James Smith and Robbie Bernstein dissect the 2020 election, criticizing Beto O'Rourke's "race to the left" and Elizabeth Warren's $52 trillion Medicare for All plan. They argue this socialized healthcare would cause economic collapse, citing Denmark's 65.9% top tax rate and Soviet collectivization failures. The discussion refutes the "deep state" narrative as a religion of the state and challenges Kyle Kalinsky's deregulation claims, proposing a voluntary FDA model where private competition replaces government monopolies on violence. Ultimately, the episode asserts that free markets, not state intervention, ensure safety and prosperity. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Government Too Big00:01:27
Fill her up.
You are listening to the Gash Digital Network.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, James Smith.
What's up?
What is up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
We are quickly approaching episode 600 right here at the Gas Digital Network Studios.
It's very good to be back.
Of course, I wouldn't be back in full force if I wasn't joined by the fire, Robbie Bernstein, King of the Caulks, and the empty chair next to him.
Both of them are here with me.
Oh, just Rob.
No, I can't do it without that chair.
That chair.
But it's like every now and then you just lean over for advice from that chair.
Very good.
How are you, Sarah?
Doing well.
I'm in the Rogan seat.
Oh, that's right.
The new, the new Hargan seat.
Who wore it better?
Joe Rogan.
I mean, I think you'd kick his ass.
You get more podcast downloads.
I mean, the man's walking around with the fanny pack.
That's always a sign of a man.
That's either a man you could take or a guy who could very easily take you.
It's the confidence I would be like, what do you got?
The Empty Chair Advice00:10:24
What do you got to say?
I was impressed.
He even did the weigh-ins with the fanny pack.
He's fully, he's wearing that thing like it's a tie.
Yeah.
Showing up to work with him.
I didn't watch the weigh-ins.
I was busy that night.
I did watch the fights.
Somewhat disappointing.
But great event overall.
Yeah, that was very cool.
That was very cool.
Rogan came in, recorded one of his podcasts here with Artie Lang.
I listened to about an hour of it, dude.
It was a fucking great show.
Artie Lang telling some fucking hilarious stories.
And then he did an episode of Legion of Skanks and then went over to the fights.
So that is also why we didn't have a Part of the Problem out for you last Friday.
Sorry.
I owe you guys one 10 bonus episodes.
That's my commitment to you.
10 bonus episodes before the end of this episode.
That's what I can guarantee you people.
Don't think too hard about it, Rob.
Treat it like a movie with time travel.
Just enjoy the ride.
Don't overthink the possibilities and the implications, the laws of physics, things like that.
That'll just slow you down.
All right.
So, by the way, I'm going to later in the show, we're going to play a clip from Joe Rogan's podcast, which I think we've never done before, but I wanted to respond to something that a lot of people asked me to.
So we'll get to that in a little bit.
But what I wanted to talk about at the beginning of today's show was there's some news, a couple pieces of news.
In the Democratic primary race, we are now officially, this is, I believe, the first podcast we've done where we are right at a year until the election happens.
Is that right?
I believe we're right at a year.
So the Dem's got to choose someone pretty soon, right?
I mean, how long?
Well, no, they got some time.
They don't have to choose anybody till necessarily, you know, the summer.
But yeah, so it's November 3rd, 2020, and today we're recording on the 4th.
So this is the first episode we've done where we're within a year of the presidential election.
When does the election happen?
March of 2020?
Of 2020.
So a year.
I just said a year from now.
Yeah, I'm not going to do that.
That puts you to March.
But then, so it's basically just June, July, August, September.
That's it.
It's four months.
I always, I don't know, in my head, I thought that was a much longer deal.
No, I mean, I think they can go all the way till the convention theoretically.
I think that most of the time it wraps up and you basically know who the nominee is going to be.
But that's, yeah, it's not, it's not that long once we get down to the thick of it, especially in these, in the new political world where the elections start so long beforehand and then they start winding down.
But yeah, we're down to it.
It's a year away.
Still enough time for other people to get into the race.
It seems to me like more and more likely that someone else is going to get into the race.
But what's also happening are some people are getting out of the race.
And just yesterday, Bateau O'Rokey dropped out.
Gone.
Goodbye, Beto.
It was, it was, I was going to say it was a good run, but it was by any measure not a good run.
Well, if you're at the press.
Yeah.
It's hard not to just think about, though, that, look, there are always candidates who have who end up falling on their face where the expectations are that they would do better.
This happens a lot.
I mean, I remember with on the Republican side, there were guys like, I remember Tim Palenti.
A lot of people were like, I think he's a real serious contender.
What's his name?
Shit.
The guy from Wisconsin, Scott something, Scott Walker, who the Koch brothers sent a whole bunch of money to.
He was like this big, this governor who was going to do a big thing.
And, you know, there were a lot of people like that.
The Beto O'Rourke campaign stands out as something different to me.
And it stands out as different for a few reasons.
Number one, the amount of media hype that this guy got when he first got into the race.
There is no reason why Beto O'Rourke shouldn't have had a campaign like Tim Ryan is having right now.
Like, he's not going to be president either.
He's not going to do anything.
He's not going to win.
No one cares.
No one's talking about him.
No one's thinking about him.
There was no reason why Beto O'Rourke became this guy.
Like the example that I just rattled off, the Scott Walker guy.
Well, Scott Walker was the governor of Wisconsin.
He had gotten in this huge fight with organized labor and won the fight.
So there was kind of this feeling of like, oh, this is a governor who's actually, like, there's at least some justification for why that guy would be the guy.
Beto O'Rourke basically lost a Senate race in Texas, but came close.
Now, okay, it's somewhat impressive for a Democrat to come close in Texas against an incumbent senator, the guy who finished second in the Republican primary.
Like, okay, fair enough.
But the amount of hype that Beto O'Rourke got from the media, he was their second coming.
I mean, it was, I don't know if you guys remember.
I know you do, Rob, but just like, this was just a few months ago that the media went apeshit over this guy running for president.
They gave him the Obama treatment for a little bit there.
They should cover a vanity fair, all of these huge fucking stories about him, all of this talk.
I mean, you could, you know, I'm sure if you wanted to go through the, you know, and find videos, you could just put together a hilarious montage of all of the people in the mainstream media talking about how, you know, how wonderful Beto O'Rourke was.
And, you know, the thing that really stands out to me about all of that is how, you know, it's not just that, like, our problems with the mainstream media, the corporate press, as I'm reminded by Michael Malice to call them, it's not just that they're, you know, that they create war propaganda and they lie to the American people and mislead people and get us into disastrous situations that we would never be in without them.
It's there's something more that's really been exposed, particularly in the Donald Trump era.
And it's like this disconnect from reality, an inability to actually adjust, adapt, deal with changing situations on the ground, like deal with the facts on the ground.
They're like too removed.
They're too stuck in their old ways and they're too disconnected from regular people.
And so, you know, probably the best example of this is that they, when they first saw Michael Avenatti, they thought this guy was the guy.
There were all types of people in the media who were like, Michael Avenatti.
I mean, he's a fighter.
He could really be the Democrat savior.
He could go up against Donald Trump.
Every normal person who saw Michael Avenatti right away was like, that is the sleazest human being I've ever seen in my life.
This is a guy who's an ambulance chaser reping porn stars whose big complaint is that they had a consensual sexual affair and took money for it.
And now they're like, but I want to tell my story.
Like, this is some, he's not representing a fucking cancer victim who the insurance company isn't paying up or something.
There's nothing noble about this.
And he was just so clearly a sleazy guy.
You see one interview with him and you'd be like, what?
And, but the mainstream media was like, I think this is our guy.
I think this is our guy.
And then, of course, he, you know, like came out that he was stealing from his clients and trying to extort different companies.
And I think he's got like seven felonies pressed against him right now.
So his big issue is whether he'll be out of jail or not, not whether he's running for president.
He's a handsome fellow, especially for a bald guy.
Yeah.
He nearly represented our community well.
Okay, fair enough.
I shouldn't, as someone outside the community, I probably shouldn't even speak about this.
This is your issue.
I'll defer to you.
My hair privilege is probably my view on this one.
The funniest part about that, he ended up costing Stormy Daniels money.
Oh, yeah.
Stormy Daniels lost a lawsuit to Trump and owes Trump like 200 grand.
And evidently he like he was going after her for more money.
He was taking money from her.
And it's really what you, you know, look, the truth of the matter is with most of these chicks in porn and Stormy Daniels particularly one.
It's like these are like kind of sad people.
I think oftentimes these are people who did not have the best lives, did not have the easiest lives, did not have the easiest childhoods.
You know what I mean?
It's like our sad people, like Stormy Daniels is like still stripping in clubs to make money.
And she's doing like these club shows.
And she's like this older porn star chick now whose thing is I'm the one who got fucked by Trump.
And it's just, it's just really sad, you know, like at least from my perspective.
And then to see this guy who's like preying on her, you're like, oh, you're a fucking scumbag, dude.
Like this is just the sleaest person.
But again, the mainstream media saw this person and didn't see any of this.
They saw our guy.
Here's our guy.
Now, this same media saw Beto O'Rourke and said, he's got this it factor.
That was their assessment of Beto Arourke.
He's just got a quality about him.
I don't know.
I really see this guy just captivating people.
And then the country got to look at Beto O'Rourke and they were like, what the fuck are you talking about?
This guy is just terrible at this.
He is the least charismatic human being.
He's just this like, and there is some weird projection of what people on the left want, which is this ultimate beta like guy just apologizing constantly.
He's like a white gumby.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he used to do the rallies like he was one of those inflatable things outside of a car shop.
You know, like his arms just flapping in the wind.
But, you know, and he did this thing where his strategy was essentially to race to the left as far to the left as he could get.
So whatever the issue was, he was like, I'm going to own the left wing, you know, it's like, I'm going to say we'll round up the guns.
I'm actually going to say we'll round up the guns.
I'm going to say we'll open the border and we'll give them all free health care.
Leading As A Man00:09:28
I'm going to say whatever, you know, everything, every like cultural thing about race and all this.
But what Beethoven's, you know, when his presidential campaign really fell apart, when it absolutely tanked to me was when he was on the view and he apologized for being a man.
and being a white man.
And it was over some really like some jokes he had made or something that were like the they couldn't have, I mean, they were the softest jokes.
Like it's not like he fucking said some really harsh thing.
And he started apologizing and taking this kind of like, you know, like basically saying everything you're supposed to say if you're a white male social justice warrior.
That it's not, you know, as a white male, I've been privileged and I don't know about this and I apologize and I was born the wrong sex and the wrong skin color and I'm so sorry.
And his campaign fell apart shortly after that.
And I think there's an interesting lesson to be taken from all of that.
It should be taken, you know, especially by people on the left and people who are in the whole woke social justice world.
Unfortunately, none of them are listening to me right now because they'd be triggered.
So they won't take this advice.
But it's still interesting for the rest of us to just notice the phenomenon.
But, you know, it's kind of like that guy who everybody knows, the male feminist who's basically trying to get laid.
The male feminist who's just trying to court the affection of women.
And so you do this thing where you're saying whatever you think the women around you want to hear.
So if the women are like, oh yeah, you know, all men have male privilege.
They're like, oh my God, men totally have male privilege.
I'm aware of my male privilege.
So I'm not even really like the other men, but I totally get what you're right.
But even that might just be my maleness saying that.
So, you know, are you guys doing anything later?
Now, I'm not saying that's every single left-leaning male is like this, but that is certainly a type.
And by the way, most, at least in my experience of talking to him, most like chicks who are into like the social justice or like into feminism or stuff, they're well aware of that.
Like they talk about it all the time.
They're like, hey, watch out for these like, quote, feminist allies, because a lot of them turn out to kind of be like sleazeballs themselves.
Really, I don't even think they're sleazeballs.
They're just men.
Like you can't undo being a man.
You know, it's contrary to popular current opinion.
You really can't change biology.
Like it's just something that's immutable.
However, you know, it's like my buddy, Jamie Kilstein, who used to be like a social justice warrior and got in a lot of trouble with them and basically got kicked out of the club and has, you know, regained his sanity since then, to his credit.
But he basically, you know, got accused of like, you know, they use these words, like predatory behavior or sexual misconduct or all these things.
But if you actually look into what any of the detailed accusations were, it was just trying to get laid.
That was what he got in trouble for is that he was like trying to fuck women.
That was his problem.
And he would do these horrible, horrible things.
Like he would be like, you know, like, oh, you want to like come like hang out over at my place?
And they'd be like, no, I probably shouldn't.
He'd be like, oh, okay, if you want to, we'll just like watch a movie or something.
And be like, he asked again after she said no once.
You know, it's like, I don't know.
This is just basically saying, no matter what your politics are, he's still a dude at the end of the day.
And he's a straight guy.
So he can't.
Here's the point that I'm really trying to.
Let me tell you, sometimes you play that card and you just end up watching a movie.
By the way, that's actually the point I was trying to make.
More or less.
It's not even just that.
Like if you were talking to these guys, let's say it's a guy you cared about.
Let's say it's your younger brother or something like that, or just, you know what I mean?
Some like 20-year-old kid who's doing that who you want to give advice to.
There'd be a number of reasons why you would tell him to stop.
You'd be like, stop doing this.
This is just a bad look.
And one of them would be like, it's kind of gross.
It's the lamest way to try to talk to a chick.
But after you rattled off like the seven reasons of why this is terrible, you would also be like, and it's also bad strategy.
By the way, this isn't actually the way to get chicks to like you.
Here's what happens.
And I know I've heard some of these young guys talk about it over and over again.
Like there'll be these like feminists, you know, like, you know, on college campuses, these like young 20-year-old girls or whatever who are all like, yeah, male privilege and gender pay gap and all this shit.
And, you know, the male gays and whatever their fucking talking points are.
And then they go to a frat party and get drunk and hook up with like some lacrosse player or something like that.
They're not fucking the male ally.
He ends up watching the movie, as you said.
Like that's exactly that.
That happens over and over and over again.
And even if he does get laid once, it's like this sympathy sex and it's not good and you feel like a bitch afterward.
And then she wants to talk to you about what an asshole that lacrosse guy is for not calling you.
And you just, it's like if you were giving a guy who you cared about advice, you'd be like, you just don't want to be that guy.
Be the man and let her come to you.
Like, don't fucking, don't be that.
You'll be happier.
She'll be happier.
Everything will be better.
And I guess the point that I'm trying to make in all this rambling is if you are looking to be a leader, if you're looking to be the man, which running for president, inherently you have to be looking to be those things.
That's why Hillary Clinton would be good at it.
Yes.
Well, but you know.
She knows she's the man.
Well, that's, well, that's why she, she had a good, uh, she had a good chance.
She's just an unlikable man.
Yeah, well, that was her problem all along.
It's a pre-rec, but it won't get you all the way there.
Yeah, she had the man part.
If you're trying to be president of the United States, we are still like basically evolved monkeys.
You know what I mean?
Made by Jesus, but evolved monkeys nonetheless.
And we're looking for an alpha.
This is commander in chief.
This is leader.
This is the guy who's going to get shit done.
He's the, and if you're going to say, I just apologize for my whiteness and my privilege, no one looks at you like a leader anymore.
Yeah, at least Trump's funny when he throws the bananas.
Well, listen, say whatever you will about Donald Trump.
That dude is a fucking alpha.
I don't care if you love him or hate him.
And I personally kind of fall into both of those camps.
I literally, I love and hate Donald Trump.
I hate him for his policies and just how much he, how many opportunities he's blown.
I hate him for the fucking war in Yemen.
I hate him for the budget for all these other reasons.
But even I see one of those fucking rallies and I'm just, I have a smile on my face.
It's hard not to.
It's look, anyway.
But it's just, I think there's something for Democratic politicians, especially straight white male Democratic politicians and someone like Beto O'Rourke, who this is the difficult position you find yourself in.
Remember we talked about this at the beginning of the campaign, and it was Beto and Joe Biden both said that they would pick women to be their vice presidents.
And Beto said, absolutely, I'll guarantee right now that it'll be a woman because women's voices have been underrepresented.
And it's like, it just pins you into this corner where you're like, but wait a minute.
So then why should you be president?
How do you argue yourself out of this corner that you've painted yourself into?
Well, we really need like female leadership, but let's do male one more time and I'll pick a female to be underneath me.
And then like, what?
So why don't you be vice president?
Did you see Biden sniff the kid again?
Oh my God.
He just couldn't resist himself.
He said he wasn't going to do it, but then he got around a kid and it was a photo opportunity and it was close to his nose.
Let me tell you something, okay?
I've always found the sniffing kids thing disturbing, okay?
But I've heard some people make arguments where they're like, I don't know, he's just kind of an older guy and he's just, you know how old, you know, like your grandpa at the Christmas party might be a little bit weird sometimes or something like that.
And it's just, you know, he doesn't mean any harm, blah, blah.
Let me tell you what is undeniably disturbing to me.
Here's the thing that's really fucked up about Joe Biden.
Joe's like a dude around Coke.
He just couldn't not get his nose in the middle.
The fact that this blew up as a scandal and everyone on his team has definitely been like, you got to stop sniffing kids.
And Joe Biden's like, no, I'm not going to quit.
Like, I'm sorry.
Listen, maybe this tanks my whole thing.
Maybe it doesn't.
But if you get a kid around me, I'm going to sniff that kid.
I'm nuzzle humping kids.
This is what I do.
And if I can't nuzzle hump kids, what's the point of this whole presidency thing anyway?
Then I'm not even sure I want to be president.
Basically, I just wanted easy access to nuzzle humping kids.
So that's, it is insane, insane that he cannot stop.
He actually can't stop touching children and being inappropriate with them.
Anyway, to the point I was making, I do think that this is something that straight white male Democrats, especially wealthy ones like Beto O'Rourke, and let's get real most of the time.
It's not fucking, you know, contrary to some like left-wing, you know, view of the world.
It's not going to be poor people who are going to be leaders in general.
That's usually, usually it's going to be somebody who like came from a good family or somebody who achieved something in their life.
It's usually not going to be like, well, I was homeless last week and this week I want to be president.
That's probably not going to be how it goes.
Capitalist System Flaws00:15:08
You're going to have to learn how to deal with this.
And it's going to be tough to paint yourself into this corner because the rules of woke social justice thing are if you're a straight white man who's got some money, you better be apologizing for being yourself all the time.
And that ain't, no, no leader is constantly apologizing for themselves.
So that's an issue.
All right, guys, let's take a quick second and thank one of our favorite sponsors, which is, of course, Infinite CBD.
I love working with Infinite CBD.
They're great guys who run the company and they have an incredible product.
If you don't know what CBD is, it is the non-psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
So it has all the medical benefits of marijuana, but it doesn't get you high.
It's not a drug.
It's not used recreational.
It's used as medicine.
And Infinite CBD offers the cleanest, healthiest, and purest form of CBD available anywhere.
It's all hemp grown organically in Colorado.
It's pure CBD isolate, testing over 99% CBD.
If you still haven't tried CBD, research has shown that CBD helps with a variety of different ailments, including insomnia, anxiety, depression, pain relief, inflammation, and many more things.
Go check it out.
Do some Google research.
It's really, it's a miracle product.
This month we are highlighting their gummies from Infinite CBD.
They've got some new flavors, and these gummies are great for calming down when things are stressful or before bed to help with insomnia.
They have sour grape, sour peach, sour watermelon, sour strawberry.
They're really good.
I was having a few of them the other day.
They're absolutely delicious.
They also have the seasonal apple pie made with real apple cider.
Anyway, go to infinitcbd.com and if you use the promo code Dave15, that's our new promo code, Dave15, they're going to give you 15% off your entire order.
That's infinitcbd.com, promo code Dave15.
All right, let's get back into the show.
The same media that told you that Beto O'Rourke had the it factor is now engaged in telling you that Elizabeth Warren is a totally viable candidate, that she can go up against Donald Trump, and that she is not horrible.
That's what they're telling you, that Elizabeth Warren isn't horrible.
Have you listened to a speech of Elizabeth Warren?
I don't know what you heard or what you thought you heard, but that was like a really charismatic leader who you just listened to.
But just remember what they said about Michael Avenatti.
Remember what they said about Beto O'Rourke and take a step back and look at this woman as a regular person.
She is terrible.
She is absolutely terrible.
Absolutely no charisma.
No nothing.
And anyway.
I like hearing about her daddy.
Yeah.
My pa and my dad, my mama, they told me we were Indians.
Anyway, Elizabeth Warren's angle, what she's been running on, is that, and this is what the media keeps repeating over and over again.
And by the way, at this point, it does seem pretty obvious that she's the media's candidate right now.
Okay.
She was not their first pick, by the way.
That is worth noting.
They really liked Beto at the beginning.
They really liked Kamala Harris for a while.
That one's scary.
But, well, but I'll tell you, it's just not happening.
Nobody's getting on board.
There's no popular support for any of those ideas.
No, I'm saying it's scary to me that the media would pick Kamala amongst the, I kind of get why the Beto play, I don't get the Kamala one.
Well, you know, I really, you know, I'll be honest, I don't completely get that one either.
I don't get it, but there's no question she was the one.
After that first debate, they went, yeah, she called out Joe Biden.
Now, they have not really gotten behind Biden the way you might have expected them to.
And I, you know, my guess on that is just that they saw what we saw from the very beginning, that they were like, this thing isn't going to make it.
Like, this guy's not going to, he's not going to, he doesn't have the stamina to get through to a Trump term.
He doesn't have that stamina to get all the way there.
The guy can't put three sentences together.
He's not going to make it another year before he implodes.
But Elizabeth Warren has been the one.
Now, I've been kind of surprised by this.
I was surprised.
I thought Bernie Sanders would be occupying the energy that Elizabeth Warren has, but it seems like it's going to her.
And the media and the establishment certainly prefer her to Bernie Sanders.
Like, they are never going to acknowledge that he's the guy, but they will acknowledge that Elizabeth Warren is the woman.
So her thing is that she's got a plan.
She's got a plan for everything.
And the one thing that she didn't have a plan for was for Medicare for All.
She basically just kind of said, well, I like Bernie's bill.
And then Bernie would, you know, keep saying, I wrote the damn bill or whatever.
But that's over.
Now Elizabeth Warren has come out with a healthcare plan.
To be fair, I guess Elizabeth Warren does have plans.
That's what she's running on.
I've got a plan for this.
I've got a plan for that.
The issue is that her plan is so horrendous that it's unbelievable anyone can even take it seriously.
I mean, Elizabeth Warren just proposed her Medicare for all plan.
It's the nuttiest one yet.
It makes Kamala Harris's Medicare for All plan look reasonable.
It makes Bernie Sanders' plan look reasonable in comparison.
You know what?
It's almost like she's offering us stuff, and then once she gives it to us, she's going to have to take it away.
Like healthcare.
You know, she's pretending like she can give us health care.
And I bet once she gives it to us, she's going to have to ration it.
You can almost call it Indian giving.
That would be racist if she was really Indian.
Luckily for you, she was lying about that whole thing.
So you're on solid ground.
Thanks.
So Elizabeth Warren's healthcare plan, I absolutely, I actually couldn't believe that they put this plan out.
Her healthcare plan, the cost has been admitted that it would cost around $52 trillion over 10 years.
Yeah, well, rich people have that.
That's no problem.
Oh, yeah, no, no, no.
You just increase the tax on the rich a little bit.
Now, she is somehow, so she is arguing.
So, so $52 trillion over 10 years, which her campaign has admitted would cost.
Other independent economists have looked at this and been like, there's no way it doesn't cost way more than that.
Because she also has other things involved, like she fixes prices for doctors, and they're basically like saying, Oh, okay, so you just think that they, and then she assumes that that won't have any negative effects.
You know, it's like this shit where they do.
Like, it's, it's like when they're, and a lot of people on the left do this, man.
It's like they're just in cheap.
She actually assumes, I read about a quarter to half of her plan.
And what she says is that if everybody's on the same health insurance, then hospitals will have to compete to get the customers, which is very backwards from, no, if there's less money being spent on these things, less people are going to want to offer those services.
Right.
Yes, right.
Well, I mean, think about it.
It's like, even think about it as if, and by the way, this is one thing.
Specialty doctor, she said she'll reduce the pay.
Well, look, if you look at socialism in general, and this is true for countries that go full-on socialist and for countries that implement different social plans, like just say America with Social Security or something like that, right?
I immediately there are a lot of problems.
And morally, there's a lot of problems because you're always like taking people's shit and giving it to a lot of other people.
So there's all types of like ethical dilemmas.
But where the problems really come in is in the long run.
In the long run is where problems really, really come in.
Because, you know, you think about it like if you have a completely free market system, say you have a completely free market healthcare system and then you socialize it.
And there is some truth to the fact, well, everyone's forced into this socialized system now.
And say somebody who's like a 45-year-old doctor, it's like, well, he's going to be a doctor for the rest of his life, probably, right?
Like he's not going to leave and find some other trait now.
It's like he's built a family around this.
He's built a life around this.
He went to school for fucking close to a decade for this shit.
He's not, it's like he's a doctor and he rose up in this free market system.
And now he's working.
Maybe his pay is down or blah, blah, blah, all this shit.
And it sucks.
But he's like, okay, you still have that talent that you stole from the market, basically.
But what you got to think about, if you think this is the system for here on out, is also the young talent coming in.
I mean, who the fuck wants to go, especially with like the fucking price of medical school and all that shit?
Who wants to go?
You know, you drastically cut the pay of doctors.
You think there's going to be no impact on how many people want to go into medicine in the future?
I think about it right like right now.
One of the major problems in America, and this is the problem that none, even like Austro-libertarians and people like that, they never really even calculate this problem.
Like with the financial sector, with going off the gold standard, really having the Federal Reserve go crazy, having all of the crazy profits in Wall Street.
How much of a brain drain has there been in all of the talented people in our society who go into Wall Street?
Everybody wants to work at a hedge fund now.
That's like the goal.
If you're really talented and you're fucking going to school and killing it and you're in finance, that's where people fucking want to go now.
It's finance.
They want to go into this fucking world.
You know, these talented type people used to have to actually go into the market and fucking make something of themselves and help other people in some way.
Now they all want to go there.
So it's not like these things don't like making money is something that influences people, particularly men.
Sorry to say it, but that's the fucking truth.
It's like, so, okay, the idea that that's not going to have any impact if you freeze doctor's pay is insane.
Just to build off what you're saying, because that's so, I didn't even think of that, but that's really interesting.
I remember a million years ago, I worked at a hedge fund and there was an economist there and he said that they predicted the basically the collapse of the USSR that for years they said, yes, you will have economic growth as you move like these peasants from like their fields to the inner cities.
There's a growth model for that, but at some point it dies out.
It's similar to this where it's like we have this system that's built off of capitalism or it's semi-capitalist.
So there's profit incentives in all these hospitals.
So if you remove the profit incentive, yeah, you have these working institutions and it might be great for five years or six years, but eventually all that was built off the capitalist system will erode away.
And then you're like, you can just predict there's going to be a scale of sliding.
No, I agree with that.
And I would also add to that that, look, the collapse is the long-term problem.
But in the short run, right away, and this is true, again, like I said, with one socialist program or an entire socialist nation.
And obviously it's more accentuated with an entire socialist nation.
But in the short run, you have moral atrocities.
In the long run, you have total collapse.
Because in the first couple of years, the resources are not.
Look, if you take the Soviet model as an example, as you did, right?
So if you take the Soviet model and you just say, after the Bolshevik Revolution, the communists come into power.
And the mentality going into Lenin, into the early years of Stalin, the mentality is like, we know where history is going.
It's going toward communist, like Marxist vision of history.
It goes from capitalism into socialism into communism.
Like, this is where we're going.
And we're leading this revolution.
And it's an ongoing revolution.
It's not just like, oh, we overthrew the fucking czars or we overthrew the provincial government.
Like, we're leading an ongoing revolution till we get this communist world.
And the mentality is like, well, if you got to break a few eggs along the way, then whatever.
That's okay.
Would you rather just not have what we all know is the great thing and let capitalism flourish?
No.
So at first, especially in the early years of Stalin, they basically socialized the cities, but they were still, there was still basically capitalism, if you will, in the farms because those people kind of owned their farms of their shit.
And they were like, well, we can't allow that to happen because that's not.
So now, basically, what would happen is people would starve to death because they had these force, you know, the collectivization of the farms.
So a whole bunch of people starved to death.
But just theoretically, right?
If you don't care that a whole bunch of people starve to death, like if you can overlook that moral atrocity and just be like, well, whatever, this is the fucking plan.
If you decide we're going to have railroads and you kick a whole bunch of people off their farms and make them build railroads, like you enslave them, essentially, which is what Stalin did, you could have some railroads at the end of that.
It's not like you can't look at that and go, well, look, it worked.
We got railroads.
I mean, the problem is that this isn't what people wanted.
Clearly, what they want, they didn't do it voluntarily.
They didn't ask for any of this, but you can make this happen and you can kind of industrialize a society by force.
Now, of course, all of the successful industrialized societies weren't done that way, but this is what the communists used to brag about with the Soviet Union is that, well, they industrialized and they did all these things.
It's like, yeah, you can have some of that.
I mean, if you have one dictator at the top who decides how economics work, you can make something happen, you know?
The problem is then over time, over more time and over more time, you realize, oh, we have these railroads, but we don't have food to eat.
Oh, we have these big statues, but we don't have whatever, like these other basic things that we need that only a market can really figure out how to serve people's needs the best.
So, but right, so right away with these plans, it's like, yeah, I mean, if you overlook like kicking a whole bunch of people off of their insurance and fucking, you know, taking their doctors away from them and all this fucked up shit, you know, you can, if you overlook that, it's like, oh, yeah, maybe you can have a socialized healthcare system.
The problem is it's doomed to fail.
But this is like...
She said a really funny thing in her document about exactly that point, but she goes, so currently you want to say, hey, you can choose between plans, but what about the people that don't have plans?
At least with me, you'll know that you can afford it and you'll be able to choose between what kind of services you want because you'll be able to afford it.
The issue with that is once it's all socialized, what are you really going to be able to choose between?
Right.
Like once it becomes rationed and they don't really have the resources to provide it to everybody, like, yeah, you might be able to choose between two shitty doctors, but that's not the choice that we were talking about.
She threw a lot of real nonsense at me.
Oh, yeah.
Well, look, man, I mean, it's really, it's quite something to watch.
What Elizabeth Warren is talking about here.
And I know I'm talking about the Soviet Union and stuff.
And I'm sure there's some people like Warren supporters who would be like, oh, this is just classic libertarian talking points.
Like, you know, you bring up having a healthcare system just like every other advanced country has or whatever their talking points are.
And you're talking about the Soviet Union and gulags and starving farmers and all this shit.
It's like, look, man, this is not like Elizabeth Warren is not mincing words.
She is, as she says, being quite bold about her plan.
Paying For Everything00:07:59
This is $52 trillion.
Let's take her at her word.
Forget the other independent economists who looked at this and been like, it's going to cost way more than that.
Let's say they're wrong.
Let's say this is the first government program ever that comes in at budget, doesn't go over budget.
Okay?
Let's say that that's what happens here.
$52 trillion over 10 years.
Understand what you're saying.
You are more.
That is more than the entire federal budget.
It's more than the entire thing.
This is our budget, America, it's the biggest budget of any government in the history of the world.
And you're talking about more than the entire thing on just healthcare, on just healthcare.
And it's not as if the rest of Elizabeth Warren's proposals are to cut spending in other areas.
I mean, Elizabeth Warren, this is just one of her spending programs.
It's the big one.
But this is just one of them.
She's going to add more spending in other areas too.
And she claims that middle class taxes will not go up.
This is not, it's not only that middle class taxes won't.
Look, if you taxed every person who makes $200,000 a year and up at 100% and every corporation at 100%, you can't pay for this shit for a year.
And then, by the way, who the fuck knows what you just did to the economy?
Because I don't know where all those people are going to go.
I mean, I guess they didn't eat last year, so I don't really know if they're going to be around to make money next year because you taxed 100% of what they had.
I think most corporations would go out of business if you taxed 100% of what they had.
I don't know.
Maybe some of them could survive for a little.
Maybe some of those $200,000 a year people could survive another year or two, but I don't know.
You know, you did a whole lot of destruction there and you didn't get one year of your dumbass Medicare for all plan.
This is just insane.
But this is the biggest proposal in my lifetime ever that anybody, the biggest federal grab.
You're talking about what is between, I've seen different estimates, but it's either a fifth or a sixth of the economy that you're talking about the federal government taking over, a takeover of a fifth of the economy.
I'm sorry, what else can you compare that to other than socialism?
And this is where you have to get real about the track record of socialism and what it's done to all these countries.
Elizabeth Warren is a scary fucking candidate because she is a candidate with a plan.
And her plans are fucking disasters.
It's really like, I couldn't even believe this is what they put out.
But again, I think it's almost like with the beto thing.
You know, it's like I used to joke around about this, but this is getting too scary for me to fucking make the jokes.
But I remember when Hillary Clinton said, You know, I support a $12 an hour minimum wage.
And then Bernie Sanders was like, I support $15 an hour.
And you'd almost feel like you could win the Democratic primary if you were just up there.
Like, you'd be like, $16.
And they'd be like, holy shit, this guy's a fucking genius.
$16.
Like, it's just like her thing was like, well, let's just go bigger than Bernie.
Let's just go bigger.
What was his?
$32 trillion?
Let's fucking take it.
Let's take it all the way.
It's like, this is...
Quite a proposal from Elizabeth Warren.
And I think, and she still seems to not be admitting that taxes would have to go up on everybody in order to pay for this shit.
And that's just going to be the reality.
So, again, it's like they tell you, you know, it's like they, you know, obviously guys like me and you have a million problems with the American healthcare system.
I would say as many problems, if not more, than Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have with it.
Like me and you probably could think, like, have hate this system just as much as they do.
You got to get fill out forms, get reimbursed.
I never do it.
I just end up paying out of pocket.
I don't want any forms.
I don't want any reimbursement.
Just tell them what it costs, and I'll fucking pay you when I need it.
And that's it.
Listen, I get that.
And I actually think a lot of people are that way.
I mean, look, if the bills get high enough, you'll end up fucking doing it.
You know what I mean?
But it's, but anyway, we have a lot of problems with this whole system.
I mean, there's a lot of things.
So when Bernie Sanders talks about, you know, like there's, you know, you have your insured, but then you have this fucking deductibles and you have this copay and you have all these things.
And it's like, and your insurance doesn't cover everything.
It's like, yeah, look, I wish there was a much better market in health insurance.
I think this whole thing is.
Let's get rid of licensing laws and Amazon's going to get me good health care within a year.
Yeah, probably.
They're going to get me some smartwatch.
It's going to monitor my health.
A day later, they'll ship me antibiotics and I got an STD.
I won't get any warts on my penis.
It's going to be a perfect.
Well, that would be.
Look, there would be.
All of hair.
You get a free market for health care.
I'll just have hair again.
That's how flourishing it's going to be.
It's all licensing laws.
I don't know if I'm going to stand by that last part, but I do, I like the direction that you're taking things in, generally.
Cookies won't get me fat and all of hair again.
That's what free markets can do for all of us.
Yeah.
Well, it certainly is.
Oh, that would be the beauty of true free market insurance would be that they would be incentivized to do a lot more on prevention, but we don't have any type of real honest market.
But that being said, I mean, you know, it's like Bernie, you know, he invokes these Scandinavian countries, you know, like Denmark or something like that.
And it'll be like, you know, Denmark is, you know, whatever, you know, you guys have these deductibles and these copays and all this.
And then it'll be like, yes, your taxes will go up a little bit, but no more deductibles, no more premiums, no more copays, no more all this shit.
And it's like, okay.
But look, like, if you actually look into the details of how they make it work in Denmark, there's like a 25% VAT tax.
And then I think it's, I mean, I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but when you start making like $60,000, $70,000 a year, you're paying like 70% in federal income tax.
So, or income tax, you know?
And so it's like, yeah, I'll stick with the copays and premiums over that.
I mean, like, I know people don't like those things, but I don't know.
There's like anywhere that you actually see this shit get done, it's fucking real bad.
What do you got?
Numbers from Denmark?
What?
What do you got for me, Brian?
65.9%.
65.9% for what?
Personal income tax rate.
Personal income tax rate.
At what income level does it say?
That's just the effective?
That's the highest effective.
That's the highest effective.
So, I mean, that's a lot.
You know, I saw a real screwy number when I was reading through Elizabeth Warren because they always make the claim about these Scandinavian countries.
But one of their big claims, they always go that we pay so much more on pharmaceuticals than anyone else.
But then they never tell you the scale.
They just go, well, we're a bigger country.
We probably have more old people.
So now here's the closest.
She finally said, per person, we pay $1,194.
And then the next highest is, I think it was Scandinavia, 980.
So firstly, that's not that big of a spread.
It's really not that big of a spread.
And secondly, if you're really that nervous about that, I'm sure.
You don't need a government overhaul to look into what's going on with these pharma companies that we're spending more.
I'm sure 90% of the time it's some government protection law here.
It's some sort of a licensing that these other countries don't have.
Licensing, there's a whole patent racket.
And even without getting into the whole like intellectual property debate, most libertarians, even the ones who do support some type of intellectual property, which I do not, but even those ones, it's like you have to acknowledge that the way the patent laws are actually like enforced and used, it's such a fucking racket.
There's, you know, it's like, obviously you would look to the connection between big pharma buying off the government and why we're paying so much for these fucking prescription drugs.
And look, this stuff, it's like you want to talk about how we pay so much for these prescription drugs and all of these other things.
Truck Driver Interests00:12:16
And it's like, you're going to pay for this stuff.
You're going to pay for it.
You're really debating on where the money comes from.
And at least even good honest Democrats used to at least admit, even Obama used to admit that like you wanted to incorporate market forces because that's what controlled for prices.
Like even he would admit, yeah, the market tends to bring things down.
The government tends to bring things up.
Even the Warhawk neocon Republicans would acknowledge that the government brings prices up and the market brings prices down.
It's just that we got to fight this external enemy.
So, yeah, I know you hear about these like $60,000 toilets at the Pentagon, but we got to fight.
We got to worry about Bin Laden or something.
You know what I mean?
Like they'd at least acknowledge that, but now they're actually making the argument that the government will control for costs better than the market will.
And that's it's it's a scary turn in a way because people follow this stuff.
You know, people just follow.
And once you're, you get into that, it's like people go, well, yeah, if you want profits, they charge a whole bunch of fucking money.
That's, that's the issue.
You know, that's the problem.
And it's, I don't know.
This whole thing is pretty fucking crazy.
Pretty crazy.
All right, guys, let's take a second and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Wix.com.
There is a better way to build websites for your clients.
With Wix, you can harness the latest web technology and innovative design tools to deliver professional results.
Start with a blank page and design the layout you want.
Grow their business with a custom online store, out-of-the-box booking system, and live chat.
Publish in a click and make edits fast.
Your clients will enjoy enterprise-grade security and automatic web hosting.
Use industry-leading SEO and powerful marketing tools to drive traffic to their sites.
Get started on your next client's website today.
I got to tell you guys, as you all know, I am fairly computer illiterate and I've actually built websites on Wix.com before.
So this is something that anybody can figure out and they'll give you results.
It's a professional looking website.
If you have clients who need a website, this is what you got to check out.
Once again, that's wix.com slash problem.
Wix, scale your web business.
All right, let's get back into the show.
I don't know, Rob.
Elizabeth Warren, what do you think?
Think she's going to make it?
I mean, she's leading the race right now until some other punk comes around.
It all comes down to the economy.
The economy stays strong.
Trump's getting re-elected.
If anything, this whole investigation into him, I mean, not even investigation, but the whole impeachment's just going to be free advertising for him to get out there and go, hey, look at what the deep state did to my first four years.
I really wanted to work for you guys.
And look at what they did.
It's me versus everybody else, and I'm actually trying to represent you.
Elizabeth Warren, between the Pocahontas thing and between socialism and just being a weird grandma lady, unless she shows up with pies for people.
I could see her winning, you know, she's got to show up with some home-cooked dinner to win me over to this whole grandma bullshit.
But if the economy tanks, they're just going to out him.
It doesn't matter.
It's just going to be a function of you can put up a broomstick.
If you put up a broomstick, they're going to want to out him and go, hey, we'll go with the broomstick.
Yeah, you might be right about that.
Hey, let's, by the way, speaking of the deep state, let's go to that video.
So this is something that caught my eye over the last week.
There was some type of event, I don't know, where a couple of deep state agents were speaking.
And this was, seeing as, hey, you just brought this up, I wasn't going to go to this next, but it seemed like a good segue since you just brought up Trump's argument that the deep state is working against him.
And of course, this has been one of the things that I've been talking about a lot for the last few years on this podcast, that there is this obvious attempted deep state coup to unseat Donald Trump.
It's funny because this is something that has been an issue of contention with a lot of people when I say this.
And there's been a lot of people, particularly when I do other podcasts, who will say that this is wild conspiracy stuff.
And quite frankly, and very, you know, it's been very disappointing is that even within the kind of libertarian world, like the more libertarian ink, mainstream libertarian world, people think this is like kind of crazy conspiracy talk, that there is, in fact, a deep state that's working against Donald Trump.
So this caught my eye, and I know this video went viral and a lot of people were talking about it.
So let's play the video and just see if there's any truth to these wacky conspiracies that I've been talking about.
But there is something unique.
You'd have to agree that the impeachment inquiry is underway, sparked by a complaint from someone within the intelligence community.
It feeds the president's concern and often used term about a deep state being there to take him out.
Thank God for the deep state.
I mean, I think, you know, everyone here has seen this progression of diplomats and intelligence officers and White House people trooping up to Capitol Hill right now and saying, these are people who are doing their duty or responding to a higher call.
It doesn't surprise.
I guess it doesn't surprise.
Well, think about it for a minute.
With all of the people who knew what was going on here, it took an intelligence officer to step forward and say something about it, which was the trigger that then unleashed everything else.
Now, why does that happen?
What I tell American people why that happens is this is the institution in the U.S. government that, with all of its flaws and it makes mistakes, is institutionally committed to objectivity and to telling the truth.
It is one of the few institutions in Washington that is not in a chain of command that makes or implements policy.
Its whole job is to do it.
So that's John McLaughlin, who was a former CIA director, or maybe he was an acting director, and he was sitting next to John Brennan, of course, Obama's CIA director.
And it's just like, okay, so can we all agree now that we're past saying there isn't a deep state?
Because here's the deep state telling you there's a deep state, and they're working against Donald Trump.
It's just, thank God.
And isn't it fucking amazing?
This has been, I mean, okay, one of the themes that I've had on this show for the entirety of the Part of the Problem podcast has been the religion of the state.
And when you see it on full display, it is really something to marvel at that people can say this.
It's like if you, look, I'm not shitting on religion in general, okay?
I know some really great people who are religious.
I, you know, some of the best people I've ever met in my life are religious.
A disproportionate amount of the best people I've ever met in my life are religious.
That being said, when you see somebody of a different religion than yours, think about like a really goofy religion that you like just aren't a part of and they're like, you know, in some weird outfit and doing some dance and saying all these things and you're just kind of like, I don't know.
When you're not in it, it looks fucking ridiculous.
And you're sitting here saying, look, there is a deep state and they are working to undermine Donald Trump, but thank God for them.
Literal words.
Thank God.
You know, like I'm not claiming like they're the ones invoking religious language here.
Thank God for them because these people are just such great people.
Now, imagine that you could be so religious and blinded to reality that you would say with a straight face, with no sense of irony, that the CIA is committed to honesty.
Truth and honesty.
Truth and honesty and objectivity.
And that's why they're the only ones that could step on.
No one else could.
Here's the point.
Here's really what I'm getting at when I talk about this being a religious way of looking at things rather than a logical way of looking at things or a scientific way of looking at things.
If I were to tell you this, just make it about somebody who's not the state.
If I were to just tell you like truck drivers, if I were to talk about truck drivers and be like, listen, truck drivers, people who are truckers, they don't care about making money.
They don't care about having a good time.
They just care about their products getting to where they need to be delivered on time.
It's not about, they don't have their own self-interest.
They do this because they deeply care about their community and they deeply want to see frozen chicken parts delivered to Canada.
You know what I mean?
We would all just hear how ridiculous this is.
Like right away, you're like, excuse me, no, they're people.
Like there's some of them are really good people, but they're no better than me or you.
They're just people.
They care about making money.
They have their own self-interest.
They don't do this out of the nobility of wanting to deliver things.
It's their job.
And they, you know what I mean?
Like, it's not.
Now, do you know how much more honest truck drivers are than the CIA?
You know how much less blood is on their hands?
How many, how many, like, the fucking CIA?
This is the bastion of honesty and integrity.
Like, get the fuck out of here.
But if you were to ever say that about anyone else, it's just laughable.
But somehow, when we talk about the government in the abstract, they can say things like this.
Well, you know, they're just public servants who just wanted to serve.
That's why Hillary Clinton's so furious right now, because she just didn't get the opportunity to serve.
It's not that she wanted to rule, right?
Let's pretend we live in that reality for a little bit.
It's not that she wanted to rule.
She wanted to serve.
And now she's like, how can I serve?
I mean, I could go to a soup kitchen every day and serve, but that's just not serving on a high enough level.
I really wanted to serve.
I could give all my money away, but no, I'm going to sit on a couple hundred mil.
Oh man, maybe if I get back in the race this time, I can really serve.
I get the fuck out of here.
If you're not, it's like this thing where like, if you don't believe in the religion, like it's like if somebody just, you know, was like a part of some crazy cult and they were like, did you know that our cult leader the other day, he took flight and he flew up to the moon and he took a little piece of the stars and he brought it back down to us and he blah, and you're just like, no, none of that.
I don't, I don't believe any of that happened.
I think he's just a dude who's convinced you all to believe this.
You know, like that's if you're outside the religion of the state, that's how this all sounds.
It's just like, yeah, this is just, this is just absurdity.
But removing the religious language, you go, well, what information are they giving you there?
And it's pretty obvious.
They're like, yes, there is a deep state.
And yes, they is working against that.
They are working against Donald Trump.
Yes, look at all these other people who are around and no one else was going to do this.
And we did it.
Now, if you take away that he's saying that it's a given that this is a good thing, and you would even entertain questioning whether or not this is a good thing, it's a pretty interesting admission.
And I also think they kind of step in and go, hey, we're the higher authority on who is fit to serve.
And that's not the way democracy is supposed to work.
That's not how the whole system is supposed to work.
It was supposed to be, hey, we chose this guy.
And then in four years from now, we get to vote again if we decide that he was unfit to serve.
Now, if he violates the Constitution or there's high crimes and misdemeanors, then we got branches of the government, such as the Supreme Court or, well, I guess the Supreme Court to keep him in check if he's violating the Constitution.
Or you get the Senate that can, you know, the Congress and Senate, which can impeach him for high crimes and misdemeanors.
But this idea of unfit to serve, we never created a CIA to go, hey, we're the higher authority.
No, no, no.
We'll decide on that.
That's not what you're supposed to do.
And if you're doing that, then you're acting what we've been saying the whole time against the will of the people.
Democracy Supposed To Work00:06:52
And that gives you the label of the deep state, which that guy literally just basically said, hey, I think that's a good idea.
There is a deep state and it's good.
There is a deep state and it's good.
It's like, okay, well, at least I'll tell you, I appreciate this more.
This is what was great about this moment.
There's an interesting thing.
It's some type of like social psychology, you know, phenomenon.
I'm not, you know, educated enough or smart enough to really break it down properly.
But I am a comedian and I've been doing stand-up for almost 13 years now.
And I know what it's like to perform in front of a room full of people, which is what this guy is doing right there, whether you think about it or not.
However you consider that, you get up with a microphone in front of a room of a couple hundred people.
You're performing for a group of people.
And as every comedian, everyone who's done stand-up for a long time, you, Rob, you know this well too.
That does something to you.
It has like a physiological effect on you when you're in front of a room full of people.
And if I panic and pee my pants every time.
Well, that's an effect.
Yeah.
So yeah, you're agreeing with me.
It's not a great effect.
It doesn't make for great shows from Rob Bernstein, but it's an effect nonetheless.
Rob's a very funny stand-up comedian, by the way.
He's very self-deprecating, but he's very funny.
That being said, when you somebody who's doing stand-up, right?
And you know this, Rob, as well as anyone.
The first couple years of doing stand-up, like nobody's really any, as a person, you're not really any more or less funny when you're 20 years into stand-up comedy than you are when you're one year into stand-up comedy, like as a person.
In fact, you might be less funny, to be honest.
Sometimes stand-up like robs you of your real funny in real life.
But the reason why you could see Bill Burr do stand-up comedy and be like, holy shit, that guy's a fucking genius.
And if you saw Bill Burr, you know, six months into the first time he ever did stand-up, you'd be like, oh, that guy sucks.
It's not that Bill Burr wasn't a funny guy back then.
Bill Burr was always a hilarious guy.
Couldn't get to this level if he wasn't just a hilarious guy.
What you're doing in the first few years is learning how to do stand-up comedy.
It's not just being funny, it's not the same thing as just being funny with your friends.
There's the that you, and I knew a lot of people like this, but the funniest fucking guy you know, the guy who's like the funniest guy in your group of friends, if you just threw him up on a stage tomorrow, he would not know what the fuck he's doing because he hasn't like thought it through, he hasn't done it before.
It's like it takes practice, like it's something that you have to learn how to do.
And part of what learning how to do stand-up comedy in the very beginning is just learning how to get up on stage in front of a room full of people and talk into a microphone to them and deal with that dynamic.
It's not the same dynamic as this right here: me sitting down and talking into a microphone with just you, where there are people listening.
There's a lot more people listening than I've ever seen either one of us live at one time in a show, but it doesn't have the same feeling because they're not right there.
But if we just looked outside and there were 100,000 people outside, it would change the way me and you are talking.
Like Rob would piss his pants, you know?
XRP.
Yeah.
He doesn't have the time just on the podcast.
So it's a guarantee.
But anyway, what's interesting when you get these CIA spies up on a stage and all of a sudden people are applauding at every word you say.
Now, this is a crowd that's sold on him.
These are anti-Trump, never Trump, you know, fucking Republicans or whatever the fuck this crowd is.
They're anti-Trump for sure.
So he's kind of feeding off the electricity of everyone clapping for him.
And when you do that and you're not used to it, you don't do that a lot.
It has an effect on you.
You're saying he's having like a Chris Farley moment with the kill ladies.
Yes.
Interesting.
Exactly.
He's having a moment where he revealed a little something that he probably shouldn't reveal because we are social animals and we get off on every oh, you've got the approval of everyone.
Well, once you've got the approval of everyone, just like the Chris Farley reference, which is perfect, you feel like, well, let me take this a step further.
Let me take this out.
Let me really fucking let me get that juice again.
And he said something right there.
He goes, Yes, there is a deep state.
It is working against Donald Trump and thank God for it.
Well, okay, I appreciate that.
I appreciate that a lot more than someone who goes, there's no such thing as the deep state.
And they're just there to serve the president.
So they're serving Donald Trump.
It's like, okay, at least admit that it is a thing and they are working against Donald Trump.
And then we can have a debate over whether unelected bureaucratic spies, career deep state agents, should get to choose who the president is rather than the American people.
By the way, I'm not for either.
I don't want a president at all.
Well, now that I know that they're sworn to truth and honesty, I can get a lot of people.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
These are just, these are noble people.
They don't even think about normal things.
Like, you know how you want to make money and you want to fuck and you want to have a good life and you care about yourself more than you care about others.
These aren't people like that.
You know what?
Now that I know that I know there are people like that, why are we even wasting time with the elections?
I mean, it's dumb that any of us are getting together to try and decide.
Put one of these truth and honest guys in charge.
Absolutely.
One of these noble, selfless people.
I mean, why wouldn't we just put them in?
They're better than the rest of us.
You would think if one of them ran, they'd win for sure.
I mean, if they're these truth, honesty people who have a better picture.
It's the problem that the rest of us just aren't good enough to notice it.
We're just not good enough to appreciate how great they are.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm not fully understanding it, but that seems to be what we're getting at here.
Anyway, amazing moment.
Amazing moment.
Made for a part of the problem moment.
Okay.
So, as I alluded to earlier in the podcast, I wanted to respond.
I got a lot of people who were asking me to respond to this particular portion of Kyle Kalinsky on the Joe Rogan experience.
And, you know, this was an interesting podcast.
I listened to most of it.
And Kyle started, you know, they talked a lot of anti-war shit, and I really appreciated that.
I thought he was pretty, pretty spot on.
I thought he didn't, you know, he wasn't like great in the details of the foreign wars, and there was a lot of stuff that he kind of seemed to like kind of miss out on.
And I thought he could do a little bit more homework in that department.
But the spirit of what he was arguing for was just that these wars are crazy.
Obama's foreign policy was terrible, and so was Trump.
So was George W. Bush's.
And I appreciated that.
I thought it was cool to hear someone talking like that on Rogan.
Never had that happen before.
Anyway.
But no, but I, and I love Joe Rogan.
He's a fucking hero of mine.
And he, you know, it was, it was great to see him the other day.
And we're going out to LA over New Year's.
I hope to see him again when we're out there.
Natural Market Laws00:15:13
But people wanted me to respond to this because they did talk about libertarians a little bit.
And Kyle Kalinsky, I guess, took some shots at libertarians.
So, oh shit, did I even pull this up?
Did I pull up the Kyle Kalinsky book?
Okay, yeah, it is.
Okay, good.
Good.
I did my work.
Just said, I did my work, but forgot I did your work.
Is that even better than not prepping when you do and then you forget?
I guess it is.
All right, anyway.
So here was the segment where they started talking about libertarian and free markets and things like that.
So let's play from there.
That term is like way too wide.
I think both are.
I think the idea like liberal, conservative, it casts such a wide net.
And then people like to get sneaky and use, no, I'm a classic liberal.
Yeah, because what is that?
What is that?
Exactly.
And it's funny because there's actually, when you actually look at the textbook definition of a lot of these terms, they have multiple meanings.
So classical liberal, in some instances, means just like libertarian because that's what it used to mean back in the day.
But in today's day and age, like you said, it could mean you're kind of right-leaning.
Yeah, it's more right-of-center.
Right.
Classical liberal is a very, it's a misleading term.
Classical liberal.
Classical liberal is a British term, correct?
Well, I think it originally dates back to, it was a way of describing libertarianism.
That was what they used because I think it referred to liberalizing the markets.
Let's look at the rules.
Let's look at the exact same thing.
Let me just pause it real quick.
So, look, just to get straight on this, I will acknowledge also, by the way, that I agree that there's a lot of problems with these terms and that they can be like conservative can mean a lot of different things.
Liberal can mean a lot of different things.
Libertarian can mean a lot of different things.
And libertarian used to mean a different thing.
And liberal used to mean a different thing.
This is the confusion that's coming here, okay?
What liberal used to mean, right?
So classical liberals, what are called classical liberals now, referred to themselves.
So when they say the term used to, the term classical liberal used to mean libertarians.
No, no, no, no.
The term was liberal.
Okay.
The term was liberal.
Liberal, the word liberal has a root word.
The word is liberty.
Okay.
So people who were liberals were generally pro-liberty.
And they fought against what's considered the old order, which was like monarchies, you know, religious fundamentalism, theocracy, things like that.
They believed in things like free speech, freedom of association.
And yes, that translated in economic terms to free markets.
That's kind of what they were for.
So Ludwig von Mises, for example, would not have referred to himself as a libertarian.
I'm not even sure if he ever addressed that term at all.
It was not a popularized term when he was around.
He would have called himself a liberal.
And so saying liberalizing the market, it wasn't like, oh, you're liberal, but you want to liberalize the market, but you're not liberal on all the other issues.
To them, that was being liberal on all of the issues.
That's what the term meant.
Okay.
So this is where, so it didn't mean libertarian back then.
Then Murray Rothbard, the term liberal turned into something completely different and kind of got hijacked by the left and became, I mean, now it's not even really a term that's used that much anymore, but it basically for years and years and years was what the term progressive is being used as now.
So it became a whole different thing.
And then Murray Rothbard kind of revived this term libertarian that had been used by like some left-leaning people in Europe and stuff like that.
So all the terms are kind of muddled up and mixed up.
But just if that clears it up at all, libertarianism in many ways flows from the original or classical liberal tradition.
People like Mises, John Locke, people like that.
Okay, let's play.
That's one of those where I hear people say that and they go, well, that guy's Republican.
Why is he calling himself a classical liberal?
Yeah, see, that's my point.
And I don't like labels, period, because they're so amorphous.
And people can say, if you can ask people, like, did you know, for example, in the Democratic primary in 2016, self-described conservative Democrats supported Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton, even though Bernie Sanders is literally further to the left than Hillary Clinton.
So again, that just shows people don't know labels.
When you say conservative Democrats, though, maybe they're just not into interventional foreign policy.
And I mean, she's kind of a warmonger.
Right.
And this gets back to the point of labels being so amorphous that.
Here it goes.
Sorry.
Classical liberalism is a political ideology and a branch of liberalism which advocates civil liberties under the rule of law with an emphasis on economic freedom.
That's what I was referring to.
That's sort of libertarianism.
That's libertarianism.
So that's like less rules, right?
Right.
He's got to deregulate the market.
Free market will take care of it.
Capitalism unfettered is the best kind of capitalism.
Closely related to economic liberalism.
It developed in the early 19th century, building on the ideas from the previous century as a response to urbanization and the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States.
Notable individuals whose ideas contributed to classical liberalism include John Locke, John Baptista, John Baptiste, I don't know who that is, Thomas Robert Malthus, and I don't know any of these guys.
It drew in a classical economic ideas espoused by Adam Smith, you know, one of the wealth of nations.
Yeah, you know that guy.
Do I?
Adam Smith?
Yeah.
Yeah, he's like viewed as like the godfather of free market thought in many ways.
I mean, there's other ones, don't get me wrong.
There's Milton Friedman, of course, and there's Hayek and there's Von Mises, but Adam Smith is definitely one that's cited a lot.
He's the one where everybody talks about the individual hand of the marketplace.
That's who they're citing when they talk about the free hand of the marketplace or however the saying goes.
Look at this expression.
Pause it.
He was close.
I mean, okay.
You don't have to give him shit for that.
There's no more names than I could drop.
Okay, he got some names there, but it's not the individual hand or whatever.
It's not as the saying goes.
It's not a saying.
It's the invisible hand.
And if you don't know that, it's going to change a lot of what your outlook here is.
But I will, okay, I'll give him credit because he dropped Mises' name.
So at least he kind of knows some of the names involved in it.
But, all right, let's keep playing.
Of the Wealth of Nations and on a belief in natural law, utilitarianism and progress.
What does that mean?
Natural law, utilitarianism, and progress?
Well, utilitarianism means doing the best for the largest number of people.
Yeah, but what does natural law mean?
Adam Smith in one book, The Wealth of Nations, and on a belief in natural law.
Click on that, Jamie.
What does that mean?
We're going to go down.
We're going down a wikipedia rabbit hole here.
I just.
The natural law of money?
From a book.
So I think what it's referring to is supply and demand and how the way the marketplace works, there are natural laws as to how it works.
And the idea is it's always a negative thing when you try to tweak those laws.
So, no, that's not at all what natural law means.
What natural law, first off, let's go through these straight.
It's not the invisible hand, or excuse me, it's not the individual hand.
It's the invisible hand of the market.
And what natural law refers to is kind of like the idea that there are these kind of natural organic principles that are widely shared that are kind of unchanging throughout time.
So, the idea of like an example of like murder being wrong, being kind of like a natural law, like I, let me see if I can, because maybe I'm not going to give the best description, but it's certainly not referring to supply and demand.
It's referring to, let me see, because maybe I didn't just give the best definition.
A body of unchanged, a body of unchanging moral principles regarded as a basis for all human conduct.
Okay, so I was kind of saying that, but there's there.
They put it in a nicer way than me.
But so the idea that you, you know, that there are these kind of, you know, rules of conduct that are natural, that don't really have to be enforced from top down, that pretty much everybody accepts violating them are kind of wrong.
This is what, now, I don't use the term natural law a lot.
I have a problem with some of those early thinkers who talked about natural law and natural rights.
But I do, whenever we talk about the non-aggression principle, I always point out the fact that we all pretty much, Kyle Kalinsky included, live by the non-aggression principle every day.
And that does seem to indicate that there's something about it that's a little bit bottom-up and organic and kind of has to do with the whole idea of civilization.
We all kind of agree.
Yeah, you're not.
We all kind of know that if you go out and hit someone, you've kind of broken a rule.
Like that's not, you know, you're not supposed to do that unprovoked.
So anyway, let's keep playing.
It works best when you take a hands-off approach.
The problem with that, I mean, there's a lot of problems with that, but the problem with that clearly is that when there has been regulation for long periods of time and you just step back, you're going to have a massive period of chaos until things do settle.
If you do let the market decide, I would imagine there's going to be a period when the deregulation takes place.
There's going to be a lot of people to get fucked over.
Absolutely.
I mean, we actually have quite a bit of evidence on this front because we've run this experiment like a thousand times in U.S. history alone.
But as a general rule, whenever you do market deregulation and whenever you cut taxes for the very wealthy, there's what's called a boom-bust cycle, which means everything takes off.
Everything seems like it's wonderful.
The good times seem like they're never going to end.
Remember the roaring 20s?
They called it the roaring 20s because it was like, oh my God, the market is soaring.
Everything's going so well.
And then it was followed by the Great Depression.
And then you saw it again, actually, in the end of the Clinton years, because Clinton repealed Glass Deagle, which was a very important piece of regulation.
And then under the Bush years as well, he further deregulated and cut taxes for the rich.
And what happened?
We had the subprime mortgage crisis and the Great Recession.
So as a general rule, it's not like all regulation is good, full stop.
It depends what the regulation is.
But to argue in favor of regulation of the marketplace is like arguing in favor of referees in a soccer game or whatever.
Old referee argument.
Oh, the old referee line.
Okay, so everything you just said is wrong.
Literally every inch of that is completely wrong.
Now, let me just respond first to Rogan's concern, which I think is a reasonable one, but I don't think he's right about it.
But I understand the argument of saying, like, well, hey, we've been regulating every nook and cranny of the economy.
So if we just have radical deregulation tomorrow, isn't that going to cause a lot of chaos?
Like as we kind of transition into this.
And I don't actually know that there's reason to suspect that.
Like, I remember when they actually had real cuts in welfare in the 90s.
And people said that there were going to be, like, people were going to starve.
And you could see where even somebody who wanted less welfare would be like, yeah, but people are like dependent on it now.
So what are we going to do?
I mean, if we cut all this welfare, how are people going to figure it out?
And you know what happened more or less was people figured it out.
People figured it out.
There wasn't mass starvation.
I'm not saying no one had a hard time, but there really wasn't like any like, you know, like terrible effects from it.
It's like people went out and all these able-bodied people who were just collecting welfare checks ended up going out and finding something else because they had to.
You put them in a position where they have to.
It's kind of like that, you know, the mother who's enabling her son.
You know, her son is fucking 25 and still living at home.
And she's like, well, if I kick him out, then he's going to starve on the streets.
And it's actually, and then she kicks him out and he figures it out and he gets a job and gets it together.
It's like, it's not, you know, and that's just a welfare example.
But I'm just saying, I actually don't, I don't know that I agree with that.
I think that, in fact, deregulation might be such a boon to the economy that it would just, it would take off and be a much smoother transition.
It's also like, you know, whether it's chaotic or not in the transition isn't my biggest concern.
My biggest concern is what's going to long term lead to like a better, healthier, more just society.
So I think radical decentralization is no question the way to go.
Into the Kyle Kalinsky stuff.
Literally everything he said is wrong.
Literally everything that he said in that example is wrong.
So the idea that we've run this experiment a hundred times or a thousand times, whatever he said in American history, I mean, look at the roaring 20s and then the Great Depression follows.
So what led to the Roaring 20s then?
I mean, what is it?
Like, make the argument.
How is the argument that we had radical deregulation in the 20s?
What exactly are we talking about here?
I mean, yeah, we had the kind of first real federal regulation state come in in the like right after the Great Depression, at the beginning of the Great Depression.
And the Great Depression didn't end as a result of it.
It dragged on.
It's not called the Great Depression because 1929 and 1930 were really bad.
It's called the Great Depression because it was still bad in 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938.
It was a disaster.
And most of that was because, you know, because of FDR's New Deal.
It dragged on forever.
Even mainstream historians are starting to admit that all that bullshit you learned in school is completely wrong.
So no, I mean, you know, like, look, you had the Federal Reserve was created in the decade before.
And then all of a sudden, we saw the biggest boom-bust cycle ever.
And when he talks about there's this boom-bust theory about when you lower taxes and deregulate, there's a boom, but then it leads to a bust.
I don't know.
Please, somebody introduce me to this theory.
Let me look through it.
But for somebody who did cite Mises, I don't know.
It's kind of surprising to hear.
Now, this other stuff about how Clinton, I know they love this talking point.
Oh, God, it's so tired.
If anyone's more interested in this, go read Tom Woods wrote a great book on this called Meltdown.
And there's that bubble, the bubble film that's a really great documentary that was put out that was based on that book.
The idea that deregulation led to the financial crisis in 2008 is just, it's on its face false.
It's just wrong.
And they always go to Glass-Steagall.
And do you know why they always go to Glass-Seagle?
Because it's the only major regulation that you can look to that was repealed.
So there is this one regulation that we got rid of.
The problem is that none of them ever actually draw a line from Glass-Steagall to the housing bubble.
Like, how did the repeal of Glass-Steagall lead to a housing bubble?
Why did that happen?
What about Glass-Steagall would have prevented a housing bubble?
Don't you feel like you should have to make this argument?
You can't just say, because otherwise it's just kind of like, couldn't I just say, like, I don't know, like anything, something happened in 1994.
Glass-Steagall Failures00:14:39
Like the Knicks lost the finals in 1994 and that's what led to the housing bubble.
I mean, if you don't make the argument, you're just stating something happened and then stating this thing happened afterward.
Correlation does not equal causation.
So, no, how about the argument that artificially low interest rates led to a housing bubble?
Well, I'm not just saying one thing happened and then the other one did.
I'm saying when there are artificially low interest rates and people get into adjustable rate mortgages that they can afford under those artificially low interest rates, when the interest rates go up, they can't afford the payments anymore.
And now all of a sudden their monthly mortgage payments shoot up.
You go from, oh, I'm paying 800 bucks a month.
Oh, shit, I'm paying $1,200 a month.
Oh, shit, I'm paying $3,000 a month.
See, that's not just me saying something happened and then I'm actually giving a reason for why it would happen.
You could look at Freddie and Fanny, look at the Community Reinvestment Act.
I mean, there's a million things that you could look to that the government actually did.
And none of them had to do with deregulation.
All of it had to do with government interference in the market.
I actually can't believe in 2019 that we haven't just won this argument.
It reminds me of like when people bring up the gender pay gap again or something like that.
It's like, haven't we had this argument to death?
Haven't we already proven that this is not what happened?
I guess not.
All right, let's keep playing.
Some amount of enforcement of things that make sense.
Like libertarian.
Okay, pause it.
Sorry, because we didn't get to the greatest part, the one that you mentioned earlier, what he said at the end that you jumped on, which is the, by the way, I think it gets right down to the absolute core of the difference between me and Kyle Kalinske.
This is the difference that he says we need the referees in the game because that's what he sees the government as.
The government are the referees in the game.
But they're not.
The problem is that they're not.
They're objectively not.
This goes back to the same John Brennan religion of the state thing.
Like somehow you think that everybody else are these like self-interested creatures, but the government are like, we're neutral.
We don't care who wins this game.
We're just calling balls and strikes, man.
Like I'm just here to call, I'm just here to tell you, oh, out of bounds there, I enforce the rules the same on you as I do on you.
Nobody else.
But the problem is that government is made up of people, people who wield enormous power, power that is backed up by violence.
Why do you think those people are just going to be neutral refs?
Do you think this housing crash that you just brought up, do you think that our government was neutral?
Referees in the game between Joe Sixpack and Goldman Sachs?
Or do you think maybe they were a little bit more on Goldman Sachs side?
So you know what's worse than not having a referee is having a referee who's working against you.
I'm sorry, you were going to say.
No, no, I agree with what you said.
You nailed it, buddy.
Well, it's just, it's like, look, man, the idea that government, like when we talk about government, this is why I call it a religion.
It's like, let's call it what it really is.
And then you can either defend it or not based on what it really is.
What government is, is a group of people who have a monopoly on the legal right to initiate violence against peaceful people.
That's what it is.
That's a fact.
That's not my opinion on it.
That is what, like, objectively what the state is.
They're a group of people who have the legal monopoly on the right to initiate violence against peaceful people.
The government can do that.
You can't.
None of us can legally.
Okay?
Forget morally, legally.
You can't do it.
You can't steal from somebody else.
You can't put somebody else in handcuffs and throw them in a cage.
You can't do any of these things to people, certainly to peaceful people, but the government does all of them.
That's what they are.
They are the people who murder more people, enslave more people, rob from more people, and destroy more lives than any other organization.
Again, facts.
Now, to just call them the referee in the game and go, well, shouldn't we get the government involved?
I mean, they're the ref in the game.
It's naivete at its highest, highest level.
All right, let's keep playing.
Arians argue like, you know, well, think about, would you want to have no FDA at all looking after the drugs that are out there?
Exactly.
It's ridiculous.
You could sell stuff that's cut with substances that could end up killing you.
I mean, this is actually what happened.
In Prohibition, during Prohibition, they used to make alcohol in bathtubs and cut it with substances that were very dangerous.
And so every now and then there would be a bad batch of alcohol and people would die because the way they made the alcohol had no regulation and no standards.
Pause it.
Just pause it.
Just pause it.
Oh my God, you're going to make my libertarian head explode.
You're going to make my head explode.
The reason why alcohol was cut with all these different, you know, like poisons during prohibition was because it wasn't regulated.
Or maybe it was because of the prohibition on alcohol.
Jesus fucking Christ.
All right.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
For your example of deregulation to be prohibition, it's like, well, no, libertarians are arguing for free markets.
Prohibited markets would be kind of the opposite of a free market.
Yes, you're going to drive the market underground.
Okay.
But the thing they start with too at the beginning with is like, this is what drives me crazy.
And it's hard.
It's hard because it's like, you're not just arguing with somebody.
Like, it's one thing if you're arguing with somebody on the same playing field on the same terms and we're talking about the same thing.
But when you're talking about something on a different level, it's very hard because you have to kind of shift the narrative back over here to where reality is.
So the same thing as you said, if you're talking about the, like, if you really believe that the governments are refs in the game, then I guess regulation does make sense.
Like, I guess it's just that they're not that thing.
You're taking as a given something that's false and then building on that.
So it's like, well, we have to go back and unpack this whole thing.
So here's the thing, right?
This is like the difference between the status mindset and the libertarian outlook.
You go right away, you go, well, what do you want?
You want to have a world with no FDA?
It's like, ooh, no, I don't want that.
Oh, that, yeah, that's, that's ridiculous, right?
A world with no FDA.
And I get how most people would just look at it that way.
Like, oh, yeah.
So there'll just be no one.
It just won't happen.
And then fucking people sell you anything.
It'll be just like prohibition somehow.
Like all that I smoke.
It always comes with the FDA label letting me know that it's okay.
Right.
Well, sure.
I mean, it's good for that.
Otherwise, you know how many times I would have overdosed on poisonous marijuana?
Well, look, there's a lot of different, I mean, first off, it's really funny that it goes, so if we got rid of the FDA and we basically legalized all drugs, it would be just like when we illegalized alcohol.
I mean, all right, there's a lot of problems with it's funny that he jumped to that analogy of all, or that example, rather, of all examples.
But look, here's my point.
And I'm not even what you're going to, like the practical kind of, here's how it actually works, the empirical evidence argument of like, yeah, okay, well, there's people who like have been smoking weed in New York, say, where it's been illegal for decades and decades and decades.
And like, yeah, it's not really a problem that people are dying.
I mean, okay, occasionally someone might get a batch that's laced, but like that actually happens with FDA drugs too.
You know, like it's, that happens all over the place.
There's recalls of all types of regulated products all the time.
Yeah, baby powder gave people's pussies cancer.
Yeah, and baby powder is really bad for you, right?
No, we don't use it anymore.
My baby doesn't use baby powder.
You would have thought that was a conspiracy of conspiracies, that baby powder gives you cancer.
Turns out those motherfuckers at Johnson and Johnson, they were paying the right people.
Yeah, but right.
So then there's the other problem, right?
Which is that all of this government power, as power tends to, it gets corrupted and it doesn't work out for other people.
And there's obviously the answer that you could look at the FDA and actually look at how much damage they've caused because the FDA will do these things where they'll be like, you know, after, I remember John Stossel used to talk about it.
It's built on bread.
Well, yeah.
Was that them?
Was that the FDA?
Yeah, it's all the same.
But John Stossel used to make this point all the time.
It was a really great point.
Well, he'd go, so the FDA, they go, after 10 years of research, we've passed this drug to market and it's going to save 10,000 lives a year.
And then you go, but you've banned it for the last 10 years.
So by your own logic, didn't you just kill 100,000 people?
I mean, if it's going to save 10,000 lives a year and you took 10 years to decide that people can start using this.
So, you know, it's not purely positive.
But the idea that you would want some ref in the game is not something that libertarians are actually against.
We're against the state.
We're against the monopoly of violence being the ref in the game.
But look at it like this, okay?
When you say there's no FDA, the old Murray Rothbard example, right?
Let's just say we lived in a world where the government produced all of the shoes, all right?
And government made all of the shoes, and the government ran the shoe stores, and everybody got government shoes.
You paid for it in your taxes, and then everybody had a right, a Bernie Sanders' right to free shoes.
And by the way, I mean, shoes are a much more basic thing than health insurance.
Like, try getting through life without health insurance.
Now, try getting through life without shoes.
You're going to get a lot farther without health insurance.
Life's going to be real tough in a modern society without shoes.
Okay.
So let's just say the government was making all the shoes and then somebody went, Well, I just want to abolish the Department of Shoes and I want to leave shoes to the market.
Just, you know, capitalists can come in and make and sell shoes to each other.
We don't need the government to do this.
And somebody was like, You want to abolish the department of shoes?
We won't have shoes.
You're arguing we shouldn't have shoes?
That everybody should just be walking around barefoot?
You're like, no, no, no.
I'm not arguing that we shouldn't do this.
I'm arguing that the government shouldn't do this with the threat of violence, that nobody else is allowed to do this.
I'm arguing that we stop cracking people over the skull with fucking batons and start just letting them work things out amongst each other.
So I'm not arguing there shouldn't be anybody who's checking food and drugs.
In fact, I'm quite certain there would be lots of people, lots of different organizations who did that, probably competing organizations that would do a much better job.
Okay.
And the ones who didn't do a good job will be put out of business.
Unlike the government agencies, when they don't do a good job, they get a budget increase.
Because they're like, we need more money because we're not doing a good job.
It looks like there was lead in that water.
Yeah.
I know I told you there wasn't, but you know, there was.
So we need more money.
By the way, that's the other thing.
Oh, we're in charge of education.
Oh, your kids are illiterate?
Well, that's because you're not funding us enough.
Let's see a business ever do that.
Oh, we did a horrible job.
Pay more.
How about that?
It's pretty sweet racket this government has going for it.
So it's not, listen, I think that probably there would be, there's such an easy libertarian solution to that.
Now, much like with the example with shoes, it's an easy example to make because we all know that the market takes care of shoes.
And we don't really see a big problem in America where there's like poor people walking around without shoes.
They're all getting it.
So nobody's really clamoring for the government to take over this industry.
But if the government already ran this industry, you could see where people might go, well, I don't know.
I mean, so you want to have a society where the wealthy people get shoes and everyone else walks around barefoot.
You know what I mean?
Like you can, you could demagogue this issue in that way, but it's just, it's so obvious because it already exists in a market.
But yeah, how easy is it to say, let's just say I'm going to start the V FDA, the voluntary FDA.
And we're this organization and we go, we will inspect drugs and food, and we will let you know if it's VFDA approved.
And you can put a big sticker on it that says it's approved.
And anything that doesn't have that sticker hasn't been approved by us.
And then you leave it on people to go, eh, do you really want to go take some fucking shit that hasn't been approved?
I fucking, I don't even buy fucking generic like CVS brand ibuprofen because I like getting Advil.
I just kind of know who Advil is.
I've been getting them for a long time.
I don't know who the fuck made this CVS.
So like, yeah, people will naturally do this on their own.
You know who may not do it?
Someone who's like dying of cancer and wants to try some experimental treatment that they have to fly halfway around the world to try right now because the FDA won't let them.
That guy would be allowed to do it too.
And the rest of us could all.
And you know what would happen?
Probably, because there is this like market phenomenon where things do consolidate to some degree usually, is that a few VFDAs would be really, really good and have a great track record and they would kind of become the gold standard in like this fucking world.
So it's not saying that nobody can inspect it.
It's just saying that, you know, I don't want fucking this agency that's controlled by the fucking deep state to be the ones in charge of it.
Jews do that with food.
You ever look at a package of food and you see that little OU.
It's the Orthodox Union.
And that's because, you know, they go in there and they make sure that all the equipment has kosher utensils.
You could be doing that for make sure that there's no poison there.
Yeah.
No, that's, I mean, that's literally it's actually an example of a voluntary market-based, you know, food inspection.
Yeah.
Jews, once again, figured it out.
All right, let's play the rest.
Today with drugs.
Exactly.
Yes.
And that's, I mean, we could talk about, I'm sure you saw what happened with that standoff between the Mexican military and the drug cartel.
He goes, whatever.
The rest of this is all about being against the war on drugs, which has been something libertarians are for forever and talking about the Mexican government standing off with the drug cartel.
I'm sure the thing that he'll miss in that whole speech is that it's not the Mexican government versus drug cartel.
It's the Mexican cartel versus drug cartel.
They're both fucking cartels.
That's the difference is that in a country like Mexico, it's so much more obvious.
You go, oh, the government's just a criminal organization too.
Why the fuck am I rooting for you over the fucking, over the drug cartel?
You're all the fucking same.
Like that's, you know.
Look, the idea.
Those guys are supposed to be building us a wall.
Yeah, really.
Really, you guys are a few years behind on this wall.
And I've heard great things about your contracting.
But look, let me just say this because he did, whatever.
You call it the individual hand instead of the invisible hand.
That's not a big, a big deal.
But when people talk about it, they really do get this wrong.
And it's always like this idea that what Adam Smith said, and I'm not like a big Adam Smith guy.
Like we're Mesessian, you know, Rothbardians over here.
But the idea of the invisible hand was in itself not really him advocating for anything.
Invisible Hand Markets00:01:33
He was really just diagnosing what's going on in a market.
And the idea is not that this invisible hand will magically make everything work.
It's like an analogy.
It's saying that in the marketplace, it's almost as if there's an invisible hand that's guiding people.
And the point is that when people act in their self-interested ways, they have unintended consequences that end up benefiting other people.
It's like the idea that if I want to make it really big as a podcaster, I try to make my podcast really good and then people listening to it enjoy it.
But I was doing it for myself, but it ends up giving someone else enjoyment.
The whole Adam Smith thing, which is, you know, he's a really talented writer, by the way, Adam.
But his thing was like, not by the benevolence of the butcher, does he feed the hungry?
You know, like all these things where it's like, it's not that the butcher is just like, oh, I'm really concerned with like feeding hungry people.
It's that he's got bills to pay, he's got to support himself, but he ends up fee, but he does, in fact, do this.
It works almost as if there's an invisible hand guiding everybody together.
And this is just the way markets work.
It's the way markets work all around us.
And I just feel like that never really gets addressed or understood properly by leftists.
But I did, I'll say, Kyle Kalinsky, I enjoyed his anti-war stuff.
I'd be down to have a conversation with that guy sometime.