Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - Money For Nothing
Aired: 2020-05-21
Duration: 01:00:42


=== Borrowing From Future Generations (14:30) ===

[00:00:00]  Fill her up.
[00:00:02]  You are listening to the Gas Digital Network.
[00:00:06]  Hey guys, today's show is brought to you by the Peddling Fiction podcast.
[00:00:11]  People are always asking me for other libertarian podcasts that are good that I recommend.
[00:00:17]  Go check out the Peddling Fiction podcast.
[00:00:19]  It's funny, it's informative.
[00:00:21]  It's a libertarian podcast from a Rothbardian perspective.
[00:00:24]  I've checked out a couple of the episodes.
[00:00:26]  I think you guys are going to get into it.
[00:00:27]  I think you're going to like what Johnny Profita has to say.
[00:00:29]  In his most recent episode, he explores the Fed interventions in the stock market and how the market is somehow going up while investors are pulling out.
[00:00:37]  I think you guys are going to dig the podcast.
[00:00:39]  Go check it out, the Peddling Fiction Podcast.
[00:00:42]  This is a lying politician's worst nightmare, destroyer of Keynesian economic fallacies.
[00:00:47]  We've got a link in the episode description, and we're going to play a short clip from the show at the end.
[00:00:52]  So make sure you stick around for that.
[00:00:53]  Pedalingfictionpodcast.com.
[00:00:56]  All right, let's start the show.
[00:01:00]  We need to roll back the state.
[00:01:02]  We spy on all of our own citizens.
[00:01:04]  Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
[00:01:07]  If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
[00:01:13]  Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
[00:01:18]  You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
[00:01:22]  Here's your host, Dave Smith.
[00:01:28]  Hey, what's up, everybody?
[00:01:29]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
[00:01:34]  Hope everybody's doing well.
[00:01:36]  I, of course, am Dave Smith, the most consistent motherfucker you know.
[00:01:41]  See Ron Paul to my right, Ledwig von Mises to my left, and right in the middle, that little guy is the Tootsie Roll that I won for defeating Nicholas Sarwak in a debate.
[00:01:54]  This is the level of unpacking that I've done somehow.
[00:01:57]  My wife made sure that that made it with us.
[00:01:59]  Anyway, I am happy to be joined by my partner in crime, my brother, Robbie the Fire Bernstein, king of the cocks.
[00:02:07]  He's getting nice and toasty over his fire.
[00:02:10]  I'm doing the same.
[00:02:11]  I'm going to be roasting up some Tootsie rolls pretty soon.
[00:02:15]  If you need an interior designer, I'm happy to put together original artwork for you as well.
[00:02:20]  Oh, wow.
[00:02:20]  That's really, well, we'll talk price after the show.
[00:02:24]  I appreciate that.
[00:02:25]  I would love some of your pieces.
[00:02:27]  They're famous at this point, world-renowned, I would say.
[00:02:30]  We got listeners all around the world.
[00:02:32]  So, yeah, look at that.
[00:02:33]  You've gotten a lot of eyeballs on your art.
[00:02:35]  That's what this whole thing's been about.
[00:02:36]  You're just parlaying this into fucking some type of art money.
[00:02:40]  I'll sell that thing right now.
[00:02:42]  Hell, I'll sell the whole door it's on.
[00:02:46]  Oh, how's everything going with you, buddy?
[00:02:49]  Um, I don't know, whatever.
[00:02:51]  Corona times, you just wake up in the morning, get as much work done as you can.
[00:02:56]  You start drinking earlier than I do, which I respect.
[00:02:59]  And that's what it is.
[00:03:01]  Hell yeah.
[00:03:02]  I do everything a little bit earlier these days.
[00:03:05]  So, uh, for today's show, leading off, I wanted to get into this big new spending bill that's been proposed and has passed the House and looks like is going to be signed into law.
[00:03:23]  The new one, doesn't it seem like they always have to outdo their last bill?
[00:03:28]  It's estimated at $3 trillion.
[00:03:33]  Robbie, that's almost as much money as Joe Rogan got to go to Spotify.
[00:03:37]  $3 trillion.
[00:03:38]  That's a lot of money.
[00:03:39]  What did you have you been reading about this or what are your thoughts?
[00:03:44]  There are aspects about it that make me very, very angry.
[00:03:48]  Really?
[00:03:48]  And yeah, well, the part that pisses me off the most is, well, they pull the classic scam.
[00:03:55]  They call it the hero bill.
[00:03:56]  And the idea being that there's all these people that have been out there on the front lines, the essential workers, and we got to get them some cash.
[00:04:03]  And honestly, it's kind of like when they were going to give the money to the 9-11 victims.
[00:04:08]  It's like, I'm not a big fan of government and government giving out money.
[00:04:12]  But then there's some times that you present it and you're like, all right, you know what?
[00:04:15]  In this case, it sounds kind of fair.
[00:04:17]  All right.
[00:04:17]  You got the essential workers and a bonus for the essential workers.
[00:04:21]  If you did that charity campaign, I'd kick into that bucket and go, you know what?
[00:04:25]  They worked hard these months.
[00:04:26]  Sure.
[00:04:27]  But that is like, I believe that is about 20%.
[00:04:30]  You got to look up the number.
[00:04:31]  That's a percentage of the actual money that they're putting up.
[00:04:34]  What they're really trying to do is bail out the states that are going to have to start defaulting on some pretty massive bills, which is states.
[00:04:42]  I know New York is in there.
[00:04:43]  That's where the, that's really where the money is.
[00:04:45]  It's trillions of dollars to go to states.
[00:04:47]  And here's the big problem with that: is that these states have liberal policies that are failures, where they've claimed for years that they can afford things that they can't.
[00:04:59]  And what we need is for some of these policies to come do and for it to not work out so that people start migrating to other states with more conservative policies.
[00:05:08]  And we start realizing that being fiscally conservative is important and that the alternative is just people lying to you about things that can't be afforded.
[00:05:16]  Yeah.
[00:05:17]  You know, it reminds me in a way of the role.
[00:05:19]  And we had talked about this on a previous podcast, I think months and months ago.
[00:05:23]  I don't remember when, but you made this point that really stuck out to me.
[00:05:28]  Since we've been podcasting together, there's only been like two or three really good points that you've made, but this was one of them.
[00:05:33]  You got to cherish the point.
[00:05:34]  Yes, no.
[00:05:35]  No, I'm kidding.
[00:05:36]  But this really did stick out to me.
[00:05:37]  It was a point you made when you were talking about the relationship of the Federal Reserve, which we just did a podcast on, and the broader economy.
[00:05:44]  And the fact that the Federal Reserve will, if the economy looks bad, loosen money.
[00:05:50]  And if it looks good, tighten.
[00:05:52]  Now, of course, they always do a lot more of the loosening than the tightening.
[00:05:55]  But regardless, you had made the point that one of the major problems with this is that if you have bad economic policies and therefore it's going to hurt the economy, the Fed will come in and say interest rates are at 1%.
[00:06:09]  They'll take them down to 0%.
[00:06:11]  So now you don't feel any of the pain from those bad policy decisions.
[00:06:15]  But the problem with that, of course, is that then you don't, there's no pressure to correct the bad policy decisions.
[00:06:21]  So if you do the right thing, the Federal Reserve is going to punish you.
[00:06:25]  And if you do the wrong thing, they're going to reward you.
[00:06:27]  And I think everyone can see there's a little bit of a problem with that because really what you want is if you have the wrong policies, you want to change those policies.
[00:06:35]  And if you have the right policies, you want to continue with those.
[00:06:39]  So this is essentially the role that the federal government is now going to be playing with the states to bail out everybody who did the wrong thing and, you know, essentially punish people who did the right thing.
[00:06:52]  To give you the specifics on when that came up, because I think it's helpful to understand the concept, they were projecting economic growth because of Trump was giving back tax dollars.
[00:07:02]  He was basically reducing some taxes.
[00:07:04]  And so because of that, they were projecting economic growth and they were saying we might be able to raise interest rates.
[00:07:09]  Now, raising interest rates would cool the economy.
[00:07:11]  So what's wild about that is that the, you know, the Dems pretend that giving back tax dollars would not lead to economic growth.
[00:07:18]  But the point is, no, your own government institution is saying it will.
[00:07:21]  And we can act, we actually need to correct for it because otherwise we're going to have inflation.
[00:07:25]  But it's like no matter what you do, they're going to countercorrect for it.
[00:07:28]  So the voting public will never understand, hey, these policies would actually favor me and these hurt me.
[00:07:34]  Yeah.
[00:07:34]  You know, another thing you said that I was thinking about earlier today, maybe in slightly a different way, but you made the point about giving money to the 9-11 first responders.
[00:07:44]  And there certainly have been, you know, a few examples of government spending where, let's just say, it's harder to argue against than other examples of government spending.
[00:07:55]  I mean, some of it is a lot easier to argue.
[00:07:58]  You know, it's a lot easier to argue against, you know, funding some war than it is to say, oh, well, we got to take care of the first responders at 9-11 or something like that.
[00:08:08]  And I was thinking that, look, if you just in theory, now, obviously everyone knows I hate all government spending.
[00:08:15]  I'm an anarchist.
[00:08:16]  Taxation is theft.
[00:08:18]  I don't want to see any government spending at all.
[00:08:22]  However, that being said.
[00:08:23]  If you were going to come up with a situation where you could best argue for government spending, this might be it.
[00:08:34]  I mean, this might be like the moment we're living in might be the strongest case for the government to do something.
[00:08:41]  Now, even from a strict libertarian point of view, you know, as I've said before on the show, if the government is telling people who want to go to work that they're not allowed to, that they will actually be arrested if they go to work, which is the case in many states in this country for many different jobs, you can make an argument that the government owes them some form of compensation.
[00:09:03]  And even if you're not taking it from the libertarian perspective, just from like a normie practical perspective, we're going through a really crazy thing right now.
[00:09:13]  And if you're talking about borrowing from the future for right now, it's not the craziest thing ever comparatively to other times where there's government spending.
[00:09:24]  I mean, just to say like on an individual level, if you were, if you couldn't bring in any money for the past two and a half months and you dipped into your retirement account a little bit, it wouldn't be the craziest thing ever.
[00:09:39]  You know, you're like, hey, this is like a real big problem.
[00:09:42]  It seems to be somewhat temporary.
[00:09:44]  I'm going to dip into my savings a little bit.
[00:09:48]  Now, just comparing that to like, if you were just living off your retirement fund normally, that would seem a little bit crazier.
[00:09:54]  You know, if we were sane and still had a government, which maybe we wouldn't, but if we were a more sane country and had, you know, a government and we were going to like spend a bunch of deficit spending this year because of just the crazy situation of this year, you know, maybe it would be somewhat appropriate.
[00:10:17]  I think the response after that would be like, okay, but we really got to focus on paying that back because we're really kind of borrowing from our children and grandchildren without their consent, which is kind of fucked up.
[00:10:28]  So we would probably owe that money back or try to pay it back.
[00:10:32]  But, you know, the thing is that when times were supposedly good, you know, last year or whatever, when they were saying we have full unemployment and record high stock market and all this stuff, spending had been going up.
[00:10:48]  I mean, all throughout Trump's presidency, spending has been going up and all throughout Barack Obama's and all before George W. Bush's, it was going up the whole time.
[00:10:56]  We're spending more money than we have every single year.
[00:11:00]  And so now they've just kicked it into insane overdrive.
[00:11:05]  I mean, the last stimulus bill was about $2 trillion, I think $2.2 trillion.
[00:11:13]  This one they're looking at for $3 trillion.
[00:11:16]  This is all in addition to the normal spending that we have.
[00:11:19]  It's not as if other government spending has been cut.
[00:11:22]  You're talking about what's happened in the last few months is the biggest spending spree in human history.
[00:11:30]  And it's only happened within a couple months.
[00:11:32]  And there's no plan to pay it back down or to reimburse the future generations who are going to get stuck with this bill because we can't even pay for last year's spending, let alone next year's spending or any of that shit.
[00:11:48]  So it really is, you know, when you look at it from that perspective, this is just insanity.
[00:11:54]  It's an addiction where it's like, man, we got a two trillion dollar one through.
[00:11:58]  I bet we can get a three trillion dollar one through, and then they're going to come back.
[00:12:01]  Maybe we can even get five trillion approved because that's the game.
[00:12:05]  It's how much can get approved.
[00:12:06]  I think at this point, they must just acknowledge we're never paying this off.
[00:12:11]  And maybe, maybe they almost want to default sooner.
[00:12:14]  Maybe they want to speed up whatever that trajectory is, or they all figure they're going to be out of office before anything comes due.
[00:12:20]  So it let's just spend what we can.
[00:12:22]  I don't know what the long-term game policy is.
[00:12:24]  For Nancy Pelosi, it could be she's running out of a little kid blood, so she knows she's only got a couple months left.
[00:12:30]  You know, she doesn't have to, it's not going to be her problem.
[00:12:32]  But they're clearly not thinking long-term.
[00:12:34]  There's no, there's no way that these policies could possibly work.
[00:12:39]  It seems like there's not even, uh, you know, amongst the Democratic governors, at least, it seems like there's not even a concern about long-term.
[00:12:50]  I, I mean, you know, you got to think, right?
[00:12:52]  Like, even in, say, New York City or LA, right?
[00:12:57]  If they had reopened, uh, which some people were speculating that they were going to reopen on May 15th, which you know, just passed last week.
[00:13:07]  Um, some people were speculating about that, and they all kind of came out and said, No, um, uh, you know, now New York City is looking at June 15th.
[00:13:17]  Um, the Los Angeles County is talking about July 4th.
[00:13:22]  Okay, now you got to think, even with the two months of lockdown, there's a certain percentage of those businesses.
[00:13:28]  I don't know exactly what it is, but there's a certain percentage of those businesses that could make it through that.
[00:13:35]  You know, it's like, okay, they took a really big hit, but if we open up now, okay, we can try to get through this.
[00:13:42]  And a lot of those ones who maybe could have gotten through it now won't.
[00:13:45]  You know what I mean?
[00:13:46]  I mean, I don't know exactly what the number is, but it's going to be something really big.
[00:13:49]  And there seems to be no concern about this.
[00:13:52]  It's like, oh, we'll just, you know, everyone will be on welfare.
[00:13:56]  And obviously, we can't afford it talking from the state's perspective.
[00:13:58]  Obviously, they know they can't afford it, but it's like, yeah, the federal government, they'll take care of us.
[00:14:02]  And then I guess the federal government just looks at the Federal Reserve and they're like, no, okay, they'll take care of us.
[00:14:07]  And then the Federal Reserve just looks at a printing press and it's like, oh, that'll take care of us.
[00:14:12]  And that's what the whole thing comes down to.
[00:14:15]  Just making up numbers as if this is going to, this is why when Elon Musk was on Rogan's show a few weeks ago, and he was even saying, he was like, you know, people, we got to make stuff.
[00:14:26]  We can't just print money and send people checks.
[00:14:29]  Like, that's not how an economy works.

=== The Cost of Centralized Power (04:47) ===

[00:14:31]  We had stuff has to be made if you want to have stuff, right?
[00:14:34]  It had to be made first.
[00:14:35]  That's a pretty basic law of economics.
[00:14:39]  But yeah, it seems like there's very little thought about it.
[00:14:43]  But we can use the money to print more money.
[00:14:46]  And then there'll be even more of it.
[00:14:48]  It's like that episode of Sonny.
[00:14:49]  Ever see the one where they tried to make their self-like sustaining economy?
[00:14:54]  Yes.
[00:14:54]  Yeah, that was great.
[00:14:56]  That was great.
[00:14:58]  You know, it's like I was saying before, it's like in theory, I understand where people can kind of think through the like, okay, government will do this or government will do that.
[00:15:08]  I mean, like I said before, you could kind of, I've said this many times before, but you could even, even like for a total dictatorship, right?
[00:15:15]  Just unelected, just despot ruler who's just like, I make all the decisions now.
[00:15:21]  You could on paper come up with an example of a dictator who dictated good policies, you know, who's like, I'm the dictator now and I'm going to just do well for everybody.
[00:15:32]  I'm going to do the right thing and I'm going to help people out and, you know, whatever you, you know.
[00:15:37]  But I think we all kind of reflexively understand why, in reality, it's a bad idea to give one person that much power, you know, and it's not like mustaches and murder.
[00:15:51]  They tend to when you give them that power.
[00:15:54]  I bet if you didn't give them that power, they'd be perfectly lovely people.
[00:15:57]  You know, maybe Hitler would have made it as a painter.
[00:16:00]  I don't know.
[00:16:00]  It wasn't for those Jews.
[00:16:02]  But they ruined art.
[00:16:05]  But you know what I mean?
[00:16:06]  Like, it's like in theory, you could be like, okay, well, maybe someone will be dictator and they'll just make everyone be like nicer and kinder to each other.
[00:16:13]  And they'll, you know, they'll make sure people aren't being too greedy and that nobody's homeless and everyone's taken care of.
[00:16:18]  I mean, you could, you could write a novel about a you know, benevolent dictator.
[00:16:24]  But we all kind of understand, well, in practicality, you know, power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely, you know, the old Lord Atkin saying.
[00:16:36]  And so we understand that you don't want that.
[00:16:38]  You don't want all the power in one person's hand.
[00:16:41]  And I think that's where in people's minds, there's like, well, this is why we have like a Congress and a president and a Supreme Court and democratic processes.
[00:16:48]  And this is why it's like, oh, this kind of checks like all the power being in someone's hand.
[00:16:53]  But you're still talking about, you know, pretty much all of that same power, just more people involved.
[00:17:00]  And you look around and it's like, okay, so theoretically, I understand, I really do understand.
[00:17:06]  I think that, you know, guys like honest people on the left or on the center, they've got, I understand why they'd advocate for UBI or for some type of unemployment benefits or something.
[00:17:19]  I understand looking around and seeing all of these people hurting and feeling like, let's do something to help them, you know.
[00:17:26]  But much like the benevolent dictator example, now let's see how it works in real life.
[00:17:32]  And when you start to look into the bill, oh, not only is it the point that you made about how it's basically all designed to tide over state budgets, but you know, like diversity is mentioned like a few dozen times.
[00:17:49]  There's a huge amnesty.
[00:17:51]  They also extend, now we'll see what actually ends up getting through.
[00:17:55]  This was the Democrats' version that passed the House, but they're extending the $1,200 a month checks to illegal immigrants as well, because they're also entitled to this money.
[00:18:06]  And, you know, and a whole bunch of other stuff, like grants for majority, you know, minority-owned banks and all of this other like affirmative action garbage that's just like stuffed right in there.
[00:18:19]  And it's like, wow, man, there's something really revealing about being in a time of such a serious problem.
[00:18:25]  Whatever you think of the virus, which certainly is a somewhat serious problem, but the fucking, you know, 35 million people losing their job, that's a serious problem.
[00:18:35]  All these things are serious problems.
[00:18:37]  And you're still going on about like, you know, like fucking, I don't know, whatever wokeism you're trying to push.
[00:18:44]  Like, that's what you get in reality when you give people this type of power.
[00:18:48]  It's so funny, just, and I'll let you go, but just the last thought is that people accuse libertarians all the time of kind of living in fantasy.
[00:18:55]  You know, like, oh, this is, yeah, this is all theoretical, but in reality, you know, you need a state or you need the government to do this and that.
[00:19:02]  But really, it seems to me like the statists are the ones who have this theory worked out.
[00:19:08]  But then when you see how it works in reality, it's never people who are trying to take care of you.
[00:19:14]  You just give the criminals all the power in the world.

=== Socks vs Leftist Agenda (02:36) ===

[00:19:18]  Sorry, go ahead.
[00:19:19]  No, I just, no, I just think that one's so funny where it's like we've got a major pandemic and a viral issue.
[00:19:24]  We've got this dangerous virus that's ruining our economy.
[00:19:27]  And so part of their solution is, well, if everyone started using the right pronouns, like, yeah, it's the agenda where why is this?
[00:19:34]  That is embarrassing that you're using this as an opportunity to push a leftist agenda.
[00:19:39]  Why don't we use our resources here to actually fix the fact that there's a pandemic?
[00:19:44]  Like, you want to come forward and go, hey, we got to get all of our funding.
[00:19:47]  As a country, we're shutting down everything.
[00:19:49]  We're putting all the funding in to making sure that we got the cure.
[00:19:51]  Because once we got the cure, then we can start going back to normal.
[00:19:54]  So, you know, we're taking a centralized government approach.
[00:19:58]  We're putting all of our resources into that.
[00:20:00]  At least that's solution-oriented.
[00:20:02]  What you're pointing out, which is hilarious, is this is not solution-oriented.
[00:20:05]  It's like, well, we better, you know, equalize people a little bit and, you know, make sure that they teach more gender studies in colleges.
[00:20:14]  We're going to make sure they got that money.
[00:20:16]  No, it's agenda-oriented and it's obvious.
[00:20:19]  Like, obviously, this was part of your agenda all along, and you're seizing on this opportunity.
[00:20:25]  All right, let's take a quick second.
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[00:21:53]  All right, let's get back into the show.

=== Payments To Illegal Immigrants (15:35) ===

[00:21:55]  I wanted to talk a little bit about the stuff of the idea of giving payments to illegals.
[00:22:01]  And, you know, I've gotten in trouble, if you can say that, but I've gotten shit from some libertarians and some, you know, some people who are just being shitty,
[00:22:13]  but then also some good people who just kind of disagree with me about my position on immigration, or at least my, not exactly my position on immigration, but my willingness to entertain different short-term solutions short of the ultimate libertarian goal.
[00:22:34]  And I got to say, I wonder, like, hey, okay, libertarians, you can be against any type of border restrictions, but where are you on taxpayer money going to illegal immigrants?
[00:22:47]  Is that not something that libertarians can agree to be against?
[00:22:51]  I mean, how is it fair, you know, that in their hardest hour, in their toughest moment, that the American taxpayer is being forced to subsidize a group of people who were, you know, not even here legally, were uninvited to the country.
[00:23:12]  If you poll them, they probably don't want these illegal immigrants coming into the country.
[00:23:16]  And now they're forced through the state to give them more money.
[00:23:20]  I mean, first of all, that seems wrong, like from a libertarian perspective to me, seems wrong.
[00:23:26]  And in addition to that, I wonder if people ever consider, you know, even if you don't agree with that, or I don't know how a libertarian wouldn't agree with that, but even if you, if you like, or whatever, you know, if we're giving out money, give it to them too.
[00:23:40]  All right.
[00:23:41]  Do you think about what the ramifications for this might be?
[00:23:45]  You know, I remember when during the Democratic primary, a bunch of the Democrats were talking about reparations for slavery.
[00:23:54]  And we discussed that a few times on the podcast.
[00:23:58]  And I think just about all of them were forced to agree with it.
[00:24:02]  I forget, I think Joe Biden even, I'd have to go back and my memory is a little foggy on that, but I think Joe Biden, even because just, you know, once you're in, when you're in the Democratic primary and there's like 25 candidates or whatever it is, you just can't not get pulled into Kookieville.
[00:24:15]  So if somebody's like, I think we should give reparations for slavery, what do you think?
[00:24:18]  What are you going to be like, no?
[00:24:20]  The whole crowd be like, what do you mean?
[00:24:21]  You know what?
[00:24:21]  So, you know, even though it's not even that popular amongst the Democratic base, but the woke Democrats that are the loudest are the ones pushing it.
[00:24:29]  And me and you, you know, we kind of made fun of the idea because it's so insanely absurd.
[00:24:34]  Although, apparently, if you just stutter and don't remember things, you can get through it just fine.
[00:24:39]  It's actually not about the most liberal policy anymore.
[00:24:42]  It's just being up there and stuttering.
[00:24:44]  And, you know, well, it worked.
[00:24:46]  It worked once.
[00:24:47]  I don't know if it'll work again, but it barely worked, but it did work.
[00:24:51]  But, you know, me and you made fun of the idea of reparations because there's a lot of like silly things about the idea.
[00:24:58]  Like, you know, I think the Jews whose parents came out of Auschwitz.
[00:25:03]  Well, not mine.
[00:25:05]  We've been in Connecticut for a long time.
[00:25:06]  We've been comfortable Jews, but your grandfather.
[00:25:09]  You guys were funding Auschwitz.
[00:25:10]  Let's get real.
[00:25:12]  Pay a little bit of money.
[00:25:13]  You guys are doing good work.
[00:25:14]  Yeah, but right.
[00:25:15]  So, well, there's obviously people like that, right?
[00:25:17]  Like people who were not in the country and were fucking running for their lives in other countries.
[00:25:21]  I mean, how about white people who are the descendants of people who fought in the Civil War for the North?
[00:25:27]  Have they got to pay?
[00:25:28]  I mean, was that not enough of a payment?
[00:25:30]  You know what I mean?
[00:25:31]  To like go, you know, lose a leg in the fucking fight to free the slaves or whatever.
[00:25:36]  Whether that was really the Northern agenda or not aside.
[00:25:39]  And then there'd be other funny things like, how about, you know, Barack Obama, who's half black, but I mean, his father skipped town and he was raised by his white mother in Kansas.
[00:25:48]  Does he pay himself reparations?
[00:25:50]  Does he get them?
[00:25:51]  Does he owe them?
[00:25:52]  You know, it's then to his kids get them, who literally grew up in the White House?
[00:25:57]  Do we need to give them reparations?
[00:25:59]  I mean, there's a whole bunch of practical, let's call them difficulties with the idea of reparations for slavery.
[00:26:06]  But aside from all that, not saying that it's more important than all that, but aside from all that, something else that you might want to focus on that you would think maybe even a left-leaning individual would care about is you might want to ask yourself, what are the ramifications for that socially going to be?
[00:26:25]  I mean, do you think that this is going to help race relations in the country?
[00:26:31]  If on top of all the tax money that the average working class white person is paying, if they see an additional tax for the black people, you don't think every time they see a black guy who doesn't have a job and is just like, you know, whatever, has nice sneakers or some shit like that, that it's not just going to piss them off more and more?
[00:26:51]  I mean, I could not think of a more divisive policy that would create more racial tensions than to say, we are going to, you know, like tax this racial group to give to this racial group explicitly, not like just, oh, into the general welfare pool or whatever.
[00:27:08]  And maybe some groups take out more than others, which already causes a lot of racial tension.
[00:27:13]  But you're going to tell me that we're just going to explicitly say, hey, Mr. White Guy, you're taxed for Mr. Black guy.
[00:27:20]  And you don't think that's kind of pitting white guy and black guy against each other a little bit.
[00:27:25]  So I'd say the same thing about giving out checks to illegal immigrants.
[00:27:30]  I mean, look, if you see the rise of Donald Trump and his kind of, you know, anti-illegal immigration rhetoric as troublesome, what do you think the effect of this would be?
[00:27:45]  Do you think it's going to be to make people happier to have more illegal immigrants coming over?
[00:27:52]  Or is it possible at a time when people are losing their jobs in record numbers?
[00:27:57]  We've already had, you know, I mean, I think I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think in 2008 in that financial crisis, which was the worst one, they say in 100 years or whatever, I think, or since the Great Depression, I think that there were 12, 13 million unemployed people at the worst of that.
[00:28:17]  I mean, we've got 36 million already applying for unemployment benefits.
[00:28:23]  Some of those jobs might come back, but who the fuck knows how many?
[00:28:26]  You know, so it's like, this is a much, much worse crisis than that one was already.
[00:28:31]  And we haven't even seen the ramifications and the fallouts and all the businesses who try to get back, but then fail ultimately.
[00:28:37]  You know, we don't really know how bad it's going to be, but we know it's going to be really, really bad.
[00:28:42]  What do you think is going to be the result of forcing the taxpayer to cut checks to illegal immigrants?
[00:28:49]  My guess is it's not going to be good.
[00:28:51]  And, you know, a lot of times, particularly, I feel like libertarians will be somewhat blind to this dynamic where it's like, look, you may not, you may loathe what you call racism or, you know, in-group preference, out-group suspicion or whatever you call it.
[00:29:09]  But, you know, when it was about the war in Iraq or U.S. foreign policy, all the libertarians seem to have no problem understanding this concept that people would go, oh, okay, well, you know, we're like oppressing the Iraqis.
[00:29:25]  And you'd go like, well, Saddam Hussein used to oppress the Iraqis.
[00:29:29]  And you'd be like, yeah, but you know, there is something to the dynamic that we're a different people of a different religion, of a different race from a different culture across the world coming over here and deciding how your country is run.
[00:29:42]  And that's a little bit different than one of your own deciding how your country is run.
[00:29:46]  People tend to get a little bit more worked up about an outer group coming in and dominating them than being dominated from within.
[00:29:54]  That's just the way things work.
[00:29:57]  And you see this all over the place.
[00:29:59]  I mean, you see this in the hostilities toward the police from black people.
[00:30:04]  And then a lot of people, like your Bill O'Reilly Fox News type, will be like, well, what about the black on black crime?
[00:30:09]  And it's like, yeah, but you know what?
[00:30:10]  That's kind of at least how it's viewed as that's their own problem.
[00:30:14]  But this is like an outside force coming in and fucking with them in the same way that all of us, you might have whatever problems you have within your family.
[00:30:23]  You might have some fucking feud, you know, with your drunk uncle.
[00:30:26]  But if someone else came and attacked him, you'd be fighting right there defending him because that's your family.
[00:30:31]  You know, this is like, like it or not, this is how human beings are.
[00:30:35]  This is just, this is just reality.
[00:30:37]  This is how human beings are.
[00:30:38]  They are tribal.
[00:30:39]  They're clicky.
[00:30:41]  And this is how we've evolved.
[00:30:43]  And, you know, the same dynamic is at play here.
[00:30:47]  And I think it's, it's, you know, I would just think that if what you want is less racial tension and more harmony between different groups, this is about the worst thing that you could that you could see happen.
[00:31:03]  I don't know, Rob, you hate all races equally.
[00:31:06]  Any thoughts?
[00:31:07]  No, I agree with you 100%.
[00:31:09]  The thing that just bothers me is I get it.
[00:31:13]  Like you can get me to contribute to that charitable fund of, hey, there are people like out like, but we don't have a working strategy here for immigration where you got, you know, I don't know.
[00:31:23]  You should be allowed to be in your in your, like whatever fuck your state is, you should be allowed to be in that state and not have to be worried about changing voting demographics or incentivizing mass migration from other countries that are going to come here and really encroach on your freedom or what this country wants to look like.
[00:31:40]  And you can make changes to this.
[00:31:41]  You can make it that, you know, people that come in here illegally or like their kids are not able to vote.
[00:31:47]  Like there are changes that can be made that at least you take some of the biggest risk off the table.
[00:31:53]  And it's not that like, I think anyone who needs money shouldn't be able to get money, but I think incentivizing more mass migration into the illegal migration into this country, which is to the detriment of certain people who would probably vote in a different way from when the way that these people are going to vote in the future, it's just unbelievably not fair.
[00:32:13]  That's like the best I can say about it.
[00:32:14]  It's like, it's just, it's, you're, so like, and that's the lunacy of it.
[00:32:19]  So if you manage to sneak into this country, you're going to get free money from the United States of America.
[00:32:25]  So why would anybody not take the risk of sneaking into this country?
[00:32:28]  It'd be crazy not to.
[00:32:30]  I mean, like, even if the risks are that you spend some time in a containment center, you get to pour this, that, or the other, you might, the payday might be that you can send money back to your family.
[00:32:40]  And like, you know, there's other fucking shit.
[00:32:42]  Yeah.
[00:32:42]  That's a fair point.
[00:32:43]  You know, I've, I've heard this, um, this, this, uh, response to this line of like conversation before, um, where people will say, oh, well, do you really think people are coming here for the welfare?
[00:32:57]  Like, that's why they're coming to this country.
[00:32:59]  And well, I think it's not as simple as yes.
[00:33:02]  I think that's the overall incentives.
[00:33:05]  Well, right.
[00:33:05]  So the more, to me, the more nuanced and accurate point is that given the welfare, you're likely to have more immigrants come into the country than would otherwise come without the welfare.
[00:33:19]  I don't know exactly what percentage that is, but truthfully speaking, I think the reason why the vast majority of people come to this country illegally is because life is much, much, much better here than it is in the country that they're escaping.
[00:33:36]  Now, that's not just the welfare, that there's a lot of reasons why life is better here.
[00:33:42]  And truthfully speaking, I really, I do have a lot of sympathy for people who come over here illegally.
[00:33:50]  I mean, look, if I was fucking, if I was with my wife and daughter in one of these really just terribly broken countries with rampant crime and corruption and just, you know, a place where you're living in, you know, poverty and you have little opportunity to get out of poverty and you fear for your safety.
[00:34:10]  And then over the border over there was like a much better place to live.
[00:34:14]  I would do everything I could to try to get my wife and daughter over here.
[00:34:18]  Like, of course, I sympathize with that.
[00:34:22]  However, if I did that and I came over to this country, I would not feel entitled to a handout.
[00:34:30]  You know what I mean?
[00:34:31]  If you came over here, I'd be kind of grateful that I was able to get here.
[00:34:35]  And I'd be really appreciative if they let me stay here.
[00:34:39]  You know what?
[00:34:39]  I gotta say, I would not think I was owed $1,200.
[00:34:42]  On that note, I haven't gotten my $1,200 yet, and I'm not running around trying to get it.
[00:34:47]  It's like, I'm lucky enough that I don't absolutely need it right now.
[00:34:50]  And even if I did, there's something really weird about, oh, I'm just, the government's just going to give me money.
[00:34:55]  Like, that's not the relationship I want to have with government.
[00:34:57]  I don't feel good about it.
[00:34:58]  Like, I don't like that.
[00:34:59]  Like, so I don't really, not that this is that noble.
[00:35:02]  I just don't want to contribute to that system because I don't like it at all.
[00:35:05]  But I think that's fair too, is that it's a little bit weird.
[00:35:07]  So you're going to come into another country and just take, like, you're just going to take from the pile of cash.
[00:35:13]  I agree with you.
[00:35:14]  It's not noble.
[00:35:15]  Obviously, you didn't put into that pile of cash.
[00:35:18]  And so what do you, you know, like, look, I, I, uh, I actually haven't gotten mine either, but my wife did get hers.
[00:35:27]  And, you know, look, the, the justification I have for taking the money is that I pay taxes.
[00:35:35]  I've gotten ass raped the last two years particularly.
[00:35:39]  I mean, I paid so much fucking money in taxes.
[00:35:42]  I would be in a different situation.
[00:35:44]  If I just got a check cut to me for all the taxes I've paid in the last two years, my life would be different, like substantially different.
[00:35:51]  I'd be in a different position.
[00:35:53]  I'd, you know, like a much, much better position.
[00:35:56]  So I can justify getting some crumbs back.
[00:35:59]  But that's how I justify it.
[00:36:01]  Is that, well, this is my fucking money.
[00:36:03]  And I understand there's some flaws in that justification.
[00:36:05]  It's not exactly my money.
[00:36:06]  My money's been spent long ago, but that's how I kind of justify it.
[00:36:11]  But if I just showed up and I never put anything in, yeah, I'd feel kind of wrong about that.
[00:36:16]  And you don't have to be like an ancap libertarian to feel that way.
[00:36:20]  Just be like, this is money that isn't yours.
[00:36:21]  Now, I know, again, I hear the response to this a lot from people will be like, well, but then that would be the same justification to not give anybody who hasn't put money and money from the government.
[00:36:31]  It's like, yeah, exactly.
[00:36:32]  Yeah, it's wrong.
[00:36:33]  But here's a clear-cut example of where it's absolutely wrong.
[00:36:38]  Like there's no question that an illegal immigrant has not contributed taxes when they first come into the country, at least maybe eventually they do.
[00:36:47]  Or state it differently, maybe you could say that there's some sort of, I know we're of the mindset that taxation is theft, but I guess you could say there's some sort of a social agreement here.
[00:36:56]  We're creating social insurance for people of this country.
[00:36:59]  And so even if you end up being one of these fucking bums who grew up here and contributes nothing, so I guess you get the privilege of freeloading because people made the mistake of creating blank social insurance policy.
[00:37:11]  And so you get to benefit from it.
[00:37:13]  And I don't know, I guess maybe it's justified because some earlier generation made some great contribution, even though they probably didn't.
[00:37:21]  But like this guy's for sure outside of whatever that theoretical social contract would be or how the policy might have at least been sold and approved.
[00:37:30]  Sure.

=== Cable News Propaganda Tactics (14:57) ===

[00:37:31]  Yeah.
[00:37:31]  No, I get what you're saying.
[00:37:35]  There's, you know, it's just anyway, the whole thing is just a wild, fucking crazy situation.
[00:37:42]  You know, when I had Jen Monroe on the show and we did like, you know, kind of an immigration debate, but it was more of just a discussion.
[00:37:50]  And I like Jen a lot.
[00:37:52]  And please, by the way, guys, don't fucking, there's people who like write nasty comments when I have people.
[00:37:58]  Please, if I have a friend of mine on the show who I like, be kind to her.
[00:38:02]  We can disagree and still be gentlemen.
[00:38:07]  But, you know, she said at one point when we were talking about, I used the analogy that like, if like four homeless people show up and ask me if they can stay in my house, and I would be like, no, like, I'm sorry, you can't.
[00:38:23]  I have a wife and a daughter and this house is for them and you're not allowed in here.
[00:38:28]  And that doesn't mean that I hate the homeless people or that I don't sympathize with the empathize with the situation that they're in.
[00:38:35]  Like that's horrible.
[00:38:36]  And I hope you get yourself off the street someday.
[00:38:40]  But it doesn't mean I hate them.
[00:38:42]  It means I love my family and I'm not going to put them in a situation where I don't know.
[00:38:46]  And her response was, yeah, okay, well, then what do we do for those homeless people?
[00:38:50]  And I was like, that's a good question.
[00:38:51]  We should think about that.
[00:38:52]  But, you know, the other side of this is, but what about my family?
[00:38:58]  You know, I mean, if we're talking about letting them into my house, what about my family?
[00:39:02]  Now, I'm not saying that my family is in a worse situation than those homeless people are.
[00:39:08]  Clearly, they're not.
[00:39:10]  But that doesn't mean that that can't be a concern to me.
[00:39:13]  You know what I'm saying?
[00:39:14]  Like, that's, it's still got to be like, well, what about my fucking family?
[00:39:17]  This is our home.
[00:39:19]  Now, I'm not trying, I'm not saying everything about a private property or individual family is applicable to a state.
[00:39:24]  Certainly not, but to a nation?
[00:39:27]  Kind of.
[00:39:28]  I mean, it's kind of just a broader version of that.
[00:39:30]  Like, even think about a nation in an anarchist sense.
[00:39:33]  Like, there is no government.
[00:39:34]  There'd still be some type of geographical area of a people that identify with each other, that have common traditions and customs and history and all this shit.
[00:39:44]  So I don't think it's unreasonable to say, you know, look, it's just because you don't want someone in, or certainly don't want someone in who's not contributing.
[00:39:55]  I don't think that means you hate them or you're a hateful person.
[00:39:57]  I think that just means you want to protect what you have.
[00:40:00]  And I don't, personally, I don't see anything wrong with that.
[00:40:04]  All right.
[00:40:05]  Anyway, there's a, you know, I actually, I haven't been watching much cable news since this whole thing has been going down.
[00:40:17]  Yeah.
[00:40:18]  I'm going to do a bit on this.
[00:40:20]  Maybe we'll see if it ever works.
[00:40:21]  But when I was back in New York City and my roommate just left on Fox and CNN all the time, I mean, I was legitimately nervous I was going to die.
[00:40:29]  I was terrified.
[00:40:30]  And I think other people handle those situations well.
[00:40:33]  I just jerk off a lot because I feel like you can't take your semen with you.
[00:40:36]  You know, if you're going to die, you might as well get rid of it while you can.
[00:40:40]  Imagine if you get up to the pearly gates and they're like, all right, everyone's got their semen, right?
[00:40:44]  Wait, what?
[00:40:45]  And they're like, yeah, you need at least 10 pounds to get in.
[00:40:47]  And you're like, well, I didn't think you could take it with you.
[00:40:50]  Of course you can take it with you.
[00:40:52]  Like, that's the first page of the Bible.
[00:40:54]  Be like, we never got that.
[00:40:55]  It must have been lost in translation.
[00:40:58]  On that note, just to me, having Fox and CNN in the background, it's just, it's no good because it's on repeat.
[00:41:04]  And to some extent, you got to react to it because you're hearing it.
[00:41:07]  So even if the reactions are angry because it's bullshit, or you start getting a little bit nervous about something because it's fucking propaganda and they're good at it.
[00:41:15]  You know what I mean?
[00:41:16]  It's just, it's better off not to have it.
[00:41:17]  There's no reason for it.
[00:41:19]  Listen, I certainly understand what you're saying.
[00:41:21]  I mean, I have always watched a lot of cable news.
[00:41:26]  And part of it's because I'm on those shows and I need to know, I need to understand the game.
[00:41:32]  And part of it's because I like to look at how people are being propagandized.
[00:41:38]  And then it's good banter for the show and it's fun to tear apart and point out the absurdities and make fun of and all that stuff.
[00:41:46]  But I really haven't.
[00:41:46]  For the last few months, I haven't been like, number one, because I was staying at Lauren's family's place for a little bit and I just wasn't really sitting down and watching cable news.
[00:41:57]  And it's also weird when you're sitting there and it's like, put the fuck in.
[00:42:01]  And like, they're like, are sports back on?
[00:42:03]  And you're like, no, it's just fucking CNN, dude.
[00:42:05]  Yeah.
[00:42:06]  Yeah.
[00:42:06]  It's right.
[00:42:06]  It's not the best look.
[00:42:08]  But also, in addition to that, it's just because there's been so much craziness going on that I'm like, dude, I've, I got to read about this shit like all the time.
[00:42:16]  Like, I can't, I actually have to get information.
[00:42:18]  So I can't waste my time with cable news.
[00:42:20]  I actually have to figure shit out here.
[00:42:22]  So this is just not helpful.
[00:42:25]  But so, you know, I'm in the new place.
[00:42:28]  I got cable hookup.
[00:42:30]  And I was recording on Malice's show the other day and he was talking about this Anderson Cooper thing that was pretty funny where they had Greta Thunberg on to talk about the coronavirus.
[00:42:44]  She's transitioned from being a climate change activist to a COVID analyst or something like that.
[00:42:49]  And he was getting a lot of shit for it.
[00:42:51]  Anyway, we talked about this on Malice's podcast.
[00:42:53]  So I started watching a little bit more over the last two days.
[00:42:57]  And it's been, whew, it's like when you step away from it a while and then look back, it's really unbelievable just what a shit show of fucking idiots the cable news scene is.
[00:43:08]  And all there's still, by the way, all that stuff that was making you scared when you were back in New York, they're still at it.
[00:43:14]  They're still just fucking scaring people.
[00:43:16]  Nobody's having any frank conversations.
[00:43:19]  And it's not just that.
[00:43:20]  I mean, it's the print media too.
[00:43:22]  I just like one example, right?
[00:43:23]  So I was, I saw all these stories about COVID cases surging in Texas.
[00:43:31]  I don't know if you saw that.
[00:43:33]  There was a whole bunch of headlines.
[00:43:34]  Almost every major newspaper had an article about it.
[00:43:38]  And like I've said from the beginning of this, I've never really been somebody who's taken the position that like the virus isn't real or the virus isn't dangerous or that this isn't a serious situation.
[00:43:51]  So I don't really go into this with like a confirmation bias against the possibility of the virus spreading.
[00:43:58]  Like I think that's possible.
[00:44:00]  So I'm like, oh, okay.
[00:44:02]  Well, if the virus is surging in Texas, I want to know about it.
[00:44:05]  I read like four or five articles, actually more than that, about it.
[00:44:10]  And it's all just about how the cases are surging in Texas.
[00:44:12]  And then finally, as I'm, I saw all cable news segments about this.
[00:44:16]  You know, it's never mentioned in any of these things.
[00:44:18]  I had to actually start looking into it for myself.
[00:44:21]  God bless the internet.
[00:44:22]  You know what else has been surging in Texas?
[00:44:25]  Testing.
[00:44:27]  Testing has been surging in Texas.
[00:44:29]  So all of a sudden, you're like, oh, okay.
[00:44:32]  Now, isn't that a pretty important piece of information if you're going to talk about how cases are surging to also mention, oh, yeah, we've started testing a lot more for it.
[00:44:45]  You know, like, it's like if you just stopped, you know, if you did stop and frisk like they used to do in New York and you start stopping people and you go, the number of people who have weapons is surging.
[00:44:58]  Well, obviously you would understand that, no, no, no, this is not a reflection that the number is surging at all.
[00:45:03]  This just means you're starting to look and you're trying to fit and you're starting to figure out who actually has it.
[00:45:08]  But so that's that whole narrative is like, and it's all built around trying to convince you that ending the lockdown is going to be a big problem, that there's going to be this surge.
[00:45:18]  The screwy numbers at the end of this thing, there's a story that came out today of some hospital administrator in Florida who got fired, or she was like maintaining the COVID system.
[00:45:30]  We're going to hear so many stories about aggressive, aggressive data manipulation to either get higher fees for who was in your hospital or because people were trying to push a story and narrative about, you know, growing cases.
[00:45:45]  There's fucking fudgy numbers everywhere.
[00:45:47]  Yeah.
[00:45:48]  So as, no, absolutely.
[00:45:50]  So as I'm.
[00:45:52]  Oh, you know what I heard?
[00:45:53]  I don't know if this is true, but remember like a while ago, they were showing us all the death in Italy and how their healthcare system couldn't maintain any of it.
[00:46:00]  And then I don't know what happened to all that Italy stuff, but it seemed like Italy, the whole country was dying.
[00:46:05]  That was on the news for a while.
[00:46:06]  I don't know if this is true, but I read that the reason why they ran out of so much health care personnel in Italy was because news came of the lockdown and a lot of the healthcare in that country is actually from other countries and they didn't want to get stuck in Italy and they bailed out of the country.
[00:46:23]  Oh, really?
[00:46:23]  I didn't even know.
[00:46:24]  I don't know if that's true, but I have read that.
[00:46:27]  Well, I do, you know, there's a whole lot of, and a lot of this shit's going to be unpacked over the next few years because this is something we'll be figuring out for a while.
[00:46:36]  But there's a whole lot of other interesting little stories because it turns out that like most things, this shit is complex and there's a lot of factors that go into all of these things and a lot of unforeseen results of different policies that are taken that you don't, you know, people don't necessarily, so, you know, there's been stories all across the country of medical workers being furloughed.
[00:47:00]  Now, that certainly isn't something that most people thought was going to happen at the beginning of this, but it turns out that like all types of elective surgeries and things like that have been completely put off.
[00:47:10]  And this brings in a whole bunch of revenue.
[00:47:12]  And so they're losing all of this and they don't need a lot of people who work on those things.
[00:47:16]  There's a whole bunch of with all these, you know, government policies, a lot of unforeseen consequences.
[00:47:21]  Anyway, so I was watching cable news for the last couple of days.
[00:47:27]  And just almost when you step away from it and then look back, you're like, oh my God, this thing is such a shit show.
[00:47:32]  I almost forgot.
[00:47:33]  I had my mind on other things.
[00:47:34]  And then I just happened to today, a few hours ago, I came across this tweet.
[00:47:39]  Someone might have shared it in the inner circle.
[00:47:41]  I forget exactly where I saw it first, but I saw it was a tweet from Oliver Darcy, who is his title, he's a senior media reporter at CNN.
[00:47:52]  So, Oliver Darcy, this was his tweet.
[00:47:55]  And I thought this was amazing.
[00:47:58]  And just, you know, sometimes our only weapon is that the people in the ruling elite, let's say, are in such a bubble that they don't even realize they're giving away their hand and they just give it away because they're so removed from reality.
[00:48:21]  So, this is Oliver Darcy's tweet.
[00:48:23]  Okay, let me read this for you guys.
[00:48:25]  It says, Fox can't get its story straight.
[00:48:29]  While one host zings Trump for taking hydrochloroquine, another host encourages its use.
[00:48:34]  While one medical contributor calls it highly irresponsible, another says it's reasonable.
[00:48:40]  What are viewers to believe?
[00:48:43]  This isn't unlike our top-down approach at CNN, where we get one narrative and everyone's got to report upon the one narrative.
[00:48:51]  And we don't leave anything for interpretation.
[00:48:53]  It's not that we bring in experts with competing views.
[00:48:56]  We get one order, one directive, everybody falls in line.
[00:49:00]  It's like, unbelievable.
[00:49:02]  I can't believe he said this out loud, let alone tweeted it out to everyone and thought that the response would be like, ah, you got Fox News.
[00:49:12]  Where's their CIA rep who gives them the marching orders?
[00:49:15]  And this is the one piece of information.
[00:49:17]  So you're criticizing Fox News, who listen, Fox News is not without their flaws.
[00:49:23]  Trust me.
[00:49:24]  I'm not like a Fox News fanboy, but your criticism of them is that they have different points of view expressed throughout the day.
[00:49:35]  And it's not just the same talking points over and over.
[00:49:39]  Okay, so that's your criticism.
[00:49:41]  I mean, you've had one medical expert who feels one way and then another one who feels another way.
[00:49:46]  I mean, who does that?
[00:49:48]  I don't know.
[00:49:49]  I mean, wouldn't any responsible news network do that?
[00:49:52]  Not again, not saying Fox News is that, but they're a lot better than fucking CNN and MSNBC.
[00:49:57]  You'll actually hear different perspectives there.
[00:49:59]  Like, yes, it's true.
[00:50:01]  If you look at Neil Cavuto and then Kennedy and then Tucker and then Hannity, you might get four different perspectives on how things are going.
[00:50:10]  And I don't get what's so horrible about that, but I almost have to read this again to really break down how astounding it is that he would say this.
[00:50:20]  The first sentence is: Fox can't get its story straight.
[00:50:27]  As if you're supposed to get your story straight.
[00:50:30]  Like everybody, like you just said, everybody has not gotten on board with the program.
[00:50:36]  I mean, what's going on?
[00:50:37]  Don't you guys have morning meetings where you're given your marching orders for the day?
[00:50:42]  Is someone not at these meetings?
[00:50:44]  Has the program director not cherry-picked the doctors with the exact point of view that you've decided the American people should know?
[00:50:52]  Oh my God.
[00:50:53]  And then the final sentence, which really, I mean, this is revealing, and particularly from somebody who's a senior, what did I say?
[00:51:02]  He was senior, a senior reporter over at CNN.
[00:51:08]  He says at the end, what are viewers to believe?
[00:51:14]  As if the role of a senior reporter at CNN, a reporter, that is his title, is to tell you what to believe.
[00:51:27]  That's the goal of news is to make sure you believe a certain way.
[00:51:34]  I thought the job of a reporter was to report the news.
[00:51:43]  I didn't think it was to make sure that your audience believes certain things.
[00:51:49]  I thought the job was allegedly to give information, report the news, right?
[00:51:56]  Give people the facts.
[00:51:57]  Remember the old from third grade when they taught you what reporting was?
[00:52:01]  It was like a who, what, when, why, where, all that, give it to you.
[00:52:05]  And then you, the viewer, you make up your mind.
[00:52:08]  You decide what you think.
[00:52:09]  I mean, look, I'm giving you the facts.
[00:52:11]  This is the story.
[00:52:12]  You decide what you think, right?
[00:52:15]  But this is a very clear admission that that is not the goal.
[00:52:20]  I responded, I quote, tweeted it and said, I mean, I was like, if this isn't an admission that CNN is pure propaganda, I don't know what would be.

=== Climate Change Worth The Price (04:33) ===

[00:52:29]  But that's it right there for you.
[00:52:30]  And so it was just interesting that I happened to see that tweet right as I was, you know, reacquainting myself with the shit show that is cable news.
[00:52:39]  Anyway, I thought that was, I just couldn't not mention that on the show.
[00:52:45]  All right.
[00:52:45]  So one other thing that I wanted to mention before we get out of here was something that I, another thing that I read an article about.
[00:52:54]  And I don't know that this number is exact.
[00:52:57]  It's hard to say, but there was a projection that carbon emissions have been down 17% globally since this whole shutdown, lockdown, COVID response business has started, which I thought was kind of interesting.
[00:53:22]  I wonder if you are a climate change activist, as so many people tend to be, how you are forced in some ways to feel about this situation, right?
[00:53:39]  I mean, isn't that kind of an interesting thought?
[00:53:42]  Like government sends me a check.
[00:53:44]  So apparently we don't need to be out there working for the economy to be cooking because the money I make each month just still shows up by government.
[00:53:52]  So government could be chit pitching in to save the planet by just sending me the check.
[00:53:55]  Yes, yes.
[00:53:56]  No, you know, I think there's some opportunity.
[00:53:59]  You know, I've been trying from the very beginning of this to see the opportunity in all of this because I think that's the only productive thing you can do.
[00:54:07]  And when things are very bad or very hard, there oftentimes will be an opportunity that's presented with that.
[00:54:15]  You know what I mean?
[00:54:16]  Like if you get fired from your job or something like that, it's like, okay, this is terrible.
[00:54:22]  This is a crisis.
[00:54:23]  But it's also maybe an opportunity to try to get a better job.
[00:54:26]  You know what I mean?
[00:54:26]  Like you have to, in life in general, that's like the winner's attitude that you have to have.
[00:54:32]  Even when things are bad, you have to look at what the opportunity is.
[00:54:35]  And to me, from the very beginning, I've been talking about, you know, like a new liberty moment, a new liberty movement, a new, you know, the government exposing itself, focusing on all the ways that they screwed people over and things like that.
[00:54:46]  And I wonder if after this is all over, it's going to become very obvious, I think, how much the economic carnage is going to hurt people.
[00:54:57]  I mean, you're going to be talking about just tens of millions of people's lives are just going to be completely upended by all of this.
[00:55:03]  And I wonder if maybe there's not an opportunity to either convert maybe a few of the climate change proponents away from or, you know, that, or maybe at least have them kind of look right into the true nature of their views, or at least, if not that, to rally other people about how truly evil some of the implications from their policies are.
[00:55:25]  But I would say this way, look, if you are one of the climate change fanatics, how could you not think this was a good thing?
[00:55:34]  I mean, you almost by definition have to.
[00:55:37]  I mean, if you're telling me that the fate of the world, you know, relies on reducing carbon emissions and we need a bold, serious move.
[00:55:49]  I mean, you couldn't have imagined anything that would lower carbon emissions more than these lockdowns have, right?
[00:55:54]  I mean, you could, what policy, even AOC's policy wouldn't have fucking done this shit.
[00:55:58]  So she wasn't going to shut down half the industrial, you know, world.
[00:56:04]  So what's it?
[00:56:07]  What's, you know, a few million people's lives being ruined.
[00:56:10]  I mean, everyone's going to be fucking killed if we don't tackle climate change, right?
[00:56:14]  So it's got to be worth it.
[00:56:16]  But like, it has to be.
[00:56:17]  If you're telling me climate change is this bad, then this has to be worth it.
[00:56:21]  So really, even if there was no virus, you should be cheering on what governments around the world have done.
[00:56:29]  So that's the position that you are forced to own.
[00:56:33]  You have to own that I think we should have global shutdowns without a virus.
[00:56:42]  And ultimately, that this was a great thing.
[00:56:44]  This was a great thing for the world that this all happened.
[00:56:48]  I have a feeling that's going to be a pretty hard position to win people toward.
[00:56:58]  But I could be wrong.
[00:57:01]  I don't know.

=== Cheering Government Climate Action (03:20) ===

[00:57:02]  Any thoughts, Robbie?
[00:57:03]  That sounds fair enough to me, man.
[00:57:06]  All right.
[00:57:07]  Well, that's what I like to hear.
[00:57:09]  All right.
[00:57:09]  Well, listen, we're going to wrap it up on that one.
[00:57:12]  Glad we banged this stuff out.
[00:57:14]  Hey, I got a lot of positive response for our Back to Basic, Back to Basics show on the Fed.
[00:57:20]  So I think maybe we'll do another one of those coming up soon.
[00:57:22]  I haven't decided yet the next Back to Basic should be.
[00:57:25]  But if you have an idea for a basic...
[00:57:27]  What would the next topic be?
[00:57:28]  Well, listen, if you have an idea out there, I'm going to call on the people.
[00:57:31]  If you have an idea for like one of the basic, like foundational, you know, beliefs of libertarians that you think we should do another like kind of primer intro thing on, let me know.
[00:57:42]  Hit me up on the Twitter or the Facebook and let me know what you think.
[00:57:47]  All right.
[00:57:48]  Thanks for listening, everybody.
[00:57:49]  Thank you, Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
[00:57:51]  Go check out Run Your Mouth, Rob's hilarious, informative podcast.
[00:57:56]  And, you know, before you know it, we'll be back in a town near you, or at least back in the studio.
[00:58:02]  Rochester.
[00:58:03]  That's Rochester.
[00:58:05]  Yes, that's right.
[00:58:06]  What's the dates for that?
[00:58:08]  So come see us then.
[00:58:10]  Rochester.
[00:58:11]  Just go now and wait at the club.
[00:58:13]  And, you know, sometime the next two months, we'll be there for one night.
[00:58:16]  Just make sure you don't miss it.
[00:58:18]  All right.
[00:58:19]  Thanks for listening, guys.
[00:58:20]  Peace.
[00:58:21]  Thanks for listening to the show, guys.
[00:58:23]  And as I told you, here is that clip from the Peddling Fiction podcast.
[00:58:27]  Check it out.
[00:58:27]  Hope you enjoy it.
[00:58:29]  Anyone claiming that America's economy is in decline is peddling fiction.
[00:58:35]  And libertarians are better Democrats than the Democrats and better Republicans than the Republicans.
[00:58:43]  A Republican president, a Republican-controlled Congress, presided over the biggest expansion of government up to that point in history.
[00:58:53]  And what's going to happen when they realize that Social Security is nothing but a racist, sexist, ageist, Ponzi scheme?
[00:59:04]  I mean, how badly do you have to screw something up before we finally conclude that maybe government can't solve this problem?
[00:59:13]  The free market is the ultimate expression of democracy.
[00:59:19]  I do the show two days a week.
[00:59:21]  It's a free show.
[00:59:23]  You sure you don't want to see some evidence to back up any of their claims before you get us into another war?
[00:59:30]  Their entire existence is exploitative.
[00:59:34]  Everything they eat, everything they drink, the roof over their heads, it was all paid for from theft at the threat of violence.
[00:59:44]  Isn't it interesting that an education system run by the government somehow churns out a bunch of people who favor the government handling everything?
[00:59:54]  That's the type of accounting that would get you thrown in prison if anybody else were to do it.
[01:00:00]  But that's how the federal government operates: black, white, Indian, Asian, rich, poor, short, tall, everybody benefits from freer markets.
[01:00:14]  Libertarianism is principled, it's philosophically sound.
[01:00:18]  In the arena of ideas, we cannot be defeated.

=== Libertarianism Cannot Be Defeated (00:19) ===

[01:00:23]  This is the Pedaling Fiction podcast.
[01:00:27]  The voice and soul of so-called fiction.
[01:00:33]  Follow me on Twitter at Peddle Fiction, download and subscribe.
[01:00:37]  And no matter what happens, keep on peddling that so-called fiction.
[01:00:41]  Peace.