Dave Smith and Robbie Bernstein critique government overreach before dissecting a video arguing anarcho-capitalists aren't true anarchists. They challenge the definition of hierarchy, asserting that voluntary arrangements like renting or employment differ fundamentally from state coercion involving arbitrary debt and imprisonment. While acknowledging capitalism's historical role in raising living standards, they distinguish between starvation-level market consequences and forced vaccinations, ultimately rejecting the idea that private property enforcement requires a ruler to validate anarchist principles against perceived oppression. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Rolling Back The State00:01:35
Fill her up.
You are listening to the Gas Digital Network.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Dear your host, James Smith.
What is up, everybody?
This is part of the problem.
I am Dave Smith.
He is Robbie Bernstein, the fire, the king of the cocks, the slayer of the Soho Forum.
What's going on, brother?
Not much, man.
I had a fun weekend.
What about you?
Oh, yeah.
No, nice weekend.
Just hung with the family.
You know, nice weekend.
How about you?
What'd you do?
I shot a sketch.
Came out pretty good.
Oh, nice.
Hopefully get that out in the near future.
Oh, cool.
Exciting.
Who would just shoot a sketch with?
A bunch of pals.
I got some guy to film it.
It's really outrageous.
It's about corpses being peed on to solve a murder case.
And we'll see how it comes together.
That sounds like a very wild concept.
Yeah.
Well, we had fun with it.
I forgot how much fun filming is.
I haven't done it in a long time.
Yeah.
Now you got a lawsuit from the family of those corpses, but you know.
No, I don't think they know about it yet.
They just figured they pissed themselves after they died.
Yeah, that probably can happen, right?
Yeah.
I mean, they usually shit themselves, so why would you even notice the piecemeal?
Yeah.
No, I think you're on solid ground here.
It's probably my word against the corpses, so who are you going to believe?
Yeah.
That guy's already dead.
White Privilege Roast00:15:22
Yeah, no, I'm siding with you on this one.
All right, guys, we'll look for that.
Rob will be putting the sketch out.
What are you going to put it up on the YouTubes?
We'll see.
I figured I'd turn the whole thing around in a day.
And, you know, that's pretty good.
It's a five-minute sketch.
If I get four more of those, I got a whole pilot.
So that's what I'm going to try and do.
Oh, yeah.
That's actually, that's a great idea.
Good for you.
All right.
So maybe you guys won't see it soon.
Hopefully you'll shop it around.
And then when no one buys it, you could just put it out on YouTube.
That's probably what's going to happen.
Yeah.
I'll be like, yeah, the pissing on corpse thing isn't exactly the direction our network is trying to go in.
Yeah, no, I see where you're coming from.
Well, I have another one about black guys who work on an oil rig, and it's called Riggers.
So I really don't think the networks are going to like that one.
I'll be honest, Rob, I'm not going to invest in that right now due to the current climate.
But I got a black guy starring in it if that changes your attitude at all.
You know, I mentioned to you before that I was on Nick DiPaolo's show earlier today with the great Nick DiPaolo.
It was really cool to be on.
I love that guy, and he's just fucking hilarious.
We had fun.
But one of the things I was talking about that's so strange to me, and maybe not even strange isn't the right word to put it.
It's something that is interesting that's worth paying attention to.
It's like what jokes are off limits and what aren't and what are fine.
So I was watching a little bit of the roast of what's his name?
Alec Baldwin.
Alec Baldwin.
And not just clips online, you know, but Nikki Glazier's whole set was up.
And so I watched that.
And I love Nikki.
And she's fucking really funny.
She's great at the roasts.
But as I was watching it, you know, it was like right on the heels of the whole Shane thing.
And I was just, it was like a weird thing where I was like, man, how are these roasts even like allowed to still exist?
I mean, if we're in the age of being offended by comedy and comedians aren't allowed to cross the line, and then you have all of these working comedians and not even just say working, like network working.
You know what I mean?
And they're making every joke you think might have, you know, might offend somebody.
And I just, and she did great, really funny set.
And she had this one joke, excellent joke.
When she was saying, I forget who it was at the expense of, but she was saying to somebody, she was like, you're the worst mother in the world.
And she goes, she goes, yeah, even Casey Anthony knows where her child is.
It's funny.
Which is great.
Excellent joke.
But it just kind of, and I hate that I even have this thought because this is what the woke cancel culture is.
You're like, how dare you?
You're not allowed to make that joke.
Well, it's not how dare you?
Because I actually, I just think the joke's hilarious.
But the next thought in my mind is, and it's wrong.
This shouldn't be the thought because I love offensive comedy.
I'm the Legion of Skanks, for God's sakes.
But my next thought is like, how's there no one, how's no one mad at that?
Yeah.
You know, like, why is that okay?
I mean, if we're going to draw a line and say, like, well, and it really shows you how much of this whole thing is not about offensive material at all.
It's just about left-wing orthodoxies.
You just can't challenge any of their orthodoxies because you could make a joke about a murdered baby.
And the joke is that the baby's murdered.
And that's, you know, I mean, the joke is you're a worse parent than the one who murders their babies, like, which is fine.
I'm not against the joke at all.
In fact, I'm very, very pro that joke.
It was hilarious.
But it's just interesting that you go, you won't get one tweet.
You won't get one complaint, not one article.
Nothing's going to give you shit about that.
But if you say chink, ooh, that's the fucking problem.
Like, how is saying a word like chink or nigger worse than a joke?
Like, how is that being the punchline of a joke worse than baby murder being the punchline of a joke?
And not baby murder, like what I'm saying, like abortion is baby murder.
I'm saying actual baby murdered.
That's okay to be the punchline of a joke.
Yeah, for some reason, the framework of the roast seems to allow people to get away with stuff that in any other avenue of comedy is unacceptable.
You know what?
Maybe the problem is it's guys like us.
We get on the podcast and we express real opinions, whereas the roast is always just, hey, we're going to be offensive.
So we kind of blur the line.
Because like there's so many in this culture that we're in now where entertainers are where you go for information.
Like Joe Rogan is one of the biggest commentators on American culture.
Probably has the largest.
He might be the biggest.
Yeah, I think he's got a larger audience than like a typical evening on Fox News.
Not only does he have a larger audience, he's got double the audience of the number one ranked show on Fox News.
He's way, way bigger than any show on Fox News.
And Fox News is bigger than anything on CNN or MSNBC.
Yeah, it's real, it's a real interesting kind of story.
Yes, there's like a weird thing where I guess comedy does have some cultural status of actually commenting on real events.
And then you got other people who are like, well, I'm just trying to be an idiot on mine.
And for some reason, people aren't extending them the same courtesy as the roast where they understand, hey, there's just a place where we're saying offensive shit.
And they also seem to pick and choose very conveniently when they whack someone with the cancel culture hammer and when they don't.
Like, it's not a coincidence that you look at somebody like Shane Gillis, who's like a fucking working class white guy, middle of the country guy, and he gets whacked with it.
He's not one of these left-wing guys, and he gets whacked with the thing.
The same way, it's not a coincidence that Roseanne, who was openly a Trump supporter, ends up getting fucking, you know, like Roseanne had to go away forever.
Look, just juxtapose that to Justin Trudeau.
And the fact that this motherfucker is the prime minister.
He's not some comedian just tweeting something.
He's the prime minister and he's fucking going like, you know, there's, what is it, three black face every other weekend, man?
Yeah.
That's what he does.
But this time it's fucking regular thing.
In different shades.
He really was authentic with it.
You know, he would get it down to a science.
Shit, you know what, Brian?
Can you pull up Justin Trudeau apology on YouTube?
Because his apology was fucking infuriating.
Just infuriating.
But there is something that's very interesting there where you see he gets caught and it's like, oh, well, no, because he's like this left-wing guy who's always talking about how it's like, well, no, it's not history.
We call it herstery here.
You know, he's that guy.
So we got to let that guy off the hook.
Yet Roseanne makes a joke you don't like on Twitter and she's got to be gone forever.
The really funny comparison.
Yeah, I was going to say, it's so clearly, as opposed to looking at the evidence, it's like cognitive bias-based thinking where when you have a Republican senator or governor or whatever that guy with the yearbook was, so if you catch him in blackface, he instantly go, well, there's the proof of the races of him being a racist that I always thought was true.
He's a Republican, he's from the South.
I figured he was a racist, and now I've got the evidence.
Right.
Whereas when the exact same evidence exists for someone who's on the left, you just go, oh, well, that's like, you know, whatever.
He was just doing that thing.
How about the fact that Megan Kelly got fired from NBC because she said she didn't get what was so offensive about blackface?
Megan Kelly never wore blackface.
There was no picture of her in blackface out there.
She just said, I don't know.
Is it really that big of a deal if somebody goes in a costume in blackface?
Yeah, I forgot about that.
She has to go.
But Justin Trudeau, the prime minister, does it multiple times and he doesn't have to go.
And it's so obvious at a certain point.
It's like, oh, because Megan Kelly was on Fox News for all those years.
She's got some conservative opinions.
So she's got to go.
But, you know, Justin Trudeau is with the fucking...
If you take it even like more of a step back, the fact that outrage is the criteria by which we make decisions on, especially when you start considering, well, what are the actual numbers behind the outrage?
Are these 10 voices?
Right.
Is it an internet click room of some factory that's just sitting there with like a million fake accounts for all I know?
Like, how many people are we even really talking about that are outraged?
And then that becomes the criteria by which we make this decisions.
Well, there's a loud internet voice of unknowns.
Well, I can't.
I saw Don Lemon, the D-Dog, the dumbest person in cable news, which is really, really saying something.
And I mean it.
He is the dumbest of all of them.
He goes, after Justin Trudeau apologized, he goes, and his take on it was he goes, isn't it just refreshing to see a politician apologize for something?
Because I'll tell you, he or you know, you'll never see Donald Trump apologize when he messes up.
Justin Trudeau apologizes.
And you're like, that's your angle on this.
Isn't it wonderful that he apologized?
This is actually an excuse to bash Trump because Justin Trudeau is caught in blackface.
Now, can you imagine?
I mean, come on.
You know, it's just, this is almost like, it's like this whole thing is falling apart.
That's what's really interesting about the times we live in.
The whole thing is falling apart.
That's going to be a little bit more of a theme for today's show then.
And then I'm going to continue on.
Do we have Justin Trudeau's apology?
Let's play it.
This is what was so wonderful.
In 2001, when I was a teacher out in Vancouver, I attended an end-of-year gala where the theme was Arabian Nights.
And I dressed up in an Aladdin costume and put makeup on.
I shouldn't have done that.
I should have known better, but I didn't.
And I'm really sorry.
How do you feel about this coming out right now in the campaign?
Obviously, I regret that I did it.
It's not about timing.
It's about having done something that I shouldn't have done.
And I'm really sorry I did.
What exactly is the problem with dressing up as an Arabian Knight and I guess darkening?
I don't get the whole thing.
You don't get what's so offensive about it?
No, I guess.
Well, guess what?
You're fired.
Oh, shit.
All right.
That's it.
Rob's gone.
Is that the only time in your life you've ever done something like that?
When I was in high school, I dressed up at a talent show and sang Deo.
With makeup on.
Was this photo racist, in your opinion?
Yes.
Yes, it was.
I didn't consider it a racist action at the time, but now we know better.
And this was something that was unacceptable.
And yes, racist.
Like all Canadians.
Okay, so there's actually another one where he gets, it's once they catch the third one, but whatever, it's fine.
But so when he catches the third one, because he goes, yes, there was one other time which he offers, which is just hilarious.
Like, is this the only time you ever dress up in blackface?
I'm like, I was really hoping no one would ask that question.
No, it's not.
I did sing a version of Deo.
And now, in his defense, what are you going to do?
Sing Deo without putting Blackface on?
What is Deo?
Deo.
Can you say Deo?
Daylight come and you want to go.
So he did authentic Blackface that time.
Yeah, by the way, great tune.
And it does add something to it to be in Blackface while you fucking do it.
Yeah.
So, wait, there's four?
Oh, these just keep coming out.
Oh, man.
I was like, is there another one?
No, I just have a video from four days ago.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is the one where he's outside taking questions?
Any footage of him as Deo?
Yeah, it's from NBC.
Yeah, yeah, let me see this one because I think this is the one I was thinking of that really pissed off.
Canadian Prime Minister.
Just give me one second.
Sure thing.
So you think Megan Kelly's going to try and get her job back?
She got paid so much money to not work though.
Oh, yeah, she got like 40 million to walk.
She's fine.
But it's just the point of like, who has to suffer by these standards and who doesn't?
And it's not, I'm just saying it's ridiculous.
Yeah, this is the one I was thinking, but just to finish the point, it's not just that like by any, even if you agree that it's an outrageous thing to do and you're with the left-wing standards, by any standard, any way you slice it, Justin Trudeau should face worse consequences than Megan Kelly for a number of reasons.
The pretty obvious one being he didn't just say he's okay with blackface, he wore it.
That's got to be worse by your own standards.
And the other one is that, I mean, shouldn't the prime minister be under a little bit more scrutiny than some fucking talk show host?
And why are they letting him just call it makeup?
I mean, if this is a racist thing that needs to be outlawed, why don't you own up to the fact that you're in blackface?
Well, now here, the other problem he had, and this is what this video is from, is so in the first apology, they go, did you ever do it again?
He goes, yeah, there was one other time, but they actually found two other times that he did it.
Has anyone asked him why he's so good with makeup?
Isn't anyone curious about that?
Who's this makeup person?
Where are they working?
Are they just out there helping everyone be racist with their weekends?
By the way, if you see the Aladdin one, he had the makeup all up and down his arms, too.
He really, he did it.
Yeah, it was palms.
It wasn't just blackface, it was black hand.
That takes time.
I mean, you're talking two hours minimum preparing for that night.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, he was the toast of the town.
All right, let's play.
Thing that I deeply, deeply regret.
Darkening your face, regardless of the context or the circumstances, is always unacceptable because of the racist history of blackface.
Doesn't it help elders?
I should have understand that then of these disenfranchised communities when people like the prime minister want to dress and act like them?
Maybe.
But doesn't it uplift them?
No.
It's cultural appropriation.
Oh.
I guess I understand.
I don't really understand.
And I never should have done it.
So that's not the part.
So whatever.
It's the part of that in that speech, but it's fine.
We don't know.
But at a certain point, he goes, which I forget exactly.
Maybe there's no outrage because no one gives a shit about Canada.
Well, I'm sure up there they do.
But yeah, down here, it's like, it's not that big.
Well, in Canada, they're not as gay and stupid as we are, so they didn't care.
Yeah, they're gayer and dumber.
They got the whole leftist thing that we do.
Oh, my God.
Oh, yeah, because they have the Jordan Peterson thing.
Substantially worse than it is here.
Yeah.
How much free shit is he giving out that they let him away with this?
Oh, it's a lot of free shit.
A lot of free shit.
I think he's giving out cell phones.
A lot of free shit.
But he says at one point, he goes, They were like, But should, you know, like, don't you feel like you're wrong or this or that?
And he goes, Listen, I came, I acknowledge that I came from a privileged background and my white privilege, you know, is something that I'm not.
Clouded my judgment.
So, yeah, so basically, it's not, he doesn't even really take responsibility.
It's just white privilege.
Clouded.
So you continue to lecture other white people who have never worn blackface and who you're constantly lecturing all the time anyway.
It's like, oh, see, here's the lesson we can learn from me wearing blackface three times at least.
It's that white people suck.
Now I will continue to tell white people they suck so you'll allow me to be in here.
And it's just like, God.
How can he trust his opinions now if he was clouded by white privilege then?
Well, right?
Your white privilege could still be getting to you, bro.
How does he know he grew out of his white privilege cloud?
I don't know.
He might still be in it.
It's a good question.
He should go get tested.
Rogan Platform Era00:06:26
Can they take Blood Works today?
Listen, I'm sorry.
Your white privilege levels are right where they were last time.
You know, there's really nothing we can do for white privilege.
Maybe if you spend more weekends in Blackface, you'll get it.
You can get it down.
You can experience more from their point of view.
But wouldn't that be ironic if that was the cure for white privilege?
Yeah.
If it turned out that blackface is what cleaned the whole thing up.
Oh, man.
One can only dream.
One can only dream.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
But there is something, as I said before, about the whole thing falling apart.
It's like there's this new era where, you know, like you were mentioning before about Rogan having this platform that's way bigger than all these guys.
How you go, I remember thinking this when I first got Rogan.
And there was a, you know, a lot of times where you would like, you know, when I first started in comedy, it was kind of before this whole social media revolution.
Social media existed.
And I remember like when I first started in comedy, people were like, you should have a MySpace because, you know, it's good to like network or something like that.
Yeah.
Well, they turned, I had no idea, but if I had known, I'd have been all over that.
But I got a MySpace, but it was just really like I just kind of communicate with my friends from high school or something.
Like it wasn't really a thing.
And Facebook at the time was still only for college kids and I had dropped out of college.
So they wouldn't let me on it.
I remember I tried to start a Facebook and my college email didn't work anymore.
They wouldn't let me on that show.
I was like, fuck you, Facebook.
But it was a different world.
And what you dreamed about, what you aspired to do was like get on the tonight show, get on Comedy Central, get on, you know, get some network thing, something like that.
Like that was the whole thing.
And I remember there were friends of mine who got TV credits and I hadn't gotten any.
And, you know, I'd been doing comedy for like five, six years or something like that.
And it's starting to be like, fuck, man, I got to get this.
This guy got that.
And I remember this was just one.
like example.
But anyway, there was someone I know who's a friend of mine who got a big network show.
He got America's Got Talent.
And I love him to death.
Hilarious comedians, Gary Veter.
And we both had, and this was just like, you know, four or five years ago, something like that.
And me and him both had, I think, if I had to guess, we had like 5,000 Twitter followers.
Like we were both right around the same amount.
And he got America's Got Talent.
And within like a few weeks, he had like 6,500.
And I was still at 5,000.
And I was going, man, there's Gary.
He's fucking taken off, taken off right to the top.
Like he's going to get a big following.
And that's, I was like, good for him, you know?
But like, fuck, I've kind of felt a little bit like, you know, jealous and like, oh, and then, you know, he didn't, like, he didn't win.
He finished like fifth or sixth or something like that.
Had a great run, good showcase done.
And then moved on.
And then you realize it's like, oh, like a lot of those people who follow you, they just saw you on TV one time and hit follow.
And then next season, there's a whole new batch of people.
And the next season, a new batch and a new batch.
Now you're just the guy from like three seasons ago.
And like, it doesn't have this kind of sticking quality.
And then I remember when I went and did Rogan and it was like, oh, like, dude, I never got like a late night or like a Comedy Central presents, you know, a half hour or something.
But you get something where I go, oh, I go in front of millions of people and spoke for three and a half hours about my most deeply held beliefs and views.
And I got like a whole bunch of fucking followers from it.
And you go, this is different than someone who just saw me on TV for three minutes.
This is a different type of follower.
This is someone who listened to you for three and a half hours and is like, I like what this guy is doing.
Well, a lot of people that listen to this show came over from that.
I mean, this is, it was the start of me building a lot of what I've built in my career.
And there was just something where it was like, oh, wow.
So I like, I literally lived that, you know, experience of like, how, oh, there's something different happening here.
Cause I knew people who would like do a late night set and get, they wouldn't get a fraction of the amount of followers from it.
They don't get the new fans.
And it's also kind of like someone saw you for six minutes.
Even if they hit follow, how engaged was that person really with you?
You know, and so it's like, and then anyway, it's just what's been happening slowly is that now it's like there's all of these people.
And it really did start to change.
Like between 2012 and 2016, the presidential elections, it was a whole new thing.
Like it was growing that whole time, but it was a different beast by 2016 than it was in 2012.
And it's a different beast today than it was in 2016.
But in 2012, it was still kind of like, well, the networks and the mainstream newspapers and all that stuff, like the corporate press still kind of had the majority stake.
They didn't have a monopoly the way they used to, but they had the majority stake.
But then after a while, like by 2016, you were like, well, look, you look at all these other guys who have like huge platforms.
You know, Adam Carolla has a huge platform and he's talking about politics a lot.
Joe Rogan has a huge platform.
Mark Marin has a huge platform.
Biden Presidency Suspicion00:14:49
These guys like Dave Rubin and Ben Shapiro and all these guys, they're all in this world and they're not at all in the corporate press world.
They're completely outside of it.
And yet they're influencing a lot of different people.
And all of a sudden, then there's fucking how big Twitter and Facebook and all these things are.
And now there's like these YouTube channels.
I don't even know them.
I'll find a new YouTube channel and like find some guy on YouTube and I'm like, oh, this guy's making some interesting points.
You're like, how come no one knows about this guy?
And then you're like, oh, he's got 3 million followers.
It was like, oh, you know what?
I guess I'm the guy who doesn't know about him.
Like lots of people know about him.
There's all of these people out there.
It's so decentralized now.
And the people who have been the gatekeepers and the power brokers forever all of a sudden don't have that fucking power anymore.
Now, if you were the elite, right?
Like if you, if you really were in, you know, you've been doing great.
You've had everything under control.
You have this whole system, this whole racket worked out.
But all of a sudden, there's a fucking chink in your armor, to quote Shane Gillis.
You're not allowed to use that word.
To quote the great Shane Gillis.
All of a sudden, there's a little bit of a hole here in your plan where you've lost power.
And that's a big fucking deal, especially when there's a populist movement going on in the country, right?
So this is like a whole...
And one of the things that's interesting is that you see it all falling apart.
Like you guys, and this is, I think, I think a big part of the reason, if you go, why is it that since about 2014, 2015, 2016, the ruling elite have gotten more and more crazy?
Like truly fucking crazy, where they're trying to ruin people over the most absurd accusations where it's so easy for a couple of people like me and you.
We're not fucking geniuses.
We're not like fucking experts or professionals in this.
We're just a couple like, you know, reasonably intelligent guys who can sit down and go like, okay, well, but why does saying chink get you ruined, but talking about killing a baby doesn't get you ruined?
How does that make sense?
Why does talking about blackface, but not dressing in blackface?
Like, how does that make sense?
Hey, just ask these questions and it's just so obvious there's no fucking answer to it.
It's like, oh, there is no answer.
We're just abusing our power the way we like to for our own political gain.
It's like, oh, okay.
So now they can't really control this.
And this is becoming more and more apparent because now there's people who can communicate to a lot of different people and say this.
And then it's like, oh, yeah.
Oh, it turns out the guys in the mainstream who are supposed to be the trusted ones, they don't have any answer.
They don't have an answer.
Trust me, I've done a whole bunch of shows in corporate press, mainstream media newsrooms.
Nobody's got an answer for me.
I've talked to a lot of these people.
They're not that fucking smart.
They're really just there.
It's all smoke and mirrors.
They have no answer for any of this shit.
And so what happens is you see them getting more and more frantic.
Like the way people are acting about with the woke cancel culture shit.
This is not how a group of people who are in power and are competent and confident that they're going to be in power for a long time act.
This is the way people who control power and realize they're losing it and are scared that they're losing it act.
There's actually a silver lining in this whole thing, which is that they're getting crazy because they smell themselves losing power.
That's what's going on here.
And I remember thinking, you know, in 2016, when Donald Trump's campaign was, you know, taking off, and then ultimately when he won, a lot of people were wondering, and I think maybe to some degree still are wondering, is this, is the Trump presidency, and this is probably maybe the most important question in America right now.
Is the Trump presidency an outlier?
And after the Trump presidency, we're going to go back to normal times.
Or is it all over?
And we're in a brave new world.
Which one of those two is going on?
Now, I don't know that anyone, including myself or Rob, I don't know that anyone knows for sure.
And this election in a lot of ways is going to tell us, you know, like what's actually going on here?
Are we going?
Was this like just a crazy America was pissed off and we wanted to shake things up, but all right, we're all we're fine.
We're going back to normal.
Or is it like we will never go back to the way it used to be?
This is the new world now.
Now, if say Joe Biden were to win the presidency, that would be a pretty strong indication that it's like, okay, we're going back to, you know, this was an outlier.
Probably won't happen again like this.
But look, I remember thinking, and I remember saying this on the show several times, when Hillary Clinton, when all the WikiLeaks stuff came out and Hillary Clinton started really tanking, I remember saying this might, I think there's something really big here.
Like this might be a watershed moment where maybe it's impossible for them to ever run a career politician for president again.
Like maybe they'll never be able to run someone who's been in the game of politics at the highest level for 30 years because there is nobody who's been successful at the highest level of politics for 30 years who's not a fucking criminal.
That's the nature of the game.
It's just like saying like, you know, who's been at the top of the mob for 30 years, but doesn't have any dirt on their hands.
It's like, well, no, that's what this organization is.
It's a criminal organization.
Just because they're pretending to be a human rights organization doesn't mean that there's like you can find the shit.
And now, unlike in the past, you know, like you're not going to have the fucking media who has complete control over this covering for you.
You've got too many people out there.
Now, I mean, do you know, you know, like that Jeffrey Epstein thing, you know how many just like YouTube videos and podcasts and people there were just breaking this down and giving you all of the facts?
I never saw one mainstream media report on how he was hired by the current attorney general's father and he made partner at Bear Stearns and all these different things and, you know, all this.
You don't find this out from the mainstream.
You have to go to all these alternative media sources, but there's real deal journalists out there who are doing amazing work.
Some of which will even describe to you how you can turn kids.
Oh, yeah.
No, it's.
And that's the helpful information.
The mainstream media doesn't give that to you.
If you want to reverse engineer this shit, you could really start a very successful pedophile operation.
And there's a hole in the market.
Well, there's one big hole for sure.
There's one guy who's missing and there's an island up for grabs.
But the point is...
We can rebuild it.
I mean, how much?
What are you going to start a whole new pedophile island?
Are you going to work on the progress of the last pedophile?
Yeah, might as well build and improve on what's there.
But it does seem to me that we might have reached a tipping point.
And I remember thinking this with the WikiLeaks thing particular, where it's not just that.
So there's this candidate who's got all this dirt for 30 plus years.
And then there's this organization, Wikileaks, which is a completely internet-based organization that can get these files, distribute them, and it's all happening online.
And it kind of forces the mainstream media to cover it.
Because they're going not over your heads.
They're going around you right to the people, you know?
And I got to say, seeing this stuff with Joe Biden and his son in this Ukraine shit is almost kind of making me think maybe that suspicion was correct.
That, oh, it's like, oh, well, look at this.
Oh, turns out Joe Biden's made more money in the last three years than he made in the 30 years before that.
Hmm.
And what is that happening?
Yeah, what is the Ukraine racket?
I don't know.
His son was fucking, and his son was doing this in China as well.
His son was basically getting crazy amounts of money from these companies like energy companies and shit like that.
And he has no real like qualifications to be getting paid this much.
And then these countries were doing deals with the Obama administration.
And there's this one tape where Joe Biden openly talks because it's Joe Biden, so he doesn't notice his mouth shut about this.
So he's talking at the Council on Foreign Relations, that wonderful charity organization.
And he's talking about how he got this prosecutor in Ukraine fired.
And he was like, I was there and I visited him.
I told you, you better fire this guy.
And he was like, look, we give you $6 billion in aid.
I'm leaving in six hours.
This guy's not fired.
You're not getting any of the fucking money.
And they fired him and he's bragging about it.
And it turns out that prosecutor was looking into, that was investigating the company that his son was fucking working at.
So it's just this.
Look, I don't know.
I don't have all the details about it, but it smells like a real fucking shady operation.
And then I also saw that Elizabeth Warren has now overtaken Joe Biden in Iowa.
She's in first place in Iowa, which is a big deal.
The Iowa almost always, the winner of Iowa for the Democrats is almost always the nominee.
Almost always.
So you just start to look at it and you go, man, is this whole thing coming unglued?
Is it all falling apart?
Can a guy, maybe you just can't run a Joe Biden.
Maybe you can't run somebody who's just been at the fucking, the highest level, like one of the highest profile politicians for 30, 40 years, 80 years.
I don't know how long has Biden been in here?
It's been a long time, I'm sure.
But I don't know.
And maybe there's something really, really good about that.
I don't know.
But I wonder.
And I think we'll see moving forward.
It's really interesting that they can't control the narrative the way they used to.
And you start to wonder, like, what are they going to do about that?
And to me, I always look at the dynamic as like the social justice warriors are the useful idiots.
They're just the foot soldiers that don't even understand what the bigger operation is, you know?
But this whole cancel culture thing, you're like, I think this might be actually working for a bigger purpose, you know?
And I think part of that is almost like to get the people canceled who might be exposing this fucking thing.
And they might use like, I'm not saying that's why they wanted to cancel Shane Gillis.
They just use it in different ways, but it's more like why they want to cancel Alex Jones.
That's kind of like what, you know, is really going on.
Or lots of different people who are just kind of, you know, throwing a wrench into the whole fucking system.
I don't know.
We'll see.
But I have a feeling, as of right now to me, of the declared candidates, and I didn't think I would say this, but I think Elizabeth Warren's the only one who's got a shot.
I think she's the one.
I mean, do you see Kamala Harris has just collapsed?
She couldn't be more unlikable.
Whew, she's horrible.
She's a fake Indian.
There's just no way.
There's no way I see her beating Donald Trump.
I just don't see it.
I think he would just destroy her.
And for a lot of the same reasons that he destroyed Hillary Clinton, that she's horrifically unlikable.
She's full of shit.
She's a complete politician.
She doesn't answer a question honestly.
And she's going to stand on stage one-on-one with Donald Trump.
I just don't see it.
I don't see it.
And I also think that, you know, like we were touching on in the last episode, you know, there's like a lot of these, a lot of these policies are just so unpopular once you get into a general election.
I don't think they realize that, you know?
But, you know, the Democrats have been saying for a long time, and they'll openly say this.
You can find different examples of it.
But very blatantly, you know, lots of them have talked about the Browning of America and how basically, you know, the Hispanic population is increasing so much that Democrats are going to win all these, all the presidential elections.
And that still might be true, you know, like that might be coming.
And it's not as if Donald Trump has taken any drastic steps on immigration that are going to be enough to stop the, you know, the country going majority Hispanic, but I don't think they're quite there yet.
And I still think there's a lot of people in this country who like, you know, you still got to win a lot of white people.
And I don't think I still see them going with Trump again.
At least the majority of them.
I don't know.
We'll see.
You know, there's still a lot to be determined.
Yeah.
And the economy is still just the biggest curveball.
If it goes to shit, they'll out him.
Yeah.
No matter how bad Elizabeth Warren is, Elizabeth Warren will be able to play the card.
This is why we always needed a politician.
It's his fault.
And even though that's not true, if people are angry, they'll be looking for blood.
They'll talk about it.
Blame the tax cuts.
Blame him.
You're absolutely right.
If there's a big economic crash before the next election, you could see that.
The only way that that doesn't happen is if it happens so close to voting time that it's almost like when the country goes to war and people don't want to change anything up because they're like, no, no, we like, this is no time for playing games.
We just, we need the guy to stick around and fix it.
Yeah.
There's a possibility.
There's a possibility of that, but it's unlikely.
And, you know, that might like a real economic, a real harsh recession could shake things up entirely.
Also, if you're at the start of it, people don't necessarily feel that much pain yet where they're like, we got to oust this guy.
Well, that's true too.
You know, with a recession at the very start of it, you might just see like, oh, the stock market's down.
But you don't actually feel the like layoffs and things like that.
It usually takes a little while for that to kind of reverberate throughout the economy.
So we'll see.
That's definitely another big factor.
But I've almost got, you know, we have a, oh, there's an announcement to make.
But on Wednesday on our next show, we have, I'm very excited about this.
We have the great Peter Schiff coming on the show.
I'm very excited to talk to him.
I've never spoken to him before, and he's a hero of mine.
And so I've learned a lot for, learned a lot from.
And I'll ask him about this, but I've almost stopped banking on the recession being right around the corner because I've just thought it was right around the corner for so long that you're like, well, I don't know.
I guess they can prop it up a lot longer than I thought they could.
Who knows?
You know, maybe they can keep it going.
And it doesn't seem like the Fed is there to tank Trump.
I mean, they just lowered rates the other day.
Joining Problem Inner Circle00:05:16
It seems like almost like they're trying to not destroy the economy.
So we'll see.
Yeah.
I think it's quite possible that even, you know, like there are those conspiracy theorists who are like, well, hey, if the whole deep state and all of that really wants to get Donald Trump, I mean, all they need to do is have the Fed fucking tinker with interest rates, make them raise them a little bit too high.
He might have to bring the whole thing down.
Well, it's not just that.
It's possible because Donald Trump has made it clear that he'll blame the Fed if there's an economic collapse.
But also, I think that, you know, as reckless as the elites are, you know, there's some things like, it's like the same way they never go to war with a country who has nuclear weapons.
You know, like we kind of all have this thing where it's like, look, we're never going to bomb Russia, but we'll fight in Vietnam.
You know, we're never going to fucking, you know, start a war with India or Pakistan, but we'll fight in Afghanistan.
We'll fight.
It's like they still have a little bit of a survival instinct where they go, well, yeah, we don't want to mess with someone with nukes.
And to try to bring on an economic collapse to get Trump out is an awful lot like setting a building on fire while you're in the building.
And I think even they might realize they're like, hey, we're doing pretty good with this whole thing.
We're all rich and powerful.
And I think they realize that the economic event that would be triggered would not be something they could control.
It might get really, really bad.
I mean, if you start raising interest rates just to play around with them when you're fucking $20 trillion in debt and have trillion dollar deficits each year, that's going to be all of a sudden you might actually expose the whole house of cards.
Like it might fucking come crashing down.
And that might be something that they're not quite prepared to do, especially since Donald Trump isn't really in any serious way threatening the establishment, at least from my perspective.
All right, guys, let's take a quick second and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is monday.com.
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Get the free 14-day trial and make sure you use that exact link because if you do choose to sign up, which I suspect you might, there's going to be additional savings in it for you.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
All right, Robbie B. What else did we have?
Did I have another topic or was that it?
And then right into the video.
Did I have something else?
I know you had the video.
Yeah, I have that video.
You can play the video and then you can see if the other topic comes back to you.
Yeah, I don't know.
Hmm.
I feel like there was one more that I'm missing.
But what did I do?
Trudeau and Jim Blackface.
Okay.
So this was a video that was posted in the Part of the Problem Inner Circle, which all of you fine people can join if you're not a member already.
A lot of good times.
A lot of good times in the Part of the Problem Inner Circle.
A lot of funny memes.
A lot of interesting convos, some funny pics.
Couple white nationalists floating around there.
But, you know, just a healthy amount.
A healthy minority of white nationalists and some clever ones, if I do say so myself.
And anyway, it's a fun time.
And if you want to join the private Facebook group, I take questions from them quite often.
Sometimes they'll post content like this and I go, hey, let's bring it onto the show.
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Give us your Facebook name and then request to join on Facebook.
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Now, one of the things I've done on this show for a long time, this has been going way back to the beginning, for years and years I've been doing this show.
Wage Labor Hierarchy00:15:06
I've always said if there are any pieces, articles, or videos, or anything like that that is debunking libertarianism, I like to take those on at times and try to respond to it and see, you know, hey, well, what's their argument here?
Like Nick Starwalk.
Yes, exactly.
Nick Starwalk was a living meme attempting to debunk libertarianism.
And, you know, I was able to handle it.
But lots of different things like that.
In fact, that's how the whole Ben Burgess episode started was that there was a piece that he was, you know, debunking libertarianism or something along those lines.
And so I like to take these things on.
And I think it's useful because people who listen to this stuff, you know, it's like they see our perspective and then they see somebody challenging it.
And it's like, oh, well, let's respond right against it and see who's right and who's wrong.
Now, this piece was kind of interesting.
This is from a few years ago.
But my criteria on it all always is that it has to, it could either be, like, it could be really dumb, but has a lot of views, or it could be, it could not have a lot of views, but be an interesting critique.
But it can't be both dumb and not have views.
Like, if it's dumb and nobody's looking at it, it's kind of a waste of time for us to deal with it.
It might be a little bit beneath us.
But, you know, this had, it was from a while ago.
Hold on, let me just, sorry.
It was from a while ago.
It was from, let me be clear.
It was from 2017.
So from a couple years ago, but it's got 134,000 views on it.
So, and, and the video is about anarchism.
And so I was right away kind of impressed with a video on anarchy getting 134,000 views.
So congratulations.
The channel is Thought Slime.
And I will say I was impressed with that.
I've always been pretty interested in anarchism, in the philosophy of anarchism.
I've read a decent amount about left-wing anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism and stuff like that too.
And I've always thought it's a very interesting topic.
And the idea that you could get 134,000 views on something about it is impressive and pretty cool, if you ask me.
And I just find the idea of anarchy in general to be a very intriguing, interesting intellectual exercise, if nothing else.
You know, it's like, it's kind of just taken as a given that you need a state in modern living.
Like, of course, you want a state or you want to all be killing each other.
Like, why would we even be debating this?
And the idea of that, that you realize, and it's there, the history is very buried, I think, in terms of like what most people are taught in school or even in college or anything like that, that there's actually all of these brilliant people throughout history from a very diverse background of thought that are all like, well, no, this is not actually the only option.
We don't need the state.
There are other ways to organize society.
And so I think that's very interesting.
And the fact that you can get a lot of people thinking about that is interesting.
Now, this video is not actually, I think, debunking anarcho-capitalism per se, although he certainly takes some shots at it.
I did watch the video on the way down here.
But the title of the video is why anarcho-capitalists aren't anarchists.
So the argument is that we are, in fact, not anarchists.
Because we've got rules.
Some rules aren't the way of the anarchists.
Let's look at what his argument is.
So let's play the video.
The title, it's from Thought Slime, and the title is Why Anarcho-Capitalists Aren't Anarchists.
And let's see.
Maybe.
Even the game of free capitalism.
I didn't follow that.
But maybe.
I'm fun of the guy.
Okay.
But I don't even know what he said yet.
Well, let's, exactly.
I try to always, with these things, I go, maybe this guy will convince us.
Maybe he's just hungry before he shot the video.
That's also possible.
It's me with a comment.
Corgi's, Steve Pashami.
None of these things are necessarily anarchist in nature, but they're all universally beloved.
Not everything needs to be anarchist all the time.
That's okay.
I do think ANCAPs should be criticized.
And I think their ideology is whack as all hell.
But that is not the focus of this video.
I'm just here to explain why they're not anarchists.
Paul, Pubescent, Ben Burgess.
Wait, I might make fun of them a little bit because it's hard for me to talk about this toilet ideology without showing my contempt for it.
All right.
Well, let's pause it with this.
Fair enough.
And I'm going to shit in the toilet.
And then I'm going to say something else.
And then I'm going to...
He might, I was going to say, he might make fun of us a little bit.
And to be completely fair, we might make fun of your homo voice and cadence a little bit throughout the, but you know, it's like, whatever.
But that's not, it's not in itself what the video is about.
But I haven't even decided yet, but maybe I will in a little bit.
It's really hard to not.
I'll tell you, it's hard for me.
And I'm going to try to take the arguments here seriously.
I will just say it's challenging for me because I don't exactly understand it.
It's hard to take anyone who speaks in that cadence seriously.
It's like, why?
I fall into it sometimes, but you try and work around it, dude.
And it's just like, don't rape people.
And like, I don't know, just like, don't be racist.
Like, it's something that social justice lefties and socialists and people like this always seem to fall into.
It's very, it's, look, it's like this.
Sometimes there'll be people on Twitter who are arguing with me, and I've clicked on their bios before.
This happened a lot, like 12, 13 times at least.
And I don't argue that much on Twitter, but at least like at least over a dozen times where I've clicked on their and it's a dude and in his bio, it says him, his, him, but it's a dude.
Like, this isn't a trans person.
It's just a dude letting you know that I'm a guy.
And there's something about that that I go, I just, it's very difficult to take you seriously anymore.
I don't know how to justify that or back that up with anything.
It's just, I don't know.
I think it might be an age gap thing.
Like sometimes these guys are like 22 and I'm like 36 and I just go, my generation for a guy to have to go, I prefer to be called him.
It's like, yeah, I know.
That never needed to be cleared up.
Like I was going to refer to you as him.
I just assumed like, yes, you're clearly a man.
You have a beard and a cock.
I'm going to call you him.
That's how this works.
Anyway, I'm...
I like to walk around with power.
I'll grab people's genitals to make sure before I say anything.
We've got a his him over here.
Okay.
Oh, you are her.
My bad.
All right.
My hands are behind my back.
I'm not resisting all of a sudden.
All right.
I'm not resisting.
I'm not resisting.
Okay.
All right.
So let's, now that we've all had some fun, we're a toilet ideology.
You got a homo voice.
Let's get back into the video.
It's mean.
Anarchism is a spectrum of ideologies that are opposed to unjustified hierarchies, be they political, social, economic, or any other axis of oppression that people invent.
The term was coined to describe oneself politically by Pierre-Joseph Poonhound.
And without arcos, meaning rulers, okay, so I don't know if that was.
How do you not get behind the Poonhound?
I mean, that is...
I mean, he just sold me even more.
I didn't know that was the father of our ideology, but I'm in.
Of course he didn't want any fucking rulers.
I'm not a fucking Poonhound over here.
Okay, so as he points out here, though, it is a good point is that anarchy, what the word means is without rulers.
Now, I should just say that is a different thing.
If that's what the word means, it means without rulers.
That is why anarcho-capitalists use the word because what we're opposed to are rulers.
The idea that that also means you're opposed to hierarchy is not necessarily true.
That doesn't necessarily follow.
I mean, first of all, I don't know how you could be opposed to hierarchy.
Hierarchy is something that exists in every state of existence.
There's no way around it.
It's like, to me, it's almost like saying I'm against patterns.
I mean, it's just, that's part of the deal.
You can't possibly be against hierarchy.
Everything is hierarchy.
Now, he did say at one point in there against unjustified hierarchies.
And I think that from the anarcho-capitalist point of view, we are also against unjust hierarchies, which would be hierarchies that you're forced into that aren't voluntary arrangements.
But within any society, whether it's a communist society, a capitalist society, an anarcho-syndicalist society, an anarcho-capitalist society, or anything in between or anything else that you can think of, there are going to be hierarchies.
It is unavoidable to have them.
And maybe we'll get into that more in the video, but there's no way that you could ever have a system where you don't have hierarchy.
However, that doesn't mean you have rulers, right?
So you might have a system, you know, like you might have a company like Gas Digital here, and Lewis and Ralph are the co-owners, you know, then we've got like podcasters, we've got producers, we've got interns, we've got Bobby Hutch, which is the title, he's like the director or something like that.
So this is a hierarchy, but they're not rulers.
And one of the main reasons why they're not rulers is that everyone's free to go if they want to.
So you're not ruled over by someone.
Like, I mean, to describe Lewis as Brian's ruler would be ridiculous.
He is his employer in this case, but he's certainly not his ruler because at any point, Brian could be like, fuck you, I'll go get some other job.
And like, so that's, you know, which is more or less what Brian did at his last cake.
Anyway, the point is, I'm just kidding.
They're all, I hope they're friends now.
But the point is that, oh, good, you are.
Very good.
But, but, you know, the point is that there is a clear difference from ruler and just the idea of a hierarchy.
Like, and then, of course, in a more abstract sense, everything in our lives is a hierarchy.
Like, every single podcast, we decide what we're going to talk about and what we're not going to talk about.
And that represents a hierarchy of importance on what issues and a hierarchy of everything.
I mean, every time that you do a comedy set and they'll be like, okay, you got a 15-minute set.
And you're like, well, I want to work out these jokes, but I don't have time for this joke.
That's you making a decision within a hierarchy.
Like, it's more important to you to spend your time on this.
And of course, everything like, you know, if you have a fucking electrician come to your fucking place and, you know, he's very good.
You might be like, okay, this is a better electrician than the last guy I had who wasn't very good.
There's lots of hierarchies that just have to do with competence and talent.
Of course, you know, professional sports or anything like this.
But anything that involves talent or work ethic or anything like that, you're going to naturally have hierarchy.
So it seems to me to be kind of impossible to fight.
And also, one thing that's kind of funny and worth pointing out is that the people who claim to oppose hierarchy oftentimes buy into intersectionality, which is just another hierarchy.
It's just a new hierarchy, and it's a hierarchy of, you know, oppression or whatever, but it's still a hierarchy.
And of course, if you actually watch any of those people and how they interact and how they talk about white people or black people or trans people or gay people, it's like, oh, you're very into hierarchy.
I'm a rape black female who just got a new penis.
Yeah, well, I'm all those things with a broken leg.
Gotta out hierarchy, Rob Bernstein.
All right, so let's keep playing.
Meaning, make the word sound cooler.
Capitalism is an economic system typified by these three things.
One, private control of the means of production.
That's a hierarchy.
Two, free exchange of goods and services on the market.
Three, wage labor.
That's also a hierarchy.
All right, let's pause that right there.
And so capitalism.
So, okay, so private control of the means of production.
That's a hierarchy.
Okay, fine.
I'm not denying that that's a hierarchy.
Here's the other thing.
State control of the means of production, also a hierarchy.
Collective control of the means of production, also a hierarchy.
I mean, how exactly do you have collective ownership of the means of production?
Okay, well, how do decisions get made?
What do you want to do?
You want to vote?
Let's say we all own this company, Gas Digital, together, and then one person wants to do one thing with it, and someone else wants to do another thing.
So we vote.
So your hierarchy would then be the majority.
The 51% are now up here and the 49% are down here.
That's still a hierarchy.
So to just point out one is a hierarchy doesn't really solve your problem.
You'd actually have to show how your system is not a hierarchy, but I guarantee you can't do that because you can't get away from hierarchy.
It is something that is found all throughout nature in every single species.
Okay?
It's the hierarchy exists.
It is as natural as anything in the universe.
So, no, it's like that.
You're right.
I mean, technically, yes, private ownership of the means of production is a hierarchy.
It means that someone owns that and someone doesn't own it.
But so is any form of ownership.
And here's the thing that I think anarcho-syndicalists get away from a lot.
You can't get around ownership.
See, all ownership means is that somebody has the exclusive control over something.
And somebody or some group is always going to have exclusive control over something.
Even if it's owned communally and then there's some group of people who are in charge of acting on behalf of that community, that's a hierarchy.
Oh, who's that group?
Looks like they're a little bit higher in the hierarchy, right?
If you're just saying the workers own a company together, well, do they all enforce, like if they vote on everything they do, do they all enforce that together?
Or is there someone who's tasked with that role, right?
I mean, you point to me to a society that has ever existed or could possibly theoretically exist without any hierarchy.
You're not going to be able to do it.
Even in theory, you won't be able to draw it out.
So yes, and then the thing about wage labor.
Luck man.
Okay, yes.
Again, I'm going to agree.
It is a hierarchy, but wage labor, it's like, okay, even if everybody was a co-owner of a company, I assume they're going to get wages for their work, right?
So don't you also have wage labor?
I mean, you work, you get money for it.
It kind of seems like the deal.
You help produce something, you get some of the profits, if you want to call it that.
Non Aggression Principle00:11:53
Okay.
I mean, yeah, it is a hierarchy, but it certainly doesn't mean that you have rulers, as the example I just used with people who work here at Gas Digital.
Or, you know, if you don't like that example, any job.
Any job.
Yes, there's a hierarchy.
You have a boss.
You're an employee.
However, you don't have a ruler, which you already established is what the word anarchist means.
It means no rulers.
So I don't think hierarchy implies that there's rulers.
So anyway, let's keep playing.
The belief that the state should be dismantled, but capitalism should somehow be maintained, which they think would work.
They believe everyone should follow the non-aggression principle, which basically means you shouldn't initiate or threaten to initiate violence against someone or their property.
Part two.
All right, let's just pause it right there.
I still don't understand.
Even when he says it, it seems like a pretty good idea to me.
Like just saying, they think everyone should follow the non-aggression principle, which means don't, you know, don't initiate violence against people or their property.
You're like, well, yeah.
I mean, sure, they should.
There's no alternative here.
I mean, what are you proposing?
You're proposing that we should initiate violence against people and their property.
It's like, yeah, that seems like it's a pretty, you're literally, it's like I said at the debate the other night.
Isn't it kind of what you would teach your three-year-old as they go into the world?
Like, don't hit people and don't take their stuff.
That's how you should act.
Now, no anarcho-capitalist has ever said, at least that I've ever heard, no serious one, has ever said, I believe everyone will follow the non-aggression principle.
But yeah, more or less people should.
That's the right thing to do.
And if they don't, then you can use defensive force against them.
But like the idea that you even say it so ridiculously, it's like, yeah, of course.
Don't hit people and don't take their stuff.
That's controversial.
Yes, I do think that.
You can say it in the snarkiest tone imaginable.
You can have an upward inflection after every sentence.
It still sounds pretty reasonable to me.
So, okay.
Now, he says right there again, he goes, they believe the government shouldn't exist, but capitalism, you know, that we should eliminate the state, but keep capitalism as if that's possible.
It's like, okay, it's not an argument against it.
You're just saying it doesn't seem possible.
I mean, if you just want to say, if you're already an anarchist, and this is kind of what ends up bugging me in a lot of these conversations, it's one thing, okay?
If say somebody who's a Hillary Clinton supporter or a Lindsey Graham supporter or whatever, you know, like someone who just supports a very middle of the road candidate.
And, you know, they, you know, looked at me and they were like, Dave, you're an anarcho-libertarian.
Like, what?
You go, the odds, come on, this could never happen.
Okay.
You know, like, that's, I can kind of get behind that.
I mean, not get behind it, but I can understand where that person's coming from.
And go, okay, you know what?
It does seem, yeah, turn that up a little bit.
It's getting chilly.
It does seem like we're pretty far from living in a world without the government or living in, even if you're just for complete laissez-faire, you know, unfettered capitalism.
I could see someone going like, really?
That seems kind of impractical.
But if you're an anarchist also, you're just a different stripe of anarchists and go, like that could happen.
It's like, okay, like your thing could happen.
We're both advocating pretty radical, you know, like systems of social order that are very different from what we have right now.
So yeah, I don't know.
You're saying that like, basically, capitalism or laissez-faire capitalism, right, is basically the government doing nothing else except protecting property rights and maybe like courts and military and police or something like that, right?
And I'm saying like, okay, just take those things away and let the market do those few things as well.
Why is that so impractical?
Yet your idea is that we'd have this whole social safety net, all of these like co-op, cooperatively owned businesses, but we wouldn't need a government to enforce that.
I don't know.
I mean, there's no argument here.
It's just like that couldn't work.
So again, I know that's not the point of his video, but I just, I don't, to me, it seems a lot less crazy that capitalism would thrive without a government than socialism or communism would.
All right, let's keep going.
And CAPS and real actual anarchists believe that the state is illegitimate and should be dismantled.
Though they share this conclusion, they both arrived at it from very different reasoning.
And those differences make their goals mutually exclusive.
Anarchists believe the state is illegitimate because it's a hierarchy that does not meet the burden of proof required to justify its existence.
They don't like, for example, how states are always doing genocides and bowing to the needs of a slim minority of rich perverts at the expense of everyone.
Let's just pause it for a second.
Anarchists.
So this standard that he sets up where it's a hierarchy that doesn't meet the burden of proof.
And I've heard that like Noam Chomsky and other anarcho-syndicalists talk about this before, where they basically they say their thing is that any hierarchy needs to be justified.
So if you're a hierarchy, you're basically guilty until proven innocent.
You have to prove that this is a justified hierarchy.
This to me seems outrageously impractical because there's so many hierarchies.
Hierarchies are around us everywhere.
I mean, look, like everything from, you know, children not being allowed to drive or whatever, you know, respecting elders, everything like that is a hierarchy.
Now, you could say those examples meet the burden of proof, but the idea that we're going to put every single hierarchy through some type of public trial and see if they can prove themselves as a legitimate hierarchy and they're kind of guilty until proven innocent, this is crazy to me.
So actually, we have a much more practical system of determining whether a hierarchy is legitimate or not.
And it's simply, is it coercive?
If it's voluntary, then it's legitimate.
This is how people chose to organize themselves.
Okay.
And if it's not, then it's illegitimate because it's based on force.
And it's a corrupt hierarchy.
So, yeah.
Anyway.
All right.
Let's keep playing.
This tends to revolve around taking shit from rich perverts and giving it to people who need it, fighting systems designed to prevent oppressed folk from being in control of their own lives and violating the non-aggression principle all over a Nazi's face.
Okay, let's pause again.
So the three examples that he gave there of violating the non-aggression principle where one were fighting with police, the other were blowing up a Nazi government building, and then the third was beating the shit out of a guy in a swastika t-shirt.
So the first two, I mean, I guess the obvious answer is that they were both governments.
So I don't know, we can kind of like take that off the table.
That's not really a dispute between them.
I think the third was a Rick and Morty cartoon.
Oh, yeah, it might have been.
I don't know.
I never watched that show.
I've heard it's quite good.
What's he pulling up a historical example of the way that anarchists work for?
Well, okay, so, but if he's going to say that what they believe, what these real anarchists believe, is that it's absolutely okay to use violence against a Nazi.
Well, I would point out.
I don't know if that's true.
Is the Nazi aggressing or is he just wearing a pressure?
Well, no, no, no.
He's saying by their version of anarchy, they think that that's okay.
He's saying this is what separates them from the anarcho-capitalists.
Basically, they don't believe in the non-aggression principle.
That if it's a Nazi, it's okay.
Now, I would point out right away that that would be a hierarchy.
Nazis down here.
Can you define that?
And you're up here.
Can you define their anarchy for me?
Well, he said at the beginning that their anarchy is against rulers and against hierarchies.
So that's basically their form of anarchy.
But then don't you end up with some sort of a distribution of wealth?
Don't you have to?
If you're against hierarchy, then you're working towards equality.
And then don't you have to have some sort of a hierarchy that's distribution?
Well, that's the point that I was making.
And the point I'm making here with the Nazi is that this is an obvious example of a hierarchy.
Nazis down here, non-Nazi up here.
Now, here is the thing where if you're going to say that it's completely fine to, you know, beat the shit out of a Nazi, it's like, all right, but that kind of leads to a pretty pertinent question, which is who's a Nazi?
Yeah.
Who gets to determine who's a Nazi?
Also, why is it okay to beat up a Nazi if he's not doing anything wrong, if he's not affecting your life in any way?
So, a fun-loving Nazi chicken.
Maybe I'll leave him sticking all afternoon and evening.
There's got to be service.
There's got to be a few of them.
He's just trying to get back.
But he feels like, but isn't it pretty obvious?
And I'm sure I bet even the maker of this video would call some people Nazis who don't identify as Nazis.
I bet he would call some people Nazis who most people, maybe even the majority of his worker co-op, wouldn't consider a Nazi.
So who gets to decide when you're a Nazi?
And I can just beat the shit out of you.
Can I just beat the shit out of whoever I want to if I call them a Nazi first?
What's the process there?
The head of their hierarchy makes the decision.
Well, I'd imagine, right?
See, isn't it weird how you need a hierarchy again?
I guess you need somebody to be the one who determines who's a Nazi.
See how this whole thing falls apart?
There's no consistency to it at all.
And in fact, with that Nazi example, it's pretty clear that this is actually pretty dangerous.
So it's pretty dangerous to accept that they have a hierarchy that will violently wipe out other hierarchies.
Interesting.
Well, no, see, they don't have a hierarchy.
But if you have a hierarchy, then you're at the bottom and we will wipe you out with violence.
But it's not a hierarchy somehow, right?
All right, let's keep playing.
Believe the state is illegitimate because it interferes with the operation of the market.
The state prevents Adam Smith's invisible hand from guiding us all to laissez-faire heaven, as it would definitely do if the state just got out of the way, even though the state is necessary for capitalism to function.
Also, I believe the taxation is that.
Okay, I mean, that under breath just that's not as any anarcho-capitalist ever said that the state is necessary for the economy to function.
Well, no, he's saying it's necessary in a snarky little way.
But he was saying if the state just got out of the way, then Adam Smith's invisible hand would lead us all to heaven or whatever, which, of course, is just with a lot of these videos.
It's like you're not even attempting to seriously grapple with what the other side is saying.
So, first off, it's not like Adam Smith is not the hero of any anarcho-capitalist who I've ever heard of.
He's not really our guy.
We're more into Mises and Rothbard.
But what Adam Smith was talking about with the invisible hand, I don't even really think you could categorize as an opinion or a belief.
I think it's just a fact.
And what Adam Smith said was basically that it's not, what is his line?
It's not the benevolence of the butcher that makes him give meat to people who are hungry or whatever.
He said in a more beautiful way than that.
But the point is that he's not doing a service for you because he loves you so much.
He has his own self-interest, but in his own self-interest, he's cooperating with other people.
And this ends up being the invisible hand of the market, right?
Like this is the idea of it.
So this is, it exists all around us right now.
And nobody's claiming it would be heaven or utopia, just a lot better than, say, I don't know, war and mass incarceration and, you know, taxation and all these things.
And now he gets into taxation as theft, which, you know, I don't know how many times I've dealt with this already, but again, it's like the thing that I got into with Ben Burgess was just like, well, I really, it's interesting to see for an anarchist, right?
You're already an anarchist, so you're opposed to the state and you think the state shouldn't exist.
Self Ownership Rights00:14:17
Well, the state is doing something that if any other group did, you would consider it to be theft.
So yeah, we still consider it to be theft when the state does it.
It's really that simple.
And with all the arguments that I've had with leftists in my day on the podcast and off, whenever you bring that up, they always seem to get very cloudy and dance around the issue because the truth is that, of course, of course it is.
It's legalized theft.
It's institutionalized theft.
But yes, it's taking someone's money at the threat of jail.
I mean, I literally just got a letter.
Well, I guess not just.
It's been a few months now.
But I got, you know, I have an accountant.
I don't go to like HR Block or any of that shit.
I have like a real good fucking accountant who I pay good money to is like fucking, you know, supposedly very good.
And then the IRS just sends me a letter after my taxes are filed and I've paid everything.
And they just go, well, you owe us another $2,000.
And I'm like, but why?
And they're like, well, I don't know.
You do.
And I'm like, but I have a professional accountant who told me I owe you this much that I just paid you.
And they're like, no, $2,000 more.
And then I could talk to my accountant and she's like, yeah, you got to pay him.
She's like, if they want $2,000 more, you got to just pay them $2,000 more.
And you're just like, kind of, oh, okay.
And I'm like, so they could just say any number.
They could just say any number.
And you're like, okay, all right.
Well, that's just another $2,000 out of my daughter's mouth.
That's here for you, Mr. State.
Okay.
To pay for shit that I passionately hate.
That I rant against three times a week on air and many more times than that off air.
So what would you call that?
It's money out of my child's mouth for something I hate.
And if I don't pay it, I go to jail.
Yeah, that seems like theft to me.
So anyway, let's keep playing the video.
Theft.
And boy, do they want to tell you about it?
Their praxis tends to revolve around protecting property rights and making absolutely sure that people who own shit get to keep it.
Even if that mad sucks for everybody else.
You own the only well in town?
Well, sucks for all those thirsty chumps.
That's your property.
And you earned it fair and square by inheriting it from someone else who built it and maintained it with the help of all the people you now prohibit from using it.
And CAPS believe that it's derived from property.
So this is just like the fucking, it's such weak sophist arguments, but it's like, you know, I always say there's only a few things these videos ever do.
And one of them is like paint a picture of how that.
So anarchists believe that NCAPs believe that even if it sucks for everybody else, this is still the situation.
It's like, okay, well, anarcho-syndicalists believe that even if anarcho-syndicalism sucks for everybody else and that involves people, you know, like not getting water, that that's still your system.
Okay.
You haven't actually made an argument why our system would result in people not getting water.
It's like, okay, so someone owns a water well and they're not going to give it out to anybody.
All right.
Why?
I mean, like, wouldn't they, first off, I, they own the only water well?
There's no other water that exists in the world.
Like, they're the only place that has water.
Okay.
So take me through this.
There's this rich guy who's got a whole lot of water.
And presumably, he doesn't just have enough water for him and his family's needs, right?
Because if that were the case, then it wouldn't really matter whether he gave it out to other people, right?
Because then his family goes without water or then the other people go.
So either way, someone's going without water if he only has enough for him and his family.
So if that's the case, then sure, he gets it, right?
And just as many people die or don't die as if he gives it out or keeps it.
But let's say he has all the water that he needs and his family needs and then an abundance more water, but he just won't give it to you.
Because he's like, nah, I just want to fucking well, we'll pay you for it because, you know, water is like really, really important.
So we will pay you.
You can make money by selling your water to other people.
He goes, nah, not interested in your water.
I just want to be mean capitalist and keep my water.
Like, okay.
I mean, yeah, I more likely think he would be like, no, I want to get some benefit out of this and sell the water.
And maybe there will be some crazy person who's a dick like that somewhere.
But the idea that if this is decentralized, everyone who owns a well will just be, you know, they'll just be fucking throwing water in their face.
Like, aha, look at these poor people starving.
Wait, so those people worked for him and helped him build this well.
Well, maybe he'd want to keep them alive since they're providing him a service and he could also get money for it.
And perhaps people would be happy to pay for water.
I mean, I pay for water.
I'm quite happy to do so.
I don't feel like a slave for doing it.
Somebody else owns that water.
And who's to say that because water's communally owned, that's so much better?
I mean, like, if, you know, turning the frogs, gay.
Yeah, it's turning the frogs gay.
Kids in Flint, Michigan are fucking dying.
Yeah.
I mean, the other thing that's interesting about that is like trade and specialization.
Like, if you want to say, hey, in your model, rich people are going to have things that poor people don't.
Yeah, of course.
But the idea is the poor people are going to be lifted up by trade and specialization and free market forces.
If we end up in a situation where trade and specialization so didn't work, that there's one well, and one guy has it and he's not sharing his water with others.
I guess you got me, but I don't really think we're ending it like right.
Yeah, it's also within the idea that within a free market, you also have to ask yourself well, how do these people get rich?
I mean, he pointed out earlier that the government, that the government sells off their services to rich people.
So we'd all probably agree in that right, these rich people take over the government.
But how exactly, within a market, do you get rich?
To begin with, how do you do it?
Gotta offer something.
You gotta offer something that a lot of people like.
The reason why say, the Steve Jobs and the board and the stock owners at Apple all got rich is they provided something that everybody wanted.
Well okay, so you had to.
You had to, by definition, lift everybody up in order to get this money, and then people are happy to voluntarily give it to you.
All, right.
So this is just, this is just silliness.
Well, what if in your situation everybody, you know, one rich guy had all the water and he wouldn't share any of it?
It's like, okay well, what if, in your situation, there was no water?
Did I just disprove Anarcho-syndicalism?
No, there's not even an argument there uh, but again, that's not really the point of the video, I think.
So let's keep going.
Property rights, the reason you have a right to autonomy over your own body is because you own yourself and you're allowed to do whatever you want with yourself, even sell yourself, which I guess if you sold yourself, the money that you get wouldn't belong to you anymore because you don't belong to you.
Uh, following from this position, let's pause it.
Your reasoning is that if property, so again, and we've gone through.
When we say own, let's just forget the word, because I think this word, like I think these leftists are almost allergic to the word own.
What does it mean to own something to?
Here's what i'll say, to exercise exclusive control over it.
Okay, that's what I mean.
You when I say you own your body.
What I mean is, you have the right to exercise exclusive control over your body.
Is your argument that people shouldn't be able to exercise exclusive control over their body?
Do what they want with their body?
Hmm is, is that what you're saying?
That people shouldn't be able to do that when you say people shouldn't sell themselves, so are you for criminalizing prostitution.
And people can't sell themselves.
Now the the whole idea of selling yourself into slavery and all that is.
I i've dealt with that before and it's like yes, that it is.
There is something about self-ownership That is inseparable from the owner.
You will always be existing within your body.
So I do believe that you could theoretically sell yourself into slavery, but it would be a contract that no one would enforce because as soon as you wanted to leave, there would be no court or justice system that would keep you in that situation.
Whatever.
The idea that you can think that it's like, oh, you've got us in some big contradiction.
But unless you're saying, if you're saying, like, what we mean by self-ownership is that you exercise exclusive control over your own body.
This is binary.
There are two options here.
Either you exercise exclusive control over your own body or somebody else exercises some degree of control over your own body.
Those are the only options.
There is no third option.
So either you exercise exclusive control over your own body and that means you own yourself.
Or you could say somebody else exercises some degree of control over your body.
And that would be, wait for it, hierarchy.
So there are your two options.
Self-ownership or your dreaded hierarchy.
All right, let's keep playing.
Property rights are not protected.
No human rights are possible.
So while we may share a disdain for the government, anarchist and NCAP ideologies are not compatible.
Part three.
But what if they're the real anarchists and your fake anarchists pretending to be anarchists, but they're the real ones?
Remember Proudhound?
The first person to call themselves?
I think I forgot about Proudhound.
That's an economic hierarchy, my dude.
Hierarchies have rulers.
You can't subscribe to without rulersism if you want rulers.
Even if you think those rulers deserve to rule, it's still a ruler, you ding-a-ling.
All right, let's pause that.
What do you think this guy looks like in real life that he went with that as his cartoon version?
You have to assume that's a better looking version of who this guy actually is.
Okay, listen.
Like I said before, hierarchies do not imply rulers.
Okay.
It's not accurate to say a ruler.
You know, they say these, it's like, if you allow private ownership of private property, then that's going to result in people owning more and more of the pro of the property.
Well, I mean, that's an assertion without an argument.
I don't know that that's actually true.
But perhaps it is.
Perhaps it is.
I don't know that like absent a state and cronyism, that would actually happen, but perhaps, maybe they would.
But the idea, and so many people rely on this, it's like the wage slavery or so when they say property ownership, they don't mean what they would distinguish between personal property and private property.
So like you can have your computer or you can own your t-shirt or things like that.
But when they say property ownership, they're talking about like land, housing, factories, things like that, right?
So the idea that you don't own property means you have a ruler.
That's what he's saying.
Well, this is a hierarchy.
That's a ruler, my dude, as he says, right?
Okay.
By his definition, I don't own property.
I mean, I hope to in the next couple of years, but I don't own any property.
Like, I don't own my apartment.
I don't own a house.
I don't own any land.
I rent.
That's what you do when you don't own.
You rent.
It's fine.
You think my landlord is my fucking ruler?
What kind of world do you live in?
My landlord, literally, my fucking window broke and I get him on the phone and I go, hey, my window broke.
And he goes, oh, I can send the guy in next week to fix.
And I go, next week's not going to work.
Like, I need my fucking window to open.
He goes, okay, okay, I'll make sure he comes tomorrow.
It's not my fucking ruler.
If I don't like the way he works, I leave.
My landlord was itching to get us to re-sign our lease, which we just re-signed a couple months ago.
He was itching to get us to re-sign our lease because we're good tenants.
I've never been laid on rent and we're fucking, we don't party and we're, you know what I mean?
Like we keep it down.
You might hear a baby crying every now and then, but it's uh it's like the idea that this this dynamic is you're a ruler.
My wife, she, the job that she worked at before she worked through into the beginning of her pregnancy and then she left and left the job.
They've emailed her like six different times trying to get her to come back to that job.
They weren't her rulers.
She was a good employee.
She is a competent person.
So she was actually in high demand from them.
The idea that this voluntary arrangement is somehow you're a ruler just because there's a hierarchy, like you're the landlord, I'm the tenant, you're the boss, I'm the employee.
To equate that to being a ruler, it truly reminds me of like a bratty 17 year old who doesn't understand the way the world works.
It's not your ruler, bro.
If you own your body, you own your possessions, you have autonomy, you're not ruled by anybody.
It's actually pretty insulting to people who actually had rulers.
And there's plenty of those throughout history and actually going on right now in the world.
I'm a free man.
I measure things with my dick.
Yeah.
Six inches.
You're putting them together.
You're at a foot.
It's not true.
All right, fine.
You have to put five together, but it comes out to a foot even.
But you know what I'm saying?
Like the idea that if I were to say to you seriously that my landlord is my ruler, how would you even respond to me?
How would you even like look me in the eyes as a man?
I go, what do you mean he's your ruler?
Fucking move.
And why is it that my landlord is not my ruler?
Well, there's lots of them.
There's lots of them.
There's competition.
There's a marketplace.
Sure, it could be more deregulated.
I think we could get the state out of the way.
But like the idea that it's like, well, there's tons of them.
Go to somebody else.
It's not your fucking ruler.
I don't know what to tell you.
That's just, that's absurd to say that any hierarchy, because he has the title landlord and he owns this place technically, that somehow he's your fucking ruler.
It's like, no, listen, if you can't own property, then you fucking rent it.
That's it.
And that's absolutely fine.
Doesn't mean your life's fucking terrible.
Doesn't mean you're a slave.
Doesn't mean you have a ruler.
It's none of those things.
Now, the IRS, on the other hand, they are my fucking rulers.
They just decide I owe a few more thousand dollars.
They don't even have to justify it.
Anarcho Capitalist Position00:10:12
They can throw me in a goddamn cage if I don't want to fucking pay it.
They can rip me apart away from my wife and daughter if they decide to.
That's a goddamn ruler.
Do you not see a difference between the landlord and the fucking IRS agent?
Really?
Are we going to pretend these are the same thing?
All right, let's keep playing.
Doris, that in the absence of the state, all agreements would be made between voluntary free actors for some reason.
So while it's a hierarchy, it's not coercive like it is when the government wants you to vaccinate your children.
Except, like, if the alternative to accepting an exploitative agreement is starvation, as has been the case for most people whenever unregulated capitalism rears its ugly head, that's not true.
A little coercive.
Maybe, you know, not all that materially distinguishable from state violence.
Also, vaccinate your kids, guys.
You're going to get smallpox.
And I, like, I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend to my death you're right not to get smallpox.
All right.
Hold on.
Let's, let's just pause it for a second.
Um, Jesus Christ.
Okay.
So the idea of forced vaccinations, I guess he's for that now.
It does kind of make you wonder who's gonna determine what vaccines you need to get and who's gonna get it.
It sounds like he really likes government.
Yeah, I mean, for somebody who's an anarchist who's against hierarchy, I mean, who are the people who decide what vaccines you get and who forces you into getting them?
It's like, okay, the problem that libertarians have with forced vaccinations is not that, you know, fucking like we don't want people to get smallpox.
The problem is that to give the state something I thought you opposed, because you're the real anarchist here, to give the state the power to say you have to inject this into children could possibly go bad.
That's the fear.
It's like, well, if they can control what you have to inject into your child, what can't they control?
Because that seems pretty scary.
And as far as just saying, like, oh, you know, well, things go bad every time there's unfettered capitalism again.
I mean, I don't know.
You'd have to give me an example.
Anytime there's close to unfettered capitalism, what you've seen is the standard of living drastically increase.
Like the biggest increases in the standard of living in human history have always come when there's been the least fettered capitalism, every single time.
Not like once or twice, like every time there's been a giant leap in the standard of living.
And the idea that you've like these are pro-fetterers.
Yeah, that's right.
They're fetterers.
They're the federers.
But so I just don't, you know, and this thing where he goes, and this is something that has really frustrated me about the Ben Burgess episode and other people when I've talked to the left where they'll go, well, I mean, okay, but let's say you make a voluntary exchange, but if you don't make the voluntary exchange, you're going to starve to death or it's going to be really bad.
Is that really, isn't that indistinguishable from someone doing something really bad to you?
And it's like, well, no, they're not the same thing at all.
It's actually much different because if you're talking about the law or you're talking about how we organize society, what you're talking about is what we can do to other people.
Like what can you punish somebody with?
So if the result is the same, that doesn't at all necessarily mean that the fucking punishment or what we do to somebody else should be the same.
So in other words, rape versus sex might be the same action at the end, yet one is punishable and one isn't.
And you could say, yeah, but is there really any distinction?
I mean, was it voluntary or not?
You still got your pussy pounded at the end of the day.
It's like, yeah, no, there's a big distinction, morally speaking.
And the fact that you have to work with other people, that we all have to work together in order to not live at a very bare, at a very bad level, like the fact that we need a lot of other people to live at the standard of living that we live it now.
And if me or you just moved into the woods and tried to do everything for ourselves, we'd live like the paleo era.
You know what I mean?
Like we'd be very poor and we'd probably die very young.
It's like, okay, so you need to work with other people.
That doesn't mean they're forcing you into working with them.
Then the word force means nothing.
It's like, yes, because it takes the work of a lot of people, we have to cooperate.
Now, how do we want to work with each other?
Do we want to cooperate or do we want to force each other into it?
It's a big difference.
Doesn't matter if the result is the same or if the result is different.
It's like saying if there's a fucking, like, I don't know, a storm that kills you or a person that kills you.
Well, what's the difference?
Either way, you died, right?
It's like, oh, well, the difference is that in one way, there's somebody else who fucking you should go properly.
It's both preventable because global warming is real and every weather pattern's our fault.
Dave, bad example.
That's true.
That's also true.
Very true.
All right, let's play some more from the video.
You, sir, are biased.
Yes, that's true.
I don't much care for ANCAPism, and I do very much like anarchism.
And I want to kiss Peter Kropotkin in that beautiful broom face of his.
So let's hear it from Murray Rothbard.
I knew he was kidding.
Oh my god.
Did I...
Did I say that?
Murray Rothbard is the libertarian economist who you might recognize from those Six Flags commercials.
All right, pause it right there.
Not bad.
I'll give him that one.
Not bad.
That song is still catch as hell, man.
Let's keep it.
I got to learn those dance moves.
The dude who pretty much invented anarcho-capitalism once said, We are not anarchists and that those who call us anarchists are not on firm etymological ground and are being completely unhistorical.
So, there it is.
I agree with Murray Rothbard on something, I guess.
That's pretty gross.
Part 5.
I'm not any kind of anarchist.
Why should I care about any of this?
Why'd you click on the video?
I think it's fair to say I have some misgivings about ANCAPism, but my objection to them being called anarchists is not simply because I disagree with them or I don't like them.
It's because their ideology is not that thing.
They're more like turn-of-the-century liberals than anarchists, which is probably why they stole the word libertarian.
Because it sounds kind of liberally, and liberal was taken.
Well, I mean, I guess libertarian was taken too by anarchists, but who cares about anarchists?
You can take anarchist words.
Nobody minds.
Probably part of the reason ANCAPs want to co-opt the term is to get into anarchist spaces and drown us out.
Our beliefs present a threat to theirs, or I guess they would if anyone took our beliefs seriously.
And I find that a little galling.
I don't like the idea that groups who don't like my ideas are trying to make them more difficult to talk about or conceive of by changing the meaning of words to suit their agenda.
It'd be Orwellian if it was being done by the state or by smart people, but it's actually being done by supplement-chugging Econ 101 anime avatars, so it's just kind of irritating.
Also, by the way, you can't have capitalism without the state, because without the state and police and the military, there's no way to protect private property from the collective force.
So that's the end of the video.
And what he says there at the end as he's fading out, I mean, I don't know what else to address.
Like, the Murray Rothbard quotes taken out of context.
He coined the phrase anarcho-capitalism.
That's clearly what he meant by it.
He can say that we're really more liberal and that we just took the term libertarian, which there is some truth to historically.
But then the other flip side of that, obviously, is like, well, who took the term liberal?
So yes, some word derived from liberty.
That's what we're for, liberty.
I mean, who really cares?
And for him to say, oh, co-opting terms is so fucked up and it's Orwellian to change the meaning of terms like, well, you're doing that with anarchist.
It's one word that means without rulers, and that's what we stand for.
So it seems fair to me.
And at the end, he says, he's like, he goes, you couldn't have capitalism without the state to enforce private property rights.
That is just something that I find to be a really interesting claim.
So look, it is certainly possible, and I'm pretty sure every anarcho-capitalist would acknowledge this, but it is certainly possible that you could have a stateless society where private property isn't protected.
Like a stateless society that's lawless, where people are just stealing your shit all the time.
That could happen.
I'm not saying that's not possible.
However, why is it?
I mean, you're making this assertion unattached to an argument.
Why is it that you couldn't have a stateless society where private property is protected?
I mean, you're an anarchist, right?
Like, this guy's an anarchist.
He doesn't believe you need to have a state.
So you have a group of people, cops, you know, lawyers, courts, whatever, who are protecting private property.
Why couldn't people do that outside of the state?
It's almost as if you had the state, you know, was in charge of making flags and no private business was allowed to make flags.
And then you just go, well, if you don't have a state, you want to have flags.
It's like, well, I don't know.
Maybe we could just have some private company that makes flags.
Why is it?
I mean, if men can do it when they're called the state, men could also do it when they're called private actors.
Why does it have to be the state who does this?
And in fact, if you believe that private property ought to be protected and you look at the state and you go, well, you know what?
They're funded by violating people's private property.
Then why would we say it should be funded by the state?
Wouldn't it make more sense that it would be funded by somebody who got there voluntarily, since that's the whole deal with private property anyway?
That's the anarcho-capitalist position.
I feel very comfortable to call us anarchists because, like I said, we're against rulers.
And if you don't think we're against rulers, that in capitalism, there are these hierarchies and that means there are rulers, then you would have to say that my landlord is my ruler.
Voluntary Funding Systems00:00:32
The guy who I bitched into fixing my window 24 hours later, that's my ruler.
If that's the case, it seems like a pretty cool ruler.
The guy who's dying to have there, who's bidding for my business, who's just trying to get me to sign up another year lease, that guy is my ruler.
Doesn't seem so bad.
I have a problem with the IRS, though.
That ruler I don't like so much.
There we go.
Done with the video.
Done with the podcast.
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