Dave Smith and Jessica Sager critique the Republican Party's abandonment of fiscal conservatism for social agendas, citing the debt's rise from $14 to $16 trillion despite Tea Party claims. They condemn Todd Aiken's pseudoscience and Lance Armstrong's doping hypocrisy while arguing gun control fails against illegal markets. Highlighting Ron Paul's 2008 debate conversion power, they expose GOP exclusion of libertarians and banker influence, concluding that true liberty requires individual bodily autonomy over government mandates. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Welcome to Part of the Problem00:07:16
You are listening to Part of the Problem.
I hope everybody's doing good.
Thank you for listening to Part of the Problem, the Alternative Funny News podcast.
I'm Dave Smith, and I am here with my lovely co-host, Jessica Sager.
Hello.
Oh, beautiful.
Beautiful.
Your voice is always so beautiful when you only say one word at a time.
I hate you.
When you start putting them back to back, it really all falls apart.
I'm kidding, of course.
It's lovely.
Let me turn these levels up a little bit.
I apologize, everyone, for the levels last week.
I feel like I have to start every show by apologizing for something I did wrong in the last show.
And it's always not like, you know, arguing the wrong point, but just fucking up technically.
No, I'm always right.
But I fuck up a lot on the technical aspects of the podcast.
But I'm getting better at it.
And I think this is going to be a higher quality audio podcast this time.
But anyway, I did think it was a good podcast last time, even though you didn't talk too much.
But me and Dave got into it.
It was kind of fun.
It was fun.
I was having fun listening.
Well, it's just me and you now, so you're going to have to have to talk some more.
You do.
I'm going to have to not sound cute.
You are.
A lot of words back there.
It's hard to.
Yeah.
You don't want to sound too cute.
You can go out and get legitimately raped.
Yes.
Yes.
It's a difficult subject to talk about because, Jessica, I know that you were illegitimately raped a few years ago.
And I know that's not the same thing, but it's still an unpleasant experience.
It was almost a legitimate rape.
There was a foul at the last minute.
It was ruled illegitimate.
And I'm sorry.
I don't mean to dredge up all these memories from you.
That was not my intent today.
Why do you think I drink so much, Dave?
I don't know.
Well, I guess it was the illegitimate rape.
Yeah.
I am pretty crazy that.
I mean, I know this is almost, I don't even know why we're starting off with this, but yeah, so this guy Todd Aiken, right?
Is that his name?
I like to say Aiken.
Aiken, however you say it.
That's what he does to my head.
He makes it ache.
I mean, look.
I hate him.
Yeah, look, it was a retarded statement, but this is so like, and it's, it was a real, that's like a red meat for the left statement.
You know what I mean?
Like, that's really red meat for the left.
Whenever someone comes out, like, this was like that Ted Nugent thing times 20 when Ted Nugent came out and he's like, Obama's going to take away our guns or whatever nonsense.
You know.
Yeah.
So.
Not going to lie.
I like Ted Nugent because I hate deer.
Yeah.
No, good for Ted.
I wouldn't mind if he moved into my neighborhood.
Look, how many liberal idiot singers speak their mind all the time?
So why can't a conservative one?
But this guy, obviously, Aiken is just retarded and said.
And everyone jumped on it.
Even President Obama came out.
You know what I thought was funny that President Obama jumped on his thing.
He goes, I don't think we need to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate rape.
Which is ridiculous.
The whole point, it's like, there's no such, if it's rape, it's legitimate.
Like, if it's a lie, like if a woman's lying about being raped, she wasn't raped.
She wasn't illegitimately raped.
So obviously, it's like, it doesn't make sense.
But that is not...
I'm sorry, that is not the part of his statement that was like wildly out there.
That was just kind of like a weird wording.
And I can get where that's offensive, to say a legitimate rape, but that's almost like if you said to someone like you go, in a legitimate murder or something like that, you mean like, okay, so you mean a murder.
It's just a weird way to put it.
That's not the big problem.
The big problem is that he said, doctors have told me that in legitimate rape, a woman's body has a process to shut this down, which is just complete, like, magic science.
So, like, whatever doctor he talked to, I think, went to like fucking hot.
Are you sure?
Yeah, are you sure that was a doctor?
Was that not just a child in a white coat?
Are you sure?
Were you sure it was a doctor?
Did you see a degree at any point?
Apparently, deer and kangaroos have a system to do that.
Unfortunately, I don't.
Really?
Yeah.
Deers and kangaroos can do that?
Deer and kangaroos.
Those filthy, slutty kangaroos walking around with their big pouches.
Yeah, that seems like that.
Yeah, and I think that's what happens when you make birth control too expensive.
They evolve, they adapt, and that's what happens.
Well, one more argument against free birth controls.
Yeah, I guess for people.
Yeah.
No one for the right.
I just helped them.
But I don't know.
Ultimately, it's just.
Here's what's interesting.
The doctor who told him this about the legitimate rape thing, he was like, oh, he just misspoke.
He meant forcible rape.
And that's a little redundant, isn't it?
Because forcible stabbing.
It's fucking forcible.
Or rather, it's forcible fucking.
Now that I think about it.
But like, it's.
Do you just want to get down to brass tax?
Yeah, it's.
No, you're right.
You're absolutely right.
It's like saying forced stabbing or forced assault or something like that.
That's the whole idea.
It's force.
Yeah, by the way.
That's why it's a crime.
Rape is forcible.
It's forcing you to do something against your will.
Yeah, right.
You're saying forcible rape.
So unforcible rape, what is it?
Sex?
Sounds what we're talking about?
Just sex.
I mean, I don't really get it.
It's crazy to me, too, and it does really, really bother me, which I think bothers a lot of libertarians.
Just that, like, look, the Republican Party or whatever, I'm just saying there is no connection in reality between being like fiscally conservative, saying, I don't believe in, I believe, like, taxation is theft, or I don't believe the government should spend our money.
I believe people should be able to keep the fruits of their labor, and this socially conservative.
There's absolutely zero connection between the two of them.
It's just ridiculous that there's this one party who all believe the same thing on these two completely different.
And anyway, it just really, really, I mean, this stuff makes conservatives look so bad.
But to me, the really sad thing is just that, like, it's like America just sucks.
Like, this, we just end up like, so this becomes the thing that we all rally around someone's stupid.
So we all go, look, we're not stupid.
If there was like half as much outrage to like Obama's secret drone programs as there is to, you know, this one dude saying a dumb comment that no one thinks is true.
Just some retarded comment.
It's like, I don't know.
People think it's true, and that's the problem.
All right, fine.
But it's like the far majority.
I mean, even everyone on the right is like, this guy's an idiot.
Yeah, people who can read don't think it's true.
Yes, okay, fine.
Fine.
So maybe he's got some dumb.
But I mean, like, but then like Obama just says, I mean, the NDAA bill passed.
It says they have the right to arrest American citizens without trial.
I goes, that's like, I mean, I'm not saying there was no outrage to that, but it was nothing like the national fucking typhoon that came at this Aiken guy on every single news show and every single newspaper.
Totally.
You know, it's just a little, but it really is.
Lance Armstrong and Steroids00:03:53
And there's something about, like, this guy kind of deserved to get, you know, look, you cannot be a fucking leader in any way if this is like what your worldview is and this is how you're operating.
I think he should have to get out of the race.
Or people should not have to get out of the race, but people just shouldn't vote for him.
Yeah.
But it's like, fine, he deserves to get taken down.
But we just love ruining powerful men so much in this country.
That's the truth.
Anytime we, you know, anytime we can, we ruin them.
It's really fucking gross.
I talk a lot about this in my stand-up, but just like the fact like, like guys like Wiener and whoever, and you know, the Secret Service agents or whoever it is that we always have to like, you know, just completely humiliate and rail against because they did something, like some sexual act or whatever.
Like if Martin Luther King or JFK were alive today, they'd be at a press conference apologizing with their embarrassed wife next to them.
Like they wouldn't be great men anymore.
They would just be like, why do we have to ruin everybody?
The fucked up thing is we just seem to enjoy it so much.
We just seem to like get so much pleasure out of like building these people up and breaking them down.
And that was, you know what?
I wasn't going to talk about this next, but I think there's a good transition into Lance Armstrong.
Did you hear about what happened with him?
Yes, yes.
So, I mean, talk about like really, like, Lance Armstrong was, he was, like, the greatest hero story.
He was this guy who beat cancer, fucking, you know, like, competed in this crazy difficult sport that no one in America ever gave a fuck about ever.
Until him.
Yeah.
Like, no one can name any other famous bicyclist.
Except, no, he's the guy.
And who in this country really gives a shit about the Tour de France?
But, you know, after you see what it is, you're like, wow, that really is a goddamn test of endurance.
I mean, it's insane what they do.
But so he's like this unbelievable story, and now, of course, we have to just completely destroy him.
They've taken, they stripped everything from him.
It's just so brutal.
It's like to go, like, they took, they say he didn't win those Tour de France's net.
You're like, oh, it didn't happen.
Yeah.
Really?
That historical event didn't happen.
Yesterday it happened.
Today it didn't happen.
It's just a weird thing.
And it's also just like, it's all our fucked up mentality about drugs and how steroids are evil.
It's like, look, steroids, first off, Lance Armstrong seems to be in phenomenal fucking condition.
Barry Bonds was in phenomenal condition.
These guys aren't like killing themselves.
They're doing great.
And by the way, we have no problem when they kill themselves.
We have no problem when football players go out and get Alzheimer's from banging into each other or whatever.
So it's not like we care about their health.
We think that they're cheating.
But then it's like, you go, okay, but where is the level of cheating?
Now, we classify these things, like in our minds, we put like steroids are like in the bad drugs category.
Like, you know, it's, in our mind, there's not even, there's no question what the difference between like Vicodin and heroin are just like different things.
Even though they may not be like really that fucking different, they're just in our mind, like one's a good drug and one's a badge.
One's like a legal thing that your doctor could give you.
The other one's a bad one.
Like steroids are in the bad category because they're cheating.
But is what is the, you know, the line between supplements and drugs is really fucking thin.
And everybody's taken shit in every level of pro sports.
These guys are on all different types of fucking supplements and creatine and weight gaining shit.
And dude, they take all different types of formulas of shit.
One guy takes steroids.
I mean, I don't know.
It's just not so evil.
And we're just ruining this guy for it.
It just seems so fucked up.
It's like he didn't, I don't know.
He didn't do anything wrong.
It's like all these guys, these baseball players and all of them, it's like, I don't know.
And we're also the people who like encourage them on the way up.
We demand this like superhuman level of athleticism from the world.
And then once they get there, we get skeptical.
Yeah, and then we have fun, you know, like breaking them down.
We make them gods and then we make them like cry in front of us.
It's like Tiger Woods.
It's like all these fucking stuff.
Guns, Laws, and Crime Rates00:10:36
And the thing really sucks.
Yeah, and the thing with Lance Armstrong is they've been going after him for what, like, 12 years now?
Like, he even said he's...
Well, he just threw in the towel.
Exactly.
Like, after a while, it's going to get to you.
Like, enough, you know?
I don't know.
And he doesn't blame them.
I mean, they say, look, maybe, I do think probably he was taking steroids because they said a lot of people were going to testify, and that's why he threw in the towel.
But whatever.
I just don't think it's inherently evil.
I don't know.
I don't think there's anything wrong with it.
There is something wrong with Taking a sawed-off shotgun into the Empire State Building.
Yeah, that's not cool.
That's not cool.
That's not cool at all.
That was pretty crazy.
That happened the other day.
Of all the places to go to do something.
I mean, I know this wasn't terrorism.
It was like a disgruntled former worker.
Yeah.
But to go to the Empire State Building in post-9-11, New York and do something.
Because, I mean, you know, that's right after the Twin Towers go down, that's kind of the next logical.
So cops are like on top of that shit.
That's like a major site.
It's pretty crazy to go do that.
It's also pretty nuts that it came out today because when it happened, it was like, okay, this gunman, like one person's dead, nine people are injured, and the gunman's dead.
Yeah.
Like, this is what's going on.
And then now it's coming out that pretty much just the one person, the gunman killed this one guy, and then the cops injured all these other people trying to shoot this guy, which, I mean, I don't know.
I'm sure it'll be just like everything else where these cops will, you know, they'll get like paid suspension or something like that.
But that's pretty crazy.
I don't know.
I think a defense of the cops, and I'm not necessarily a cop apologist or anything.
You know, in an area like that where there's so many people and they were probably all running around, it was probably really chaotic.
It's not like the cops went and shot everybody.
They were fragments and ricochets.
Yeah, but that's the thing that's not.
It gives you better aim, I guess.
But it's not like they were like, let me fuck all the people.
I don't know.
I mean, no, it seems like, look, in hindsight, what actually happened was he knew the guy, the guy that he executed was like, he was there to kill that guy.
Oh, he was there to kill that guy.
And this is what people are saying.
So he wasn't actually going to hurt anyone.
Like, he was trying to get away at this point.
So it doesn't look good.
It doesn't look like the cops needed to use deadly force like that necessarily.
But maybe they did, but I don't know.
I just don't think you look.
No one got killed, luckily.
But if you can't just start shooting at some, like, it's, again, it's the hypocrisy that government always has, where they go, like, you know, it's the same hypocrisy of, like, we have to tax you to build a police force to make sure no one steals from you.
You're like, but so you have to steal from me to make sure no one steals from me.
So the cops are going to go, we have to, you know, shoot at you to make sure that this guy can't shoot at you.
It's like, well, no, don't shoot at anyone.
That's the whole thing.
You can't, more people shooting at innocent people doesn't help that situation.
I mean, the cops, it's just, this is what it seems like to me that the cops panic a lot.
I think that's what happens in a lot of these situations, which is very strange.
You think they'd be better trained.
That's true, but like in a, you know, you have like a split second, excuse me, a split second to make a decision like that, you know?
Yeah, no, I guess you're right.
I don't, I mean, it's a tough, it's a tough job for sure.
And they didn't know his motive at the time.
They just knew he was by the Empire State Building with a gun.
Yep, that's true.
And he killed someone.
I mean, they knew that.
But, I mean, wow, they injured.
I mean, how fucking furious would you be if you're just walking down the street and a cop fucking shot you trying to kill someone?
What the fuck is wrong with you?
You're a cop.
You're just shooting around.
Like, you don't.
Like I'm saying, you know, they probably need some target practice, but I don't think it was necessarily, you know, police brutality at play here.
Well, no, not police brutality per se.
I don't even think they were being really douchey.
I just think they don't know.
That's very, very risky, man.
There's, I don't know.
They could have just killed some fucking kid the other day.
You know, that's a really, really risky thing to start doing.
You just start shooting in Midtown Manhattan.
I don't know.
I don't see how that's ever justified unless it's like some real, like, I don't know, this guy's setting off a nuclear bomb or something like that.
You know, like, I'm not necessarily defending him.
I'm just saying I can see how a scenario like that, you know, shit happens.
No, I get it.
I get where you're coming from.
A lot of people were actually complaining, speaking of the Empire State shootings, that there were 19 shootings in Chicago the night before that, and no one was talking about them.
Like individuals, just like gang violence shit, yeah.
Yeah, because if it was like a massacre, we would have heard about it.
Yeah.
When it's happening in the inner city, and by inner city, I mean black neighborhoods, no one really seems to give a shit.
And that is really the truth.
No one ever wants to deal, like that, no one ever wants to deal with any of that stuff.
I mean, it's crazy.
It really, really is crazy that, like, and even the people who claim, like, the liberals who claim to want to deal with it, it's always like a very surface, just like, you know, no one really wants to, like, talk about the fact that in every single major city, there are just like these neighborhoods.
They're usually pretty much all minority neighborhoods that are just terribly crime-infested, drug-infested.
Like, it's really, really terrible environment for the kids who are growing up there.
People just really, yeah, these, like, those shootings, because that stuff is just with us.
This is like an event that everyone can, like, look at and then go away.
You know, no, totally.
That stuff's just going to stay with us.
Yeah, and plus, this is a, it's a bit more glamorous.
It's a landmark.
And it also happens in, you know, other than the BBC, I guess, in Al Jazeera, most of the news media is centered in New York City.
So obviously it's going to get more coverage just because of proximity.
Sure, sure.
That's definitely, that's definitely part of it.
And again, I mean, if we really wanted to deal with, you know, all those problems with like the gang violence and shit like that, we need to end the war on drugs.
And that would literally take care of all of it.
Literally, I mean, not maybe overnight, but I think we'd be a couple weeks.
Literally a couple weeks of legalizing drugs would just, I think, change almost every, like transform almost every inner city in this country.
You literally take all the money out of the evil elements of those neighborhoods.
You take all the crime out of these, you know, because that's, I mean, it's just a basic, like, like, the government even says that tobacco is more addictive than heroin.
Like, cigarettes are the most addictive thing.
I just quit cigarettes four months ago, and believe me, they're fucking addictive.
Like, it's a crazy process.
But people aren't, like, knocking over 7-Elevens left and right to get cigarettes.
I mean, every now and then they do it to get money to go get drugs, but they don't knock over 7-Elevens for the cigarettes there.
You know, the reason there's violence in the heroin game is because it's illegal, not because it's addictive.
So it's like that would literally just transform everything.
And we'd be in a much better world.
But I guess crazy white people who get fired would still come back and kill people, which is, you know, pretty weird.
But I don't know.
What was I going to say?
Oh, the other thing I was just going to say is that, I mean, it's almost like the Empire State Building being such a target and the fact that it almost is like ridiculous, too, because it's all about it being tall and the plane thing.
And there's never going to be planes again.
Like 9-11 was planes.
Planes are over.
And it's not because of anything with the TSA or anything like that.
They just...
We added two really simple regulations that completely ended the problem, which was one, there's guns on planes now.
There's air marshals.
And now they lock the cockpit door.
The cockpit door is bolted shut and there's a gun in there.
There's no one's ever taken over a plane again.
It's that simple.
And no people would ever let anyone take over a plane again.
That's not going to happen.
So it's just kind of ridiculous.
Okay, the other thing I want to talk about in relation to the shooting is this, because every single time there's a shooting anywhere.
Gun control?
Yeah.
Liberals always want to talk about gun control the next day.
So let's talk about New York City.
The strictest gun control laws in the country still fucking happens.
So, I mean, you know, it really doesn't change anything.
It doesn't matter if you get the gun legally, if you get the gun illegally, you can get a gun.
Yeah, and this guy, he bought his gun legally.
I think they said it was almost like 20 years ago in Florida.
He bought it legally at a license and then he just brought it with him.
Right, which is illegal.
So that's a crime the second he did that because you can't bring a gun from Florida here without a license in New York.
And you can't even, I don't even believe you can bring a gun from upstate New York to New York City.
Who's like, yeah, New York City is nuts.
But, you know, the guy who's running into the Empire State Building shooting turns out, crazy enough, he's not a rule follower.
This guy, evidently, isn't really abiding by the law.
So writing another law doesn't mean anything.
You know, that's almost like the thing what me and Dave, Kenny, were getting into last week, where it's like, you know, this line of thinking where it's like, oh, so we should, you know, we have to have a law that says that you have to have a smoke detector in apartment buildings.
And that's, it's just this thinking that, like, that's what makes it happen.
Like, I write a law, it's like a potion.
You know, you write this law, and boof, now there are smoke detectors in houses.
But it doesn't work like that.
Look, I have friends who rent illegal apartments today and have for years that don't have smoke detectors, don't have windows where they're supposed to.
Like, it doesn't, so just writing a law doesn't make it be.
What you do when you write a law is you're saying, I'm going to go punish, you know, someone who rents someone an apartment that doesn't have a smoke detector.
You know, but this guy might be like providing someone a good service.
This might be a guy, you know, like now you're punishing a guy who maybe was, you know, these are usually, it's usually poorer people who are in these apartments, and you end up punishing poor people.
It's like it just doesn't, it doesn't help anything.
You know what I mean?
Just raising his costs to make him raise it.
What helps is the advances in technology.
What helps is now that fire smoke detectors are only like a few bucks.
So pretty much everyone can have them in their home.
And some private company found a way to make them way, way cheaper.
You know what I mean?
Like that's what fucking helps.
That's a anyway.
I should wait till next time Dave's back.
Relive our argument without him here.
All right.
So, yeah, so, but the gun control thing, it just doesn't, it doesn't work.
There's like 20 states or something like that, maybe more than that in America, where you can carry a concealed weapon without a license.
Like, you can literally just go buy a gun and carry it on you where you want to in like 20-something states.
I want to move that.
And there's no higher crime rates.
There's no higher shooting rates or murder rates.
There's no higher crime.
It's like there's literally no evidence that gun control laws stop anything.
And again, I've been robbed at gunpoints several times in New York City.
It's the toughest gun control laws in the world, but it doesn't matter.
All the law does is it ensures that the only people who have guns are criminals.
Yep.
Because you make everyone a criminal has a gun.
I just, I really want tasers legalized.
Apple's iPhone and IP Theft00:08:02
What do you need for it?
Do you need a license for a taser?
It depends on where you are.
They're illegal in a few states.
They're legal in Jersey.
Are they legal here in New York?
I'm not sure.
But I really, I've always wanted one.
Taser?
Yeah, that's a good...
That's a good.
First off, you know, it's good defense.
And then it's also just like a hilarious thing, too.
Yeah.
He's going to laugh.
He goes, I'm going to rape the shit out of you, legitimately.
And you go, oh, yeah.
And he goes, uh.
Anyway, fun legitimate rape jokes.
So, um.
I actually, I did a set at Eastville last week.
Oh, yeah, how did that go?
It was good.
My buddy Lewis Gomez was there, right?
I love him, yes.
Lewis is a very funny guy.
I wanted to open with a rape joke, but I was like, I don't even know how to do that now.
I don't know what constitutes it anymore.
I don't know if it's going to count.
Well done.
Apparently, if she gets pregnant, it wasn't right.
It wasn't at all, obviously.
Well, I want to hear from the baby.
That's all I know.
Once that baby comes out, I'd like to hear from the baby.
The baby was there, had a bird's eye view of the whole thing, and he can call it an illegitimate or legitimate.
Yeah.
Ugh, I was at Eastville last night.
Great shows.
I really love that club.
Eastville Comic Home.
I'm going to be back there again tonight.
All right, so there was a big, a big, big verdict in the Apple Samsung case.
Do you know about this?
Yes.
So for anyone who doesn't know the story, more or less, Apple is suing Samsung for basically biting off the iPhone.
Yep.
Like really trying to take a lot of the iPhone's design, which they definitely borrow a lot from the iPhone and that thing that they do.
And Apple won.
Apple won the lawsuit.
They came out and said that that was intellectual property and that does count as theft.
I gotta say, I think there's an interesting, like for libertarians and myself, there's a really interesting topic.
I think I intellectual property is a really weird thing.
Like the whole libertarian system is really all based off property.
Like that's the idea of like how where like rights kind of come from.
And it starts with the idea that like you own your body.
Like once you get that concession, you're like, you own your body.
I'm in charge of my body.
Then there's like logical conclusions, which is like if I make something, you know, I own that.
If I build something, I own that because I was made from my body.
So it's all about property.
Intellectual property is very different.
But I'm kind of, it's almost, you know, as a comedian, I think every comedian gets what intellectual property is.
Definitely.
Because there's such a clear example in our fucking lives every single day of our jokes.
Like we have these intellectual properties and we all know about how some people have stolen intellectual property from others.
And like it's a really big issue and I certainly don't like advocate joke stealing in any way.
Although I have found the truth about joke stealing, and this is something that Big Jay Okerson said this to me, I think when I first got in comedy, where he's just like, it's never that good of a joke.
If someone's arguing over a stolen joke, believe me, it's not that good of a joke.
And there is some truth to that.
And 99% of the time, that's the truth.
It's just like a whatever joke that was pretty easy to come up with.
And probably both of you came up with this dumb joke.
But I get the idea.
I get intellectual property.
The problem with it is this.
The whole concept of property is like you have to protect property against the initiation of force.
So even in the most basic, sometimes it's easier to think about these things in really basic, simple terms.
But if we're just out in like really in nature, no technology, a few hundred years ago we're in nature, and you build yourself like a necklace out of pebbles.
You know what I mean?
That's yours.
You made that and it's your property.
If I come and take it from you, it's very clear.
Well, yeah, that's right.
Then there we see that.
But that was a defense.
That's okay.
You're allowed to kick me in the nuts because I initiated the force.
So you were defending yourself.
But it's very clear what the initiation of force is, is me taking this, something you made, and me taking it.
Now, that's theft of property, right?
Intellectual property is like, we're out in nature.
You make yourself a necklace out of pebbles.
I like it.
I think that's cool.
So then I make myself a necklace out of pebbles.
And now you're coming after me like, oh, you owe me something because I own pebble necklaces.
You know what I mean?
Like, I'm putting my...
And to me, they are your initiating force.
You know what I mean?
I'm not initiating force.
I liked something and I went out and I made it myself.
You know what I mean?
So I don't know.
I don't really like this lawsuit.
You come into a company like Apple.
I don't like the idea of the government coming in and telling one of Apple's competitors that they can't make a comparative iPhone.
Now, it's a little bit different.
I know this isn't as a completely black and white issue.
You need to have some degree of trademarking and you have to be able to...
You can't just have like someone can't just be able to come out and say, oh, this is the iPhone.
You know what I mean?
Like, you own the term iPhone.
I get that.
But I don't see how Samsung isn't allowed to put out a phone that's kind of similar.
They're not saying it's the iPhone.
They're adjusting to what's good.
I mean, it's almost like, don't we all do that?
Isn't that like how life works?
Yeah, I feel like most, especially with cell phones, most devices with touchscreens have to work similarly.
That's what makes it a fucking touchscreen phone.
Right.
I think they're getting pretty frivolous, it looks like.
Right, and when someone comes out with something better, like everyone just starts doing it.
You know what I mean?
I don't know where does this line kind of get drawn.
It's a very weird, like, kind of gray area, but, you know, right, like, we all used to wear like togas and shit, and then someone came up with pants, and everyone was like, yeah, dude, pants.
That's fucking awesome.
And everyone makes it, does one guy, like, own that now?
Anytime you think of something, you own that.
I mean, I don't know.
Even like to me, even jokes, man, it's a weird thing.
And I know as a comic, we would all think it's...
If anyone has to steal jokes, you're just not a good comic.
You're not being a comic.
You're not creating.
But do I own my jokes?
Really?
Do I really own them?
Like, I had a thought.
Is that...
Do I know for a fact that no one else has ever had this thought before?
Do I know for a fact that this is my thought?
I mean, I don't know.
Like, I do, and this is coming from, you know, I'm a staunch libertarian.
I believe very much in property and the idea of owning things.
Like, I do own, you know, this table and this microphone and shit.
Like, I...
But I don't know.
A thought?
That's just so fucking weird to me.
It is, especially because common thought does happen, which is another thing you see a lot in comedy.
Like, people can come up with the same thing.
They're not necessarily stealing from each other.
They just had a similar idea.
Sure.
And especially the lower level of comedy.
I mean, especially if it's not, like, really good comics.
I mean, that's what happens is, you know, like some dumb thing, you know, happens and everyone has to have a joke about it.
Everyone has to have a joke about, you know, some Michael Jackson trial or whatever the hell, you know, is like going on.
Yeah, like, it's very easy to, especially with topical things, to have common thought.
And I think in terms of technological devices, if you come up with something good, don't impede on other people improving upon that and making it more affordable.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, that's a big part of how we all work.
Like, I don't know.
It's like this is how human beings work.
People think of things and then we all build on them.
You know, like you can't, you could never possibly pay off everybody who's like contributed to something being invented, you know?
Pretty much.
As long as I just feel like as long as it's all like, because that, to me, it is, it's all about who's like initiating the force, like we said.
So as long as you're just like going into the marketplace and competing, if you're just going into the marketplace and competing with Apple and then the government is coming in and telling you you can't do that, there's just something wrong there.
There's something like immoral about that.
And I don't think a company like Apple needs that.
Mitt Romney and Ron Paul00:15:04
Also, ultimately, it does everyone a disservice.
We're all better off if someone's really pressing up Apple's ass because then Apple has to step their game up.
You know what I mean?
That's what makes things better for everybody.
But I don't know.
I'd rather them.
To me, this is like a distortion of the free market, not really the free market.
I don't know.
Anyway, okay, so let's transition into some stuff about the election because the Republican National Convention is coming up in a few days.
And this is like really it.
Now this is going to be like the home stretch.
And a couple weeks later is the Democrats.
And then we got a couple months.
And Obama's in for another four fucking terrible years, which seems to be the direction we're going.
But, oh my God, there was an NBC Wall Street Journal poll out today.
I've never seen this before in my life.
Black voters, Obama got 94%.
Mitt Romney got zero.
Zero percent.
Mitt Romney did not get enough to get 1%.
He's 0 fucking percent.
Now, I don't know if that's like a 0.4.
They didn't say that.
But they said fucking zero.
I've never seen a donut in a demographic before.
Like, you go, you don't get anyone, just no black people want to vote for Mitt Romney, which, look, I get it.
I get it, but it's a little strange.
It's a little strange.
And of course, no one will ever, you know, in the media, most of the media is pretty liberal, and they're pretty scared to ever criticize black people.
But there also is something you go like, really?
Wow, there is no diversity of thought here at all.
It is just all in with this guy.
I just wonder if the reaction would be a little bit different if a demographic was divided over racial lines like the other way.
You know what I mean?
Imagine like 100% of white people were voting for one white candidate over a black candidate.
We would have a much different feeling about that, which I get.
There's a different history, but it's just kind of interesting to me how we really feel differently about this.
At the same time, I understand why, I mean, Mitt Romney is not offering much to the black community.
I actually saw another, it was a poll that was done.
It said Mitt Romney would have better luck in swing states if he had a female vice presidential candidate, and he would have done extra well if that VP candidate was Condoleezza Rice.
Likely because that would have helped both with the female and the black demographics that he sucks so bad at.
Let me tell you something.
She probably would have been on that ticket if she hadn't been a part of the Bush administration.
But there's, I don't know, there's something very, very risky, I think, in bringing in someone from the Bush administration that that poll might not be, or that that study might not be, you know, capturing.
Like, you really open up the door for now them to really make the argument.
Like, oh, you want to go back to that?
Because that's already the argument they're making.
You want to go back to Bush.
I mean, Obama, since he's been in, and really in the campaign in 2008, too.
But the campaign in 2008 was like a lot of hope and change and inspirational, you know, kind of fairly empty, you know, in terms of actual substance, but a lot of just rhetoric about, you know, beauty and change and hope and a lot of riding Bush.
You know, the failure of the last eight years.
This has to change.
Which was great politically.
But I mean, ever since he was sworn in, he has been riding Bush politically for I was handed a disaster.
It would have been even worse.
Bush was terrible.
Two wars and tax cuts for millionaires.
And, you know, even though he's given us more wars and more tax cuts for millionaires, he still likes to ride that.
But, you know, so that's the whole argument.
Even though he's continued all these policies, he's going to say Mitt Romney takes us back.
So then bringing in Condoleezza Rice, it would be risky.
But yeah, I mean, adding that demographic, maybe, I mean, he's not doing great with women, and he is putting up a donut with black people, which is pretty fucking crazy.
That's pretty nuts to me.
Anyway, so the Republican National Convention is coming up.
I know you tweeted me about the Ron Paul tribute, this fucking bone that they're throwing to him, which is like infuriating, because Ron Paul should be getting like a prime time major speech.
Like by the Republican rules, he's supposed to get a speech.
He was supposed to, you have to win a plurality of delegates in five or more states, which he did.
And there's like a couple other things that you have to do, and he did all of them.
And they're just not going to put him on.
And they're giving Rand Paul a speech because Rand Paul, I guess, just doesn't want to have integrity like his dad, which I don't even get.
It's like his dad's doing great.
The movement's getting bigger and bigger.
Why he wouldn't just keep running with this movement.
But so Rand Paul will go there, and I'm sure he'll tone it down.
And he fucking, you know, he'll won't say anything that would bother the mainstream Republicans because otherwise they wouldn't let him there.
Like, that's the deal.
You have to go.
But Ron Paul, they know there's no fucking controlling.
Like, Ron Paul gets up in front of a microphone and he's talking about illegal wars and torture and like he's get like he's gonna fucking go there.
And so of course, you know, they're not gonna let him.
But Ron Paul's gonna hold his own event, like a speech like he did last time in 2008.
They drew like five times as many people as the convention.
He's gonna do his own thing and then all these fucking Ron Paul supporters are gonna like swarm this convention.
And I'm really, really hoping some crazy fucking shit goes down.
You ever see like the Democratic National Convention in like 68 when it's like the hippies are just like swarming and it's like the middle of Vietnam and cops are beating the shit out of him.
Like, I mean, I don't want any Ron Paul supporters to get the shit beaten out of him, but it may take a few of you guys getting the shit beat out of you for us to start making some noise.
Like letting everybody know.
I mean, look, and to me, this is, you know, and I'll say for the Rand Paul thing, because I was really hard on Rand Paul since he endorsed Mitt Romney.
I really think he sold out.
And the only argument, there's not even an argument that he didn't sell out.
Like the argument from people, a lot of people who I really respect defend him, just for anyone who cares, like people like real, people I really learned a lot from, like Jack Hunter and Peter Schiff, the guys who really, really defend him endorsing Mitt Romney.
But even their argument is like, well, this is what he needs to do to get into the party.
Now he can advance his own career and influence the platform.
And you go, right.
So how is that not selling out?
So they go, no, Well, he just has to compromise his views in order to further his career.
Yeah, how do you define selling out?
I don't know if we're arguing here.
That is what he did.
He sold out.
He endorsed a fucking future war criminal.
But anyway, so to me, this is Rand Paul's last chance in this speech.
If he fucking doesn't do some real shit in this speech, I'm done with Rand Paul.
I need him.
And I'm not even not, and it's not even enough.
Like, he's got to hit some real shit.
And not even just the finance stuff.
He can't just shit on Obama, which I know he'll do a lot of.
But I don't want to just hear that.
I want to hear talking about how bad the Republicans have been, auditing the Federal Reserve and bringing troops home.
I want him to talk about if he is not talking about auditing the Fed and ending wars, then what the fuck good is he?
To me.
I think Rand Paul, you know, sort of selling out a little bit in order to, you know, get his message across eventually later on.
I think it's kind of like, you know how girls hide the crazy when you first start dating them?
Oh, do I?
You know, like, you got to bring it out gradually.
If you give all that right up front, you're never getting laid.
You got to do it slowly.
So, you know, I can understand what he's doing.
I don't necessarily agree with it.
No, I just think you can't, you lose your pureness, you know, which Ron Paul was able to keep through his whole career.
It's just like, don't, don't, we need some people who don't like fucking compromise what they believe in.
Like, it's not that crazy.
And just don't, when you endorse something, then now you're a part of it.
I mean, I don't know.
You endorsed this guy's platform.
His platform is running to be more hawkish than Obama, who's been the most hawkish president ever.
It's fucking crazy.
It's crazy to support this guy.
And it really kind of, to me, it's really, I don't know.
I wish I could hear, honestly, like how Ron Paul thinks about it, because it's so strange that Ron Paul just won't fucking endorse him.
Yeah.
Like Mitt Romney did.
And Ron Paul's like, no.
Like, what is that?
Like, it's, it's just a very interesting thing that Ron Paul is just like, well, I'm not fucking selling out.
I'm not going to just go out at the end of my career or sell out when I've been fighting for this cause for my entire career.
I don't know.
But anyway, then, so other people speaking at the convention, Chris Christie is going to speak.
That might get interesting.
I don't like him.
I don't like him at all.
I don't care for him much.
No.
I kind of liked it.
I liked him a little bit at the beginning, but I'm kind of over it.
I also don't like how socially conservative he is or whatever.
Yeah, I got pissed when the state legislatures passed gay marriage in Jersey, and he vetoed it.
I don't know.
I just.
Really?
Yeah, it bugged me.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
Yeah, I think he got mad.
Like, I think his line of thinking is, like, as long as I can't see my own dick, I don't want you guys sword fighting with yours.
Doesn't like it.
Well, I mean, you know, when you put it like that, it actually makes a lot of sense.
Doesn't that?
Now I, you know what?
I see where he's coming from, and I support him again.
Yeah, and then Rick Santorum's going to speak.
I mean, just what an awful.
Why is he allowed to speak?
Oh, I don't know.
I think for their own good, they should just put a muzzle on him.
Like, give him a cookie.
Let him sit in a corner.
But, like, don't.
Like, he can hang.
Just don't open your mouth.
It's not going to end up for anybody.
Well, you just got to, like, remember, like, who these guys are.
Because they always, they really do try to, like, fool people like me, like, libertarians and people.
The Republicans really try to sucker us and bring us in.
And they throw these promises like they're going to be for small government.
Because that's where they just did this thing where they added, you know, or they're talking about adding going back to a gold standard to the platform of the party, which is bullshit.
Like, they'll put it in the platform.
No one's ever going to fight for it or do anything.
They're not going to fight to go back to a gold standard.
These guys are owned by the bankers.
There's no way the bankers would let that happen.
But it's just like they throw things like that to get a guy like me to go, look, come vote Republican this time.
You don't like this fiscal craziness.
We'll be more sane.
But these guys, like Rick Santorum and Paul Ryan, all these guys, it's bullshit.
I've been saying on the program for weeks now, it's they're not fiscally conservative.
They're not.
None of them are.
Santorum voted for all this bullshit.
He voted for the Medicare thing under Bush.
He voted for the prescription drug Part B thing.
He voted for, I mean, literally everything.
All of the wars, all of the, well, he was out by the bailouts.
What's his name?
Jesus.
What's his name?
Vice President Ryan voted for the...
He voted for the bailouts.
I mean, these guys aren't fiscally conservative, but they are, you know, whatever, for lack of a better term, socially conservative.
They are those people.
Like, that's real.
They're not really fiscally conservative, but they really do want abortion outlook.
Like, they really do want to defund Planned Parenthood.
Like, they don't want to fucking balance the budget.
So it's like, that's where you get this thing where that's why it's just been a horrible marriage for libertarians that the small government people linked up with the big government social conservative people.
It's like we never get what we want.
The libertarian part never wins out.
Like, everyone points that out.
They go, the Tea Party, like, ran on this whole, like, all those fucking phony, like, Tea Party congressmen who, you know, and everyone goes with her.
They go, oh, they're so far out there to the right.
It's like the people in the Tea Party, especially when it first started, were like, it was like, it was so focused, like what the complaint was.
It was, we're $16 trillion, or $14 trillion at the time.
So we're $16 now.
At the time, we were $14.
They were like, we're $14 trillion in debt.
We're printing money like crazy.
We're spending money like crazy.
And there's no balanced budget in sight.
It was so targeted and simple.
And no one can really argue with that.
Like, different people have different ideas on how we should balance the budget.
Some people are we should tax people.
Some people think we should stop spending so much money that we don't have, which makes a lot more sense.
But regardless, if everyone thinks we should balance the budget in some way, you know?
And it's just like that was the movement.
And then these fake fucking politicians who promised these guys a balanced budget and all this bullshit and they were going to get in there.
And then they got in there and they tried to, you know, defund Planned Parenthood and put extra regulations around abortion.
And I mean, they just went right into this social conservative crap.
And they didn't do anything fiscally conservative.
All of them, they raised the debt ceiling.
We're in $2 trillion more debt than when the Tea Party started.
It's fucking crazy.
But then the people in the news act like it's these crazy Tea Party people get what they want and now this, but it's like, no, the Tea Party people didn't get at all what they want.
We got another couple trillion dollars in debt.
It's just such a distortion.
It's like we didn't.
Like, look, maybe some social conservatives are kind of getting what they want.
They're not even really getting what they want.
Because the country is just not moving in that direction.
No matter what you do, like, it doesn't matter.
I don't know.
It all seems pretty crazy to me.
And I think, too, like, there's a weird...
I think there's a really weird infighting between in the conservative movement right now.
Like the Ron Paul people are trying to take over the Republican Party.
And I don't know that that is going to happen.
But I think the spectacle of them trying to do that can be a big deal.
You know what I mean?
It's going to be fun to watch.
Yeah, I just hope it's crazy.
I hope they don't make it tame somehow.
But that's what all this stuff, that's what Rand Paul speaking and this Ron Paul video tribute, all that is them trying to make it not crazy.
You know what I mean?
They're trying to go, hey guys, just come in, watch your little Ron Paul video.
Guarantee you, by the way, this video is not going to highlight any of his foreign policy stuff.
This is a way for them to edit a Ron Paul speech, more or less, is what it is.
You put him up there and he could say anything.
But if you put this video up there, they can just talk about, you know, they're going to show stuff about him talking about the debt, the deficits under Obama.
They're going to show him talking a lot about Obama and how bad he is.
It's like they're going to spin Ron Paul for their own advantage.
It's really like whatever.
I'm certainly not, you know, there's no part of me that's like, oh, thanks, thanks, guys.
We're getting a tribute video.
That's nice.
This guy's fucking, he came in second place.
He doesn't get a fucking speech at the convention.
This is just like what always happens.
That guy always gets a speech.
Always.
And they're, you know, of course, if they weren't, if the Republican Party wasn't just owned by these special interests who, you know, libertarianism would just is their worst enemy, if they weren't owned by people who hated the liberty message, they, of course, would have him speak and bring in all these people.
I mean, if they were smart, they would just adapt, you know, like a lot of his shit into the platform and bring in tons of, you know, that would literally win the election for Mitt Romney.
I'd fucking vote for him if he adopted Ron Paul's platform.
But, you know, they can't do that because, you know, he is where he is because he's fucking, you know, his whole company was started by Goldman Sachs and he's, you know, all bought off by the same people Obama's been bought off by.
And because he looks like an aging Kendall.
Fox News Distortion Tactics00:14:29
That helps.
Man, he is an awkward, awkward guy.
He looks the part of a politician, I think, more than Ron Paul does.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
He does.
Yeah, of course.
But.
It's a textbook.
I just realized I unplugged my modem by accident.
No, Ron Paul, look, Ron Paul's not a politician.
You know, he's a doctor.
Like, that's really what Ron Paul is.
He's like your family doctor.
Like, that's the guy, you know, he's just that, but he was just like a doctor who, by the way, how fucking impressive is it that Ron Paul literally was just a doctor who mastered economics?
Like his whole thing, everyone talks to him.
I mean, he goes on CNBC and just destroys these people who are like, you know, their whole world is like the markets and the numbers.
And he just goes on there and like he's great on fine arts.
He's just a doctor who just learned that shit, got fascinated with economics, then became a congressman, has led this movement.
I mean, he's a really, really impressive guy.
Just led like hundreds of thousands of young people into like a completely different way of looking at like what government should be and how evil the whole thing is.
And there's just something cool about it, man.
I mean, look, I'm one of these people who I was a liberal.
I grew up like a pretty liberal kid.
And eventually, like, coming to libertarianism, it was just like I had no like vested interest in being a liberal.
You know what I'm saying?
It wasn't like I was like, I want this to be right somehow in my head.
I was just kind of open to the idea of like, I started reading these guys and I go, oh, these guys are just right.
They're just clearly right.
This is just the right arguments.
Like, that's why it's not, I don't think I know any better than anybody else.
It's just once you've heard the right answer, it's like, you know, like, once you've seen how the magician does his trick, it's obvious how the trick's working.
You're like, no, I just see what's happening here.
I understand how this is working just because it was shown to me.
It's that simple.
It's not like, but I mean, literally, the first time, you know, I ever saw Ron Paul was in that debate with Giuliani, which everyone, it's like the famous moment where everyone saw Ron Paul.
And, all right, you know what?
I'm going to play it just for everyone.
I mean, it's a pretty famous moment at this point.
But, I mean, just how incredible this was to me.
And it was, you know, I was just randomly watching a Republican debate, and it's like, you know, you just expect the same line of bullshit that every political debate is.
And then, you know, something different happened.
As quickly as almost immediately, sir.
Congressman Paul, I believe you are the only man on the stage who opposes the war in Iraq, who would bring the troops home as quickly as almost immediately, sir.
Are you out of step with your party?
Is your party out of step with the rest of the world?
If either of those is the case, why are you seeking its nomination?
Well, I think the party has lost its way because the conservative wing of the Republican Party always advocated a non-interventionist foreign policy.
Senator Robert Taft didn't want to be in NATO.
George Bush won the election in year 2000 campaigning on a humble foreign policy.
No nation building, no policing of the world.
Republicans were elected to end the Korean War.
The Republicans were elected to end the Vietnam War.
There's a strong tradition of being anti-war in the Republican Party.
It is the constitutional position.
It is the advice of the founders to follow a non-interventionist foreign policy.
Stay out of entangling alliances.
Be friends with countries.
Negotiate and talk with them and trade with them.
Just think of the tremendous improvement relationship with Vietnam.
We lost 60,000 men.
We came home in defeat.
Now we go over there and invest in Vietnam.
So there's a lot of merit to the advice of the founders in following the Constitution.
And my argument is that we shouldn't go to war so carelessly.
When we do, the wars don't end.
So right away, you're just like, holy fucking shit.
Like, who is that guy?
I mean, I don't know if that's the reaction of an average person to that.
But to me, hearing that, you were just already like, holy shit, this guy's like really saying something.
Like, everyone else is giving their little like soundbite.
Well, the thing is American exceptionalism, and I'll return us to the prosperity of...
And here's this guy just like breaking it down, like really brilliant points about what the conservative foreign policy has been in the history of America, what our founders advised us, what led to our prosperity, and how we've come to change.
And we're in this era of, you know, just war and continuous war with no end in sight.
And this is, of course, Fox News' brilliant response.
Christmas, you don't think that changed with the 9-11 attack, sir?
What changed?
Already, unbelievable response by Ron Paul.
I'm like standing clapping at this point.
I have no idea who this guy is.
But it goes, you don't think every, because this is the, you know, and you also have to remember, guys, this is in 2008, okay?
So this is right in the Bush ears still, right?
This is in the everything changed after 9-11, certainly still in Fox News's point of view.
Fox News' point of view is, you know, terrorism, everything changed after 9-11.
You're with us or you're against us.
Phil Brown people.
And he goes, what changed?
Non-interventionist policies.
No, non-intervention was a major contributing factor.
Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us?
They attack us because we've been over there.
We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years.
We've been in the Middle East.
I think Reagan was right.
We don't understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics.
So right now we're building an embassy in Iraq that's bigger than the Vatican.
We're building 14 permanent bases.
What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico?
We would be objecting.
We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us.
Are you suggesting we invited the 9-11 attacks, sir?
Now, so that's his sum-up of what Ron Paul just said.
He's suggesting we invited the attacks.
But he goes, well, I mean, in a way, he was suggesting that our foreign policy does invite these attacks.
But again, that just like, it just made so much sense to me.
Like, it was like, well, yeah, of course.
Of course, that's why these Muslims hate us.
Because we're over there.
We kill a bunch of them indiscriminately and we don't give a shit.
Like, that's why they fucking hate us.
They don't hate us because we're free.
It's the most ridiculous line of shit.
So now, and this is the real moment coming up here where he has the face-off with Ruli Giuliani.
And they start, like you said, the gotcha moment that they're trying to catch him in.
This is where they really try to catch him.
I'm suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it.
And they are delighted that we're over there because Osama bin Laden has said, I am glad you're over on our sand because we can target you so much easier.
They've already now, since that time, have killed 3,400 of our men, and I don't think it was necessary.
Wendell, may I make a comment on that?
That's really an extraordinary statement.
It's an extraordinary statement.
It's someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq.
I don't think I've ever heard that before.
And I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11.
Bush Republicans all go crazy.
And I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that.
Congressman?
I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they teach and talk about blowback.
When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the Shah, yes, there was blowback.
The reaction to that was the taking of our hostages.
And that persists.
And if we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk.
If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem.
They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free.
They come and they attack us because we're over there.
I mean, what would we think if other foreign countries were doing that to us?
So anyway, that's more or less the moment, which I just think is like this crazy, iconic debate, like the greatest presidential debate moment ever.
I mean, just this guy, I mean, Ron Paul being just really going to say, I'm going to be real and talk about how fucked up our foreign policy is and that we're killing people all around the world.
And that's why they're willing to come and kill themselves for us to suffer.
You know, and so you start talking about that.
Rudy Giuliani tries to shame him into this bullshit.
If you remember, Rudy Giuliani's campaign is what Joe Biden made fun of.
He said a verb, a noun, in 9-11.
Like, this was his whole campaign was around this, I was mayor of 9-11, which, by the way, what the fuck does that even mean?
Oh, you were here and you went down and made a nice speech?
What would anyone else have done?
You handled it exactly how anyone would have fucking handled that.
So he's mayor hero now because he lived through 9-11.
So he goes, that's just terrible that you would say that.
I've heard some absurd things, and I've never heard anything that absurd.
And I'm going to ask that you apologize.
And the crowd goes nuts.
And fucking, in this world where every other politician is just playing to the crowd.
Yeah, and Ron Paul doesn't give a shit.
He doesn't give a shit.
He's like, no, okay, I'm going to take some time and just break this down for you.
You know, the CIA has a term called blowback.
You think they just make that up?
You think that does it?
They just have terms that aren't real at the CIA.
They're just playing games.
Like, it's just a fun little term.
I mean, it's a real thing.
And the media spun this completely incorrectly because Ron Paul wasn't saying that the victims of 9-11 deserved what they got.
Yeah, of course.
They go, oh, so you're saying we deserve it.
Exactly.
We don't deserve it.
No.
But in the Pentagon, some people fucking deserve it.
Like, yeah.
Exactly.
Like, that's like, it's not right.
So you're not blaming the American.
Right.
But you turn it into this.
Yeah, all he was doing was trying to explain their motives for attacking us.
He wasn't saying like, oh, you know, all those firefighters, all those people who worked in the Twin Towers, they suck and they asked for this.
That's not what he was saying.
No, not at all.
And that's always, but that's always like a really good sign where it's like, because I really am.
I really love logic and I love the truth.
I like arguing.
I like trying.
But I like, you know, I like to maintain a thing where like my mind could be changed.
Like I want to follow the logic.
And whenever you see something like that, it's like when people aren't really arguing.
You know what I mean?
You see them, it's like it's very clear.
You're distorting what he's saying because you won't like have the real argument with him.
That's always a pretty clear sign that you're like, well, this person really is weak.
I had John Stossel talks about how he's at Fox News, and he's a libertarian, and he, I think, agrees with Ron Paul and foreign policy and stuff.
But he talks about he has these conservatives on who don't, you know, and he says, literally, he'll play clips of Ron Paul like this.
And he says, all the conservatives, they scoff at it.
It's always that, you know, it's like they don't really have an argument.
It's just kind of a you want to, and whenever you see that he goes, and that's that's what liberals do when you go.
Well, I don't think the federal government should run healthcare.
You just don't even know like well wait, hold on, what does the federal government run?
Well, what are they good at running?
You know what I mean.
Like what other industry do you think the federal government should say, you know, there's there, it's very easy, you know to.
Anyway, it's that if one side doesn't want to actually have the argument, that's usually a pretty good hint that they're they don't, they're not really arguing in facts, they're just arguing in terms of, like what they accept.
And the biggest problem, look, there's some brilliant, brilliant people who are really, like you know, in the, in the neoconservative, like Bush.
I mean, Bush wasn't brilliant, but there were a lot of people around him who are, and Charles Kraunhammer is a brilliant dude, and i'm sure Dick Cheney is, and all you know a lot of these guys, and Irving Crystal, and he's dead, Bill Crystal uh, but they, they make these arguments, but again, it's the.
What Ron Paul said is, is the ultimate dagger in their logic is the okay, but how would we feel?
It's like, well look, we went into um, Pakistan the other day and you know we, we uh droned and killed 15 people.
We actually, just today, I think, droned and killed some people.
But uh we, you know whatever it is, and we go, oh well, there was this terrorist, we had to get a terrorist and we like ended up killing 11 other people.
Like, what would we say if Russia, you know, came in here and bombed one of our cities and they went, oh well, there was a criminal we had to catch, there was a guy we were looking for and um yeah, I know, we took out like 11 of your citizens, but it's it's, that wasn't, that was just an accident.
Yeah, that was like that in.
That would be an act of war, no question about it.
We're at war with Russia now.
So that's what we're doing.
And if you can't, like that's the basic rule of morality right like, do unto others as they do unto you.
If you can't like, have that two-way street, then you're fucked up.
You have a moral flaw in your argument.
You're saying you can go kill other people, but they can't come kill you, and that's just.
But that's how we run our country so, anyway.
So this is what started me with Ron Paul.
I found him through this and then um, you know, so I get these, so I go, okay.
So he's like.
So, right away, what was to me and i'm very like, not very knowledgeable about politics at all at this time 2007, 2008 um, so I go.
So this guy's the first thing that I think everyone just the knee-jerk reaction is, they go, wait a minute, you're a Republican.
How come a Republican is saying this?
I thought this was like the Democrat thing.
Right, because this is the Bush years where he goes.
Oh, all of like, the people who hate Bush are the ones who shit on these wars and say the wars are terrible.
So then it's like, wait a minute.
So it was confusing to me right away that this guy was, uh, they go, he's a libertarian, I go, okay.
So a libertarian hates these wars.
Like I never realized that.
I was like a libertarian just doesn't want the government involved in anything, was my idea.
But so you, I see that and um, and then you know, you kind of start to realize that you go.
Not only isn't that the Democrat thing, none of the Democrats are really saying that, you know, you start looking over at the Democrat debates and it was like Obama and Clinton and and Biden And all these people, and they're talking about more troops in Afghanistan and maintaining the levels in Iraq.
And they want to blast Bush, but they don't really seem.
It's not like the passion that Ron Paul has, where he's like, this is evil.
This is not what our, we're supposed to be a republic of freedom, not an empire.
Like, this is not what we're supposed to do.
It's not the same.
And it was just like, wow, this guy really gets it.
And then, you know, the crash came.
And the economic, you know, all of a sudden the financial collapse.
And then I started seeing that Ron Paul had predicted that this crash was coming.
Ron Paul, in this unbelievable speech on the House floor in 2002, literally broke down the subprime mortgage crisis and said what was going to happen.
Like, I mean, he perfectly described it.
And then I realized he had been predicting this for a long time.
And like, it was all the financial stuff started to make sense.
Libertarian Views on Slavery00:04:20
It was like the more you just look at it, you go, yes, of course.
This is just logical.
It's like, oh, like, what's the problem?
Literally, the difference between the Austrian theory of finance, of economics, and the mainstream, like, Keynesian view is like in 1929, when the stock market crashes, mainstream economists go, okay, the problem is that we didn't, at that moment, when the stock market crashes, we should have printed a ton more money, gotten it into the system, brought the, you know, maintained the prices, make sure there wasn't this deflation, pumped more money into the system.
Then once the system said, okay, we could have taken that money back out, we could have played this balancing act.
Our position, the libertarian position is we built up a bubble in the 20s and it had to burst.
And if you look at it, it's just so much more logical.
It's like, oh yeah, you guys aren't acknowledging that this is when these crashes happen.
It's right after you built up a bubble.
There's this boom period that's artificial, and then you have to correct and it comes crashing back down.
So it just, that just completely made.
And then it's like every little thing, like even things that, like, I've always been against the war on drugs my entire life.
I was, you know, I went from being a liberal to a libertarian, so that never changed.
But like the liberal understanding of why the war on drugs is wrong is just so they don't capture it the way the libertarians do.
Like liberals will throw you, you know, a statistic about how more minorities end up getting arrested than not, you know, it's cocaine versus crack or something like that.
Which, sure, you know, it's like a point.
And they'll talk to you about, you know, maybe some of the stuff of what it does to the inner cities.
And they'll talk to you about, you know, whatever, how maybe they'll really know some shit.
And they'll talk to you about how the CIA is in on like smuggling drugs and this and that.
And he goes, so that's why we have to get rid of these drug laws.
But there's no real...
The libertarian position is, who owns your body?
Yeah.
That's it.
There's no more argument.
And that's the real point.
You know what I mean?
Yes, that's why drugs shouldn't be illegal.
Because at the end of the day, who the fuck am I to tell someone else they can't do something to their body?
If you wanted to do heroin right now, I wouldn't complain.
I might leave just because that would be a good idea.
It'd be like, this is a little weird.
I don't want to be a part of this.
Yeah, but I, you know.
But what moral right would anyone have to say you can't?
Now, look, you may have some moral obligation to someone's friend to like really discourage them and be like, no, no, no, please don't do heroin.
But it's not like, I don't know.
But liberals, they can't really make that argument, you know, because they already concede so much in that you own your own body.
Like they're okay with like, you know, like consumption taxes and, you know, all different types of, you know, the government manipulating, you know, your body.
So they can't really, especially, and they want the government to be in charge of your health care.
So they can't really, but like the libertarian argument is just like, oh, no, you understand why.
That's the reason.
And then all these other little things are just consequences of that reason.
It's almost like if you were to go like if you were to say back, you know, we're living 200 years ago in slavery times and we're arguing like the liberal argument against slavery could be something like, well, there's more effective ways of picking the cotton and you know what I mean?
It's like, no, no, no, no.
Slavery's not wrong because of that.
That's just the dumb little part of it.
Like, slavery is wrong because it's evil.
Because who owns your body?
These people own their own bodies.
They have the right to do what they want with their bodies, and you're forcing them to do it.
It's the same logic.
And really, everything just comes back down to that logic.
If you just own your own body, then it's like all the whole idea of society is just protecting people's property.
Yeah, well, I think a lot of liberals disagreed with slavery because of the same reason.
They were just throwing in other things to me in the pot for everybody else.
Sure, I'm just making the point that that is the reason.
You know, that is the reason why slavery is immoral.
It's the reason why prohibition of drugs is immoral.
It's all of it to a lesser degree, obviously.
But it's all just wrong.
It's like you own your body.
You have a right to do what you want with your body.
You have a right to do some bad shit with your body.
You have a right to do.
You know, I mean, like, that's what freedom's all about.
You can do some magic and shut down baby making.
You have an obligation to shut down baby making.
Yes.
Legitimately.
Legitimately.
Well, I'll be honest, I really don't have much more on the agenda.
There wasn't so much happening this week.
I think next week will be a lot more because the conventions.
Yeah, the conventions all have happened.
Looking Forward to Next Week00:01:12
Well, I'll say it is nice that you talked a little bit on this week's episode.
That was definitely fun.
We'll have to do more of that.
And we should, we'll probably have a guest in next week.
We'll figure that out.
But if you want to plug some stuff before we get out of here, on Tuesday, Dave and I are going to be guests on ClusterFuck Radio, which is my friend Sean's podcast.
So tune into that.
We'll post links.
Yeah, yeah, definitely will.
That's going to be a good time.
Those guys are hilarious.
Yes, I'm looking forward to it.
That should be fun.
And yeah, please, guys, you know, tweet questions or comments to the show.
We really like your feedback, and we'll be happy to talk about stuff.
Any topics you guys want to talk about, please follow me at Twitter at ComicDave Smith.
And yeah, guys, again, thanks for listening to Part of the Problem.