Dave Smith and Robbie DeFire Bernstein dissect the Libertarian Party's internal crisis over Joe Jorgensen's "anti-racist" tweet, which sparked Tim Mohan's open letter criticizing the party for disavowing her. They debate whether adopting leftist rhetoric to subvert cultural Marxism alienates voters or drives them toward fascism, citing a Vancouver 420 anecdote where an organizer embraced Hitler after rejecting such language. Ultimately, the hosts argue libertarians must reject culture war pandering and focus on individual justice rather than collective mandates, warning that imprecise political alignment threatens the party's survival. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Rolling Back The State00:02:44
Fill her up.
You're listening to the Gash Digital Network.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to more of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, Dave Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I'm the most consistent motherfucker.
You know, Dave Smith.
And as always, I'm joined by Robbie DeFire Bernstein, the king of the caulks, still the king of the caulks ever since Kanye pulled out of the race.
Caulks will rise again.
How are you, sir?
Pretty good.
Michael Ice.
He actually hit me up over the weekend.
Who did?
Michael Heiss.
Oh, I was hoping it was Kanye.
All right.
That's not a not bad second, you know, conciliatory prize.
Consolation prize, whatever.
Oh, what'd you guys talk about?
Overthrowing me?
Was that a conversation?
Overthrowing me.
No, no, no.
He was saying everyone should get their condoms ready because we're going to fuck this caucus.
That's what he said.
I asked him if I could quote him on that.
He said, absolutely, man.
That guy is on.
We're going to fuck the caucus.
Well, not the caucus.
We're going to fuck up the party.
We're going to fuck up the party.
Yeah, we're going to fuck up the party.
We're going to use the caucus to fuck up the party.
There we go.
I mean, if we're fucking the caucus, that's just.
But we're going to wear condoms because we're going to be gentlemen about it.
Oh, well, that's sweet.
Yeah, no, Michael Heiss is great.
I love that guy.
Oh, he's got some big moves planned.
You just saw version one on this past one.
He's got some big things in store.
Yeah, I was texting back and forth with him the other day.
He's got some good ideas that I'm excited about to really take over this fucker for next time.
But yeah, I'm excited about it.
Like I said in the last podcast, Dublin, doubling down, redoubling my efforts.
Me Caux will rise again.
You mark my words.
Mark my words.
That's a gay ass fucking call.
Mecox, we'll get there.
There's like one of these like Star Walk types and he's up there like giving a speech and he's like, we must be anti-racist.
And then you just hear, COG.
So, sir.
Oh, Jesus.
Well, okay, speaking of Libertarian Party stuff, I wanted to respond to start today's podcast to a letter that I received.
Responding To Joe Jorgensen00:06:46
I got a letter.
I got some mail.
I didn't exactly get it.
It was posted on the internet, but it was a letter to me.
And it's from Tim Mohen.
I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly, M-O-E-N.
And it's up at TimMohan.net.
If anyone wants to go check it out, read it.
It's called an open letter to Dave Smith and Jojo Critics.
So it's a letter from a member of the Canadian Libertarian Party.
And he wrote me a letter about criticizing Joe Jorgensen over the whole TweetGate thing.
Let me just preface going into this by saying, I feel as though I am being forced to spend a lot of time on this tweet.
And I suppose I'm not by the libertarian definition of the word being forced to, but I feel like I, so when Joe Jorgensen sent out this god-awful, pandering, fucking annoying tweet, I literally, I recorded the solo episode.
I mean, I recorded it right away.
I actually had plans of a different idea.
And she sent off that tweet like an hour before I was going to record.
And so I just, I ranted on it.
She didn't even send out, at least I didn't see her send out the backtrack tweet till after I had recorded the show.
Then I recorded Malice's episode, an episode of You're Welcome.
And what we do on those crossover episodes is just whoever's show it is, they host and they talk about what they want to talk about.
And he wanted to talk about it.
And I was happy to talk about it with him again because, you know, he's outside the party.
I'm inside.
He always has an interesting take on these things.
So, you know, we did another episode.
And we had already recorded part one of the two-parter that I did with Pete.
And it's about the Marxist organization, Black Lives Matter, and their influence over the movement.
And one of the recordings that we were playing for the second episode was literally the person saying it's not enough to be racist.
You have to be anti-racist and talking about what anti-racism is.
And it was like impossible to not discuss it.
So I ended up doing several episodes on this.
Then, in response to me posting about it in the Mises caucus, Spike Cohen, the VP nominee, was like, I'm happy to come on your show and talk to you about it.
So I felt like I had to accept that.
So we're setting that up.
That'll be one of the next episodes.
We'll have Spike Cohen on.
Then Adam Kokesh, one of the candidates for president this year who didn't make it, he started kind of talking shit about how it's racists who are calling them Marxists.
And I went back and forth with him.
And then he's like, well, why don't you come on my show and talk about it?
So now it's like another two podcasts I have to do about this thing.
And then this guy wrote me this open letter and I feel like I have to respond.
So just so I'm saying, I did not just randomly choose to spend this much time talking about one stupid tweet.
We're milking this cow dry.
But yeah, we are really milking it.
I feel like it's, I don't know what else to do.
I feel like I have to respond to this stuff.
So hopefully while we're milking this cow dry, we can get some other, you know, kind of, you know, interesting analysis out of it and have an important thing.
Because I do think, look, the fact that people are so upset over this tweet demonstrates something.
And it's something that I've been talking about for quite a while, which is, you know, the relationship between libertarianism and culture.
And the fact is, as much as someone like me, someone like Robbie, may not like it, we wish there were people out in the streets over monetary policy or over, you know, the debt or, you know, the wars or any of these things.
But that's not what's going on.
People, we are in the midst of a full-fledged culture war in America.
And this is what most people really care about.
And what Joe Jorgensen's tweet really represented to a lot of people was jumping into the culture war, taking one side of it and taking the worst part of that one side.
Okay.
And this is why so many people are upset.
And what I said initially, I almost feel like, and listen, I skimmed through this letter, but I haven't really read the whole point that he's making.
So we'll see.
And I'm to try to approach this with an open mind.
But I don't know how anyone could really argue at this point that it wasn't a disaster just based on the response of it.
It turned off a lot more people than it turned on.
And it has in this young campaign season for Joe Jorgensen become the thing.
Like this is what people are talking about.
And I guess I'm, you know, somewhat guilty of stoking those flames.
But hey, like I just told you, you know, I don't know what to do.
Yeah, Doc.
Can I criticize this letter before we read it?
Of course, you can.
You know what?
We don't even have to read it.
We could just spend the rest of the show with you criticizing it.
Blind.
Thank you.
No, I gave it a fair read, and I think this guy's interesting, smart fellow, but I feel like he needs to redo his homework because he only addresses the tweet, which is half of the evidence that we put forward to say that George Jorgensen is running with appealing to the leftists.
We weren't just working off the tweet.
We played that really damning audio where she said that she praised a company for firing someone for saying all lives matter.
Okay, let me give this guy the benefit of the doubt on that.
This was written the same day we did that podcast.
So it's quite possible that he's responding to things that I did before that and not responding to what me and you said on the last show.
But yeah, that audio that's going to be a big problem for two, particularly coming off the heels of that tweet.
The two of them seem to go together.
When you seem to be saying you can't just be not racist, we must be anti-racist, and also seem to be praising a company for firing someone for saying all lives matter.
That's you're kind of embracing the worst aspect of the left half of the culture war.
Like this thing.
And by the way, that's really what I think more people have to understand.
That this is what it's all about.
This is like both to the left and the right.
This is why the culture war is what everyone's invested in.
I mean, number one, because people don't know anything about monetary policy.
Embracing Culture War Worst Aspects00:08:35
I mean, literally anything.
People don't know what monetary policy is.
If you ask the random person on the street, they'll have no idea what you're talking about, let alone have an opinion on how it affects the economy.
But people feel strongly about their culture.
And many people on the left feel like the culture we live in is inherently exploitive and that it's racist and all of these other things.
And they don't want to live in a white supremacist culture.
Right, supremacist culture.
Sorry, I know I make that mistake a lot.
And people on the right feel like there is a growing culture that is against them and they don't like that.
And they feel like everything about their cultural heritage has been or is being destroyed.
And by the way, that's a big part of the whole Trump movement and even the immigration shit being at the center of it.
It's like we feel like we're losing the fucking culture.
So of course we don't want other cultures flooding into our culture.
You know, like this is these are all related.
But I do want to jump into the article.
Let's read it and let's give it its due.
Okay.
So reading from TimMohn.net, an open letter to Dave Smith and JoJo critics.
Dear Dave, I am Joe Jorgensen's counterpart in Canada.
I am the Libertarian Party candidate for prime minister.
I recently saw the predictable avalanche of libertarians and alt-writers disavow and/or criticize the libertarian presidential candidate over what seemed to be absolutely nothing.
I was suffering from caffeine and nicotine withdrawal at the time, and I wrote a very uncharitable rant about the loser brigade once again attacking a fellow libertarian.
Then I had a sudden pang of panic.
I crossed my fingers and muttered under my breath, please, Dave Smith, don't join in.
Damn it, you joined in.
Joined in.
I'm making a small career off of it.
That is an understatement.
Okay, so.
Also, what happened to this caffeine and nicotine supply?
Yeah, I mean, here's so.
Yeah, I have an easy solution for you.
Don't be such a fucking quitter.
Keep up with the nicotine.
If you're trying to be the president of Canada, how are you going to do it without nicotine?
You can't even keep your caffeine and nicotine stashes ample for yourself.
Now you don't want to run a whole country.
Yeah, really.
I don't know.
I don't know, Tim.
You're worrying me on this.
Obama smoked through his entire presidency to make sure that he can handle the stresses of the job.
That's at least he was willing to do that.
That was so rarely covered, and it was my favorite thing about Obama that he was just ripping butts in the Oval Office.
That's all right.
Anyway, so let me just say that if, look, forget the very uncharitable rant.
I didn't hear it, but if you're apologizing for it and you were on nicotine withdrawal or whatever, water under the bridge, whatever you said about me or other people or whatever, who cares?
Let's move on.
But I will say, if you're saying they're criticizing Joe Jorgensen over what seemed to be absolutely nothing, I just think you don't have your finger on the pulse.
And part of that might be that you're in Canada and the, you know, like the culture war in America might be different than what's going on in Canada.
I don't really think that's the case because I saw the whole Jordan Peterson thing and how that went down.
I think you guys have some of it up there as well.
But it's not absolutely nothing.
And I think we've kind of laid out an argument for why it's not.
And as far as like the alt-right disavowing, I don't know.
I really sometimes don't even know what people are talking about when they talk about the alt-right anymore.
The like Richard Spencer types of the world, they don't care about the Libertarian Party.
They have no interest in it.
And they don't, I just don't think this is even on their radar, to be honest.
But whatever.
Who cares what those guys are saying?
The truth is a whole lot of libertarians were upset about what Joe Jorgensen said.
So anyway, let's move on.
Okay, back to the letter.
I'm a big fan.
I listen to all of your podcasts.
And so you are allowed one or two deviations from my 100% correct worldview.
You're also an effective and stalwart promoter and defender of liberty.
And our movement owes you immense respect and gratitude.
Damn it.
I used the words our and O's.
I'm starting to question my own ANCAP bona fides.
Well, hey, at least you didn't use the words we and must.
Still doing a little bit better.
Well, I appreciate that very much.
That's very nice of you to say.
And it's also an excellent tactic to disarm me.
Compliment me up and down.
And now I'm opened up to your message.
But I do appreciate that very much.
My intention here is to avoid being unfairly critical of another libertarian because the goal of this letter is to push back on the libertarian instinct to unfairly criticize our own.
I hope I'm not doing that here, but I'm open to the fact that I may be way off base and that I'll look back at this letter with embarrassment.
I'm already embarrassed about my Nick Fit-fueled rant and using the term loser brigade so cavalierly.
Well, I appreciate that.
It's a very nice way to start the letter.
Far be it from me to criticize anyone for using the term loser brigade cavalierly.
I think that that's a great term and I love tossing it.
There are fucking losers.
Yeah.
There are a whole bunch.
However, this, look, let me just say, it's not, at least what we mean when we talk about the loser brigade, right, is the point that me and Tom Woods were making is that there is this group of libertarians who just constantly attack us, right?
Like constantly call us all types of names.
We're racist.
We're alt-right adjacent.
We're whatever, Nazi sympathizers.
I've gotten straight up called Nazi, all these things.
And none of them have any following.
None of them have accomplished anything.
None of them do anything.
And it's not just to make that point to mock them, although that's a pretty big part of it.
The point is also that it's like, guys, you're making your argument and nobody's getting on board with this.
There's just the 12 of you.
I almost wish they had a leader or a figure who was, you know, someone, someone relevant, so I could have them on and have like a real take the gloves off debate with them.
That would be fun and probably good content and, you know, like it may be productive.
But the point is that this is like you guys, you don't have a following.
You don't have an audience.
You're not doing anything.
You're not making any impact.
It's just a bunch of losers bitching.
That's kind of our argument.
The people who have been upset with Joe Jorgensen's tweet have been people who are relevant, do have followings, are making coherent arguments, not just name calling.
So I've seen already, right?
So there's like me, Tom, Bob Murphy, Jason Stapleton, Eric July, Mance Rader, Pete Crononas.
You know, like a lot of people in this world, dude, fucking, what's his name?
Tim Poole, who's not like a strict libertarian like we are, but a guy who's like open to supporting a libertarian candidate and has libertarian leanings and has a humongous platform, did a whole show on how cringe and embarrassing that tweet was.
So this is kind of the point.
It's not just random, irrelevant people with no following who are upset by this.
It's like a lot of people who you really want to be on your side, who should be your supporters.
Like, how hard should it be for a libertarian to convert me and Rob to being like, yeah, we're on board with this libertarian?
It should be fairly easy.
So that's kind of the distinction there.
But anyway, let's get back into the letter.
Okay.
I've heard a lot of uncharitable takes and interpretations of JoJo's tweet in order of most serious to least serious.
She's a Marxist.
She's actively promoting cultural Marxism.
She's pandering to the unappeasable left in the first degree with intent and planning.
She's planning without intent and just had a lapse in judgment.
And an inexperienced or secretly Marxist staffer made the tweet, not her.
After listening to your podcast, I think you may be accusing her of pandering in the second degree.
She isn't doing it with planning and forethought, but maybe she is panicked and is trying to appease the unappeasable left.
Investing In Gold And Crypto00:02:33
I don't, you know, obviously, look, the speculating that she's a secret Marxist stuff, I think, is just stupid.
I really haven't seen that.
I'm not to say that hasn't happened, but I haven't seen any of that.
And I don't think that's the serious critique that serious people are making.
I'm not really, I haven't spent that much time speculating about what's going through her head.
My guess is Joe Jorgensen didn't tweet it.
That's my guess, but I don't fucking know.
I don't know if she runs her Twitter or someone else runs her Twitter.
But that's never really the point.
The point is what the message sends, what the moment we're living in now, and what message this sends, which is a really, really bad one.
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Addressing General Public Concerns00:14:56
All right, let's get back into the show.
Okay, back to the letter.
I want to propose two other possible takes on her tweet that are charitable.
One, she is appealing to the general public who are concerned about racism and the plight of black people.
Two, she is actively subverting cultural Marxism.
Okay, so I don't think those are charitable interpretations.
I think those are crazy interpretations.
Like, I mean, they are charitable.
I don't think they're within reason to assume.
So, number one, if you say she's appealing to the general public who are concerned about racism, okay, well, there's a few problems with this.
Number one, if the general public is already concerned about racism, then you really don't have to lecture them about how they must be anti-racist, right?
Like, if the general public is already against racism, then what's the point of saying, well, we have this big problem with racism if the general public is against racism.
There is no general public on these issues in America.
We're in the middle of a culture war.
You're not appealing to the general public.
You're appealing to one side of the general public.
And in the process of doing it, you're throwing a lot of people under the bus.
So when you say it's not enough to be passively not racist, you know who's passively not racist?
Most Americans.
That describes the majority of people.
Passively not racist.
I mean, maybe not absent 100% of racism.
We all have our prejudices.
But that's basically the general public.
Probably most Libertarian Party members as well.
And you're basically saying, no, no, no, you're still not good people.
The role of the Libertarian presidential nominee is not to be a voice to attack the American people.
Your role is to be our voice and attack the state.
That's what we put you there for.
Not to fucking attack us or just the American people in general.
So I don't know.
I don't think that that's accurate.
I don't think it's not enough to not be racist.
We must be anti-racist is an appeal to the general public.
I don't think that's true.
And number two, she's actively subverting cultural Marxism.
Well, I guess I'm just missing the subversion.
She's just parroting their talking points.
I don't see how she's subverting them, but I'll be open to seeing your argument.
All right.
As a political candidate, I have had the opportunity to speak in front of diverse groups.
Some of these groups lean left, some lean right, some are NPCs, some are apolitical, and then there's the general public.
With each group, I try to communicate the message of liberty in a way that they will understand.
When I talk about drug legalization to a right-leaning group, it sounds a bit different than when I am talking to a left-leaning group, which sounds a bit different than a libertarian group.
Conservatives care about order.
Liberals care about oppression.
Libertarians care about liberty.
My goal when communicating is to try and explain how the philosophy of liberty addresses their deepest concerns.
Okay.
I don't have a problem with that.
When my normie friends say black lives matter, they don't mean I'm pandering to cultural Marxists.
They also don't mean I'm panicked about getting canceled and so I'm signaling my virtue.
My normie friends mean I'm genuinely concerned about racism and the plight of black people.
There are people who essentially are apolitical.
They hate Trudeau.
They hate Trump.
They hate Biden.
They don't trust politicians.
They haven't thought about political philosophy and they are immersed in a culture where the media establishes language and tells them what to be concerned about.
Okay, so I don't disagree with you that saying when people say Black Lives Matter, it doesn't really mean I'm a Marxist.
Of course not.
Yeah, of course that's not what it means.
The problem here is Jojo actually went one step further because she doesn't just say, hey, Black Lives Matter, she goes, you have to actively be an anti-racist.
Now, the issue with that is I am anti-racist.
I'm not, I don't like racism.
Sure, let's get rid of all of it.
But when you say you have to be actively anti-racist, that sounds to me like you're heading in the direction of that there's some sort of an activity you need to do or there's something that you need to swear allegiance to.
And if you haven't, then you're not doing your part.
And that's what I take issue with because who gets to be the judge?
Who gets to impose this upon me?
Like it's the first step to brainwashing.
That's what they did in like, I think the Chinese did it first.
They made Americans and like they do this in colleges now.
They make them like swear, you know, they sign their statements.
And once they sign their statements, then like they're very easy to brainwash because they've already taken like people don't like to be inconsistent with their actions.
That's why the first thing you do when you get to college campus is now they use that tool and they make them sign these affirmations.
That's step one.
You sign the affirmation and then all of a sudden you don't want to think of yourself as some big fat phony.
You just sign shit.
So you start thinking in that direction.
This is the step one move is to go, you have to swear allegiances to this.
No, I just have to not do racist shit.
Like because, and that's the point.
Let's put forward principles.
You want to step forward and say, hey, I agree with your take that Black Lives Matters.
And here's how the Libertarian Party deals with this.
And then you explain our philosophy of freedom.
Go for that.
But that's not what you're doing here.
Yes, it's a very different thing.
So I don't necessarily disagree with anything that he said there.
It's just this isn't addressing what any of our problem is with what Joe Jorgensen said.
Again, it's not that most people say Black Lives Matter mean all of this other shit.
But the ones who do mean all of this other shit say literally what Joe Jorgensen said.
It's not enough to be passively not racist.
We must be anti-racist.
This is a very strange thing for a libertarian to be saying, okay?
That's not actually what we believe.
First of all, what libertarians actually believe is actually that you have a right to be racist as long as you're not violent against anybody.
We're not really into controlling what people think.
What we don't want is initiating force against people for anything, whether it's racism or any other reason.
That's what we're against.
Now, you can also be a human being and a libertarian and say, I really don't like the racist stuff either.
But when you're running for president on the Libertarian Party, I think your role is to say like, like actually to the average American person, yeah, if you're just not racist, that's fine.
That's more than enough.
We're not trying to control the hearts and minds of random Americans.
Let people figure that out on their own and people can make good arguments or bad arguments and hopefully the good ones win.
The problem are X, Y, and Z policies.
And that's why we're against the state.
The state is the problem.
Clear up all this statism shit and the rest will sort itself out.
So again, it's just whatever.
She's not just saying Black Lives Matter.
And if she was and she said it in a coherent libertarian way, I wouldn't have any problem with it.
I doubt Rob would.
And I doubt most of these other people would.
So again, okay, let's get back to the letter.
When confronted with this fact, what is the best way to attract these normies to the Libertarian Party?
Is it to refuse to use the language of my friends and tell them that they're falling into a leftist trap?
Is it to be a harsh critic and establish myself as someone who doesn't share any of their general concerns?
Is it to use the common language they use and show them how our philosophy addresses their concerns?
Okay, so.
That's all that firstly, that's all kind of a false choice.
And also, she did not use their language to then, you know, reorient it towards a libertarian philosophy.
If she had done that, then sure, yeah, that would be a great way to approach it.
There's a stronger argument that she's reorienting the libertarian view to their philosophy than vice versa.
Again, this is a little bit of a false choice.
I mean, you're kind of asking questions where you obviously know the answer and no one's seriously proposing that.
Is it to be a harsh critic and establish myself as someone who doesn't share any of their general concerns?
Well, no.
Did anyone suggest that that's what you're supposed to do?
Of course not.
Like, that's not the goal.
No, the goal would be to say that, like, you know, you could say something like, of course, I believe that Black Lives Matter.
And here's three policies that I think will make life better for black people.
There's nothing wrong with that.
I wouldn't have a problem with that at all.
And then it's like, is it to use common language they use and show them how our philosophy addresses their concerns?
Well, certainly the goal is to show them how our philosophy addresses their concerns.
That's always the issue.
The truth is, though, right?
And this is why Joe Jorgensen's in heat.
And if you don't get this, then you're not going to get this whole thing.
You're going to be sitting there going, I don't see what the big deal is.
And it's just alt writers who are upset about this.
Here's the thing.
There's a culture war going on and Joe Jorgensen sloppily dove into the culture war and picked a side.
And the other ones are pissed off about that.
Yeah, I'm not against standing up for people who are the victims of police brutality.
I've been doing it for quite a while.
I'm not against raising concerns about police brutality.
I've also been doing that for a while.
But there's other things going on too.
You know one thing why I don't understand.
And this is what's so infuriating about like having a libertarian party.
You know who you might want to stand up for?
Who like fucking no one's standing up for?
How about the property owners?
How about that?
I mean, there's all through the country, there are people who have had their businesses destroyed, their homes vandalized, their churches vandalized.
People have been assaulted and beaten and robbed.
Why aren't we standing up for any of them?
Aren't we the people who believe in property rights?
Well, isn't our whole thing that we don't like that the state violates their property rights?
So why not stand up for them?
So you're choosing in other towards to align with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Okay, fine.
Here's the thing that libertarians can do.
Can I just say, even with that okay fine, it's not really an okay fine.
There's an imposition there.
If you step up and say, I think all lives matter and we should ensure that cops are not doing anything violent towards anyone, you're considered evil for that statement because you're not saying that we have to put black people into a special group category and use the force of government to ensure that the special group is attended to first.
And that idea of, hey, we need to have special group, I think creates violence because it gives people a feeling of I'm in the special group.
And so I, even if it's by violent means, since I'm in the special group, I can go out and do what I need because I'm special.
Well, this is, I mean, look, you're absolutely right, dude.
And it's just, this is the thing that gets so fucking nutty about this.
We have to be against racism.
We have to be not just not racist, but anti-racist, right?
Just try to imagine, play a little thought experiment with me, okay?
And this is, do me a favor for those of you guys who are who disagree with me on this.
Just before you jump to any conclusions or have your like gotcha moment, just take a breath and play this thought experiment.
That's all I'm suggesting.
I'm not suggesting this is literal.
Imagine there was a movement that was against police brutality for white people, for the white people who are victims of police brutality.
And they were called White Lives Matter.
I mean, you know, like twice as many white people are killed by cops every year as black people.
So it's, you know, it's possible, right?
Like, let's say they were that identitarian, that there was this huge movement, and it was like white lives matter.
And in this, now, you know, there was an organization with that name who were a bunch of avowed fascists.
But this was different.
This was just people out in the streets, kind of had the same name as them.
And a lot of them were out in the streets with them, but you could separate them out.
And in this movement, if you started interjecting that, you know, black people are killed by the cops also, they're like, that's not about this.
This is about white people being killed by the cops.
And they were telling white people that you need to shut up or black people need to shut up and listen to what white people say.
And also there was images of white people having black people get down on their knees and kiss their feet.
This kind of like performance theater, probably with actors involved or whatever.
And there was riots and looting and people were beat up and they were seizing areas and demanding that black businesses give them money and all of this shit.
If you were a good anti-racist, would you not call that out for the racist garbage that it is?
Would you hashtag white lives matter just because we're also against police brutality?
Or would you maybe see that as a little bit racist?
Okay.
So you would, now again, I'm not saying these are the same things.
Take a breath.
Like put on your big boy pants.
I'm not saying, I'm just making the point that if you would call that racist garbage in a second and you're not calling this racist, you have a double standard between black and white, which is racist.
So you're not being a very good anti-racist.
So just don't, I'm sorry.
And the thing is, right?
I want to expand on that.
I was that imagine there was a sign by the park that said whites allowed in the park.
What would you assume that meant?
Just standard English.
You go, okay, so other people aren't allowed in the park.
Black Lives Matter.
No, it includes everybody.
That's not the way English language works.
You're making an exclusionary statement.
Like I hate to break it to you.
You can start running in circles.
And then they started the thing, well, it's that we need to prove that Black Lives Matter in order then even gets to this step of all lives matter.
You guys aren't within the framework of English language.
And then you're telling me that I'm crazy for trying to correct it and go, hey, I think you guys have the wrong ideal here.
And guess what?
Your wrong ideal has led to both violence and black death.
So I was right.
Right.
And again, it's like you can say like, oh, no, you don't understand.
This is not the way we're using the language.
But again, if it was vice versa, you would never accept that excuse.
You would never in a million years accept like, no, when we say white people allowed in the park, we didn't mean to exclude anyone else.
We're just really letting you know that white people are allowed here.
No, that would be kind of weird.
And so you're not just now the protesting police brutality part.
Okay, fine.
There's that, that's great.
But then there's also this other, like real obvious, like totalitarian streak in the movement that is accusing everybody of being racist.
You know, the white silences violence and all of this shit and, you know, what, whatever, like every little thing you can think of is a racist infraction.
So when you come out and say this, it's not okay to just be not racist.
You must be anti-racist, hashtag Black Lives Matter.
It leads a lot of people to believe that you're supporting that part of the movement, which is not something I support or something I think any libertarian should support.
All right, let's take a quick second.
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All right, back to the letter.
All right.
Social Justice Straw Man Arguments00:14:59
The largest faction of grassroot Ron Paul supporters in 2012 were blue Republicans.
I'm not sure what blue Republicans means.
I don't think I've, I'm not familiar with that.
They've taken a lot of dick pills.
They really like fucking their wives.
They've been with me.
Republicans are taking a lot of blue chew.
What's the problem?
All right.
Those are my people.
Yeah, Ron Paul supporters, obviously.
Of course, they came over to our side.
I mean, they're fucking blue, big dick Republicans.
All right.
So the largest faction, but I actually don't know what that means.
Blue Republicans, meaning they're registered as Republican, but they vote Democrat a lot, maybe.
All right.
These were people with whom anti-war leftist talking points resonated.
And so they had considered themselves Democrats.
So they're Democrats.
Okay.
Luckily, Dr. Paul didn't shy away from being anti-war, even though it was a mainly leftist talking point.
Now, countless normies who had leftist sympathies are Rothbardian libertarians.
Right, but it's something he believed in and is super important.
But it was correct.
Like, I don't fucking care if it's a leftist talking point or a right-wing talking point or any of that.
It was correct.
It was correct.
It was the correct libertarian, you know, position, and it was the correct moral position.
And also, by the way, Ron Paul explained it.
He explained what he meant in like with precision.
So it's not just that he like alluded to some left-wing talking point, which kind of seems to mean something not libertarian.
He said the most libertarian thing, and he said, I don't care if this is what the left says.
This is the truth.
I'm all for that.
That's fine.
But that would be like a comparison to that would be like if Joe Jorgensen said, we need to repeal the war on drugs.
Now, you could accuse her, you could say, that's kind of been a left-wing talking point or something like that.
Okay, who the hell cares?
Yeah, we should repeal the war on drugs.
We're all for that.
No one's criticizing her for that reason.
So this just, this kind of feels like a straw man.
All right, let me continue reading.
I simply don't buy that saying, quote, yep, black lives do matter.
Let me show you a suite of libertarian policies that makes life for these people better makes me a Marxist panderer.
Yeah, but dude, come on, man.
That's such a straw man.
No, that doesn't make you a Marxist panderer.
But why are you making this quote instead of quoting what Joe Jorgensen said?
Because that's a completely, do you honestly think, Tim, be honest with me, okay?
Do you think if Joe Jorgensen had tweeted, yep, black lives do matter, let me show you a suite of libertarian policies that makes life better for these people.
Do you think we would have a problem with that?
Do you think I would have spent 16 podcasts railing against her for that tweet?
Probably not, right?
It would have been like, I might have even retweeted it.
If I saw that tweet, I'd give it a like and a retweet.
Okay, that's not what was said.
That's a completely different statement.
All right, back to the letter.
In fact, I think it does the opposite of supporting Marxism.
I think it subverts it by attacking common parlance, which was coined by trained Marxists, to a philosophy of property rights, unfettered capitalism, and individualism instead of Marxism.
When you talk to alt-right figures, I don't think that you're carrying their water.
I think, good, Richard Spencer's audience will now be exposed to a libertarian message.
Okay, right.
But when I talk to Richard Spencer, I have Richard Spencer on my podcast, I'd talk about the libertarian issues with his view or back and forth, right?
When I have these other guys on my podcast, I'm having a discussion with them.
I'm like, hey, I'm a libertarian.
You believe this.
Let's talk about what we have in common, what we disagree with, things like that.
No one would have, I don't have a problem with Joe Jorgensen having a conversation with someone on the left.
That's also something I do on my podcast.
I mean, it doesn't ever seem to get the attention, even though in many cases they've been much bigger figures, like Jimmy Doerr.
I don't think any right-winger I've ever talked to has as many followers as he does.
But that's, again, a straw man.
Like, I'm not attacking Joe Jorgensen for having a conversation with somebody.
It's a very different thing.
She's just tweeting out their talking points.
That's not the same thing.
Okay.
The left has subverted the meaning of the word liberal to the point where classical liberals now have to use a different word.
We lost that battle because we allowed the left to subvert plain English.
But we've also done the same to them.
The word libertarian was coined by a leftist to describe Proudhon's property is theft philosophy at one time.
So yeah, that's the Proudhon's property is theft thing.
And he was an anarchist libertarian.
It now describes our philosophy of property rights and unapologetic individualism.
The word I use mean what I say, the words I use mean what I say they mean, not what some radical leftists say they mean.
To criticize Joe for using common parlance is to seed ground to the left and to slowly box ourselves out of the English language altogether.
Well, I mean, I guess I see your point that words evolve over time, but I think within reason, you have to say that words carry some meaning.
So for example, when you said that Richard Spencer, you know, me having Richard Spencer on my podcast, you're like, I'm not upset about that.
You're exposing his audience to a libertarian podcaster.
Okay.
If I had just tweeted the Bob Murphy example, if I had tweeted, we must preserve our heritage, hashtag unite the right, hashtag Charlottesville.
I could see where some libertarians might have criticized me.
I mean, they basically act like I do that as is.
But so, yeah, I don't think those are the same things.
And I could, if I came back to you with the argument that it's like, well, no, I'm just trying to subvert the alt-right by tweeting their exact line out.
And this is me taking back the common parlance or something like that.
I think that argument would fall a little bit short.
I mean, yeah, look, I've seen some people make attempts to say, no, we're the real liberals or we're the real this.
I don't know.
I mean, words do evolve over time, but in the current context, words tend to mean things.
And by, you know, if like to take this to its crazy, you know, reducto ad absurdum, it's like I could just say any word right now and claim that it means something completely differently because words evolve over time.
We still have to work within the confines of current language to some degree, I think.
Okay, let's keep going with the letter.
I once gave a speech at Vancouver 420 and said something like, libertarians were the first people to support the right of gay people to get married.
We were the first to advocate for the legalization of all drugs.
We were pushing for social justice 40 years before the liberals ever were.
I use the term social justice with the purpose and intent of subverting the cultural Marxist narrative.
They aren't interested in anything that can be called justice.
Libertarians are, and we should get credit for it.
Breitbart subsequently said that my party had been infiltrated by leftists and I was a feckless leader.
A party organizer agreed with Breitbart.
At the time, I thought, hold on one second.
At the time, I thought maybe there was something to their criticism.
Maybe I exercised poor judgment.
Since then, I've been very careful not to say anything that would elicit a negative reaction from reactionary conservatives, to pay lip service to liberty.
Reactionary conservatives that pay lip service to liberty.
Some of them even use the phrase cultural libertarian unironically to describe their brand of statism.
Okay.
So I haven't really seen reactionary right-wingers in America use the term cultural libertarian.
I'd be happy to see them use that, but they're pretty hostile to that.
But maybe it's different in Canada.
Okay, more and more, I think they were wrong.
That party organizer has long since left the party because of our, quote, leftist sympathies and now openly calls himself a fascist who sympathizes with Hitler.
He has determined that a strong state is needed to combat cultural depravity.
His descent into fascism started innocently enough.
He declared himself a reactionary.
The left is launching an offensive and we need to react in kind.
They want to cancel us.
We must cancel them.
The term reactionary always made me picture a right-wing marionette reacting to strings being pulled by a radical leftist puppeteer.
I'm a bit embarrassed now that I didn't trust my own judgment over theirs.
All right.
Well, that's, so let me say this, right?
The story is you using the term social justice, a bunch of More right-leaning libertarians being pissed off about it.
And ultimately, them, this guy basically becoming a fascist, who you said, a fascist who's fond of Hitler.
He's super Hitler now.
Super Hitler.
Yeah, he's just out there doing a whole Hitler thing.
All right.
Well, so here's what I'd say to that: fuck that guy.
You know, that sucks.
I don't know what he's up to.
He actually sounds kind of interesting.
Fuck that guy.
And I don't usually shit on people in my private Facebook group, but fuck that guy.
So that sucks.
And that's terrible that he's like a fucking fascist Hitler.
Sorry you lost Hitler guy.
Sounds like he was at Calviers for a while.
Yeah, but what is like, I guess what I'm saying is, what exactly from that story am I supposed to take that proves that you should be talking about social justice?
You're like, look, I use this term.
So like if you told me a story and you were like, you know, I purged Hitler guy.
Right.
Well, Hitler guy was a part of the movement and then he used the term and he purged it.
So it worked really well.
Well, if he uses more of the terms, he can purge more of the Hitler characters.
Well, but look, there's actually something to this, which is kind of sad and tragic, right?
Like if you told me a story and you said, I started talking about social justice from a libertarian point of view, and then it started attracting a lot of these social justice warriors over to us.
And they were like, oh, you care about social justice too.
Well, let me hear you out on your libertarian arguments.
Then that would be a really, you know, like solid kind of anecdotal argument.
Like, oh, yeah, I guess speaking their language does attract them over.
But your story is about speaking their language and scaring off people and sending them down this like horrible fascist path.
Now, I'm not saying it's all on you that he went down this fascist path, but yeah, I mean, I do, I see it being much more likely that the libertarian party embracing this kind of neo-Marxist language and making people think that she's like all for cancel culture, policing of racism, firing people for saying all lives matter, things like that.
I think the effect of that is much more likely going to be to drive people into the hard right where they think at least those people are standing up to the left mob than it is to bring people from the left mob over to us.
And I will also say, I don't know.
I don't really think you should be using the term social justice.
How about just justice?
Justice means justice.
Libertarians don't believe in social justice.
We believe in justice.
That's why everybody who talks about social justice, ask them three more questions.
They're the most fucking un-libertarian person you've ever met, hence the social justice warriors.
Because social justice carries with it this implication that there's some type of collective justice, which is the opposite of justice, right?
This is why they believe that white people are collectively guilty of something and black people are collectively oppressed.
Like this is not, this is not real justice.
Justice is an individual thing.
And so I don't think it's a great idea with your argument about language evolving over time.
But I don't know.
I mean, this story is sad and tragic.
Look.
I think it's hard to wrap your head around without getting Hitler guy's perspective.
I feel like we need to pull him for some information.
Listen, I'd love to have Hitler guy on the podcast anytime.
Okay.
Obviously, as you know, I will be happy to platform Hitler guy.
But I do think that actually this anecdote kind of raises one of my major concerns with this.
Look, Trump is the president for if no other reason, because he was finally the one who they felt like would fight back.
You know, like that's a big part of it.
It's like the whole media class and the politicians and all of this shit and corporations and colleges, they'll just label you racist for anything, for basically not being an evangelical progressive.
And so they're like, we want someone to fight back.
You're going to call us these horrible names.
We want someone to say fuck you.
And Trump was there, fuck you.
So if we, you know, like our role is to be like, yeah, no, we will stand up against all of this shit.
And here's the most effective way to stand up to it.
No one can force you to do anything.
And you get to have your liberty.
And these people have to actually convince people of this fucking white supremacist culture.
And you can go have your own thing.
And that's like, that's our answer.
But it's not to parrot their talking points.
And I'd also have no problem with Joe if she was just like kind of like the thing you were like getting at in your quote there.
If she was like, look, libertarians were way out in front of most of these issues that really matter decades ago.
That's fair to say.
But when you start repeating the, you can't be passively racist.
You must be actively anti-racist.
Now it sounds like you're jumping on their train, which is stupid.
Not a train I want to be a part of.
Okay, let's get back to this.
From my perspective, the culture wars of left versus right have done nothing but contribute to the rise of cultural statism.
Okay.
The right would elect a communist dictator, someone who nationalizes the entire means of production and protects the nation from international capitalists as long as they are against the left.
They acted like a strong father.
The left would elect a fascist dictator, someone who centers the state around state religion, i.e. progressivism, and engages in corporate cronyism as long as the strong nationalist aims, as long as those strong nationalist aims, as long as the fascist is against the right and acted like a nurturing mother.
Rise Of Cultural Statism00:02:38
I get what he's saying, though.
Yeah, no, I get what you're saying.
And that's not completely, there's definitely some truth to that, right?
It's like, it's a vicious cycle.
So the state getting bigger and bigger in many ways leads to the culture war because people don't, you know, it's like, like I've talked about this before on the show, right?
But people have all types of different views.
Not just like, oh, they like different music or like different foods, but like different religions.
I mean, think about that, like a completely different view on how your life should be, what the meaning of life is, who's getting into heaven.
I mean, there are people who walk around and believe the guy they're passing on the street, the guy they're driving past on the road, is going to burn in fire for eternity because he doesn't read the same book as them and go to the same place on Sunday as they do.
Like that's a thing.
But they don't go to war over it because it's kind of just like, hey, you live your life.
I'll live my life.
I know I'm right.
I know you're wrong.
He feels like I know I'm right.
I know you're wrong.
And they go about it.
And they'll even do business with each other and fucking, you know, shop in the same supermarkets, sell each other goods, buy from each other, all that shit, right?
But where do people go?
Where do we find these culture wars?
Well, I mean, they originate with things like prayer in schools, because now it becomes an issue because someone's going to get their politician in and then everybody else has to live under those rules.
So now it becomes a situation where you got a public school, you're forced to pay for it, you're forced to send your kids there, and you're either going to, you know, like if you're a non-Christian, you're going to be forced to have your kid doing Christian prayers or at least listening to Christian prayers.
And if you're a Christian and they take that away, you're forced to send your kid to this like atheist environment.
So one, so, and it builds and builds more and more and more.
But when the culture war really explodes, what does it explode around?
Presidential election season, right?
It's like, who's going to get into the state and rule over the other one?
And this is why you had, okay, so half of America is like, oh my God, literally Hitler, Orange Man Bad, is going to be our ruler now.
And the other one is like Jeffrey Epstein's friend, you know, whose friends run a pedo ring and all this shit.
Hillary Clinton's going to get it and she's going to rule over us.
So we have to go to war over this.
So actually, the state getting bigger and bigger and bigger is what leads to the culture war.
And then the culture war feeds into it more because you hate the other side so bad that you'll vote for anything that's against the other side.
So I agree with the point you're making there.
All right, back to the article.
State Growth Fuels Culture Wars00:14:55
Would a modern conservative call the guy on the right a degenerate leftist?
Oh, there's a meme here involved.
Sorry, I kind of missed that.
But anyway, the left and the right have essentially been defined by the radical left.
We have seen a rise in apologia and promotion of statism because we are told that only a strong government can save us from the cultural deprivations of the left or the right.
The left actively depraves our culture by talking about the events, by taking advantage, excuse me, of events that concern the public, George Floyd's death, empathizing with that, the public outrage and concerns.
Look at this brutality, something has to change.
Using language that nobody can disagree with to attract people to them, Black Lives Matter.
And then attaching that sentiment and concerns to Marxist ideology.
These things are the way they are because of capitalism, racism, patriarchy.
Conservatives play right into their hand and reinforced Marxism by being unable to be anything but anti-left.
If you think George Floyd killing was unjust, you're a leftist.
If you think Black Lives Matter, you're a leftist.
It's like they see what works.
Hold on a second.
That's not true.
I think George Floyd's death was just, and that if you're saying it was unjust, you're a leftist.
So I mean, this is just...
He kind of jumped.
He jumped from what I was on board with to, and I also get his overall argument, but that right there is just not true.
Yeah, I mean, look, I'm not going to say that nobody, I mean, Twitter is a cesspool.
Like, I'm sure there's some people who have said crazy things, but say, like, that conservatives as saying, if you think George Floyd's killing was unjust, you're a leftist.
If you think Black Lives Matter, you're a leftist.
No conservatives are saying this.
At least none of the establishment conservatives are saying this.
There might be some radical right-wingers who are saying this, but even that's very few, like very far right who would say anything like that.
The general response from conservatives has been to try to use empathy in their language.
Go, oh, yeah, the fucking cop, like that was horrible.
What happened to George Floyd?
But please don't burn down my city.
They don't say, oh, if you think, no one says, if you think black lives matter, you're a leftist.
What they say is, all lives matter.
What they say is, yeah, black lives matter, but like ours too.
It's not, this is not something that most conservatives say.
Okay.
It's like they see what works, empathy and language people widely agree with, and then they do the opposite.
Then they attach their lack of concern, lack of empathy, and disagreement with plain English to their brand.
You couldn't ask for a better way to drive people into the arms of Marxists.
This is why our culture is leftist.
This is why conservatism is progressivism driving the speed limit.
No, listen, you've got Michael Malice's quote completely wrong.
This is not what he's talking about.
He's talking about conservatism Inc., the new right.
You may have a touch of truth to the like alt-right types, okay?
But that's not conservatism.
Conservatism Inc. is like Mitt Romney being out there marching with Black Lives Matter.
They would never dare say Black Lives Don't Matter.
They would never dare say if you think what happened to George Floyd is wrong, you're a leftist.
None of them say that.
Now, there are, in response to conservatives always being progressives driving the speed limit and being completely weak and ineffectual.
Yes, there's been the rise of some of these more hardcore reactionary right-wingers who do kind of the anti-virtue signaling thing.
And yeah, they drive some more people into the radical left.
I'll grant you that because they're the perfect foil for them.
They're like, look, we told you they were all racist all along.
And look, here's Richard Spencer, plays the role perfectly of being, this is what the Trump supporter is.
That's part of the reason why he got put on every major platform, you know, like why the whole corporate press loved using him to play that role.
But this is not conservatism, you know, this isn't progressivism driving the speed limit.
That's a whole different thing.
That's where the conservatives more like do what Joe Jorgensen did and adopt the language of the left and a few years later adopt all of their policies as well.
Okay.
Every hero needs a villain and conservatives trip over themselves trying to fill that role of villain.
I think conservatives trip over themselves trying to appease the left and that's why the left always ends up winning.
The most damaging thing a trained Marxist could do at this point is coin a phrase like family lives matter and attach it to an anti-family agenda.
Cast arcle in it.
Huh?
Cast arcle in it.
Get a whole reunion going.
Yeah, really.
Conservatives would twist themselves into knots disavowing the phrase.
They'd criticize a libertarian or conservative candidate who said family lives matters.
And here's a suite of policies that strengthen the family.
I can still come out and say I'm single, so I'm not afraid of it.
There you go.
But that's not what Joe Jorgensen said.
It's like you're in love with this straw man.
That's not what she said, and none of us would have a problem.
Listen, I'm speaking to you as one of the people who had a problem with that.
I would not have a problem with that statement.
Why do you keep using this statement instead of the one that she made that we all have a problem with?
Also, I don't know.
I just completely disagree with all of this.
As a Marxist, they would call you a Marxist panderer.
Apolitical normies who care about their families would recoil from conservatives and run to the Marxists, and the family would die.
The last thing libertarians should do is adopt the impotent mode of conservatives.
First of all, I don't think the most damning thing a Marxist could do would say all family lives matter.
I'd be very happy if they said family lives matter and started promoting families.
I don't see that as true.
I just think you have all of this wrong.
That's just my take on it.
I think that more likely, if they were to take that train of thought, then the conservatives would end up agreeing with them.
And, you know, like, I don't know.
Again, nobody's, it's just like factually your last paragraph that you're building this off of, where you're saying, if you think George Floyd's killing was unjust, you're a leftist.
If you think Black Lives Matter, you're a leftist.
I mean, I've said both of those things, and I've never been accused of being a leftist for saying them.
I just don't, I don't think that's right.
The most damaging thing.
Oh, sorry, that's the last paragraph.
By the way, I don't want to give the impression I don't like conservatives.
As a father of four and a family man who grew up on a farm and went to Bible college, socially conservative sensibilities really appeal to me.
I just think political conservatives are ill-equipped to deal with Marxism despite their tough talk, maybe even because of it.
All right.
Well, that's nice.
And, you know, I have a wife and daughter, and I think the language of social conservatives have started to appeal to me more since having a family.
And, you know, I don't want to see the state enforce any of it, but I'm kind of with you on that.
I just don't, I don't know, call me crazy.
seems like you're bending over backwards to find a justification for why embracing Marxist language is the way to fight Marxist.
Just repeat all of their talking points and that'll really take them down.
I don't see it.
Again, I wouldn't have a problem with Joe Jorgensen trying to subvert some of the leftist language and make libertarian points.
I've always been a fan of the Scott Horton philosophy of attack the left from the left.
I think that's wonderful if you can do it.
I don't think that's what she was doing.
And I think the fact that you had to make up your own quote and keep defending that quote, which none of us would have a problem with, kind of indicates that it'd be a little bit tougher for you to defend what she actually said, which by the way, maybe it'll come soon, hasn't been mentioned yet in this letter.
You haven't even put down the words of what she said or attempted to defend it.
Maybe that's coming up.
So let me read the rest because I didn't read all of this.
I'm not claiming that JoJo was intentionally subverting the Marxist narrative, although I think she is a consistent libertarian, which means she is at least unintentionally doing that.
Oh, okay.
All right.
That does actually make it a little bit clearer.
All right.
So neither of us think she was intentionally subverting the message.
Is she unintentionally doing it because she's a libertarian?
Here's the issue with that.
Anyone who this message appeals with is not going to be subverted to libertarianism.
I mean, you tell me.
Look, you tell me, right?
She just did this.
You tell me how many of the people sympathetic to the anti-racist, you know, left culture are coming over to Joe.
Can I say, well, maybe I'm jumping the gun on this, but I think this is what this guy's problem is.
Firstly, just to reiterate, this only addresses the tweet, which was half the evidence that we put forward.
And he might have wrote this before he heard that.
But even so, the entire framework of this article is somewhat false.
Second is he's kind of doing this thing where he's like, listen, you guys know we're like the libertarian people and we appeal to you.
So we're going to say some things that totally don't make sense for you guys, but we're trying to attract new people here and we want you to look the other way.
It's kind of like the same when the Democrats, like a guy like Biden, goes ahead and to, well, I don't know that he did it as much as the other people.
They're like, listen through the primaries, we're going to say some crazy shit so we can get the nomination, but we want you all to realize we know we're saying crazy shit and you're the one I'm really going to represent.
And guess what?
It doesn't work that way because I want to know that if you're the person who's going to be fucking presidential, you're going to be an upstanding person of the world word of their word and that you're going to represent me.
So you can't play this game where you go, hey, I'm going to say things I don't believe.
Well, then I don't want you.
That's the entire point of the presidential figure.
You're going to say shit that you believe.
You're going to stand behind.
And by the way, I don't fucking believe in presidents altia.
The whole thing is a fucking sham.
But I'm just saying, if you're going to get behind someone and believe in them, it's because they're saying things that you agree with.
It's not because you're going to look the other way while they keep saying things that make you upset because it's going to include other people.
And then at the end, I'm going to get like, it's like that magical business deal where it's like, listen, I'm going to fuck you at the beginning, but you're going to get your payday later.
No, put it in the language.
I want to see that I'm being represented here.
I don't want to hear that there's some magical payday later.
You see what I'm saying?
That's what they're doing here.
It's like, listen, I know that I have a contract here and it doesn't say anything about libertarian values and it's all about leftist principles, but you know, you know, I'm going into this representing you.
No, I don't.
Then fucking say that.
Don't give me this bullshit.
Yeah, you get what I'm saying.
I think you're absolutely right.
All right.
Let me get back to the article.
I'm simply claiming that you can't possibly know that she was committing second degree pandering to Black Lives Matter either.
Right.
But again, I'm not really claiming to know what was in her head.
That's not really what I'm claiming.
I'm saying what she said, what would be reasonable to think it meant.
Believe me, I'd rather her be pandering to Black Lives Matter.
I think the worst case scenario here is that she actually means that, which I don't believe to be the case.
But again, I don't know.
This is all just speculation.
None of us know what was in Joe Jorgensen's head.
None of us know if Joe Jorgensen tweeted this.
My guess is she didn't.
It doesn't matter.
It's still on her to not have her campaign putting out this message.
Okay.
I'm further suggesting that when Jeff Dice says, quote, blood and soil, or JoJo says, quote, anti-racism, our instinct should be to assume the best rather than the worst and defend our own damn people.
All right.
Well, here's the thing.
Jeff Deist said the words blood and soil in the context of a speech.
He gave a speech, by the way, an excellent speech.
I highly recommend anyone go listen to it.
It was crystal clear what Jeff Dice meant when he said that.
And then a bunch of really dishonest people cut out two words from a 45-minute speech and tried to paint him as dog whistling Nazis or something like that, and then demanded for pledges to be signed and a bunch of retarded shit like that.
That's different.
He made it very clear what he was saying.
Anyone, I challenge you to go listen to that speech and seriously argue with me that it wasn't clear what Jeff Dice was saying.
Joe Jorgensen tweeted, it's not enough to be passively non-racist.
We must be actively anti-racist.
Hashtag Black Lives Matter.
It was not clear at all what the fuck she meant by that.
She had to herself send out another tweet to let you know, admitting that it wasn't clear, that by the way, I'm not supporting the actual Marxist organization, Black Lives Matter.
So the comparison is not, it's not the same.
It's just, it's not a fair comparison.
And to say our instinct should be to assume the best rather than the worst in people, I kind of am assuming the best.
I'm not assuming she's a closeted Marxist.
I'm not even assuming she's really on board with that agenda.
I'm saying it's really stupid to tweet out un-libertarian things that make it seem like you're on board with this horrible agenda.
It's a different thing.
And I don't know that it's my role to always assume the best in Joe Jorgensen.
It's my role to fucking try, it's my role to try to increase the liberty movement and try to fucking, you know, do the best I can to see real liberty in real people's lives.
And sometimes that's going to be criticizing the nominee of the Libertarian Party.
Sometimes that's going to be supporting them.
But it's certainly not a blind loyalty or something like that.
All right.
Let's get through this.
The one thing libertarians can learn from the left and the right is teamwork.
Libertarians are free thinkers who have zero tolerance for bullshit.
Our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness.
We're not wired to be in groups.
We're lone wolves.
Destructive criticism and fighting is part of our DNA.
And every presidential LP candidate, including Ron Paul, has experienced the same thing Joe is experiencing and that I have experienced.
What other political parties almost immediately upon founding has had to implement a conscious strategy, the Dallas Accord, to set aside petty criticisms and focus on a common goal.
None.
People who aren't wired like us naturally understand the benefit of working in groups, but our genes and our personalities aren't our destiny.
And so we can learn to work in teams.
As a firefighter.
Can I comment on this?
Libertarians Hate Groupthink00:11:55
Sure, go ahead.
All right.
I get where he's coming from.
And I think that this is a fair criticism of libertarians.
I fall into this category where I'm like, fuck groups.
I just don't want to be in your, I don't want to be in the group.
Even if it's my group, I want to be alone.
I don't want to be in a group.
I get what he's coming from.
This is not a petty criticism.
This to me is on the same level as if you said, hey, the government should be able to spend as much money as it wants.
Hey, we should increase the Federal Reserve.
Hey, we should increase the war state.
You're taking one of these single biggest issues to me and you're taking the wrong side on it.
This is not a petty criticism.
This is a, hey, I have to get off the boat moment.
That's what this is.
This is not a petty criticism.
Yeah.
Well, I understand what you're saying, particularly for, you know, people who are in the comedy business, in the podcasting business like us, where people are being deplatformed left and right.
People are being put on lists.
People are being accused of names, all in the name of, quote, anti-racism.
So yeah, it is, it is an important issue to us.
So I think that's a fair point.
And yeah, I don't, you know, again, it's like, yeah, there's benefit to working within groups.
That's, I mean, I did join the Libertarian Party.
Like, I think there is a benefit to that.
But obviously, as like with the examples that you just alluded to, I think probably Tim would agree that there's also a line you could cross where you have to be criticized.
So I'm not just going to go write like your example, even though this is an extreme or something like that.
But if she just went, I said, you know, I support every one of these wars that we're in.
Do I go, ah, shit, I got to be a part of the group?
That's the Nick Sarwalk shit that I reject.
Well, I got to support Dick Cheney.
He calls himself a libertarian.
Fuck that.
Okay.
As a firefighter, I've learned that working in a team, even with a shitty leader, is more effective, is a more effective way to achieve my goal of putting out fires and rescuing people than going at it alone.
Well, fuck.
I didn't realize this guy was a hero.
The left and the right.
Starting fires.
Well, right.
The left and the right have shitty leaders, and yet Trump, Biden, Hillary support, defend, and support their absolute shitty, filthy, war criminal, Epstein-adjacent, sexual assaulting, money printing, ridiculous tweeting, race baiting, continually pandering candidates.
Right.
I mean, Rob just nailed the example there.
Right.
But if your leader started setting more fires, then maybe it's not great to follow them.
And, you know, to throw in the term race baiting, I actually found her tweet kind of race baiting.
But yes, I agree with you.
The other candidates are horrible and people still fall in line with them.
We've got a hockey playing, whiskey drinking, taxationist theft promoting, scandal-free libertarian who has been rock solid on policy and messaging for over three decades.
It shouldn't be that hard to just not throw her under the bus.
It shouldn't even be that hard to give her our sword.
Yeah, you know what?
I'm going to comment on that.
The 30-year resume.
I don't know her.
She popped up on my radar two weeks ago.
This lady's new to me.
She's got no grace period as far as I'm concerned because she hasn't sold me on one piece of who she is or what she's doing.
All that I know off of is also, you could be a 30-year CEO and step into a building and go, hey, here's my vision for this company.
And if I think it's horribly wrong, I'm not going to have a 30-year track record.
I don't know what you did the last 30 years.
You're new to me.
Yeah, most of us were introduced to Joe very recently.
You don't have to convince me that she's better or would be a better president than Donald Trump or Joe Biden.
That's true for every single Libertarian Party nominee, pretty much, but that's not really the point.
The point is that we're probably not going to win the presidency.
And I need her messaging to be on point for now so we get something out of all of this.
And you're saying she's been solid on policy and messaging for over 30 decades.
Well, she's been running for president.
She's had the nomination for about a month and her messaging has been a disaster.
So, you know, or at least this tweet was a disaster.
All right.
Defending Joe could be as simple as saying Ayan Rand was an active anti-racist.
Libertarianism is the only active anti-racist philosophy because it centers on the individual.
And here's a suite of policies that makes things better for black lives.
Would you describe Rand as passively not racist or actively anti-racist?
Who cares?
Just go mail that line to JoJo.
Whatever that first line was where you said we're the party that's anti-racist because we care about individuals, go mail that to her.
She can use that and then I won't give her shit for it.
Well, yeah, I'm not sure.
But she didn't do that.
That would be fine.
Right.
Well, would you describe Rand as passively not racist or actively anti-racist?
I mean, I don't know.
Have you heard how Ayn Rand talked about the Palestinians?
Wasn't exactly actively anti-racist.
What do you think Ayn Rand would say about the riots?
Honestly, ask yourselves.
I can literally picture her.
They are savages and they should be put down like dogs.
It's literally what she would say.
Ayn Rand, I promise you, would be defending the businesses and the property owners that were destroyed.
It could be as simple as, quote, even if she was actively pandering to irredeemable people, I don't give a fuck.
She's a hockey playing, whiskey-drinking, rock-solid libertarian who would be the best president this country has ever seen.
Yeah, look, dude, I do give a fuck.
I give a fuck about what she said, and I don't care if she plays hockey or drinks whiskey.
It's the second time you've mentioned that, and I don't get what's supposed to be appealing about that.
I've not even heard anything about that yet.
Are you just giving me lines of how I could say it if I wanted to defend her?
Like, yeah, I could figure out.
I'm not defending her because I don't agree with what she said.
Instead of defending her, our impulses as libertarians is to throw her under the bus by having the most uncharitable take.
I have seen calls for her to make a clear statement disavowing Marxism.
Imagine asking the libertarian presidential candidate who has been a solid libertarian for three decades to denounce Marxism.
Remember when demands were made out on my buddy Tom Woods to sign a petition denouncing racism and bigotry?
I think he had the right response.
He's a goddamn libertarian.
Anti-racism is implied in our individualist ideology.
All right.
So okay, again, though, this is what's frustrating me about this letter.
It's just constantly attacking strawmen.
So if it's a letter to me, I'm not asking her to sign a pledge denouncing racism.
I'm not asking for a pledge.
Yeah, it was really stupid when people were asked to sign that pledge denouncing Nazism.
That was retarded.
Made absolutely no sense, especially because Jeff Dice made clear what he was saying in that speech, unlike her.
But when you support Black Lives Matter, like this is the equivalent to this would be if Tom Woods or Jeff Dice or someone like that had said they support Charlottesville.
You'd be like, well, what are you talking about?
The violence?
The white supremacy?
The fucking, you know what I mean?
Like the person getting killed?
What is it you support?
And when you just say, I support Black Lives Matter, the movement, not the organization, well, it's like, well, what about the movement?
The graffiti, the looting, the vandalizing, desecrating churches, taking over other people's property, the murders.
What is it you're supporting?
No, you're supporting, you're being against police brutality.
Okay, fine.
I think you should have made that clearer initially.
I'm not asking her to sign some pledge disavowing Marxism.
All right, let's just wrap this up because we're over the time I thought it would take.
The reason you have given me so much hope, Dave, is that you set aside your disagreement with some LP members and leaders and decided to be a part of the solution rather than an armchair critic.
You did this despite an LP chair who had very unfair and uncharitable characterizations of you, Tom Woods, and other people I greatly admire.
I can see why you are hesitant to trust Joe and the LP after Sarwak and other libertarians implied or accused you of carrying water for the worst elements of the alt-right.
I see some deranged libertarians calling people like you and Pete racist for being critical of Joe's messaging.
I hope you aren't possessed by the same demons as your detractors.
I'm open to having a public discourse with anyone who thinks I'm out to lunch here.
Sincerely, Tim Mohn, the leader of the Libertarian Party of Canada.
So, look, I'm not possessed by the same demons as my detractors on this.
If I was, I'd be out there calling Joe Jorgensen a fucking Marxist or Marxist adjacent.
I'd be demanding that she sign pledges.
I'd be, you know, whatever, treating her the way my detractors treat me.
I'm not doing any of that.
I'm just saying I think this messaging sucks.
And my God, the shit I would get if I had tweeted hashtag Charlottesville or hashtag unite the right or something like that.
So her, what she did was way more, you know, both blatant and vague.
And this is, it's just not the same thing.
And also, I don't, I kind of reject, listen, I joined the Libertarian Party because I thought that that could maybe be a vehicle to help bring about, you know, a wider libertarian movement.
But I don't see what I was doing before joining the Libertarian Party as being just an armchair quarterback.
I'm a guy who's introduced these ideas to lots of people, probably up there with one of one of all the people who introduced these ideas in the last decade.
I'm up there with one of the most successful, introduced these ideas to a lot of people.
I don't see that as just being an armchair quarterback, but I also think that that comes with a responsibility.
And now I'm in a position where it's like, yeah, if I get behind a team, like, see, I look at things the opposite way.
I don't think if I get behind a team, now I have a responsibility to fall in line with whatever the leader says.
I think if I have an audience of people who listen to me and now I get behind a team, I have a responsibility to fucking criticize that team if their leader starts fucking up.
And this was fucking up.
There's no other way about it.
So I appreciate Tim writing me the letter.
That'll be my response to this.
I would invite you on the podcast to discuss this.
The problem is I just can't spend, I have to do this with Spike Cohen now.
And I can't, there's only so many podcasts I can spend talking about this.
But maybe we could talk about something else unrelated, like your run for prime minister in Canada.
Maybe that'll be.
Hockey and whiskey.
Turn the, oh, that's why you're so into hockey and whiskey.
It's the Canada thing in you.
It's thinking she said dumb shit, but she plays hockey.
I appreciate, listen, I appreciate Tim, the kind words that he said.
I disagree with some of the arguments that he was making.
But I don't listen.
When Joe was not my pick to be the nominee, when she got the nomination, I was like, hey, she seems pretty good.
So I'm happy to have her on the show.
I wasn't like trying to get her on anything.
We had a great conversation.
I just think she jumped into a culture war.
And I don't honestly don't even think she did it.
But I think they just have no idea.
If you're going to jump into the culture war, you got to be really fucking precise about what it is you're saying.
And the libertarian role is not to pick one side or the other in the culture war.
The point is to let people know that we can defuse the culture war by saying you guys can all coexist peacefully.
You don't have to worry about who rules over the other one.
And that's where she fucked up in my mind.
Didn't she not do her homework and come on the show and say she wanted to import more Mexicans into the country?
I'm not sure.
I don't remember.
Did she say something about that?
No, I thought she just came out on the opposite side of us on Mexican immigration stuff and aggressively so.
Yeah, I think her and Spike Cohen are both open borders types.
But, you know, like I said, Hornberger was too, and I was able to get past that.
But yeah, that definitely hurt him with some groups of people.