Dave Smith and Robbie Suave dissect why libertarians fail to sell liberty, arguing that focusing on minor regulatory tweaks ignores the massive surveillance state and debt crisis. Smith contends that Washington's elite hub and outsourcing stem from high taxes, not consumer choice, urging a shift from boycotts to exposing forced taxation. While debating trade and the "suicide epidemic," he clarifies that borders violate private property rights but acknowledges current culture hinders anarchist ideals. Ultimately, the discussion emphasizes inseparable rights and responsibilities, suggesting that direct community support via models like GoFundMe offers a more viable path than state safety nets in an era of eroding family structures. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Government Size and Corruption00:02:57
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 Gash Digital Network.
Here's your host, Dave Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode, brand spanking new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am, of course, Dave Smith, the most consistent motherfucker you know, the big picture, the heart and soul of Liberty.
And I'm joined, as usual, by the king of the cocks, Robbie the Fire Bernstein, back from his latest bout with the coronavirus.
It seems to be more or less under control.
You did cough on me several times before the show started.
I'm a little bit nervous, but hey, got to roll the dice in life, you know?
Dude, I'm terrified about this coronavirus thing.
Are you?
Is it fucking with you?
I had this dude, Sam Parker, on, who gave me the whole breakdown about how on Run Your Mouth, about how it's man-made and how this thing's going to be a pandemic.
I got mixed feelings.
I'm like, I'm like, I'll believe it when I see it, but it could be bad.
Yeah, it's just not, it's not scaring me.
I'm sorry.
Anyway, I'm just not scared of it.
I don't think, oh man, it's fucking pain in my sinuses and throat.
Just won't.
No, I don't know.
I just feel like, yeah, I don't know.
It depends on which report I read.
And then I, you know, like, I'll be terrified.
And then I just want to not think about it.
But then, you know, I'll see some things where it's like, okay, it's actually like seems to be, you know, unlikely that you're going to get it and very unlikely, very, very unlikely you're going to die from it.
I feel like I got bad luck.
I mean, I already got AIDS.
I'm not even gay.
So, you know, I'll contract anything anywhere.
Yeah, but you did a lot of gay stuff.
Well, that's true.
I mean, you were totally straight about it, but you, I mean, you did seem to enjoy it while it was happening.
Use your imagination.
You can fill in the block.
I learned my lesson the hard way.
So, you know, hopefully it doesn't happen with this coronavirus.
The hardest of ways, really.
There's nothing like getting butt-fucked by a dude with AIDS to learn your lesson.
That actually is probably a great way to learn your lesson about just about anything in life.
With the consequences, we're getting butt-fucked.
People would behave a lot more.
Like, forget like making your kids smoke a carton of cigarettes.
Just like, oh, I caught you with a cigarette.
Now you're going to have gay sex.
Quit real quick.
Or you might find out real quickly your kid's gay.
Oh, my God.
Revisiting the Backlash Video00:13:44
And nothing's great after gay sex.
Nothing's better than a cigarette after gay sex.
They're really just...
Oh, it's a nice gay sex than a cigarette.
That didn't work out at all.
Jesus.
Well, I mean, at least we figured it out.
We took this Christian conservative podcast for a turn for the worst.
No, all of this stuff, what you just witnessed was a test.
And if you guys enjoyed that disgusting banter, I don't want you as listeners anymore.
Purity test.
Yeah, that's right.
It's disgusting that some podcasts would talk that way.
Anyway, so for today's episode, it's, you know, I've been talking nonstop about the primaries and all the shit that's going on in the world of politics.
And, you know, today's episode, I figured we'd go in a little bit of a different direction.
I got a video that I wanted to talk about.
I'm going to take some questions from the Part of the Problem Inner Circle, our private Facebook group.
And just because it's kind of the, you know, I don't know, the last episode, I did a whole breakdown of the last debate and where we're going into South Carolina and then Super Tuesday.
And now it's just kind of, you know, one more of those like comms before the storm.
It's going to get real interesting.
We're going to have a whole bunch of shit to talk about next week.
You know, I'm excited about all of the just excited to watch the circus roll on.
But really, I think as of right now, things are more or less stand where.
you know, what we've been talking about the last few episodes.
We talked a lot about it in Philly on that episode.
And, you know, so anyway, I thought for today, maybe we'd just talk about some kind of broader things.
And there was actually a video that I watched.
It was posted in the part of the problem inner circle.
And I watched it maybe like a week ago or something like that.
And I thought maybe we would talk about it.
But then it just didn't fit into any of the episodes.
And there was a lot of stuff going on in the news and in the primary race.
So we never talked about it.
But I wanted to maybe revisit it because, you know, like as this show is, really, there's almost like two separate co-equal parts of part of the problem.
And it's like half the show is, and I mean, they blend.
They're not like compartmentalized completely, but half of the show is about, you know, libertarianism and half of the show is about current events and politics and things like that.
And, you know, I really do.
It's funny because so much of our audience, like they're kind of split.
Like I get all the time, people are like, oh, there's enough talk about the political circus and, you know, get back to like the principles of liberty.
And then there's a whole other, you know, portion of our audience who's like, enough, this libertarian autistic philosophy, you know, just talk about what's going on.
And that's where you shine on the political commentary.
And to both of you people, no.
To both of you, no.
You only get half of what you want when you listen to this podcast.
I like doing both.
And so I'm going to do both because I actually think they're like equally important and interesting.
But so anyway, the video that I wanted to go over was a video from The Hill, which is actually a show that I've gotten into.
I watch this show fairly often.
I just, I, you know, I watched a few of their YouTube videos and now it gets recommended to me all the time.
So I watch it.
And it's actually, I think, one of the better political shows out there.
It's hosted by Crystal Ball and I'm blanking on the guy's name.
It'll be up in a second.
I apologize.
But I'm blanking on his name.
But the show is like, it's basically like there's two co-hosts.
One is like a populist lefty and the other is a populist right-wing guy.
And so it's kind of like they both come together on critiquing the establishment and the Democratic and Republican establishment, the status quo kind of thing.
And I thought they've done a good job in general.
Like I've seen a lot of their takes on the primaries and stuff like that, and they've been pretty good.
Crystal Ball, I've met before.
I did an episode of Essie Cup show with her once.
And she got interesting somewhere in the last few years.
She did not used to be.
Wherever she got that stripper name.
Yeah, it's quite a name.
But she was like a generic run-of-the-mill MSNBC host.
Like just every opinion that you would think, you know, like through the Obama years, I remember she used to host a show on MSNBC with Essie Cup.
And it was just generic.
And when I did the show with her, it was generic and boring.
She's the one of you remember where I did my story when they used to still let us pick a story at the end of the show and each panelist got to present their story and they got pissed off at me because my story was Yemen every single episode.
And, you know, I get it.
I get where they were coming from.
But they were like, Dave, you've talked about Yemen three times this week.
Like, you can't do another piece on Yemen.
And I was like, still people dying.
So I don't know.
What are we doing here?
You're bummed them out, Dave.
Yeah, well, I was.
And they were like, we want to kind of keep it light.
But anyway, and then they just did away with that segment altogether.
I think they, I think I might have been the reason they did away with that segment.
They were like, we can't let Dave pick the topic of the show.
And then, of course, little by little as the show went on, they would just stop involving me in any of the shit that I wanted to talk about.
Like, so if it was like, if there was something about wars that was being discussed, they'd be like, we're going to have the panel leave for this segment, and then you guys will come back in and we'll talk about, you know, popcorn or some bullshit.
And anyway, but, you know, I had a lot of fun on that show.
Made some money as well.
But so Crystal Ball at the time, if you remember, she was the one.
I think we played this on the show a couple of years ago.
She was the one where I did one of my stories.
This was after they wouldn't let me talk about Yemen anymore, but I could still pick a story.
One of the things I talked about was Antifa and how there's like, at the time, I was like, there's like no public coverage like in the mainstream media of the fact that there is this borderline domestic terrorist group that goes around to any right-wing gathering and just fucking assaults and intimidates people for showing up.
I was like, if this was a right-wing group, if alt-writers were doing this every time Bernie Sanders held a rally or something like that, this would be like the story all around.
And I said at one point, I go, you know, I compared him to the alt-right, like if the alt-right was doing this.
And I said, these are straight up communists.
They're walking around with hammer and sickle flags and they're assaulting anybody who they deem as Nazis, which basically means not left Democrats.
Like that's everyone else is Nazis.
And then she interrupted me and or not interrupted me, but she then chimed in and she goes, I just want to make it clear that nobody here is equating, you know, fascists to anti-fascists.
And I was like, no, I want to be very clear.
I am equating them.
And in fact, I'm saying they're worse.
Like it was like very, very clear.
And then anyway, she seems like shocked that I said this.
Anyway, that's just my quick crystal ball story.
But, you know, she got interesting somewhere over the years.
I don't know.
She like became a Bernie supporter and like a populist lefty and at least is more interesting and criticizes the Mueller investigation and the kind of, you know, the corporate press and all that stuff.
So the show is fairly good.
But man, are they fucking just out of their depth when they talk about libertarianism?
So they had Robbie Suave on the show, who I love Robbie.
He's great.
And he's been on the podcast before.
We had him on right after he wrote his last book, which was called Panic Attack and is about like radical movements and college campuses.
And it was really, really good.
I highly recommend the book.
Robbie Suave is excellent.
I mean, he was like, that book was really great.
He does a great job reporting on like campus craziness and all of these different stuff.
A great job reporting on the media.
He goes on Tucker Carlson's show a lot.
He's always really good on those segments.
But he did not do a very good job in this.
And so I thought it might be useful to kind of look at this.
If you are somebody who believes in libertarianism, or maybe you're somebody who believes in these critiques of libertarianism.
Either way, I almost wanted to go through this and show the flaws in the way Robbie Suave was presenting libertarianism, and then the flaws in the arguments that they throw at him, the holes in libertarianism, which they seem very satisfied with, that are just wrong.
I mean, just like really, really like shallow misunderstandings of the whole idea of being for free markets, for limited government or no government in my case, for, you know, and any of this stuff.
So again, you know, I actually thought when I first saw this, I thought about reaching out to Robby Suave and just being like, dude, we got to talk.
Like, can I just coach you through how to talk about libertarianism and these type of things?
But I don't really know Robbie that well, and who the fuck am I to tell him how to do it publicly?
So I've just figured I would just do it publicly.
And then hopefully he watches this, he feels a little bit worse, and then he learns the lesson.
So take this as my phone call to Robbie Suave, but I'm just going to let you all in on the phone call.
Robbie, you fucking maniac.
No, I'm just kidding.
I'm kidding.
And I do, like I said, I really have a lot of respect for Robbie Suave.
I think he's fucking great.
But this just seems like this isn't his strength.
And he needs to do better if he's going to go do these things.
Because I was looking through the YouTube comments on the show and I'm like, my God, everybody, it's like he couldn't have convinced them more.
It's like, yeah, this whole libertarian thing is just a fucking joke.
So anyway, let's go through this.
We'll see how long it takes us to go through the whole thing.
And then with whatever time we have left, we'll answer some questions.
Putting the Suave back in the Robbie Suave.
He is a very suave guy.
Okay, let's play.
American views of the Republican Party are improving.
A recent Gallup survey revealed that 51% of Americans view the GOP favorably.
And that's the first time that favorability has actually exceeded 50% since 2005.
But where will the GOP stand after President Trump leaves office whenever that occurs?
Here to weigh in on the future of the GOP is Robbie Suave.
He's a senior editor at Reason.
Great to have you, Robbie.
We're glad you're here.
Thanks for joining us, Robbie.
I mean, so, Robbie, I asked you to come on because I was quoted in a Vox article about the future of the GOP, how we go after that.
You basically accused me of being a progressive and that that's the future of the conservative movement.
And yet we see Donald Trump, who supposedly has adopted this progressive politics, has a highest approval rating for the party in quite a long time.
Why do you disagree with that term?
So these are difficult terms to use nowadays because there's two kinds of progressivism, at least.
I mean, there's a million kinds, but there's cultural issues and there's economic issues.
Yeah.
And it seems very clear to me that social progressivism, still relatively unpopular or only popular among a kind of New York, D.C., coastal, young elite professional class.
Sure.
But economic progressivism, if maybe if not said like that, but the kind of policies that economic of economic interventionism, of using government to create a kind of safety net for people, that's something Trump has, I think, increasingly embraced that has proven popular.
So I'm not saying...
So already, I just, you know, I don't completely disagree with this.
I just think it's like confusing and a weird way to start things with.
So the idea that social progressivism, like, okay, you want to separate progressives into two separate categories.
There's like the economic policies and the social policies.
Well, social progressivism, it's not that it's like increasingly unpopular.
It's won the day.
It is the world we live in.
That's it.
Now, there's some backlash to it, but it won.
What happened is the stuff he's talking about, I don't think is fair to even call socially progressive.
It's like woke insanity.
Like wokeism.
Okay.
Now, what this is, is a group of people, the left-wing college students and, you know, social justice warrior types, who took all of the victories of, you know, socially progressive ideology, said, we've won all these wars.
Let's sit on top of them and just go insane.
Like, just insane to a level that no one agrees with.
And that has backfired to some degree.
Let's like, it's not even like...
Like, it's identity politics on steroids on some next insane level.
I mean, literally, like, these are talking about microaggressions and, you know, six-year-olds transitioning genders and like all of this stuff that's just, it's so out there that most people can't get on board with it.
But I am, you know, I'm not like an old guy.
I'm 36, so I'm not a young guy either.
But I'm like, I still remember when gay marriage was what social progressives were fighting for.
Identity Politics on Steroids00:15:58
I still remember, you know what I mean?
That's over.
It's won.
It's not even a debate anymore.
It's just what we've like, what the country in general has accepted.
And most of these things are like, and then if you just keep going back further and further, it's like, like, who would dare in today's, you know, politics question anything from like progressive social battles that have been won in the past?
Who's, you know, who's even arguing for like a don't ask, don't tell policy?
Who's arguing, you know, about anything about the civil rights era, basically?
That's all just been accepted.
Nobody's, I still remember when I was a kid, there were still fights about whether Martin Luther King Day should be a federal holiday.
There were still fights about whether gay marriage should be legal.
There were fights about whether gay should serve in the military.
There are all these different, you know, things.
They're over.
It's all over now.
So anyway, I wouldn't necessarily say that that's unpopular was failing.
I think there's just some people who went insane with it.
Now, what he's talking about when he says economic progressivism, I mean, he just means interventionist economics.
And again, that's also been, I mean, this is a battle that's been won over and over again.
So I don't disagree with him in that sense.
I just think there's a very confusing way already to start where people don't really know what you're talking about.
But I'm not hitting him for this necessarily.
And he looks pretty.
Robbie Suave always looks good.
Always on top of his game.
Always.
See, if you're listening, and I would have said this on the private phone call as well.
I'd have been like, first of all, you looked great.
Whatever you're chilling your hair with, and you got the color tips in there and the nice product on point.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
All right, let's keep playing.
Saying it's a losing strategy at all.
I just don't really like it.
So why?
Let's go into that.
Because you're a libertarian, you work at reason.
Sure.
And I think one of the things that the biggest problem I have with libertarianism is basically a war on public policy.
Is that essentially you basically don't believe in public policy or the ability of government to have any benefit, any benefit within the economy whatsoever.
So defend that view.
Yeah, I think that's defend that view.
Defend the view that you're fighting a war on public policy, even if public policy would benefit the economy.
So obviously, right, you have to challenge here his, you're like, well, no, I'm not going to defend that view.
I'll tell you why that view is flawed.
To say that the problem with libertarians is that we are fighting a war against public policy or something like that.
And even if it helps the economy, we won't be for some public policy.
Well, no, I mean, the point that libertarians are making is that public policy is a war against the people.
That that's the essence of what public policy is.
And you have to somehow make this argument.
Now, Robbie, this is where Robbie does a really, really bad job.
And I don't mean to like hit him for this, but I think it's important that people who are trying to convince people of the benefits of a free society understand this.
And I think people who think they have some great criticism of libertarianism need to understand this too.
Here, let's play what Robbie Suab says, and maybe you can see why this isn't a good response.
That would be like the most extreme libertarian view.
I'm sure there's some government policies that work out and can do a better job, but there's so much that the government does that is harmful.
So it's like a do-no-harm approach I take first.
Like why the GOP has power right now under Trump?
They have tremendous power.
Why aren't we first stopping the government from doing some things that are bad?
Now, I think there has been progress maybe in the foreign policy arena of just like affirmative government action that has been taken that is bad, that we are just going to do less of, that I support.
But on all sorts of kind of intervention into people's lives, like occupational licensing, like you need a license to braid people's hair.
I hear about this from you guys all the time.
And it's as if occupational licensing is the greatest threat to American liberty.
Pause right here.
Oh, God.
Okay.
So listen.
Robbie Suave is asked this broad philosophical question.
The table is open to you to talk about whatever you want to, to talk about why.
Why would you not like public policy?
What do libertarians have to offer?
What is this?
And his first instinct is to go, hey, I'm not one of those extreme libertarians.
Like, first off, just make sure you're not confusing me with the Dave Smiths of the world, which is like, fine, okay, you're not an extreme radical libertarian like I am.
But that's the first thing that you have to get across is like, hey, I'm not one of those crazy guys.
Oh, and by the way, you know, we've done some good things on foreign policy, but, you know, occupational licenses.
This is what you lead with?
Now, listen, occupational licenses are absolutely bullshit.
And it is crazy that people need a license to braid hair.
But this is your starting point of why a free society.
And then you just allow him.
Of course, you just gave him a fucking setup to just spike down in your face.
Like, I'm asking you about important questions and you're giving me licenses for braiding hair.
Like, this is what you would, where you would take this conversation?
This?
Like, okay.
Well, look, if you're just given the floor to just be like, what?
What libertarians?
What's your problem with public policy?
What's your problem?
I mean, right away, you go, like, it's just so obvious.
There's so many things like right on the table, okay?
Especially when you're talking to a pop to two populists at the table with you.
It's like, so first off, you don't want to start with we're doing better on foreign policy.
You go, we're spending a trillion dollars a year to maintain an empire, and we're not even supposed to be an empire.
It's a trillion dollars a year that's taken out of our economy every day, just so that what the Sunni Shiite balance in Syria and Iraq is the way that we want it to be.
Oh, and by the way, it's not even the way that we want it to be.
I mean, okay, so that would be the foreign policy comment.
But forget occupational licenses.
We live under the largest government in the history of the world.
We're bankrupting the entire society.
We've already spent our grandchildren into debt that they'll never be able to pay off.
And by the way, the bill will probably come due way before our grandchildren have to worry about it.
You know, like the government gets bigger and bigger every single year.
We live in the age of big government.
Now, if you're going to talk to populists, populists by nature are upset with the status quo and the elites.
So the first thing you have to do is not go like, oh, I want to talk about the minutiae over here, over there.
You have to go, listen, what is the scheme that the elites are using right now to screw everybody over?
And the answer is obviously big government.
Obviously, there's no debate about that.
It's not like we like, eh, do we have big government now?
Is the government a little bit bigger than it should be?
It's like, it's the biggest ever.
It's the biggest, most powerful government ever.
Now, why do libertarians oppose public policy?
Oh, I don't know.
I mean, you show me another organization that slaughters hundreds of thousands of innocent people, locks tens of thousands of people in cages.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, spies on its citizens.
Just play the freaking opening to this goddamn show.
But any of these directions you can go in, any one of them.
And you're talking about licenses for hair braiding.
This is like your first go-to thing that you've got.
And you see this is the problem.
And it's the problem with so many of these Reason magazine libertarian types, even good people like Robbie, where it's like you can't be afraid of being seen as radical when you are a radical.
What you're arguing is radical by its very nature.
You oppose big government in the era of big government.
Okay.
So that's it.
I mean, and all you have to break down is that every single one of the last presidents, every president of our lifetime, has drastically increased the size and scope of government during their administration.
Every Congress has drastically increased the size and scope of government.
And look where it's gotten us.
And now populists like you guys are rising up because you're like, hey, why isn't this whole system working anymore?
There you go.
There's a million different ways to present this or say it.
You can say it.
It's very easy to get this out in soundbite form, but you have to make some type of bigger push.
You know, our government's going to be spending $5 trillion a year in the next couple of years.
That's $5 trillion that the government has forcefully taken out of the economy, taken away from people who are serving others, who are literally just trading with everybody, right?
That's all the economy is.
All an economy is, is people trading.
That's every inch of the economy can be broken down into that.
It's people trading.
If you're producing something in a factory, well, it's like, okay, you ask a guy to build a machine for you and you'll give him money.
It's like, I'll trade you your building of a machine for money.
And then you go, okay, I'll trade someone else money for working in the machine.
And then ultimately, they're going to make a product and I'm going to trade that with a consumer for that.
And everything that's a voluntary trade is only happening because somebody is saying to the other one, like, oh, I'd like that better than what I have.
So I'll trade you this.
And you go, okay, I'll do that because I'd like that better than what I have.
So the government comes along, takes $5 trillion away from people who are trading amongst each other and spends it on shit that most of us don't want, meaning we wouldn't pay for it voluntarily.
We only pay for it because they're forcing us to do that.
So this is what's destroying the economy.
This is what's destroying our culture.
This is what's destroying the country.
Something like this.
But it's not you need a license to braid hair, which again is bullshit.
You shouldn't need a license to braid hair.
Anyway, let's keep playing.
In this country, and it's kind of mystifying to me because to me, what it is, is the fact that we can talk about income inequality, we can talk about class differences.
And it seems that libertarianism writ large is really just corporate welfare ideology.
I know they always say, you like to say you're against corporate cronyism and all of that, but in practice, it's about not being able to rein in any market power whatsoever and about pointing to erroneous government spending of like $23 million as evidence that public policy itself doesn't work.
What do you mean by support for corporate welfare?
I mean, wherever corporate welfare exists, I will point is that when you have a libertarian philosophy that basically says like government stays down, government's not going to regulate, that is inherently going to benefit the most powerful, largest moneyed interests in this country, especially at a time when we...
Wrong.
Wrong.
Let me channel my inner Scott Horton here.
Wrong.
Wrong.
But you also see where Robbie allowed them to have this narrative now.
You know, it's like every time I ask you guys about this stuff, you want to talk about like licenses for braiding hair or $23 million the government spent here.
I'm talking about income inequality.
I'm talking about the big problems in our society.
And, you know, which is, of course, if you wanted to talk about income inequality, libertarians actually have a lot to say about income inequality.
Well, why is it that you think that six of the top 10 richest district in the richest districts in the entire country just happen to be right outside of Washington, D.C.?
Why is that?
Is that because of all the production, all the capitalism that's going on in Washington, D.C.?
No, it's because that's where the politically connected people live.
They're all getting their money from Washington, D.C., from politicians.
Washington, D.C. doesn't produce anything other than legislation and murder.
Okay?
That's all that's going on there.
And the murder doesn't pay that well unless the politicians are doing it.
Anyway, so he's already let them have this.
Then, of course, Sager, whatever his name is, he's going to make this ridiculous argument that can be torn apart where he goes, oh, he goes, well, really, in practice, your ideology is you're for corporate welfare.
And like, you can say you're not, but you're not going to do anything to check corporate power.
And it's like, okay, well, first of all, there's a very big difference between corporate welfare and corporate profits.
To just use those interchangeably is about as economically illiterate as you can get.
Like, yes, people can profit.
That doesn't mean you're for, it's like saying, if you were just like, oh, like you're basically for welfare.
And you're like, why are you for welfare?
Well, because you're not going to tax people.
It's like, what?
It's not what those terms mean.
They're opposites.
Okay.
Now, Crystal Ball weighs in here and goes, of course, the age-old lefty critique of libertarianism that's every bit as dumb now as it always has been.
That, well, if you're going to say the government has to stay out and the government can't regulate the economy, well, then that's just a recipe to allow the rich and powerful corporations to have their way.
You know, I wonder, I really wonder for people who feel that way, do they ever just think this through for like five minutes, for like five minutes.
You go, okay, so why is it then?
And this is the point of why it's so important to not start with occupational licenses and to start with something about how big the government is that we live under, because then you kind of like inoculate the conversation from going in this crazy direction.
But if you go, okay, well, here's an interesting question then, right?
If these rich, powerful corporations who everyone here would agree have so much undue influence in the government would benefit so much from slashing the size and scope of government, why aren't they supporting that?
Why aren't the politicians doing that?
I mean, we all know they're bought and paid for by these special interests.
So why is it that a Congress that's bought and paid for keeps expanding the size of government?
You know, it's almost like what you're supporting is actually corporate welfare.
Like, I mean, how obvious is it?
Right?
The Scott Horton line, it turns out all a billionaire wants is welfare.
And that's why they buy off these politicians.
Corporate Welfare and Regulation00:15:09
It's not because they want a free market in which they can compete.
It's just that, you know, they want to write rules in their favor.
And that's what they get.
And they get more and more handouts, more and more regulations in their favor.
Everybody, listen, everybody who's run a small business knows this.
Regulations crush small business.
They don't crush industry leaders.
Industry leaders end up lobbying for the regulations.
Why?
Because it makes it harder for everybody else to compete with them.
Because they're the ones who can afford it.
And nobody else can.
But the idea that these big businesses would be so much better off without big government, well, then I wonder why we have such a big government.
Unless you want to tell me it's because the Congress, we have such a big government because the Congress just will not be influenced by big business.
And instead, they just have to fight for the American people.
Now, there might be someone out there who will make that bullshit argument.
But again, remember, you're talking to two populists here.
So they know that's not the fucking truth.
Anyway, let's keep playing.
We have, you know, monopoly power concentrated in these corporate enterprises.
There seems to be a great concern from libertarians about government power that is not matched with a concern for corporate power, which in many ways infects our lives in more direct ways even than government power.
I think government intervening often helps corporate power, maybe sometimes directly because the corporations are the people with the most power to lobby the government to get what they want.
And then sometimes unintentionally because more regulations tend to, even very harsh regulations on existing corporations can benefit them by hurting their competitors more.
This is why like Walmart in the past has supported minimum wage because they can afford to pay their employees minimum wage, but competitors can't.
Well, let's focus on this too.
So I remember whenever I interviewed Josh Holly and I asked him specifically about...
It's just that you like, it's not even that like what he said right there is wrong.
It's just you have to like state this as the matter of fact that it is.
I don't mean matter of fact, like casually.
I mean the opposite of that, that this is in fact a like a fact.
It's not that like, it's like, oh, okay, well, if you believe that a regulatory state will crush corporate power, corporate power should be crushed in today's society.
Every nook and cranny of the economy is regulated.
Go check the Federal Registry.
It's humongous.
You couldn't read all of it.
There's no team of lawyers that knows the entire regulatory code for like one sector of the economy.
Just like there's no tax lawyer who knows the whole tax code.
None of them do.
Okay.
It's insane how crazy complicated this is.
Congress is literally passing 3,000 page long regulatory bills that they haven't even read.
Okay?
Like this is, there's no debate about this.
And the idea that this is somehow the society we live in is some deregulated society, or that if it was more regulated, you would check corporate power is ridiculous.
And for Crystal Ball to make this comment, which is such a layup for Rob, to not just go, oh, well, I kind of think sometimes regulation aids corporations, which of course it does.
Like I was just saying, it does.
But then she goes, I mean, you guys care about government power so much, but it seems like you don't really care about corporate power.
And in many ways, corporations affect our lives more than the government does.
It's like, okay.
So corporations certainly have an effect on our lives.
I mean, like a corporation makes the TV that you watch and you get your like cup of coffee maybe from a corporation and like you voluntarily do business with them all the time.
And then the government comes once a year and robs you for half of what you made that year or maybe 30, 40% of what you made that year.
One of them has kind of a bigger impact on your life than the other one.
The government can fucking take away your freedom at any moment at the drop of a hat.
They could throw you in a fucking cage.
They can spy on you.
They can break down your door and fucking shoot your dog.
They can fucking send your kid to go die in a war or lock your kid up for possessing drugs.
So yes, there's a reason, like, why would it be, again, this is a layup to a libertarian.
Why would it be that we care about government power more than corporate power?
Like, I might say something like, well, as soon as there's a corporation who loots, murders, enslaves, kidnaps, tortures, and spies on people in the manner that the government does, I'll start being real concerned about that government, that corporate power as well.
But at that point, you could probably call them a government.
There you go.
All right, let's keep playing.
About the criticism that's come from your magazine.
And he said, isn't it interesting that libertarians who say that we should focus on concentrated power in whatever form and be skeptical of it, that that doesn't apply to corporate power?
And that's what I'm talking about here, which is that I agree.
You know, there's a lot of lip service from libertarians about corporate welfare.
We need to end cronyism.
But whenever it comes to, let's say, protecting America from trade policy that ships cheese overseas to China, then there is a total commitment in a libertarian philosophy to allowing multinational corporations to continue to do that because we are told that prices as low as possible are to the extreme benefit of the American consumer.
And that's something that I just wholesale reject.
I mean, we are all consumers.
We are all consumers.
So you wholesale reject the idea that lower prices are good for the American consumers.
So what would be better?
Higher prices?
Higher prices?
Would higher prices be good for the consumer?
I mean, what exactly helps the consumer other than their costs being lowered?
I mean, are you arguing that it would be better if everything costs a lot more?
Because by the way, the government's doing a pretty good job in making sure that housing, health care, college, all these things cost a lot more.
Yeah, maybe if China provided those for us, they'd be cheaper.
Well, and then, of course.
It's going to be bad for the consumer.
Right.
Saving all that money.
So, of course, like what, you know, like what exactly it is that he's rejecting, I'm not sure.
Now, if you're a wholesale rejection.
So he does care about pricing, you know?
Well, he wants it on wholesale.
If you're going to say that you think the government should step in and not allow corporations to ship jobs overseas, okay.
So we're going to enforce that corporations have to, you know, like whatever.
If you have a factory here, you're not allowed to go build a factory in China, let's say.
Well, okay, I mean, that leads to some questions like, how exactly are you going to enforce that, right?
But if you're going to say that, it's like, okay, well, why are they going to China?
That would be a question.
Well, obviously, right?
It's because they can produce it for much cheaper over there.
So I think maybe I don't know how you're wholesale rejecting this idea, but clearly it's going to be more expensive to produce it here.
But then you also might want to ask yourself, why?
Why is it more expensive to produce it here?
And you can say, well, it's because Americans demand higher wages.
And sure, that's true to some degree, right?
You can pay Chinese people less than you can pay Americans.
But it also might have something to do with the fact that if you produce something over here, if you have a factory over here and you're producing things and you're paying a big corporate income tax, then you're paying a payroll tax, right?
Then you have to, if you have more than 55 employees or whatever, you have to provide health care, you have to provide workers' comp, you have to provide unemployment insurance, you have to, all these costs, all these regulations, the same regulations that Crystal Ball was just adding, advocating for, all increase the cost of doing business here in America.
So if you want companies to be less incentivized to ship their production to other countries, maybe the move would be to reduce some of these costs in order to keep the jobs here.
However, if you don't do that, then okay, you're going to increase what it costs for people to produce here.
And then it's going to cost more for people to buy these products.
All right?
That's just, I don't know how you reject that wholesale.
This is very basic economics.
All right.
Let's keep playing.
Laborers in danger of like, why would we design an economy using explicit government intervention to benefit just like one segment?
It's not just explicit government intervention.
I'm talking about like if you're saying these companies shouldn't be allowed to send their jobs overseas or that.
Do you think they should be allowed to do that?
So you think it's okay in order to undermine an American workforce and allow the jobs to be overseas because things are cheaper at China?
I wouldn't use government force to prevent that.
Well, how else?
So I asked Rand Paul this question.
He said, well, people can voluntarily boycott, which is one of the most ridiculous things I, frankly, have ever heard.
I mean, what are you supposed to do?
Like just boycott products that are made in China?
Everything in this studio is made in China.
I mean, what are we supposed to do?
Keep our economy like that.
So, and why is everything in your studio made in China?
Because apparently you prefer to have cheaper goods.
Well, that's right.
It's not just like, well, there's nothing we can do about it because everything's made in China.
It's like, no, because things are cheaper, you would rather buy them in China than buy things that are produced.
Now, that has led to everything being produced in China.
Sure, no doubt about that.
But isn't it funny to go that it's like, well, people, this is the funny thing about statism where you have to constantly be fighting against people's desires and what they want because you're laughing at the idea of a voluntary boycott.
Well, obviously that's not going to work.
It's like, right, because people would rather the cheaper goods.
Doesn't that tell you something?
Isn't there some useful information in all of that that you'd go, oh, yes, because people prefer their goods to be made for cheaper?
Because we can voluntarily protect American, you know, industry by just simple people going, I'll only buy American.
Start a movement.
Start a buy American movement, right?
There's enough of you populists, but just like the leftists, none of you guys want to actually put your money where your mouth is.
And so you go, well, no, I still want to buy all the cheap goods that come in from China, but I just feel like there should be more jobs here as well.
Also, it's a little bit like, you know, when you outsource things to robots or technology, it becomes problem solved.
Now we can work on the next thing.
So let's take the theoretical model that this guy's entire studio has been outfitted because of Chinese tech and Chinese cheaper goods.
Great.
So now they probably had more money to pay your salary, which is what makes your show viable.
And now you've got more money that you're spending on other things.
And so it's actually a net win.
Yes.
And I know that like people make these arguments that basically like, well, I'd rather be a little bit poorer and have more like people who have jobs here and things like that.
Well, I mean, I'm saying, so then, so then live it.
So then only buy American.
Spend more money.
It's not as if the country doesn't produce anything anymore.
You can do it.
It's just going to be a lot more expensive.
And if more people were willing to do it, they could have, we wouldn't be in this situation where so much stuff is made in China.
And, you know, like, but like the problem with Robbie is going, like when you come, when you take this angle and you go, well, why should the government intervene to help some small group of workers?
Like only a certain amount of people work in this industry, but everyone's a consumer.
He is right about that.
But I think like there's a, it comes off almost like you don't care about the concerns of these workers.
And I think that a better way to handle it is to just go, listen, nobody, nobody does more harm to these workers than the federal government.
I mean, our own federal government is robbing these workers a huge portion of their salary every single year.
They're making it much more expensive to employ people.
That's the disaster here, okay?
Also, imagine if they kept more of their wages, the investments they might be able to make in themselves and their education and to get non-factory jobs and be ahead of these workers in China.
So see, a lot of times libertarians, like they'll, they'll be correct, but they'll come at things from an angle that you have to understand who you're talking to and how they're going to hear the arguments that you're making.
And so sometimes you're not incorrect, but there's just better ways to present like the ideology or the philosophy.
And you can say, okay, well, whatever.
Yeah, they can go ship their jobs overseas or whatever.
But I just think a better way to approach it is to go, hey, let's make it way more attractive to produce things in America.
Okay, I'm with you.
I want to, you know, I want to see more American-made products.
Okay.
Well, what can we do to really encourage businesses to produce in America?
Why are they leaving?
Also, the other thing, all right, let's let's buy no gas from other countries.
You know, they got coal in America.
Why don't we support the coal suppliers?
I mean, taking the stance of, hey, let's not outsource any labor to other countries is essentially saying don't trade.
And if you really think that we're better off in this model of don't trade, I mean, you couldn't be more wrong.
Just read any book on economics.
It's called Specialization.
Some people can do things for cheaper, and then everyone specializes and everybody wins.
That's the idea of trading.
And so if other people can produce cheaper labor, then let's trade with them.
That's a net benefit to us.
Yeah.
And it's easy, you know, when you live in a country where you have like record high government spending and you're coming off a 10-year period in interest rates being held basically to zero, where there's been so much damage done to like, I mean, again, it can't be overstated, but just the trillions and trillions of dollars that have been just wasted that could have been invested in our economy.
And I don't mean invested by the government.
I mean just left in the economy.
And then you come out of it and you go, oh, you know what the problem is?
It's all these cheap consumer goods.
That's the real problem.
It's like, okay, well, if you're talking about what improves the economy, how exactly would more expensive consumer goods improve the economy?
Here's one of the things like Tom Woods, I know I brought this up on the show before, but the great Tom Woods, He talked about like on the honeymooners.
You know that old show, The Honeymooners, I think.
Why, I honor.
Yeah.
But he talked about in that show how, you know, and he goes, look, it was a show and the guy was like a cheapskate and things like that.
But it was somewhat reasonable to assume like you could have this on a TV show that like this couple who lived in like a one-room apartment, I believe they didn't have a refrigerator.
They didn't have a phone.
Maybe they had a refrigerator, but they didn't have a phone.
Remember, he used to have to drop the phone down by the window and talk on some other guy's phone.
Libertarian Tendencies Explained00:15:52
They would like the hot water was always going out in their bath.
They couldn't afford anything.
It was a huge deal when he bought a vacuum cleaner and it didn't work.
I remember this one particular episode and all these things.
This was all fairly believable in the 1950s, like that people would live that way.
It's like, yeah, there were lots of people who lived that way.
Now, you could still live that way if you want to.
You can do that.
If it's more important to you to like protect, and by the way, you don't really need that good of a job to live that way.
You could live that way on very low income.
But if you look around, people don't want to.
People want to live better.
People want nicer things.
People want to have a nicer TV, to have a nicer car, to have a nicer, you know, everything and a nicer phone, you know?
And so this is what people want.
And this is what improves the economy.
This is why economies grow because human desires are basically limitless.
And, you know, so the truth is that most people, you can like deduce logically that they want the cheaper consumer goods.
That's what they want.
And if they didn't, they could choose not to take them.
And I know he laughs off the idea of like a voluntary boycott, but isn't there something so funny about this whole government model where it's like, well, of course we would never do that voluntarily.
And that's why we need to elect a strongman to force us into doing it.
Well, if you if you don't want to do something, why would you want to elect someone to force you to do it?
It's a very strange mentality.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
Anyway, let's keep playing.
19th century to protect jobs that are being like there's complexity.
I think to zoom on a little bit, I think the fundamental question too is what is your definition of freedom?
Because the libertarian view is like, hands off, government, just let the free market do its thing.
But, you know, does a working class person really feel free when they're getting paid $7.25 an hour?
They can't afford to have a family.
They can't afford childcare, right?
They don't have health care, so they can't go to a doctor when they get sick.
I mean, what kind of freedom is that?
Like freedom to not have health insurance?
Look, not everything about our current society is ideal.
And, you know, we can talk about, I'm sure there are some areas of policy where we can find agreement, but there's a little bit of policy.
Probably some domestic policy, but there's a little bit of, I think, pessimism that is not quite warranted.
We have a focus on everything's so bad now.
It used to be great.
Things are bad now.
That I think is not true.
Like crime, the murder rate was twice as high.
What do you think of that?
He just took total ownership that it's because of libertarian principles that people cannot afford health care or raising a family.
And let's be honest, I don't know.
Your $7.13 might be actually worth something if it wasn't for inflation.
Yeah.
I mean, like, well, here's the other thing, right?
There's so much stuff there.
It's like, number one, Robbie just comes off so unsure of himself and unwilling to directly answer the question that was posed to him.
So he goes right away, like, it's like she asked you like this basic question that every libertarian should be prepared for, which is like, well, what do you mean by freedom?
Because, you know, if you don't have health insurance and you're making $7.25 an hour, then what?
You have freedom that you're free to have this shitty life?
You know what I mean?
Like, and it's like, and first of all, it's like, yeah, okay.
Hold on, I just want to like pull these numbers up because this is just something like I didn't have the numbers off the top of my head, but it's really funny when they go like Crystal Ball, and this is like a common left-wing thing that they do where they go like, but what about like the average working class person?
I mean, you're out there making $7.25 an hour.
Like, what percentage of workers do you think are making $7.25 an hour?
It's probably around 1%, probably something like that.
The average median household income is about $62,000 a year.
It's substantially higher in New York City.
But to act like that's like the worker's experience in America today is like making like fuck $7.25 an hour.
It's like, well, no, no, no.
Most working people are making far more than that.
Most people who make $7.25 an hour will be making more than that next year.
Like the vast majority of them.
Like minimum wage jobs are something typically that people with very, very little work experience have or somebody who's at a job where they think they're going to be able to move up in that job are making this just isn't really.
And if you want to take a more honest look at the picture, what's it like, you know, living in America in 2020, making like $60,000 a year as a household?
So maybe a husband making $40,000 with a wife who makes 20 or something like that.
And then you get a little bit more of a realistic picture.
And if she wants to say like, well, you don't have health care, I mean, the obvious libertarian answer is, you know, whatever.
It's like, well, yes, because the government's like completely destroyed the healthcare industry.
And that's a mess.
It's like, yeah, it's very, very hard for people who are just getting by to have good health care, send their kids to college and afford a good home.
And oh, what a shocker.
Those are three areas where government regulation is at its highest.
The same regulation that you were just arguing for.
And then, of course, there's a more philosophical point that you can just make, but it's just like, yeah, no, what freedom is all about when libertarians talk about freedom, we're really talking about liberty.
And what we're saying is that you have the right to your life and to go make the most of it that you can.
It's freedom from violence, freedom from coercion.
And like, yeah, that doesn't mean that you're guaranteed free stuff.
It's different.
Anyway, anything else you want to add to that?
All right, let's keep playing.
That suicide rates have spiked dramatically.
We were just talking about that.
Charles Lemon.
Recently, deaths of despair overall, worst addiction crisis in our country.
All the freedoms.
At a time when an unemployment, I just saw the new jobs numbers, unemployment is extremely low.
GDP growth is very good.
Stock market is high.
How do you reconcile those things that so many people seem so miserable that they're actually taking their own lives?
Yeah, I mean, I haven't seen any convincing argument for why that's the case.
I don't think it's because of some policy we could easily get out of.
Look, I think there are difficult things about being alive today.
I think, sure, I think losing your job and feeling or feeling like you have less of a place in society or that society is moving past you too quickly.
Yeah, I think that's contributing to it.
Here's the thing, Robbie.
It's also a real problem that he says earlier in the thing.
He's like, yeah, I mean, if someone loses your job because of outsourcing, I don't think there should be a policy against that.
And then when he's asked why people are committing suicide, one of the first things he goes to is like, oh, I mean, I guess maybe losing your job could make you commit suicide.
Like, don't you see how if you're not already a libertarian listening to this, you would just be like, well, of course we should have some policy against that because this is going to make you kill yourself.
Don't you also see how if he just started the conversation the way I started it, which they gave him the perfect opportunity to, then it prevents this entire narrative from getting written?
Because now, if you're talking about any major problem under the current society, you can't blame it on libertarianism.
You see what Crystal Ball's already done there?
Is she went, well, how does someone like a libertarian, because he hasn't clearly defined what he means by libertarians.
He just let you know he's not one of those radicals.
But she goes, well, I don't know.
I mean, how do you explain the suicide epidemic?
I mean, you know, it's like suicide or epidemic, but suicides are going up since 2000.
And, you know, stock market's doing great.
Unemployment's low.
So there, that's libertarianism now, right?
High stock market, low unemployment.
That's your thing.
So, but because you didn't define anything about the current state that we live under or what libertarians really stand for, they can just kind of say, well, that's you.
You know, all that market stuff.
And that's you.
I'm sure all the people invested in the stock market that benefited from Wall Street and quantitative easing and easy money that's propped up the stock market are the people that are currently killing themselves.
Yeah.
Now, I don't know.
I actually do think it's fair for Robbie to say, like, I don't know exactly what's causing people to kill themselves.
And I don't know that there's an easy policy fix for that, right?
That is fair.
However, you know, you could kind of take a stab at it and say, like, well, I don't know.
I mean, look, even though we are wealthier than we've ever been before as a society, we've lost a lot of the ties that kind of have held people together and held people in communities for, you know, hundreds and thousands of years.
Our sense of family, particularly extended family, community, you know, purpose, like all of these things have all but evaporated.
And the government has done nothing but undermine every last one of them.
They undermine family connections with income taxes, with the welfare state, with entitlement programs.
I mean, they've undermined everything about community dependency because now you can just depend on the government and they make it very, very hard for anyone to compete with them.
You know, I mean, there's like lots of different libertarian arguments or kind of theories that you can put forward on this stuff.
And yeah, I don't know.
Again, you can just really harp on taxes.
I mean, do you know how many businesses have been destroyed over taxes?
You know how many marriages have been destroyed over taxes?
How many people's lives have been destroyed?
There are people who straight up like own, I've owned businesses.
I know some of them who have owned businesses for a decade.
And then the IRS comes in and claims that they owe all this money and they shut the fucking business down.
These are people, you know, people fucking shoot themselves over this shit.
This destroys people's lives.
So, okay, there's lots of that.
There's also our children who are forced into fucking government prisons that they call schools.
I mean, there's just like so many different angles to go with this.
And by the way, I don't mean to suggest that that's the entirety of it.
I mean, I think there are other forces outside of this stuff.
I think like social media contributes to depression amongst people.
I think there's other things that you could argue are somewhat market forces that get, you know, like it's a different world in 2020.
And in many ways, we are biologically not built for it, you know?
Like as brutal as fucking like some type of tribal hunter-gatherer society is, genetically, that's kind of what we're built for.
And like there's an interesting conversation here, but you own so much of the debate.
And this is the truth.
And you don't, it's not like you're bullshitting or lying at all.
It's just factual statements.
But if you just start off by being like, well, look, we are living under the biggest government that has ever existed.
It is a factual statement.
There is nobody who could challenge you on that fact.
You put every government that's ever existed up against the United States 2020 government.
And that is a bigger government by any metric, by any metric that you want.
You go, okay, well, who's got more military firepower?
Who's got a bigger budget?
Who's got, you know what I mean?
Like any metric that you want.
Who's employs more people?
It's all us on every single count.
It's the United States federal government in 2020.
It would be, you know, and the next runner-up to that would be the United States government of 2019 and then 2018 and 2017.
That's it.
And once you do that, any complaint that you have about the current order is hard to just pin on libertarianism.
But since he didn't do that, he allows them to do it throughout the entire interview.
All right, let's keep playing.
Somewhat well, but then the question becomes, what are we going to do?
Any government intervention into this problem actually going to make it better?
I mean, like efforts to regulate or to take away the drugs or the dangerous substances people are using to harm themselves, I think are counterproductive.
I think have failed time and time again with alcohol, with pastoralism.
Let's put that on its head.
What about investing in men?
Because if the government were to try to do something, invest in mental health or something, or pilot programs, it doesn't seem like something that you wouldn't object to either because it's more government intervention, picking winners and losers in a mental health marketplace.
I wouldn't necessarily object to its sort of investment in, I would rather fund things, but that don't like prohibit other people from doing things.
Like Holly's plans to stop kids from scrolling through their phones too quickly, that kind of thing.
That's the kind of thing I'm most against.
I mean, I'm not saying I necessarily agree with it, but I'm glad somebody is talking about the fact that we're all addicted to screens.
And I think that that's an issue.
I mean, one thing that you said at the beginning, I'm addicted to screens, I can tell you that much.
One thing that you said at the beginning that was interesting to me is you said, I'm not sure that libertarianism, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you're like, I'm not sure this is a political winner.
I mean, do you see libertarianism as basically like having failed politically and being a kind of like political loser in terms of actually winning elections?
It depends how rigidly you define it.
Like a lot of people do have some libertarian tendencies.
We want to be left alone.
We don't want to be told what to do.
We don't want this big, powerful government in the abstract.
But then when you start asking about specific questions, they'll say, well, I do want Medicare.
I do want Gerald.
I want Medicare.
I want to hire men in my career.
If you look at a political alignment chart and you have, you know, the libertarian quadrant, the like left libertarian, the left authoritarian, the right authoritarian, basically every, I'm, here's me, and here's everyone else.
So, yeah, I do think certainly we are not living in like a libertarian moment.
I think the gravity toss of political discussion has moved away from my direction.
Well, I will say you still have immense power within the GOP elite.
Much to the detriment of it, but I will.
We don't feel like it, but much more than you do.
The Non-Aggression Principle00:10:24
Thank you, Robbie.
We appreciate it.
That must be why the GOP is so anti-war and doing so much to rein in government spending and slashing regulation.
So is there anything dumber?
Is there any dumber take that I hear from the populist right wing than, well, you know, the GOP elite, they're just so libertarian.
That's why the GOP elite just embraced Ron Paul so much when he was running, right?
They were harder on him than the Democratic elite are on Bernie Sanders, like a lot harder on him.
They wanted nothing to do with the only true libertarian who ever was making any noise in his time.
Come on, man.
The GOP elite who will every single time sign off on these last-minute spending bills, every single time increase the debt ceiling.
The GOP elite who got in and took control of the House, the Senate, and the Oval Office in 2016 and did nothing but expand the size of government.
They just want nothing to do with it.
Oh, and of course, on the military side, yeah, as you said, oh, yeah, yeah, they're just so libertarian.
But again, so that ending, and it's just, it's like, look, Robbie might not even be wrong when he says, hey, we're not really living in a libertarian moment.
Maybe it is kind of a political loser.
But when you just defend it so poorly the whole time and present it so poorly and then at the end go, yeah, and I also don't think this is really going to sell to anyone.
Well, you got to sell it a little bit better.
Come on.
And quit dressing like a flight attendant.
Yeah.
Yeah, we even turned around on your look.
So anyway, that was my phone call with Robbie Suave.
I love him, though.
He's great.
I'll take you shopping.
This wardrobe could be all yours, Robbie Suave.
All right, all right.
Let's get to some fan questions from the part of the problem inner circle.
Hey, if you wanted to be a part of the problem, if you wanted to join the part of the problem inner circle, Rob, what might you do?
Oh, well, first you got to subscribe to the Run Your Mouth podcast.
Otherwise, no entry.
That's not true.
No, no.
You got to become a subscribing member.
You go to the forum.
You post your name in there.
As it appears on Facebook, you go to Facebook.
You ask for entry.
We match up the names.
If we see that you're in the forum, subscribing member, boom, you're now part of the inner circle.
You can party with us.
You can post little comments.
You can get angry at other people in the group.
You can make fun of me in the group.
All sorts of fun stuff goes on there.
Well, yeah, there you go.
A lot of fun stuff in the part of the problem inner circle.
Some great people that we got.
And we will, every so often, I'll go to them and answer some of their questions.
That's what you get for supporting the show.
So I posted in the part of the problem inner circle.
I said, I'll answer some of your questions on today's show.
What you got?
Let's check it out.
So, Mike, first one to respond, and I always go in order of who responds.
First one, he said, nothing really.
Thanks for asking.
All right, Mike, go fuck yourself.
I appreciate the question.
And then Ben.
Now, this is smart because a lot of other people got in order, but then Ben responded to him and said, Can I have your question since you didn't ask one?
And you know what?
I respect the creativity, so you're going to get it.
He said, I want Dave Smith to apply his nuanced arguments for government regulation of the borders to biological reproduction.
It seems like all of the arguments Dave uses are equally applicable to restricting people from having babies whenever they want to.
Okay, so if I understand the argument correctly, it's basically something along the lines of like, well, if there's problems with having open immigration when we have a welfare state, well, how about the next generation of immigrants that are babies?
Coming in and they can be.
You're not anti-screwing, are you?
No, I'm not.
Save it for wedlock.
But yeah, Christian conservatives here.
Look, here's the difference.
And I've tried to discuss this in nuanced detail many times, but maybe I'm just not doing a great job of it because I always seem to get a lot of these same questions.
I don't want to spend too much time on this, but let me just say, if you're talking about libertarianism and the philosophy of liberty, what you're talking about is the non-aggression principle and respect for private property rights.
I'm not arguing for government regulation of the borders.
What I'm arguing is against government regulation of the borders.
I don't think government should regulate them at all.
I don't think government should own the borders.
However, I recognize that they do.
That's just the reality of the situation.
Whether libertarians like it or not, governments control borders.
And likely, if we're going to roll back government, right?
Like if we were one day going to eliminate government or at least shrink it, right, to some degree, my guess is that borders would probably be one of the very last things that you'll be able to roll back.
Because as Donald Trump always likes to say, if you don't have borders, you don't have a country.
Well, I don't know if that's exactly true, but if you don't have borders, you really don't have a nation state, right?
So that's probably going to be one of the last powers of government that you'll be able to roll back.
So then the question is, in the meantime, in this unlibertarian situation, what do you do here?
What's the best answer in this murky situation?
Now, the libertarian objection to the state is that it's an institution based on coercion, that it's an institution that violates the non-aggression principle in a way that we don't accept from any other institution in our society.
So if you, let me say it this way, right?
If you were, let's say the government came and it seized your house, government agents just came in and they took your house and they said, this is my house now.
It's not your house anymore.
And they took it over.
They kicked you out and they took it over.
And then they were deciding, you know, like some government agents are living there now and they were deciding who can come in and who can leave.
They like wouldn't let certain people in and then they would let other people in.
Would you say that it's a violation of the non-aggression principle for them to not let some people into the house?
I mean, I wouldn't really.
I don't know.
Is it a violation if they let people in your house that you didn't decide?
Or is it a violation if they don't let people in your house that you didn't decide?
It's really kind of the same either way.
The violation came when they took your house.
That's the problem, that they stole your house from you.
That's the libertarian concern in this situation.
So if libertarians believe that you own yourself, you own your property, and you have natural rights.
And this all falls under your natural rights to own yourself, to own your life, to own the fruits of your labor, you know, all of this stuff, right?
So if you accept that, then the problem is that they stole your house.
Now, the act of not letting someone in your house, that's not something that only the government can do and it's such a unique offal.
You can do that.
Anyone who owns a house can let some people in and not let other people in.
There's nothing morally wrong about that.
So in the same sense with the border, it's not the fact that the government doesn't let some people in or lets some people in.
It's the fact that the government owns the land to begin with.
That's the violation of the non-aggression principle.
Whether they let someone in or don't let someone in, that's not really a violation of anybody's natural right in the sense that, you know, like you don't have a natural right to cross onto land that you don't own.
If you're invited, you can go.
If you're not invited, you can't go.
Now, I don't think the government should be making this decision, but if the government is there making the decision, whether you're invited or not invited is no different to me in terms of libertarian principles.
So then you're just left in this situation.
Like you're like, well, what do you think they should do?
Does that mean I have to be on the side of everyone's invited?
Can I be on the side of some people are invited and some people aren't?
And I think that the Hoppean answer, for as much as people, you know, characterize, mischaracterize Hoppe's position, he was like, okay, how about if you're invited and an employee will, an employer will assume full responsibility for you, you can come and otherwise you can't.
That seems like a fairly reasonable compromise short of getting the government out of it altogether, which would be the ideal solution.
Now, okay, if you were to say, let's say a private, a private property owner were to say, I don't want you to smoke weed at my house.
Now, you might think that guy's lame, but he has a right to do it.
He has a right to say, yeah, I don't want people smoking weed in my house.
That's that.
Okay.
So he has a right to do that.
Now, if the government were to say, hey, I don't want anyone smoking weed at a public school or at a public library, I'm not really going to be outraged by that as a libertarian.
Now, if the government says, if I stop you in your car or I stop you in your home and find weed on you, I'm going to grab you and throw you in a cage and put something on your permanent record and press charges and see if I can get you in jail for two years.
That is an outrage and a violation of the non-aggression principle.
No private actor could ever do that.
There's no, in a free society, no private actor could ever say, you had on your person and your property a plant and I'm now going to throw you in a cage for that, right?
That's a violation of the non-aggression principle.
So now just throw your question into that.
What would any government or any private actor or anyone saying, I'm going to control whether you can have a child or not?
It's obviously a violation of the non-aggression principle in a different way, in a different way than simply whether or not someone is allowed on an area that the government is illegitimately controlling.
So no, it's not applying my principles the same way.
It's not the argument that I'm making.
If you have some problem with the argument I'm making, that's one thing.
Legitimizing Ideas Through Debate00:10:18
But I don't know.
That's not it.
Okay.
Tiago asks, can you try to have Sam Hyde on the podcast?
I don't know much about Sam Hyde.
I've heard him requested before.
I'll look into it.
I don't know.
Do you know Sam Hyde?
I don't know this Sam Hyde.
I think he's a comedian, like a right-wing guy, I believe.
That's the lift.
Sorry, I literally don't know that much about him.
All right.
John asks, who are the hottest female pundits out there?
Ooh, hey.
All right.
I'm a married man.
Spill the beans.
Who you digging?
What do you like?
I like my wife.
That's it.
That's it.
I like Kat Timp.
All right.
There you go.
A little thin broad with the glasses.
A little too much energy.
Too much energy.
Yeah.
No comment.
No comment from me.
Married man.
But like a younger Kat Timpf, if you were doing drugs with her and like you had an explosive two-month relationship was really great and fell apart, she's probably too loud to spend your whole life with.
I think Kat Timf is cool.
Not my type.
So you're saying I can get along with her long term?
I'm saying I think you two could settle down and really make it work.
That's what I'm trying to say.
You know, you're at Fox all the time.
Make this introduction.
All right.
I'll try my best.
Who else is real hot on TV?
I'm never going to give this a shot.
There's got to be other ones.
I don't watch that much of it.
Kat, next time I see Kat Tim, she could be like, I'm single and really looking to be set up.
Do you know anyone?
And I don't.
No, I don't know anyone.
Yeah, my producer, Brian.
He's looking.
Okay.
Paul asks, when are you coming to D.C.?
Paul, I'll tell you, me and Robbie are actually working on that one.
We will be in D.C., I'll say, in the next few months.
Tearing apart the Constitution and revisiting.
We're going to redo the whole thing while we're down there.
I'd rather follow the Constitution than just tear it apart.
They've already torn it apart down there.
You understand?
When we go down to town, they're going to know that we're there.
We're going to sit down with some important people and we're going to solve it all.
That's a problem.
We're just broadcasting from New York City.
They're over there making the big decisions.
But once we get there in person, they'll understand.
They'll hear us out and that's it.
We're going to shake the whole system up.
All right.
Fair enough.
All right.
Bob asks any volunteers to go to China, get coronavirus, then go to the next Democratic debate and cough on everyone.
Not bad.
I would not sign off on doing that.
Seems like something that could get you in trouble with some federal agencies if you were to suggest that anyone do that.
But he didn't ask that.
He just asked, are there any volunteers to do that?
I don't know.
I don't know.
That would be real commitment.
And there'd probably be an easier way to achieve your goals.
Who do you think would go the quickest if they got it?
Probably Bernie.
I say Biden.
You say Biden.
I know he's like a year or two younger, but he's 10 years older.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I think Biden is hanging on by a thread.
But again, I hope he doesn't get the coronavirus.
It's just too much entertainment having him alive.
All right.
Matt asks, what is the goal for Hornberger this upcoming election?
Is there a goal percentage of votes you're looking for or just the spreading of libertarian ideas?
Yeah, my thing is always the spreading of libertarian ideas.
I mean, as many votes as possible.
They're not mutually exclusive goals.
But to me, the main focus is to spread ideas of libertarianism.
I mean, the idea of getting enough votes to win is, you know, like very difficult to achieve.
So short of that, it doesn't matter.
This is a winner-take-all election.
So short of that, you just want to spread the ideas to as many people as possible.
There's got to be some kind of a realistic game plan to try and get someone into a debate.
To me, that would be the big victories.
If you can get someone into a debate, kind of legitimize the party a little bit and spread a shit ton of ideas to a larger audience.
What do you need?
13% to get into the debate?
I thought it was 10%, but I can't remember exactly.
So what are we at?
1%?
I don't know.
You know, I don't know.
After he wins the nomination, then you'll have to see where things shake up, where he's polling, how much attention we can get for him.
But it'll be fun to see.
Charlie Wright's ever gone shit to shower.
I don't like taking a shit and then jumping in the shower.
That's the best.
I mean, I do that almost every single time.
If I don't jump in the shower after I take a shit, something's going on.
Like I'm in a rush or something.
There's a problem.
That's my normal.
Or are you asking if I shit in the shower?
Because I'm going to shoot you a no.
Actually, it's way too often to be showering after every time I take a dump.
That's quite a standard to live by, Davey Smith.
All right.
I'm particular about that.
All right.
Nick says, thoughts on flying with a one-month-old?
Well, that's tough, especially during flu season with the, you know, coronas out there.
I'd avoid it if you can.
Certainly not ideal.
It might be easier in some ways than flying with like a three-month-old or a four-month-old, but it kind of depends on your one-month-old.
Like my daughter would have been very, very difficult.
I mean, she's still never been on a plane, but she at one month would have been very, very difficult.
I'm also, I'm really lazy.
I don't like going anywhere ever.
Now, why wouldn't you take your one-month-year-old and make that the excuse to not show up to whatever this obligation is?
That's your ticket out.
That shouldn't even be your question.
Like, wedding, great.
You don't have to go.
Funeral?
Cool.
You don't have to go to that.
Maybe he wants to, you know, bring the baby to family or something.
I don't know.
I would, I, you know, I would try to avoid it.
Those are really my thoughts on it.
I mean, if you have to do it, is the baby, I guess if the baby's still nursing, better bring mom.
But yeah.
Okay.
Joe writes, what do you think?
You're just, why do you think you're just some idiot comic that gets this shit and not more?
Well, I don't think I'm some idiot comic.
I know I'm an idiot comic.
Joe Rogan used to have this bit where he was like, he goes, I'm an idiot and I'm smarter than almost everybody I meet.
So I just don't like, I know a lot of really, really smart people.
I know what like real, real, real next level intelligence is.
And my point when I say I'm an idiot comic, I mean, I'm exaggerating a little bit.
I'm not retarded.
But my point is that I'm not, you know, I'm not some genius and that's why I'm able to get this shit.
That most of it is somewhat, you know, common sense.
Matt, can we get you and Gene on Rogan to teach him some economics?
That would be fun.
Christoph writes, Robbie the Fire gone too soon.
He's still right here with us.
Can we get Hornberger on Rogan once he secures the nomination?
I'll try.
I know there's always a lot of people asking me about getting everybody on Rogan.
Believe me.
As you might have suspected, I've tried to get a few different people on Rogan before.
It's, you know, I don't book the show.
Trying to get myself back on Rogan.
What do you think happens when we die?
I don't know.
I do believe more and more that there's something.
That is kind of how I feel.
I don't...
I don't know.
But I do believe that something goes on.
I think there's more to this whole thing than what we see in front of us.
Would you consider adding the UK, London, and Manchester to your tour, maybe in the future?
Not this year, but quite possibly in the future.
How would viruses, Jackass, how would viruses be handled in a stateless society?
I think I talked about that recently.
It's private property.
People can restrict people's entry much easier in a stateless society, particularly in an ANCAP society, in some type of stateless, like socialist fantasy society.
Then it might be a lot tougher.
But yeah, I mean, there's private property borders are going to be the strictest ones.
You can restrict anybody you want to.
And my guess is during something like this, I think people would be very quick to restrict people who were coming from China or other areas where the coronavirus has, you know, been infecting a lot of people.
Sam says there are quite a few libertarians in metal music.
Do you guys ever like it or do you listen to that hippie crap?
Like I've said before, like I was never a huge fan of metal music, but like I've gone to some shows and I've listened to some.
I like some of them.
Support all the libertarians.
Rob is more into that hippie crap.
Yeah, I'm all about that hippie crap, but send some of that libertarian heavy metal over my way.
Maybe I'll jam out to it.
Free!
Free up!
Everybody!
Yeah, shout out to all that remains.
I'm going Phil is coming on the Contra Cruise with me this year.
Are they Libertarian Heavy Metal?
Yep.
Or he is at least.
I don't know if the whole band is or not.
Someone asked you about metal last time.
So now I'm going to ask you if you like any punk rock.
Do you like punk rock?
What, like Blink 182?
I've never really been a punk rock guy.
I don't know.
I mean, I'm open if you got some good recommendations.
You know, there's not a lot of punk rock that if I'm sitting down and like going to YouTube, hey, what am I going to listen to?
But sometimes they're in a dive bar in New York City and they're playing punk rock.
And then in like that environment, I love it.
And the guy who worked there before, Johnny, he used to be in a punk rock band.
He played some punk rock for me.
I never heard of.
And I kind of like some of the genre, but not like your typical like Ramones shit.
Yeah.
Yeah, I hear you.
Okay, John asks, got to talk about, oh, God, got to talk about John Hudek post on the LPMC Facebook page.
Jordan Peterson's Message00:10:46
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I don't know.
What have I got to say?
What do I even have to say about this?
So that guy that we had on the show who was arguing with me is, he's, I mean, more or less, this guy came on the show and he thought I was, I pulled punches with him.
I tried to be kind to him and he was pretty upset with the consensus response to his appearance on the show.
And I think he's been a little obsessed with me since then.
And he's like trying to take shots at me and smear me in different ways.
It was really sad.
And I promise you, he's listening right now and excited that his name just got mentioned because you guys asked about him.
Listen, when people, and Tom Woods has really mastered this, but when people are in bad faith criticizing you, which is most of what the Loser Brigade, which I will throw him into, that's most of what they're doing.
And well, there's kind of a split.
It's like half people just like, you know, making, attempting smears in bad faith and half people who are like, I think, mentally unstable, who might be sincere in their beliefs.
But at this point, there's no like addressing any points that he has.
It's just, he's not making points.
He's just trying to somehow stay relevant by going after me.
And it's sad and embarrassing.
And that's what most people feel about it.
And at this point, he's just to be ignored or ridiculed from my point of view.
That's all I've got for those guys because it's really just, it's silly at this point.
So, sorry.
He's out.
Okay.
Stephen says, you, like me, seem to be partial to Jordan Peterson's message, which at least in some way is tied to religion.
It also seems to be no small part of your view on culture and somewhat of a missing link between where you stand as opposed to people who take the viewpoints similar to Gene, just as an example.
How far have you or do you plan to explore where you are with religion and God?
I'm asking you, but I'm asking myself also.
You know, I don't know.
I think that where I've really changed and opened up my eyes and kind of, you know, see the world in a different way is having to do with family, God. culture, things like that.
But I really haven't really found much use for or explored much about religion.
There's something about it that just rubs me the wrong way.
I think I wasn't raised in it.
And I just don't like, I don't feel like in order to live my values or, you know, to have my beliefs or to talk to God or anything like that, I like have to go to a building and listen to somebody else in this special building tell me how to do it.
It's not my thing.
My wife's a Catholic.
She goes to church and, you know, like I'm fine with that.
She gets a lot of value out of it.
So yeah, I mean, there's a big part of Jordan Peterson's message that I really like, particularly the stuff about responsibility.
I think that that is very, very important, a very important part of libertarianism and how we need to sell it.
And not just sell it, but explain it.
That rights and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin.
And that more, you know, like there's so much talk about rights in our society today, but it's usually just made up rights that no libertarian should recognize, you know, like right to healthcare, right to education, right to all these things that are just like, so it's basically like, well, you have the right to everything you want and that comes with no responsibility.
And I think that what libertarians are over here selling is like, well, no, you have a right to your life and your liberty.
And that comes with you taking responsibility for it.
So if you don't fucking, you know, if you don't provide for yourself, if you don't put money aside for insurance, if you don't save money for your retirements, well, then guess what?
You're going to have to go and ask for charity.
You're going to have to ask for a handout from somebody else who has put aside for those things, which is, by the way, already what happens.
I mean, it's like if you don't put into that, someone else is just taxed through the government to pay for that.
So instead of them being forced by agents of the state with guns to pay for somebody else who didn't put money aside, I think you should have to go to that person and ask for help.
And then once you have to do that, it's like, yeah, that doesn't sound so great, does it?
I mean, I'm not saying that like nobody is going to be in that situation that you shouldn't help somebody if you can, but that already just kind of incentivizes people to be like, oh, yeah, no, you have your rights, but you got to take responsibility for that shit.
And that's, I think Jordan Peterson's message of responsibility was very, very important.
Let me see what else.
All right, Tiago, this is our last question.
It'll be from Tiago.
And he asks, do you think an anarchist society would work with our current culture?
That is a great question.
So I'd say this, right?
I think like a libertarian ANCAP society, if it were, in some magical way, if you could wave a wand and all of a sudden all the policies that we wanted, whether anarchist or just like very reduced government, you know, whatever, if we could abolish a lot of the state and just waving a magic wand, I have no doubt that it would improve the culture tremendously, tremendously.
I mean, that's like no, no question about that to me.
That right away, the people who are working really hard would be rewarded.
The people who are doing the wrong things would be punished.
You know, all that stuff I just said about rights and responsibility, it would all work together beautifully.
The question isn't so much, but in reality, when you don't have a magic wand, the question more is, having the current culture that we have, are we ever going to get to a point where we can reduce the size of government?
And my assumption is that no, it's probably not going to be very easy with the culture that we have.
I think that you need people to build up.
You know what makes me encouraged?
Here, I'll say some things about our culture, or maybe this isn't even really culture, but just of the state of where we are today that makes me somewhat encouraged.
Like, oh, maybe this could help lead that way.
I see the GoFundMes.
That makes me that.
There's something about that that I find very encouraging.
That now, when someone really needs help, they can go right to a community of people.
They can reach a lot of people and be like, hey, you know, my daughter is sick.
And a lot of times, people who know them, you know, if you went to high school with somebody or you know somebody, I know this happens with people in the comedy community all the time.
So-and-so needs an operation.
We all pitch in money.
You know, we all come together.
That I think is good.
But I think you need more things like that that kind of bind people together where people can help each other and not be so reliant on the government.
But there's no question that the, you know, the dominant left-wing culture in our country is like incompatible in many ways with libertarianism.
And that's why, you know, libertarians who are like too afraid or unwilling to challenge that cultural dominance are probably not going to get very far.
You know, it's interesting.
I never thought about this, but if we were more reliant on a GoFundMe model, and then you were kind of walking around with this idea of, hey, the insurance for me is that if things really go to shit, other people might help me out.
Kind of forces you to invest some time in community and being a good person because there are social ramifications that your safety net of the saving grace of other people wouldn't exist.
Whereas when it's government, there's no face or name or anything.
It's just this thing, this entity that's going to give it to you because I don't know, you got picked as the chosen class that just gets these resources.
Yeah.
You know, my wife's grandfather is, so my daughter's great-grandfather.
He's old.
He's like 95 years old.
I think I mentioned him before on the podcast.
Really great guy.
Really interesting guy.
Really crazy life.
Very difficult life.
World War II vet and really tough life before that.
But so he's been having some like medical issues and he had a bunch of problems.
And he's got three kids.
So it's my mother-in-law and her brother and sister.
And they've been, you know, like going every day.
Like, you know, they kind of split it up amongst them, but there's a lot to do.
He needs a lot of help.
And my mother-in-law was telling me, she was like there.
And one of the other guys who was in this, I don't know, like rehab, physical rehab place for, you know, like old people.
She said one of the other guys was there and she was just talking to one of the other like, you know, old guys, some other 90-something year old.
And he was talking about how he has no kids.
And there's just something about it.
Like we had a whole conversation about this, but it's like, man, I was thinking about that.
Like, imagine being that age and you're just, you know what I mean?
And like, you don't have any kids.
And then you see somebody else who's there.
They got these three kids, family, grandkids, great-grandkids, like all these people coming to see them and help them.
And it's like that right there is so much of like what the incentive, and I hate to reduce these things to like economic terms, but it's real is to like have a family and be good to a family and be good.
It's like, well, hey, okay, you want to take care of someone and then you don't want to be alone when you're old and you want to like, and when the government gets in the way of all this stuff, it's just so like poisonous.
That's why if you're not going to have kids, make sure to party hard so that you don't make it.
You don't want to make it.
You don't want to make it at all.
You want to go out.
You don't want to be there die at 40.
Not 40, but like 65, 70 while you still kind of have your shits to you before it goes all the way downhill.
Yeah, well, you never know.
You never know.
You might try your hardest and you still just can't kill yourself by partying.
Something to think about, Rob.
That's our episode.
That's our episode for today.
We'll be back on Monday with a brand new episode, and a whole lot of fun politics is going to be happening in the next week.