking foghorn playing in the background.
What?
They watch the girls doing cartwheels at recess.
They practice it over and over again.
So she watched like multiple sets of cartwheels.
Over and over again.
At least three cartwheels she watched.
Which is proof that kids learn frustration tolerance and focus during unstructured free play.
That's why I'm such a fan of it.
So background on this author, she is the mind behind the free range kids movement, which again, little on the nose for libertarians to promote the idea of free range kids.
Hey, why don't you just let them do whatever they want?
It sucks.
All these like things that are kind of good, I think, get Like, swarmed by the worst people.
Because I'm very much like, yeah, I let my kid just kind of run amok.
They can go wild outside, I don't really care.
Go play in the dirt, that's fine.
But then people make it weird.
Like, how do they make something just regular and fine weird?
And it's like, God, you're the reason we have to have these fucked up rules.
It's your fault.
Yeah, I mean, well, you just need to prepare your kids, you know, give them the tools they need.
You know, you can let them be free-range or whatever, but give them the tools they need to avoid dangerous situations.
Teach them to ask strangers the question, how do you feel about objectivism?
Yeah, how do you feel objectivism?
Yeah, yeah.
And then, depending on their response, you know, run away very quickly.
If they start talking about Ayn Rand, run away.
Yeah, you know what I, what I, what you should do is you get, get your kids to like maybe set up a lemonade stand, right?
And they only trust the people who don't tip.
Yeah.
So, uh, no, you're right, Tony, about how like, yeah, sure.
You know, giving your kids some autonomy or whatever, theoretically is, you know, the right thing to do.
That's how they learn stuff.
But yeah, when, uh, when you get the libertarian contingent arguing for this, you know, when they got like, you know, a napkin tucked into their shirt collar and a knife and fork in their hands, it makes you kind of think twice about it, you know?
Um, does that, does that say child spice?
Does that say child seasoning?
Is that what you have in your hand?
No, this is how to provide spice to children.
No, no, it says kid seasoning.
It's for cooking small goats.
It's kid seasoning.
I stopped to watch another gaggle of kids playing hopscotch like I used to.
So another, she's just a serial kid watcher.
Hold on, how you used to watch kids or how you used to hopscotch?
This is very important.
The teacher or teacher's aide looked over at me through a 20 foot high chain link fence and said, Ma'am, you cannot stand there.
You have to move.
Yeah, I can't.
Yeah, I can't stand here on the public sidewalk.
I asked.
No, she said.
You're not allowed to watch the kids.
Quote.
I think I am.
I replied.
I'm on a public sidewalk.
Excuse me.
And like somebody else pointed out online, very first time a libertarian has appreciated the idea of public sidewalks.
Yep.
Yep.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Also, I mean, I know they hate this, but there is a thing that's a school zone.
Like you can't, you have to slow your car down and don't not slow your walk down.
Do not slow your walk down.
It's the opposite for walking.
You have to speed up when you're walking, slow down when you're driving.
Yeah.
Ugh.
Um, I think I am.
I replied, I'm on a public sidewalk.
I'm not taking pictures and I don't even have my phone out.
She said, you have to leave.
I really think I'm allowed to stay here, I said, half angry, half baffled.
I am allowed to stay on a public sidewalk, separated from the kids by a fence, aren't I?
If you don't leave, I'm calling security, she said.
I shrugged, but decided to leave.
I hate confrontations.
Not a true libertarian, by the way.
If you hate confrontations, I'm sorry, you're just a baby.
You're just a Republican.
No, they like confrontations.
I don't know.
Yeah.
After walking a bit beyond the playground, I paused to think about what had just happened.
Out of curiosity, and also a growing ember of rage, I went back to see if security had indeed been called.
Okay, I rescind my comment.
True Libertarian, you are true.
You're the real deal.
You're the real deal.
Oh no!
I hate confrontation uh except over the most not only like minor things but also really incriminating things.
Yeah!
That's the thing is like okay so while we're being you know real while we're my serious take on this is like yeah I'm not of the mind that everybody who just like You know, wants to watch the kids play.
Kids are funny, you know what I mean?
Kids are funny to watch, or it's fun to watch them have fun.
It's fun to watch anybody have fun, right?
If somebody asks me to leave and stop watching the kids, probably not the hill I'm gonna die on.
Yeah, bad move.
I'm probably just gonna go because I don't need to watch the kids that bad.
And B, I understand that people are freaking out right now over memes and panic that the right wing is deliberately stoking in the first place.
That you probably shared.
Right.
So I'm gonna leave.
That's the difference between, like, a normal person and a libertarian, is that they are 100% willing to die on the hill of, I get to watch these kids.
I get to look at these fucking kids.
Yeah, I wouldn't even be like, oh, my kid goes here.
I wouldn't even do that.
Oh yeah, I'm out.
I just got a little distracted for a second.
I'm high when I drop my kid off for school.
Sometimes I just see leaves.
I think leaves are sick.
It has nothing to do with the cheering.
But yeah, I'll be out.
I'll peace out.
You don't have to fight.
Do not fight that.
That makes you weird.
Don't be a weirdo.
You know, honestly, I am happy that we're getting some femme weirdo representation when it comes to the creeps.
This is important.
It's very important that she's doing this.
Very brave of her.
I went back to the scene of the crime.
These freaks can't help themselves.
I went back to see if security had indeed been called.
The teacher, or playground worker, or paraprofessional, I don't know her exact job title, was talking to another woman, who walked to the fence and told me that she is security and I have to move along.
But why?
I asked.
I'm not doing anything bad.
I'm just watching the kids.
Ugh!
Ugh!
And like, the thing is, the reason why is because you came back.
That's really why, at this point.
Yeah.
But then you said, no, no, no, no, I am, I am doing what you think I'm doing.
I am watching the kids.
That's not allowed.
Because?
Because we get bad people coming by here.
They expose themselves.
They take pictures of the kids.
But I'm not exposing myself or taking pictures.
I'm special.
Yeah.
We can't let anyone watch the kids.
There's just too much bad stuff out there.
People expose themselves.
These are someone else's children and it's our job to keep them safe.
Yeah.
Quote, how many men have exposed themselves this year?
I asked, feigning curiosity, but really hoping to make a point.
Nobody was fooled by your feint at curiosity.
Allow me to posit, hypothetically, so to speak, how many men were...
Uh, this year, so far, none.
Zero the whole year, I asked.
Yeah, we've been telling him we're gonna call security like ASAP.
As soon as you slow down from a walk, as soon as you see walking and then slow down to watch the cartwheels, we'd say, hey, we're calling security.
So far, no exposure.
We're crushing it.
You need to leave.
Uh, zero the whole year, I asked.
And then she said, the school year is an over year.
No!
Oh no!
She's like, we usually end with at least two to three.
So I know it's bound to come.
And honestly, like August is a rush.
Like, I'm not August.
Of all the months to pick, August is the worst month to pick for school.
June is a rush.
Yeah.
The weather's finally warm.
You don't need as many layers of clothing.
It's not, it's not cold.
So they're like more confident.
She's right.
There's another entire month of school.
I don't think she's secretly hoping for at least one flasher to reinforce the importance of her role.
We don't need a flasher.
We have a holy threat.
How kind of you.
How kind of you.
Listen, it was only a passing thought that this woman actually liked child pedophiles to justify her position of preventing the child.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Come on, man.
But I don't think that actual facts, no exhibitionists in recent memory, seem to matter very much to her.
Recent memory isn't what she said.
She said this year.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
You know?
It's sad, but that's just the way it is, she said.
As I have said since I founded Free Range Kids, which... That sounds like you're going to eat the kids, right?
Farm to table kids.
You're going to eat the children.
No honestly it's a really common misconception like uh there's like organic kids and then there's free range kids and then and then there's actually grazing kids.
Grazing kids is actually what you want.
Free range kids that's only really like a 10 by 10 foot radius they get to wander.
Listen, alright?
I would just want you to know, before we even talk numbers or anything, zero antibiotics on these kids.
None.
Not a one.
Ever.
Not a one.
No.
I know.
No.
They all got bad lungs.
None of them got vaccinated.
All their lungs are fucked.
But, none of them have been touched by a vaccine.
No.
No.
The polio?
I know.
I know.
Very rare.
That's a whole new flavor.
The polio hits different.
Free-range, come on.
Again, on the nose.
Like, just embracing the meme.
Embracing.
Just, yeah.
You know?
It's like Two-Face saying, yeah, I'm just Two-Face now, alright?
Just call me Two.
Listen, I'm the free-range child lady, okay?
I love them.
This is part of me now, okay?
Yeah, the verbiage is just perfect.
And since starting Let Grow in 2017, Our society is set on overestimating danger and underestimating kids.
Child's rights now, she said.
The same society that arrests moms for letting their kids wait briefly in the car.
Yeah, not good.
Is a society that won't let kids off the bus without a pre-approved adult waiting to walk them home.
Is a society that won't tolerate a person watching children frolic at recess.
You can't use a word that like Jethro Tull used in Aqualung.
You gotta avoid that whole verbage.
There's a list of words you can't use.
Jethro Tull used them all.
- You can't use those. - So the thing is, there is some truth to this, right?
But the thing is, the reason why I hate those laws is because those laws are used for like, you know, the poor working mom who works three jobs and their kid has to like do work in the diner that they're working at and they get the police call on them.
Like, that sucks.
But you're just like, you just don't like your kids and you leave them in the car and like, you can't do that.
Yeah, or you have some sort of weird sociological, psychological, career ambitions where you want to start a movement of people and it all involves around, oh yeah, letting me watch your kids is actually really good for society.
I don't mean watch them as intake responsibility, I just mean look.
Observe, observe.
Did she ever say if she has kids?
I don't think so.
I think she's a mom.
She wrote an article about how she got called the worst mom of 2018 or whatever.
No, she was the worst mom because she didn't have any kids, but she was at all the PTA meetings.
Yeah, you are kind of bad at being a mom if you got no kids.
Fear has twisted its way into everyday life.
It has choked off common sense.
Now it's taboo to trust anything or anyone, even a lady on the sidewalk smiling as she thinks back on her own hopscotch games long ago.
And so I was shooed along, collateral damage in the quest to wrap every child in a bubble of perfect safety.
Now I sit at my computer, which I probably shouldn't have access to.
No, no, she had probably a bad computer.
She has more than one computer.
This is the regular computer.
This isn't the dark web computer.
Yeah, that computer is like inside of a locker surrounded by electromagnets ready to, like, she just has to flip a switch.
Yeah, yeah.
Here's a bang on the door and she reaches for that knob.
Now I sit at my computer wondering, what would it take to give every one of them a nice sharp pin?
What?
Like, to write or to poke?
To poke the bubble that's preventing her from having access to the child.
Whoa!
What if we're here to remove the bubble that's keeping me from these kids?
What the fuck?
Like, the whole thing is, it doesn't matter.
You were harmless, right?
You might have been harmless, but you were asked to leave.
You should have to go fucking door-to-door in your neighborhood telling them that you write for Reason Magazine.
Yeah, that you write for Reason Magazine and that you love to watch kids frolic.
Hi, I work for Reason Magazine.
Love watching kids frolic, especially at the schools.
The public schools with the chain link fences.
Where's your kid?
I got a sharp pen I want to poke at him.
I just want them to pop the bubble that keeps them from me.
I mean, from society, from me.
Probably running a little long.
We got to get to these comments.
Yeah.
These are comments in the reason comment section that are fucking amazing.
Mad Casual says, I could see an easy win for someone looking to bait a school or their security services into a lawsuit.
And yeah, I think this is a good idea.
I think, you know, if everybody who wants to die on this hill, mass action, go watch kids.
Go do it.
Yeah.
Go make a stink about it.
You'll be proving, you'll be showing just how foolish they look when they see you looking and want you to stop and then you can totally file a lawsuit against child watchers rights.
Wear a shirt that says just looking.
We're sure this is just looking and then stand your ground and please make a stink about it.
We need everyone to know your name.
Let them know where you live.
Let them know what areas you, let them know where you're at.
Do that.
And make it fun, like bring some opera glasses.
Yeah, yeah.
Uh, Brandy Buck says, Also, how the fuck did that Karen ever get a job as a teacher?
Oh right, public schools are literally Karenism institutionalized.
Nevermind.
Man...
Hate it when these fucking Karens won't give me access to the kids.
You know, I just know that this isn't a Karen because this is a Brandy.
And a Brandy would never be a Karen.
But it's like, they ruin everything, man.
Brandy, you know you're a Karen, right?
There's, like, no way that Brandy's not a Karen.
No, Brandy's not a Karen.
Brandy is the fun mom who lets all, you know, her daughter and all her friends get drunk at the house and watch R-rated movies and just have a blast and, like, do whatever.
Do whatever.
Yeah, just have fun, you know?
Hey, you could smoke the weed as long as you're in the house.
As long as you do it in the room where you keep the doors closed and hotbox it.
Yeah, the word Karen has been so dissolved of any meaning that it means protecting children from people ogling them on the street.
Because it did used to mean like racist white woman, right?
That's like what it meant at one point in time.
So like clearly the teacher who's calling security on the white passing woman for slowing down from a walk to watch the kids do cartwheels in a frolic, that's not a Karen.
That's actually doing her job.
She's like doing a good thing.
Yeah.
That's okay with me.
They shouldn't be allowed anywhere near kids.
They shouldn't be allowed anywhere near kids.
it just to make you feel bad.
They are an evil vindictive person who gets pleasure from torturing other human beings.
They shouldn't be allowed anywhere near kids.
They shouldn't be allowed anywhere near kids.
Give me the kids.
Yeah.
Let me keep them away from these kids.
What?
Like, this person who's like, hey, we can't have you looking at our kids, clearly is an evil vindictive person who shouldn't be allowed around kids.
Who probably is just saying that because they want somebody to look at the kids, like the author wrote.
Honestly, though, like, yeah, gatekeeping's bad.
Like, what the fuck, man?
Yeah, oh, kids for thee, but not for me.
Wow.
Yeah, double standards.
If liberals didn't have double standards, they wouldn't have any standards.
Maybe you should take a second to acknowledge your teacher privilege.
You get to look at kids all day.
You get paid to look at these kids.
These kids have to look at you?
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