Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein critique U.S. imperialism, highlighting the Iraqi parliament's vote to remove troops after a military letter threatened repositioning, which they view as mafia-style extortion. They debate General Soleimani's death, rejecting official terror claims in favor of conspiracy theories regarding oil control and regional chaos, while defending Stefan Molyneux against "loser brigade" accusations for hosting anti-war discussions. Ultimately, the episode exposes the hypocrisy of neoconservatives like John Bolton advocating regime change and reveals how political narratives manipulate withdrawal strategies to serve power rather than peace. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Philly and Washington Coming Soon00:02:34
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.
Hello, hello.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am the most consistent motherfucker you know.
He is the king of the cocks, Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
What's going on, brother man?
Yeah, I'm going to hop right in here and plug some live dates, dude.
Live dates?
We're getting out there.
What?
We are?
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
Exciting.
You approved this one.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, we're going to be at the end of the memory.
Hideout in Boston.
It's Friday night, February 7th, 8 p.m. show.
Link in the episode description.
So come party with us.
It's going to be the first.
Are we doing a podcast as well there?
No, I think for now, live stand-up shows.
Just a live stand-up show.
Who knows?
Maybe if someone comes forward with a really great living room that they want to host, they let us charge at the door and they'll provide the beers, you know, summer porch tour in the middle of the winter on your podcast in someone's living room.
We could maybe make it happen.
Sandwich party.
But we are definitely doing a stand-up show.
Me and Rob Bernstein, BK Chris coming as well, hosting the show.
Should be a lot of fun.
Part of the problem, children, in the Boston area, make sure you come out for that one.
That date one more time?
February 7th, and then Philly and Washington dates coming soon.
Philly and Washington coming soon.
2020, the year that me and Robbie the Fire get back out on the road.
We're going to be doing a lot of road gigs this year coming trying to come to area near you.
And we'll have details about those other gigs in the following weeks.
Yeah, I'm excited to do that.
I know there's, you know, over the last year, I've really done less road work than I've ever done before.
You know, and, you know, between when Lauren was pregnant, you know, I would do road work, and then it was, I really just started hating being on the road, which was weird because I always loved the road.
Well, it's the wheel's turn.
I've had a year with the kid.
I know her.
I get it.
You know what I mean?
She doesn't really need me anymore at this point.
I mean, she's, you know, she's the other day, she like did the spoon herself and put it into her mouth and like fed herself.
Just leave some peanut butter on her.
Automation Frees Up Time for New Activities00:06:13
And I was like, yeah, I think we're fine here.
She's fine.
Lauren's going away too.
We're just leaving the baby on her own.
Should be a good time.
But yeah, but I just, you know, now it's like I want to get back on the road and I'm trying to put out another hour this year.
So I got to fucking start working that shit.
I've got some hot new fire for you good people.
So come check it out.
Hell yeah.
Me and Rob were hanging at the Soho Forum last night and I got to hang out with a few people.
Some listeners were there.
Always a fun time at the Soho Forum.
I thought it was a very good debate.
Did you enjoy it?
I did.
I got myself some good education, some fine talking points about why we don't have to be concerned about robots displacing us as laborers.
Yes.
Yeah.
No, I agree.
I think it's...
I was never concerned with it, but I got some new talking points.
Yeah.
No, I was never concerned with it either, but I did.
I thought it was, yes, a lot of good, solid arguments were made.
Scottish Liberty is always nice to hear.
Libertarian talking points and a Scottish accent.
What can you say?
But yeah, so that was a lot of fun, as always.
Yeah, I've always kind of like, you know, I even heard Charles Murray is like a proponent of the UBI and he was.
Really?
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's a UBI guy.
Believes in the kind of like uh this the that uh, automation and all this, I don't know.
Like most of his books, he seems way more hardcore libertarian to fall for he.
He was a hardcore libertarian but he's no, he's completely fallen for that and he's.
I remember he said even he conceded when he was arguing for it.
He was like um uh, he goes.
Look, you know, I understand the people who are arguing.
You know, creative destruction and technology is never, you know, it's always been predicted and and he goes and he goes and they have the advantage of having been right for 250 years.
But this time is different.
And then he just never really made an argument that convinced me.
This time is different and one of the things that was that was said at the debate uh, the other night um, that I just thought was so like it really to me was like a dagger in the heart of this time.
It's different yeah, because what they are arguing is like, okay well, this time um uh, you know there's, it's just going to be so widespread, it's going to displace so many jobs that it'll just be too fast, you know, and that there won't be other jobs that people can seamlessly move into.
Um and Anthony the the, you know uh, Scottish libertarian, he uh, he goes when he's like, get me a fucking whiskey, get me a fucking whiskey.
Who the fuck is this guy?
And I was like you know what?
That's a great no.
But what he said was uh, he goes.
The um before the industrial revolution said 96 of the society worked in agriculture and agricultural sector and now it's like two percent and he goes.
So this literally imagine a more sweeping, you know, like technology, killing jobs than killing the jobs of everyone.
You knew their, their job was no longer required for them to do it.
I mean, what could be more than that?
And of course, it just made society much wealthier, and not just for the top or whatever, and anyway it was.
It was a great debate to make sure you check that out.
When it comes automation, to me it's a function of evolution and it's easy to uh.
Change is always scary, even like when you're making positive change.
It's scary.
One of my favorite.
I got this quote, I don't know it's from it's over my desk, but I like it.
Uh, chaos is just the emergence of new patterns not yet readily understood, but everyone's scared about change.
I think if, as things get automated that frees up time and labor to engage in other activities.
I can't tell you what those other activities will be, but if suddenly, let's just imagine I could snap my fingers like uh, I dream a genie, I think that was the lady and I could just teleport myself from to anywhere, so you got rid of all entire transportation industry, you don't think that's going to make human beings more efficient, like you think?
The lost time of labor or the the pilots?
No, the fact that I can get anywhere at any point in the time probably means I can get what would have been a 12-hour work day done four hours.
Yeah, the big thing he said which I never thought about because I always just was like I got, I got faith that this is going to resolve itself, that we free up time and people are just going to start working on new activities I wouldn't even thought they had to work on.
But what he said which I never thought about is prices.
Like if we automate, let's say, like food transportation, like all these crucial things, all of a sudden people won't need as much money for their survival, and so that means you might be able to pay someone two dollars an hour to come over to your house and sing you a lullaby Buy before you go to bed, whatever the fuck it is, there are things that all of a sudden we could pay people to do that we never would have been able to pay them for.
And part of that is because they're not going to need as much money to get by.
Well, if you're, I mean, it like, and this is just always how my mind works with this stuff, but you just kind of like you, you have to take these arguments to their logical conclusion and play them out in real life examples.
And if you're saying that labor-saving devices are a problem because they mean we need less labor, it's like, okay, well, by that logic, then we shouldn't use bulldozers anymore.
We should have men with hammers because it will take a lot more people.
There's a lot more jobs will be created if we use men with hammers.
Was the Milton Friedman thing where they were like, he went to some socialist country, I think.
I forget the exact details of the story, but I'll get the point of the punchline.
But they were like people shoveling ditches.
And he was like, well, why aren't you using like, you know, whatever, the machine that would be for that?
He goes, like, why are you using shovels?
And he goes, well, this is a jobs program.
And he goes, oh, in that case, why not use spoons?
You know, like, what's it's like, if we're just trying to create jobs, why use any technology at all?
But obviously, if you think it through, human beings are far more productive because we have bulldozers instead of just some guy with a hammer.
Because now this job can get done for much cheaper with much less labor and it makes us all wealthier.
And of course, as you're pointing at, you know, the deflationary effect, the idea that prices come down, I mean, that's what we want.
We're so addicted in our society to the idea of like this inflationary economy, which is, to me, what the real problem is.
Persuading Supporters to Change Their Minds00:15:58
But yeah, anyway, I recommend you guys go check that out.
They usually post them within a week or two after the after the debates.
Yeah, good robot jokes.
Oh, yeah, thanks.
Yeah.
You know.
Do you write those just for that evening?
Or like...
Oh, yeah.
No, I'm probably not going to.
Really?
Yeah.
Those are solid, dude.
Oh, thank you.
I appreciate it.
Sometimes there's been a few that I've just kind of winged at the Soho Forum that I've then built into other things.
But the Soho Forum, I usually, I just use that as like a springboard.
Yeah, but it kind of just like, like kind of just like in exercise.
Like the same way people do like a, you know, a crossword puzzle or something like that, just to kind of be like, it's almost like you're just practicing staying sharp or something, you know what I mean?
Or one of those like, you know, games, you know, like word puzzle games on your phone.
It's like, this may not be what you ever actually do, but it's just to kind of sharpen the skill.
So I like just trying to like be like, okay, here's some random topic.
What can I do on that?
Can I make a stand-up set out of that?
And it's never going to be as good as like, you know, coming to see my hour of like worked out material.
But it's, you know, it's kind of just fun to fuck around with that stuff.
And it's always, it's always a good time.
Pete Quinones was hanging out.
Gene Epstein was moderating.
Gene made a little bit of a fucking, I'll tell you.
What did Gene do?
Gene.
I love Gene to death, but he did for a second, and then he pulled himself back.
It was just for a second, but he started almost jumping into the debate and then realized because he asked like three tough questions in a row of one of the guys.
And then he kind of pulled back and allowed it.
But it was about deflation, if you remember in the question and answer segment, where he was like, so you're telling me falling prices are bad, even if they're falling, like even if the price of goods is falling faster than your wages, like that, that would still be bad.
And he's like, well, I think it still would be bad.
He's like, really?
It would still be kind of like we're like, Gene, you're debating now.
Stop it.
You're a moderator.
I hate being a moderator.
It's the worst.
I did it that one time with Gene and Ben Burgess.
Because you just wanted to hop in the whole thing.
Yeah.
You're like, what am I doing?
I sit here fucking pretending I'm not, you know.
Enraged.
Yeah, that I like, and it's like, and not that Gene, you know, he's better, he's a better debater than I am.
I want to just moderate, but I just need to introject and let you know that you're retarded.
Now you guys can get back to it.
Now, Does the non-retarded side want to add anything to the conversation?
But it's just, it's frustrating.
If you're a very opinionated person, it takes like a lot of discipline to be like, hey, let me be fair.
Anyway.
So I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about something that I don't typically do on the podcast.
So I was on Stefan Molyneux show a couple days ago.
And I think it was great.
I hope you guys go and check that out at Free Domain Radio.
And I did the show.
I got a big response from it, overwhelmingly positive.
But there was some criticism from some people.
And then there was the loser brigade, as Tom Woods calls them.
They came after me, which, by the way, is just a perfect title for who some of these people are.
But the people who are like really out there, there's a couple of these fucking like pages on Facebook that, I mean, I don't know what to say about these guys.
They like do nothing.
The entire page is just shitting on Tom Woods and me and whatever, Stefan Molyneux and people like that, but particularly Tom.
They really have something against him because, you know, he's some type of secret, you know, Nazi or something.
I don't fucking know.
I don't understand it.
But it's just pathetic.
It's like every day posts about this stuff and they're getting like, you know, 17 likes.
It's not even like worth talking about them.
But then I also did see that there were like there was a post in the Mises Caucus Facebook group about it.
And some people there were a little bit like, I don't know if Dave should be doing this show or not.
So then when I saw like kind of some good people who I like also feeling that way, I was like, okay, well, maybe I should talk about this on the show a little bit.
First of all, I'd say this.
I thought it was very strange.
I was really surprised that people were so like were so, I don't know, upset that I did Molyneux's show because I've done his show a bunch of times.
I've done his show like four other times and talked about far more controversial issues, at least amongst libertarians, I would think, than I did this last time.
I mean, like I did a whole show with him about immigration at one point.
Maybe not a whole show, but we talked a lot about immigration in the past.
Talked about a lot of other things where I'd understand where some people might, you know, be upset by it.
But this time I was just going on, it was just anti-war stuff.
And that was it.
That was the whole conversation was why we shouldn't go to war in Iran and how all these wars have been disasters and all that stuff.
And I did see a few people asking why I would go on Stefan Molyneux's show.
And I was just surprised that that question didn't answer itself.
By the way, a lot of people, there's just some of the comments.
I mean, I was listening to that.
Isn't any of the dude who somewhat got the Epstein story out there?
No, that you're thinking of Cernovich.
That's a different guy.
But they do a lot of work together.
Can we turn the air on?
It's fucking hot in here.
Yeah.
Thank you, brother.
Appreciate it.
So, by the way, anyway, a bunch of people are saying, I mean, some of the people who are upset, like, it's just the level of stupidity I just don't even think warrants.
Like, I was reading through some of the comments on one of these pages.
I mean, I must say, I've never been like a troll-ish type person.
Like, I don't really troll.
I say what I believe.
And if that gets a response from people, it does.
I'm always either saying what I believe or trying to be fair.
You're a moderate.
You're not looking for a rise in the world.
Well, that's right.
I don't, it's the last thing.
The last thing I want.
Moderate Christian conservative radical.
But I will say I almost understood where trolls come from because as I was watching that, there was something kind of fun about the fact that so many people were upset over like the littlest thing.
Like I think I said, I tweeted like I just recorded with the great Stefan Molyneux.
And people were like, he's calling him great.
This is an endorsement of everything he believes or something.
I don't know.
Why would you call a white nationalist great or whatever the critique was?
But some of these people were like, they said, why would you give Stefan a platform?
And you're like, okay, well, first of all, I didn't give him a platform.
He had me on his platform, which is substantially bigger than my platform.
So even if I had him on my platform, I'm not giving him a platform.
He has a platform.
He's got a million YouTube subscribers.
I'm not giving him a fucking platform.
What a ridiculous way to look at things.
And also, I just don't even believe that logic of don't give somebody a platform.
This is this is just stupid.
It's like you can have conversations with people.
Now, for the people who asked why I would go on Stefan Molyneux's show, I mean, let me just say this.
I've gone on many times.
So this isn't like the reason.
Like I would go on Stefan Molyneux's show anytime, pretty much anytime he invited me on.
I'll talk about whatever he wants to.
But isn't it so obvious the reason why I went on this time?
You know, I saw some people who were saying they were like, and this was some of the good people, not like the loser brigade people, like fucking some good people who were there who were like, I just wish Dave didn't do this because now he gives the left another, you know, weapon to attack him with because they can associate him with this guy.
And it's just like, look, that mentality is so wrong.
Those same people will fucking attack me for something no matter what.
And by the way, they've already got plenty of ammo in that direction.
I've had fucking Richard Spencer and Christopher Cantwell and Nick Fuentes and like all of these people on the show.
And because I don't know, and in the same way I've had Ben Burgess on the show and other people like that, like I will have people on a show to discuss ideas.
I'm sorry.
And I'm never going to be told by any of you people.
And this includes all of the listeners of the show and people who I love and really appreciate that you support the show.
You're never going to tell me who I'm allowed to speak to.
None of you.
Sorry.
That's not how this works.
If you want to control every aspect of the conversation, go start your own show.
Like, you don't get to pick everything.
I mean, I'll listen to what you have to say, but no one's going to tell me I'm not allowed to talk to somebody, especially if I find them interesting.
And interesting doesn't mean I agree with them on everything.
Just somebody who I think, oh, this would be a good conversation.
But the answer for why I did this show, why I jumped at the chance and was thrilled that Stefan reached out and asked me to do this show particularly, it's just so obvious.
I mean, if anybody knows me, wouldn't you know why I wanted to do this?
Because Stefan Molyneux has a humongous platform, and it's not just libertarian ANCAPs.
It's a huge group of like right-wing Trump supporters who listen to his show.
So of course, I'd want to take the opportunity to go on there and try to convince as many of these Trump voters, many of whom are supporting the idea of going to war in Iran, that this is a bad idea.
Don't do this.
It's like the fucking difference between, it's like there's, there's, there are like the libertarians out there who fucking Actually, I want to try to do something and kind of like, oh, maybe we could live in a world with more liberty.
That would be good.
And then there's the ones who just want to like win a Facebook argument and be like the purest of the pure libertarians.
It's like, I don't know.
What's the point in the latter?
Like, there's an opportunity here to go actually try to persuade people that, hey, this isn't why you supported this guy and you shouldn't be on board with this.
Then, yeah, I'm going to do that.
Of course.
I would do it a hundred more times.
Why would I not?
And, you know, anyway, I thought the show went very good.
And I hope I did persuade some people who are listening.
And then they go, like, people were giving me shit over it's like the fact that I wasn't condemning Trump enough on the show.
And it's just like, guys, I mean, you got to speak to the audience that you're in front of in a way that could move them.
And you can do that without compromising anything.
The point I was making, more or less, was that this is, I said, the same deep state that was telling you, like the fucking CIA that started this whole thing about how fucking Trump was a fucking Russian agent, are also the ones telling you Iran is fucking doing this, or Iran or Somali was there to fucking start a terrorist attack, or they were going to attack Americans that go.
So don't fucking believe them, because they've lied to you so many times before.
Seemed like to me that was a good way to try to reach right-wing Trump supporters with the argument.
But it's always like some of these people, you know look, feel however you feel about it.
It's like I have one of the biggest podcasts in this space.
Stéphane Molyneux has one of the biggest shows in this space and um yeah, I would not turn down the opportunity to go on that show because somebody could maybe use it as a fucking you know.
They could say oh look, you know he's, he's a white nationalist and you're talking to a white nationalist, and then you know, by the way, I don't know.
So then everybody, I guess, has caught it.
I always say, somebody said, I tell you, one time there was a comedian who said, you know, like he said, if you're gonna do and you know he was talking about me doing podcasts with, like Richard Spencer, like actual white nationalists.
But he was like, you know, if you're, if you're doing a podcast with a white nationalist, you know you're having a conversation with a white nationalist, you can understand why people are gonna think you're a white nationalist.
And I was like yeah no, I see where you're coming from, but you know what's crazy, you're having a conversation with me right now.
So bro, I think I think you caught it and I've had a conversation with pretty much everyone in the comedy community.
So we're all a bunch of white nationalists now.
So can we move on now that, I mean, we're all on the same side.
So, just like, how do we bring this white ethno state about?
I guess is the next conversation we should have right like this is, this is all.
Just so it's.
It's, it's too dumb, it's just too fucking dumb and um, I don't know, I don't know what else to say it's.
It's funny to me that there's like these left libertarians who are outraged that I would go on a right-wing show, if that's what they're calling it.
You know, I mean, I don't actually think that's a fair description.
But if they would say, you're going on this like this show of, of ethno-nationalists, whatever, and I'm trying to fucking preach to be anti-war to them.
It's like when they used to fucking accuse the Mises Institute of dog whistling Nazis, which is the most ridiculous accusation ever, but they would accuse that.
And you're like, so if what you're saying is true, like if the accusation is true, then the Mises Institute is trying to talk to Nazis and encourage them to believe in the non-aggression principle.
Wouldn't that be like the greatest service to humanity if that was the case?
Like what?
How bad are the Nazis really if they believed in the non-aggression principle?
Just a group of people who have some weird views.
Like, okay.
I don't really think there's much of a problem with them then.
Last I checked, the issue with the Nazis was they weren't so great about following the non-aggression principle.
I thought that was the issue.
Isn't it fucking funny too?
It's like these fucking, all the fucking alt-right people just fucking give me shit.
And then all these fucking left libertarians tell me I'm fucking alt-right.
That's just such a fucking weird goddamn world.
Anyway, I did the show.
I'd be happy to do it again.
It's not, you know, an endorsement of every fucking, you know, view that someone has if I have a fucking conversation with them.
And I don't know.
I think, I think you could maybe accuse me of a lot of things, but I make my fucking views clear.
I make it clear what I fucking believe.
And so that's pretty much that.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
I also don't quite understand why people are so triggered by Stefan Molyneux.
I mean, I guess it's like the thing that I heard the most was that he's done several shows on like race and IQ and talking about the disparity between average IQs and different racial groups.
And it's like, all right.
Do you have an argument against what he's presenting?
I mean, if so, then fucking make your argument.
And like, yeah, if you make a superior argument, I'll be like, yeah, that was a better point.
But this thing where you're just offended and you just call names.
I mean, the guy's not a white nationalist.
He's a libertarian anarcho-capitalist.
It's literally, he said that when we were on the show together.
You can think he's not a good anarcho-capitalist or something, or he's violating the principles.
But again, make the fucking argument to just have a conversation about the disparities between race and IQ.
I mean, look, here's the truth.
That shit is a scientific fact.
Now, it's not something that I fucking spend a lot of time talking about.
I don't really know what to do with that information, to be honest.
But there is really no debating that there are pretty drastic differences on average IQs between different racial groups.
And that, you know, what leads to that, I think, is very murky.
Like, I really don't know, you know, to what degree it's environmental or to what degree it's genetic.
I've spoken to a few like legit experts in the field, just personally, like off the podcast, spoken to a few legit experts, and pretty much all three of them told me they were like, it's a really complicated like field, and we really don't understand as much about the human brain as some people like claim to.
And all of them told me, said, be very skeptical of anybody who makes the claims that it's like, well, it's 80% genetic and 20% environmental or something like that.
Like we really don't exactly understand that.
But that being said, all of them did say that IQ is, you know, the people who are like, oh, the IQ test is completely arbitrary.
And it's actually, it's not.
It's a very good predictor of outcomes.
And that's, you know, so look, part of the reason why my guess would be, and I'm somewhat speculating here, but my guess is why a libertarian would want to talk about IQ disparities the same way Charles Murray or Stephan Molyneux or anybody like that who's like libertarian or libertarian leaning wants to talk about disparities between IQ averages is that it,
you know, and this is the same reason why Murray Rothbard celebrated the bell curve when it first came out.
Like he was real into it because he goes, this is a duse me.
He goes, this is a dagger through the progressive narrative that disparities in outcome prove discrimination.
It's like, oh, we have this other explanation for it now.
Okay, that's all.
And that's fine.
Now, if you don't, by the way, if you don't believe that there are disparities in average IQs or that you believe that they're environmental or something like that, well, it's like, okay, well, then you should still be an ANCAP libertarian and you'll be proven wrong.
There won't be disparities in outcomes or whatever, I guess.
You know, I don't know.
But if you're going to say that, you know, differences in outcomes aren't determined purely by discrimination, or at least that they're not evidence in themselves of discrimination, then you are kind of looking for another alternative.
Anyway, this isn't the stuff that I like, this isn't my area of expertise.
This isn't like what I try to spend a lot of time talking about, but I certainly not going to not be friendly with somebody because they do talk about a thing that you've decided is off limits.
America's Militia Provoking War Zones00:13:55
And whatever.
I just, you know, I fucking, you know, it's such a weird thing.
Such a fucking weird dynamic that I just, you can never, it's like, it's out of a fucking Twilight Zone episode or something like that.
But isn't it fucking crazy, you know, that the topic at hand is of war and peace, you know?
And the wars that we've been fighting for the last 20 years almost have killed millions of people.
And they're brown.
I mean, like, it's Muslim, it's brown people in a third world country.
We're talking about fucking, like, slaughtering brown children or, you know, maybe just starving them to death or just ruining their life, you know, or killing their parents in front of them.
These like horrific things.
And all the people that our society deems racist are pretty much all against that.
And then the people who are for it are the first ones to throw out the term racist against people who oppose it.
Stefan Molyneux has been against these wars forever.
Isn't that way more important than doing a podcast about IQ differences?
Please explain to me what I'm missing here.
Why, like, you know, somehow, whatever, like, somebody who's, you know, even like the alt-right guys, they're all against these wars.
I mean, they may be against them for different reasons, but like, isn't it, isn't that far more important than harboring some nasty views if you do?
You know what I mean?
Like, it just, it just makes no sense to me.
And, um, and I'm not going to go along with that bullshit.
Like, that I definitely won't, will, will not do.
Like, I'm never going to value some loose accusation of racism over someone advocating mass murder.
Like, that's just, you're not going to get that from me.
A little bit too consistent for that shit.
And any other thoughts that I had?
Like, maybe there was one other thing.
I want to say.
No.
All right.
We could leave it there on that topic.
I'd say go check out the show.
Go listen to it.
I thought it was a good one.
And I enjoyed it very much.
All right.
So there's been the situation has in Iran, in Iraq, in that region, has continued to develop to some degree over the last few days since our last podcast.
And yeah, it's still very volatile.
What do you think, Rob?
You think we're going to war?
I don't think we're going to war, Davey Smith.
Yeah, I hope you're right.
No, I don't think we're going to war, but I have been starting to read and research a little bit.
And a lot of interesting elements going on here.
The first thing that I found to be the most shocking was that people in Iran cared that much about this general guy being killed.
Big deal.
Just because, like, in this country, if a general got killed, who would care?
Imagine if Pence got killed.
I mean, like, some of the country would care.
I don't think you'd see demonstrations like what I'm seeing by way of footage.
It would be different, but we would definitely, there'd be a real thirst for war, I think.
I mean, I don't know if people would honor him in the same way.
Right.
I think the feeling that some other government could come kill ourselves.
But what was interesting, because I remember reading, like, I want to say a year and a half, two years ago, how, and this must have just been a propaganda piece, that the sanctions were so tough on the Iranian people that they were getting sick of the regime itself.
And that the cracking point was going to be as people really Wanted economic freedom.
They were actually siding more with the U.S., even in Iran.
Well, this has been the argument.
I'm very skeptical.
But I'm saying the second I see what's going on in the street for their own general, you're like, okay, that's clearly not true.
And you're clearly upsetting, you know, you're clearly making enemies here.
Well, this is what I said.
I was saying this outside before, but it's kind of like a lot of these things, you know, you always got to be like aware of the propaganda.
And it's hard sometimes because there's so much of it.
But just imagine you're in some country 5,000 miles away, and somebody else has like a camera crew and they're putting together a thing.
And it's like the Occupy Wall Street protests, or maybe it's like after Ferguson or Black Lives Matter type thing like that.
And they show these demonstrations and go, the people of the United States are rising up against their government.
Right.
Okay.
Now you could show some footage and be like, holy shit, they're rising up.
Look at them.
Look how big these protests are, you know?
But was the United States of America's federal government ever threatened by any of those protests?
I mean, the idea is laughable.
Like if you live here, you're like, this isn't even kind of a threat to the system.
This represents a very small percentage of the population, you know, like, and I think that's what happens with some of the protests in Iran.
You know, I experienced that the most was when I was like in eighth grade, I was in Israel, and that was when like the, I forgot what the term for it was, but that's when a lot of people were going over the border and blowing themselves up.
Right.
And when you told people you're going to Israel, they're like, you're fucking crazy.
What is wrong with you?
And then when you're there, you're like, it's just life.
Like, there's nothing.
You don't walk around afraid.
We're not in a war zone.
You don't feel like you're in a war zone.
So it's amazing how when you're away from an area, the way they can report on it.
Now, I don't approve of them killing this dude, but there was something, I guess, somewhat interesting to me strategically that I prefer that at least if you go after the people on the top, then perhaps you actually create like, maybe people are actually afraid of rising to the top.
And that once they're there, they're like, oh, I better play ball.
But I definitely prefer that.
Or in theory, I prefer kind of going after the people on top versus like me and you having to fight two people from Iran that we could sit down and, you know, play fucking patty cake with, eat some sandwiches, drink a beer, and we wouldn't get like, there's no reason for us to be.
This comes back to sandwiches.
Well, sure, in theory, I agree with you on that.
I'd much rather elites fight other elites.
The problem is that, you know, if you're doing something, look, this is even in all the tensions that we've had with Iran, this is an unprecedented step to kill somebody who is debatably the number two guy in their government and is kind of a national hero to those people.
It might end up provoking a situation where a lot of those me and you're and two guys in Iran end up, you know, getting slaughtered over it.
Let me ask you this on the national hero side.
I'd love to hear a little bit why they love him.
But the other thing I was reading, this was kind of the conspiracy theory, is that this guy was actually starting to broker peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
And then I guess you don't see enough reporting on this, but if you start to understand the region, and I guess America wants to somewhat continue to influence and control the region, you really don't want all these different powers working together, especially, I guess, if they can start working together to control oil prices.
So that's like the interesting side of it that people don't get all that into.
It's like, we seem to benefit from chaos in the region.
So are we somehow, us and Israel, trying to work together so that all these states do kind of hate?
Like, is that what we're in it for?
Well, there's no question Israel wants that.
This has been the Israeli foreign policy for a long time.
Chaos all around them.
They don't want any state.
And I think it goes back to, you know, when Israel fought a war against like five surrounding states and they were like, we don't ever want to do that again.
We could lose that war.
So we've got, they're strong enough that anything short of that probably won't be a threat to their state power.
But they don't want that anymore.
So they do what they can to destabilize all these countries, unless they're the, you know, Saudis, Egyptians, America's puppets that, you know, basically are put in power with the condition you'll be friends with Israel.
That's what it's all about.
To your first point about why Solmani was so revered.
Well, I mean, you have to think this guy, basically what he was, was the head of the military outside of Iran.
So this guy was the head of military operations in every, you know, foreign.
Would you say he was like the equivalent of our head of CIA?
Like, what would you kind of...
No, I would compare him more to like, say, like General Petraeus or something like that.
But then on the aggression side argument, I've heard that this is the guy who's got the ins with like Hezbollah, whoever's working in Yemen.
Like he's kind of the Well, sure.
I mean, there's some truth to that, no question.
Probably more so with Hezbollah than with the Houthis.
But I mean, that doesn't mean he's running them.
But yes, he's the one who's really...
But that's what seems like the CIA type relationship with like random militias or insurance.
Okay, sure.
So there might be some, you know, like there might be some kind of, you know, legitimate comparison there.
But you have to think about it.
Like, why is he a hero to these people?
It's like, well, to them, he's the guy who's leading, who's like the last line of defense between the invading enemy, the United States of America, who's basically all to them, Israel.
You know what I mean?
And he's the one out there fighting against, you know, literally, you have to think next door in their neighboring countries, they're seeing the ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
You're seeing ISIS going around fucking beheading people, killing children, killing women, like the craziest, even for that region, fucking batshit, crazy level of barbaric violence.
And they see that as, you know, America's fucking militia, which it kind of is.
And they see that, and he's the one fighting back against them.
He's the one kind of like fighting the enemy at the gates.
So you have to keep in mind how threatened Iran must feel and the people of Iran must feel.
And this is the craziness about America trying to make it out like Iran is a threat to us.
This is why I paint those pictures, you know, put the shoe on the other foot.
I mean, imagine Iran, you know, invaded Canada and Mexico, killed hundreds of thousands of people in both of those countries.
They invaded Canada by saying they had a weapon that they didn't have, then come in, kill hundreds of thousands of people, and then they go, America has that weapon too.
And we're like, wait, what?
Fuck, that's literally the justification they just used to fucking kill everybody.
I mean, the people are scared to death that America is going to come in and just start fucking dropping bombs.
And so this guy is the guy who's fighting against that, you know?
So yeah, it's, you know, I kind of understand why he's beloved.
Now, to the point you were making about what was actually going on, why was he in Iraq?
Okay, I've heard reports that he was on a peacekeeping mission.
I've heard reports that he was planning a terrorist attack.
I have seen no actual tangible evidence for either, to be fair.
So I don't know.
It's kind of, I'd be speculating right now, which I can do, speculate what's there, speculate what was happening.
I'm very skeptical of the fucking, when the intelligence community just comes out and goes, he was there to create terrorist attacks.
Americans were going to die.
It's like, okay, I'm going to need receipts on that.
I'm sorry.
That's just my fucking standard at this point.
Like, they can only lie to you.
I mean, I'm sorry.
They fucking lied about the fucking war in Iraq.
They lied about the war in Libya.
They lied about the war in Syria, the war in Yemen.
They said Donald Trump was a fucking Russian agent for the last few.
I mean, these people will lie.
Like, they will lie to you.
And so anytime they make this claim, it's like, no problem, going to need to see some evidence.
Sorry.
We're past the point of your word meaning anything.
And in fact, my base position is like, you're probably lying to me.
But I don't know for a fact, you know?
Just like with all of these things, you don't know at first.
It could be likely, you know, that he was there trying to consolidate power and gain influence over.
Look, the truth is, and this is just me speculating, but perhaps he was there trying to, you know, consolidate power with the Shiite government of Iraq.
Because the truth is that the Shiite government has been growing more and more annoyed with the Americans.
That's part of the reason why these Shiite militias have been fucking, you know what I mean, like fucking fighting back against America.
Our military has been getting frustrated with them that they're not doing enough.
And of course, as you just saw with this vote in the Iraqi parliament, I mean, it's very clear what side they're picking in this thing.
What a shock.
The Shiites in Iran.
I mean, the Shiites in Iraq are siding with the Shiites in Iran rather than with the United States of America, who's been fighting a war with this country since like fucking 1991.
Since 1991, we've been fucking bombing these people.
And I can't believe they don't like us by now.
That's just ridiculous, you know.
Now, it is something interesting that the parliament voted to get the U.S. out of there.
Which isn't it funny just to see their Congress voting for it.
It's so hard to explain us being in the country for any other reasons than us just being imperialists.
Yes.
And I think our country, we do not want to be at war.
And so, and I also think, generally speaking, people are kind of understanding there's no reason for us to be there.
Why are we even there?
It's just, it's a hard sell.
And Trump's so funny because he just brings it down to the money.
The Trajectory Toward Another Long War00:17:33
He's like, well, we paid for the bases.
So unless they want to, you know, I'll sell it back to them.
They want to pay me for it.
I'll leave no problem.
But until they pay us for it, that's ours.
How fucking gangster is that shit?
Just how fucking gangster.
And just so like, and I don't mean that as in any way a compliment.
Like how fucking just evil and like fucking, does that just expose?
It's such a mob fucking thing.
It's so weird a state acting like the mafia.
But there might be something to that.
But to just go, oh, will you owe us for the bases?
Imagine just fucking invading a country, slaughtering their fucking people, destroying the fucking place, building up a base, and then going, I mean, we'll leave, but that base wasn't free.
You know, you got to fucking pay us back for that shit.
I mean, you owe us.
They owe you.
It's like, cool.
What do we owe them?
Like, are you out of your mind?
Cool hand lyric.
Your dirt's on my lawn.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
He goes, hey, what's your dirt doing in my hole?
Sorry, boss.
Yeah, no, that's it.
Exactly.
Just fucking bullying someone.
But yeah, there's something about that that really does put us in an interesting position.
The most interesting thing to me is that you got to remove yourself from the game.
The game that the U.S. is playing is, well, we need power and influence in this region because if not, I guess other people have access to the oil or other people see that we're no longer strong enough that we can just walk around the earth and bully people around.
But then if you start realizing like, well, we can just also be like collaborate with people and trade with them and then everyone can prosper.
You know what I mean?
You just got to like put on a different lens and realize that this whole dog eat dog thing.
And if we're not bullying them, they're going to bully us.
We don't have to live that way.
That doesn't, you know what I mean?
So it's like, to them, they're like, well, we're the non-rationals.
We don't understand the way the world actually works and they're not being evil.
They just have a better understanding of human nature.
And if we're not out there kicking shit around, then China will have access to the cheaper oil or Russia gets to, you know, it's like playing risk.
And you get the treaty between Russia and Iran and the rest of the region.
And now we're fucked.
But that's just not the actual way the world works.
No, and these people have, you know, it's like there's only so long where these people can say, no, we're the adults in the room.
We know what we're doing.
And if we do this, this will happen.
And then they're wrong.
And every fucking time they're wrong and exposed as liars.
And it just gets worse and worse.
And eventually it's like, no, you're just wrong.
Wouldn't it be great if they just came forward?
Listen, everybody, there's this thing called dollar demand.
And the petrodollar is very important to dollar demand.
And if we allow these countries to start trading with each other or selling oil for gold, we're all going to be really, really poor and our country is going to go under.
Right.
Like, at least sell it for what it is.
Yeah.
I mean, and that even that's bullshit.
But yeah, or at least how come I read the newspaper every day.
How come I'm not getting good information on that side of the story at all from anybody?
Yeah.
It's not in one newspaper.
And what's crazy about the whole media complex is that it's the most interesting story.
Yes.
And it just shows something about like, so no one wants to run with this.
None of you guys want to run with this story.
Like every now and then you'll get stories that kind of like nibble at the outside.
You know, like, oh, okay, they'll do something about like a drone strike that killed some people.
But no one's ever really going to like the heart of the matter, which is like, what's driving this whole machine?
Like, what is this?
And nobody wants to talk about that.
Anyway, so back to the parliament, the Iraqi parliament voting for the U.S. to leave.
They were sent a letter from our military saying that we will be repositioning troops out of Iraq.
We'll see.
Not holding my brain.
I thought they instantly were like, that was an accidental letter we just drafted and didn't mean to send it.
I thought they retracted from it.
Oh, really?
I didn't see that.
Maybe I'm wrong.
I thought they instantly, the general who sent it was like, whoops, my bad.
I didn't mean that.
Excuse me.
April Fools.
I got a question for you.
When I saw that the parliament voted on that, I was a little surprised that's the first time that Iraq has formally requested that we leave.
Because I always thought that this was kind of a they wanted us out for years.
No, they wanted us out a while back.
And this was actually when Obama pulled out they wanted us out.
And then when ISIS invaded the country, we came back in and they basically just took it.
I think they never explicitly said they wanted us back in, but it was a Shiite government and they didn't like these fucking ISIS bets.
Like they were always kind of like, all right, yeah, come and clean up your fucking mess here.
But we never like completely leave.
That's always, you know, because it's an embassy there, right?
So we don't have to leave because that's U.S. soil technically.
So it's a weird situation.
But the problem is, and this is why, you know, when Rand Paul was saying, if you remember last year at one point, or it might have even been like a year and a half ago, when Rand Paul was saying that when Donald Trump was talking about the military parade, he wanted it.
And Rand Paul goes, yes.
And I thought this was actually brilliant on Rand Paul's part.
He goes, let's do the military parade, but let's declare victory in Afghanistan and bring them all home in victory.
And then we can have a victory parade for how we just won this war in Afghanistan.
Now, Rand Paul knows, as well as me or you, or anyone listening to this, that we didn't fucking win shit in Afghanistan.
We didn't win anything.
The Taliban's got more control there now.
I mean, go read the Afghanistan papers.
There's no victory that we had.
Every time they try to spin something into a victory, they're just lying to us.
Yeah.
Bomb some caves.
Yeah, exactly.
So the caves there and now there are no caves.
But Rand Paul found his little justification.
He goes, you know, we got bin Laden and blah, blah, blah, blah, and al-Qaeda's not in control.
And okay, so we'll declare.
But I think the point of why it was brilliant for Rand Paul to position it this way is you have to, if you're going to have a political solution to one of these problems, you have to make it politically feasible.
You have to make it, and when I say that, I mean something that a politician could do and be seen as like, oh, okay, this was like a benefit.
This is something I can run on.
We won this war and now we're coming home.
It's going to be very tough.
And unfortunately with Donald Trump, the same thing with Obama, is that you have a certain window when you first get in there where you could go, we're leaving.
This was a terrible policy to be here.
That's why I ran against the last guy.
They fucked up and we're leaving.
And then even if something really bad happens, you're like, well, this is their fucking fault.
This wasn't me.
I'm just undoing a fucking mistake we made.
But after you're there for years and years, now you own it too to some degree.
So now it's going to be really hard.
There's no way to leave Iraq right now and even retain one ounce of this was all for nothing.
All for nothing.
I mean, I remember, fuck man, it's so goddamn crazy.
I remember in 2005, when the war was going terribly bad, 2006, the war was just a fucking disaster.
And Dick Cheney was out there arguing.
He was like, all these people who want to cut and run, then this whole thing's been for nothing.
The insurgency is in its last thralls.
Like, we just, all we got to do is just stick this out.
And otherwise, all those people died for nothing.
And it's now it's fucking 2020.
You know, this is 15 years later after they were making that argument.
And now we're going to leave and be like, oh yeah, probably should have just left then.
Like, oh, 15 years of war.
It's just, it's been for nothing.
I mean, the fucking Shiites, the ones we fought the war for and put into power in the government are kicking us out.
And that's how we leave.
Don't get me wrong, I want to leave.
I hope they fucking, they all just leave.
But that's going to be a bitter pill politically to swallow.
To be like, I'm leaving and there's no fucking victory here.
Even for Donald Trump to just be like, I ran against this war.
I kept us in there for another three years and now we're just getting booted out in disgrace.
It's just so like blatant.
And the crazy thing too, right?
Is that we just suspended strikes against ISIS in Syria and in Iraq, which I think there's more in Syria at this point than in Iraq.
But they just suspended strikes against them because that's the other side of Iran.
And we know what we're fucking doing.
We're being like, well, we don't want to be helping Iran out because if we're bombing ISIS, we're kind of helping Iran.
And, you know, then that kind of, you know, that says something of itself right there.
But so like, what exactly is the mission right now?
What exactly is the mission for the troops who are there?
Well, we're not trying to fucking fight the Shiites in Iraq.
They're the ones we gave the government to.
We're not trying to fight the fucking Sunnis right now because that would be helping Iran.
So what's the mission for the troops?
Protect yourself?
That's the mission.
Don't get killed.
It's just utter madness.
Utter madness.
What do you think of it seems like Mike Pompeo has kind of won over Trump and has a little, like before it seemed like Trump was kind of surrounded by these military people and he was like, you're all a bunch of bozos.
I don't want to go to war.
Quit being a bunch of bozos.
But now Mike Pempeo has seemed to have kind of won him over.
And I don't know.
What do you think of that?
Well, I think that was, you know, it was probably before that, but when Pompeo came in, that was when you knew all hope was lost for the Trump administration.
Once you put the CIA in charge of the State Department, I mean, it's like, oh, okay, so there's no fucking, nothing here is happening.
This is, you know, there's like, yeah, he, I think in a lot of ways.
You know, I don't know the inside details completely, but he was at war with the deep state and the fucking deep state won.
I mean, maybe he didn't go to jail or something like that, but like the deep state fucking got what they wanted out of him.
And once once Pompeo and Bolton came in, even though Bolton left, you know, he kicked him out after that.
I knew that, you know, I knew that it was fucking bad.
So I just got literally just got a text from Pete as we're here.
And this is 6.54 p.m.
So this is just from about 15 minutes ago.
This was posted that Iran launches missiles at U.S. military facilities in Iraq.
That's not good.
Yeah.
You know, so to all these people who fucking say that Donald Trump was playing 4D chess or some shit like that, you guys need to just drop this.
It's literally, it's the most absurd argument that I've ever heard from people.
And Trump supporters who are trying to rationalize their support for Donald Trump will continue to push this thing.
I remember people, you know, telling me when Donald Trump was starting these trade wars and talking all this shit about tariffs, that they were like, this is 4D chess, and Donald Trump's really a free trader.
And what he's going to do is threaten tariffs, and then other people will lower their tariffs to lower, you know, and then we'll end up with no tariffs on either side.
So we all win.
And it's like, dude, you are really projecting your own fucking belief.
And of course, the result is a net increase in tariffs.
How long will a war with Iran go if it cracks?
A war with Iran will not be a small deal if it fucking happens.
It's like a 10-year war or like Vietnam-type mess.
You just go in there for a while and then...
It's not...
Here's the thing.
The war to take down the Iranian government, I don't think would be like a 10-year war or anything like that.
I mean, we theoretically, look, theoretically, we could get it done in a weekend.
I mean, if we're willing to drop an H-bomb on them, right?
Like, we could get it done.
It's a matter of what you're willing to do, and then what do you do?
Isn't that, that's what all these wars have proven, right?
It's like, so what are you willing to do?
And then what do you do after that?
That's the story of all of these wars.
What do you do?
Okay, so then you take out this government.
Now, by the way, it will be a lot harder.
It won't be a cakewalk like it was in Iraq to just storm in and overthrow Saddam's government.
I'm our part of it.
This will be much, much harder.
This is a much bigger country with a much bigger military, and they will hit many American targets in the region before we do that.
We'll have much more death on our side and probably, you know, around the same amount of death on their side.
It'd be a fucking nightmare.
Yeah, and I remember like a couple years ago, the Russians sold them like some really good anti-aircraft stuff as a part of the as a part of the nuclear deal, which they said made it a lot harder.
But I guess what I pick up on being the bigger picture here is that, and your big picture, Davey Smith, is we want to be able to control the whole region, and most of the other players there will jerk us off.
Like Saudi Arabia, Israel, they're jerking us off.
They're good with us.
They're totally cool.
We might be jerking Israel off.
I'm not sure.
Someone's getting jerked off.
But then you got Iraq.
They weren't playing ball with us.
We toppled them over.
And now Iran's the last.
Well, and then Syria, but they're small.
Iran.
Well, no, no, no.
But just make the connection there, okay?
Because this is what it's all about, is that once we overthrew Saddam's government and the Shiites took power, Iranian influence on the region corrected.
Right, because they used to kind of keep each other in check.
Yes.
That's what Syria is about.
It's that Syria is allied with Iran.
But the big problem here is that if Iran gets a bomb, then all of a sudden all of these other small Shia countries can kind of rally behind them.
And then we've got a serious problem in terms of trying to get more people in the region who's not.
What if they want an atomic weapon?
Yeah, to just jerk us off.
You see what I'm saying?
So now we just want Iran to finally kind of push over so that there's no one there that can kind of oppose us, which if you look at it from that trajectory, at some point you have to be at a war because it doesn't seem like they're going to roll over.
Well, that is more or less the neocon perspective, is that eventually there has to be a regime change here.
It's the only answer.
And they'll say that.
Well, it's not my only answer because I'm like, I just don't think we're going to be able to do that.
Oh, you know, we don't need to control the region.
But the neocon perspective, and John Bolton tweeted the other day when Donald Trump hit this airstrike, he tweeted, he goes, this was great and hopefully the first step toward regime change.
This is what they want.
They're not like they're not quiet about it.
And then I guess the Iran game is that they're hoping that their read on the American people is that we're going to oppose Trump if he goes to war.
And so they're going to be a little bit more aggressive and hope that we blink.
And that's where it, interestingly enough, does really kind of come down to voting demographics and propaganda that Trump has to gamble, hey, is going to war with Iran going to help or hurt me get elected?
Yeah.
Well, unfortunately, that probably is the political calculation.
And of course, the issue with these things is like, look, I don't know what's going to happen.
I don't know if we're going to war with Iran.
And I don't want to be alarmist and be like, we're on the verge of a war with Iran.
But the chances that we're going to war with Iran are much greater right now than they've been at any time since right after 9-11.
Much greater right now.
Right after 9-11, when George W. Bush said there's three countries that are the axis of evil and Iran was one of them, that was where there was public support for all you have to do is say 9-11, Muslim country, and the public would get behind you.
Like, okay, we'll go fight them.
We did Iraq instead and fucking, you know, gave Iran the region, as we were just saying.
But right now, the chances are substantially higher because once you start, you get yourself into this fucked up game where like, okay, so now you've got, look, you have a lot of people in government and in the military who get, to some degree, I believe, drunk on power.
I think human beings do not do well with tremendous power and a lack of accountability and a lack of consequences.
This is just generally true about human beings that, you know, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely, that whole dynamic.
And you have these people who are like, you think about who these generals are and these military people.
And they're like, I'm Mr. Badass.
I'm a fucking killer.
You know what I mean?
You don't fuck with us.
And they control whether a government fucking topples or stays up.
And, you know, politicians exercise this enormous, ungodly power over the economy, over the military, over all this stuff.
And this is true all around.
In the Iranian government, in our government, that's why they're all, you know, they're all fucking illegitimate.
But what happens when you start doing something like this?
It's a tremendous insult to fucking go murder a high-ranking member of a foreign government, you know?
And then they're like in a situation where they're like, well, now we have to respond.
We have to do something.
Otherwise, we're just fucking bitches.
And that's not who we are.
We're powerful, you know?
And so now this seems to be their first response.
Anti-War Left Wakes From Slumber00:15:06
Now, what do we do next?
I mean, let's say they kill some Americans with some of these strikes.
Let's say they just fucking, they don't, but they just fucking fired rockets at our territory.
You're right.
We're going to eat some shawarmas on our way out and leave you this, leave you this nice little sector of Iraq.
It seems unlikely that that's going to be a response.
So does this thing escalate and escalate and escalate now into a point where we're at a full-out war?
I got to say, I think there's a decent chance.
I'm still going to say odds are no.
And the reason being that basically every single expert in the military knows what a war with Iran would mean.
And none of the European countries want it.
That's the other thing.
Nobody wants this thing.
No, no.
Well, not nobody.
I mean, some really powerful people do.
Like John Bolton, who just tweeted out, I hope this is the first step toward regime change.
He was the national security advisor.
These aren't like unimportant people.
They do want it.
There's this core group of neocon, Warhawk, you know, that kind of group that does want it.
But a lot of other people in the military know what it would mean.
And they could, even if they want it, they'd be like, yeah, yeah, in theory, this is nice.
Here's the problem.
X, Y, and Z. Let me ask you a wild question.
We go to war with Iran.
Do you think that they crash the economy because they go, hey, this is a good opportunity for a reset here where we don't have to blame the Fed or our monetary policy?
We can pretend like it was a result of the war and then we can continue to have our general expansionary monetary policy.
Or do you think because they don't want people to be anti-war, they kind of double down on stimulus and keep the thing alive because they don't want people to go, oh, war is bad for the economy?
You know, I don't know.
And I also don't know that it's all completely interconnected.
I mean, it's connected, but I don't know that one arm of the beast is completely in concert with the other arm of the beast.
That's why they need other people to jerk them off.
Well, that's right.
Their arms aren't constantly.
It all comes together.
This all comes back to a handout.
But I think that, like, there are elements within the highest levels of the fucking deep state and the military industrial complex that have had a plan for quite a while.
And this plan ends with regime change in Iran.
That's the fucking goal here.
And they want that plan to go forward.
Now, they wouldn't be able to do any of this without the monetary system that we have.
But I don't know.
I mean, maybe, but I don't really know that that's even how they're thinking about it.
Well, the last guy we put in in Iran worked out well, so.
Yeah, he had a nice little run, 53 to 79, not bad.
But yeah, it's like this, this just, these things can spin out of control.
Now, will this, you know, will the anti-war movement grow over this?
Sure.
Yeah, I think that would be one of the silver linings.
But I don't know that that's ever been enough to convince them not to fight a war.
I mean, they'll try to mitigate that as best they can.
By the way, the other wild thing was that Trump threatened to strike cultural sites, which is just gross.
Yeah, you know, it is gross, but isn't it kind of fun?
Like, yes, there's almost like two reactions you have to that, right?
And I agree with your first reaction to that.
You are like, that is just fucking disturbing.
Like, that you're like, really, you're going to threaten to destroy cultural sites?
Like, who the fuck does that?
And it's an example of why people hate Trump and why people think Trump is like uniquely evil as a president.
Like, that's the thing where I do, I am kind of sympathetic to that because you'd never hear George W. Bush or Barack Obama or anyone say anything like that.
But then the second part of you is like, yeah, but why exactly is that so uniquely evil?
Because it goes.
So instead of dropping it on a wedding like Obama would do, we're going to drop it on a cultural site.
Like, you know, it's just like.
Because the idea would be that if you're replacing a regime, it's like Iran and the Iranian people can exist and flourish.
If you start going after the cultural side.
I'm trying to destroy the people.
I'm trying to destroy the culture.
You're going against the people and the culture.
You're not going against the government.
Now, obviously, if someone came forward and said, I'm going to go bomb the civilians or go bomb the weddings, we would all say that's equally gross.
But you're saying that I'm going to bomb it.
Yeah, they don't ever say that, but saying we're going to bomb cultural sites is like, well, then you're looking to do something else here than just, you know, change the regime.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, that's the, you know, that, no, you're right.
You're right about that.
And it's, it's fucking insane that he was saying that.
And this is the thing where, like, I don't know.
I just think people don't realize how dangerous the game Donald Trump's playing is.
And, you know, God, I hope it fucking works out.
But this is fucking a dangerous fucking thing.
You know, the other thing that you touched on that kind of made me think about it, which is kind of funny, is that all of a sudden, and I've seen this, it's really amazing.
By the way, I've said, this is funny because I knew this is how it would go.
And I've said this for a while now, that there's a lot of people on the right, you know, broadly speaking, right-wing America, who have gotten more and more anti-war over the last, you know, decade or so, and particularly in the last five years.
And I think this is a really, really great thing.
I've complimented them for it.
It's like, wow, this is amazing.
You guys are getting better on the issue that was your worst issue by far.
And then there are some people, and you can kind of tell, this is why so much of it comes down to like who you can trust and who you can't.
But there are some people like, look, Tucker Carlson is an example of somebody who he's like really against these wars.
And I believe him.
And even though he used to be for them, you can just tell if you like read his book and fucking follow his show and all that stuff.
You can tell this guy really believes it.
He was converted.
He was like, no, I was wrong to support the war in Iraq.
And this is really terrible.
And I'm sorry I ever supported that.
Pat Buchanan is a guy like that who supported the whole Cold War and then goes, whoa, like I am not for this shit.
Like we all said we were only doing this because the Soviet Union was such a threat.
And then they collapsed and you're telling me we still have to fight all these wars.
This is insane.
Like Saddam Hussein is not a threat to America.
I'm sorry.
Like I'm not on board with this.
And then there's these other Republicans.
There's like the Charlie Kirks of the world, the Laura Ingrams of the world, these other people who I'm just kind of like, I don't buy it.
And I know you're saying you're anti-war now, but I feel like you'll be fucking, you'll be sold on the next fucking one.
And I've been shocked by how quickly they flipped.
Like I knew a lot of them would flip, but it was like, boom, one little thing.
All it took was one.
All these fucking people, the right-wingers who you see who are supporting this fucking war, it's like the fucking CIA comes out and goes, fucking Salmani was about to fucking launch a terrorist attack.
And they're like, well, that's it.
Factual statement.
He was about to launch a terrorist attack.
So we did the right thing.
And you're like, wait, but for three years, you've been telling me about how you agree that we need to end these wars and how the deep state is politicizing.
I thought they were going to attack.
Right, right.
Now, all of a sudden, we're fucking, we're down for another war.
And if the CIA says it, it must be true.
What?
He has nukes again.
We better get it.
I thought you were saying the fucking deep state were liars.
They just told you the sitting president was a Russian agent for fucking three years.
What?
Now we don't even need to see evidence.
We just trust them.
Fucking just crazy to watch it happen and depressing.
And I will tell you the one thing, again, in all of these things, in all bad situations, there are silver linings.
This is somehow, you know, it's the way God made the universe, that there's always kind of like, there's this yin and yang that just always exists, and there's this bad situation, but then there's a little bit of a silver lining.
And the silver lining to me in this situation is like, oh, this is, it separates people.
This set that it lets you see who's for real and who's fucking not.
And all the people cheering on aggression with Iran, you're like, okay, you guys are now, at least I know you're in this category of you were just fucking pretending to fucking be, you know, whatever.
And these people, you're like, okay, I can trust you.
If you can fucking resist the temptation for war, then you win some respect from me.
On the flip side of it, another kind of amazing development, which I must say, I also kind of called this one, not bragging about my own predictions because I've gotten many things wrong, but is that the anti-war left seems to have to some degree woken up from their slumber.
It's really funny to see.
They're like, wait, what?
A war?
This is crazy.
We haven't fought a war since 2007.
I'm really against this all of a sudden.
You're like, we've been at war this whole time.
They're like, nah, nah, I would have heard about that.
I think it was right around George W. Bush's last year that we fought a war.
So anyway, they're back.
And you're seeing a lot of anti-war stuff out of the left.
I'm happy to see them back.
It's hard.
I literally have to bite my tongue to not lecture them on the way back.
Like, hey, guys, it's nice to see you back.
Here's what we've been doing over the last decade.
But whatever.
If you're coming back to the side, we'll use you for now.
But it's the same thing as like the right wing when I was fucking, you know, saying the same thing about them.
They'll get sold on the next war if it's a Republican doing it.
And for the fucking most of these guys on the anti-war left, they'll get sold on the next war if it's a Democrat who's doing it.
So we got to just, you know, see what happens with that one.
But it is, it is interesting to see that.
And I did, what I predicted that I said I always said this was the thing.
Now, I will say at first, I didn't get this prediction right at first.
So when Donald Trump first won on election night, what I said was maybe one of the silver linings of this will be that the anti-war left makes a return because there was a really strong anti-war movement under George W. Bush.
It went completely away.
You know, I'm not completely.
There were still five really good lefties, but for the most part, it went away.
There weren't mass demonstrations and stuff like that.
When it was Barack Obama, when it was a charming black Democrat doing it, it was like, you know, first black president, we're not going to, you know, he can kill as many brown babies as he wants to.
But when Trump got elected, I was like, you know what?
These people hate Donald Trump so much and he's going to get in there.
He's run on this promise of ending the wars and he's not going to do it.
I already knew that.
I knew he was not going to do it.
And so I was like, they hate him so much and they're so skeptical of his administration that when they were like, you know, when there's an article like Obama launched a drone strike that kills 17 innocent people, I go, once it says Trump launched drone strike that killed 17 innocent people, I don't think they're going to be able to not look at that, you know?
Or I was like, maybe they won't.
You can go back and listen to the podcast.
I forget exactly what I said, but I entertained the possibility that they might get anti-war again.
And that did not happen.
That did not happen.
I was hoping for that.
I was somewhat optimistic.
And it didn't.
And I basically came to the conclusion very quickly within a few months of Donald Trump's presidency that the problem for them was, and I see this now.
I'm completely convinced this is the answer.
The problem for them was that what Donald Trump was doing was continuing all of Obama's wars.
And in order for them to be anti-war, like to actually have an anti-war movement, you got to have some like harsh rhetoric.
You know, nobody's ever led an anti-war movement, like whatever it is, the anti-Vietnam War or something like that, the movement, you know, any anti-war movement.
You've never worked up passion by going, this is the cost-benefit analysis here is not favorable, right?
That's not how an anti-war movement works.
You're not going like, I just feel like, you know, whatever.
This is not a...
It doesn't have the ROI I was looking for.
Right.
I spent a lot of money.
We didn't pull the oil.
We got bases that they got to keep.
Yeah, this is like nobody's leading an anti-war movement that way.
Nobody's going like, you know, I ran a fucking cost-benefit analysis on this.
It's not how it is.
What you do is you go, this is fucking murder.
Like, that's how people feel.
Like, no blood for oil.
That's what they fucking say.
We're not going to fucking, human beings are dying for some fucking goo in the ground.
Get the fuck out of here.
We're not for it.
You know, you need that.
And nobody, again, I shouldn't say nobody, but for the vast majority of the anti-war left, in order to do that about a war that Obama started, you have to indict Obama also.
You can't go, Trump's committing a genocide in Yemen.
And then go, well, okay, but obviously that comes along with you saying that the president who you invested everything in, but went all in on Obama, all your chips and greatest president ever.
Well, it turns out greatest president ever was a child murderer.
That's hard to fucking do.
But I said, once I realized that, I go, when Trump starts his own war, that's when you'll see the anti-war left starting to rise back up.
And because it's like, well, now you can blame him and you don't have to suffer the cognitive dissidence or the partisanship of, bless you, of indicting your own guy as well.
So that's what happened.
And I thought when the Venezuela thing was popping off, I go, oh, maybe this one will be it.
But Iran actually works out really well for the anti-war left because Obama went and made a deal with Iran.
And then Trump said, oh, that deal sucks, got out of the deal, and is now escalating the situation with Iran.
So it works out very well for them, excuse me, to say, oh, okay, see, this is Donald Trump.
Now we can be anti-war again.
There is something about it, though, that's just, it's starting to, it's a tough sell.
It's like, I'm glad they're coming back, but I just notice like nobody's taking them seriously.
They're kind of like, motherfucker, we've been at war this whole time.
Where the hell have you been?
And it's just, it's unfortunate because I still think that Obama's, of Obama's legacy, and there were so many bad things that Obama did.
So many bad things.
But I really think the worst part of Obama's legacy was that he killed the credibility of the anti-war left for a generation.
There's exceptions.
There are some people who stayed outside of it and were critical of Obama.
And God bless those people.
Tulsi Gabbard vs Stefan Molyneux00:07:57
But he just, it's like if you were willing to not say anything as Obama was doing that, that's in a similar way.
It's an important issue as well is that like what George W. Bush did to Republican credibility on big government.
I mean, after that, if you were a Republican who was willing to go along with George W. Bush, get the fuck out of here about big government.
And you remember the Democrats would hit them with that all the time.
Under Obama, they'd be like, oh, government's out of control.
And be like, didn't you vote for all that Bush shit?
Didn't you support him?
And then be like, hey, great fucking point.
Like, I don't know.
You could sit there and go, what about ism like a fucking child.
But no, it's actually a great point.
It's a great point.
You're full of shit.
You're full of shit because you went along with it.
And that's, you know, nobody, this is the problem or one of the problems with that whole whataboutism like line.
It's like, yeah, no, pointing out hypocrisy doesn't like take away the argument of whether what you're doing is right or wrong, but no one wants to listen to a hypocrite.
So if you're a fucking hypocrite, that is a problem.
You can't go, I'm a hypocrite, but you're not allowed to point out that I'm a hypocrite.
That's not gonna fucking work.
Anyway, you know, let me just say, before we fucking get out of here, and we're gonna wrap up in a second because we got, sorry, this episode's coming out late and we got someone else coming into the studio.
And this is, I guess, back on the Stefan Molyneux thing.
Like, I've been convinced for a long time that the fucking, you know, it's like what Murray Rothbard wrote.
And I think he wrote this back in like the 50s or something.
But he goes, I've really, he goes, the more I get into it, the more and more convinced I get that this issue of war is what this libertarian business is all about.
Like it's just the center of the whole fucking thing.
Because without that, or with that, you're never going to get a libertarian society.
You're just never going to have one.
And, you know, it's like, so number one, it's if we're opposed to government because government is the initiation of violence and government is an intrusion into the marketplace and we oppose government programs on this like, you know, kind of philosophical moral principle level.
Well, what's the worst one?
What's the worst initiation of violence?
It's, you know, it's probably mass murder.
And then on top of that, it's the one that, you know, it destroys any possibility of, you know, it's like Scott Horton said at one point.
He's like, well, how come we can't ever have a conversation about whether we should abolish the income tax?
How come even Republicans can't ever have a conversation about whether we should abolish the income tax, right?
I thought you guys were the anti-socialists.
You're the guys who are for free markets.
How come it never comes up?
How come only Ron Paul, only the anti-war Republican was the one who was able to say, hey, we should abolish the income tax.
Well, why is that?
To ask the question answers the question because you can't be an empire without a fucking income tax.
That's just, it's not going to happen.
I mean, maybe a different type of tax, but you can't do it without some huge tax.
So you can never have that fucking question.
Oh, why is Ron Paul the only anti-war Republican, the only one who questioned the Fed policy?
Well, because you can't be an empire without a loose monetary policy.
Like, you can't have that.
They're incompatible.
So once you grant the war, you're granting all the other aspects of big government.
It's just not going to fucking happen.
And then you could have this pipe dream that, well, we'll keep all of that and just eliminate the welfare state or just roll back regulations.
But once you give this organization that much power, they're not going to fucking only use it in this area.
That's like naivete to the most insane degree.
And so to me, it's like anybody who's like fighting against this fucking war thing, somebody I'm willing to talk to.
And to all those people who said, oh, but Dave, you know, you didn't have to say the great Stefan Molyneux.
Like, that's the thing that you're really hanging on is that I said the great Stefan Molyneux.
By the way, to any of them, if I had fucking Tulsi Gabbard on my show and I said, I've got the great Tulsi Gabbard coming onto my show today, not one of these libertarians would be criticizing me for that.
And Tulsi Gabbard's like signed up for the fucking, you know, the Green New Deal and Medicare for all and all this shit.
Okay, so you want to tell me you think Stefan Molyneux has some fucking views that you disagree with?
Like, okay, are any of them worse than the Green New Deal?
Are they worse than Medicare for all?
I mean, obviously, Stefan Molyneux is way closer to what any libertarian should believe in than fucking Tulsi Gabbard.
But if I said the great Tulsi Gabbard, none of them would be giving me this shit.
If I said the great, you know, fucking, I don't know, Noam Chomsky or something like that, none of them would fucking be giving me shit over it.
And here's, I'll just tell you this.
Here's why I say the great Stefan Molyneux, okay?
There's a few reasons for it.
Number one, uh, dude's built up a huge, fucking huge goddamn show.
Have some fucking respect.
I don't know what to tell you.
I've always thought this, by the way, is I have some fucking respect.
I thought we're free market people.
You don't fucking respect someone who's built something fucking huge.
He's got a million subscribers on YouTube and probably would have way more than that if he wasn't fucking being like shadow banned all the time and shit like that.
But like, you know, it's like I remember, I think me and you have talked about this before, Rob.
But when I first started comedy, it was when like Dane Cook was on a tear.
Like, Dane Cook was the biggest thing in comedy.
And he was like selling out the garden and doing all these things.
And I remember doing like, like, hanging out with like other open micers and stuff.
And people love to shit on Dane Cook because, you know, I don't know.
There was something about him.
He was like all these act outs.
And he had all these fans that were like 17-year-old chicks.
And people kind of like were envious and hated it.
He was popular to hate on.
And people would be like, oh, fucking Dane Cook's a fucking hack.
And I'd be like, dude, we just, we just did an open mic, and Dane Cook just rocked 30,000 people at an arena.
And you're sitting here with me having a fucking burger after the open mic going, the guy sucks.
It's like, really?
You don't think, like, maybe you would literally shit your pants if you were put into the situation that he just fucking annihilated a day ago.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's so easy for these people, like just some Facebook poster to go about how the guy, oh, you called the guy with a million subscribers.
Great.
It's like, so part of it is just recognizing his achievement.
And then outside of that.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Feel however you feel about him.
But I still, you know, like, I don't know.
There's something about like, just have a little respect.
And it's better for you, too.
It's so easy to sit on the sidelines and go, I'd be better than that guy.
It's like, oh, all right.
Now go try.
That's a lot harder.
But so not only that, but Stefan Molyneux has been consistently anti-war since the very beginning.
He has introduced more people to anarcho-capitalism than just about anybody that I can think of.
And so many of the people who fucking really dislike him are like, I used to love him until the last few years.
And it's like, okay, well, then you're still here because of his influence, or in part of that, he had an influence on me, helped me understand a lot of these principles better when I first found his channel.
And he has been a relentless advocate for peaceful parenting, which I think is actually more important than just about everything else that we talk about.
And he's bald.
And that's right.
And he's bald.
To me, that's more than enough to fucking show some fucking respect for that guy, appreciate him, and think he's somebody of value to be able to talk with him and go on his show and stuff like that.
And if you don't, too bad.
I don't know what else to tell you.
I mean, if you want to present an argument to me, I'll listen to it.
If you just want to, you know, name call and all that shit, you guys go fuck yourselves.
February 7th Party in Boston00:00:53
All right.
That's our show.
We'll be back tomorrow.
I got a run your mouth podcast.
Don't forget to come see us in Boston on, what is it, February 19th?
Or I'm sorry.
No, no, it was already forgot.
I got that date all wrong.
Hold on.
I'll plug another date while you look up that gate.
I'm at not with Dave, sadly, but I'm at Steamboat Springs.
I'm doing two shows, 14th and 15th, Valentine's Day.
If you're alone, come ski with me.
Very nice.
That should be fun.
February 7th, me and Rob Bernstein will be together in Boston.
Hell yeah, that's going to be a party.
What's the venue again?
I'm sorry.
The highway comedy.
Highdown comedy.
One of the things.
We'll tweet out the details about that, but much more road stuff coming up as well after that.
And tomorrow, I got Peter Schiff coming in studio.