Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - Nick Fuentes Aired: 2019-10-10 Duration: 01:24:09 === From Libertarian to Paleoconservative (09:08) === [00:00:02] We need to roll back the state. [00:00:04] We spy on all of our own citizens. [00:00:06] Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders. [00:00:09] If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now. [00:00:15] Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big. [00:00:27] What is up, everybody? [00:00:29] Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. [00:00:33] It's Wednesday, Wednesday, one-on-ones, and our guest this week is Nick Fuentes. [00:00:39] He is the host of America First. [00:00:41] You can check it out on YouTube. [00:00:44] There were a lot of people on Twitter who are very excited for this podcast. [00:00:48] So I'm very excited to have Nick on. [00:00:50] How are you, sir? [00:00:51] Thank you for coming on the show. [00:00:53] I'm doing well. [00:00:54] Thanks for having me. [00:00:55] Yeah, I'm excited to be here as well. [00:00:57] All right. [00:00:58] So my guess is I've seen a few of your shows, and I watched in the last couple days. [00:01:05] Well, I had watched you on Molyneux a little while back, and I saw your debate with Adam Kokesh, which was a debate for like the first half of the show. [00:01:15] And then the second half, I think, was just, I don't know, a cipher of some sorts. [00:01:21] And I've watched a couple of your clips. [00:01:23] And my guess is going in that me and you would have large areas of agreement and large areas of disagreement as well. [00:01:29] So I think we can get into all of that. [00:01:31] But for anyone who listens to my show, for my audience, who's not familiar with you, how would you describe your politics, your views? [00:01:41] I would describe myself as a paleoconservative. [00:01:44] I know that you are a libertarian. [00:01:46] I used to be a libertarian for a long time in high school and college. [00:01:51] But then I really started to see that demographics and things like order are a lot more important than political liberty or the size of government. [00:02:00] So I started to read Samuel Francis, people like Paul Gottfried, among others, Patrick Buchanan. [00:02:07] And so now I basically describe myself as a paleoconservative. [00:02:10] Okay, interesting. [00:02:12] I like that term. [00:02:13] I don't hear a lot of young people using the term paleoconservative. [00:02:17] I'm happy that's making a comeback. [00:02:18] And that's interesting because I consider myself to be pretty much a Rothbardian. [00:02:24] And Murray Rothbard and the paleoconservatives really forged an alliance. [00:02:28] And I've always thought of people like Pat Buchanan and Paul Gottfried as kind of fellow travelers, maybe not ANCAP libertarians like myself, but in many ways, people who were concerned with smashing the current order. [00:02:43] One of their big goals was to dismantle the managerial state, which I'd imagine we both agree with that. [00:02:52] I would take it you're also probably opposed to the warfare state, which is pretty much my biggest issue. [00:03:00] Yes, yes, absolutely. [00:03:01] We are on my show. [00:03:03] I'm very non-interventionist. [00:03:04] Yeah, very good. [00:03:05] Isolationist, sir. [00:03:07] Just like the, was it Lindsey Graham said the other day, the Obama libertarian foreign policy. [00:03:13] We've already seen what non-intervention gets you. [00:03:16] Did you see Trump tweeted today? [00:03:18] He went on a whole Twitter tangent about how crazy all the wars in the Middle East are and we've killed all these people and spent all this money. [00:03:26] And it's quite entertaining to watch left-wing people who hate Donald Trump trying to have a problem with that. [00:03:32] And they're like, well, he's just. [00:03:34] I did see that. [00:03:35] He just wants to line his own pockets. [00:03:39] Well, it's just so funny because like 20 years ago, these were all the anti-war people and all the same arguments that they made about, you know, what George W. Bush was doing in Iraq and with regime change and the war on terror, they've completely done a 180. [00:03:52] And I think nobody seems to notice that. [00:03:55] Yeah. [00:03:55] And to be fair, there's also a 180 on the other side where now all of a sudden, like, you know, Sean Hannity is this great skeptic of the FBI and the CIA. [00:04:05] And the funniest thing I've heard in cable news over the last few years was when the Peter Strzzok text messages about how they were trying to bring Donald Trump down came out. [00:04:14] And Sean Hannity said on his show, he goes, for the first time in American history, the FBI has become politicized. [00:04:22] And you're like, yes. [00:04:24] It's been nothing but just, you know, good, good Christians trying to bring a better world about until five minutes ago. [00:04:32] That's exactly when the FBI got corrupted. [00:04:35] So for people who don't know, the paleoconservatives, I think, much like Murray Rothbard, kind of their origins were really with the old right, the pre-World War II right, the kind of Robert Taft Republicans who were basically for limited government, free market capitalism. [00:04:55] They wanted strict immigration controls, and they didn't want any part of this global governance nonsense. [00:05:00] I mean, Robert Taft didn't want to be in NATO, didn't it hated the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations. [00:05:08] And so I'd imagine that's you kind of have those type of roots. [00:05:12] Exactly, exactly right. [00:05:16] So I'm curious, what, I'm not trying to, you know, psychoanalyze you or anything, but I'm curious, like as a young person today, what made you a paleoconservative? [00:05:26] Because that doesn't seem like the easiest route for a young guy today. [00:05:31] It'd be much easier to be, you know, like a, I don't know, well, a lefty, a socialist, or if you're going to be on the, you know, Republican side, you'd be like a Steven Crowder type kind of, what's it? [00:05:45] What's that? [00:05:46] Young Americans for Liberty or something like that. [00:05:48] So where did you become a, what led you to this? [00:05:52] That's a pretty good question. [00:05:53] Yeah. [00:05:54] You know, I've never really been a leftist. [00:05:56] A lot of people have always asked me, have you ever been a communist or a leftist? [00:06:00] Because you hear a lot of stories about people that might originate as radical leftists or communists when they're young. [00:06:05] And gradually over time, when they mature, they become more conservative. [00:06:09] You know, it's that expression about if you're not a liberal when you're 20, you don't have a heart. [00:06:14] If you're not a conservative, when you're 40, you don't have a brain, whatever. [00:06:17] But I was never really a leftist. [00:06:19] I think I always saw that this egalitarian tolerance type stuff was basically flawed. [00:06:26] And so like I told you, I started out as a libertarian. [00:06:28] I really got into politics actually by watching an interview on uncommon knowledge with Thomas Sowell. [00:06:34] I don't know. [00:06:34] You must be familiar with this. [00:06:36] When I was in eighth grade, I watched Uncommon Knowledge and Thomas Sowell is on there discussing how the economy has the ability to heal itself and talking about spontaneous order and things like this. [00:06:48] And I started to go on YouTube and I saw Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman and Walter Williams and these kinds of people. [00:06:55] And so I was a very much like a conservatarian for a long time. [00:06:59] But really during the election, I do believe it was the campaign of Donald Trump that started to show me maybe the areas where libertarianism fell short of the mark a little bit. [00:07:10] You know, I think a lot of people have talked about how Donald Trump is maybe the fulfillment of what Sam Francis was talking about in the 1990s. [00:07:18] I've recently been reading a lot of his essays in this book called Revolution from the Middle. [00:07:24] And really the resemblance is uncanny between what they were saying back in the 1980s and 1990s, what Donald Trump was saying in 2016 about demographics, about political globalism, about, and he doesn't articulate it in the best like political vocabulary, but in intuitive and instinctive ways, articulating a lot of the same things. [00:07:45] So gradually, hearing from Donald Trump and hearing from a lot of these like alt-light, alt-right figures during the election, I think it really sort of made me less of a libertarian and brought me more towards, like you said, that more pre-war conservative, Mr. Republican, Robert Taft sort of perspective. [00:08:04] So it was a long journey, but it took me a long time to get here. [00:08:08] And now I would say paleoconservative is the best fit. [00:08:12] And I think for Zoomers, for Generation Z in particular, it's probably the best answer for what we're seeing in the world. [00:08:18] Well, what was it particularly about libertarianism that you thought fell short of the, you know, to address the current problems? [00:08:27] So to me, I think what it was primarily was demographic change. [00:08:32] I like the one that changed my life as I saw this meme in 2016 where it showed, if only white people voted versus only black people or people of color voted, if only women voted and so on. [00:08:44] And I saw clearly there was a direct link between so-called identity politics, between these characteristics and how people vote. [00:08:53] And I think that says a lot about agency, about rationalism and politics, people making choices, equality, things like that. [00:09:01] And then another big formative moment was during, I think it was the day before the inauguration. [00:09:07] And I was in Boston University at the time. === Subverting Order with Identity Politics (02:59) === [00:09:10] And there was this big protest happening in the Boston Commons. [00:09:14] And Antifa was there. [00:09:15] There were maybe like 50 Antifa members there. [00:09:18] And I looked at them sort of like pillaging and running through the streets and vandalizing and very violent. [00:09:24] And I thought to myself, you know, this kind of thing just shouldn't be allowed. [00:09:28] In that moment, it sort of became very clear to me that the story of the world is the forces not between like liberty and tyranny, but between order and disorder. [00:09:39] And I said, well, we maybe just need the government to round these people up and put them in jail. [00:09:44] And it doesn't even really matter. [00:09:46] Well, have they violated the NAP property rights? [00:09:49] These people are subverting order. [00:09:52] And a lot of these left-wing type people, communists, Bolsheviks, whatever, I don't think you can ever convince them to come to our side, particularly women, who I think are less than rational. [00:10:02] If they take on these hardcore SJW type views, I don't think you'll ever have this like free and fair discussion where they come to our side and they agree with us. [00:10:11] But so long as they're out there, maybe agitating or whatever, they're going to be subverting and destroying traditional order. [00:10:19] And that is going to destroy the society eventually. [00:10:21] So I took a very like counter enlightenment sort of perspective at that point. [00:10:26] I didn't know it at the time, but that's really what it was. [00:10:28] And I said, it's about order and it's about demographics. [00:10:31] And this liberty stuff is sort of secondary. [00:10:34] Well, what's okay, I hear what you're saying. [00:10:36] And I certainly share a lot of the same concerns that you have. [00:10:41] All right, guys, let's take a second and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Blue Chew. [00:10:45] What a great sponsor for today's podcast, particularly. 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[00:11:31] Blue Chew gives you the confidence in the bedroom every time. [00:11:34] You and your partner will love it. [00:11:35] And here's a great deal for you guys. [00:11:37] If you visit BlueChew.com, you can get your first order for free when you use the promo code problem. [00:11:42] Just pay $5 shipping, but the first order is free. [00:11:46] So go to bluechew.com. [00:11:47] That's B-L-U-E Chew.com. [00:11:50] Promo code problem. [00:11:52] All right, let's get back into the show. [00:11:54] To me, if I think about from my perspective, what you're describing with seeing Antifa, I mean, what you're describing is certainly, you know, by disturbing the order, what you're saying is people who are violating property rights and the non-aggression principle, right? === Demographic Change and Survival (16:21) === [00:12:10] I mean, it doesn't seem to be that out of line with libertarianism. [00:12:14] It's like, yes, someone needs to deal with these guys. [00:12:16] And I certainly understand, being that we live in the statist world that we're in today, it's like, well, yeah, maybe the government, since they have a forced monopoly over the defense force, maybe they should be doing something. [00:12:27] And in many cases, not only are they looking the other way, I mean, they're straight, like in that Charlottesville thing, they're straight up leading people into crowds of Antifa. [00:12:37] It's not, so you have this agency that's monopolizing the defense force. [00:12:40] And not only are they not, are they doing like a bad job of it, they're actually in many times, in many instances, creating the conflict. [00:12:48] I mean, they're like, of course, I would agree that if people are out there destroying property, hitting people over the head with bike locks, all the stuff that we've all seen Antifa doing, yeah, those people need to be met with force. [00:13:00] That is the only way. [00:13:02] I would also add that, you know, it happens to pop into my mind that, wow, these people have probably been through quite a few years of government school and government propaganda. [00:13:12] And it's really something that they would end up being these, you know, fucking animals in a first world country behaving this way for quite often people who are really not even saying anything that radical. [00:13:24] So I guess I'm just not quite, I don't know exactly what the divergence from libertarianism is there or in what way we're disagreeing. [00:13:35] Yeah, I think maybe it's just who we attribute the fault of these things to, or maybe the responsibility for solving it. [00:13:42] I mean, you could interpret it that government's not doing its job and we have to contract out security forces or something like that. [00:13:50] But to me, the solution is just much more simple than that. [00:13:53] If we just gain control of the government, if we are just the ones wielding power, then we can just crush the people we don't like. [00:14:02] And it's not even so much just the people that are in the streets. [00:14:06] That's, I think, maybe the final iteration of it. [00:14:09] That's the ultimate consequence of what's been happening for like 60 years. [00:14:13] But the seeds have been planted much further back than that. [00:14:17] I think we just need to take the reins and shut all this stuff down before it begins. [00:14:23] And, you know, all this like permissiveness, all this idea of liberty and autonomy and everything, I think taken too far, you get this anarcho-tyranny type situation. [00:14:35] And the only solution for that is for us to get into the halls and corridors of power and to put a stop to it. [00:14:41] I just think it requires coercion. [00:14:43] And I just disagree with the idea that like voluntarist association is a better alternative for upholding order than the state. [00:14:51] Okay. [00:14:52] Well, I think that, you know, it's I certainly look, I agree with you on this. [00:14:57] And I recently spoke with the chairman of the Libertarian Party on my show. [00:15:02] And I was one of the things I was talking to him about was this, you know, he was going off on the evils of racism. [00:15:08] And I was like, well, what about all the anti-white racism that we see everywhere that just dominates culture? [00:15:13] And he was like, I don't know what you're talking about. [00:15:14] I haven't seen any anti-white race. [00:15:16] And which was, you know, and I ended up just like pulling up quotes and being like, imagine this was black instead of white. [00:15:22] I mean, come on, you would be calling this racist. [00:15:23] And I do think, given that as a libertarian, I think it's something like over 90% of libertarians in America are white. [00:15:34] And white people are the only demographic that a majority, although a very slim majority, prefers smaller government to bigger government. [00:15:42] It doesn't really seem to make a lot of strategic sense to me to go along with bashing white people. [00:15:48] I mean, I could understand strategically saying I want to bring other people on board, but to just like, if you have one group that kind of agrees with you and you're like, man, that group really sucks, that just seems like bad strategy. [00:15:59] So I agree with that. [00:16:00] In terms of what you're saying about other voting groups, I absolutely agree with you that that is a big problem. [00:16:07] It's probably the biggest problem with the demographic changes, as far as I'm concerned, is that like the way that they vote. [00:16:15] But again, I'm just saying I think the essence of the problem there is that they're voting for bigger government. [00:16:20] And to say we're going to take over the government in order to squash those people, I mean, maybe seems like a dangerous game. [00:16:27] Seems like a game that you're probably not going to win, given that the demographics are not in your favor. [00:16:34] Yeah, that's true. [00:16:35] And that's really the essence of the struggle right now is that the Democrats are obviously importing the voters, Republicans too. [00:16:41] And I'm sure you know this for cheap labor and everything. [00:16:45] But it even goes beyond that. [00:16:46] I mean, it's not simply that the people that have come into the country are supporting big government. [00:16:51] Honestly, even if they were coming in and supporting smaller government, I still wouldn't want them here, you know, because initially that's how it started out for me, the transformation from libertarian to paleo-conservative is I said, well, they're going to come here and they're going to vote to abolish the Second Amendment and put in hate speech laws and expand the state. [00:17:11] You know, because I was looking at all this like Pew Research data and maybe you're familiar with this as well. [00:17:17] Like you said, they don't support small government. [00:17:19] Minorities, or it's not really fair to call minorities or non-whites, but they also don't support gun rights. [00:17:25] They also don't support free speech. [00:17:27] They don't support an originalist interpretation of the Constitution. [00:17:30] It's only white people who support any of these things. [00:17:32] And so initially that was my concern. [00:17:34] I was like a Ted Cruz, constitutionalist, conservative. [00:17:38] But I said, you know, look, I mean, these people are going to change the landscape forever. [00:17:42] At least at a transitional level, we have to mind the demographics. [00:17:47] Maybe we need to assimilate these people. [00:17:49] Maybe eventually we could take more people. [00:17:51] But at least for now, if we want to have small governments, non-whites voting in large numbers is not really going to get us there. [00:17:58] And then gradually it starts to think, well, you know, maybe the problem is not that non-whites are our ultimate end, which is small government, but, you know, maybe them being here in large numbers and making white people a minority in this land is perhaps not something that's the best in itself. [00:18:15] Maybe that's causing problems in itself. [00:18:17] And so then, you know, I totally redirected my perspective from, you know, just like consequentially in favor of government, you know, from like a consequentialist perspective to, you know, maybe just by virtue of itself, demographic changes are bringing bad things. [00:18:33] So, you know, I would agree that maybe the ultimate end was small government, like using big government to prevent. [00:18:39] I mean, do you see where that would probably be contradictory? [00:18:42] But I think now at this point, I would say that just demographic change in itself has a host of problems. [00:18:48] And maybe them voting for like some kind of authoritarian managerial status is just one among many consequences. [00:18:56] But why would, I mean, look, I understand what you're saying, and I'm sympathetic to some of it. [00:19:01] But would, I mean, the idea of if you were to keep demographics the same, but you had some authoritarian, horrible big government. [00:19:08] I mean, there's been plenty of societies that you or I would not want to live in that had all of the demographics that you liked and precisely because they had these big authoritarian governments. [00:19:17] I mean, you wouldn't want to be in like, I don't know, the Ukraine during the Soviet Union or something like that. [00:19:23] You know, and you could say, oh, well, look, we have all these demographics that are, you know, what you're looking for. [00:19:29] But isn't the point? [00:19:30] I mean, I can sympathize with, look, this is going to change the culture that I want to have. [00:19:36] This is going to change the governing style, the governance that I want to have. [00:19:39] But if it's just demographics for the sake of demographics, who cares if there's a genocide? [00:19:44] I mean, that wouldn't seem like a society you'd want to be a part of, right? [00:19:49] That's true. [00:19:49] Yeah, I wouldn't want to be in a society where there's genocide, but I think people are starting to recognize that, you know, there are many horrible things that can happen to a civilization, whether it be like Ukrainian style genocide, mass starvation, or a totalitarian government coming to power. [00:20:07] But when we look at Eastern Europe, and this is really what woke me up on this, for what it's worth, a country like Poland remains Poland, even though it endured almost a century of communism. [00:20:18] And Poland as a country didn't even exist on a map for a long time, right? [00:20:23] I mean, it was Germany and Russia, the German, the Russian Empire. [00:20:26] They survived all of this. [00:20:28] And maybe a lot of people died and people did die and there was a lot of suffering. [00:20:32] And I don't mean to minimize that. [00:20:34] But after so much tragedy and suffering, they have come out on the other end and they remain Poland. [00:20:40] I don't see that as an outcome where demographic change continues. [00:20:44] You know, you look at, for example, like Zimbabwe, which used to be Rhodesia. [00:20:48] Now, that settlement, that European settlement in Zimbabwe did not survive demographic change. [00:20:54] The Boers in South Africa are not going to survive demographic change. [00:20:58] You could argue that if some totalitarian government came into power in South Africa and there were terrible things that happened, but the end, you still had a powerful, you know, white government there. [00:21:10] They would still survive. [00:21:12] Whereas the demographic change or the reversal of apartheid, not going to survive that. [00:21:17] And I see something similar happening in the United States where, you know, say we had a totalitarian government. [00:21:22] It'd be awful. [00:21:23] But eventually maybe things would change. [00:21:25] We get out the other side. [00:21:27] But I see across Europe and across the Western world, so-called Western world, Canada, the United States, Australia, we're being snuffed out in terms of birth rates and in terms of demographics. [00:21:38] I just don't think that's something to recover from. [00:21:41] All right. [00:21:41] Well, I guess what I would disagree with you on is the idea that living, and I'm not being hyperbolic, just saying a genocidal society. [00:21:48] We're talking about societies that went through genocides, mass starvation. [00:21:52] I mean, I don't think that that's better than unfettered immigration. [00:21:58] I mean, I certainly think there's a lot of problems with immigration and demographic changes, but the idea that like you would just watch your wife and child starve to death or be slaughtered is, I mean, you know, like your race might survive. [00:22:10] But that for me, as someone with a wife and a child, would not be like a trade-off that I'd be willing to make. [00:22:16] I would rather deal with all of the problems of being a minority than watching my wife and child die. [00:22:23] Aside from that, what do you see as the issues that are really driving immigration? [00:22:30] Because to me, or the problematic immigration, the demographic changes that you reject. [00:22:36] Because I don't know that you would be like, maybe you would, correct me if I'm wrong, but 100% closed borders, like no single immigrant could ever come. [00:22:43] But what we're talking about in America today, in Europe today, are massive demographic changes. [00:22:48] And the way I see it is that, look, this is not something. [00:22:51] And I actually heard you talk about this in one of your videos. [00:22:53] So I know you agree with this. [00:22:54] This is not something that anybody would have, anybody, but this is not something that majorities would have voted for had they known the outcome of this. [00:23:02] It's very hard to convince me that in 1965, America, who was, you know, had segregation instituted a year earlier or whatever, was going to say, yeah, let's be a majority Hispanic nation. [00:23:15] We sign up for that. [00:23:16] So certainly democratically, they wouldn't have voted that way, but neither of us are huge fans of democracy. [00:23:22] I am, however, a big fan of property rights. [00:23:24] And I think that inherent to property rights is the right to exclude somebody from your property. [00:23:31] And also, I'm a fan of freedom of association. [00:23:33] You have the right to discriminate against somebody. [00:23:35] Say, hey, I don't want to rent this apartment to you. [00:23:37] I don't want to rent this. [00:23:38] I don't want to hire you at my job. [00:23:40] What we currently have is a system where freedom of association is straight up outlawed. [00:23:47] You'll be ruined if you discriminate. [00:23:50] Private property rights are violated in every sense that they could be violated. [00:23:55] We have a giant welfare state that attracts a lot of the people you don't really want to immigrate to your society to come in. [00:24:02] And in the case of Europe, I certainly think that a lot of, you know, between George W. Bush and Barack Obama destroying seven different countries, creating complete, you know, instability has, I mean, certainly added to the problem of migrants into Europe. [00:24:17] So from my perspective, even if I can, and I do sympathize with a lot of your concerns, I see so much of this as being the problem of the state. [00:24:25] What I'm saying is, come back, Nick Fuentes. [00:24:27] Come back to the light. [00:24:30] Yeah, I mean, the thing is, is that I maybe in like in an ideal society, I would agree with you. [00:24:38] You know, maybe if it was like 50 years ago, I would agree with you that we just need freedom of association or we just need a reduction in the size of government. [00:24:46] But I see the government as the only way that we can solve these problems. [00:24:50] You know, when I think about how we can maybe prevent immigration or prevent a lot of these terrible things that are what I see as imminent, I think that the idea that we're going to dismantle the state as it exists and put up this, I don't know, some kind of voluntarist, anarcho-capitalist order. [00:25:09] I see that as such a stretch, you know, and so like theoretical and ahistorical. [00:25:15] And so the idea that we would have to like first dismantle the conception of the state and then stop these people from coming here, to me, it's like that first part is never going to happen. [00:25:28] Maybe it can happen, but I think that ultimately we have to think about political expediency and power and pragmatism in the world as it is, not in the world as we'd like it to be. [00:25:39] So ultimately, it sort of came down to that. [00:25:42] And I'm not in favor of like a total, people say this all the time. [00:25:46] Nick is a avowed advocate of a white ethno-state. [00:25:50] Like I've never said that. [00:25:51] Avowed, people must not know what that means, you know, but maybe we could have some immigration. [00:25:57] Maybe we could have some high-skilled immigration. [00:25:59] For example, like Japan. [00:26:01] Japan doesn't say we're not going to take anybody, but they're not going to import so many people that it's going to change the fundamental demographic character of the country. [00:26:10] America was never 100% white. [00:26:12] You could argue that during the founding it was 100% white because I think it was 20% black and blacks are technically not considered in the same way as white people. [00:26:22] But in terms of people, the country is 20% non-white at the founding. [00:26:26] It was 10% non-white in the 60s, which was, I think, the smallest percentage. [00:26:31] So I would say that we would never say, not a single person can ever come here, but we do want to have policies that make sure that the people, the stock that are here can perpetuate the kind of lifestyle, the kind of culture and civilization that the founders intended, that the founders created. [00:26:48] So like I'm Italian, Mexican, and Irish. [00:26:51] I can't really relate to Anglos and George Washington and all this, but largely speaking, European immigrants have been able to take on this mythology of the founding fathers and assimilate ourselves into the story of the country and the relatively Anglo-Protestant character of the country. [00:27:08] I don't see these other people doing that. [00:27:11] And on the question of genocide versus immigration, just to kind of bring it back to that, just for a moment, I would say that I actually agree with you that Ukrainian genocide would be worse than immigration in this moment. [00:27:23] Like, would I prefer to live in America where the demographics are changing and it's like 59.9% white or would I prefer to live under Stalin? [00:27:32] I probably prefer to live under the former speaking just in terms of the immediacy of right now in this situation. [00:27:39] But I think that we all recognize that probably the threat of demographic displacement and maybe some kind of ultimate wiping out of our bloodlines is probably a much more pressing threat than some kind of you bringing in style totalitarian genocide, at least as I see it in 2019. [00:27:55] If it was a question between Stalin and immigration tomorrow. [00:28:01] That might be a tough one for me. [00:28:02] Maybe I'd go for the immigration. [00:28:04] But I think that people see that immigration is happening now. [00:28:07] It's been happening for 50 years. [00:28:09] And this libertarian sort of fear mongering about Venezuela, socialism in America, it just doesn't seem like a very pressing thing. [00:28:19] And like I said, if we are to think about it universally and in terms of the big picture, maybe over generations and centuries, I think as a people, we're going to survive clearly one and not the other. === Anarcho-Capitalist Immigration Views (03:05) === [00:28:31] Okay. [00:28:32] All right. [00:28:32] You've said a lot there. [00:28:33] And I want to try to respond to several points that you made. [00:28:37] So the first thing I would say is that being an anarcho-capitalist, at least from my perspective, the way it is, is not saying, well, the first thing we have to do is convince everybody to dissolve the state and then we can worry about all these other issues. [00:28:49] I agree with you. [00:28:50] That would be somewhat of a fairy tale. [00:28:52] But even as you kind of acknowledge, well, yes, maybe in an ideal society, this would be the best. [00:28:57] The only thing I'm saying is that this probably would be the ideal way to organize society. [00:29:02] We're probably not going to get there tomorrow. [00:29:04] But hey, look, I mean, I don't know, you're a paleoconservative and I look on TV and see transgender, you know, six-year-olds being celebrated. [00:29:12] We're probably not going to get to your society tomorrow either. [00:29:15] So to just dismiss something as like, well, it won't be there tomorrow, we could dismiss either one of our views that way. [00:29:20] I'm simply saying that if the state, which it clearly is, is responsible for all of these problems that you're outlining, maybe we should try to roll that back. [00:29:28] Maybe the way to, I mean, look, I'm all for some practical intermediate solution. [00:29:34] Like, look, I would be very much for voter ID laws. [00:29:37] I think that's a really good idea to start with. [00:29:39] Like, let's at least limit who gets to vote. [00:29:41] Let's end, you know, chain migration or things like that. [00:29:44] Like, I'm all for that. [00:29:47] So I think it's a little bit of a fun. [00:29:49] Now, I know there are some anarcho-capitalists who you've debated before who would just say like, well, now we'll just end the whole government tomorrow. [00:29:57] And that'll be, I agree that that is a ridiculous, impractical solution to our current problems. [00:30:03] All right, guys, let's take a quick second and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Heshy Sox. [00:30:08] You can grab a pair over at Heshisocks.com. [00:30:12] These are the best socks I've ever owned. [00:30:14] I'm wearing a pair right now as we speak. [00:30:17] Whether you're going for a hike or a ride or you're at the gym, if you're just hanging out at home, whatever you're doing, Heshy Socks are going to keep your feet as comfortable and stink-free as possible. [00:30:27] The most comfortable kick-ass fashion socks for work or play, that's what you can grab over at Heshisocks.com. [00:30:35] They're the best socks I've ever owned. 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[00:31:18] Stop buying overpriced socks at the mall, buying them off some inferior site that sells socks that fall apart after a couple of washes. [00:31:25] Go to Heshisocks.com. [00:31:26] Let them know you're with us. [00:31:28] Use promo code problem30. [00:31:30] Get 30% off. [00:31:31] You're going to thank me for this one. [00:31:32] HeshySox.com, promo code problem30. [00:31:35] All right, let's get back into the show. === Theoretical Systems and Dystopia (15:59) === [00:31:37] When you talk about the fear that we're going to be Venezuela or the fear that we're going to be Stalin, yes, okay, I grant you that demographic changes are happening and we're not living under Joseph Stalin right now. [00:31:51] But I don't know. [00:31:52] I mean, if you're talking about the size and scope of government right now, you're talking about a country that is, I mean, the entire economy right now is on a house of cards. [00:32:00] This is all just nonsense built off debt and artificially low interest rates in this crazy banker politician run country. [00:32:10] You have one party who is all in on democratic socialism. [00:32:14] The democratic part could be dropped very quickly. [00:32:16] They're openly talking about taking people's guns away. [00:32:19] Meanwhile, you have the most militarized government ever, ever. [00:32:24] I mean, the Department of Education has a SWAT team. [00:32:27] The EPA has a SWAT team. [00:32:28] The idea that you would be like, hey, this is actually a pretty big concern, that this government could go full-on tyrannical at any minute. [00:32:36] I don't actually think is that crazy. [00:32:38] In fact, I think it's a very legitimate concern. [00:32:43] Yeah. [00:32:44] So, are you finished, by the way? [00:32:46] Yes, yes, yes. [00:32:46] Go ahead. [00:32:47] Okay. [00:32:48] So, to address the first point about, well, if transgender six-year-olds are not going to get, you know, that's not going to stop tomorrow. [00:32:57] And, you know, well, then therefore it's the same as ANCAP not happening tomorrow. [00:33:01] I would say that I disagree with the premise that these are the same in the sense that there weren't transgender six-year-olds being promoted like five years ago or 10 years ago or whatever. [00:33:11] You know, so we could very clearly see that for large stretches of history and very recently, the kind of society I'm talking about existed and was mainstream and was possible. [00:33:22] You know, the grand scheme of things relative to the long history of Europe and Western civilization, this like democratic, secular, postmodern order is relatively new. [00:33:34] You know, the Enlightenment only happened a few centuries ago. [00:33:38] So I would say that to say that, well, because one cannot happen tomorrow and the other cannot happen tomorrow, that they're equally illusory or maybe fairy tale-like, I would say is not true because I don't think we can find an example of a stateless society in our history in the last 500 years, 1,000 years. [00:33:56] Maybe you know better. [00:33:57] I asked Adam Kokesh about this, whether there ever was a stateless society like the kind that we're talking about that's based on contracts and property rights and these kinds of things. [00:34:06] And I don't know, maybe you can educate me if that's ever happened, but I don't think there's ever been something like this. [00:34:12] And certainly, I don't know if it would be possible in industrial technological society after the nation state. [00:34:18] I just think that, you know, clearly one was possible and was here and was mainstream five years ago, which is my vision. [00:34:25] And maybe we know at the bare minimum that it's possible for human beings to live in an order like this eventually again. [00:34:32] But a stateless society, I don't know if there's ever an example. [00:34:35] And if there is, it seems to me anomalous. [00:34:37] And like I said, it seems to me a bit ahistorical. [00:34:40] You know, maybe we could shrink government, but can we eliminate the state and live off of these like security administrations and people contracting it out? [00:34:49] I don't know if that's ever happened. [00:34:50] And that's point number one. [00:34:51] Point number two about tyranny. [00:34:54] I would basically agree with you. [00:34:55] The idea that the government has the surveillance state and the government is militarized and the Democrats are talking about seizing guns. [00:35:04] I basically agree with you that tyranny is probably an imminent threat. [00:35:07] I basically agree with you that, you know, if you are really sort of reading between the lines, it's not so far-fetched to say that we'll end up in some dystopic, authoritarian country very quickly. [00:35:18] I will say, though, that, you know, the idea that it would be on the level of like a Joseph Stalin or like the Soviet Union, I think that's probably hyperbolic. [00:35:27] You know, I think that was probably a very unique time in history, unique to communist ideology. [00:35:34] You know, particularly the famines in Ukraine was driven by, I just read this biography about Stalin, about how that was, I mean, like ideological Marxism, the mass collectivization of farms in spite of the starvation or maybe using the starvation as a tool of political control. [00:35:49] I mean, it's a very, in other words, just a very specific and particular thing. [00:35:52] I think if we had a tyranny in America, I mean, it would be bad. [00:35:56] Don't get me wrong. [00:35:57] But maybe it would resemble a banana republic in Latin American countries. [00:36:01] Maybe it would resemble maybe what's happening in China. [00:36:04] And I'm not saying that like, again, to minimize what's happening there. [00:36:08] But again, I think if you look between an authoritarian period in our time and our entire people getting stuffed out and the world basically descending into primitivism, barbarism, never to return, I think clearly one faith for our people to have a sort of collective consciousness about humanity or about our race. [00:36:28] One outcome is obviously worse than the other. [00:36:30] Because like, you know, again, we talk about demographic change, I don't think the world ever recovers from that. [00:36:36] I think, and I don't know if you're comfortable with this, but once you get into average IQ, once you get into the idea of some people and some civilizations are more exceptional than others, it's really not ambiguous that the demographic change that's happening on a global scale in the next 100 years is going to all but eliminate a future for mankind, I think, in the stars or even having written language or anything like that. [00:37:00] I think skyscrapers are coming down. [00:37:02] They're never going to be built again. [00:37:04] Cathedrals, art, the whole nine yards, it's all going away. [00:37:07] And, you know, maybe these are two competing alarmist visions of Stalinism versus the fear of a black planet or something like that. [00:37:14] But, you know, I think one outcome, there's been authoritarianism before. [00:37:19] It's bad. [00:37:19] We've always survived it, or in most cases. [00:37:22] The demographic change, I think, would be a million years of darkness if that happened. [00:37:27] Well, listen, I'm not uncomfortable going into the race and IQ conversation. [00:37:31] You're talking to an Ashkenazi Jew. [00:37:33] I would dominate this conversation, please. [00:37:36] Unless you want to pull an East Asian out of your ass. [00:37:38] I'll go there all day. [00:37:41] Well, listen, I certainly, I think that's an interesting point. [00:37:45] And there's no topics that are off-limit. [00:37:47] I would say that, look, look, there probably has never been an anarcho-capitalist society that's ever existed. [00:37:55] It is in many ways theoretical. [00:37:59] Although the truth is that I think that lots of things that turned out to be the greatest systems ever were theoretical until they were introduced. [00:38:07] I don't need to convince everybody to be an anarcho-capitalist, but I do want to convince people that we need to move in the direction of smashing the state and that that is our best goal to reduce it as much as we possibly can. [00:38:19] And also to realize that a lot of what the people like yourself, what you detest about modern society is a direct result of the fact that we live under the biggest state that's ever existed, the most powerful state that's ever existed in mankind's history. [00:38:35] Now, what you said, the point you made about transgender children, I mean, look, I was just using that as an example. [00:38:40] And you're right. [00:38:40] That is the latest iteration of this crazy social degeneracy that's going on all around us. [00:38:47] But to say that five years ago, you had the paleoconservative order that you wanted. [00:38:53] I mean, look, as a child of the 90s, believe me, the paleoconservatives were not particularly happy with the system that we had then. [00:39:00] And there's a reason why this current order has followed that one. [00:39:04] Look, as a paleoconservative, you're against the New Deal. [00:39:09] You probably hate Woodrow Wilson. [00:39:11] You're like me. [00:39:11] We got to go back a long time before you're going to find the seeds of what we're fighting against. [00:39:17] And even back then, there were a million problems. [00:39:20] So I agree. [00:39:21] But we're all kind of looking for a new future, a new way forward. [00:39:26] We're talking about with, say, for example, the transgender children or just the culture that you reject so much. [00:39:34] And look, I'm somebody who was pretty degenerate in my teens and 20s. [00:39:43] It enjoyed a lot of debauchery. [00:39:46] And at this point in my life, I'm in my mid-30s. [00:39:49] I'm a husband. [00:39:49] I'm a father. [00:39:50] I live a much more traditional lifestyle than I used to. [00:39:53] And I'm the first to say to the young men who listen to my show: better. [00:39:58] It is a better way to go. [00:40:00] There is more meaning, more purpose, more happiness in life. [00:40:03] So I am sympathetic to people who criticize the culture. [00:40:07] And I think it's a travesty that degeneracy and decadence is promoted so much to young people. [00:40:14] And there's no type of like family values, traditional values, which I really do think are just a better way to organize society and a more, not even more, the only sustainable way to organize society. [00:40:29] One of the things that I find about, like when I listen to your views, one of the things that I think is in conflict is that this degeneracy and the state being so large are directly related. [00:40:46] I mean, they're almost inseparable. [00:40:48] So in other words, by being a statist, the very nature of the state, especially a large government, is taxing from productive and giving to the unproductive. [00:40:58] The whole consumer economy that we live in is the stated goal of the Keynesians. [00:41:04] It's not like this is a secret. [00:41:05] These are their policies are intended to promote consumerism. [00:41:10] And in many ways, I mean, they may not state this part of it, but the policies directly incentivize breaking up family units. [00:41:19] And, you know, they discourage everything that you're for. [00:41:22] Do you agree with that or would you disagree? [00:41:25] No, I would agree with that. [00:41:27] Okay, fair enough. [00:41:28] Yeah, I will. [00:41:29] I'll say this. [00:41:31] So to get to your first point about the transgender five-year-olds, all I mean to say is that the kinds of things that the paleoconservatives are talking about are proven systems. [00:41:43] We want to return. [00:41:44] And maybe it can take new forms. [00:41:46] Obviously, technology, communications, transportation, meaningful things have changed. [00:41:52] Where are we going to get a monarchy again? [00:41:54] Are we going to live in like a code of chivalry again? [00:41:57] I don't know about that. [00:41:58] But the kinds of systems and virtues and principles we're talking about are proven possible, if not 10 years ago. [00:42:05] You're right. [00:42:06] I mean, 10 years ago is not the paleoconservative vision. [00:42:09] But, you know, 300 years ago, maybe that's the paleo-conservative vision. [00:42:13] Maybe that's the last time you could say that paleoconservatism was being practiced or some form of traditionalist conservatism, right? [00:42:22] In other words, it's possible. [00:42:23] And like you admitted, the ANCAP sort of system probably never has. [00:42:28] And I'm somebody that's fundamentally against the idea of progress that there are new things that can be tried and people are going to improve and become more enlightened. [00:42:39] I mean, people's nature is basically the same or perhaps cyclical. [00:42:43] And this requires a return to tradition rather than new systems and enlightened higher consciousness, this kind of stuff. [00:42:52] And then the second way about government promoting degeneracy, I would agree that the government does have a hand in that. [00:42:58] It's only, I think, been very recently revealed that the CIA was funding like postmodern art and a lot of like rock and roll music and movies and things like that. [00:43:07] But generally speaking, I think it's really more just like the momentum of the society that's driving this. [00:43:13] You know, libertarians talk about the spontaneous order and people voting with their dollar and things like this. [00:43:18] And I think you would, I think you would probably agree as well that I don't think it's just the state or exclusively the state, or maybe even primarily the state that's driving a lot of these things. [00:43:29] I think, you know, maybe passions and desires have a momentum about themselves. [00:43:34] And in the absence of people sort of guarding against them, maybe that's the natural tendency of a society is towards degeneration. [00:43:41] I think even Rousseau wrote about this in the social contract that it's natural for societies to degenerate. [00:43:48] And, you know, this has happened in a lot of civilizations and countries and empires in history. [00:43:53] You know, perhaps the state has a role in preventing that. [00:43:57] You know, you might say that, well, the state using welfare to incentivize broken families is the state causing degeneracy, therefore dismantled the state. [00:44:05] I would say if the state is incentivizing degeneracy by rewarding single motherhood, my solution would be the state should reward marriage. [00:44:13] The state should reward having children, you know, like you're doing in Hungary, where many kids you have. [00:44:20] So I would say that the state should be social engineering, but just in the right direction. [00:44:25] If the state is so powerful, let's use the state to force the population to conform to what we know is virtuous. [00:44:33] Okay, well, I would say I would not be opposed to a tax credit for anything. [00:44:37] So anything that's reducing taxes, that's less taxation, I'm fine with that form of incentive. [00:44:42] So that I wouldn't disagree with. [00:44:44] But the state, by its very nature, is going to tax production and incentivize non-production. [00:44:53] There's no getting around that. [00:44:54] I mean, that is kind of the nature of the state, or at least by any, you know, if you want to talk about historical examples, by any example ever of a modern nation state, it's going to be taxing the productive and funding the non-productive. [00:45:09] I mean, that's the nature of what they do. [00:45:11] So I don't know that you can get around that. [00:45:13] Although, look, a tax credit for families, particularly as a father, I would not be opposed to that policy. [00:45:18] I would probably endorse that full stop. [00:45:21] Now, look, it's possible that the degenerating of a culture is somewhat inevitable. [00:45:27] If that's the case, then we're both screwed. [00:45:29] Then, you know what I mean? [00:45:30] Like these arguments are all kind of just intellectual exercises. [00:45:33] Hopefully that's not the case. [00:45:35] Either way, you know, we're powerless if it is. [00:45:38] So we might as well hope that it's not. [00:45:41] But I would say that there is, from my perspective, from the anarcho-capitalist perspective, the reason why we got here from whether you want to call it a paleoconservative era, I think you could certainly call it a minarchist era, the founding of the nation. [00:45:58] I mean, certainly there were lots of chains and restrictions on government. [00:46:03] I mean, the Bill of Rights is all but basically ignored today, but the founders seem to be pretty serious about limiting the powers of government and checks and balances. [00:46:12] But it does seem like what's inevitable to me from that is a tremendous amount of prosperity, as free markets tend to bring. [00:46:20] And after that, a larger and larger government. [00:46:23] So perhaps that's the trend that we're on now. [00:46:26] As by the way, you see both of those things happening, right? [00:46:28] Like more and more prosperity and a larger and larger government. [00:46:32] Do you think there's anything to that? [00:46:34] Yeah, I think there's something to that. [00:46:36] I think there's definitely a link between prosperity and government. [00:46:40] You know, I think it's no secret that decadent societies that came before us, you know, empires and Milton Friedman always give the example of Great Britain, you know, where they were, they had what was it, government spending was 10% of, you know, GDP during the, what was it, the diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria. [00:47:00] I remember all these old lectures he used to give. [00:47:02] And, you know, that was an example of how, you know, the free market was responsible for all this prosperity. [00:47:07] And now obviously there's big government. [00:47:10] But I would say that really it's not even just the big government that's a problem. [00:47:14] It's big business too. [00:47:16] And you might say, well, that's because of cronyism. [00:47:20] If big corporations are a problem, if big monopolies are a problem, well, the government creates all monopolies. [00:47:27] No monopolies are possible in a free market or something like that, you know? [00:47:32] Or if there are big corporations abusing the country, they're enabled by the government. === Corporate Power vs Big Government (10:17) === [00:47:37] I would say the corporations are pretty powerful. [00:47:39] Google, Facebook, all these different companies. [00:47:42] And yeah, in those cases, in particular, there is a union between the market and the government. [00:47:48] I talk about on my show all the time. [00:47:50] It's only by virtue of the section 230 protections in the CDA, the Communications Decency Act, that Google, Facebook, and all the rest are protected in some way from competition. [00:48:00] So I get all that. [00:48:02] And you might say, like a communist might, that's not the real free markets. [00:48:07] But these powerful corporations that are hurting us and abusing us, they're not the results of the real free market. [00:48:13] And I would say that these theoretical concepts of a pure free market, a true free market, it's the same thing with communism. [00:48:23] I think it basically ignores that on a fundamental human level, there are these realities about consolidation of power, you know, and the reality of power in a human society. [00:48:35] You know, can we get to a point where the people with lots and lots and lots of money are not going to have a lot of influence over the society? [00:48:44] Are we to get to a place where, you know, whether you're private or public, that these things really matter? [00:48:49] I mean, they all get together at the meetings. [00:48:51] They all get together at, you know, like Bilderberg or the Council of 300 or whatever. [00:48:56] I mean, we all know this. [00:48:57] You know, are we going to pretend that the story of human society is not a story of elites and all the rest, of domination by a powerful few? [00:49:05] I think that's simply the reality. [00:49:07] And the question is not, you know, whether we can finally break free of our chains, but if we can get an order that we're satisfied with, that is comfortable, that is fundamentally pointed in the right direction from like a teleological perspective. [00:49:22] Is it a virtuous society directed towards God, or is it some kind of degenerate society directed towards Malak and Baal and whatever? [00:49:31] So I think that's really the question. [00:49:33] And with regard to productivity, you say that, well, even a tax credit for people that are getting married or having kids, it's taxing productivity and giving it not productive. [00:49:43] You're right. [00:49:44] There's no way of getting around that. [00:49:46] There is maybe a technicality, though, which is how do you define productivity? [00:49:50] Because I see taxing in order to give money to people that are having children. [00:49:54] I think having children is a very productive activity. [00:49:57] I think productivity grinds to a halt if the fertility rate is less than 2.1. [00:50:02] So sure, yeah, I mean, in like the technical economic sense, you're taking wealth out of the economy to give it to people who are, you know, if you're talking about pay maternity leave or something like that, you're taking money out and giving it to people on like a strict GDP calculation. [00:50:17] It's subtracting productivity. [00:50:19] But if you're incentivizing having children, I mean, that's good in a purely economic sense, but it's also good in a moral sense. [00:50:25] It's a regenerative society. [00:50:27] It's a society that is in favor of life. [00:50:29] It's a vital society. [00:50:31] So if you're talking about strictly in terms of economic productivity producing widgets, I mean, sure, yeah, it's taking productivity out of the economy. [00:50:39] But I think we have to start having more holistic view of the society that's not just dependent on producing goods and services. [00:50:46] I think we have a lot of that, but not a lot of the other stuff. [00:50:49] Okay, fair. [00:50:49] Well, listen, let me say, I think you did a great job responding to what you thought I would say. [00:50:55] I don't know that that's exactly what I would say, but you did. [00:50:58] You did. [00:51:00] I get your points that you're making. [00:51:01] Look, I'm not saying that corporations don't have an ungodly amount of control. [00:51:06] I mean, particularly Google and Twitter and some of the social media companies. [00:51:10] I've talked about this a lot on my show. [00:51:11] And as you already kind of pointed out for me, this is there are partnerships with the government. [00:51:16] So it's not me saying, oh, that wasn't true capitalism. [00:51:19] Or, you know, look, I mean, obviously that wasn't laissez-faire capitalism. [00:51:24] I don't think that's on the same level as socialists saying, well, that wasn't true socialism because it was authoritarian. [00:51:31] I think these are different things. [00:51:32] I think the argument to socialists who say, well, Stalin wasn't true authoritarian is that, look, if you put all of the power in the hands of the government, it seems inevitable that this power is going to corrupt and going to corrupt absolutely. [00:51:45] Whereas to say that, look, these companies who partner up with the government are not working absent a government is just accurately describing what happened. [00:51:55] I do think there's a real problem with corporate power. [00:52:00] The question then is, how do you solve that problem? [00:52:02] And the answer to me would be to decentralize things as much as possible. [00:52:06] The answer wouldn't be the state, the ultimate monopoly with the ultimate amount of power, to come in and write the rules on that. [00:52:12] I just don't think, I mean, that's, you know, throwing gasoline to put out a fire. [00:52:17] So that more or less is my take on the corporate power issue. [00:52:22] It's not that the concern that you're addressing doesn't exist. [00:52:26] It certainly does. [00:52:27] It's just what do we do about that? [00:52:29] What's the best way to solve this issue? [00:52:31] And I will say, by the way, just what's been in the news the last few days, I mean, this stuff with Google, with the stuff with the NBA in China and ESPN giving directives that nobody can criticize China. [00:52:46] This just scares the bejesus out of me. [00:52:48] I think this is insane. [00:52:49] And so yes, I think that's terrible. [00:52:51] Now, to what you're saying about productivity, you're absolutely right that having kids, well, look, I mean, let's look at things this way, right? [00:53:00] If you're just concerned with raising GDP or, you know, economic productivity, that's like Chuck Schumer capitalism. [00:53:09] I could care less about that. [00:53:11] I mean, look, just to paint a weird hypothetical, but like if me and my wife could sell my daughter on the black market and you could argue in some like economic equation, you'd go, oh, well, you will make X amount of dollars and then you won't have to support a kid anymore. [00:53:26] And look, your economy has improved. [00:53:28] But given the liberty to choose what to do, me and my wife are going to hang on to my daughter because we find this to be a much more fulfilling life. [00:53:37] And, you know, obviously, right? [00:53:38] We love our daughter, so we would never do anything like that. [00:53:41] And yes, I think you're right that if you think about the long-term growth of a society, producing children is actually very good for the long run and long-term productivity. [00:53:51] This, by the way, is something that people never really needed to be convinced of until about five minutes ago, that having children was a good idea. [00:53:59] People were having children under conditions that me and you couldn't even imagine having kids through for thousands and thousands of years. [00:54:06] And what this comes down to, in my opinion, is really time preference and the idea that you have to have some type of a vision for the future. [00:54:15] And if you live in a society where there aren't artificially low interest rates, there aren't welfare programs, there aren't all of this, what incentivized people to understand this was that kids were their retirement plan. [00:54:26] The deal was more or less that it was like, yes, I'm going to have kids. [00:54:28] I'm going to take care of them now. [00:54:30] And when I get old and I'm no longer to work, you know, physically, they're going to end up taking care of me. [00:54:35] I mean, I do think that's what directly in people's minds incentivized them to have children. [00:54:40] Of course, there's all of these, I don't mean to reduce everything to economics. [00:54:43] Like I'm not having my daughter as a retirement plan. [00:54:45] I love her very much. [00:54:46] It's very like meaningful and it gives my life purpose. [00:54:50] But I'm just making the point that, again, to me, what's destroying all of this comes down to the state destroying the, let's just say, raising time preference drastically, which is in many ways a rational response to the incentives around us. [00:55:10] I don't know your thoughts. [00:55:11] I know I'm never good at finishing on a question. [00:55:13] I just say things and then you just jump in whenever you're ready. [00:55:17] Yeah. [00:55:18] I think that's an interesting point that you make about time preference. [00:55:22] It's funny. [00:55:22] I don't know if you've read this, but there's, it's called the Bitcoin Manifesto. [00:55:26] Have you ever read this? [00:55:27] No. [00:55:28] Wait, who wrote that? [00:55:29] Is that the Sadif guy? [00:55:31] Yes, yes. [00:55:32] I'm trying to look. [00:55:33] I have it right over there. [00:55:35] But I was a friend of mine recommended this book to me. [00:55:38] Someone just sent it to me. [00:55:39] By the way, I was just sent a copy of it, but I haven't read it yet. [00:55:42] But go ahead. [00:55:43] I'm sorry. [00:55:43] You should probably skip a lot of it because it's a lot of like, because this is the point I'm going to get to is I want to learn about Bitcoin. [00:55:49] And he sent me this book. [00:55:51] And the first like 10, like most of the book is just like libertarian dogma on monetary policy and all this. [00:56:00] But he talks about, and the reason I bring it up is because there's this large chapter in the book about time preference. [00:56:05] And he writes how he explains time preference and he says that, well, the high time preference is the cause for all the problems. [00:56:13] You know, why, why is pop music here instead of like George Gershwin and Glenn Miller? [00:56:19] Time preference, low interest rates. [00:56:22] You know, why is it that Hollywood movies are bad? [00:56:24] Why is it that there's degeneracy? [00:56:26] High time preference. [00:56:27] It's interest rates. [00:56:29] People are paying a low interest rate. [00:56:31] And that's reworking, rewiring their brains to have a high time preference and all things. [00:56:37] And I mean, that's one, I mean, that's a bit of a stretch to me. [00:56:40] I'm reading this. [00:56:42] I just put the book down. [00:56:43] I had to laugh. [00:56:43] I'm like, I can't do this anymore. [00:56:45] This is absurd. [00:56:46] You know, I think probably a lot of the time preference things has to do with the lack of religion. [00:56:54] You know, I'm a paleoconservative. [00:56:56] I'm also very much Catholic. [00:56:58] I do believe that a lot of these things are the consequence of the interest rate or the economic policy or the size and scope of government. [00:57:07] I think a lot of it has to do with religion and a lot of these social things. [00:57:11] So I would say that, you know, even if the interest rate were raised tomorrow and this started to reward people that were saving money as opposed to spending money, I don't think that people would start to produce great works of music. [00:57:24] I know that's not your argument, but I don't think they would start to have children and suddenly have a low time preference. [00:57:29] You know, I think a lot of it is just baked into the cake from a cultural perspective, either genetically in many cases, or in other cases, it's environmental. [00:57:38] You know, it's based on what you're learning maybe in school from your parents, from culture. [00:57:42] And you think that's affected by the religion or lack thereof. [00:57:46] I would say, and this doesn't fit into the big versus small government paradigm, but I think that that's probably the challenge of this, the time preference. === Religion Decline and Consolidation (13:13) === [00:57:54] With regard to centralization versus decentralization, I would probably agree. [00:57:59] And maybe this is where we find common cause. [00:58:01] Maybe that's where you could resurrect the Rothbardian paleoconservative alliance is that we are absolutely going to have to decentralize first. [00:58:12] You know, maybe you think that that's the ultimate goal is maintaining a decentralized society. [00:58:17] I think it, at least in the short term, that's going to be what is required because the people that have all the power, and I think we can both agree that whether or not we agree with the nature of power or whether power should exist at a centralized level, the people that have it are not good. [00:58:34] You know, the people that are running these spaces, these massive corporations, people that are running the government, the bureaucrats, the managerial state, these people are not promoting things that are good for anybody, right? [00:58:46] And so from a decentralization perspective, that's probably your long-term goal. [00:58:50] I think in the interim, that's going to deprive these people of control over our lives. [00:58:55] That's going to create more autonomy for us. [00:58:57] But in my mind, the caveat there is ultimately we want to decentralize to decentralize. [00:59:05] We want to decentralize it, recreate sovereignty and autonomy for communities or different institutions across the country or even across the world transnationally with the ultimate end keep in mind that we can regroup, we can build the base of support, and then ultimately we can impose our will on everyone. [00:59:25] Ultimately, we can be the people that are in charge. [00:59:28] And I guess maybe the disagreement is that you're against consolidation of power. [00:59:33] as a concept, you know, that all is happening. [00:59:37] I'm against it because of who is wielding that power. [00:59:40] Well, okay, so, okay, so we're fellow travelers to a point, but I'll get off the bus at the decentralization part. [00:59:46] Well, I would say just because it reminds me that Paul Godfrey had always said, and he would speak at like the Mises Institute and these other kind of like anarcho-capitalist services. [00:59:54] And he would say, look, I'm not an anarcho-capitalist. [00:59:56] I'm a traditionalist paleocon conservative, but I recognize that our only path forward is to smash the managerial state. [01:00:04] It's the only shot that we have. [01:00:06] So to that end, I do think that we are fellow travelers. [01:00:10] However, I don't look, I'm not necessarily opposed to power. [01:00:15] I'm not necessarily opposed to elites. [01:00:19] Tucker Carlson said this once. [01:00:20] I thought it was a great quote where he said, I'm not against elites. [01:00:24] I just believe in impressive elites. [01:00:26] Like, I believe our elites should be somewhat impressive. [01:00:28] You know, you look at like, I was playing on my last podcast clips from Chuck Schumer and Adam Schiff, who's Chuck Schumer is, you know, of course, the top Democrat in the Senate. [01:00:38] And Adam Schiff is the head of the House intelligence community. [01:00:40] I mean, if nothing else, these people just aren't impressive. [01:00:43] Like, I've met so many more impressive people in my life. [01:00:46] In the stand-up comedy scene, I've met more impressive people than these guys are. [01:00:51] And yet these are the elites. [01:00:53] So part of what I absolutely think that, as you alluded to earlier, I absolutely think that wealthy people in a free market will wield a lot of power. [01:01:01] I mean, money is power. [01:01:03] So absolutely. [01:01:04] I just think impressive people who help society in general are going to be the ones in general, are going to be the ones who rise up. [01:01:11] And I think this is true, generally speaking, in a market economy. [01:01:18] However, to what you were saying about time preference, look, you made the point that say we were to raise interest rates tomorrow. [01:01:25] I don't think all of a sudden people are going to stop listening to Lil Wayne and start listening to Mozart. [01:01:30] By the way, I just showed my age. [01:01:32] This is the problem with talking with somebody in their 20s. [01:01:34] Little Wayne was the best I could do as like, what's going on right now? [01:01:38] What's the crazy, like degenerate music of the day? [01:01:42] I know I'm like 15 years late to the party. [01:01:44] There's probably somebody I'm not aware of, but whoever's rapping about strippers dancing on a pole right now, that guy, that's who I'm talking about. [01:01:51] So no, I don't think that would happen tomorrow, but that is not what the point is. [01:01:56] The question that I think is more interesting to get at the heart of this is, had we never embarked on this system to begin with, would we have stopped producing Mozart? [01:02:06] Would we have stopped that culture? [01:02:07] Like, what is it that took us from there to here? [01:02:10] I mean, if your goal is to deal with where we are now, that's a worthwhile question. [01:02:14] And what I do believe is if there had never been a creation of a central bank, if the government hadn't taken over public schooling in the way that they had, if you hadn't had this like, you know, look, whether it's, you know, you talked about before the CIA being involved in postmodern art, the CIA being involved in the drug trade. [01:02:30] I mean, all of the stuff that you, you know, you remove all of that, the incentivizing of families to break up, all of the crazy things that the state has done. [01:02:39] What if none of that had happened? [01:02:42] I don't think it would have slowed down technological innovation at all. [01:02:45] In fact, it probably would have sped it up. [01:02:48] But I don't think that we would have lost all of those cultural values that we have. [01:02:52] So I do believe it's not crazy to go, oh, it's just the central banking and the time preference. [01:02:57] And this is why people don't believe in God anymore the way they used to. [01:03:00] The point is that there was a massive re-engineering of society that was all done by big government. [01:03:08] And I do think, look, I think it's undeniable that something changed, right? [01:03:12] And I think that is the most reasonable thing to peg it on. [01:03:16] So, I mean, obviously something changed. [01:03:18] If you look at, you know, television or movies or commercials in the 50s, and it's all like some, you know, kid like running up like, gee, Pa, let me help you with the yard work. [01:03:28] And you look at like, you know, commercials today, and it's like someone in a thong shaking their ass, like something changed. [01:03:33] It's like, obviously, human nature, it may not be as malleable as the leftist socialists think it is, but it's certainly somewhat malleable because it went from that to this. [01:03:42] And by the way, that's not as simple as demographics. [01:03:45] It's a lot of white people who are caught up in this thing as well. [01:03:48] So I do think what's reasonable to assume is that, yeah, people have been propagandized and altered in some way. [01:03:56] So I don't know if we could get back to that tomorrow, but I at least recognize what caused this rift to begin with. [01:04:01] Does that make sense? [01:04:03] Yeah, I sort of understand what you mean. [01:04:05] I just think, you know, whether we could change it by, you know, going back to high interest rates tomorrow or whether that was just the ultimate genesis of the transformation. [01:04:16] I just think it's an economically sort of reductive argument that the most reasonable thing we could peg time preference changing on is like interest rates. [01:04:26] I mean, interest rates are important. [01:04:28] And, you know, you're saying it's not just the interest rates. [01:04:31] It's government schooling and it's the CIA and it's everything that you get with big government. [01:04:36] I understand that. [01:04:38] I just think that maybe the government changes are reflective of deeper currents that are happening is all. [01:04:44] I just think that looking at the government changes and the consolidation of government power, maybe I'm just sort of about these things. [01:04:51] But what are those deeper changes? [01:04:53] I don't mean to cut you off, but what do you think the deeper changes are? [01:04:55] Because they certainly started before the demographic changes started. [01:04:58] I mean, the 60s was the 60s. [01:05:01] The 1965 Immigration Act didn't result in 1968. [01:05:05] So like I would say, no, I think the deeper change is the destruction of the family. [01:05:09] I think that's the real problem that's going on. [01:05:11] But I'm curious, what do you think the deeper change is? [01:05:14] Yeah, yeah, I wasn't trying to allude to demographic change because you're right. [01:05:18] I think the demographic change itself is reflective of the same things we're talking about. [01:05:23] I would say that, yeah, yeah, something like the destruction of the family. [01:05:26] I think ultimately it has to do with the decline of religion. [01:05:30] And that's really why, you know, I identify as a paleoconservative or a traditionalist. [01:05:35] You know, it really is just counter to the Enlightenment. [01:05:39] You know, people say, well, conservatism is about conserving the founding fathers. [01:05:43] I see the founding fathers as liberals. [01:05:45] I see the founding fathers as revolutionaries. [01:05:48] And deep down, I'm basically a reactionary. [01:05:50] So I would say, you know, the further that we get away from the idea of hardcore religion in the society, our idea of order and tradition, I think that's when you get, you know, the secular state. [01:06:04] That's when you get all these things. [01:06:06] So I would say that, yeah, that would be the deeper trend. [01:06:09] But what do you think? [01:06:10] What do you think got us away from religion? [01:06:13] By the way, just so you know, I mean, I used to be like a kind of militant atheist earlier in my life and I've completely turned around on that. [01:06:20] Like I really do think there is like, I think there's tremendous value in religion, in traditionalism. [01:06:31] I mean, look, I am somebody who I used to not believe in God and I do believe in God now. [01:06:34] I'm not a particularly religious person in the sense like I don't go to temple. [01:06:38] I don't go to church. [01:06:39] I'm not like a part of an organized religion. [01:06:41] But I noticed over time that many of the best human beings I've ever met were like devout Christians. [01:06:48] And that just kind of kept, you know, like that kept popping up over and over to a point. [01:06:52] And then after having a child, it really changed the way that I look at the world and the meaning of life and things like that. [01:06:58] So I'm not, I'm not opposed to that, but what I'm asking you is what, and to me, in a lot of ways, family and God are almost inseparable. [01:07:08] Like my family is in many ways my God. [01:07:10] And I think there's like, there's a reason why I found God when I had a child. [01:07:14] I really think they're very interconnected. [01:07:17] But what do you think led to people breaking that up? [01:07:22] I mean, that's a pretty big deal. [01:07:23] People were very devoutly religious for thousands of years. [01:07:27] And then pretty much all of a sudden, it seems like in the 60s, I guess, it all kind of broke down. [01:07:32] And we're living in the aftermath of that. [01:07:34] Do you have any guess as to like what led to that? [01:07:38] Well, it's a very complicated question, obviously, but I would say that it probably had something to do with the printing press. [01:07:46] You know, I've read a lot of this. [01:07:48] I've read a lot about this subject. [01:07:50] Marshall McLuhan had a pretty interesting perspective about this. [01:07:54] You know, he wrote about how the printing press and a lot of these technologies that came around in the Middle Ages created the idea of the individual, the private self. [01:08:03] And this is what created Protestantism, ultimately. [01:08:06] Protestantism is a product of individualism, individualism as a product of the idea of the private self, self-contained individual, you know, away from the family, away from the greater society. [01:08:19] So I would say that these things go way, way back. [01:08:23] And really, it's a question of, you know, like a really solid metaphysics and philosophy. [01:08:28] You know, I forget who said this. [01:08:30] I quoted this on, I was on Paul Gottfried's podcast actually this weekend, and I used this quote and even bother to look it up because I forgot who said it, even on that show. [01:08:39] But somebody said that the only two ideologies that exist now are Thomism and Marxism. [01:08:46] Liberalism has been completely dispreaded. [01:08:48] He said the only person that could bring back liberalism is a great thinker. [01:08:52] And the only great thinker in our time is Hegel. [01:08:54] I'm butchering it, but it's something to that effect. [01:08:57] And so I think that in the absence of Catholicism, I think that you really do have just a total degeneration of society. [01:09:04] In the absence of a solid metaphysics, metaphysics to serve as the foundation, I think it all falls apart. [01:09:12] I was going to say something else, but I just lost my train of thought. [01:09:15] So I read Demaestre also, or Demestre. [01:09:24] I don't know exactly how to pronounce it. [01:09:25] It's French, but he wrote about how the only constitution that we can have that makes sense is one that is based on the divine right of kings. [01:09:34] Anytime you get a constitution that's based on rationalism, something like this, mutually agreed principles, consensus can be questioned and people can be skeptical of it until it's destroyed. [01:09:45] And so I think that's a pretty good, that's analogous to how I view the society. [01:09:50] In the absence of this kind of totally devout belief in God with an authority on earth, you know, that says that this is the final, the ultimate answer on life or death issues. [01:10:00] I think the ultimate trend, the ultimate momentum is towards materialism, towards individualism, it's towards, you know, people being totally hedonistic, thinking about pleasure. [01:10:12] And, you know, it took a very long time. [01:10:14] You know, it's like they say about the Soviet Union. [01:10:16] The collapse happened very slowly and then very suddenly. [01:10:19] But I think that's ultimately where it came from. [01:10:21] Yeah. [01:10:21] Well, I think that ultimately might be where we're going, unfortunately. [01:10:25] But well, let's hope not for the sake of us as well as all of our listeners. [01:10:32] Okay, let me ask you this. [01:10:33] I wonder what do you think? [01:10:36] Because, look, I completely get where anybody could look at anarcho-capitalism and say, look, this just seems far-fetched. [01:10:45] I completely get that. [01:10:47] Be like, look, we're not going to abolish the state tomorrow. [01:10:50] However, I also, like I was saying before, I just think both of us are radicals in today. [01:10:55] You're a traditionalist, but we're radicals by today's standards. [01:10:59] It's all relative, right? [01:11:01] What do you think? [01:11:04] Because I know what I think, but what do you think? === Mobilizing Resources for a Wall (04:15) === [01:11:07] Like, what would be, what do you think is practical to get from here to where you want to be? [01:11:14] Like, what steps do you want to take? [01:11:16] And one thing that I'll just say before I let you answer is that I think that, look, I heard a lot of people said to libertarians, like around 2016, around the Trump campaign and the Trump movement, people said, you know, libertarians, I get where you're coming from, but we're not going to abolish the welfare state tomorrow, but we can build a wall tomorrow and that'll work. [01:11:40] And by the way, I mean, certainly there's evidence that walls do work. [01:11:44] It works pretty well for Israel. [01:11:45] I think they literally took their immigration problem down to zero. [01:11:48] I mean, maybe not zero. [01:11:49] There were like three. [01:11:50] It was like, it was something so absurdly low that it was like, basically, if there was an illegal immigrant, you could like spot him. [01:11:56] Like, who the fuck's that guy? [01:11:58] And they'd know who was here. [01:12:00] Like, however, you got a president who was elected and his central message was, I'm going to build a wall. [01:12:07] And if he even tries to build one inch of wall, he's tied up in court battles, zoning battles. [01:12:13] He's, you know, it's the entire media is against him. [01:12:16] I'm looking at it now because it doesn't really seem that practical that you're ever going to be able to do this. [01:12:20] Even if you were to build a wall tomorrow, the demographics are pretty much baked into the cake unless you're going to start really deporting people. [01:12:27] I mean, like, and I mean, in a really hardcore way. [01:12:31] So what do you think? [01:12:32] Like, what's the answer? [01:12:34] What would you like to see going forward? [01:12:37] Yeah, that's, and that's the question is how do we get from point A to point B? [01:12:42] And I would say I don't really have a great answer at this point in time. [01:12:46] You know, right now, what we're focused on, what I'm focused on is raising awareness about these issues. [01:12:51] You know, we're trying to build some kind of coalition and network. [01:12:55] We can bring together resources, talent, things like that, so we can begin to act as a force, you know, in an organized way. [01:13:02] But ultimately, I think the question is, how does really anything get done? [01:13:07] You know, a lot of people have this idea of, well, we just got to vote the right person into office or we just need the right plan. [01:13:14] We just need to do X, Y, or Z. [01:13:16] I think there's sort of a confluence or, you know, what happens is that I think it takes the right plan, the right people, but also the right time. [01:13:26] I don't think it's the right time yet. [01:13:27] I don't see a huge opportunity right now to make things happen. [01:13:32] You know, I think a lot of these questions will be answered sort of after the fact. [01:13:36] Once we're able to mobilize resources or maybe use coercion, if we ever get control of the government in some meaningful sense, then that'll be the time to answer it. [01:13:47] But honestly, increasingly, I think that our options are simply waiting for some kind of catastrophic change in circumstance because the institutions that we're dealing with and that we're fighting against, it's academia, it's the public schooling system, it's the media, it's Hollywood, it's everybody. [01:14:07] And I don't think that those people beaten in the absence of some kind of radical fortune, some kind of big shift, big event. [01:14:15] There can't be the dynamic. [01:14:18] So, you know, I don't really have a plan where I can say, you know, first we're going to do this. [01:14:22] We're going to put in place this policy. [01:14:24] I think we're just sort of putting the pieces in the right place and we're just waiting for time. [01:14:30] We're just biding our time for when things will become a little bit more clear. [01:14:34] Maybe the fog of war will lift and we'll see a path forward. [01:14:37] You know, for now, we're focused trying to wake people up on the nature of the people that are coming here, the nature of the problem, what the country's going to look like in the absence of some kind of action. [01:14:48] And I think that if enough people become aware of this, if the right people become aware of this, then I think a path will become more clear. [01:14:55] But for right now, it's pretty dicey. [01:14:57] Yeah. [01:14:58] Well, look, as a libertarian, I, in many ways, kind of feel a similar way. [01:15:03] It's like the goal right now is to just get as many people on board. [01:15:07] And then when things go south, there might actually be enough will to do something and roll some of this stuff back. [01:15:15] And it might just become inevitable due to the forces of economics and other things. === Hopeless Political Realignment (07:15) === [01:15:23] So I was curious, what do you think of Trump going into there's the reelection coming up? [01:15:30] I mean, do you think, you know, I retweeted at Donald Trump today. [01:15:35] He tweeted something about how terrible the wars were and how going into the Middle East was the worst thing we've ever done. [01:15:44] And we've wasted trillions of dollars and killed millions of people. [01:15:47] And, you know, these wars in the Middle East are the worst decision ever made. [01:15:52] And I retweeted him in something. [01:15:53] I was like, good point. [01:15:54] I wish you knew someone who could do something about this. [01:15:57] And more or less, that's kind of my take on Donald Trump. [01:16:00] It's like, I don't know how many years in can you still be happy with just kind of like, oh, he's saying the right thing. [01:16:07] It's like, I don't know, you're the commander in chief. [01:16:09] So like, try, do something. [01:16:11] I mean, I'm sure there are these other forces who aren't letting him do what he wants to do, but I don't know. [01:16:16] What's to stop him from giving a television address and saying we're pulling all the troops out of Afghanistan tomorrow? [01:16:21] That's it. [01:16:22] Longest war in American history. [01:16:23] It's over now. [01:16:25] From your perspective, I'm sure you liked Trump in 2016. [01:16:28] You haven't gotten your wall. [01:16:30] You haven't really gotten any deportations. [01:16:32] You haven't, I mean, like, what, do you feel like you've gotten anything out of this president? [01:16:36] Are you going to support him in 2020? [01:16:38] I'm going to support him in 2020, but yeah, I'm on the same page with you. [01:16:43] It's been a big disappointment, honestly. [01:16:46] And, you know, this is the argument that comes from the Trump supporters: well, he's facing all this opposition from, you know, the media or from the Democrats. [01:16:57] And the argument that we make is that, well, it's maybe it's his advice, it's his advisors, it's his personnel in the White House that are not carrying out his orders. [01:17:05] But at a certain point, the buck stops with him. [01:17:07] You know, he's the president. [01:17:08] He's the commander in chief. [01:17:10] And like you said, you know, particularly of foreign policy, it's like you don't need to go through some lengthy approval process. [01:17:16] You're the head guy. [01:17:17] You know, like you said, just tell him we're pulling out of Afghanistan. [01:17:21] And he said that actually last December. [01:17:23] I don't know if you remember this, but he said we're pulling all the troops out of Syria in 30 days. [01:17:28] He said on December 21st, 2018. [01:17:31] And then, you know, Lindsey Graham came up to the White House and then it was 60 days. [01:17:36] And then it was 90 days. [01:17:37] And then they're there indefinitely. [01:17:39] They're still there. [01:17:40] So, yeah, I'm very disappointed on immigration, on foreign policy. [01:17:44] The one area where he's been opening is trade. [01:17:46] You probably, and this is where we probably disagree. [01:17:49] I imagine you might be a free trader, but the one area where he seems to be doing well is making deals because this is his area. [01:17:57] This is his special area of curiosity where he gets to negotiate with China and whatever. [01:18:03] But outside of that, it's been a big disappointment. [01:18:05] But I mean, who else are you going to vote for? [01:18:07] I mean, we'll either have to vote for him or Elizabeth Warren or maybe Hillary Clinton. [01:18:13] Joe Biden might still have a chance. [01:18:14] I don't know. [01:18:15] So yeah, I'm reluctantly going to vote for him in 2020, but it's been a pretty disappointing showing for him so far. [01:18:21] Oh, why are you acting like we don't got options? [01:18:23] Bill Weld is out there. [01:18:24] Don't you know? [01:18:25] We can all rally behind the Bill Weld revolution. [01:18:29] That's where I'm going. [01:18:32] Yeah, well, look, I get what you're saying. [01:18:34] And I mean, the Democrats are doing their best to hand this thing to him. [01:18:39] By the way, a little bit of news that was very interesting. [01:18:41] Joe Biden is officially not the frontrunner anymore in the polls. [01:18:45] Elizabeth Warren has overtaken him. [01:18:47] And oh my God, if you wanted to hand Donald Trump an easy victory, I mean, short of an economic collapse, there is no way that angry pantsuit fake Indian is going to fucking beat Donald Trump. [01:18:58] That's just, I just can't see any way that those two human beings get matched up and he doesn't come out on top. [01:19:05] But I agree. [01:19:05] Well, listen, obviously, I disagree with the stuff on China. [01:19:10] And I don't think that Donald Trump's done anything that's been remotely close to great deal making in any of these instances. [01:19:18] I would say, though, I think that overall, I thought that the, you know, not as good as I'd like it to be, but the corporate tax cuts I thought were a good move. [01:19:27] I think he's done some really good deregulation in like the energy sector, particularly and in some other areas. [01:19:32] But just so, I mean, for something that was supposed to be such a shake-up election, such nothing. [01:19:40] I mean, it's like a minute, you know, like it's really something that if somebody had ran on a like, we're going to take small incremental steps to move in the right direction, you could kind of say, okay, he's done what he said. [01:19:52] But this was a guy who was supposed to shake up everything. [01:19:55] And it does, it makes you wonder. [01:19:58] Here's the ANCAP and me coming out. [01:20:00] How viable is a political solution to this at all? [01:20:04] Because it does seem like, you know, I mean, look, this is if this is what you do, if you go from Barack Obama to Donald Trump, about as big a contrast as you could imagine. [01:20:16] And you get like incremental change and all of the problems that you have, all of the trajectories that we're on that, the problems I have as well, we're still going right on there. [01:20:26] I mean, the things that we agree in in common, the managerial state ain't being crushed anytime soon. [01:20:30] The wars aren't ending anytime soon. [01:20:32] You're the issue with, I think border crossings have been up under Donald Trump. [01:20:36] I might be wrong about that, but I think they've been like extremely high the last year and a half. [01:20:41] So anyway, I don't know. [01:20:43] I guess you kind of answered the question already, but it does seem to me like if your big problem is demographic changes, it kind of seems like you're screwed. [01:20:50] I mean, the demographics are changing. [01:20:52] Whites are going to be a minority in America. [01:20:54] There's no going back from that. [01:20:56] Yeah, well, and you hit the nail on the head that this was supposed to be a political realignment. [01:21:02] This is supposed to be this like political earthquake that he was supposed to be so different. [01:21:08] And it was this revolutionary thing. [01:21:10] And at least that's what everybody thought. [01:21:12] On our side, we thought that that was going to be true, but in a good way. [01:21:17] And on the left, they thought it was going to be this, but in a bad way. [01:21:21] But he's just, you know, I don't think we would have gotten anything different under Mitt Romney or under John McCain. [01:21:26] You know, we achieved the Heritage Foundation agenda or whatever. [01:21:31] You know, we achieved the American Enterprise Institute agenda. [01:21:35] Like you said, incremental deregulation, corporate tax cut. [01:21:39] You know, would any of the other 16 people that ran in the Republican primary, would they have done anything differently so far? [01:21:45] No. [01:21:46] And I totally agree with the idea that that says a lot. [01:21:49] It says a lot about the efficacy of a political solution. [01:21:53] If Donald Trump could be so rapidly assimilated into the status quo to go from, I mean, the things he was saying in 2016, what did he say? [01:22:03] I think in the South Carolina debate, he looked at Jeb Bush and said, the World Trade Center came down under your brother and they lied about Iraq. [01:22:13] They knew there were no weapons of mass destruction. [01:22:15] He said, how about this one? [01:22:17] He goes, they asked him about ISIS and he goes, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton created ISIS. [01:22:23] I go, well, you don't mean they created ISIS. [01:22:25] He goes, they created ISIS. [01:22:28] I mean, he was going hardcore for a while there. [01:22:31] And yeah, so absolutely, it seems like somewhat hopeless on that. [01:22:37] All right, listen, we're up against the end of time. === Trump Assimilation and ISIS (01:30) === [01:22:39] So I want to ask you, let's run this down and let me find out how much me and you are fellow travelers. [01:22:46] So just tell me how you feel. [01:22:48] I'm going to throw an issue at you. [01:22:49] You tell me if you agree with me or not. [01:22:51] All right. [01:22:53] End the wars. [01:22:55] Agree. [01:22:56] End the Fed. [01:22:58] Agree. [01:22:59] And the welfare state. [01:23:01] Agree. [01:23:02] You know, that's pretty goddamn good. [01:23:04] All right. [01:23:06] You know, we might, I don't know. [01:23:07] I ran out of other things that I wanted to ask. [01:23:09] But, you know, I'll tell you. [01:23:11] When I announced that, or I guess I didn't announce, but I tweeted that you were coming on the show or something like that. [01:23:18] And a lot of people told me that you were very dangerous. [01:23:21] Some people indicated that I might get stabbed in this podcast. [01:23:26] And I was like, I mean, he's Skyping in from Chicago. [01:23:28] So I don't think it's even physically possible for me to get stabbed. [01:23:32] But I was a little bit concerned about that. [01:23:35] But I will say I enjoyed this conversation very much. [01:23:38] Let's do it again sometime. [01:23:40] Is there anything that you'd like to promote or plug? [01:23:42] Obviously, your show is America First. [01:23:44] They can watch it on YouTube. [01:23:45] Anything else? [01:23:47] Yeah, no, that's it. [01:23:48] Just America First, Monday through Friday, 7 o'clock Central. [01:23:51] I'll be back on tonight. [01:23:53] But thanks so much for having me. [01:23:54] Yeah, it was a great conversation. [01:23:56] And yeah, hopefully we can do it again sometime. [01:23:58] Absolutely. [01:23:59] Thanks again for coming on. [01:24:00] Nick Fuentes, everybody. [01:24:01] Thank you so much for listening. [01:24:03] We will be back on Friday with a brand new episode. [01:24:06] Goodbye. [01:24:09] All right. [01:24:09] Thank you.