James Smith and Robbie Bernstein dissect President Biden's "enraging" address, condemning it as authoritarian propaganda that ignores pandemic mandates while offering vague vaccine timelines. They critique the Derek Chauvin trial, arguing George Floyd's fentanyl overdose negates racial motivation claims and that police monopolies lack de-escalation incentives. Ultimately, the hosts predict potential civil unrest if the verdict is not guilty, asserting that true liberty requires privatizing security and rejecting government-granted rights narratives. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Lying Politicians and Big Government00:15:11
Fill her up.
You are listening to the Gash Digital Network.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, James Smith.
Hey, what's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem, your favorite podcast in the world.
And of course, it's your favorite podcast because it features me, the libertarian Tupac, the most consistent motherfucker you know.
I thought that was my intro.
I thought you were giving me a nice intro there.
I was going to say I was and him.
Oh, okay.
And that was going to, you know, it was going to be both of us, right?
And, of course, that voice that you know and love, the king of the cocks, Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
What the fuck is up, my brother?
Well, it's nice to be here.
I feel like you could have given me a better intro, but you know, I'm still excited to be here.
I'm still going to do the episode.
I'm not going to walk out or anything.
I do not like to give you a better intro than you deserve or a worse intro than you deserve.
I like you right there.
So you feel like it was just right.
I think it was just right.
No one.
I'd love to go back and re-listen to it.
You know, we're live, so I don't get to actually see the tape.
That's right.
But I'll review it after the episode and, you know, I'll be able to make the adjustments.
I always review my intro of you.
None of the rest of the podcast.
I never re-listen, but every episode I listen back to how I introduce you and I've been happy with it every time.
Never once, not anything could have been added or taken away.
It's always just right.
Speaking of just right, Joe Biden, our president, our fearless leader, gave his first televised address to the nation.
And it was everything you expected it to be.
Inspirational, motivational, life-changing, life-affirming, everything you looked for.
Did you watch it, my friend?
I did and nearly made it to the end, but it's a mixture of enraging and boring at the same time.
It really draws a lot of emotions out of you.
It was, yeah, that's a very good way to describe it.
It was both enraging and just boring and a little bit kind of guilt-inducing.
Like you just feel bad for Biden.
It is like everything he has to do borders on elder abuse.
Like you're like, he shouldn't have to be in this situation.
This isn't right.
How do you not have anyone?
Like you don't have someone in your corner, like a great grandchild or something who's probably in their mid-30s who could be like, hey, great grandpa, stop.
Don't do this.
Just resign now.
But evidently he does not.
He does not.
Or somebody has some real dirt on him and they're going to make him, they're going to drag him through this presidency, which he seemingly does not want any part of.
By the way, it's really something.
The guy has still not had a press conference.
It's just unbelievable.
And it's unbelievable that there's not more people in the press that are upset about this.
Like, you know, you'd think the press would want the president to have a press conference.
He has.
There's, I mean, I don't know, but perhaps like over 100 years ago, you know, in a time where like press conferences weren't the same thing, you could find a president who's gone this long without having a press conference.
But no president in our lifetime ever has.
No president in modern America ever has.
Perhaps there was a time in like 1870 when the press had to come by horseback or something like that, where they were like, well, they're on their way from Chicago, but it's going to be a while.
But no, I mean, this is, he is just, this is a guy who didn't campaign.
Again, is the first president in modern American history to just stay in his home, not campaign.
Okay, he had the COVID excuse.
There is no excuse for why he hasn't had a press conference other than doesn't feel like answering questions.
And he's just being allowed to do that.
They're spending a lot of time addressing things, getting everyone together, coming up with 100-day plans and circling back around.
And there's just too much, only so much time in the day.
Yeah, it's unbelievable that those type of excuses are actually what's working.
Just simply, and it's not even as if this was Trump trying to dodge the press.
Trump, for as hostile as the press was toward him, always he loved it.
He was never trying to dodge them.
He kind of loved that battle.
But everybody knows Joe Biden's not going to get tough, grilling questions like that.
They don't even want him in front of superficially difficult questions.
And so they're just, they're not going to do it.
I mean, we'll see when, but they, I mean, I imagine at some point they have to, but as of now, no, we're not, we're not doing that.
Well, they don't even want people asking him off the cuff questions about what his last name is or what day it is or what calendar year we're in.
Yeah.
Well, that seems, I think that's it.
I think they just simply are worried that he can't get through it and that he'll have some type of breakdown.
And understandably, you know, that's, I guess, if you could see why they don't want him to, but it's just, it's, it's not so much that I think it's an outrage that he's not doing it.
The outrage is that there's not pushback against this and being like, well, no, I'm sorry, Mr. President.
You have to answer questions.
That's part of the gig.
I got a question for you because I was thinking about this after I watched it that when I hear Biden or your more traditional politicians and they're lying, I get really mad because I'm like, this guy's just lying to me.
And then I was thinking that's how a lot of people felt about Trump, that every time Trump talked, like they would just get enraged because they're like, I know this guy's lying.
There's something weird.
And this is like in me, myself, like when I saw Trump lying to me, I knew he was lying.
It didn't bother me as much because in some way it was kind of silly or funny or a mockery of the system.
So I just didn't mind his lies.
But it's just as like, you know what I mean?
It's just as obvious that Biden's lying, but when he does it, it gets me fucking mad.
And for some reason, everyone who is mad about Trump lying, they also know Biden's lying, but they don't seem to be bothered by it.
What do you think that is?
And like the human say that if it's your guy lying, it's okay.
There's just something weird there.
I think, you know, I don't know exactly, but my, my guess would be that the difference is that you know Trump's lying, but it's almost kind of baked into the price of Donald Trump.
He didn't sell himself or at least you never bought into the idea that he was this honest, noble, you know.
Or I guess since everyone knows that he's lying.
Yeah, since everyone knows he's lying, it's not like I have to sit there and go, but he's lying.
Everyone's saying he's lying.
When you bought, I look at it like just like it was baked into the price.
Not that we were, we bought Donald Trump.
I mean, we weren't the guys who voted for him or supported him.
But if you get a, you know, like a damaged sweater at a discount, you don't bring it home and complain that it's damaged.
You're like, yeah, well, that's why I got this $200 sweater for 30 bucks.
It's like, cause it's, it's imperfect, you know?
And Trump to me kind of represented that, where you, the, the positives of Donald Trump was that he was a big middle finger to the establishment.
The positives, it's not like we were looking at it like, oh, but he is this noble leader who would never lie to us.
Whereas I think on the other side, a lot of people did buy into that with Obama, do to some degree buy into that with Biden.
And so the fact that Trump was lying, they're like, well, Obama wouldn't just get up there and lie to us, you know?
And so that's to me, that's at least my perspective.
And, you know, there's lots of different people.
So this doesn't apply to everyone, but I think there's a lot of people who fall into that category.
I also think that a lot of people didn't look at what Joe Biden was saying as lies.
That he kept emphasizing, I'm just going to be honest with you.
And I think that's kind of what's infuriating about it is he sits there being like, I'm just going to be honest with you, but it was such an incredibly dishonest speech.
And with Biden, honestly, I never even know how much he knows.
Like, Biden, he might just be reading what other people put in front of him and have no freaking idea, you know?
Like, I could believe that, but I don't know.
But the speech anyway, the speech was about, I think it went over a half hour.
He gave a speech on the last year.
It was basically a speech where, hey, we're at the one year mark of this whole country being turned upside down.
And this is a reflection on that and what we're going to do moving forward.
And the opening, the first few minutes of the speech were kind of about what a tragedy the whole thing is and how awful this has been.
And that, you know, certainly not getting any argument about how awful it's been.
And he gave examples of, you know, not just the people who have died, but that they weren't able to have funerals, that other people who have died had to die alone, that children have had their development retarded and that they've, you know, like missed a year of school, that this is going to affect an entire generation of children going forward, businesses being shut down.
He went through at least a lot of the major things that have been so tragic about the last year.
However, what's missing from it is any sense of what caused this, why it is this way.
It's just like this dropped out of the sky.
It sucks that it happened, but isn't it so great that we're coming together to deal with it?
And absolutely no, you know, like as if this wasn't created by government mandates, as if this wasn't something that we did to ourselves, as if like, oh, I don't know what to say, the schools were just closed.
You know, like if after God closed the schools, you had a prisoner in your house and you started giving them a speech about how bad you feel that they have to be locked in a cell.
It's like, well, you put me in the fucking cell, dude.
Yes.
This is a you thing.
Well, yeah, no, exactly.
That's that's a great uh analogy.
It's, it's as if you um, you know, beat the crap out of someone and then sit there giving them a speech about how terrible having a black eye is.
And you're like, it's, it's just awful that you just got this black eye.
And I'm still like, my knuckles are still bloody.
And I'm just like, it's just, man, for you to go through this, just trust me, I, I empathize with how the pain you must be feeling right now.
Um, so this is this is how the speech opens.
Just, yeah, it's kind of sad and horrible, but of course, this just happened to all of us.
It wasn't done.
And it's so like removed from reality.
I mean, like, just for example, there's, there's a huge scandal going on with the governor of New York for forcing assisted facilities to take in COVID positive patients that led to many deaths.
I mean, this is at this point, it's really not controversial.
We know that they forced them.
We know people died from this.
We know they tried to cover it up.
None of that's going to be addressed.
The fact that schools are closed, it's like, well, there's lots of private schools that are open.
And we know from all of the evidence at this point that these are not hotbeds for transmission of the virus.
And we know the reason why public schools are closed, it's because the teachers' unions have lobbied to keep them closed.
We're just pretending none of that exists.
It's just like, oh, yes, I feel your pain.
Whatever.
So that part of it was truly odd to see.
After that, in the speech, he transitions into how what the plan is going to be going forward.
Basically, after not taking any responsibility for what's happened, he starts patting himself on the back for what a great job him and his team have done since being in there.
And he projects forward that by May 1st, he said, every adult will be eligible for the vaccine if they want it.
And that by July 4th, they're saying this in March, that by July 4th, you may be able to have small gatherings.
Now, of course, he made clear to let you know that's not a promise.
I'm not saying you can have that freedom, but hey, if we do everything I tell you to do and nothing else comes up that's unforeseen right now, we're shooting for the goal that you might be able to have small gatherings by July 4th.
I guess there might be some Americans out there who have such severe Stockholm syndrome that they look at this as like a nice thing.
I found it appalling the idea that anyone would be such, have such an authoritarian spirit that they would start telling you that, you know, I'm considering allowing you to hug your grandma this summer.
I'll think about that.
We'll see.
We'll see what happens, but perhaps I'll allow you to do that.
I just, I found it appalling.
And just wait till the immunity from the vaccines, you know, expires after three months.
And then we find out that the country doesn't have a mask for second mass.
And so everyone's just having one mask and we got to stay indoors for a couple of months, at least till they can get the mass quantities up.
Well, look, in Joe Biden's defense, he did not promise you small gatherings by the 4th of July.
He just kind of said, like, look, we're thinking that might be a possibility.
So yeah, he opened the door for all of these contingencies.
You know, like he's saying, oh, yeah, no, other things, things might change and we may not be able to do this at all.
All right, guys, let's take a quick second.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
One of the things that was truly bizarre, which in many ways just describes the entire Biden presidency, a truly bizarre, almost feels like something out of a dream.
But what's truly bizarre is just how removed this is from reality.
So, you know, it reminds me of, you know, stories I used to hear about, you know, truly authoritarian regimes.
And of course, I guess that's not that crazy because we really have become one, you know?
And as I've said many times on this show, in the year 2020, the United States of America went totalitarian.
And I just, I don't think that's an overstatement.
I think there's no other way to accurately describe what happened to this country.
Now, you can say we went totalitarian because of a germ, okay, but that's what happened.
But so he's sitting, so like you hear in these other, you know, authoritarian countries, like, you know, like you hear about stories in North Korea or something like that, where Kim Jong-un or before him, Kim Jong-il or something like that, they're telling you how much richer you are than South Korea.
And they're telling you how the, you know, the country is doing so well.
But meanwhile, you have no food on your plate, but you're just sitting in there listening to a politician tell you how much food you have on your plate.
And you're just, you're supposed to just pretend that we're all existing in this reality.
And there's lots of stories like this from like the Soviet Union and all types of other, you know, brutal authoritarian regimes.
But to see Joe Biden sitting there and going, maybe if we do everything right and we get a couple lucky breaks and you just listen to me and you do everything I tell you, then maybe by July 4th, we can have small gatherings again.
Meanwhile, everybody I know is having small gatherings already.
Who has not?
Is there anybody who listens to this show who has not had a small gathering yet?
I mean, you have to be an insane person.
And by the way, there are plenty of those out there.
There are people who skew toward paranoia who have really just been destroyed by this.
I don't know if you know any of them.
I know a few people who like haven't left their house basically this whole last year or are really, you know, I mean, I know people, a friend of the family who's like has diabetes and hasn't left his house because he was so terrified of the fucking germ.
And you're like, dude, I mean, how about the fact that you have diabetes and you haven't gotten outside in a year?
That might be a much bigger threat to your health.
Anyway, anyway, he ended up getting it.
He ended up getting it and fucking was fine and got over it.
And you're like, look what you just did.
You just gave up a year of your life for this fear and it was fine.
It was no, he didn't even get sick.
Anyway, but come on to like normal sane people.
Who amongst us has not had small gatherings?
He's sitting there going, hey, maybe by July 4th, we can have small gatherings.
Maybe you can see your grandmother who's 92 and hasn't had human contact in a year.
Maybe by July, you know, if she's still alive, maybe by July, you can see her and give her a hug.
Meanwhile, Florida's been open this whole time.
Texas just announced that they're opening up.
Like, this has no connection to reality.
There are these places that are already doing it that are open and have not only not worse results, but in many cases, better results than the places that are closed.
And we're just supposed to pretend this doesn't exist.
We're just listening to Emperor Biden instruct us on what reality is and make sure you believe him and not your lying eyes that sees exactly what's going on around you.
And it was just so bizarre to listen to him say this.
Like what just really, really bizarre.
I've never seen in my life in America.
I mean, don't get me wrong, politicians lie all the time, but I've never seen anything quite like this where he's telling you about the reality of day-to-day American life that in no way bears resemblance to what we're all living.
Yeah, I think that's that's that's both a fair analysis and I did recognize that as being incredibly strange.
And I have heard of, I know a couple of people also that are still fucking treating this thing like it's the worst.
And it's shocking to me that people are still in that groove.
Yeah, it's like just so strange.
You know, like, he's like, well, maybe by July 4th, we'll be able to have small gatherings.
And I'm like, well, I'll be at Porkfest in June.
It's almost like Biden just.
We'll be at, me and Rob will both be at Porkfest in June.
I'll be hosting Freedom Fest in July.
Also, I'm speaking at the New Jersey State Libertarian Party convention at the end of this month.
So go check all of that out.
I'm sorry.
Keep going.
It's almost like he's reinforcing and punishing the most gullible people because, I mean, at this point, the world's quasi-open.
People are going about their lives.
So you're not doing a full lockdown.
And there's zero evidence that full lockdowns prevented anything whatsoever.
So basically the people that are still buying into this lie, you're reinforcing the fact that they should be living a miserable life without any scientific evidence to support that.
So really, that's all you're doing.
You're punishing the most loyal listeners of government.
Yeah, it's really just like, it's, it's so bizarre.
It really is something out of the emperor has no clothes, you know, where someone's already pointed out that the emperor has no clothes.
And we're all like, oh, yeah, we all kind of knew this.
And he's just getting up there naked, telling you, giving you a speech about the threads of his shirt and what.
And you're like, dude, this is like, we, I don't know.
Anyone who's not living in your bullshit, you know, non-reality has already seen through all of this.
And no, like, I don't know.
Besides the most paranoid amongst us, who has not had a small gathering at this point?
I just, and I think you're right.
He is in many ways preying on the most vulnerable, the most susceptible to government propaganda.
And perhaps part of it is that they just can't give up this narrative.
He has to be the one who solved this and handed your freedom back to you.
But the other thing about it was that it was really, you know, like there's long been these kind of philosophical debates about whether, you know, rights are natural or government hands you your rights.
But just the gall of someone to get up there and say, I will hand you back a tiny little bit of your freedom this summer, if I feel like it, and if all the conditions I decide and the Lord, Dr. Fauci, if we decide that you can have this little bit of freedom, we will grant that back to you.
I just find it despicable.
The other thing that was noticeably absent from his speech is that he talked about getting the vaccines out there and how his plan is so great and they've gotten so serious and it's a wartime effort.
He said, it sounds like hyperbole, but it's not.
It's a wartime effort.
And we will make sure that by May 1st, everybody is eligible and they can start getting in line for these vaccinations.
But what seemed to be missing from that was what about the people who don't want the vaccination?
What about the people who have no interest in taking this vaccine?
Now, how, what are you going to do about that?
He just didn't address it.
Just didn't get into it.
Are you going to force them?
Are you going to have some type of soft force?
You know, like, okay, we're not going to make you get it, but you can't get on a plane or go to a hospital or do it.
You know, like you can't go to school.
You can't go to work.
You can't do anything without the vaccine.
What exactly is the plan for that?
Just not addressed.
Why even, why even get into that?
I mean, you know, it seems to the rational observer as a pretty important element to all of this, but just has nothing to say about it.
Just the vaccine will be here and you'll be eligible.
The implication almost being that everyone will get it.
We're not going to let you know how, but everyone will get it once they're eligible.
So we'll see what happens with that.
They'll probably use some sort of a shame system, like the mass type thing where you're going to need some sort of a bullshit bracelet or something and every store will check or some nonsense.
And then from there, maybe it'll be even more highly enforced than that.
But I'm going to guess that that's going to be in New York.
They actually, you know what, the closest thing I've heard from a plan from anyone, and I will say somewhat reasonable, not totally outrageous, but I think they said that they were going to like reopen your larger concert halls at like 30 or maybe it was 50% capacity.
But in order to get entry, you would either need a recent negative COVID test or proof of vaccine, which I think with the amount of testing that's being offered, like I've heard, I haven't been down there, but I heard the comedy seller is doing shows now and like they're testing everyone beforehand.
Have you heard anything about that?
Oh, no, I didn't know.
I didn't know that.
Like they have the rapid tests.
Yeah, I guess.
And like they test you and then it's like an hour later, everyone has the results and then they're running shows.
But I heard that from one person.
So I don't know the.
I don't know if that's true.
Yeah, I don't know the full parameters on that.
I heard that from one person.
But anyways, I guess there's enough testing out there that I guess if, you know, that's not, listen, you should be able to just go live your life or if, you know, people should be able to make their decisions about how they want to have you in their business or not in the business.
And that's the end of story.
But I guess for your airlines or your other things, if they require a negative test or like they shouldn't, but that's at least that's not as outrageous as saying you can't leave your house unless you're vaccinated.
Yeah.
Well, the truth is, and this is for all the people who say follow the science and all this dumb shit, that what's completely left out of Joe Biden's speech is anything about the scientific realities that we know about the virus.
And the truth is that we know who is vulnerable to this thing.
It's the old and the sick.
New Underwear Solutions00:03:49
And that the only, it just, this was.
People Cuomo likes to kill.
Yes, exactly.
The people Cuomo likes to kill and or grope.
Those are the people who are vulnerable.
No, I'm just kidding.
The people he gropes are not vulnerable.
They're mostly pretty healthy looking.
But this has been, I mean, this has been obvious for almost a year now.
I would say by May of last year, this was obvious that the answer here is that if you are old or if you have one of these severe underlying conditions, then it is on you to decide what risk you're comfortable taking.
And let young, and when I say young, I mean like 65 and under, let young and healthy people live their goddamn lives.
That is the reasonable solution to this.
And not to mention the ethical solution to all of this.
But this was Joe Biden's address.
Of course, the reporters shouted questions at him afterward, and he walked off with a confused look on his face as usual.
But this is where.
You know this is what he's putting out there that basically it was this.
Uh, it's been a nightmare.
No one you could blame for it I guess Trump, but besides that, there's really nothing else you could blame for it.
Um, it just happened.
Your businesses were just closed by god.
The schools were just closed by god.
It sucks, but we're America.
We'll get through this and by this summer, maybe you'll be allowed to hang out with five people in your house.
Now, how many people watched this speech with five people in their house?
You know what I mean.
Like it's just so removed from reality and people probably watch this in a small gathering there's.
People are having small gatherings all over this country.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
The funny thing about the Covid uh restriction regime is that it's almost like you know.
It reminds me almost of like the woke culture where almost nobody actually follows all these rules, like even in, you know, like the blue states, even in New York, where the the Covid insanity is at its height, or La, or wherever, people are still getting together in small groups, they're taking their mask down when they have an itch or whatever.
You know what I mean?
Death, Attacks, and Accountability00:12:30
No one actually follows it.
It's just they all kind of like to pretend that they do and they really get into attacking anybody else who they see who doesn't.
And of course, always conveniently.
You know what I mean?
Like there was one picture of Rand Paul when he didn't have a mask on in the in a Senate hearing.
And this was going, you know, crazy on Twitter and they were giving him a bunch of shit.
Look at Rand Paul.
He doesn't care about other people dying.
Now, forget the fact that Rand Paul has already had the virus and the fact that he has major lung issues and perhaps for medical reasons doesn't feel like putting a mask over his face.
Forget all of that.
But like those same people had no problem with Dr. Fauci or with Nancy Pelosi not wearing a mask or something like that, right?
It just becomes this thing where you can attack the person you already wanted to attack.
You just have a new weapon in your toolkit to attack them with.
That's what this whole shit devolves into.
And it's just awful.
It's just like the worst of humanity.
All right.
I don't know.
Anything else about Biden's speech that stuck out to you?
Yeah, that background looks a little bit like a green screen.
I'm not saying he was in front of a green screen, but it just looks a little off.
And then also, I mean, his reading was a little bit better than other readings that I've seen, but it is still a little bit stumbly, incoherent.
And like, at what point, at what point are we switching to Kamala?
At what point are they going to pull in the relief picture?
Yeah, that's what we're all wondering when Obama just walks out to the mound and just takes Biden's glove from him and sends him back in.
I guess they don't take the glove.
Anyway, yeah, that's look, we'll see.
I'll see how long Biden can stumble through this thing.
It's really something, something to watch.
All right, let's switch gears a little bit.
There was one other topic that I wanted to talk about today that I think is pretty interesting and says a lot about, you know, it's kind of the other major story that has to do with the last year and what this country's gone through and what it's going to be like going forward.
And that is this trial in the death of George Floyd, the guy, Derek Chauvin, if I'm pronouncing his name correctly, who is the cop, who is the now infamous cop who had his knee on George Floyd's neck.
His trial has begun and it's quite an interesting situation where what happens in this trial is probably going to have a very big effect on the country.
Of course, the death of George Floyd ended up really in many ways, you know, changing the entire nature of the last year in this country.
Of course, there was a lot of different factors involved in that.
It wasn't just the death of this guy.
It was, you know, the death of this guy in the height of the lockdowns and all the COVID hysteria.
And then it, you know, kind of led to this explosion in the Black Lives Matter movement with humongous protests, violent riots, and, you know, all the stuff that we saw, some of which hasn't ended, is still going on in places like Portland.
But really for all of last summer was, you know, about as intense as any long sustained rioting that we've ever seen or that we've ever lived through.
So now the trial has begun.
It's it's it's I don't know.
I've got a few thoughts about it.
One is that it really to me, there there is there's really something that's very unsettling and is a really bad sign for us as a society how much concern there is about the ability to have this trial in in a in a somewhat at least even something you could claim is a fair manner.
Trials are a big indicator of where your society is at.
And very primitive, very non-functional societies have a lot of trouble having honest trials, particularly high profile trials.
I don't know if you remember, but in Iraq, after George H.W. Bush's idiot son lied us into war there and destroyed the country, they had a trial for Saddam Hussein.
And they had lawyers who were coming in from like, I believe Jordan and other neighboring countries who were attempting to be the defense for Saddam Hussein, who were getting assaulted and threatened and a bunch of them left the case.
And it really went to show what a disaster this country was, that they couldn't even have a trial without all of these problems.
And right now, you have this trial where there is the not so implicit threat of riots.
The courthouse is like blocked off for blocks around it with a huge, heavy police presence, because they know if they didn't have that and there's a not guilty verdict that comes out of this, this place is going to be torn apart.
There's already in the jury selection process been several jurors who have expressed concern over this, understandably, right?
Like, who the hell would want to be a juror on that trial?
And so there's like, anyway, the whole thing is kind of a shit show.
And there, I mean, my, my guess would be that if this guy is found not guilty, there's, there's going to be huge riots.
I think that's the most reasonable conclusion.
Well, this guy's definitely going to take some sort of a wrap.
I'm going to just wild guess here.
Not going to be life in jail.
It's not going to be a murder, like a strict, strict murder charge.
At the end of the day, I mean, we all saw the footage, what this guy was 100% wrong and he should be in trouble for it.
And then we can also talk in a minute about just the power dynamic and that the real issue here is the power of the cops and like the way that these guys don't.
By the way, you know, I believe maybe Brian can fact check this, but the officer in Rochester has already been free and cleared.
I don't know if you remember when he pushed over that like 85 year old white guy and he smashed his head.
I believe that guy's been totally cleared.
And so if you, by the way, if you want to look at the real problem here, there should be just as much outrage over that as this George Floyd thing because the real issue is the power of the cops and the fact that they aren't held accountable.
Like what's his name's line of accountability for killer cops, Scott Horton, put it best.
But in terms of what's going on in the George Floyd thing, you are going to have to get around the fact the guy died and he died in, you know, in this cop's care.
And what the cop did was terrible.
I don't think the cop was intending to kill him.
What he did was terrible.
I don't think he intended to kill him.
And he also died, or at least from the coroner report, there were no neck or back damages from the guy's thing.
And he did have drugs in his system and a heart problem.
So at the end of the day, this guy's, what happened was terrible.
The cops should be held accountable.
You're probably not going to see the strictest potential murder charge because I don't think the guy intended to kill him.
That's going to be hard to prove that he intended to kill him publicly in front of other cops.
So he's being charged with murder one.
They also got a murder three charge in there.
What is murder three?
I don't know what murder is.
I don't see how they could possibly, well, murder three, I think, would be that you didn't intend to kill.
Let me actually look this up so I'm not just getting this wrong.
But so murder one would be like a premeditated killing.
I just don't see how they possibly could get him for that.
Like I don't know how in what world you could possibly argue that this was any in any sense intent an intentional murder.
Third degree murder is the unlawful killing of a human being when perpetrated without any design to affect death by a person engaged in the perpetration or in the attempt to perpetrate any felony other than the okay.
So I think basically if you're committing any felony.
Like I break into your house and you have a heart attack.
Like I break into an old lady's house.
She gets frightened, has a heart attack.
Yeah.
I wasn't trying to kill her, but it was an unintended consequence of my felony.
So they got the murder three charge in there, which is at least gives a shot.
Okay.
We'll see what ends up happening with this.
How does he not get murder three?
I mean, if that definition is correct of what I just said.
Yeah.
Here's, here's why.
Okay.
And the truth is that it's very hard normally to get convictions of cops because what, and this is a major problem.
But what they, what they'll usually do is they'll say that if what the cop did was consistent with their training and what they are, what they are trained and told to do in these situations, then they didn't do anything unlawful.
Okay.
And in the Minnesota Police Academy, I saw this slide the other day that someone sent to me.
The knee on the neck thing is a technique that they teach you to control a resisting suspect.
So it's not like the chokehold where the chokehold is like this move you're not really supposed to do.
And then when they do that, they can get in trouble if he dies.
This technique is actually something that the cops teach, that they train officers in using.
Now, feel however you do about that.
I'm just saying they have an argument here to make.
Here's the issue that I see, right?
And I'll tell you that.
By the way, just to then talk, if that's true, I mean, that's really tough.
But if that, if that's true, you kind of now, you almost can't even fault the guy.
It's like he's there.
There's a crowd of people.
He's been trained that if a guy's resisting his arrest, this is what he's supposed to do.
And so that's why he's so calm and grinning because he's like, I'm following fucking procedure here until whatever comes.
So I guess that's a result of really bad training.
But then if that's all like, let's just play it through this thought experiment, then someone needs to be fucking liable for going, oh yeah, that was a really bad idea.
Cause like if I invented technology, right, as a private citizen that results in death, because it was just a really bad idea, there should be some liability.
You know what I mean?
So whoever sat down and came up with this scheme who probably got paid a lot of money for what exactly is, let's just call it technology that we're going to use.
Like, you know what I mean?
You can go study BJJ.
What are we going to use if a guy's resisting arrest?
And it should probably be whatever's going to be the least violent or well, but the problem comes in.
Look, and let me just preface by saying this, that I really, I found this whole last year and covering the reaction, the Black Lives Matter riots and all this stuff to be really eye-opening.
And also just in terms of like where so many other libertarians were and where so many other people in general were, that it was really kind of, it was shocking to see the kind of like the response that I got for what I really thought at the time and still stand by was what I think was a very fair perspective on the whole thing.
And you can have, you know, I had libertarians and not just like the deranged lefty libertarian types, like good libertarians who thought I like would say like, well, Dave just doesn't criticize the cops anymore.
Meanwhile, I've been probably more critical of the cops over the last year than ever before.
Race, Monopolies, and Systemic Failure00:17:36
I mean, I've been criticizing them perhaps for different reasons than the Black Lives Matter protesters are.
I'm not criticizing them for like shooting unarmed black men for sport.
I've been criticizing them for not protecting people's businesses and homes from the riots and criticizing them for enforcing all of the totalitarian COVID restrictions.
But don't tell me I'm not criticizing the cops.
I just, you know, maybe won't be criticizing them for the same reasons you are, you implied, you know, to people who, I don't know, whatever.
All right, guys, let's take a quick second.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
Anyway, it's just been very bizarre, particularly as somebody who's just relentlessly criticized cops for, you know, at least a decade on record.
And look, the problem that you're even getting at here with state police in general, which is why state police shouldn't exist and it should all be privatized, is that, look, it's the problems you have with a monopoly on force.
And in this case, a monopoly on aggression that cops have, they have all of the same problems that any monopoly has, which is that they are not in any way obligated to serve their customers.
They are not in any way, they don't have any type of market forces around them, which would incentivize de-escalation and peace and not wanting things to get violent.
Jeff Dice used this example recently, but where he was saying, you know, if you go to Disney World or something like that, it's all private security there.
Okay.
Now, in Disneyland, they have a protocol for if a fight breaks out, if somebody steals things, all of this.
And the protocol never involves just beating the shit out of some customer at Disneyland in front of everybody because people who are there don't want to see that.
They might get the wrong guy and have a huge lawsuit on their hands.
They are criminally culpable if they end up doing the wrong thing.
Right.
None of these forces are at work with the cops.
And so you have this major problem.
And I think from my perspective, I think that was clear in the George Floyd case.
If you watch the video, it just seems to me that there's no, you know, the cops come at these things with like, we are going to show an overwhelming amount of force.
If we say get in the car, you need to get in the goddamn car.
If we say get out of your car, you need to get out of your goddamn car right now.
I am giving orders and you are to follow them.
I have to beat you into submission.
And there's no emphasis or prioritization of de-escalating a situation.
And that's a major problem.
And if you look through that tape with George Floyd, he's hysterical and on drugs and freaking out, but nobody seems to be actually trying to do what they can to calm him down.
It's more to try to get him to comply.
And this is a major fucking problem.
The obvious other major problem here is that this is just the guy was charged with passing off a counterfeit bill.
There is no need to have this type of response to that.
Okay.
And that's just the, the, it all around us in in the marketplace every day in society, we have problems like this where you just don't need, you know, like a fucking eBay exists.
And if somebody rips you off in some way, which is basically the same thing as counterfeiting money, someone ripping you off on a deal, you know, you have all of these systems to mitigate it.
You lose status on your profile.
You won't be able to trade on eBay again, whatever, all of these different things, right?
We don't need to send a SWAT team to that guy's house.
It's just not necessary to bring this level of force for this level of offense.
And everybody, when you're playing with your own money, is incentivized to keep the costs low.
And this is why violence is in many cases disincentivized in society because violence is expensive and it turns a lot of people off.
When you're playing with taxpayer money and you have a monopoly on force, the incentives are all in the wrong direction.
So there are major problems with cops here.
However, the narrative, it's like if a left winger is critical of, say, banking, right?
And me and you might also be critical of big banks.
But the fact that we're both critical of them does not mean that we have the same criticism or that I have to agree with what their criticism is or that I can't point out that their criticism is kind of batshit, crazy, and completely removed from the reality of the situation.
So they, you know, me and you might be like, well, the Federal Reserve, you know, creates money and credit out of thin air and then just lends it to the banks.
And this is basically, this is a system where they're just ripping everybody off.
They're just stealing your wealth and giving it to their rich friends.
And then, you know, all of this easy money and the fractional reserve banking and it creates bubbles and then real people's lives get destroyed when the bubbles are popped and all, you know, whatever, the whole nine yards.
And some left winger might say, there shouldn't be profits in banking.
And, okay, we're both against the big banks, but yeah, no, their reasoning is kind of dumb.
And the truth is that with this whole George Floyd thing, it's like, look, I think there's a million problems with policing.
I think it's outrageous that the guy puts his knee on his neck.
I don't care whether that was his training or not.
Then the training's fucking outrageous and him following it's outrageous.
The guy was in handcuffs already.
And he's also clearly just guilty of being a dick.
Well, it seems like and making zero, like, I mean, I haven't watched this in so long.
So it's easy to be removed by how horrifying it was.
It's been a year since I've seen the footage, but the guy's calling for help.
He's got the knee on the neck.
Matter what the training is it's called, have some common sense like yeah well, it's tragic dude, it's.
It's a heart-wrenching video to watch.
And i'll tell you one of the things that um, it's like there's people like left wingers tend to watch it and have this kind of or not even watch it and just be like well, this was racism.
Um, right wingers tend to watch it and be kind of like cold to to what happened there and you're like look, even if you don't think the cop was wrong, you're still watching something tragic.
You're watching a guy plead for his mother.
It's such a slow bar.
Yeah.
It's awful.
But let's get real and just some to some degree accurately assess what happened here.
This was there.
There is no evidence that race had anything to do with this.
That's number one.
Because what's what's become the dominant narrative with Black Lives Matter?
I mean, you just can't avoid it.
Like, I know there'll be these like libertarians who want to, I don't know, like make this thing.
It's like, well, they're just protesting police brutality or something like that.
And you're like, well, race seems to be a pretty big factor in Black Lives Matter.
Am I making that up?
Are you telling me that doesn't that doesn't exist?
Like they seem to be pretty focused on the racial element of it.
And there's nothing in this tape that's like the cop, you know, I'm not saying it's impossible that it had some effect, but there's no evidence that race had anything to do with this or that this guy was targeted because of his race or anything like that.
Like if, you know, if the cop called him a derogatory name or his race came up or anything like that, I would have no problem mentioning it.
That just doesn't exist.
That did not happen.
The truth is that what happens here is that, and I do think, just a quick aside before I mention this, because, you know, I was just reading Pete Quinona's had a had a post on this recently on his sub stack, which is really great.
He has his pieces are really thought-provoking and interesting and ballsy, which I love.
But he was basically saying where, you know, like how the libertarians just supported the Black Lives Matter rioting and all this shit.
And how, you know, when you see the Capitol building thing in January, and there'll be like one Confederate flag, all of a sudden, that's supposed to taint the entire thing.
Well, look, this guy had a Confederate flag.
So these are just white supremacists who are marching here.
However, in the Black Lives Matter movement, you know, you'd see like the hammer and sickle flags.
We're just supposed to pretend that doesn't exist, right?
Like that doesn't taint the whole movement.
Because like, why would libertarians be so much more outraged by a Confederate flag than the hammer and sickle?
That someone's going to have to explain to me.
But what happens here is that the cop comes over to confront this guy who's been accused of, you know, passing off counterfeit bills and the dude is out of his mind.
I mean, that's, that is the situation.
Now, any in my guess, whatever problems you might have with police, any white guy his size acting the same way would be treated exactly the same way.
And I think that in many ways, you know, I think there's this dynamic in America today where minorities are often convinced that the cops are shitty to them and the cops are shitty to them.
So then they go, well, look, there's proof.
This cop was just shitty to me.
It must be because of my race.
However, the cops are just shitty to everybody.
And so they're convincing you that this is a race issue when it's much more of a cop issue.
And I'm sorry, but if there was a big white dude who was, you know, had in his system like OD levels of fentanyl, who's freaking out when the cops come to ask you about, you know, a counterfeit bill, the exact same thing is going to happen.
The exact same thing is going to happen to them.
That's not saying it's right or wrong, but it is to make the point that there's no evidence here that this has a racial component to it, even at all.
Now, he's freaking out right away.
He's saying I can't breathe way before the cop puts the knee on his neck.
That's just the facts.
It's on the body cam, you know?
Now, the body cam footage, of course, wasn't released right away after this.
They let the riots happen for a while before some British outlet got a hold of it and released it.
But the guy's, you know, the guy's going through a lot and he's, he, they try to put him in the car before any of this happens.
And he starts freaking the fuck out when he's in the car and saying he's going to die and he can't breathe and all this shit.
And eventually they get him out and they get him on the ground.
He's already cuffed at this point.
I think the knee was completely unnecessary and shitty and the guy ends up dying.
Now, all I'm saying is when I look at that and I look at the standard, you know, way that cops are tried in this country, under normal circumstances, I think there's a very strong chance the cop gets off.
That's just what I'm seeing here.
And now, right or wrong, that's just kind of how things normally work in this country.
Now, this is a different situation.
It is impossible.
I'm sorry, you're dealing with human beings and it is impossible to think that the fact that this city will burn to the ground if this cop gets off is not affecting people on some level, you know?
And of course, a few jurors have already mentioned that they're scared.
They're scared for their families.
They're scared for themselves.
They're scared for their property, all this shit.
So it'll be interesting to see how this goes.
But I got to say, I think that there is more than a reasonable chance that the guy ends up walking.
And if he does, I think there's more than a reasonable chance that the city burns to the ground.
Well, you got to, the protests were over justice.
They wanted justice for Floyd and to say, we're demanding that justice is certain.
And now, not only will they not get that justice, they're going to go, man, look at how much the country doesn't care about us that even when we go that far to say that we're demanding something, they won't meet our demands.
And there won't be any public press tour to go, hey, I just want everyone to understand the laws here or I want to like, that's not going to happen.
They're going to play into it and go, the exact people, the, the exact people in power are like are like your Bidens who are the ones who benefit the most from the current system are going to be the ones going, this is outrageous.
And yes, every one of you should be upset.
And he's not going to condone the violence.
I mean, just that should show you how the system's fucking with you.
That's no different than the beginning of the Biden speech when he's talking about how horrible all the things from coronavirus are.
It's the exact same move where he gets to pretend like the thing he's causing or, you know, perpetuating or independent of him.
Yeah.
And look, like I said again, I mean, it's like, these are there, there are major problems with state police and they're just not.
Now, not to say that they can't be done better.
I mean, there are reforms that could, you could still have state police and it could be better than what we have now.
You know, like you could end the war on drugs and end qualified immunity and end civil asset forfeiture and like down the list.
And that would be better.
That would be a huge improvement.
I'd be all for all of those things.
But what you have is the central problem to me is the issue of monopoly and incentives.
And so, again, I'm not defending anything about like, I don't think these cops should exist.
And I think that by the very nature of the job of being a police officer, you are violating human beings' rights pretty much every day, routinely.
And I have no sympathy for them.
However, I also, I really reject the idea that people are like bullied into making this a race, a racial issue, that you just kind of have to agree with that.
And if you don't, you're immediately seen as like a bad person or something like that.
Well, you basically must be racist if you don't agree that this was a racist killing.
And I'm just not, I don't play those games.
Like I'm just not going to be bullied into saying something that I don't, I don't think is true.
And that's kind of, that's the whole value of what I bring.
That's why people like me because I'll just tell them what I think is true.
And I'm right about everything.
So that helps too.
But, you know, like, I just, you know, watch that video.
I don't see what Black Lives Matter is claiming.
You know, I don't see a racist, you know, that this guy was guilty of driving while black or whatever the fuck they say.
I think that it's just kind of like, as fucked as it may be and as, you know, drastic as the reforms are needed in order to make policing not such a goddamn nightmare in this country.
I just see it being like, yeah, dude, if you, if you act that way with a police officer, you're fucked.
No matter what color you are, you're going to be in trouble.
And I also think that it's going to, it's going to be, it's going to come down to what the argument in the trial over what really killed the guy is.
And nobody is, even the prosecution has accepted the results of the autopsy and accepted the results that this guy had, I think it was like an outrageously high fentany level in his system, more than enough to kill you.
And that's just what, you know, the cop's going to go in there and argue that I did everything I was trained to do in this situation, which is probably true.
Not that it justifies it, but it's probably true.
And that the knee on the neck is not at all what killed him.
And that's going to be their argument.
We'll see what happens.
If this wasn't such a high profile case, I'd be convinced the cop's going to get off.
Because it is such a high profile case, I think there's a chance that he doesn't.
I don't see how they get the murder one, but they might get the murder three.
And then we'll see.
We'll see what happens.
I also, I really don't know what role jury intimidation is going to play in this, but my guess would be not nothing.
The Knee on the Neck Argument00:00:24
All right.
That's our show for today.
Don't forget, catch me and Robbie the Fire at Porkfest this year.
Catch me at Freedom Fest and also catch me speaking at the end of the month at the New Jersey State Libertarian Party convention.