Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein critique the "Loser Brigade" of libertarians, arguing that focusing on social issues distracts from exposing state aggression driven by profit motives. They contend that government intervention, not inherent bias, worsens disparities like wage gaps and drug laws, urging a populist strategy to elect strong Mises Caucus candidates in 2024. By prioritizing economic freedom and avoiding "thought crimes," they believe natural interaction will dismantle prejudice, ultimately framing the root of oppression as systemic evil rather than interpersonal conflict. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Navy SEALs and Jennifer Evans00:01:55
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We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, Dave Smith.
Rolling Back The State00:10:26
What's up, motherfuckers?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am the libertarian Tupac, Dave Smith.
He is the king of the caulks, Robbie the Fire Bernstein, back with us.
One battle up, one battle down.
This is anybody's war, but I'm still skeptical that you're going to get your sandwich platter, but I'm just happy that you're here with me right now.
How are you, sir?
Thank you for having me.
I will get the sandwich platter.
However, the AIDS are really acting up now, so I got to take a couple days to focus on my health because you're not going to win the fight against Optimum if you don't have all your resources.
So just going to regroup a little bit, make sure I get myself good and healthy, and then we'll get back out there, make sure they apologize and get me some sandwiches.
Just when the COVID starts dying down, the starts flaring off.
It's a tough, it's been a tough year.
It's been a tough year for everyone, but particularly for Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
I can't even go through all of the trials.
I slept with those men.
It's on me.
And hopefully I'll push through.
Yeah.
You know what?
That is a good way to look at it.
It's like you did the crime and now God is punishing you.
And you have to, what are you going to do?
Argue with God?
You can't.
You're going to lose that fight every time.
Well, happy Labor Day, Rob.
And to everybody listening, are you doing it?
Have a great summer.
I mean, the amount of fun things I did, this blew past, you know?
Isn't it fun to have a day for labor when the government hasn't let most of the workforce work for the majority of the year?
But hey, you know what?
Yeah, you probably deserve a barbecue more than you do on most years.
So I hope people are having some fun, having a beer and a burger with some people you love.
Why not?
It's a beautiful day, at least in the northeastern part of the country.
I think it's like 186 degrees in California.
You guys might want to stay inside.
Yeah, they're having a crazy heat wave in LA.
Yeah.
Is that because of the fires?
Does that actually like make things hot?
I don't know.
I don't sound like it would work that way.
I don't think so at all.
I'm no scientist, but that seems retarded.
So I'm going to go ahead and say probably not.
That's probably not how it's working.
But I do think they're having like an unprecedented hate wait.
It didn't get as high as 186.
No, it's not 186.
I was exaggerating.
But I think it was like 125.
It was like something really fucking crazy that, like, I don't know.
My wife read this to me off of her phone earlier today.
This is the extent of what I've got to back this up.
I don't know.
I think God is mad at Los Angeles.
You ever go out and spend some time in LA?
It's like, oh, this is a cool city, but you kind of feel like the devil is very present.
You're like, I feel this energy that's just not, everyone's so concerned with image and making it in Hollywood.
Everyone's trying to make it in Hollywood.
Like everyone.
Like the fucking valet outside the restaurant, your waitress, everyone just has a script or is auditioning for it's a weird fucking weird goofy town, LA.
So it's mostly losers, if you think about it, because most people aren't in movies.
So it's like just a town of losers.
It's a fucking, yes, it's a town of fucking losers who want to be famous.
And then for those famous people, they're the shit.
Like you are just, everyone wants to be you.
And every, it's very weird.
It's a lot of fun to pop into LA for a few days, but I could never live there.
Cut to me getting one offer and moving out to LA in a month and be like, no, it's really great.
It's really, really.
Okay, so I do not have much planned for today's show.
I will be honest with you.
Good people, as I always am.
There wasn't too much news of the day that I was interested in.
It's Labor Day.
I've been enjoying some family time for the last couple of days.
So didn't have much planned.
I thought we would just kind of have a relaxing episode where we discussed a few different things that are on our mind.
I will say, if you didn't see, the debate that I had with Andy Craig was posted.
Please go check that out.
It's up on the Lions for Liberty podcast feed.
And as I said the last couple of episodes, I really love those guys.
I don't know how much value actually came out of the debate other than the entertainment value.
But the one thing that I was really happy to do was to give a shot in the arm to those guys.
So we got some good promotion.
People do really seem to be enjoying it.
My Twitter's been blowing up all day.
And I appreciate all the kind words that people have said.
Let's just move on from this.
Leave this Andy guy alone.
I'll say this.
I am retiring from debating the Loser Brigade.
I'm out of that business.
I think I've done my part.
I've, you know, let's see.
I debated Nick Sarwalk at the Soho Forum.
Then I had an informal debate with him on the podcast.
I had the twink from that dork page.
I had him on my show.
I had Chris Spangle, who I don't consider part of the Loser Brigade, but I had Chris Spangle on my show to debate some of these issues about the disagreements amongst libertarians.
And now I went and debated Andy Craig on the lines of liberty.
I think I've done my part.
The overwhelming consensus seems to be that I've done pretty well in all of these in all of these debates.
And after a while, you just, I think it's just time to move on.
I'm happy to do debates.
I really like debating.
I'm happy to do more of them.
But this, I'm just kind of bored with this particular group.
And it's kind of the same things.
I find them to be very not compelling arguments that I'm constantly having to smack down.
And I kind of, you know, it's one of those things that I go back and forth on because sometimes there'll be somebody who's really pretty irrelevant, doesn't have much of a following, are launching these, you know, kind of attacks against me and other people who I love.
And part of you is like, well, I guess just ignore them.
But then that is perceived by some people as like, oh, you don't have a response to them.
And then there might be some decent, open-minded people who just hear these accusations and see you not responding.
So they're like, well, maybe there's some truth to this.
So I feel like, well, okay, so I have to kind of, you know, have these debates where I demonstrate that they really have no arguments.
And it's pretty easy to do.
And so now I just feel like I've done that enough.
And I get this thing where now, like, some of these other people who have like 200 followers on Twitter start coming at me hard and challenging me to a debate.
It's like, ah, shit.
Well, now they think I'll just debate anybody and they can kind of make a name for themselves this way.
And I don't, I'm, I think I've done my part.
I've beat these guys up enough.
I'll, I'll pass the baton on to whoever else wants to step up and go debate these guys.
Have some fun with it if you want to.
But I'm going to move on to other things.
I think that it's, you know, it's easy for these guys to, when they're alone or they're doing their own little podcasts or they're on their own pages, it's easy to make these claims.
But as soon as they step there against me, they all fall apart.
I also think that because they run in these circles, they get an inflated sense of their own prowess.
And so they think they're going to do well in these debates.
It seems to me like they're usually a little bit surprised by how bad they end up doing when they face me.
And I think that that's because they're getting no pushback on these ideas.
And as soon as they get some pushback, it's like, oh, shit, I don't really have a response to that.
So anyway, I've just had this experience with Sarwalk, with that other guy, with Andy, where they kind of talk all this shit online.
Then we get into a debate.
They've got nothing.
It crumbles.
Everybody watches them crumble right in front of me.
And then as soon as it's over, they go right back to talking shit online.
And oftentimes, the same thing that I just smacked down, you know, on the debate.
So it's like, and at a certain point, you're like, okay, now there's a record.
It's out there.
Anyone can go watch it and see it.
They can make up their own minds.
If people feel that you made a compelling point, okay, you can have those five people.
I'll take the rest of them.
And that's that.
I do think that like for the Mises caucus crowd, it's there.
It was important to me that someone step up and fucking handle these guys.
And I did a little bit of it.
And then I thought I was done.
And then I was a little bit inspired by Eric July, by the great Eric July, when he was just slapping these guys down on his show.
And I was like, oh, yeah, that seems kind of fun.
So I wanted to, I did a little bit more of it.
And now I'm out.
I know it's good entertainment and people enjoy it, but I can only do this over and over again so much before I feel like I am lowering myself to engage in some of these silly conversations.
And honestly, I just think there's more interesting people out there and there's more interesting debates to be had.
And I'd rather talk to those people.
So that's where I'm at with this.
Moving on, leave Andy alone.
You know, honestly, I don't, I'll say this, I don't hate any of these people.
I really don't.
And I don't think you should either.
I think that they're engaged in something shitty, you know, and they shouldn't be doing what they're doing, but okay, what are you going to do?
Largely, they're irrelevant, and that's fine.
And that's kind of where they belong.
At one point in the debate, Andy seemed very nervous that we were going to take over the party and purge these people from the Libertarian Party.
Real Paper And Free Shipping00:02:13
And it's like, why would I even care to do that?
Who wants to purge you guys?
It's completely irrelevant.
I just want to steer the party in the direction that I think is the best for liberty.
And maybe that's what we could talk about a little bit on the show is nothing even to do specifically with those debates, but just the general idea of what libertarium strategy should be and how we can best influence the national conversation or the national mood about a lot of these things.
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One of the criticisms from not just the loser brigade types, but from the people who are critical of the Mises Institute in general, seems to be something along the lines of, if I can attempt to steel man their position, because that's kind of what you have to do in these debates, because they usually bring such weak arguments.
Embracing Controversial Stances00:06:02
But if I could make like the best version of what their argument would be, it would be something like, okay, well, you, the fact that I've talked to some of these right-wingers, some alt-right people, some paleoconservatives, some America first guys, whatever you want to call them, the fact that I talk to some of these people and that I'm kind of friendly with them, I'm like, I'm not just screaming you're a racist and I'm actually having a conversation and even complimenting them when they get something right.
This can, you know, this can turn off a lot of people from the liberty movement.
And things like, you know, you know, Murray Rothbard saying, you know, a few things about David Duke that were kind of kind or Ron Paul's old newsletters or things like this can end up causing the movement a lot of problems.
And that might end up turning a lot of people off to the movement.
The issue with this line of argument is that it kind of flies in the face of all of the evidence.
So you can say that, well, a Rothbardian, You know, someone who embraces Murray Rothbard or the Ron Paul, you know, having these old newsletters, this is going to turn off so many people that will never get a liberty movement going.
I guess the problem with that is the only time there was a liberty movement going was when Ron Paul inspired it.
And there's no evidence for all the people who are criticizing me.
I mean, they all have no following whatsoever.
So all the evidence seems to suggest that actually it's the people who are willing to go into these areas who actually do inspire a liberty movement.
And the other ones, the kind of milquetoast, you know, politicians who they would like to see propped up, don't seem to inspire anybody.
So there's no, there's no, you know, there's this dynamic in the LP that's really strange, where you have a lot of say very socially awkward people and weirdos.
And nothing against that.
Like I'm weird and you're weird, Rob.
Everybody who's in this space is kind of weird.
Obviously, we don't see things or, you know, operate in the same way that most people do.
So nothing, but there'll be like intensely socially awkward people who immediately start lecturing you about how to attract normal people.
Like they start telling you, they're like, no, no, no, this is people aren't going to respond to this.
Trust me.
And you're like, dude, who is responding to what you're saying?
Like, who?
Show me the evidence of this.
I mean, I would look, if I was doing everything I do.
And the guys that never got laid telling you, first you got to buy her flowers and really nice ones.
And don't even ask her out.
Just show up to her house with the flowers.
Right.
Like, it just seems like wouldn't you, wouldn't you feel like if you're like, well, I've never been successful with a woman, I'm probably not in the position to start giving out advice and giving it out with certainty about here's how you got to get a woman, right?
Like this is, but this is kind of the dynamic of what's happening.
Everywhere I go, no one will talk to me, but let me tell you how to talk to other people.
Right.
I mean, look, what could I say if the kind of like embracing of the social justice narrative was, let's say, all the libertarians who did this and were putting out podcasts or writing, you know, articles or any of this shit, they were just blowing up.
They all had like hundreds of thousands of followers, and I had nothing.
Like no one was getting on board with my message.
And then they told me, look, this is a really bad strategy.
And this is what you got to do to bring people on board.
Okay, they'd have a pretty strong argument.
You'd be like, well, Jesus, I mean, I really felt like this was a better strategy.
But look, I mean, let's, we are libertarians.
Let's look at the market.
Let's look at the market signals of all this stuff.
Yeah, it's like, doesn't seem to be panning out that well.
But it's all the opposite.
And that doesn't stop them at all.
It doesn't even seem to like, you know.
And you can tell from all of George Orgenson's news appearances, just how compelling her take on these situations are and how companies that are really just looking for characters and for ratings don't, she hasn't said anything of interest where they're willing to have a female presidential candidate on in a field that exists of Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
That's how interesting her takes are.
And it's, it's really she's got the world's worst publicist that they can't get her onto a single news segment.
Well, it's like she needed to have a coherent strategy.
And I got to say that I think if she had a strategy, if she had the right people around her, there would be a way to really get people talking about you.
Now, it might be that the truth is that you'd have to be willing to take some controversial stances because that's what'll get people talking about you.
And so the obvious, like to me, the obvious ones were that were really easy that any libertarian should know is that I'd run through the controversial stances I would take that would get the mainstream media talking about me.
Okay.
Number one, the Russia collusion thing was a lie.
Let them know that.
Russia, Donald Trump, I wish Donald Trump was working with Russia more.
CNN still hasn't apologized.
Yeah.
Listen, if you said, if you made provocative statements like that, like I wish, I wish Donald Trump was working with Russia more.
Then maybe he could have worked with them to end some of these wars.
And then all of a sudden you get headlines.
Now it's going to be headlines so they can try to smear you, but you can argue your way out of that and with so much facts that they will not be able to deal with it.
I mean, again, you got to be prepared to make that argument, but that right there is a huge one.
It really hit them for how this was completely a lie.
You know what?
Donald Trump is guilty of crimes, but it's none of the ones that you accuse him of.
Here's what he's guilty of, the same stuff Obama was.
Investing In Gold And Crypto00:08:14
And then you can spin this into a libertarian message.
And it's right there for you, right?
The other one is obviously the lockdowns to just rail against the lockdowns.
And all the stats of businesses that are closed now.
I mean, think about how many horror stats and interviews you can have with people.
And the narrative, the sales narrative is, I want you to be able to take control of your own future, your own business, and be able to make your own decisions about whether or not you want to operate.
That's not our place to shut down your business.
Yeah, that's right.
And of course, the other one that I would have said was to be, you know, be the first one out there condemning the riots.
Be the first one.
And by the way, you can do this in a way where you're also condemning police brutality.
It doesn't have to be one or the other.
I mean, you could really, if you wanted to do it, you could be like, you know, if you wanted to be really smart with it and sit down and focus on it, then the talking points would be something like the cops have proved that government security forces are worthless.
The cops, you can attack them on both ends.
Attack them for the police brutality and then also attack them for not protecting private property when it was necessary.
You go, look, the cops have proven that government monopoly security forces are useless.
And the mobs have proven that real security forces are necessary.
And that's why we are for the Second Amendment completely unrestricted and people's rights to protect themselves and their property.
It's like this shit writes itself.
It's not that hard to do.
All you have to do is really believe in this shit and kind of know what you're talking about.
That's my secret.
I kind of know what I'm talking about.
And that's enough.
That's enough to dominate all these fucking debates.
That's it.
I really believe in this shit and I kind of know what I'm talking about.
That's it.
Read half the books on this shelf here, okay?
And fucking know a little bit.
And that's it.
And then, you know.
How big does that bookshelf actually go, by the way?
Like, is this what you want us to see?
And like, there's actually rows of books or like that's the end of what you have.
No, like right over here.
Okay.
So right here at the end is like Elders of Zion and like it's all the alt-right stuff is like right over here out of shot.
But they go on forever.
They never end.
But you got something like you got born standing up turned in taking up a lot of space.
So you're like losing a whole shelf right there.
Oh, the Steve Martin thing?
Yeah, I see you got the great deformation.
And then after there, I can't see too much.
That's when it starts getting really controversial.
That's when it starts, you know, it's like the South will rise again.
All that shit over there.
But so, you know, the other thing like, and this is, this is more or less what I think, you know, Ron Paul really figured out.
And this is something that we talked about a bit in the podcast about the Rothbard right-wing populism article.
But I think that the case for utilizing populism to help push things in a direction of liberty has never been stronger.
It's never been stronger.
I mean, that is the moment that we're living through in this country, whether you like it or not.
The fact is there are populist uprisings on both the left and the right.
And that is something, it's the reason why, like, there's probably no figure in the corporate press who can tweet anything without it just getting ratioed like crazy.
Like, you go look at like Brian Stelter's Twitter, like click on one of his tweets and then just look at the responses.
It's like, just fucking, you're a liar, fake news, all this shit.
And, you know, it's all of them.
And that's because people are waking up, maybe not to, you know, what some libertarians would like them to see and what we would like them to see.
And it's not so much that they're waking up to the idea that like, you know, free market economics is the way to go or something like that, but they're waking up to a very important insight, which is that this whole system is bullshit.
Like this whole thing is bullshit and they're getting ripped off.
You're ruled over by your lessers and they have contempt for you.
This is something people are noticing.
Just that starting point of that knowing that things are off means that we can come in and present a different perspective.
It means this is the golden opportunity to go, well, you want to know what, like Trump kind of did that with the wall thing.
He goes, hey, I know that everything's horrible.
And guess why?
It's because of China manipulation.
It's because of this wall and we're going to fix it.
So we got to come in and actually share the true story here, which is here's how government has gotten in the way of you having a great life.
And part of the story is inflation.
Part of the story is the Fed.
Part of the story is Wall Street.
Part of the story is the wars.
Yes.
And they've got to come in and go, it was government.
Yes.
And that people need to realize, right, that it's like you're correct in your indignation, but let's direct it at exactly where it deserves to be pointed.
So, okay, you think China's ripping us off on trade deals?
No problem.
Let's compare how much China's ripping us off versus the Federal Reserve.
Why don't we look at the big banks right here and compare how much they're ripping us off to how much China, you know, violating intellectual property rights is ripping us off.
The fact that there's a fake Apple store in China, like, okay, how about the fact that like 95% of the value of your dollar has been stolen from you and redistributed to these five big banks who also, by the way, get bailouts from the government with your taxpayer money?
I mean, this is like, this is what libertarians need to do is they need to capture this populist kind of energy and direct it where it belongs.
All right, guys, let's take a quick second.
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There's so much about this that's all over the place.
This is the essence of why people are so furious at the establishment.
It's because they know this stuff.
They can sense it.
Red Pilled Rules And Truth00:15:32
This is why something like that Nancy Pelosi video of her going to that salon gets people so furious and rightfully so.
Because however you feel about whether there should be mask mandates or whether you think the virus is more of a threat than the government overreach or like wherever you stand on that, you know, that stuff might be kind of complicated and tough to figure out exactly.
It's like, I don't know.
You're telling me now I got to sit down and I got to like read several different, you know, you know, like, I got to read like virologists and epidemiologists, and then I got to read economists and I got to kind of compare like, well, where are the costs versus benefit here?
I mean, how much is the cost and the virus spreading versus how much is the cost and jobs being shut down and how dangerous are schools really and all that?
You know, it's hard.
There's a lot of work involved in that, but it's pretty easy to see Nancy Pelosi telling everyone else they need to follow these rules, but then she doesn't even follow them.
Like that's a really easy thing to see.
And this is something that gets people furious and rightfully so.
Rightfully so.
Here's a woman who's claiming to be a public servant and yet she can dictate rules to the public that she herself doesn't have to follow.
That's fucking, that's that's shit that makes people want to fucking, you know, throw a brain.
It's worse than dictate rules.
It's dictate rules with this moral, you know, this moral line that if you're not following these rules, it's going to cost people their lives.
And everybody needs to contribute no matter what the costs are.
And the costs are that people have lost their businesses because they've been closed.
And while you're making this claim that there's a moral outrage of people not wearing masks, you're inside of a business illegally without a mask on.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And I don't think it makes sense.
And she still doesn't look good when she leaves.
That's the worst part.
It's like, did you?
So did you skip the hair appointment?
Yeah.
And then you just left?
Were you just solving the problem?
And then, of course, you see her turn around and blame the business.
Like, that's a great moment right there because it really just exposes, it exposes several things.
Like, obviously, what we just said, that you'll kind of like, you know, you'll lecture people, impose these rules, and put yourself up there on this moral pedestal, but then you don't even follow the rules.
But then also, just what a shitty person you are that you can't even take responsibility for it after the fact.
And you have to go, oh, this was a setup.
Like it was a setup.
Did they make you take your mask off?
Like, no, you did that.
So take, take responsibility for it.
Anyway, so that was, you know, just one example of this populist kind of moment.
And I got to say, one of the things that I really disagree with about kind of with like the more of the like beltway libertarian types is that I do not think that like like libertarians need to have, just like everybody needs to have, they need to have priorities.
And as I've said many times before on the podcast, I think that outrage is a finite resource.
You can only be outraged about so many things.
You only have so many hours in a day.
You only have so much oxygen in your lungs.
There's only so much you can rant and rave about.
And so of course you have to prioritize, you know, what is the greater outrage and what's not really worth spending all this time fussing about and what's really important.
And so a lot of libertarians, you know, like the Beltway libertarians type, they spend a lot of time being outraged by populism, by left-wing populism, by right-wing populism.
And to me, it just seems pretty obvious that the populism is a symptom of the disease.
And the disease is the establishment.
As I've said several times before, the story of how politics in 2020 America got to be so crazy is not the story of right-wing extremists or left-wing extremists.
The story is that the center became the extremists.
And the truth is that this message of like, oh, and this is what I talked about in the Star Walk debate, right?
That the message of CNN was like, well, we don't need to go as far as AOC.
We definitely don't need to go as far as Steve Bannon.
Let's just meet in the middle with Hillary Clinton and Lindsey Graham.
And it's like, that's kind of the message.
Like, well, this is the respectable establishment, centrists.
But the centrists are arguing that we bankrupt the country.
We fight wars in like eight different countries in the Middle East.
We regulate every nook and cranny.
We fight a war on drugs.
You know, like all of their policies are the most extremist things you could imagine.
If any of those policies didn't exist and someone came along and advocated them, you'd be like, this is the most batshit, insane, extremist policy I've ever heard of.
What do you mean we should invade seven countries in the Middle East and try to force them to live, you know, in a, in a like Jeffersonian republic or whatever?
You know, like, well, we want women in mini skirts in Iran.
There's nothing moderate about that.
That's a pretty extreme policy.
Yeah, really.
There's several steps out there.
That's a long country for it.
You might be right about that.
But so that's, and the truth is that even if there are some left-wing, you know, extremists or right-wing extremists that have some very bad ideas, it's not very consequential.
I mean, like, we're not living under the rule of those people.
But just go ahead.
No, no, I have, I kind of cut you off there if you want to.
Okay.
I was just saying, but we are living like it's the neocons and the neoliberals, like these people have actually destroyed the country.
So like that seems to me where the outrage should be focused.
I remember once in Israel, we ended up like, I don't know what trip I was on, whatever, but somehow our bus ended up like in some like Palestinian village or something.
And like, I don't know, the armed guards come out and was like, everyone stay by the bus or something along those lines.
But I remember just being like, man, these chicks are fucking hot.
Why are we trying to kill these people?
They're awesome.
Can we go mingle?
There you go.
See, look at that.
Horniness breeds peace and prosperity.
But so anyway, it always seemed to me like obvious that I, you know, I'll talk to like a hard left person or a hard right person over talking to like, you know, some war hawk who's actually responsible for the deaths of, you know, countless innocent people.
That seems to be something we should be far more outraged by.
And that doesn't seem to be something that a lot of libertarians agree on.
And that's a real, to me, that's like a real separating point.
And I think part of that is, as I've said before, just being red-pilled.
Like a lot of this shit comes down to like a lot of it does, it's not so much left and right.
Oftentimes I think it comes down to red-pilled versus blue-pilled.
And oftentimes I think it comes down to masculine versus feminine, to be completely honest.
I think that there is a feminine energy to saying like, well, we shouldn't say anything that hurts anybody's feelings.
We shouldn't be mean.
There's a lot of people complaining about mean people online.
And oh, this guy, this guy seems like a bad guy and this kind of energy.
And then there's the more masculine energy that's kind of like, okay, well, let's tell the fucking truth.
I don't care whose feelings are hurt by it.
Let's get down to like what's real here and what's going on.
And sometimes telling the truth might hurt some people's feelings and that's fine.
And women have vaginas.
They can get away with that because they can have no personality be uninteresting.
And there's some man that still wants to be around them.
So they can take that approach of let's just all be nice and then go through life and maybe that'll work out for them.
And behind closed doors, those are the biggest bitches in the entire world who are shitting on everyone or, you know, doing nasty things behind closed doors.
Everyone's just going to be nice.
So well, listen, I mean, look, there are some women who have really great personalities, but I get your point.
But I think that when I say the thing about being red-pilled versus being blue-pilled, I think that when you really take the red pill and you realize how evil the people who run this system are, that this is not a joke.
It's not like, oh, these people, and this is what always drives me crazy about the Beltway libertarians.
They always have this attitude where it's like, and look, I love John Stossel.
I thought his show was great.
I really enjoyed watching his show.
But it would always be this kind of like, sorry to interrupt myself again, but this is why you have to read Murray Rothbard, Do You Hate the State?
But John Stossel's show would always have this kind of energy like, you know, there's these do-gooder politicians with their well-intentioned policies, but they have all these unintended consequences.
It's like, what a bunch of jokers.
They just don't realize that these policies have unintended consequences.
And I don't see things that way.
I don't think these are like really great people with the best of intentions and their policies have some unintended consequences.
I think these are evil sociopaths who know exactly what their policies are doing and they are getting their friends rich at the expense of you and me and really at the expense of, you know, the people of, say, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria, you know, the people in, you know, all over the United States of America who are locked up for bullshit crimes.
Like all like this is, I don't think it's like, oh, we figured this out, but they really have no idea.
Like Dick Cheney really thought that democracy would sweep the region.
And sure, Halliburton's stock went up by 600%, but like that's just all these unintended consequences.
Like maybe that was the intended consequence.
Like at what point do you start looking at the possibility that maybe their intentions aren't good?
So to me, that's the red pill.
The red pill is realizing that the whole system is designed this way.
It's bullshit and they know it.
It's not a mistake, you know?
And at a certain point, it seems like some of those Beltway libertarians are almost covering for these people, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
And so when you realize that, when you realize that the system is made up of people who will napalm children to gain power or to maintain power, these are people who will gladly see a situation in Yemen where babies are starving to death.
Hey, those babies can't starve themselves.
Right.
We don't get some planes over to Saudi Arabia.
But those kids might make it.
But you know what?
These are people who will go, oh, you know what?
I think it's good business to work with the Saudis.
And so if some children got to starve to death, whatever, we're going to make a big, you know, arms deal with the Saudis.
Now, when you start looking at things that way and you realize how truly evil the system is, and then you realize that someone like CNN, who's fucking, you know, going off on lies for three years about how Donald Trump's a fucking Russian puppet or whatever other bullshit who's constantly trying to manipulate the country, what do they do when he bombs the shit out of Syria?
They praise him.
They go, oh, what a great job.
He was really presidential today.
So when you actually get red-pilled about just how evil the system is, it's hard to sit there and go like, but you know, the really evil thing is some YouTuber who I think is racist.
That just doesn't quite have as much sting to it anymore.
When you're really red-pilled about that shit, you're like, who the fuck cares?
Who cares if some guy has some fucking mean opinions?
You know what's really mean is slaughtering people in third world countries.
That's the shit that's actually really bad.
So let's worry about that.
You know, there was one point where in the debate with Andy, where he started, he kind of made this argument that, well, first off, one of his points was, and I won't spend too much more time talking about that, but one of his points was that you have to choose between hating the left or loving liberty.
And as we said before, I was like, well, that's a false choice.
You don't have to choose between those two things.
You can love liberty and hate the left all in the same day, all in the same breath.
There's no problem with doing both of those things.
Of course, you could also throw back in their face, do you really hate liberty or do you just love liberty or do you just hate the right?
That would also be just as strong an argument against them, but it's not a very strong argument.
But one of the thoughts that came up that I thought was kind of interesting and stuck with me was the argument that I was basically saying something along the lines of what I just said, that, you know, I don't really care if somebody has some views about someone of a different race.
They don't like them.
I don't really care if there's a black person out there who doesn't like white people.
I don't really care if there's a white person out there who doesn't like black people.
That's just not the most important thing to me as a libertarian.
What I care about is aggression and state policy.
Like that's what actually matters.
This is what actually affects people's lives.
And his take was something along the lines of like, well, okay, but if people, racism is what so much of state oppression is built upon.
So if people have these racist views, then that, you know, is what the state will use in order to implement these policies and get less pushback on them.
And I suppose there are some state policies that you could say this about.
Over the last 30 years, if you're going to look at government, oppressive government policies, do they really infringe upon minorities more than everyone?
Like if I'm saying that with some of the, if I'm, and let's go with war first.
If we're putting forward that war is the worst activity of government and that it costs all of us money and causes death abroad, is that something that only affects black Americans?
No.
Now let's look at the Federal Reserve and interest rates.
I would say it hurts savers more than anybody else is black Americans that have most of the savings in this country or that have most of their capital eroded, that they couldn't, you know, make further financial gains.
I don't think they've lost more than white America.
Now, I also think they've certainly lost quite a bit, but I don't think that that's a policy that singled out black Americans.
So we just took the two most oppressive government policies.
I don't know what's next.
Healthcare, that they've destroyed healthcare by creating insurance and market.
Well, look, if you could, if, because just for the sake of trying to steel man the argument, I mean, okay, you could say that like historically, like if you're talking about slavery or Jim Crow or something like that, I'm sure.
If you can't change the past, why am I going to make a pop?
Why am I going to make policy or matters today to solve something that happened 100 years ago?
It happened.
Let's try to fix today.
That's no longer relevant.
Right.
Fixing Today Not The Past00:15:09
But let me say, even if you're going to argue that certainly that, you know, Jim Crow laws or something like that were more easy to have on the books to enforce if people were really racist.
Like, okay, I'll grant that.
However, there's also the other side of the coin, which is much more relevant to today, which is that the, quote, anti-racists are the, you know, the ones pushing big government more than anybody else.
And there's, and you have to see that too.
So Andy basically said that if you talk about, say, race and IQ, which is not something I really talk about a lot, but certainly some libertarians like Charles Murray or Stephan Molyneux have talked a lot about this stuff.
Well, that's the type of racist garbage, according to Andy, that leads to state oppression.
But of course, there's a flip side to this, which is actually much more relevant in today's climate, which is that the egalitarian side can also lead to a lot more state aggression.
So in other words, if you say that, you know, the different racial groups have different average IQs, well, okay, I suppose someone could take that and then advocate for status positions.
Like, well, this is why the state needs to do X, Y, and Z to minority groups.
I don't really see anybody advocating that, but I suppose it's possible.
But of course, what we do see all over the place is quite the opposite.
People taking the egalitarian point of view and then saying, well, look, if there's any disparate outcomes, that means that there must have been discrimination.
And therefore, we need X, Y, and Z policy to counteract the obvious discrimination.
This is when people talk about wage gaps or anything like that.
So really, it seems to me that today it's more likely to come from the other side.
Anyway, all of this stuff is irrelevant.
The truth is that libertarians need to just tell the truth, tell the truth and make a compelling argument for why the government makes everything so much worse.
That's what our role is.
That's our task.
It seems pretty obvious to me.
So you can save the problems of racial discrimination without even touching the topic.
So speaking to your strongman example of that, it's been racist in government that I guess or racist attitudes that have allowed these policies to happen.
Actually, I would say it's more the power of government and profits.
And take a look at, for example, probably the most racist policy you got now, and you've talked about it quite a bit, but American drug laws, which put a lot of black people in prison.
Is that because of me and you being racist, that the government is putting so many black men into prison?
I don't think it has anything to do with anybody being racist as much as that the policies seem to make people money and it's a power move by the government.
And so if we take a look at like, you know, the power of government and who they're allowing to have profits and who they're allowed to, you know, the only reason government should be there if it is to exist is to kind of protect people's private property.
And so if you take that perspective, most of these other things fall to the side.
If you start trying to create goofy factors, such as the biggest issue is people's racist attitudes, you're just, you're taking the, firstly, I don't think you're going to solve as much.
And our model is going to bring you more economic growth, which is going to allow everybody to win.
So let's focus on what's going to actually help everybody.
That's what we're proposing.
Yeah.
And it's also, it's quite a slippery slope to start saying that it's like, well, people who are prejudiced, that's the real problem, because then you go into this world where you have to like police everybody's thoughts and create these thought crimes.
And obviously, as we can see, when you get into this world, it never seems to lead toward people advocating for libertarianism.
To me, I think that libertarians are going to have to accept that people will have their biases, their prejudices.
We can encourage them not to have them when they don't make sense.
But people are going to have these views and we will have to accept a certain degree of that.
And if there are, you know, bad prejudices, because there are some good prejudices also, right?
Like it makes if a fucking, you know, a woman's walking down the street at night alone and sees an intimidating looking man and kind of like tries to cross the street or something, that might, that's discriminatory, but it might be a really good idea also.
If she sees Rob Bernstein, go say hi.
He probably, he'll probably offer you a sandwich.
Everything will be okay.
But I'm just kidding, cross the street.
And he can't close.
He'll be safe.
Ladies, cross the street if you see Rob Bernstein.
That is my message.
The other thing is if there are prejudices that are being displayed that are bad, then okay, what we really want to do is try to encourage people out of them and try to have more of a market that usually helps people to nudge them in that direction.
But what we don't want to do is go crazy calling everybody who we don't like every worst name in the book.
That's not helping anything.
And to pretend like we have a major problem with Nazis in America today seems to be a very convenient tactic that is not at all, in my opinion, based in reality.
I think just interacting with people, that's how you kind of get rid of, you get rid of the racist thing when you just interact with the black team, you're like, oh, you're exactly like me.
There's nothing to fear.
And then you start to realize that all the racial tension and all the other stuff, it's because people are preaching at you.
And so there feels like there's a divisiveness, or I got to be on this team and that person's supposed to be on this team.
I think the best example of that was a good movie, American History X.
He goes to prison.
He ends up in the laundry room with the black guy.
I still haven't finished it.
I'm halfway through, but I love the movie so far.
It's great.
Don't tell me what happens.
No, no, it's no surprise endings.
Just watch it through to the end.
And, you know, it's got a friendly tone the whole way through.
I thought it was totally realistic, the way they destroy those black guys at basketball.
Totally bought that.
That's how it always goes.
When I grew up in Brooklyn, it was always like that.
The white neo-Nazis come through, just reverse dunk all over the black guys.
It's like, you know, spot them some points, guys, please.
So the hyper focus on it or the, hey, this is the worst thing, it's just going to bring about more of it.
Whereas if you got a freedom model and people are free to interact and everyone can make money, you just start to realize like, all right, these people aren't really that bad.
You know what it is?
It's when people can hijack the power of government to then extract from you that you start fearing the other groups because people are playing on groups.
If you got a freedom model, you're free to interact with everybody.
And I feel like over time, I don't think there's so much inherent hatred of some built-in thing into people.
It's just, you know, I don't know.
Maybe, maybe I'm the lunatic and I've smoked too much weed in my life, but I just feel like everyone's getting along, Dave.
I think all these things can be true.
I think the point you're making, and you can be a lunatic who smoked too much weed.
I think that's all very possible.
Yeah, I think that you're right.
And I think in a lot of ways, libertarians have the only answer to defuse the culture war and also just make the country more successful.
And that's why, you know, I hope that we have a big liberty movement come back at some point.
So I guess what I'd say is, which is the next kind of, you know, topic, if we're talking about libertarian strategy, like what needs to be done?
What must be done?
All right.
So I think that here's what I think is the best strategy for libertarians going forward.
Okay.
As we said before, I think we have to embrace populism and try to direct it in a libertarian direction.
That we have to sympathize with people who are fed up with the system.
I think we're more likely to gain converts from people who are fed up with the system than people who are defenders or apologists of the system.
And this is left and right.
I don't think it's one or the other.
I think we need to do outreach to both.
I think you have to, the tightrope that libertarians have to walk is to appeal to different groups of people without ever compromising what your own belief system is and always trying to push people back toward liberty, private property, the non-aggression principle, right?
But that can be delivered in a way to appeal to people on the left.
It can be delivered in a way to appeal to people on the right.
I think all of that is important.
I think that we need more libertarians.
You know, this is this is you're never going to get away from that.
We need more people who believe in a society based on liberty and private property rights.
And I think that while no one should be off limits, I do think we should focus on the groups who we think are more likely to be converted.
I think that's just smart sales.
Like if you're trying to, if you're trying to win more people over, you try to focus on those people who are more likely to be favored to what you're pushing.
Yes, good leads over bad leads, you know?
But at the same time, you don't want to turn anybody off, which is, I will grant, is trickier and trickier as the culture war gets hotter and hotter.
I think that the most important thing that libertarians out there can do, okay?
It's not just, I mean, you want to know your stuff for sure.
That's like a base thing.
You want to read the great thinkers and really have your arguments down and all that stuff.
But you also have to be an impressive person yourself.
Be a decent person, be a kind person.
But I don't mean this in kind of like the wimpy, you know, like kind, like, you know, like, you don't want to be weak.
You want to be impressive.
That's that other people are going to listen to somebody who's impressive more than they are going to listen to somebody who's weak.
This is a natural psychological phenomenon that will never go away.
And it makes sense why it's there.
You want to be somebody who people want to hang out with, who people want to grab a beer with, who people want to have a conversation with.
That person is always going to spread the message more effectively than people who don't.
The other thing you want to do is have kids and raise them really, really well.
Don't hate your kids.
Don't fucking scream at your kids.
Don't be mean to your kids.
Raise them with, you know, love.
Be kind to them.
This is, if you want to see a society where there's less violence, the best way to get there is to raise children in a nonviolent way.
I think that's now that takes some time.
That's a generation away, but it's still really important to lay that foundation down for the future.
The other thing that people need to do is to not beat people up for things that are, whether you like them or not, essentially nonviolent, you know, like acts of liberty.
So if people are religious and you're not religious, like whatever, don't worry about that.
If you're not religious and people are, people are and you're not, you know, whatever.
It doesn't matter.
Just don't focus on that shit.
Let them have their lives.
Let's not battle with people over what their identities are.
You can have your identity.
And look, we've got a great place for your identity right here with freedom.
Then it gets to the political.
And I'd focus on the Mises caucus of the Libertarian Party when I say this, because I really do think that the Libertarian Party is still the way to go.
I'll tell you one thing.
This is the final time I will mention Andy ever, I promise.
Okay.
One thing that Andy tweeted that never got discussed in our debate on the lines of liberty.
And it was something that I think he's actually right about, but it never came up.
And basically what he said was that Joe Jorgensen's Black Lives Matter tweet and a lot of this other stuff that's viewed as left-wing pandering or left-wing outreach or whatever, he said it was actually specifically done to drive the paleocons, the us, out of the party.
That he said that this is actually intentional.
But now from his perspective, of course, it's like, oh, we have this problem with these awful people.
So we need to do this stuff to drive them out.
Now, Joe Jorgensen certainly isn't doing that.
Joe Jorgensen actually didn't even know about the tweet till all this fucking drama started coming.
But the person who's running our social media might be doing that shit.
And I think that it's quite possible that a lot of the people who are like being driven out of the party by the just awfulness of the Libertarian Party just realize that this shit is being done intentionally.
This is, this is, they're doing this because they fear that the Mises caucus is getting way too much influence within the party.
The Mises caucus has only been around for a few years and they're basically 40% of the party at this point.
Now, all I'm saying is the message that I delivered to this audience already is like, look, if listen, if half the people who listen to this podcast want to become dues paying members to the LP, then it's our party and we own that.
Now, what I think the best thing to do going forward for libertarians is that I think this year, we need to figure out the Mises caucus, this is, who our presidential candidate is and who our candidate for the chair is.
We need to figure this out by the next year.
And then we need to get those candidates that, and they've got to be really good candidates that everyone can get behind.
And when we have those candidates, then I will gladly jump in on a hardcore recruiting mission once again to really try to get people in to make sure we get our candidates in there.
But that's what we need for 2024.
I know it's a while away now and everyone's obsessed with 2020, but this election is going to come and go and we'll see where the country's at.
But there still will be a country and it will still need a liberty movement in four years.
And what we've got to do is get some, we've got to get our presidential candidate nominated and our chair running the party.
And that's what we need.
And then we have the party.
And believe me, we won't even need to purge any of the losers.
They'll either purge themselves or they'll just remain in obscurity where they're going to remain either way.
But I think that's the best bet for a liberty movement going forward.
And of course, all of the figures in the liberty movement will continue to do the great work that they've been doing.
And that's my thought.
Nominating Presidential Candidates00:01:45
Or the losers don't really even have opinions and they thought they were going to win people over by being a bunch of queefs.
And once that goes away, they'll just want to be part of the crowd.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think there's a, I think that that might be the case as well.
And I have no problem with that.
The losers can just shut up and just vote for our candidates.
That's that's fine with me too.
You guys, don't worry.
Don't worry about that.
I have to do you guys as well.
You can wash the queefs off and then hang out with the rest of us.
All right.
I'm with you on that one.
All right.
Let's wrap there.
Happy Labor Day, everybody.
We'll be back with a brand new episode on Wednesday.
And I promise we'll be back with a normal episode that's planned out and all that stuff.
Sorry.
A lot of hanging with family this week, but I had a great Labor Day weekend and I hope you guys have as well.
Thank you guys so much for your support.
We'll see you next time.
Go listen to Rob Bernstein's podcast.
Run your mouth at Robbie the Fire on Twitter.
I'm at ComicDave Smith.
Go check out my 2017 Our Comedy special, which is up for free on YouTube.
Libertas.
Okay, peace.
All right, guys, that's our show.
Thanks for listening.
And now we're going to play a quick trailer from the documentary I mentioned up front, Target of Opportunity, the U.S. Navy SEALs and the murder of Jennifer Evans.
She was a pre-med student enjoying a break from school in Virginia Beach.
She returned home from vacation in a body bag, the victim of what police called a brutal attack by two Navy SEAL recruits.
At the time of my investigation, I felt like most of the city had both of them were murders and deserve what they got.
It wasn't until after I investigated it that I realized it wasn't what it appeared