Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - Corona Craziness
Aired: 2020-03-17
Duration: 46:11


=== Government Overreach and Fear (09:46) ===

[00:00:02]  We need to roll back the state.
[00:00:04]  We spy on all of our own citizens.
[00:00:06]  Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
[00:00:09]  If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
[00:00:15]  Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
[00:00:27]  Hello, hello.
[00:00:28]  What's up, everybody?
[00:00:29]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem on Location, away from the studio.
[00:00:37]  So number one, let me apologize to you guys for the schedule being all messed up over this last week.
[00:00:47]  I am not in New York City.
[00:00:49]  I'm at my wife's family's house.
[00:00:53]  And that's where the Smith family is camped out for the moment.
[00:01:00]  New York City's getting, eh, just kind of getting to the place where I just didn't feel comfortable having my wife and my baby in the city right now.
[00:01:11]  We'll see what's going to happen.
[00:01:13]  So we took it out here for a little.
[00:01:15]  We actually came out here because my wife's grandfather has been ill and she wanted to come out and be with her mother while they were kind of dealing with that whole situation.
[00:01:28]  So we came out and then, you know, with all that has been going on with this coronavirus scare and some talk of shutdown in New York City and some shelves being bare at the supermarket, I kind of just felt like it was a better move to just stay here for a little bit.
[00:01:50]  I liked the idea of being out of the city and in a home that is stocked to the brim with food and a little bit of weaponry and just not on top of everybody else, as is the case in New York City.
[00:02:10]  So we're posted up here for a minute.
[00:02:12]  I've come in and out of the city a couple times already and I'll continue to do that.
[00:02:17]  But I liked the idea of having my family here.
[00:02:20]  So anyway, I went back to my apartment in New York City the other day and I grabbed my USB microphone, brought it out here, was planning on getting an episode out to you guys a little bit earlier.
[00:02:33]  The microphone wasn't working, so I had to run out today and buy a new one.
[00:02:38]  So I hope this is sounding good.
[00:02:39]  I did a quick audio test a minute ago and it sounded pretty good to me.
[00:02:44]  So I hope it sounds good.
[00:02:46]  Probably not quite as good quality as we're used to in the studio.
[00:02:50]  But yeah, that's what we have to deal with.
[00:02:51]  I bought a couple of them.
[00:02:52]  So if this one doesn't work, I got another one too.
[00:02:55]  So anyway, hope everybody is doing well.
[00:03:00]  I guess I'll rant to you guys about a few different things.
[00:03:03]  Number one, obviously, this whole coronavirus situation is kind of wild.
[00:03:11]  I'm sure a bunch of you feel the same way I do, where it almost feels a little bit surreal, some of the stuff that you're reading and watching about it.
[00:03:22]  I mean, it feels almost like, you know, the beginning of some crazy movie where things start falling apart all over the world.
[00:03:31]  I mean, seeing the situation in Italy and now Spain and some of these other countries, Iran has been really badly hit, just all over the world.
[00:03:41]  And I got to say, my initial instinct.
[00:03:47]  And by the way, let me just even, as I did the other, last week when we were talking about this, I preface by saying, you know, I'm not anywhere.
[00:03:56]  You know, I'm not the expert on this situation or even an expert or even anything approaching an expert on this situation.
[00:04:02]  So I'm not suggesting that I'm the person to like listen to when it comes to the talk about the virus and what the real dangers are there.
[00:04:10]  But I will say that my impulse with these things, my first instinct is to be very skeptical.
[00:04:20]  Like, it's like, I don't know.
[00:04:22]  They're always trying to scare us with some new thing.
[00:04:24]  They always overplay it.
[00:04:26]  Never turns out to be as bad as they say.
[00:04:29]  I know the media is just loving this because their ratings go through the roof.
[00:04:35]  There's lots of money to be made all around.
[00:04:38]  And so I just, you know, I'm just kind of skeptical.
[00:04:41]  It's just, you know, whatever.
[00:04:42]  It's just, it's the flu, but not as bad as the flu and everything will be fine.
[00:04:46]  That was kind of my initial take on this.
[00:04:50]  And it doesn't quite feel that way anymore.
[00:04:54]  Now, I've been trying my best to read what some actual experts say about the situation and trying to understand it.
[00:05:02]  But look, I'll say this.
[00:05:06]  As of right now, I'm concerned.
[00:05:09]  I'm concerned on a lot of different levels.
[00:05:11]  I'm concerned about the actual virus.
[00:05:15]  I'm concerned about the panic as a result of the virus.
[00:05:18]  I'm very concerned about the government reaction to all of this.
[00:05:24]  And so I think there's a lot there.
[00:05:27]  This is going to have a huge impact, one way or the other.
[00:05:34]  We're already past the point of avoiding that in many different levels.
[00:05:39]  Now, hopefully, you know, the virus is not like the main cause of all that.
[00:05:45]  I don't know that it will be.
[00:05:46]  It seems to me that the major problem is that the spread, like, or the major potential problem is something like, you know, the spread of the virus can't be contained effectively.
[00:05:59]  It ends up, you know, spreading to a lot of people.
[00:06:03]  The hospital systems are overwhelmed.
[00:06:05]  People are getting turned away.
[00:06:07]  Choices are being made with, you know, who to care for and who not to care for.
[00:06:11]  That seems to me to be like the worst case scenario.
[00:06:14]  Although I guess worst, worst case scenario is then around summertime, the virus dies down a little bit going into next winter.
[00:06:21]  There's some type of mutation, some type of evolution in the virus, and it's worse.
[00:06:25]  I think that would be like the worst case scenario.
[00:06:28]  By the way, I'm not trying to be alarmist or anything like that.
[00:06:31]  I still think there's a good chance that doesn't end up happening.
[00:06:34]  We'll see.
[00:06:35]  At this point, I don't think it's a bad idea to be, you know, be very vigilant about washing your hands, wearing gloves when you're out, stuff like that.
[00:06:46]  I think that's fairly reasonable.
[00:06:49]  And I guess try, you know, try to, what are they calling it now?
[00:06:55]  I forget the term that everybody's using, but try to, you know, isolate yourself a little bit.
[00:07:00]  Not the worst, the worst idea.
[00:07:03]  But that being said, you know, I just don't really know.
[00:07:05]  I don't really know how all of this is going to shake out.
[00:07:08]  And maybe it won't be any of that.
[00:07:09]  And this will all just kind of die down.
[00:07:12]  But as I'm sure most of you can tell at this point, this has gone beyond anything like, you know, swine flu or Ebola or any of these other things.
[00:07:26]  What we're dealing with now is in a whole different realm.
[00:07:29]  And that is not just a matter of the actual virus.
[00:07:33]  Like, even if you think the actual virus is being completely overplayed or this is all bullshit, look, when you live, when you have a situation where towns across the country are being locked down, where people are being quarantined all over the place, When the NBA season is canceled, when March Madness is canceled, when prize fights are getting canceled, all of this stuff, that starts to cross into a different level.
[00:07:59]  It's a different level of fear out in the public.
[00:08:04]  You can see that with the shelves that are empty at grocery stores all around the country.
[00:08:11]  And maybe that's probably worse in New York City.
[00:08:14]  In certain areas of New York City, the shelves were like completely empty.
[00:08:18]  But even out here by my wife's mother's place, like toilet paper and antibacterial soap and stuff like that, which by the way, I don't completely understand.
[00:08:28]  This might be a very ignorant thing to admit, but I don't understand how antibacterial soap is going to help with a viral issue.
[00:08:37]  Anyway, I might just be stupid.
[00:08:39]  But the real thing that you start to notice one way or the other here is this is going to have a tremendous impact on the economy.
[00:08:50]  A tremendous impact on the economy.
[00:08:53]  I mean, I know I've personally, I've lost, you know, thousands of dollars over this virus already.
[00:08:58]  I'm sure just about everyone listening has in one way or the other had either their own personal financial situation or their families or friends has been negatively impacted.
[00:09:10]  This is going on all over the place.
[00:09:12]  I mean, the amount of restaurants and businesses and airlines, all different sectors of the economy that are just going to be devastated by this.
[00:09:24]  Devastated.
[00:09:26]  You know, business is a tricky game.
[00:09:30]  The majority, the vast majority of businesses do not make it.
[00:09:34]  They're not successful.
[00:09:35]  Most go out of business within the first five years.
[00:09:39]  And things like this can really throw off thin profit margins.
[00:09:45]  A lot of times there's not that much wiggle room.

=== Thin Margins and Bad Habits (03:11) ===

[00:09:48]  And something like this can really...
[00:09:49]  So the effects on the economy are going to be disastrous.
[00:09:54]  And the U.S. economy, as people who listen to this show are probably more aware than the average person, the economy is already, it's a teetering house of cards.
[00:10:06]  So to throw something like this at it could potentially have a huge, huge negative impact.
[00:10:13]  And you see this, by the way, literally just before I was starting to record, they just announced, I mean, the Fed had already injected, I think, something like $1.5 trillion into tied over banks.
[00:10:28]  And they just announced they're bringing interest rates down to zero.
[00:10:31]  So this is the first time they've done that since they did that after the financial crisis in 2008.
[00:10:38]  And that should tell you something about at least what the perceived situation is from our wise overlords over there at the Federal Reserve.
[00:10:49]  And that is, you know, that this is a dangerous, dangerous situation.
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[00:12:29]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:12:32]  This also has, you know, this is going to have a huge impact on the presidential election.
[00:12:36]  I mean, I don't know exactly what it's going to be yet, but this is, you know, I've been saying for basically almost every time I think we talked about the election over the last two years, probably, we've said that, you know, the big game changer, the big elephant that could be in the room is a recession.
[00:12:57]  And a recession can change everything.

=== Recession Nightmare for Trump (09:02) ===

[00:12:59]  And so this is this could be a nightmare situation for Donald Trump.
[00:13:06]  This is, it's very, very difficult for the incumbent to win in a recession.
[00:13:12]  It's very, very difficult for an incumbent who's never cracked 50% approval ratings to win in a recession.
[00:13:18]  And it's very, very, very difficult for an incumbent who's never cracked 50% approval ratings who's running on touting his great economy to win in a recession.
[00:13:28]  So I don't think people will go, well, you know, it was the virus.
[00:13:31]  So, you know, we can't really blame Trump.
[00:13:34]  As you already see from the kind of standard Democratic outlets, they're going to be trying their best to blame every inch of this on Donald Trump, you know, which to some degree is unfair.
[00:13:49]  But at the same time, Donald Trump will, you know, I mean, if you've seen already some of the sound bites, I mean, he's already said like five or six stupid things while this whole thing was going on.
[00:14:00]  So this could be very, very bad for him.
[00:14:04]  And if it ends up getting a Democrat elected, it could be very, very bad for the country.
[00:14:11]  So again, it's early to predict any of that stuff, but don't, you know, there's a lot to be concerned about here.
[00:14:21]  And I don't think it's smart to downplay it anymore.
[00:14:26]  I just don't.
[00:14:28]  I don't, you know, I don't want to be alarmist or tell people to, you know, panic or anything like that.
[00:14:32]  But I will say I'm concerned about a lot of different aspects of this.
[00:14:37]  And, you know, of course, being a libertarian, maybe it's my own bias, but the one that to me is quite possibly the scariest is the government reaction to things like this.
[00:14:50]  You know, the governments in general are about as authoritarian as they can get away with being.
[00:14:57]  And that's a general rule of thumb.
[00:15:00]  Not precisely true in every case, but it's generally the truth.
[00:15:04]  And we'll see.
[00:15:07]  You know, you got to think that if this gets worse, let's just say for the next month this progresses in the way it's been, an Italy-type situation.
[00:15:19]  Well, what you see is the normalization of martial law.
[00:15:25]  This is happening all over the place in this country as well, not on a national level yet, but it is happening all over the place in this country.
[00:15:32]  And this is where people really get, you know, Comfortable and even in some cases, cheer on the stripping away of individual rights.
[00:15:45]  And if history teaches us anything, that's not a great thing when governments start doing away with the idea of limitations on government power and individual rights.
[00:15:59]  So there's a lot to be concerned with there.
[00:16:02]  You know, this isn't just a guess or a thought.
[00:16:09]  Look, the two major crises crises of my lifetime were probably 9-11 and the Great Recession in terms of like national emergency style things, which Trump has officially declared this a national emergency for whatever that means.
[00:16:34]  And so, you know, there's, look, look at the government reaction to both of those two.
[00:16:42]  I mean, 9-11, the government reaction was a goddamn disaster.
[00:16:46]  This is, you know, a big part of the reason that we have Donald Trump, that we have, you know, that so many of our institutions are, you know, crumbling, that the whole culture is being ripped apart.
[00:16:57]  So many of the problems that are going on right now are a direct result of the response to 9-11.
[00:17:07]  And in some ways, the financial crisis was a result of that direct response.
[00:17:12]  I mean, it was indirectly a result of that response, I should say.
[00:17:17]  But the fact that they had to bring interest rates down so low to kind of help facilitate putting these wars on the credit card and it ended up leading to a bubble in the housing industry.
[00:17:29]  There is a connection there.
[00:17:31]  But in response to 9-11, the government grew enormously.
[00:17:37]  We've launched war after war after war.
[00:17:40]  I mean, I don't know how many, you know, obviously the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq.
[00:17:45]  We also, you know, overthrew a government in Libya, started a civil war in Syria, overthrew a government in Yemen, and now we're funding one side of the ongoing civil war there, or funding, arming, refueling jets, all of the above.
[00:18:01]  All across, not to mention the military action in a few other countries out there, but all of the response to 9-11, I mean, it was just to blow trillions of dollars, to kill hundreds of thousands of people, decimate our own, you know, brave young men who are propagandized into fighting in these bullshit wars.
[00:18:21]  So there's, you know, I mean, the response was a nightmare.
[00:18:24]  Not to mention to really build up, I mean, it existed, but to really ramp up the national security state, the spying apparatus, in a way that was really unthinkable, even when I, just when I was a kid, the idea of like, you know, collecting all of the data on all Americans and all of this stuff.
[00:18:46]  And of course, this whole spying apparatus that was built up was a big part of the way that they were able to frame up Donald Trump for the first three years of his candidacy and then administration and to try to frame the sitting president as a guy who's colluding with a hostile foreign power and all this nonsense.
[00:19:10]  So that was the response to 9-11.
[00:19:13]  And of course, the response to the financial crisis of 2008 was what?
[00:19:20]  It was bailing out of the big banks, bringing interest rates down to zero, destroying The backbone of the American economy, which was, you know, the hard workers who save their money, just destroying them.
[00:19:38]  I mean, they had already been spitting on them for decades, but this was just a boot to the neck, you know?
[00:19:43]  And that was the response.
[00:19:45]  Record high government spending, a borderline government takeover of the healthcare industry.
[00:19:51]  You know, it's like all this stuff.
[00:19:53]  Now, this is what governments do.
[00:19:58]  They jump on these opportunities as they see them.
[00:20:03]  Henry Kissinger said this, right?
[00:20:05]  Didn't he say, he said something, I can't remember the exact quote, but it was like, it was pretty straightforward.
[00:20:11]  He said, like, every crisis is an opportunity to exploit.
[00:20:15]  And that's the mindset of these people who are members of the ruling elite.
[00:20:23]  So it's not, you know, you don't have to necessarily go to some conspiracy, like the virus doesn't exist or anything like that.
[00:20:29]  It's not a matter of that.
[00:20:30]  It's just a matter of, I mean, I don't know that that's not the case, but I don't have any evidence to suggest it.
[00:20:36]  But the truth is that they have these plans.
[00:20:40]  They wait for this moment and then they're quite happy to pounce on it and to use this to get through what they've already wanted for a long time.
[00:20:49]  And of course, the war in Iraq was like a perfect example of that.
[00:20:52]  The war in Iraq was something that all of these neocons were pushing for since the late 80s.
[00:20:59]  And then they were real upset with the first war in Iraq under George H.W. Bush that they didn't overthrow Saddam.
[00:21:06]  And they wanted to overthrow him.
[00:21:09]  They were pushing for that all through the eight years that Bill Clinton was president.
[00:21:13]  And they never got him to overthrow Saddam.
[00:21:16]  They did get him to bomb the crap out of them and to starve them with that blockade.
[00:21:23]  But once 9-11 happened, it was like, okay, there's their opportunity.
[00:21:27]  Now they can push for the policy that they've always wanted.
[00:21:30]  And let's be very clear about what the government response already has been to the coronavirus.
[00:21:38]  I mean, just particularly, forget about the quarantines and the curfews and things like that.
[00:21:46]  Things that you would think in a constitutional republic or whatever were supposed to be would be powers that you're like, well, okay, well, where exactly?
[00:21:56]  By what statute?
[00:21:58]  How exactly did the governments get this authority?

=== The Watch Ad Interruption (03:23) ===

[00:22:01]  But even forgetting all that stuff, just look at the financial stuff for a second.
[00:22:06]  I mean, so already, before this thing has really gotten bad, it's not as if, you know, there might be some projections, and believe me, there's some really scary projections out there, but there might be projections about the hospitals being, you know, like overrun and the virus spreading all around or even like, you know, a lot of people dying or whatever the worst projections out there are.
[00:22:29]  Well, before we've gotten to any of that, we already have the Fed extending $1.5 trillion in loans to banks and bringing interest rates down to zero.
[00:22:46]  Now, what is that in reality?
[00:22:49]  I mean, that is nothing but just, I mean, you could call it a bailout if you want to, or you could call it just straight up giving bankers money.
[00:22:59]  I mean, that's really what it is.
[00:23:02]  When you give them a trillion and a half dollars to the big banks, that's who gets this money.
[00:23:08]  Okay.
[00:23:08]  And then you're going to bring interest rates down to zero, which basically says that all the big banks can borrow money at 0% interest rate and whatever they can get for the money, whatever rates they get, whatever interest they get for the money they loan out, is all pure profit to them.
[00:23:23]  This is nothing but a huge transfer of wealth from the working people in America to the big banks.
[00:23:29]  That has been the response of the federal government already.
[00:23:34]  Just straight up robbing the American people of their wealth and giving it to the banks.
[00:23:40]  I mean, the people who don't need it, the people who are in many ways responsible for the economic mess over the last 12 years in America.
[00:23:52]  All right, guys, let's take a quick second.
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[00:25:18]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:25:20]  So, you know, and don't like, you know, it's amazing, right?

=== Pandemics and Libertarian Theory (15:27) ===

[00:25:25]  The level of Stockholm syndrome that people who still support their government have to have.
[00:25:31]  I mean, imagine, right?
[00:25:33]  Imagine that you could say, we have to steal your money and give it to bankers for your own good and that people actually buy this.
[00:25:45]  People actually buy this shit.
[00:25:47]  Well, if nothing else, I would hope that the people who listen to this show don't buy that for one second.
[00:25:53]  I mean, the idea that this is somehow, you know, like in 2008, we're bailing out Goldman Sachs because we care about truck drivers so much or something like that.
[00:26:05]  This is just, come on, man.
[00:26:07]  I mean, just on its face, isn't it so obvious that this is bullshit?
[00:26:12]  If you really cared about saving the economy or you were really like, you know, cared about the people in America, let's say you had leaders in the government who cared about the people.
[00:26:24]  I mean, there's lots of other options of ways that you could try to help the economy short of we're going to give the big banks a ton of money.
[00:26:35]  There's lots of other ways.
[00:26:37]  I mean, obviously, you know, libertarians, we have our own, you know, preferred methods.
[00:26:44]  But I mean, think about it, right?
[00:26:45]  Like, think about if you really wanted, oh, you wanted to like stimulate the economy or you wanted to bail people out or help people out in this tough time.
[00:26:54]  I mean, what if they just came out and said, we are suspending the income tax for two years?
[00:27:04]  How about that?
[00:27:05]  How about you just come out and say, we're just, guys, because of this situation, we want to, you know, stimulate the economy.
[00:27:11]  We're going to suspend the income tax for two years.
[00:27:13]  No federal income taxes.
[00:27:16]  I mean, that would do a lot, a lot more to stimulate the economy.
[00:27:20]  And it would actually reward everybody who's doing the right thing, who's out there working.
[00:27:24]  I mean, you know, they're terrified to give you a taste of that because they don't want you to see how sweet it would be to not have to get robbed out of every paycheck.
[00:27:35]  They don't want to let you check that out because you may not ever want to go back.
[00:27:39]  But that would certainly be another way to stimulate the economy.
[00:27:43]  And it wouldn't involve, you know, it wouldn't involve paying off big bankers.
[00:27:49]  But I guess that's just not quite as much fun for the powers that be.
[00:27:54]  But so this is what's happened already.
[00:27:57]  And just wait because it's going to get worse.
[00:28:00]  There's all these criminals who run government and influence government.
[00:28:07]  They're all waiting.
[00:28:09]  The worse this thing gets, the more they're going to be able to exploit it.
[00:28:12]  So we will keep our eyes on that.
[00:28:16]  All right.
[00:28:16]  So the other thing that I wanted to mention that I've seen a lot of people talking about, and of course, this is where, you know, what piques my interest is that there has been a lot of talk of how this coronavirus situation or how a global pandemic works with libertarian theory or libertarian philosophy.
[00:28:42]  And there's been a lot of people who have been criticizing the libertarians saying that in some way that this kind of disproves the idea of libertarianism being a viable option because what are you going to do when there's this type of outbreak?
[00:29:01]  So there was one blue check mark, I forget who, who tweeted something like, there are no libertarians in a pandemic.
[00:29:09]  And the tweet went viral and it got a lot of libertarians, myself included, a little annoyed.
[00:29:16]  But anyway, so I just wanted to address that and talk about that for a little bit.
[00:29:22]  How does libertarian philosophy deal with this type of situation or how would a free society deal with these issues?
[00:29:30]  Let me just say, first of all, I think it's, I don't even understand why this is difficult for people.
[00:29:37]  I mean, I don't get why.
[00:29:38]  I don't know where people are coming from.
[00:29:40]  I think there was a New York Times article that said something about socialism being needed for a global pandemic or something like that.
[00:29:53]  You know, I remember doing podcasts on this back in like during Hurricane Sandy when they would say, you know, a big storm requires big government.
[00:30:02]  And it's like you live through these situations where the world we live in is the government failing at every level to do what they need to do in these situations.
[00:30:13]  And then you're like, oh, there's proof.
[00:30:15]  What would we do without the government?
[00:30:17]  It really does remind me of that old, you ever hear that old communist joke?
[00:30:24]  They say there's two women on a breadline in the Soviet Union, and one of them's complaining to the other woman and she's like, oh my God, these breadlines, they're terrible.
[00:30:34]  Every day the lines get longer and they give us less and less bread.
[00:30:37]  This is just such a nightmare.
[00:30:39]  And the other woman says, don't complain.
[00:30:41]  In America, they don't even have bread lines.
[00:30:44]  Something like that.
[00:30:45]  In America, the government doesn't even give out bread or something like that.
[00:30:48]  Anyway, you get the idea.
[00:30:50]  It's an old dumb joke, but I like it.
[00:30:52]  But the idea is just that you think, oh, well, if the government didn't, I mean, I know the government's doing a terrible job and we're starving to death, but it's better than having no one give out bread.
[00:31:03]  And that's, of course, the old statist myth that if the government doesn't do it, it doesn't exist.
[00:31:09]  But so, you know, that seems to be the mentality people have.
[00:31:12]  It's like, well, the government's doing a really shitty job, but that's better than no job being done at all.
[00:31:18]  Anyway, I don't think that there's on any level a pandemic presents a problem.
[00:31:25]  Well, I mean, of course, it presents a problem in any society, but I don't think it presents some like issue with the philosophy of libertarianism.
[00:31:32]  Like, oh, we can't figure this out.
[00:31:34]  I will say that it does perhaps present a bit of a problem for the open borders minarchist types.
[00:31:44]  See, like that, I think, is more of a reasonable criticism, like to say, like, okay, well, like, there's really no open borders advocates in a pandemic.
[00:31:55]  And now, that's not completely true.
[00:31:57]  I'm sure there are still some, but that does, to me, I will grant you, that seems a little bit crazy, the idea that like you wouldn't be able to close down travel.
[00:32:06]  Look, let me just say this.
[00:32:07]  Number one, for the, I don't know if I'd say the majority, but a huge portion, a huge, huge portion of what the government's response has been to the coronavirus, and in many ways, probably the best aspect of the government's response has been cutting red tape.
[00:32:30]  Essentially, letting hospitals and medical professionals get out of the normal regulations that don't allow them to do what they want to do.
[00:32:41]  So a beautiful thing about anarcho-capitalism, libertarianism, voluntarism is that they basically say, the philosophy says, we say, none of this red tape exists at all.
[00:32:52]  Just get rid of all the red tape permanently.
[00:32:54]  Let hospitals do what they think is best.
[00:32:57]  Let all of these different doctors and nurses and first responders let them all do what they think is best.
[00:33:02]  And you don't have to have, you know, Donald Trump getting up there saying, you know, we're going to cut the red tape to this and that so that, you know, you can do what you already should have been allowed to do.
[00:33:12]  The other thing is that, and this is really the beauty of anarcho-capitalism, is that you have what you have is a situation where there is maximum efficiency with minimum authoritarianism.
[00:33:34]  So, you know, there are certain efficiencies that like a dictator could have of a government over like, you know, let's say a republic, even though that's not really describing our country, but like a, you know, a government with divided powers and limited powers, right?
[00:33:49]  Like a dictator can just say, we're doing something and it gets done.
[00:33:53]  But the problem with that is that in order to have that situation, you have to give an ungodly amount of power to one person who, you know, if you look throughout history, there's this tendency to use that for evil and not like just a little bit evil, like holy shit, you know, biblical fucking movie level evil.
[00:34:15]  In an anarcho-capitalist society, what you have is all of that efficiency, but it's so decentralized and everything is, you know, acquired through like, you know, a just acquisition of property.
[00:34:27]  And so you have that efficiency without the evil, without having the right to rule over other people.
[00:34:34]  So obviously, in an ANCAP society, if communities, streets, buildings, everything's privately owned, you can shut down travel instantaneously.
[00:34:46]  I mean, you don't have to go through any red tape.
[00:34:49]  The property owner can do whatever they want to in the same way that you cannot let somebody else in your house.
[00:34:54]  Communities could just not let other people in.
[00:34:56]  I mean, you could have far more effective quarantines and you can do it all without the possibility of martial law and all this other stuff.
[00:35:07]  So it's just like a far better system.
[00:35:11]  And it really does go to show how much people misunderstand this stuff.
[00:35:16]  You're also going to be way, way more likely to figure out a vaccine, figure out solutions.
[00:35:23]  I mean, goddamn, they literally just, the FDA just allowed this corona test that was something like 10 times faster and gave better results than the current test that's on the market.
[00:35:39]  So just, you know what I'm saying?
[00:35:40]  Like just the only thing the government ever does in this time is they go, ah, okay, we'll get out of the way and let the market solution, which is so much better than the one we have here.
[00:35:49]  We'll let that go out to the people.
[00:35:51]  Like, wow, thanks, government.
[00:35:52]  Thanks for all the help.
[00:35:53]  What would we do without you in a pandemic?
[00:35:56]  We'd probably solve it much quicker and we'd probably limit it much earlier on.
[00:36:01]  And I don't know if you see the way people are reacting to things like this.
[00:36:06]  Well, okay, that would seem like, yeah, I don't think it would be too difficult to work up, you know, to convince communities to suspend travel from affected areas.
[00:36:20]  I think it would be pretty easy.
[00:36:22]  And there is something, you know, like really there's something really amazing about just watching the whole thing play out and the way that the government operates.
[00:36:32]  You know, Bernie Sanders said something.
[00:36:34]  And I'll get more into Bernie Sanders on the next episode.
[00:36:37]  I'm going to do an episode on the debate and the state of the presidential race.
[00:36:43]  I'll do that in another episode.
[00:36:45]  And then now that I got my recording situation set up here, I'll put out some extra content this week.
[00:36:52]  Bonus episodes, everybody.
[00:36:53]  Get ready.
[00:36:54]  I think I might do some more shorter episodes while we're out here.
[00:37:02]  But Bernie Sanders said a thing.
[00:37:04]  He tweeted out the other day.
[00:37:06]  And it's just so, it's such a great Bernie Sanders moment.
[00:37:09]  Just shows how much he, like, this socialist mindset where they just misunderstand everything.
[00:37:14]  But he said something along the lines of like, you know, let me be very clear to the pharmaceutical companies, in a situation like this, a national emergency, this is not the time for profiteering.
[00:37:28]  Whoever makes the cure, it should be distributed for free.
[00:37:31]  And they shouldn't profit at all from making the cure.
[00:37:35]  Now, I kind of, I guess I kind of understand.
[00:37:38]  Like if you were like 16 and don't understand anything about economics, then like maybe that sounds kind of nice.
[00:37:45]  Like, yeah, you should just be a really great guy and make, you know, figure out a vaccine for this and then distribute it to everybody for free.
[00:37:55]  But for adults in the real world, I mean, what did Bernie Sanders actually just say?
[00:38:02]  What is he saying here?
[00:38:04]  He's saying, basically, I'd like to remove any incentive for somebody to solve this problem.
[00:38:12]  Hey, just know, you evil bastards who are trying to solve this problem, there is no reward for you if you do.
[00:38:20]  Absolutely none.
[00:38:21]  In fact, we're going to be looking at you saying, oh, you figured it out.
[00:38:24]  Now you owe everybody this.
[00:38:26]  You better figure out how to distribute it to everybody and don't expect to make a penny off of it.
[00:38:32]  I mean, how stupid is that?
[00:38:34]  Here's like, this is really just like right there, the difference between the socialist and the capitalist mindset.
[00:38:39]  And what the capitalist understands is it's like, well, look, feel however you feel about profits and how bad you think that is.
[00:38:48]  What I would like right now is to say, oh, if somebody could solve this problem, I want them to get filthy fucking rich because now they're really, really incentivized, really motivated to solve the goddamn problem.
[00:39:04]  And that's what you want.
[00:39:05]  Now, where do you think you're going to get more of that?
[00:39:09]  In a libertarian society or with big government?
[00:39:13]  Where do you think you're going to get more incentive, less red tape to go solve the freaking problem?
[00:39:20]  Another, just one other quick point is that, you know, there's been a lot of demonizing of price gouging in this environment.
[00:39:30]  And of course, for those of you who have read your Walter Block and know this stuff, I mean, price gouging would actually help the situation quite a bit.
[00:39:38]  It would help the situation quite a bit.
[00:39:41]  If people could just, you know, if there, if there was no regulation on what people could charge in these situations, if people weren't being demonized for that, you'd have much less shortages.
[00:39:51]  You'd be more likely to get hand sanitizer.
[00:39:53]  And yeah, you'd have to spend a little bit more on it.
[00:39:55]  But like, I don't know, most people, I think, in this situation are willing to spend a little bit more on it.
[00:40:00]  That's why, I mean, they wouldn't price gouge if they couldn't get it.
[00:40:05]  So that's another aspect that would be greatly where the situation would be greatly helped with, you know, free markets and eliminating government from the equation.
[00:40:19]  But anyway, it's, you know, I would, as I said before, I would, I guess, concede that there does seem to be, you know, some degree of a flaw exposed in the kind of open borders minarchist position.
[00:40:33]  And then, you know, you start to get into this situation where you're like, oh, okay, well, if you're, if you're okay with suspending your open borders now during a pandemic, you know, it does, just philosophically speaking, it becomes that old, you know, the old, you know, would you sleep with me for $10 million?

=== Flaws in Open Borders (03:17) ===

[00:40:52]  Okay.
[00:40:52]  Would you sleep with me for $5?
[00:40:54]  Who do you think I am?
[00:40:56]  Well, we've already established who you are.
[00:40:58]  Now we're just negotiating.
[00:40:59]  You know, that old thing.
[00:41:02]  So if you're saying, oh, it's okay to close borders now, it's like, oh, okay.
[00:41:06]  Well, so why?
[00:41:08]  Because it's going to be a disaster.
[00:41:10]  It's like, okay, so then basically, if anyone thinks it's going to be a disaster, you can close the borders.
[00:41:15]  But what exactly, where do you, you know, arbitrarily draw that line of disaster?
[00:41:20]  Because there's a lot of people who, you know, have maybe taken a quick glance at the history of multi-ethnic, multiracial democracies and thought, you know, I think that might be a disaster.
[00:41:33]  So it's just now, you know, it's just like you're not so, you know, you're not standing so firmly on principles if you're willing to compromise your principles when things are scary.
[00:41:43]  And then you have to decide, well, what's scary?
[00:41:45]  What, you know, like what is a reasonable line to say, okay, this is a time when we can compromise on our principles.
[00:41:52]  So there might be something to that.
[00:41:53]  But private property and caps, I mean, this is all I see are the numerous different ways that we would be so much better off avoiding all of this government red tape, avoiding all of these, you know, these problems and in a much more efficient manner.
[00:42:11]  And, you know, so, you know, despite having all of these government, you know, organizations set up with the pure task of, you know, of, you know, like the CDC's pure task is the control of these outbreaks.
[00:42:26]  That's what they do.
[00:42:27]  And I'm sure that they'll just get more money for it.
[00:42:31]  This is really, I mean, that's it.
[00:42:33]  I mean, obviously, you know, I assume most people listening to this show already know this shit.
[00:42:37]  And I've certainly been talking about it for years.
[00:42:39]  But this really is the essence of the mechanical problem with statism.
[00:42:47]  And it's not like, obviously, there's a million and one moral problems.
[00:42:51]  But even if you get past all of that, the reason why, right?
[00:42:54]  The reason why big governments fail, the reason why communism fails and capitalism succeeds, the reason why this like, you know, you see People starving to death in these socialist countries, and then you see people with like their fucking nice houses and pools in these capitalist countries, is because the market has something that the government does not, and that's the cleansing mechanism of the profit and loss system.
[00:43:23]  So, when somebody does a really good job and pleases their consumers, they please their customers, they make profits.
[00:43:30]  And when they don't, they have losses and they go out of business.
[00:43:33]  They suffer for it.
[00:43:34]  When you do a bad job, you suffer for it.
[00:43:38]  I guarantee the result of all of this will be the CDC getting more money.
[00:43:44]  In government, when you fail, you get rewarded.
[00:43:48]  So, all of the incentives are lined up for you to fail.
[00:43:51]  Or certainly that you're not incentivized not to.
[00:43:54]  I mean, it's like you know, this is you can fail your way to a budget increase.
[00:43:59]  This is what happens all, you know, all you look at any area of the government, like at public schools, they fail and fail and fail.
[00:44:07]  And then they go, Well, see, we're failing because we need more money.

=== Failure Rewarded in Government (02:01) ===

[00:44:09]  It's like, right, okay.
[00:44:11]  But when businesses fail, it's that they could easily just say, like, well, we're failing because we need more money.
[00:44:16]  But it's like, well, nope, sorry.
[00:44:17]  You're not, your customers aren't happy, so you don't get any more money.
[00:44:20]  You go out of business.
[00:44:22]  So, anyway, I mean, I just think this whole situation is like, look, you know, I guess I'll wrap up here for this coronavirus episode.
[00:44:30]  But I'm concerned about the situation.
[00:44:33]  I think it's going to get worse before it gets better.
[00:44:35]  I think the government response is going to be very, very bad.
[00:44:38]  I think this is going to have a huge impact on the presidential race.
[00:44:43]  I'm going to get more into that next episode, where we are with this whole crazy primary season.
[00:44:50]  And, you know, this is potential to be bad, but hopefully it's not as bad as it could be.
[00:44:59]  So we'll see.
[00:45:00]  We'll see what happens.
[00:45:01]  Anyway, thank you guys for listening.
[00:45:02]  I hope everybody is staying safe and being careful out there.
[00:45:06]  And I'll put out a bunch more content this week.
[00:45:10]  I promise you that.
[00:45:12]  So again, my apologies for the erratic schedule and for missing a couple episodes last week.
[00:45:19]  Although I hope you enjoyed the Michelle Malkin interview.
[00:45:22]  Maybe I'll even do an episode this week where I address that and some of the more controversial stuff going on.
[00:45:30]  Anyway, also, I recorded an episode with Pete Quinones, Pete Raymond Raider Mance.
[00:45:38]  I recorded his wonderful podcast, Free Man Beyond the Wall.
[00:45:42]  So that's out.
[00:45:43]  So you can go check that out.
[00:45:44]  And I think I'm going to record an episode with Tom Woods tomorrow for his show.
[00:45:50]  So I'll, you know, you guys will get a lot of content out of me this week.
[00:45:54]  If you're home and if you're in quarantine or you're self-quarantining or whatever it's called, self-distancing, is that what the term I was looking for?
[00:46:03]  If you're doing any of that stuff, I'll make sure I have some content out for you guys.
[00:46:08]  All right.
[00:46:08]  Thanks for listening.
[00:46:09]  Talk to you soon.
[00:46:10]  Peace.