Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - Reed Coverdale
Aired: 2021-04-08
Duration: 01:05:35


=== Real People vs Government Bloat (08:01) ===

[00:00:00]  Fill her up.
[00:00:02]  You are listening to the Gas Digital Network.
[00:00:08]  We need to roll back the state.
[00:00:09]  We spy on all of our own citizens.
[00:00:11]  Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
[00:00:15]  If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
[00:00:21]  Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
[00:00:26]  You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
[00:00:30]  Here's your host, James Smith.
[00:00:33]  What's up, everybody?
[00:00:34]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
[00:00:37]  Very, very happy to have our guest joining us today from the heart of Trucker America.
[00:00:45]  My boy, Reed Coverdale, host of the Naturalist Capitalist.
[00:00:49]  His show is up on YouTube.
[00:00:50]  You might have heard me shout this guy out a couple of times before.
[00:00:53]  I've done his show a few times and we've been talking a lot over the last few months.
[00:00:56]  And I really just love what Reed is doing.
[00:00:59]  So thank you for taking some time, clearly out of your work schedule to join us.
[00:01:06]  Yeah.
[00:01:06]  Thank you so much for having me on, Dave.
[00:01:08]  I appreciate all the publicity you've given me and just the open mind.
[00:01:13]  And yeah, for everyone, I'm in my truck right now.
[00:01:15]  If you didn't catch that hint, I'm in, I was supposed to be home, but I blew a tire in the middle of Northeast Arizona yesterday afternoon.
[00:01:22]  And if you know Northeast Arizona, there's nothing out there.
[00:01:25]  So I was stranded for a while.
[00:01:26]  So here I am living life a quarter mile at a time.
[00:01:30]  You know, it's funny.
[00:01:31]  I was thinking about this recently that because Michael Malis had James Lindsay on his podcast.
[00:01:39]  It was a really, really great episode.
[00:01:41]  And one of the things they were talking about, which is really right out of Orwell's 1984, is how, you know, propaganda really works on the quote educated class.
[00:01:53]  And Michael Malice said the line, you know, it's, it's harder to train or it's easier to train a smart dog, you know, and like there's, and there's something that I've found that is like in my life, because so my, my father-in-law is a trucker and I'll talk to him and his friends and they're a lot more red-pilled than you would think just so they're certainly more red-pilled than your average college student is.
[00:02:19]  And I think there's something about the kind of like blue collar wisdom.
[00:02:22]  These are people have like seen the whole country, kind of know how what it actually takes to run an economy and from the ground up.
[00:02:30]  And I don't know.
[00:02:31]  And then I was wondering, I go, maybe that's why you're, you're so down to earth.
[00:02:34]  It's these truckers.
[00:02:36]  Yeah.
[00:02:36]  I mean, it's, it's reality versus theory.
[00:02:40]  I mean, it's like you're literally where the rubber hits the road, right?
[00:02:44]  I mean, it's, you have to deal with what you can actually do, what you can actually get done, how things actually work.
[00:02:51]  So something might look great on paper.
[00:02:53]  So if you're a college student, it'll all, it'll all line up.
[00:02:56]  And then you get out in the field and you're like, what the fuck?
[00:02:59]  Like, what were you thinking?
[00:03:00]  How, how is this supposed to line up?
[00:03:02]  And I haven't just done trucking.
[00:03:04]  I did power line work for about six years.
[00:03:07]  And that was a disaster because you'd have these engineers who would write up these blueprints.
[00:03:12]  And some of them would never go on a job.
[00:03:14]  And some of them didn't even know what the specific parts going on the poles and going in the substations.
[00:03:20]  They didn't even know what they were for or how they worked.
[00:03:23]  And so you get out there and you say, hey, the blueprint doesn't work.
[00:03:27]  Like I literally can't do this.
[00:03:29]  And they would disagree with you from their computer screen sometimes in Georgia when you're in New Hampshire putting a power line together.
[00:03:36]  And so, yeah, I mean, you just, you realize how the world actually is and you realize how stupid the people running it are.
[00:03:43]  I mean, that's really what it comes down to.
[00:03:45]  Yeah, I think so.
[00:03:46]  How disconnected they are from the reality of like what actually needs to get done.
[00:03:50]  It's funny.
[00:03:52]  You know, what comes to my mind is actually the often demonized Rothbard paleo strategy, which I've a lot of my critics say I'm trying to reinvent the paleo strategy or something, which I don't think is accurate.
[00:04:07]  I mean, I've kind of done shows on this and gone over it and said what I think is good about it and what isn't, but I'm certainly, but one of the things Rothbard said, and he said this in a very tongue-in-cheek way, but he used the terms when he was talking about the Libertarian Party.
[00:04:21]  And I believe he said the yuppies and the rednecks.
[00:04:24]  And he should say, he said, ours should be a strategy of outreach to the rednecks.
[00:04:28]  Now, he was obviously using these terms broadly, you know, but and tongue-in-cheek, as I said, but there's something, you know, because me and you have been talking about and kind of witnessing a lot of the libertarian infighting.
[00:04:41]  And there really, you have to admit, there's something to that distinction that Rothbard made.
[00:04:46]  Like the more kind of like yuppie class within the libertarian movement versus the more blue collar class within the libertarian movement seem there seems to be a split there just in their kind of worldview, in their outlook and how they deal with, you know, different things from offensive statements, which I think working class people are much more likely to be like, oh, you think that was offensive?
[00:05:08]  I've heard some wild ones, you know, and where the yuppie class is a lot more to be like, well, this is outrageous and repugnant.
[00:05:14]  And, you know, I don't know.
[00:05:15]  I was wondering if you had any thoughts on that.
[00:05:17]  Yeah, I mean, the whole outrage over comments that have been made, if I ever chimed in on the side of outrage, I would be the biggest hypocrite ever.
[00:05:26]  I mean, I mean, just from conversations I've been in, when you're having a hard day at work and you've got a bunch of idiots you're working with and you're angry and you're behind schedule or whatever, like you got to get through the day somehow.
[00:05:36]  So some foul language comes out, some pretty crass jokes.
[00:05:41]  So yeah, I mean, any criticism from me, if I ever had made it, would have been completely hypocritical.
[00:05:46]  So I don't even go there.
[00:05:47]  But yeah, as far as the down-to-earthness of the more redneck class, I think libertarianism is like a two-part battle because we are in opposition to the state.
[00:06:00]  But then beyond that, libertarians actually stand for something.
[00:06:03]  We're not just against the state.
[00:06:05]  Like we're for peace, we're for cooperation, we're for tolerance, all these things.
[00:06:10]  But the first step is getting rid of the power structure that's already there.
[00:06:15]  And I feel like a lot of the more educated yup yup types, they're not as aware of how bad the power system is because they're on one side of it.
[00:06:25]  They're on the, you know, they're on the administrative side.
[00:06:29]  So they're not on the ground as much seeing how much it destroys everything and how ineffective it is.
[00:06:36]  So that's actually why I started my show because I was like, well, you know, I'm no scholar.
[00:06:41]  I'm no genius, you know, but I've lived the life on the ground and seen what happens when idiots who don't know what they're doing are in control.
[00:06:51]  So maybe I can speak to it a little bit, you know?
[00:06:54]  Yeah, well, there's something very, that's, that's very similar to what my attitude was when I started this show.
[00:06:59]  Like I was like, look, I know there are all these guys who are experts and we have, we have great experts in our, you know, movement.
[00:07:06]  And then there's great experts in almost every movement that have really bad opinions.
[00:07:10]  But like, look, if you want our, you know, if you want to know foreign policy, we got a Scott Horton.
[00:07:15]  If you need to know about the Constitution, we got a Michael Bolton.
[00:07:18]  If you need to know about the business cycle or the Fed, we got Bob Murphy.
[00:07:21]  And we got these people who are like real.
[00:07:23]  And I'm none of that.
[00:07:25]  But I always knew, even when I started my show and had a very small audience, I was like, I know that I can talk that shit and explain it to a regular person and make that like just explain this on a regular base level.
[00:07:38]  Like I am, I am just smart enough to understand what these smart people are saying and then explain it to just a regular person.
[00:07:49]  Like that, that's like the level that I am.
[00:07:51]  I'm either the dumbest smart guy or the smartest dumb guy.
[00:07:55]  I'm right in that sweet spot where I can like, you know, like give you this information.
[00:08:00]  So that was always my outlook.

=== Tax-Free Crypto IRA Investing (04:10) ===

[00:08:02]  Yeah, I mean, I've kind of come at things almost backward in life.
[00:08:07]  So usually you learn theory and then you go out in the field, right?
[00:08:11]  Like my life has almost been the polar opposite of that.
[00:08:14]  I go out in the field and then you figure everything out and then you start reading theory afterward and you're like, oh yeah, duh, this all makes sense.
[00:08:22]  I mean, the way I've always jumped into anything, you know, like I'm an avid skier and backpacker, stuff like that.
[00:08:29]  I've never had the gear.
[00:08:31]  I just like go do it.
[00:08:32]  You know, I go do a 30 mile hike in sneakers and shorts with a day pack with my dad.
[00:08:37]  You know, it's just like, just go do it.
[00:08:39]  So I've been that way about everything, like everything I've gotten into with work and then even politics.
[00:08:45]  And then once you get into it, you start sorting things out.
[00:08:48]  And then for some reason, I end up reading the theory later on.
[00:08:51]  And it's like, oh yeah, duh.
[00:08:53]  Like that, that makes so much sense.
[00:08:54]  Like I didn't read Rothbard until this year.
[00:08:58]  And, you know, it's all the stuff he's saying.
[00:09:00]  It's like, oh, yeah, of course.
[00:09:01]  Like this is so obvious because I've lived it and I've actually seen it happen.
[00:09:05]  So I'm actually trying to change that a little now.
[00:09:08]  I'm trying to do a lot more theoretical reading at the same time as experiencing things because that's probably the most healthy way to do it.
[00:09:15]  But it has been eye-opening to come from the other side instead of, you know, going in.
[00:09:21]  Like if you're coming out of the ROTC as a second lieutenant, you know, your sergeant usually knows way more than you do.
[00:09:28]  You have all the theory, but your sergeant has been out there fighting and you kind of take advice from him.
[00:09:33]  I've kind of been the sergeant my whole life, you know, like living it and then it all kind of, all the pieces come together afterward.
[00:09:41]  That's interesting.
[00:09:42]  All right, guys, let's take a second and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is iTrust Capital.
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=== The Bernie Sanders Radicalization (15:35) ===

[00:12:12]  So you, you have kind of like an interesting background since you've been like politically active.
[00:12:17]  We talked about it briefly when I was on your show.
[00:12:21]  But so you were, you, you were inspired by Rand Paul, right?
[00:12:26]  And then you went and worked for Tulsi Gabbard.
[00:12:28]  So just give me a, tell me a little bit more about that.
[00:12:31]  How'd that all happen?
[00:12:32]  Yeah.
[00:12:33]  So I'm going to backpedal a little bit.
[00:12:35]  In high school, I was obsessed with World War II and mostly the European theater and the Holocaust just blew my mind, like how normal people could just become so evil, especially when you have propaganda run by a strong centralized government.
[00:12:52]  Like that, that's what scares the shit out of me.
[00:12:54]  Like thinking like, what would my next door neighbor do?
[00:12:57]  What would my mechanic do?
[00:12:58]  You know, because the Nazis are regular people who just let things go long enough.
[00:13:04]  So I was extremely skeptical of big government from the time I was in high school, but I actually had the unintended effect of becoming a neocon because my idea was we need to stop, you know, the possibility of another Hitler coming to power.
[00:13:19]  So, you know, we need to police the world.
[00:13:21]  We didn't do enough.
[00:13:22]  And then after I graduated high school and I was living alone, I started doing more research about World War I and the Treaty of Versailles and what drove people in these countries to lunacy because they were so cast aside and belittled and they were in terrible situations.
[00:13:42]  So they embraced madness.
[00:13:44]  And I realized that's what we're doing around the world.
[00:13:46]  I mean, that's what we're doing in the Middle East.
[00:13:48]  We're driving sane people to insanity by blowing up their neighborhoods and killing their brothers and their fathers and their sons.
[00:13:56]  So I became very anti-war.
[00:14:00]  And so really in like 2013, 2014, I actually started going back and watching videos of Ron Paul from the 2012 campaign.
[00:14:10]  And I was like, wow, this guy really had it right.
[00:14:12]  But he was done.
[00:14:13]  Like he, you know, he wasn't running anymore.
[00:14:15]  He was out of Congress at this point.
[00:14:16]  So I found out about Rand Paul.
[00:14:18]  And the first time that he really caught my attention was when he filibustered John Brennan's nomination for like 14 hours.
[00:14:26]  And I was like, okay, this guy, this guy gets it.
[00:14:28]  I'm all in on this guy.
[00:14:29]  So I was super excited throughout 2014 and then 2015 when he announced and it looked like he was pretty promising at first.
[00:14:36]  You know, it looked like, wow, the Republican Party is going to have to be anti-war.
[00:14:41]  They're going to have to embrace like criminal justice reform and all these things if they want to win and Rand Paul is their guy.
[00:14:47]  And then obviously Trump came in and he just completely flattened Rand Paul.
[00:14:54]  Well, to be fair, to be fair, Rand kind of flattened himself.
[00:14:57]  Yeah.
[00:14:57]  And, you know, I was like, I was just interrupted.
[00:15:00]  Then I want to get back into your story, but just to tell you where I was at the same point, right?
[00:15:04]  So I was like hardcore Ron Paul guy.
[00:15:07]  Like Ron Paul changed my life.
[00:15:08]  He's the reason I am who I am, you know?
[00:15:11]  And so I was way before that when everybody loved, everyone in the liberty movement loved Rand Paul in 2010.
[00:15:21]  Like we were just like, oh, yeah, Ron Paul's got a kid.
[00:15:24]  This is incredible.
[00:15:25]  And he's running on the same thing.
[00:15:26]  And holy shit, he got into the Senate.
[00:15:28]  Like not just the House of Representatives, but in the Senate.
[00:15:31]  He's one out of the hundred, you know, like this is incredible.
[00:15:34]  This is like, this is going to change everything.
[00:15:37]  And there were a few signs early on that were like, it's not quite as quite as pure as his father, but, you know, you'd be like, hey, whatever.
[00:15:46]  It's Ron Paul's kid.
[00:15:48]  Who cares?
[00:15:48]  And then in 2012, he endorsed Mitt Romney.
[00:15:50]  And this was the first sign where everyone in the liberty movement was like, what the fuck?
[00:15:54]  You never endorse the establishment Warhawk candidate.
[00:15:58]  But I still held out.
[00:15:59]  And all through the years where there were all these red flags, I was like, no, listen, he may be a little misguided, but he's playing the game and he's going to ingrain himself in the Republican Party.
[00:16:09]  And then in 2016, when he hits the debate stage, he's going to talk that shit.
[00:16:14]  And he's going to really just inspire this movement.
[00:16:17]  And the very first debate, I don't know if you remember this, but the question was, they go, and it was a question to Donald Trump, but they just pretended it was a question to everyone.
[00:16:27]  They go, will all of you promise to support the nominee no matter who the nominee is?
[00:16:34]  And this was on a stage with Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Lindsey Graham was on the stage.
[00:16:40]  And Donald Trump actually took the principled position and the badass position, just the awesome position.
[00:16:46]  I went, no, no, I don't.
[00:16:49]  I go, we'll see.
[00:16:50]  We'll see what happens.
[00:16:51]  And he goes, and I'm going to win anyway.
[00:16:52]  So I'm just going to be supporting myself.
[00:16:54]  But no, I don't, we'll see if it's fair and all this shit.
[00:16:57]  And then Rand Paul interrupted to go, and he won't even promise.
[00:17:02]  I'll promise right now to support.
[00:17:04]  And he won't even.
[00:17:05]  And in that moment, I just, I felt my heart split in two where I went, oh, no, there was no strategy here.
[00:17:11]  He's just not going to run with it.
[00:17:14]  So that was anyway, that's my little Rand Paul moment.
[00:17:17]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:17:17]  And I would have probably noticed that had I been in the liberty movement earlier.
[00:17:22]  But in 2012, I wasn't really in the liberty movement.
[00:17:25]  I like, I remember I did like Ron Paul.
[00:17:27]  I was a senior in high school, but it was mostly because like, yeah, this guy is actually going to cut Medicare.
[00:17:32]  This guy is actually physically conservative.
[00:17:35]  I wasn't really listening to the war stuff at that point.
[00:17:38]  That came in like 2013, 2014.
[00:17:40]  But yeah, you're totally right about Rand.
[00:17:42]  And as you know, we've talked about this a lot.
[00:17:43]  Like he's been the biggest disappointment in my life politically because he's the guy who brought me in and inspired me and got me on this path.
[00:17:52]  And it is like more of the realization that he's always been kind of a loser, like you're pointing to.
[00:17:58]  Like it's not that he just suddenly he has become more of a loser, but that he kind of always was a little bit.
[00:18:03]  And it does hurt.
[00:18:05]  And I will, the disclaimer, like he's still the best senator we have, but that's really not an accomplishment in the U.S.
[00:18:12]  It's just that we started with him being Ron Paul's kid.
[00:18:15]  I'm still glad he's there.
[00:18:17]  Better having him there than not having him there, but it's just where you are coming from, you know, to that.
[00:18:22]  Yeah.
[00:18:23]  So the, you know, when he dropped out and then he endorsed Trump and I didn't really go through the shock of him endorsing Romney.
[00:18:29]  So when he endorsed Trump, like that really pissed me off.
[00:18:31]  I was like, dude, what the fuck?
[00:18:33]  And I, I don't know, maybe he was the most anti-establishment one out of the group, but Trump is not a libertarian, does not represent what Rand Paul was running on.
[00:18:43]  So that really upset me.
[00:18:46]  And I wasn't, you know, Bernie Sanders is too much.
[00:18:50]  Like he wasn't, he's not really anti-war either.
[00:18:52]  If you look at his record.
[00:18:53]  So I just didn't bother going over there.
[00:18:55]  And I was like, well, fuck it.
[00:18:56]  I guess I'm not voting.
[00:18:58]  And then I actually found out about the Libertarian Party and found out about Gary Johnson.
[00:19:02]  And at this point, he had like 12% in the polls.
[00:19:05]  So I was like, okay, here we go.
[00:19:07]  We got something here.
[00:19:09]  And then I started watching him more.
[00:19:11]  He got on TV more and it was just a downward slope.
[00:19:15]  And I was just like, oh man, this really sucks because I can't vote for Hillary or Trump.
[00:19:21]  So he's all I got.
[00:19:22]  And I did end up voting for him.
[00:19:24]  But after I voted for him and we got like 3%, I was just like, okay, fuck this Libertarian Party stuff.
[00:19:29]  I'm done.
[00:19:30]  It's a joke.
[00:19:31]  I don't want anything to do with it.
[00:19:32]  And so then I was like, all right, I'm probably done voting for president until 2028 when we can get another like liberty Republican type guy up there.
[00:19:42]  And I didn't know if it was going to be Thomas Massey or Justin Amash or Rand Paul, whatever.
[00:19:47]  But then in 2020, you know, the Democrats came out and they were so bad.
[00:19:52]  Like Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren.
[00:19:57]  I was just like, oh my God.
[00:19:58]  Like, okay, there's nothing here for me.
[00:20:00]  So I didn't, I was completely zoned out until like late summer I found out about Tulsi Gabbard.
[00:20:07]  And the first thing I found out about her was, you know, she's against the war in Syria and she went to meet with Assad.
[00:20:13]  And everyone was complaining that that wasn't pro-war enough, you know, like that you don't want to fight the war in Syria.
[00:20:20]  You don't think we should arm the rebels against Assad or whatever.
[00:20:24]  That was like a huge part of Rand Paul's campaign about being against that too.
[00:20:27]  So I was just like, whoa, this is interesting.
[00:20:29]  So I looked into her a little bit more and there were definitely some areas of strong disagreement, but especially what she could control if she became president, we agreed with for the most part, you know, like she wouldn't, uh, she wouldn't sign the Patriot Act back into law.
[00:20:45]  She wouldn't, you know, she'd try to end the wars.
[00:20:49]  She was for like decentralization of executive power.
[00:20:53]  So I was like, okay, this is interesting.
[00:20:55]  And then I got to meet her in New Hampshire because I was still living in New Hampshire at that time.
[00:21:00]  And she had a really like homegrown campaign.
[00:21:04]  Like she rode around in an SUV.
[00:21:06]  She always flew economy and that type of stuff just, I don't know, it means a lot to me.
[00:21:10]  Like everyone else had a bus.
[00:21:11]  Everyone else had a private jet or flew first class.
[00:21:14]  Like she was just a down-to-earth regular person.
[00:21:16]  So I worked on her campaign in New Hampshire and there were a lot of like other libertarians there.
[00:21:21]  I was not the only one.
[00:21:22]  There were a lot of people who voted for Ron Paul, Rand Paul.
[00:21:25]  There were Republicans.
[00:21:27]  And, you know, we were just like, okay, you know, we don't agree on everything.
[00:21:30]  But she would even say this all the time.
[00:21:32]  She'd be like, hey, we don't agree on everything, but we're all against war and we all love our country.
[00:21:37]  Do you remember how this would be portrayed in the media?
[00:21:40]  I remember thinking this was really fascinating.
[00:21:42]  And as I've mentioned on the show before, I mean, I sent Tulsi Gabbard money on two occasions.
[00:21:46]  Not a lot of money, but just a little bit of money.
[00:21:49]  But it was that thing where they were counting each individual donor to like, even if I think I just sent her like, you know, like 50 bucks twice.
[00:21:57]  But she, it was like a thing where like, you know, for each donation, you'd be more likely to get on the debate stage.
[00:22:02]  But they would have these things in the in the press where they would be like, Tulsi Gabbard garnering far right wing support.
[00:22:10]  Yeah.
[00:22:10]  And they would, and what they're talking about is guys like you.
[00:22:12]  I mean, that's who was supporting her.
[00:22:14]  And the funny thing was you'd almost look at it and you'd be like, yeah, I know it sounds kind of creepy and evil when you go, well, why does this Democrat have far right support?
[00:22:23]  But you'd look at her and you go, well, what is it that they're supporting?
[00:22:26]  Obviously, the only thing that's really drawing people to her is that she's less likely to start mass murder campaigns.
[00:22:35]  Like these evil right-wingers who are coming over to support Tulsi Gabbard are like, could we stop killing so many innocent women and children?
[00:22:42]  Like that's, well, and leaving our own young boys to, you know, commit suicide with their limbs blown off.
[00:22:48]  Like, could we, could we have a little less of that maybe?
[00:22:51]  Like maybe that.
[00:22:51]  And so it's just so interesting that they would turn this around as like this thing that, you know, rather than being a positive, like, oh, it turns out there are, I guess some of these creepy right-wingers, as you call them, aren't so bad.
[00:23:03]  They're really kind of against the wars, but instead it would be used to attack her.
[00:23:07]  She appears on Tucker Carlson to talk about how we shouldn't go to war in Syria.
[00:23:12]  All right.
[00:23:13]  Yeah.
[00:23:14]  No, I mean, they would call her like a crazy right-winger.
[00:23:17]  And I would sometimes be like, I wish, you know, like, I wish she were more right-wing.
[00:23:21]  I wish she was like a libertarian on economics.
[00:23:24]  But, you know, the thing she, a lot of people say, like, she was just a more attractive Bernie Sanders.
[00:23:30]  And that's really not true.
[00:23:31]  Like, if you, if you look at that, like extremely basically, I guess you could say that.
[00:23:36]  But if you actually dig into her positions, like she was way better on war than Bernie Sanders was.
[00:23:42]  And even I have disagreements with her on war.
[00:23:44]  Like she, she supports the war on terror and I don't, you know, so, uh, but she was like, Bernie Sanders sucks on the war in Syria.
[00:23:51]  I mean, he's terrible.
[00:23:53]  There's also something and people, this is easy, I think, sometimes for people to dismiss, but messaging and priorities are really important.
[00:24:01]  Yes.
[00:24:01]  And that is, and the truth is that with most of these efforts, like I never, I had no illusions that Tulsi Gabbard was going to be president of the United States of America.
[00:24:11]  I was convinced they would never, even if she did a tremendous job, they were never going to let her win the Democratic nomination.
[00:24:17]  I saw what they did to Bernie Sanders.
[00:24:19]  They'd never let her.
[00:24:20]  Are you kidding me?
[00:24:21]  I mean, like, she's much more of a threat to power than Bernie Sanders ever was.
[00:24:25]  But they're like, if we really want to end these wars, you're going to have to realize if you're going to have an anti-war movement, the left has to be somewhat involved in that.
[00:24:36]  There's got to be at least some of them.
[00:24:38]  And for someone to get up on the Democratic stage and really put this forward as an issue, that's a big deal.
[00:24:43]  And messaging is really what matters in terms of creating that moment.
[00:24:47]  And so the fact that what I loved about Tulsi Gabbard, even though you're absolutely right, you say she wasn't perfect on the war issue, it was a big problem that she wasn't good enough.
[00:24:57]  So, you know, I don't want to fight a war against al-Qaeda either.
[00:25:00]  That's how all these wars started.
[00:25:02]  So we're, you know, you might just be getting us right back into the same pattern here.
[00:25:07]  But her purpose for running was opposing the wars.
[00:25:13]  That was, you know, if you said in one sentence, why is Tulsi Gabbard running?
[00:25:18]  Everyone knew why she was running for president because she does not want to fight regime change wars on behalf of terrorists.
[00:25:24]  You know, like that's her reason.
[00:25:27]  Bernie Sanders, what was his reason?
[00:25:29]  It was Medicare for all, the minimum wage, abolishing student loan debt.
[00:25:34]  I mean, the war issue was way down on the list.
[00:25:37]  So even if he was as good as her, which he wasn't, it still really means something to put the most important issue as your most important priority, you know?
[00:25:46]  Yeah.
[00:25:47]  Yeah.
[00:25:47]  And not just the wars, but she also put the drug war really high on her list where he didn't like, he talked about legalizing marijuana a little bit, but you're right.
[00:25:56]  It was mostly economic issues that he talked about.
[00:25:59]  With her, it was like the wars, the drug war, the surveillance state, and then, you know, like four or five or six would be healthcare.
[00:26:08]  You know, it was pretty far down the line.
[00:26:09]  And she also realized she couldn't just enact whatever healthcare plan she wanted.
[00:26:13]  Like that's a congressional thing.
[00:26:15]  So yeah, I mean, totally like the order of importance and also just remembering, like, first of all, you said she never could win.
[00:26:24]  That's also true.
[00:26:25]  Like a big part of supporting her was just to further that message, like, hey, let's stop these wars.
[00:26:30]  They really suck.
[00:26:31]  Like, so let's get her on the debate stage.
[00:26:33]  Let's get her some delegates so she can make some sort of a difference.
[00:26:37]  And yeah, it just, I mean, she was so throttled.
[00:26:41]  That's actually what's turned me into more of a radical libertarian is being on her campaign.
[00:26:47]  A couple of reasons.
[00:26:47]  One was where we did disagree, I realized like how strongly we disagreed because I'd never like supported someone who supported any gun control.
[00:26:57]  And, you know, her gun views weren't as bad as the other Democrats, but they were still bad.
[00:27:02]  And I never realized like how much that would dig at me because I'd never supported someone who supported banning assault weapons or whatever.
[00:27:09]  So like that issue really dug at me.
[00:27:11]  And then like the minimum wage that really dug at me and it made me realize like how much of a libertarian I am.
[00:27:18]  And then just seeing like how mercilessly horrible they were to her and every obstruction they threw in her way, it kind of red-pilled me to the fact like, hey, this idea that we're going to win and dismantle the structure from the top down, there's just no way.
[00:27:32]  Like nobody.
[00:27:33]  I mean, you were talking about Bernie Sanders.
[00:27:35]  Look at what they did to Trump.
[00:27:36]  Like Trump isn't even near the threat Bernie Sanders is, but look at how horrible they were to him just because like one out of 10 times he'd go against what they wanted to do, mostly in rhetoric.
[00:27:46]  And I mean, they'd butcher him.

=== Red Pilling on Political Culture (02:54) ===

[00:27:48]  Well, a lot of what you're describing here is what our friend Michael Malis would call getting a red pill.
[00:27:55]  I mean, that's exactly what it is when you realize.
[00:27:57]  And this is why, you know, I was talking about this recently with the whole dust up over the Kentucky Libertarian Party tweet about the yellow stars of David, comparing it to the COVID vaccine passports.
[00:28:10]  And I was trying to kind of explain this to some people who are like, look, I understand the mentality of going, the blue pill mentality of saying, well, look, we got all these blue check marks.
[00:28:21]  We got Seth Rogan calling us, you know, like anti-Semitic.
[00:28:24]  And we got the corporate press angry at us.
[00:28:26]  That's not good.
[00:28:28]  We don't want that.
[00:28:29]  So let's do whatever we can to avoid that because that won't help us get more support or more votes.
[00:28:34]  Like on the face of it, I understand that.
[00:28:37]  But when you've taken the red pill, it's hard to unsee some of these things.
[00:28:41]  And so look at Tulsi Gabbard.
[00:28:42]  She never made no Holocaust comparisons.
[00:28:45]  She never did anything like that.
[00:28:46]  She was just a nice, respectable lady who presented her arguments in an intellectual fashion.
[00:28:52]  A woman who's been active, is active duty, has served in a medical unit in Iraq.
[00:28:58]  I mean, if she hasn't earned the right to comment on the war in Iraq, who has?
[00:29:04]  And for that, she got the previous candidate calling her a Russian asset publicly.
[00:29:12]  The woman who voted for that war sent her there.
[00:29:15]  Now admits it was a mistake, by the way.
[00:29:17]  Yeah, I sent Tulsi Gabbard to war, but you know, I shouldn't have done that.
[00:29:20]  All of her brothers shouldn't have died.
[00:29:21]  That was my bad.
[00:29:22]  But you will turn around and call.
[00:29:24]  So it's almost like that's the red pill right there.
[00:29:26]  It's like, no, no, if you oppose this power structure, they are going to call you names.
[00:29:32]  Get over your allergy of it.
[00:29:34]  Like, I'm sorry.
[00:29:35]  Now, I'm not saying you want to get called those names for no reason.
[00:29:38]  I'm not saying you want to just go out there and say horrible things and get called names, but you got to get over this like, oh, no, the blue check marks are coming.
[00:29:46]  Like, bring it on, motherfucker.
[00:29:48]  Like, they're going to come if we're ever successful.
[00:29:50]  So, so get, you know, thicken up your skin a little.
[00:29:53]  Yeah, I think Rand Paul is actually the first example of how that doesn't work.
[00:29:58]  You know, like he definitely tried to temper his message to the Republicans.
[00:30:03]  When we think of blue pilling, we always think of it toward liberals, but it definitely happens toward conservatives too.
[00:30:09]  And that's what Rand Paul did.
[00:30:11]  And that's what a lot of libertarians do, frankly.
[00:30:13]  Like there is a problem with a lot of the woke crowd pandering to the liberals, but there's also a problem with a lot of libertarians who think we're like basically conservatives and that we need to, you know, like, well, maybe we should just endorse more of these conservative ideas and then the conservatives will come over.
[00:30:29]  And that's what I really like about you.
[00:30:32]  I mean, you say like, hey, no, the conservatives are no better.
[00:30:35]  Remember what it was like when they were running things?
[00:30:37]  You know, we weren't friends with them.
[00:30:39]  The left is just in control now.
[00:30:41]  So they're more annoying.

=== Blue Pill Moments for Conservatives (02:16) ===

[00:30:42]  So it's easier to hate them.
[00:30:44]  But we really need our own message of liberty and tolerance.
[00:30:49]  This idea that we should join either side of the culture war is completely wrong.
[00:30:54]  Yeah.
[00:30:55]  I mean, absolutely.
[00:30:57]  And it's just, you see, look, you see it.
[00:31:00]  Like you just see like the patterns throughout history, enough and enough.
[00:31:03]  And then you see what's really going on here.
[00:31:05]  Now, personally, to me, I do think probably on average, it's probably going to be a little bit more fertile ground talking to conservatives than liberals right now, because it's always easier to talk to who's losing in a system that you want to overthrow.
[00:31:25]  And this was back to Rothbard's point about the yuppies and the rednecks.
[00:31:28]  He's like, look, how ready for revolution are the yuppies really going to be?
[00:31:32]  I mean, they're doing really well under this system.
[00:31:34]  Even if they claim to not like it, it's like they're doing really well.
[00:31:38]  Whereas the people getting screwed over by it might be a little bit more receptive.
[00:31:41]  But that doesn't mean that their, you know, the ideology that they're coming in with is any better than the other side or whether it's any better or not, I guess, is debatable, but it's certainly still got its problems.
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[00:33:18]  All right, let's get back into it.
[00:33:20]  Okay, so back to your story.
[00:33:22]  So the Tulsi Gabbard campaign wraps up.
[00:33:27]  Was it tough for you?
[00:33:28]  You know, I know a lot of us, I obviously didn't work for the campaign, but I was rooting for her.
[00:33:32]  And it was disappointing.
[00:33:34]  You know, there were these little kind of glimmers.
[00:33:37]  She had a couple moments.
[00:33:38]  I mean, the moment against Kamala Harris, if nothing else, she accomplished that.
[00:33:43]  One of the great moments in presidential debate history.
[00:33:46]  But here, there's another red pill for you.
[00:33:48]  That woman's sitting in the White House right now.
[00:33:52]  Yeah.
[00:33:52]  Yeah.
[00:33:53]  I mean, it's weird because I actually, I do know her pretty well because she spent so much time in New Hampshire.
[00:33:58]  I've had dozens of conversations with her.
[00:34:01]  I've got her contact information.
[00:34:02]  I've sent her emails.
[00:34:03]  She's actually coming on my show sometime soon.
[00:34:05]  So that'll be cool.
[00:34:06]  But so it had a much more personal effect, not even just when she dropped out, but when she was on the debates and you'd see someone going after her, like you, you felt something a little deeper because that's your friend up there, you know?
[00:34:19]  But yeah, when she endorsed Biden, that really hurt.
[00:34:23]  You know, because even though I wasn't a hardcore Ron Paul supporter in 2012, his, the fact that he didn't endorse anybody was just so good.
[00:34:32]  And seeing Rand endorse Trump and her endorse Biden, it just, it really hurt.
[00:34:39]  So anyway, yeah, she dropped out and endorsed Biden.
[00:34:43]  And I was like, well, I guess I'm going to give this stupid Libertarian Party thing a second look because, I mean, Trump, what was weird is a lot more libertarians voted for Trump this time around than in 2016, where I don't know about you, but if I had to vote for him either time, I would have voted for him in 2016 because at least in 2016, he sounded better.
[00:35:04]  Like, I mean, there were definitely some things I still strongly disagreed with, but it sounded like he was going to try to end the wars.
[00:35:10]  It sounded like he understood, or I think he still understood, but he didn't take it on.
[00:35:14]  It sounded like he was going to take on the Federal Reserve and the bubble economy where we were living in, but he didn't do any of that.
[00:35:20]  So this time around, there was like no way I'm voting for Tom.
[00:35:24]  Yeah, so I'd, I'd agree with you if I was.
[00:35:26]  I mean, I didn't voted, I wouldn't vote for him at all, obviously.
[00:35:30]  If I was going to vote for Trump, there was much more of an argument in 2016.
[00:35:35]  And to me, what it really comes down to, forget all of the other stuff is that Donald Trump that we know of didn't have any blood on his hands in 2016.
[00:35:46]  So there's something where you can make an argument about that.
[00:35:49]  Whereas to me, like as a libertarian, I mean, look, I understand you can always go down this lesser of two evils game.
[00:35:57]  But if you don't have some type of line that's like, I couldn't cross this, I couldn't vote for somebody who's done this.
[00:36:06]  And what he did to the people of Yemen for four years of his administration, I mean, you know, that's, that's just, you know, something that I, I could never get past.
[00:36:18]  I mean, maybe I shouldn't say never.
[00:36:20]  It would have to be, he'd have to be running against Joseph Stalin or something like that for me to be like, all right, we got to vote for this guy.
[00:36:26]  And that is not Joe Biden.
[00:36:28]  You know, it's Joe Biden's not great.
[00:36:30]  But I just, anyway, I just, it, that to me was too far of a line.
[00:36:35]  And also just the fact that Trump, there were no victories to be shown for the Trump administration.
[00:36:41]  All it did was swing the culture even further to the crazy social justice direction.
[00:36:45]  All it did was empower all of the bad guys, even though he was dunking on them.
[00:36:51]  It empowered all of them.
[00:36:52]  It gave CNN their highest ratings and the SPLC their highest donations and all this stuff.
[00:36:57]  So yeah, I guess I can understand an argument being made from a libertarian to vote for Trump, but I don't think it was the right move.
[00:37:07]  Yeah, so totally agreed there.
[00:37:08]  So, I mean, 2020, this is also right after like the Solomoni airstrike and almost going to war with Iran.
[00:37:14]  So I was like, there's no way I'm voting for this guy.
[00:37:17]  And then obviously not Joe Biden.
[00:37:19]  So I was like, okay, Libertarian Party, fine.
[00:37:22]  And at this point, I couldn't do anything in it because I had already voted for Tulsi and the New Hampshire deal had already passed and everything.
[00:37:29]  So I was just watching hopelessly as this convention is taking place, you know, and I was before the convention when the debates were taking place, trying to size all the candidates up.
[00:37:39]  And Jacob Hornberger was the most prominent guy.
[00:37:43]  So I liked everything he had to say.
[00:37:45]  And boy, it's funny, like coming out of Tulsi's campaign and then like being in the Libertarian Party again, where like almost everything you hear is what you agree with.
[00:37:54]  It's just like, oh, this is kind of funny.
[00:37:58]  But what really bugged me was almost the same exact thing that I had just been on a campaign where I had to be pretty pragmatic because there was a, you know, a good chunk of the policies I disagreed with, but we were all working together toward this common goal.
[00:38:15]  And I'm looking at this party that literally agrees on like 99% of the issues.
[00:38:21]  You know, like on a good day, I agreed with Tulsi on like 70% of the issues, maybe, you know, like social issues, most of foreign policy, but I disagreed with almost all of her economic policy and then, you know, her gun stuffs and the war on terror.
[00:38:34]  So now I'm talking about someone I might disagree with, like how we get rid of social security.
[00:38:40]  And that's the disagreement.
[00:38:41]  And they hate each other way more than anyone on Tulsi's campaign did.
[00:38:46]  And I'm just like, guys, what the fuck?
[00:38:48]  Like we've got these lockdowns ensuing.
[00:38:51]  We've got these giant corporate bailouts happening.
[00:38:54]  And we're arguing over who's more of a real libertarian because of how they want to phase out social security.
[00:39:01]  And that just, that drove me nuts.
[00:39:04]  And then, you know, that's around the time I started my show.
[00:39:07]  And my show initially was started because of the corporate bailouts.
[00:39:12]  Like that was what was driving me nuts.
[00:39:14]  And I wanted to defend the name of capitalism because that's not capitalism.
[00:39:18]  You know, that's fascism.
[00:39:19]  That's corporatism.
[00:39:20]  But what it ended up turning into is a show where I had on people who were running for Congress because there was all this, All this, you know, the spotlight was on the presidency.
[00:39:32]  And I knew we couldn't win the presidency or even make a big dent because everyone was so propagandized by Trump being a fascist or Joe Biden being a communist.
[00:39:40]  There's just no way.
[00:39:41]  So I had like, and we had a lot of great candidates like Justin O'Donnell, Joe Evans, and, you know, they really had great ideas.
[00:39:48]  But then after the election, you know, the infighting almost got worse.
[00:39:55]  Like once Joe Jorgensen didn't win, this war started ensuing in the Libertarian Party about like who's a real libertarian, which way we need to go, who needs to be expelled, who needs to be, you know, who we should be trying to reach.
[00:40:10]  And there was some vicious, vicious fighting.
[00:40:13]  I know you know all about it.
[00:40:14]  And like the debating, you know, debating open borders or abortion, like that's totally legitimate.
[00:40:20]  Like we should be debating where we disagree.
[00:40:23]  It's the hatred and the desire to expel people who aren't on the same page as you or frame them as fascists or socialists.
[00:40:33]  I was just like, guys, come on.
[00:40:35]  Like, what are we doing?
[00:40:36]  So then my show became more about liberty unity, like trying to, trying to find the bigger picture, not even just in the libertarian party, just like all across the spectrum, like people who realize that the system isn't working and trying to, you know, build coalitions so that we can defeat this machine.
[00:40:54]  Yeah.
[00:40:54]  Yeah.
[00:40:54]  Well, so that's around, I guess, the time that me and you first kind of connected and got linked up.
[00:41:01]  And it really, and I've mentioned this before on the show, but you and also like David and Jeremy, who were on that first like roundtable thing that we did on your, on your feed.
[00:41:13]  But talking to you guys even before that really started to kind of turn around my attitude about the whole thing.
[00:41:20]  And there were other things in the background, you know, that just started to, at a certain point, I like I kind of, I think naively to some degree, I kind of thought, you know, throughout 2019 and 2020, when I got on board with the Mises caucus and I was like, okay, we're in this, we're joining the LP.
[00:41:39]  We're going to push Jacob Hornberger.
[00:41:40]  We're going to really try to make a difference.
[00:41:42]  Because at that point, I could see, you know, Trump and Biden, or we didn't know it was going to be Biden at the time, but I knew it'd be someone awful.
[00:41:49]  And it was going to just be, you know, like, okay, we got to try to get our message out there.
[00:41:54]  And I was met with, you know, a lot of the people, by the way, before I joined the Libertarian Party were criticizing me for not being in the party.
[00:42:04]  Like that was kind of the Sarwakian line.
[00:42:06]  It was like, well, you're not even a member.
[00:42:08]  So you don't have any right to criticize us.
[00:42:10]  But if you show up, you know, like I've, I'm not going to criticize members and we'd just love you to, you got this big audience.
[00:42:16]  Why don't you bring them into the party?
[00:42:18]  And then I was like, okay, great.
[00:42:19]  And then they're like, he's bringing Nazis into the party or whatever, you know, like, so it's like this weird, but I just felt like I was like, oh, okay.
[00:42:26]  Well, that this is, this is great.
[00:42:28]  There's libertarians making arguments about me that are wrong.
[00:42:32]  So what do libertarians do?
[00:42:33]  Let's handle this like grown rabbis.
[00:42:35]  Let's debate all of these issues and I will win all of these debates.
[00:42:40]  But then every time I debate them and I think I won every one of them, every time it would just get more and more intense and more and more intense.
[00:42:50]  And it was like, oh, there is no almost like not one of them would ever just go, oh, okay, yeah, I guess I kind of had that wrong.
[00:42:58]  I guess seeing as how like we kind of had this argument out and everyone seems to realize that like this, this, we're just operating in two different realities here.
[00:43:07]  This never happened.
[00:43:09]  And instead, the opposite ended up happening, which was that that person now would have a vendetta against me for like, you know, publicly embarrassing them or whatever the thing was.
[00:43:20]  And it just seemed like it got to a point where it was like, okay, nothing productive is coming out of this anymore.
[00:43:25]  And then like you guys were kind of like the ones who reached out to me and were like, listen, let's focus on like the fact that I think I was a little bit too stuck in the fact that I joined up with the Mises caucus.
[00:43:34]  And then there are these people who hate the Mises caucus.
[00:43:36]  And it's like battling back and forth between them.
[00:43:38]  And then not really focusing on the fact that there's this whole other section of the party.
[00:43:43]  You know, it's like the Mises caucus is like 40% of the party.
[00:43:47]  And then there's like maybe 5 to 10% of the party who are like fucking, we hate the Mises caucus.
[00:43:54]  But then you're like, oh yeah, but that still leaves another 40% of the party who are just there kind of like, I don't know, guys.
[00:44:01]  Like, I don't exist to hate this caucus or to support this caucus.
[00:44:05]  I just want to work with the, and I'm like, oh yeah, these people are a lot more refreshing to talk to.
[00:44:10]  Like there's a whole lot of reasonable people in this area.
[00:44:13]  And so now that's been more where my focus has been.
[00:44:18]  Yeah.
[00:44:18]  I mean, a lot of people, I think, incorrectly believe that I was like a Sarwarkian woke Lobert.
[00:44:25]  And then I talked to you and realized you were right.
[00:44:28]  I wasn't.
[00:44:29]  Like I was just neutral.
[00:44:30]  I mean, I, as I just described, I just came into the party finally, became a member last year.
[00:44:35]  And I was just like, what is with all this stupid fighting guys?
[00:44:37]  Like, come on, we're on the same team here.
[00:44:40]  And I think that stems from, you know, working as a foreman.
[00:44:45]  I was a foreman when I was 19 in charge of like some multi-million dollar jobs, putting power lines up.
[00:44:52]  And you would have people working alongside you and under you and over you that you fucking hated.
[00:44:58]  Like you'd be like, this guy's an asshole.
[00:45:00]  I hate everything about him.
[00:45:01]  He doesn't do a good job.
[00:45:03]  He, you know, tries to cause trouble all the time.
[00:45:07]  But you had to work together.
[00:45:08]  You had to get things done.
[00:45:10]  And you had to realize the enemy was like getting the job done on time and doing, you know, doing good work.
[00:45:16]  So regardless of how much you hate the guy who's running the excavator, you hate the guy who's stringing the wires or whatever, like, hey, you guys are all working together and you're on the same team.
[00:45:27]  So unless you have somebody who's like deliberately trying to undermine the job, which there are people like that in the Libertarian Party.
[00:45:34]  And I think when you call them out, that's fully justified.
[00:45:36]  You know, those type of people you have to deal with.
[00:45:38]  But if someone's just a jerk or someone just has a different style than you, like at the end of the day, you got to get, you got to get the polls in and you got to get the wires strung.
[00:45:46]  And, you know, that's what the Libertarian Party really struggles with.
[00:45:49]  They're, you know, we're fighting over kind of mostly stupid differences that sometimes have like zero ties to policy even.

=== Uniting Against Internal Division (17:20) ===

[00:45:58]  And we're letting keep us from doing anything while we're turning into a police state.
[00:46:03]  Yeah.
[00:46:03]  Yeah.
[00:46:05]  No, I mean, that's absolutely right.
[00:46:06]  All right, guys, let's take a quick second.
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[00:47:53]  All right, let's get back into it.
[00:47:54]  You know, I guess one of the things that I do struggle with, which you kind of alluded to there, is that I do realize that it's like, okay, I want to focus on like what unites us.
[00:48:06]  You know, I've gotten some people who have been critical of me saying like, oh, well, you're completely contradicting what you were saying before this.
[00:48:14]  Or, you know, it's like, well, you're talking about a takeover.
[00:48:16]  Now you're talking about unity.
[00:48:18]  And to me, I'm like, I don't really think there's a contradiction between the two.
[00:48:22]  Like, I don't see any contradiction.
[00:48:24]  All I was ever saying is that I want the libertarian movement to join the libertarian party.
[00:48:29]  I want us to actually stand for something.
[00:48:31]  I want us to push candidates who can actually inspire a big movement in this country.
[00:48:36]  And yeah, why would that not go along with working with people who are on board with that idea?
[00:48:41]  Like, I don't get what the contradiction is.
[00:48:43]  But I certainly have been like, let me try to focus less on, to me, it's almost like the way I look at it is like, every battle's already been had.
[00:48:53]  Like, there's no new thing that people are bringing up.
[00:48:56]  It's like, it's always the same thing.
[00:48:57]  Like, you had Fuentes on your podcast.
[00:48:59]  You know, it's like, how many, how many different times can I talk about this thing?
[00:49:02]  I've put it out there.
[00:49:03]  Anyone who's persuaded by that argument has heard both sides of it.
[00:49:07]  This is over.
[00:49:09]  But there are some times where I do still find it impossible not to speak up about what's going on.
[00:49:17]  So for example, it really bothered me that Joe Bishop Henchman threw the Libertarian Party of Kentucky under the bus.
[00:49:24]  Like that to me is wrong.
[00:49:26]  You don't do that when the heat starts coming in.
[00:49:29]  And I would have been fine if he was like, yeah, look, I don't like Holocaust comparisons.
[00:49:32]  I don't make them.
[00:49:33]  But they were trying to make a really important point here and just catch their back.
[00:49:37]  Like don't when the heat comes down, don't throw your own people under the bus.
[00:49:41]  And so there are these certain times where I'm like, okay, this, this now has to be confronted, but I try to work on picking my targets a little bit better.
[00:49:53]  Do you think that's a good approach?
[00:49:55]  Yeah.
[00:49:55]  I mean, I think the idea that unity means we're going to agree on everything is completely wrong.
[00:50:00]  The whole point is that we actually have like strong disagreements sometimes, but we get along.
[00:50:06]  I mean, the last video you and I did on my channel was about tolerance instead of assimilation.
[00:50:12]  Like if we all thought the same way, it'd be super boring.
[00:50:15]  So, I mean, I think, you know, if you have a hot take on something that's controversial, it's not like you shouldn't say it.
[00:50:21]  It's just that, you know, when you have leaders of the movement or like people from party positions in different states, like just tearing each other apart and saying we need to expel you, like that's, that's bad.
[00:50:36]  Like I have hot takes about religion all the time and people get mad at me and they're like, I thought you were about unity.
[00:50:41]  And I'm like, I am.
[00:50:42]  I can still make my controversial statements if I want.
[00:50:45]  Like you're on my team.
[00:50:47]  Like I will ally with any Muslim, Jew, Christian, whatever who is against the state.
[00:50:51]  But that doesn't mean I can't have my own spicy opinions on things just like I think you should and, you know, anybody or even like the woke guys, if they want to talk about transgender issues, like, sure, you know, like that's talk about it all you want.
[00:51:04]  But what's the outright libertarians?
[00:51:07]  Is that the group?
[00:51:08]  That's like the LGBT friend.
[00:51:11]  It's like, hey, man, can you guys like go, you know, get a whole bunch of LGBT people to oppose the lockdowns and the wars and the war on drugs and all of this?
[00:51:21]  Like, great, but you can probably reach them better than I can.
[00:51:24]  Okay.
[00:51:25]  Like, great.
[00:51:26]  I don't know.
[00:51:26]  I mean, I don't know if they can or not, to be honest, but maybe they can.
[00:51:29]  And if you can, then wonderful.
[00:51:31]  Maybe you can reach some people I couldn't reach.
[00:51:32]  I don't want to kick any of them out of the party.
[00:51:34]  I mean, like, why would you want that?
[00:51:36]  There's also, I, I did, and I will say I was never, ever. on the we need to purge people out of the party or the movement.
[00:51:45]  That to me always seemed so bizarre that when you have such a small movement with such a monumentally important task ahead of you to go like, what we really need to do is shrink the movement down to a lean fighting force right now.
[00:52:00]  Like, no, let's even from any perspective you have in the liberty movement, if you think there's a bad element there, the solution should be to bring way more good elements in and make it so that that element is a smaller percentage, not to worry about kicking people out.
[00:52:15]  I mean, that's just seems bonkers to me.
[00:52:17]  Yeah, it would be like the colonists saying we need to expel New England from our cause, you know, and actually it makes no sense.
[00:52:25]  So yeah, I mean, that's what my message has been, at least for like the last several months.
[00:52:31]  It actually started a little bit before we got in contact with you.
[00:52:36]  So David Feit, Jeremy Todd and I, we sort of started this libertarian unity idea.
[00:52:41]  And David and I actually did a video about it a couple of weeks before we had our interaction on Twitter.
[00:52:47]  And what a lot of people don't get is this wasn't, this wasn't like throwing accusations at you specifically.
[00:52:54]  Like this was a broad statement to everybody.
[00:52:57]  Like, hey, guys, look, look at what's going on.
[00:53:01]  Like, look at this giant stimulus bill they just passed before Christmas where we got 600 bucks and they sent billions and billions of dollars to foreign countries, corporations, the military.
[00:53:11]  Let's stop fighting about, you know, whether we can have voluntary cannibalism or whatever.
[00:53:16]  You know, like it's not an important argument right now.
[00:53:20]  So we presented our case and it was, you know, Nick Sarwark was welcome.
[00:53:25]  Everybody was welcome.
[00:53:26]  Like this was just a straightforward statement like, hey, this is what we want.
[00:53:31]  We want libertarians to realize the big picture, realize who the enemy is and to unite against the omnipotent state.
[00:53:39]  And you were the guy, you're the only guy who messaged us.
[00:53:42]  Like no one else did.
[00:53:43]  Like you, you specifically sent the three of us a message saying, hey, guys, I really like what you're doing.
[00:53:49]  I want to be a part of this.
[00:53:51]  And then you came on our show.
[00:53:52]  Like nobody else did that.
[00:53:53]  I mean, there are people who were tagged in that that are good on unity, like they're good at trying to build the party, but you specifically reached out to us.
[00:54:00]  And so a lot of people are like blaming, they're claiming that I'm doing this as a grift.
[00:54:05]  Like, oh, you're just trying to ride this wave of popularity.
[00:54:07]  And I'm like, I didn't even start it.
[00:54:09]  Like Dave reached out to us and wanted to talk to us.
[00:54:13]  And just by being nice to you and friendly with you and doing videos with you, there's a lot of people who have exposed themselves as the ones who are the real purgers.
[00:54:22]  Like it's not you.
[00:54:23]  And I think there are some in the Mises Caucus that want that, but it's not you.
[00:54:27]  It's not the prominent people in the Mises caucus.
[00:54:29]  It's a lot of other people that want you gone and they've really exposed themselves.
[00:54:34]  You know what some of it is?
[00:54:35]  And I'm trying to, you know, because I've been effective with this in other areas in life where there's been people who are, you know, that I've known that have drifted, like have been libertarians and then drifted away from libertarianism, both to the left and to the right.
[00:54:51]  And what I, what I always feel like you want to do is it's like, you always want to try to leave the door open for them.
[00:54:58]  Like if you don't want to paint people into a corner where they can never come back, you want to try to leave the door open to them and be like, okay, no, see, look, you can still walk through here.
[00:55:08]  And I think that one of the problems that that's happened, right, is that a lot of people, like I use this example sometimes, but the Knicks back in the day, I might be dating myself a little bit here, but they gave Alan Houston like over $100 million.
[00:55:24]  They gave him more than Kobe was making.
[00:55:27]  And they were like, no, I'm telling you, Alan Houston, this is going to be a great deal.
[00:55:30]  We got Allen Houston.
[00:55:31]  He's the guy.
[00:55:32]  And people are like, he's making more than Kobe?
[00:55:33]  Like, that seems a little bit insane.
[00:55:35]  And then like two years later, they'd be like, no, we're telling you next year, Alan Houston's going to have an amazing year and blah, blah, blah.
[00:55:41]  And they just could never admit they were wrong because they went all in.
[00:55:44]  There was no exit strategy for him.
[00:55:46]  If you admit you're wrong, then you admit you made the biggest mistake ever.
[00:55:50]  And I think a lot of people, the people who really dislike me in the party have gone so all in on it that they kind of, they have trouble backing out of it.
[00:56:00]  And I don't know, maybe I have to get better at like trying to open a door for them to be like, look, we can walk that, you know, like you can walk back through here.
[00:56:08]  But the main problem they have with me is essentially that I've had friendly conversations with people they think are really bad.
[00:56:16]  That's pretty much the biggest knock on me.
[00:56:18]  There's really not much else from a libertarian perspective that you can hit me for.
[00:56:22]  So by that logic, if I'm a bad guy for having friendly conversations with other people, if you're having friendly conversations with me, you almost have to be.
[00:56:33]  So I almost feel for them in a way where they're like, well, now we kind of have to dislike you because you're almost as guilty as I am if it can transfer through osmosis in this way.
[00:56:44]  So, you know, that's, I kind of, I almost thought at one point, like, maybe I should warn you guys when I was like, hey, look, I'll come out and like talk to you guys.
[00:56:53]  And listen, it'll get you some more views and stuff.
[00:56:55]  But here's the downside to it.
[00:56:57]  It's also going to like some of my more deranged, you know, haters are now going to fucking hate you too.
[00:57:03]  It's just unfortunately the way it goes.
[00:57:06]  Yeah.
[00:57:06]  Well, I want to give a big shout out to David Fight here.
[00:57:10]  And I know you just went on his show.
[00:57:11]  He's great.
[00:57:12]  Everyone should go check him out on Twitter and YouTube.
[00:57:16]  But he's been in the party for a few years.
[00:57:19]  So he actually had relationships that have suffered over this, you know, where I don't.
[00:57:24]  Like I joined the party last year.
[00:57:26]  This was a no risk deal for me.
[00:57:28]  Like I was just coming in.
[00:57:29]  Hey, guys, let's all get along.
[00:57:31]  David like jumped on board with it.
[00:57:33]  And it's like, I mean, he's actually had relationships go downhill over it.
[00:57:38]  So that guy, like I really respect him for doing that and seeing the bigger picture.
[00:57:42]  But, you know, I think what gives me such an aversion to this is actually from working on Tulsi's campaign because that's what they would do to her.
[00:57:49]  You were talking about it earlier.
[00:57:50]  Like she goes on Tucker Carlson's show.
[00:57:52]  He goes on Sean Hannity's show.
[00:57:55]  She talks to Ron Paul.
[00:57:57]  You know, it's just like this idea that if you have someone on and have a friendly conversation with them, that you agree with everything they say somehow, you know, like I've had progressives on my show and I don't always challenge them on all their progress.
[00:58:11]  Like the idea is if you're going to have Nick on, you have to challenge him on all his bad ideas.
[00:58:15]  Well, I had Kim Iverson on a couple months ago and I didn't challenge her on reparations or anything.
[00:58:22]  So does that mean I support reparations now?
[00:58:24]  You know, is that how it works?
[00:58:25]  Well, it only, the strange thing is it only seems to go in one direction.
[00:58:30]  Maybe it's not so strange.
[00:58:31]  It's more revealing than anything else.
[00:58:33]  But I mean, I had Jimmy Doerr on my show and I just didn't want to argue with him.
[00:58:37]  I wasn't in the mood to.
[00:58:38]  And I feel like I've got like one of the great like anti-war champions of our time on my show.
[00:58:44]  I don't know.
[00:58:44]  I didn't feel like arguing with him.
[00:58:46]  And he said a few different things on the thing about how we need universal health care and blah, blah, blah, all this other stuff.
[00:58:50]  And I just kind of like, you know, I don't know, just wasn't really in the mood to argue at that moment.
[00:58:55]  But no one ever gave me a bunch of shit for that because it's like, I don't know, you know where I stand on the issues.
[00:59:00]  This is silly.
[00:59:01]  I got a Democratic socialist Ben Burgess coming on the show in a couple of days.
[00:59:05]  And I don't think I'm going to argue with him on this one either, just because I'm really interested in the book that he just wrote.
[00:59:10]  I just want to talk about his book.
[00:59:11]  So I'll just, how about I'll just do what I want to do?
[00:59:14]  You know, and that's, that's part of me being a free human being.
[00:59:18]  I also, one of the things that I liked about you guys, you, David and Jeremy, was that it was a mix of the fact that you guys were like, hey, let's try to unify, which I thought was a great idea.
[00:59:32]  And it was also that it was kind of unifying around the issues that really matter.
[00:59:36]  That we're not, listen, we can have disagreements on different issues, but if we're together on like, you know, five of the six most important crises of our time, then that's, hey, those are, that's really important.
[00:59:49]  So like, let's make sure we fight that.
[00:59:51]  And one of the things, you know, like I had this some guy, I believe he worked on Gary Johnson's campaign.
[00:59:59]  Somebody was tweeting with me the other day.
[01:00:02]  And they go, he said something about, he was like, look, if we want to spread libertarianism, if that's our goal, then here's what we need to do.
[01:00:12]  We need to go after the young generation and the young, the Gen Z.
[01:00:17]  And what they care about is being pro-sex work, being against racism, being all this stuff.
[01:00:23]  And I was just like, look, man, like respectfully, we're sitting in the middle of the biggest crackdown on basic individual liberties in modern history.
[01:00:33]  I don't think our strategy here is to say, hey, we're really pro-sex work.
[01:00:37]  And I think prostitution should be legal.
[01:00:39]  But like, I think our role here is to talk about the great crises of our day.
[01:00:45]  Like that's, that's what liberty.
[01:00:46]  And if you're like, well, people don't want to talk about that.
[01:00:48]  Okay, then it's our job to make sure they want to talk about it.
[01:00:51]  To exploit, we have to create the demand then.
[01:00:53]  I've had this where people be like, oh, people don't really know about the Federal Reserve.
[01:00:56]  So they're not outraged about it.
[01:00:57]  It's like, okay, well, then we have a two-step job.
[01:01:00]  Tell them what it is and tell them why they should be outraged about it.
[01:01:02]  Like that's, and, and, you know, to me, I wish this is like probably my central thing, message to the Libertarian Party.
[01:01:10]  It's like, don't, it's not just a matter of being radical or moderate.
[01:01:16]  It's a matter of being radical on the most important issues.
[01:01:20]  You know, I don't know if you've seen this clip that it gets sent to me probably every single day.
[01:01:25]  Everyone who sends it to me, by the way, I've seen it already when they're trying to dunk on libertarians.
[01:01:29]  But it's the thing about the debates at the LP in 2016 when it's the driver's license.
[01:01:35]  And it just, nothing makes libertarians look worse than that clip where it's like, hey, do you think we should have a driver's license?
[01:01:41]  And everyone's like, what, you know, what's next?
[01:01:43]  A license toast to toast in my own damn toaster?
[01:01:47]  And everyone's like, screw driver's licenses.
[01:01:48]  And then Gary Johnson up there says, what is just the most reasonable thing?
[01:01:52]  I don't know.
[01:01:53]  I mean, maybe you should have to take a test or something before you drive a car.
[01:01:55]  And everyone's like, boo, you suck.
[01:01:58]  And come on, libertarians, can't we just realize this makes us look like assholes?
[01:02:03]  Like, take a look at that.
[01:02:04]  And by the way, no one even gave the correct answer, which is that, well, you could probably have a private company who would make sure that you're licensed on the roads.
[01:02:11]  Whatever.
[01:02:12]  That aside, it's like the correct answer, even from an anarcho-capitalist perspective, is like, who cares?
[01:02:19]  Yeah.
[01:02:19]  Who cares?
[01:02:21]  Let's focus on what actually matters.
[01:02:23]  Like, and that to me is if the libertarians want to be taken seriously, that's what it's about.
[01:02:29]  It's about focusing on the issues that are actually destroying our country and saying, hey, we are on the side of human liberty on all of these issues.
[01:02:39]  And so for the party, no matter who ends up winning or what caucus gets their candidate in or whatever, it's like, if we all want to do something here, don't create another moment like that.
[01:02:50]  How about don't ask the candidates that question at our debates?
[01:02:53]  Yeah, I mean, this goes back to the original premise where we started this video, you know, about the redneck types, like realizing what's actually going on and what we need to do.
[01:03:04]  You know, I had some foreman that I would work with and we'd be missing, I don't know, a flag that was supposed to go on the truck and they'd just lose their mind.
[01:03:12]  Like their whole world falls apart because we forgot this flag.
[01:03:15]  And it's like, hey, I've got a bandana.
[01:03:17]  Why don't we put it on and go?

=== Priorities and Future Events (02:16) ===

[01:03:19]  You know, like that'll work.
[01:03:20]  But they can't operate outside of their absolute 100% perfect worldview.
[01:03:25]  And it's like, guys, we've got to get this job done.
[01:03:27]  We got to do all this stuff where we're going to be behind a day.
[01:03:30]  Let's go.
[01:03:31]  Let's figure it out.
[01:03:32]  Let's work together and overcome this.
[01:03:34]  That's what the libertarian party's got to do too, because they're dealing in their ideology, their like perfect, you know, utopia of what their world is going to be.
[01:03:42]  And if anyone disagrees with them on it a little bit, then they're the enemy.
[01:03:47]  And it is over a lot of stuff like driver's licenses and, you know, I don't know, stoplights or whatever.
[01:03:53]  It's like, guys, that's so far down the road that we really shouldn't worry about it right now.
[01:03:58]  Yes, if we could achieve the level of freedom that we had in 2019, it would be a monumental victory right now.
[01:04:04]  So let's try to like, let's not worry about privatizing every single lamppost quite quite yet.
[01:04:10]  All right, dude, this was great.
[01:04:12]  And we got to do it again sometime soon.
[01:04:14]  Thank you for coming on.
[01:04:15]  Reed Coverdale, everybody.
[01:04:17]  His show is the naturalist capitalist.
[01:04:19]  Anything else you want to plug?
[01:04:21]  Yeah, I just want to say I'm part of Free Speech Media on Facebook, which is a group of a bunch of young libertarians from all over the spectrum.
[01:04:29]  So go check us out there.
[01:04:30]  Yeah.
[01:04:31]  And YouTube, I'm the naturalist capitalist.
[01:04:33]  I'm at Reed Coverdale on Twitter.
[01:04:35]  And go follow David Feit and Jeremy Todd.
[01:04:37]  They're just as instrumental in this liberty unity thing as both of us are.
[01:04:42]  And Dave, I think the world of you, I really do.
[01:04:44]  Like I'm glad we've gotten to know each other.
[01:04:47]  And I'm 100% behind your message of focusing on the important issues.
[01:04:51]  So I look forward to working with you in the future.
[01:04:54]  Hell yeah, brother.
[01:04:55]  It's been a pleasure getting to know you and David and Jeremy as well.
[01:04:58]  And it's really kind of like been a shot in the arm for me.
[01:05:02]  I love that there's like good libertarians out there who have their heads on straight and the right priorities.
[01:05:07]  It's inspiring to me.
[01:05:09]  Before we wrap, just want to let you guys know I will be, I'm speaking at the Mises Caucus event in Pittsburgh.
[01:05:15]  If you go to lpmisescaucus.com slash bash, get all the information for that.
[01:05:20]  Maj Ture is going to be there.
[01:05:21]  Jeff Dice is going to be there.
[01:05:23]  Michael Rechtenwall is going to be there.
[01:05:24]  So that should be a lot of fun.
[01:05:25]  I'll be at Porkfest and Freedom Fest this summer.
[01:05:28]  So if you can make it out to those things, come hang.
[01:05:31]  All right.
[01:05:32]  Thanks again, Reed.
[01:05:33]  This was great.
[01:05:33]  We'll do it again sometime soon.
[01:05:34]  Thanks, everybody, for listening.