Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein dissect the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha, framing it as a "suicide by cop" scenario to critique Democratic media narratives and Libertarian Party failures. They argue the party squandered an opportunity to champion economic freedom by adopting empty anti-bigotry platitudes instead of addressing lockdown devastation or property rights violations during riots. The hosts further contend that Trump can exploit Democratic hypocrisy regarding foreign policy while libertarians must pivot toward moderate immigration and pro-life stances to avoid being outflanked, ultimately asserting that current political strategies ignore the urgent need for market-based solutions amidst social unrest. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Major Issues We Must Address00:08:47
Fill her up.
You are listening to the Gas 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 the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, Dave Smith.
Hey, what's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am the most consistent motherfucker you know, the libertarian Tupac.
That one's going to stick for a little bit.
And I'm joined on the phone by the king of the caulks, Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
Why are we not seeing your beautiful face today, Rob?
It's the people at Optimum.
They're shutting down my internet.
They won't provide what I paid them for.
I mean, this is insanity, Dave Smith.
I'm going to war with Optimum.
I hope the fans will join me in my cause.
Well, we are largely an anti-war crowd, but we work off of the just war theory.
So I think you've got a strong case here for war on Optimum.
If there's one cause to pick up your arms about, I don't really want to start a violent war.
Maybe more of like one of these Twitter things that gets people canceled.
They're raping my bill.
And maybe I can start that.
What happened?
Is your internet out completely?
Well, it's been real flaky since I got it.
And then I finally hit them up to say, hey, man, my internet's not working.
And they're like, well, we'll send a technician, but we got to charge you for that.
And I'm like, why are you charging me to figure out why your service doesn't work?
And that took about an hour and a half.
And now I'm going to the internet and starting a fight.
It's a war, Davey Smith.
All right.
I'm on team fire in this war.
I'm solidly behind you.
But yes, not if that means it's violent, that I will not be around for.
No, we're going to go a nonviolent war against Optimum until I restore my internet.
Sounds good.
Sounds good.
All right.
Well, we'll get this figured out by the next podcast, but I'm glad you could find a way by phone to join us because there's a lot of shit going on in the world.
And I'm referring to what is happening right now in Wisconsin in Kenosha, Wisconsin, town that not too many of us were familiar with.
But look, I said this a while back on the podcast.
You can go back and listen to Dave the prophet Tupac calling this.
But I was like, look, what's going to happen the next time some black guy is killed by the cops?
I mean, we're a country of, you know, 320 million people.
There's millions of cops out on the street.
There's tens of millions of black people.
This is probably going to happen at some point.
And if one happens before the election, you're probably going to see another type of George Floyd response.
And I guess this guy isn't dead.
He's in critical condition, but a guy was shot seven times by the cops.
So I want to get into that in a second.
But I did just want to say kind of in terms of the bigger picture, because that's what I do here.
It seems to me that there are two major issues going on in the country right now that can't be avoided, that anybody who wants to be in the political conversation at all needs to be addressing with seriousness.
And the two issues are the lockdowns and the not so unrelated riots going on around the country.
There were, I mean, at the DNC, and you know, I just did a recap episode on that, but I haven't talked to you about it, Rob.
But at the DMC, there was basically no mention of either.
I mean, they talked about the virus, but they certainly didn't talk about the lockdowns.
I mean, they talked about the economy being bad and basically blamed it all on Trump.
But no one's bringing Biden's bringing light and purity into the universe.
So that's all going to go away.
That's right.
He will always side with light and never with darkness.
This was his tweet the other day, just unbelievable.
But it seems to me that there's, you know, in a lot of ways, there's a huge opening for Trump out of all of this.
But what Americans need and what any leader would be providing right now is at least, well, you would have to have a plan for both of these things.
Now, we can debate what exactly the best plan is, but to not even address these two major issues across the country right now.
People are just decimated by the lockdowns.
The economy has been absolutely destroyed.
And it was done by the government intentionally.
Whether, you know, even if you're being charitable and saying they did it intentionally to contain a virus, it was done intentionally by government programs.
And the other thing that has to be dealt with is the fact that there are these riots all over the country.
And we're seeing more coming in.
And I got to say, it just particularly drives me crazy that the Libertarian Party doesn't seem interested in addressing either of these, at least with any seriousness.
And I know there's people out there who tell me to like that I should stop bashing the Libertarian Party, but I'm not going to.
I'm going to continue to as long as they continue to fuck up.
And I just, you know, I think it's like, I thought about it.
I was considering almost like, maybe I'll just like stop talking about the Libertarian Party, stop talking about Joe Jorgensen and Spike Cohen.
But I just think that when they fail, and they will, when they squander this moment, when they get less votes than the Libertarian ticket last time got, which is just pathetic, and when they don't seize this moment to introduce a lot of people to the ideas, I'd like it to be known why.
And in this moment, where, you know, where you have, I don't know, I don't know what would be an easier libertarian message than the government just wrecked the entire economy and we need them to stop doing that.
We want freedom.
We want free markets.
So it just seems pretty obvious to me.
But they're tweeting out things like this.
This is a Libertarian Party tweet.
Racism, sexism, and other bigotry are repugnant.
While under law, while under the law, you have every right to hold and express such views.
You are not shielded from others condemning your behavior for what it is.
Disturbing and wrong.
Bigotry has no home in our party.
I mean, sounds like something that could have come out of the Democratic National Convention.
Just kind of empty platitudes about how we think racism is bad.
And then they set this thing up where, like, if you criticize them, they're like, oh, well, I guess you think racism is good.
Well, I guess you're thinking about it.
Which is the worst thing in the entire world.
That game right there is the worst thing in the world.
It's just so, it's infuriating.
And you see it all the time.
There's like if people step up and they're like, what are you guys talking about?
And then they go, oh, so you have a real problem with condemning bigotry, huh?
And it's like, well, no, I just think that there's not really a huge problem of racism, certainly amongst libertarians.
You could argue there's a huge problem of racism in the country right now, but it's pretty much all coming in one direction, and it's not the one that you guys are thinking of.
I mean, these fucking clowns will tweet out the Black Lives Matter hashtag and then be like, bigotry has no home.
It's like, really?
Do you not see any bigotry coming from the Black Lives Matter movement?
So it's just that it's like, first of all, there are really important things happening. in the country right now.
You're barely addressing them.
And then you're coming out to say something that literally will what?
Just get you a pat on the head from people who already agree with you?
Like, okay, yeah, we're all like against racism, but like this is anything.
The Republicans could say this.
The Democrats could say this.
Capitalism vs Black Lives Matter00:09:41
Any corporation could say this.
It just doesn't separate you at all.
And there are like major issues going on that you're giving no attention to.
No attention to whatsoever.
It doesn't just not separate us.
It plays into what I'm saying.
And I think you agree with me is one of the worst elements of all society, which is the, if you're not with us, you're against us.
If you're not, why are you taking issue with us?
Like it's this anti-free speech and anti-free thought.
And if there's one thing that's going to bring people to our movement, it's encouraging people to think for themselves.
That's how people's eyes and minds will open up.
It's not like playing into this, you know, I don't know, bullshit, like allegiance calling or whatever.
And it's so like, like, number one, if you're a third party that has virtually no shot of winning, you'd think about what your goals are.
And if your goals are to get as many votes as possible, or if your goals are to spread your ideology as far as possible, either way, you would want to differentiate yourself from the other two parties.
And what better way to do it right now than to point out that, like, oppose the lockdowns.
Just sit here and say, listen, the government has destroyed the economy.
We stand for opening it back up.
We stand for freedom.
And like, at least let the chips fall where they may on that one.
I mean, that's a pretty compelling message.
Here's another tweet.
Also, go ahead.
Yeah, if you want to get the message out there, why put forward a woman if they won't let her speak?
Yeah.
There you go.
How's that going to work out?
That doesn't sound great.
All right, guys, let's take a quick second.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
So here's another tweet from the Libertarian Party.
Saying that Black Lives Matter isn't an endorsement of the organization, Black Lives Matter.
It's an endorsement of the movement calling for criminal justice reform, an end to the drug war, abolishing qualified immunity, and holding agents of the state accountable.
Hashtag Black Lives Matter.
There's the Libertarian Party.
We're supposed to sit here and pretend that the movement, Black Lives Matter, is really a libertarian movement.
They're really just a bunch of libertarians asking to roll back the state.
That's what it clearly, that's what it means when you support Black Lives Matter.
It means you're a libertarian.
I don't even know why they have two different terms.
They're basically synonymous.
The better way to approach that would go, hey, we're the party of freedom.
And here's what that means.
We want to roll back.
And then everything that they said, minus Black Lives Matter, and now you're explaining to people why freedom is the better model as opposed to, you know, basically playing into a socialist movement.
It's like, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, like, why would you, like, it just seems so insane to me that if you, if you were thinking, okay, well, who would be the groups that we want to target to best spread our message?
You could target people who are suffering from the lockdowns.
Do you think small business owners who have just been decimated throughout this whole thing by government fiat restricting their freedoms?
Do you think they might be open to a message of free markets?
That seems fairly reasonable to me.
Do you think the people who are terrified of the riots might be open to a message of respecting property rights?
That seems fairly reasonable to me.
Or you can try to pitch capitalism to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Like, why don't you just like go talk to your average, you know, passionate Black Lives Matter supporter and ask them what they think of free market capitalism?
That's your homework for tonight.
See how receptive they are to the message.
Now, of course, as I've been pointing out for months, that anyone with any common sense who's outside of this political game, like the fucking Democratic National Convention, there was not one mention of the riots that are going on right now.
They talked a bunch about Charlottesville because somehow that's supposed to be relevant to the average person.
That three years ago, 200 fucking racists had a fucking event in Charlottesville.
Yet the fact that there's mass riots in cities around the fucking country, that's like, doesn't even get addressed.
We're supposed to pretend that doesn't exist.
But the problem is that that is part of Black Lives Matter, the movement as well.
They're spray painting Black Lives Matter on businesses after they smash their storefront windows all over the country.
This has happened in thousands and thousands of businesses.
But is that the organization?
I think that would fall under the movement.
There's also just been mass violence, and the media is completely lying about it.
So the media is lying about it just like the Democrats at their convention were lying about it or pretending it doesn't exist.
And so enter the Libertarian Party and they're just going to go right along with this narrative.
We're also just going to pretend it doesn't exist.
And I know, you know, there are a lot of libertarians out there.
And truthfully speaking, and nothing against the guy, but Chris Spangle, who we had on the show recently, he falls right into this category too.
He's a nice enough guy.
He's a libertarian.
I hope he can spread this message to a lot of people, but he just doesn't want to talk about uncomfortable things where you could get called racist.
I understand.
He's just not built like that.
He's not interested in it.
When I brought up the race and IQ stuff, and I said it in the like blandest, most inoffensive way possible, he immediately was like, well, this is problematic to have this discussion.
It's like, okay, so you don't want to talk about these things.
And that's why they'd like to pretend the riots don't exist too, because they don't want to get called racist if they point it out.
But I'm sorry if we're like, what's the point of us being if we can't talk about really important issues that are going on and try our best to tell the truth about them and have a little bit of courage when we go into these areas.
These riots have to stop one way or the other.
If you want to have a civilized society, you have to find a way to deal with this shit.
It cannot be okay that if there's an incident where you feel somebody was, you know, the victim of some type of brutality, that you then get to just go around and smash all the storefront windows and terrorize all of the people living in a downtown area.
It's just, it's horrible.
And that no decent person should be supporting that or ignoring that.
I'm finding that the random footage I'm seeing online is becoming progressively more horrifying to the point that I try and like avoid looking at it and ignoring it.
But that video of the guy getting kicked in the head after that car accident, I mean, visually just as, yeah, that was just as horrifying of a sight to see as what I saw, you know, with George Floyd.
And just it seems like beyond that, like I'm watching more footage where it seems like there's people on both sides, even sometimes out with guns or just out with like mounds of pepper spray.
It's almost like the world's worst game of Red Rover, where like they're going back and forth.
And it just, it looks like an escalation.
And as more and more people see footage of what they see the other side perpetrating horrible violent crimes, you're going to get more people that feel like they have to go do something.
And the more people that feel like they have to go do something, it's almost like that Boys in the Hood movie.
It's like everyone's just engaging in a drive-by shooting because they feel like they have to do that because of what just happened to them.
Escalation and Violent Crimes00:03:16
Right, right.
Well, I mean, there's, you know, there were these clashes in Portland over the last few days between like some right-wing groups who have come out now and them clashing with Antifa and, you know, or black people.
Those guys are idiots.
Just like, why do you got to get involved in this?
I completely agree.
It seems crazy to me to get involved, but I got to say, it was really hilarious to watch left-wing Twitter light up with, look, look at the right-wing violence in Portland.
Oh, yeah, that's really good.
Which is like, I didn't catch that.
That's funny.
I mean, it's been 80-plus days of riots in Portland.
These are pretty long sustained riots at this point.
And now these like proud boy groups or whatever have come in to join the fight, which I agree with you is stupid and not going to end good for anybody.
But like to just put like present this is like, look at these right-wing extremists, which they've been trying to do at every turn.
But yeah, anyway, this seems crazy.
So the video of this guy getting shot by the cops, he got shot seven times.
This was the one in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
So let me just, by the way, just to get a little bit of perspective on how the corporate press is covering this, let me run through some news headlines.
Huffington Post, Kenosha, Wisconsin, cops shoot black man in the back seven times in broad daylight.
That is their headline.
Of course, it's very.
Oh, it's accurate.
It was in the back and it was broad daylight.
Yes, that's right.
Yes.
Factual, but not truthful, as always.
CNN, Wisconsin police shoot black man as children watch from a car.
Well, that's the safest place to watch from.
Well, that's true.
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Real Paper Promo Segment00:13:21
All right, let's get back into the show.
New York Times, Kenosha police shooting of black man is investigated.
BBC News, Kenosha shooting, protests erupt, protests erupt after U.S. police shoot black man.
By the way, and this is the goofy 2020 upside down world that we live in.
The picture they have is just a fire.
It's just cars on fire.
Protests erupt.
Is that really the word for setting cars on fire?
Protests.
So this is basically what you're left with.
Cop shoots black man, that the race is going to be in every single title and protests.
I mean, you know, they're upset.
So they're protesting about this.
Here is the reality of what happened.
Now, again, as with all of these things, I never pretend, as some people love to do, I never pretend to know the situation from a short video clip.
I don't pretend to know what's going on in everybody's head and everybody's heart.
I think it's stupid when people do that.
I thought it was really stupid when the LP jumped in after Garrett Foster died to say he was a hero and he was trying to protect people.
And he, you know, like all this shit that he was pushing his disabled girlfriend across the street.
Like that part is just a lie.
But the other thing is like, you don't know what was in his head.
And as we pointed out on the show, we don't know, but from the video of him earlier, it seems like maybe what was in his head was, let's go start some shit.
I don't know, but it's quite possible.
Certainly don't pretend you know the opposite.
But I watched the video of this guy getting killed.
Did you watch the video of the cops shooting?
I'm sorry, he's not dead.
He's in critical condition.
But did you watch the video of this guy getting shot, Rob?
Yes, I did.
So I will tell you, and again, it's almost like I feel like I need to preface this by being like, I've been about as critical of police as probably just about any podcaster person out there.
The video to me, what you see in the video is basically the cops, several cops, one of them has his gun drawn.
They're yelling at this guy.
Uh who is not listening to them?
He he quickly walks around the front of his car, opens the driver's side door and leans in.
As he does that, one of the cops grabs him and shoots him in the back a bunch.
Now I gotta say i'm open to hearing more evidence, more.
Whatever comes out of this investigation, perhaps there's another way the cops should have handled it.
Perhaps this wasn't protocol or that I gotta say.
Just from initially looking at it, it looks about as close to a suicide by cop as you could say.
If people don't know.
The idea of a suicide by cop is like when you either draw a gun or pretend to draw a gun and point it toward cops so that they'll kill you, like that's one way of committing suicide.
Cops are yelling at you they've, they've got their guns drawn.
You ignore their instructions, dart around your car and jump into the passenger seat.
I think anyone could tell you they're going to assume you're going for a weapon of some sort.
That is my initial take on what happened there.
I don't know.
You saw the video, rob.
What did you think about it?
Uh, I think that at some point um, you got to somewhat comply with uh law enforcement and uh, obviously I don't like that.
Law enforcement exists.
I think that there's a lot of problems with the framework, but at the end of the day, the guy's out there with the gun, knowing that you know violence might come upon him because of his job, and if he's trying to tell you hey, don't move, you can't start reaching into your car where they can't see you, it's I mean, and they can't be expected in that situation to do my.
I mean, maybe they should have tased him first, or he should have been handcuffed sooner, or what you know.
Maybe there were ways that they could have avoided getting to that moment.
But you know I, I it almost looked like they were trying to be hands off and give him his opportunity and then, once they entered into a situation where they had no reason to expect anything other than maybe he's reaching for a weapon, I don't know, I don't really think you can false a cop on this one.
Uh, you know it's a lot of uh times.
I see libertarians uh, particularly left libertarians or libertarians who, you know don't want to get ever get called any of the names, who are clearly very afraid of that.
Um, they will sometimes act in a similar manner to how a lot of the goofy leftists act like?
Do you remember um, we were talking about this uh, a month or two ago, when there was that woman in uh, Minneapolis who was advocating defund the police and uh uh, the brooch Bulger something.
Lady on CNN asked her.
She was like okay, all right, so no Cops.
So someone breaks into my house.
I'm used to calling 911.
What do I do now?
And her response was basically like, well, I think that's our white privilege.
And so it was more or less like, well, I guess you're just going to get raped.
And that's, yeah, you know, that sucks, but no cops.
Like, libertarians, that's not our position.
We may talk about abolishing the police or things like that, but we've got some actually pretty serious, you know, answers to these questions.
And basically, it all comes down to property rights and private defense agencies.
And we're like, well, no, no, no.
What would happen here is that whoever owns the property would be able to defend that property.
You have every right to defend yourself.
You could, you, you know, there'll be no restrictions on the weapons that you can own.
And there can be, you know, there will be some type of 911.
It'll just be a private company that'll probably work much better than the government cops do, you know, like all this shit.
But okay, I think libertarians might want to ask themselves, look, the cops were coming to a domestic violence, a domestic assault, you know, call, a domestic disturbance, something like that.
So we're not saying there'll be nothing to do that, right?
Like probably we want to have somebody there who will deal with domestic violence issues.
It's the libertarian answer is not as goofy as that left-winger who called into fucking CNN, who's just saying, well, if you're being abused by your partner, too bad.
Libertarianism.
That's not our point.
So some private company might show up to do this.
They might likely be armed.
And if they're like, hey, we've had reports that you were just, you know, assaulting somebody, we'd like to talk to you about it.
And you dart over into your car.
And like, I'm just saying, try to judge this the same way you would judge it if anyone else was doing this.
Maybe the cops did something wrong here.
I'm just not seeing it as a black and white.
Obviously, they did.
It seems to me like, yeah, that's a really stupid way to handle a confrontation with police and one that you could probably say has a very high likelihood of getting you shot.
Yeah.
Also, how is with every single video, you never get to see it from the beginning?
It's always like, I'm almost surprised that they didn't cut this one to just at the moment that they drew guns.
And imagine if that one hit the media where it was just a guy getting shot in the back, but none of the context.
Luckily, it wasn't that bad, but it's still surprising that, you know, give us some of the story.
I want some of the buildup.
Do these people not know how to tell a story?
Well, it seems like it does seem convenient that you always get that part.
And then, of course, the media, which is the next angle of this, is like all of these, you know, and these are major media companies that I just read the headlines from, right?
These are New York Times and Huffington Post and BBC and all of these.
They all make mention of the guy's race.
And I got to say, I just don't really see why this is a relevant detail to reporting the news.
And I mean, like, are you honestly telling me this incident was about racism?
I mean, we still have no evidence at all that the George Floyd incident was about racism.
It's not clear that they did this because the guy was black.
In fact, I don't think there's anything to even suggest that.
I mean, it's not as if it was a bunch of white officers.
It was a bunch of officers of different races.
It was a white guy who was on his back, but that's hardly evidence that it was racially motivated.
And I don't know.
I mean, if the cops show up to some white guy over a domestic violence disturbance, which happens all the time, and he doesn't follow the cops' orders to the point that they have guns drawn.
And then when they have their guns drawn, he darts over to the driver's side of his car and reaches in.
My guess is the exact same thing is going to happen.
Now, again, that's not to say that cops treat white people and black people the same in every instance.
I just don't see any evidence that it had anything to do with this particular case.
And the other thing is, like, in the moment that we live in, you have to think that these people, these reporters in the corporate press, they know what this is going to do.
I mean, you know what putting this out there as a racial story is going to do.
And it seems like at best they don't care about that.
And at worst, they're intentionally trying to provoke it.
I don't know, because especially on this news story, long term, I really think they're going to end up losing more political power than they're gaining.
And maybe this is a decent segue, but I'm looking at some of the lineup that Trump has for the Republican National Convention.
It includes that kid who shoot CNN.
It includes the two people that were outside defending their homes.
And he's really going to get out there and paint the picture of like, hey, look at real America and look at what the fake media is doing and look at how they won't protect their cities while me and Barr are rounding up criminals that they're leaving out there.
I mean, it's amazing, I guess, the degree by which they're trying to get all hands on deck for the propaganda machine.
And it's almost like what you've been describing for a while with the Trump derangement syndrome is that sometimes they actually push that stuff too far.
And I think what's going to make the RNC so compelling is that while Trump is bad, he does have a lot of truth on his side.
They did rob him of his first term with a fake Russia collusion story.
They have been running space race with fake racial narratives.
They're trying to tell people with guns that they can't protect their own homes against violent mobs.
There's a lot of really compelling storylines out there that Trump is actually right on.
And I honestly think they're going to be losing more political power over trying to run consistently fake and false narratives.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I'll tell you, it's like, so Ron Paul, who brought me into libertarianism, brought so many people into libertarianism, like the guy who introduced this to the vast majority of current good libertarians.
He started his campaign in 2007, running for the 2008 election.
And what he was addressing through 2007 and through 2008 were the issues of the day.
You know, it's not just like there was some abstract thing.
Like he didn't just get up there and talk about how, you know, I don't know, like government licensing laws are bad or how, you know what I mean?
Like he's not just like talking about like, he didn't just get up there and say like, you know, Ludo Guan Mises really explained to us how a market pricing system works and how there's this real calculation problem in with government intervention.
Like, I mean, he, not that he wouldn't talk about those things, but he centered his campaign around the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan being disasters, which was a really big deal at the time.
And the fact that the Fed had created this bubble that had tanked the economy.
Like those were the issues of the day.
You had to talk about them.
If you were running in 2008 and you weren't talking about the recession and the wars, that would be insane.
Like how do you not like Americans can see that these are the issues that matter.
And right now, I mean, again, there's a lot of issues that are really important that libertarians care about.
But right now, if you're going to be commenting on politics, you have to be talking about the lockdowns and the riots.
And to pretend those aren't that like every American can see this in front of their face.
These are the issues and you have to address them.
Like I just don't even understand how you could try not to.
And the DNC literally didn't address either one of them.
They just had this whole convention where they're not talking about it.
What they're talking about, much like the Libertarian Party, is racism.
Racism, not even police brutality, but racism, as if that's the main problem in this country right now.
They went even stupider than just the racism because they went into a more just feel-good thing that the problem in this country is Trump's lack of compassion.
Manscaped Shipping Offer Details00:02:55
Yeah.
And then they just went into the sphere of goofy talk of light and themes.
And I don't know if it's that like comedy doesn't work without an audience because without the last, it just feels stale.
I almost couldn't tell if their shit was so boring and dry because there wasn't an audience cheering for it, or if they were, they couldn't even believe their own lies.
Like they were trying to give what they thought were going to be these epic speeches.
And while they were up there, they just realized, like, man, this fucking sucks.
And why am I pitching for Biden?
Like, that's the feel that it had.
Yeah, no, I agree.
I agree with all of that.
But I just think that this is now a huge opening for Donald Trump to be like, hey, since no one else wants to talk about it, I'm going to address the two issues that people like really, that regular, reasonable people really care about, which is really affecting them.
And say, we got to open up the economy.
That's what's happening here.
This virus is terrible, but we can't destroy the country over it.
We can't destroy the economy over it.
We've already done a lot of damage.
We got to get back out there and get back to work.
And the other thing is that these riots have to stop.
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Redirecting Anti-Establishment Energy00:15:31
By the way, of course, as you could suspect, as we alluded to earlier, these are not protests in response to this guy getting shot by the cop.
They're straight up riots that are going on right now.
And there's now in Kenosha, Wisconsin, they've been going down and just smashing up businesses.
This is still going on in Portland.
It's still going on in Seattle.
Denver, it has gotten worse and worse.
This is still a big problem.
And everybody who lives in a city anywhere now is wondering if this is going to come to them.
That's a very reasonable concern that a lot of Americans have.
That if you believe in property rights and the non-aggression principle, it's not too hard to see what side you would come down on on that.
Are you with the people who are smashing up businesses, assaulting people, terrorizing them, soccer kicking people while they sit on the ground?
Or are you against that shit?
This is pretty easy for anyone to say.
And this is why the Democrats don't want to talk about it.
And for some weird reason, it's also why the Libertarian Party doesn't want to talk about it.
Because then you can't just say we're for the movement, Black Lives Matter.
It's like, oh, shit, real life comes around.
And it's actually a little bit more complex than that.
Oh, yeah, we're against the cops.
We think there's a lot of police reforms that are necessary.
But this part of it is not a justified response.
I don't get why it's so hard to deal with reality, but it certainly is for a lot of people.
I'm on board.
So, as you mentioned, the Republican National Convention is coming up, and there is a huge opening for Donald Trump to bring this stuff up and to try to actually address issues that are seriously plaguing the nation right now.
It's no fucking joke.
And, you know, I think that politically speaking, this is a huge opportunity for him.
I also think it's a big opportunity, as you were kind of getting at when you were describing the DNC.
It's an opportunity for Trump to just be more entertaining and to just have a more fun convention, you know, and which I think could help him a lot.
Dude, the DNC felt so forced.
It really felt like every single one of those people were kind of like your John Kerry.
The only exception is kind of Michelle Obama.
She came off like a total pro.
She was selling it.
And Obama still has his Obama energy.
But even him, it really looked like people were forced to be there.
And it was like, even if it felt not the same, it didn't feel as good.
It's like a bad sales call.
I've been on bad sales calls where you didn't want to be in work that day and you just kind of knew you're, you know, you're going through that sales script, but you know, you're giving a bad pitch.
That's what that entire thing felt like.
Yeah, I agree.
I agree.
And we'll, you know, we'll see what ends up happening.
But I do think it's smart of Trump to have the Salmon, the, what's it called?
Was it the Covington Catholic School kid?
I think that's a smart move for him to have that guy there, just to once again remind people that the media tried to ruin this guy's life.
I think it's a really smart move for him to have those two people who are out defending their home.
I think that far more, like, and I don't know, I don't know for sure, but I have to still imagine that far more people in the country, particularly like independents, undecided voters, those types, are going to look at a mob breaking into someone's property and then the people standing out there with guns and side with the people with guns.
I just think that's that's got to be what normal people lean toward.
Yeah, no, I think Trump is going to come in guns ablazing and really showcase just how much the news has done him dirty.
And like that fake news thing that he was saying forever and people are like, ah, he's being an asshole.
He's going to have a pretty compelling showing of like, look at the way they're painting these news stories and here are the actual human beings.
And here's like the important things.
You should be allowed to defend your property.
Like you should be allowed to wear a Trump hat.
Like there are some really reasonable things that the media has been trying to convince us are like are, you know, shouldn't exist in the world.
And Trump can just be like, man, this is a part of freedom.
You're supposed to be able to have a gun on your own property.
You shouldn't be worried about an angry mob kicking down your door if you're a gated community and that the cops are going to do nothing because the media has painted a racial issue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, and that's that is hard to argue with.
And we'll see.
We'll see if he hits on those themes.
But there's certainly a big opening, a big opportunity for him to step up and do that.
And just that, you know.
By the way, just one other thing, and way to go Democrats on bringing so much stupidity to the table and make like, because since they basically put up nonsense stuff like racial issues or, you know, the lockdowns and Trump being mean, we get to instead this election just have a conversation about, hey, the Democrats are a bunch of wacky nutjabs and I'm going to stand for law and order and win again without a single conversation about war debt or anything that's actually important to this country.
Like that is the result of, you know, and that's the real flaw of the Libertarian Party.
They could have came in and said, hey, guys, here's the actually, here are the important issues.
Here's how we can reframe politics because we're going to be the reasonable party and start addressing what's actually important.
And instead, they decided, hey, well, we're going to talk about stupid horseshit also.
Yes.
Well, I mean, dude, you would think, just imagine you were scripting this.
Try for a second to just imagine, like, put yourself in 2019, you know, and I'm explaining to you what's happening in 2020, which would just sound unbelievable.
Like, you'd be like, no fucking way.
This is happening next year.
I mean, I remember, you know, like doing our show all through 2019, right?
Remember doing the end of the year episode where we talked about the biggest stories of the year.
And we thought to ourselves, like, wow, this has been a wild year.
Like, things are crazy politically.
And it's nothing.
I mean, like, 2020 has erased, just eclipsed the memory of 2019.
So if I was explaining this to you and I go, okay, well, here's what happens.
The government shuts down the economy, like straight up shuts it down.
They put tens of millions of people out of work, put tens of millions of more people in this precarious position where they have no idea what's going to happen with their job, with their business, with their children's school.
People are literally watching TV every day to see their governors speak to find out what they're allowed to do.
There is mass authoritarian constitutional overreach, unlike anything the country's ever seen before.
And millions and millions of people just want to go to work and the government won't let them.
And then I were to say to you, what do you think the Libertarian Party should run on?
Would it even be a thought?
Like, how much like work?
We wouldn't have to go think tank this thing and brainstorm about what our position is going to be.
We would both say, okay, obviously the campaign is right in front of you.
It's right there.
All you have to do is walk into it.
There's like this warm, cushy seat waiting for you.
All you have to do is have a seat and calmly explain that we stand for freedom and opening the economy immediately.
This is our issue.
You know what?
All other issues can take a back seat right now.
We believe in freedom.
The government has no right to do this to you.
They have no constitutional authority to do this to you.
And millions of people just want to get back to work, have the American dream, have a shot at a better life, not be dependent on government.
All of this.
So obvious, so obvious that this would just lead the campaign in all other issues.
This would be your central issue.
And instead, they're out here talking about how we condemn bigotry.
Okay.
So, you're comparing tens of millions of people being put out of work to someone's got mean thoughts about someone else that someone else doesn't like, you know, like I don't like Indian people, I don't like hanging out with them, I think they're rude or something.
That's the issue, which by the way, is not even a major issue in America.
You know, this is the other point that I made to Chris when he was on the show: is that he goes, he was trying to make the point to me that he goes, Well, the reason that they're putting this messaging out there is because most people in America agree with that.
Most people in America think racism is horrible.
And I'm like, Exactly.
That's why, that's why we don't need to be lectured to about being a white supremacist country.
Because, yes, most people in America think of racism as bad, which kind of proves that it's not that big of a problem.
And the other thing, by the way, is like, I don't give a shit what most people think.
That's not the role of libertarians.
It's like most people think that, like, I don't know, most people think we need an income tax.
Okay.
Well, the role of libertarians isn't then to just go like, well, we do support the income tax because that's what most people think.
The role of libertarians is to explain to people why we don't need an income tax and convince them that we're right.
That's the role.
It's not to go along with what everybody else thinks.
Anyway, but yeah, so to see the Libertarian Party going down this road, I mean, it's just like it's horrible.
And I also like, I'm not, as some people in the party would like me to do, I'm not going to just pack it in and say, well, I won't criticize Joe because I don't want to hurt the campaign.
Like, I'm sorry because I see them failing.
And when they fail, I want it to be known why they did.
And I want it to not discredit the idea of libertarianism.
And I'm actually providing a hedge against that, as are some other really great libertarians.
And I see that.
How can you not be angry?
How can you not be angry?
What environment would have left for a better opportunity for a third person to come in and be more reasonable?
It just had to be somewhat compelling.
And you weren't Donald Trump and you weren't Joe Pisan, two people that no one really likes.
This was the golden opportunity to come forward and go, hey, we're the reasonable third parties that you're not aware of, and we're here to save the day with better policy.
I mean, it's infuriating.
You will have never gotten a better environment to run than this one right here.
You have a cartoon character running against a senile fucking groping machine.
Like, this is the year.
And it's the year that the government, sorry, repeat myself, the year the government shut down the economy.
I mean, and then all of the stuff about the bailouts.
Look at the government response to the bailout.
They just like raped your children's future to give out to all this other stuff.
I mean, there's so much energy that's like anti-establishment right now that you could, you could so easily try to tap into some of that stuff and direct it in a libertarian, you know, in a libertarian direction.
But yeah, it's just, it's unbelievable to watch them to watch them blow this whole thing.
And yeah, no, you couldn't have asked for a better opportunity to actually step up and say something.
And instead, their messaging seems almost to be like, I don't know.
I don't want to get into intent of people that I don't, when I don't know exactly what their true intentions are.
I think that there are a lot of, let's say, culturally left-leaning people who are running the social media accounts, writing the speeches, and running as vice president for this ticket.
And so they have their, maybe they genuinely believe everything.
But if you were trying to tank the LP ticket this year, believe me, they're doing a much better job of it than I am.
They couldn't be doing better.
You know, Julie Borowski, who I had on the show back in the day, she's like a, you know, she's, she's like made YouTube videos for a long time, and she's, you know, a popular libertarian who's out there.
She had a post about what the Libertarian Party should be trying to do.
And I thought she made a really good point, which I never thought of exactly in this way.
But she was basically saying that, look, even if the Libertarians' goal is just to crack 5%, you know, she goes, they should be targeting disaffected Republicans and right-wing people.
That's who they should be targeting, not disaffected Democrats.
Because, and this was her argument, which I think is a very strong argument.
She was basically saying that, look, if you're going to convince somebody who is left-leaning not to vote for the Democrats, but to go third party, and you could make all these arguments like, look, the Democrats are terrible on these issues and they're completely corrupt.
And that's why you've got to go with this third party.
And we agree with you on like war and cops and some of this stuff, but we just disagree on all the economic stuff, but vote third party to support us.
They're probably going to go, yeah, but there's also the Green Party, which agrees with us on all the stuff you agree with us on, but doesn't disagree with us on all the economic stuff.
It's hard to make a compelling argument, huh?
Sounds like a tough sell.
Yeah, it just seems like a tough sell because you're like, okay, well, and also to them, it's not merely just, you know, disagreeing on economic stuff.
It's like you want people to die because you won't provide them with health care.
So it's a much tougher battle than it is to say somebody in the Republican world who's like, let's say, really wanted the Trump America first foreign policy and didn't get it or really want.
Now, there are issues there.
Don't get me wrong.
I mean, the Libertarian Party insists on being the open borders party, and that's going to be a deal breaker for a lot of people.
They fucking, you know, they're basically pro-choice, which isn't going to be very helpful either.
My advice would be plug up those two issues and you could really make an appeal.
I mean, imagine if the Libertarian Party wasn't running on an open borders platform.
Let's just say they had like a good Ron Paul, you know, immigration policy, which Ron Paul's thing was basically just like, listen, we have to chop up the welfare state.
That's the magnet and that's the major problem anyway with immigration.
And then on top of that, he was like, you know, I don't want to be crazy, like build a wall or shut down immigration, but no easy citizenship, no voting rights, no welfare, no that, you know, like just like a common sense, reasonable libertarian compromise.
And then just be pro-life because that's the right answer anyway.
Just, and you could have a really solid pitch to right-wing people.
You could probably...
I think Rand, I think he's going to be good at the RNC.
Deep State Leaks and Debates00:05:09
I think he's going to praise Trump for no new wars and he's going to talk about the stupidity of all the lockdowns and he's going to have a little bit of his doctor perspective that he's been going hard at Falcon.
I think that's going to be a great platform.
Well, I hope he's, you know, I'm interested to hear what he has to say.
I hope that he redirects things towards some of these really important issues.
And I think he will point out how unfair the media has been.
I think the major thing, too, that Rand Paul gets, which if Donald Trump is smart, he can really craft this into a narrative.
But they are bragging over at the Democratic National Convention.
This was one of the other major themes of the convention.
They are bragging that all of the deep state war hawks, even the Republican ones, are supporting Joe Biden.
Isn't that great?
Isn't that wonderful?
Well, it's almost like sometimes they like, it shocks me how stupid the Democrats can be.
Remember back in 2016 when I remember doing the podcast the day after this happened, but when Hillary Clinton had those of the kid who was killed in Iraq came out and started lecturing Donald Trump about the Constitution and all of this, and she had them as her guests.
And I was like, oh my God.
I mean, the response for Donald Trump is right there if he wants to take it.
And it took him about three days, but then he finally did pick it up and take it, where he was just like, yeah, you voted for that war, but your kid wouldn't be dead if I was president.
Like, there's my response.
You're standing up here for someone who supported the war that got your son killed, and the war was bullshit.
We never should have fought it.
And he eventually did hit that correctly.
But there is a huge opening for Donald Trump to just be like, yeah, this is the foreign policy that Americans have rejected over and over and over again.
And okay, you're all with Biden.
Great.
I guess that's pretty much proof that Biden's going to continue this foreign policy that we all hate.
Now, of course, Trump hasn't done a great job of actually, I mean, yes, he hasn't gotten us into a new war, which is pretty good, but he hasn't ended any either.
And so that's, you know, an issue, but he can still play that card and it could be very effective.
You know, it'll be hilarious if it if it won't the debate that just kind of leaks out of Trump's mouth where he goes, listen, I keep trying to get out of these countries, but every time I do, there's some crazy news story that the fucking CIA puts on Fox, and then all of a sudden I'm stuck in this country.
Believe me, I want to get out of all these places.
This just fucking deep state keeps fucking me over.
That'd be amazing if something like that leaked out of him.
It really, and that's the entertaining, one of the most entertaining parts of Donald Trump is that you never know what might just spill out of his head.
But I got to say, it's just seems, it seems like there's a huge opportunity for Trump to take advantage of going into the Republican convention.
And we'll see.
We'll see if he does it.
Either way, you know, it's, I love this dumb political theater, and I'll be interested to see how they do with it.
The convention, what are, when, when does it start?
Sorry, trying to get the oh, all right, I guess it's did it start already today?
All right.
Well, it looks like, if not today, I think it's tomorrow.
Oh, no, today is day one.
My mistake.
Today is day one.
So not going to be the most eventful day, but they'll probably be some moments worth noting that we'll talk about.
And of course, we'll be watching every day of the convention and then breaking it all down for you good people.
All right.
That's our show for today.
Thank you, Rob, for calling in.
And let me get a last plug in here.
Firstly, thanks for Max and Tom.
Unbelievable backyard comedy shows.
We had a blast.
It was great.
Thank you for having us.
And I'm hereby putting an end to the summer porch store so I can focus my efforts in my war against Optimum.
So please support me.
Let's make sure that they can't continue to not give us internet and just charge you money every month.
There we go.
There you go, Rob.
Oh, and of course, if anyone doesn't know already, they put my 2017 comedy special, The Hour, The Full Hour, is up on my YouTube channel, Libertas, on my channel.
And Smith Fair.
Huh?
Oh, yeah, Smith Fair.
Smith Fair.
This is the last chance.
Tomorrow night is the night that I am officially sworn in as the president of the United Skanks of America.
Very exciting.
Very exciting times for the country, for the podcasts, all of this.
Yeah, today is voting day, but that's all right.
You had to register already.
There's no point in not plugging it.
Also, I don't think I'm allowed to plug it on this show.