Texas Governor Greg Abbott signs a law banning vaccine mandates in private businesses, which hosts James and Robbie Bernstein argue is a vital defense against federal overreach despite its technical imperfections. They criticize the Libertarian Party for prioritizing cancel culture over opposing government expansion, contrasting their delayed response to Biden's OSHA order with swift condemnation of John Gruden. The discussion further examines Joe Rogan's interview with Dr. Gupta, where they expose CNN and the FDA for dishonestly framing ivermectin as veterinary medication rather than human medicine, suggesting mainstream media fails to counter such narratives effectively. Ultimately, the episode highlights how cultural distractions undermine the fight against authoritarianism. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Fill her up.
You're listening to the Gash Digital Network.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gash Digital Network.
Here's your host, James.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
This is the first episode that I've been back home in quite a while.
And I'm really, really happy to be here.
Happier than I could have imagined.
And also, it's been way too long.
Robbie the Fire Bernstein, what's up, my brother?
How are you?
I'm well.
I'm a little tired.
My apartment's like super quiet.
So sometimes I just wake up because it's so quiet.
I almost think I'm here and go.
So I'm fatigued, but you know, I'm excited to be worried about you.
How's your life going?
Oh, yeah.
Same old, same old, but that's I'm glad to hear that you're, you know, just all the quiet.
Yeah, I don't know how to handle it.
I like to think that you're just things are so quiet, and then you just come over to the computer and I'm just here already ready to go.
And that's just how an episode starts.
That's the way it goes.
Let me say quickly before we start this episode that I've gotten quite a bit of a lot of messages and tweets and emails and all this stuff since the last episode that I recorded.
And I just wanted to thank everybody for all the kind words and the oh, did you have news?
Oh, oh, yes, Rob.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, I had a baby boy and he's doing really, really good.
So everybody in my family is quite thrilled.
And, you know, I've had episodes before and just in general with what we do where I get a lot of messages from people.
And I've mentioned this before, but sometimes it's a tough thing where, you know, you want to respond to every message or at least read every message.
And sometimes it's tough too.
But after the last episode, I was like, just, I mean, I got thousands of direct messages on Twitter, on Facebook, emails, you know, tweets, comments, texts, phone calls, all this shit.
And I just really, I haven't had a chance.
I'm going to try this week to sit down and start trying to respond to some of them.
Please don't be offended if I don't respond.
It's just been a lot of them.
But it was really, it was really cool.
Like a lot of people telling me about situations that they've been through, just sending prayers and well wishes toward my family.
I just want you to know that even if I haven't responded to you, I really am grateful for all that stuff.
And it really, some of them really carried me through the last week or so.
So I appreciate that.
And everything's good.
Everything's going really, really good.
I am back.
We're back at this.
And I promise you, we'll be putting out the regular episodes right now.
It's not even so much about.
the health of my baby boy as it is that Rob was like, dude, we got fucking ads.
We're burning here.
So let's get to work.
All right.
What are we doing here?
So anyway, anyway, I love all you guys and thank you for all the kind words and well wishes.
All right.
Back to part of the problem.
Not my sad personal life, but taking on the issues that really matter and what's going on in the world.
And there's a bunch.
So we picked a few for today's episode.
And let's jump into it.
Hey, but you know, Rob, how have your last two weeks been before we start?
I think normal.
I don't know.
I don't know what two weeks, but whatever, dude.
Well, you went to Thad Russell's Winnie University thing.
That was pretty cool.
Yeah, that was pretty awesome.
First day, I got to say.
I heard great things about that.
Yeah, it was really great.
I got to see Scott Hordon live and Thaddeus asked incredible questions.
So that was really cool.
I actually got to hang out with Scott a little bit, which I've never really done.
We ate some briskets together.
I got to hit him with my questions, which he's such a genius.
There's this obscure writer that I like to follow.
And I was like, I don't know if you ever heard of this guy.
He goes, yeah, I've heard of him.
And he knew exactly what I was talking about, had the same perception of him.
So it was a thrill being down there.
I really had a good time.
That's the thing.
Scott really is that guy who's just such a fucking, he's an annoying genius at times.
Like you'll bring up some obscure writer and you're like, you're like, yeah, but you've probably never heard of this guy.
But there's this guy, so-and-so.
And he's like, here's the thing with him.
In his third volume, he totally missed the point where he's like, oh, all right.
I thought that was my thing to kind of like be like, hey, I got something to say.
Anyway, yeah, that is, that's Scott.
That's my Scotty.
All right.
Yeah, congratulations, by the way.
Oh, we'll get into the episode, but first, I just did want to say congratulations to Tom Woods on his 2000th episode.
It looked like a crazy bash that they had there with like 2,500 people alive.
Feels like it to me, bro.
Feels like there's some real energy in the Liberty movement.
And of course, when, of course, right now there would be, because when has there ever been more of a need for a liberty movement in this in this country?
But it was just incredible.
I mean, like for me personally, the Tom Woods show has, that's the show to me.
And there's, there's, there's no podcast or TV show or any type of show that's been more influential on me than the Tom Woods show.
And also just knowing Tom and knowing his family.
And he's just such a good dude that's really cool to see him get the recognition and get these really cool things happening for him.
And he's got a community of people who really love him.
And that's awesome.
So I'm really proud of him.
And of course, I also wanted to say a big congratulations to Michael Heiss, the founder and chair of the Mises Caucus, known as the Prince of the Caucas.
He's Rob's number two.
He got married yesterday.
And so congratulations to him and Emily.
That's awesome.
I hope they had a great time and enjoyed every minute of it.
And yeah, very, very happy for those guys.
Michael Heiss is an inspiration and he's the reason why I'm in the Libertarian Party because he inspired me to join and he continues to inspire me and Rob.
I would say I would go out on a limb and say he inspires the king.
He's such a great prince.
So, so congratulations.
He's passionate.
He really does the work.
He's a true leader.
Respect for me.
I think he is the, in terms of the liberty movement, I think he's the most important organizer in the world.
And liberty is the most important shit in the world.
So he's the most important organizer in the world.
So he's the guy.
Nothing but highest level of respect for Michael Heiss and congratulations to him and Emily on their marriage.
And I just think right now, as we're saying this, Michael Heiss having sex for the first time.
So he's getting to enjoy all that good stuff just for the first time ever.
I think they've been living together for a while and you got to give him that much more credit for resisting.
I just assume I project my good Christian conservatism onto everybody else.
So I don't know.
I got to find out when people have life events because I was being a pest to him in text about just absolute nonsense this week.
Like, why isn't this guy getting back to me?
And I guess he was getting married, but I just didn't know that.
As she's walking down the aisle, you're like, hey, fuck face, return a text.
Hey.
All right.
So, okay, there's one thing that I wanted to talk about because this is weird because I've, you know, it's been longer.
I don't know, a few weeks.
What is it?
I haven't slept much and I haven't slept much or shaved much, but it's been-we solved a lot of things.
Corona's over.
They took care of inflation.
They're opening the ports.
They're going to go back to actually, you know, the renewable energy.
They realized that didn't work and that it was also going to fuel more inflation.
Biden admitted he had dementia.
They realized that Kamala Harris couldn't run the country either.
New Anti-Discrimination Laws00:08:28
So it might be Nancy Pelosi.
They haven't worked out that things, but we've solved a lot since you're gone.
I'm starting to feel like none of that's happened and that we're right in the same spot that we were.
Well, I did see a few things.
And I'll tell you one thing that really like I really wanted to talk about because it really, for whatever reason, this really meant something to me.
And I remember thinking to myself that this was really interesting.
And often for me, the things that are the most interesting are the things that challenge my own worldview and make me feel uncomfortable with what I'm supporting, if that makes sense.
So I'm sure you saw, this must have been, I don't know, a week, a week or six ago.
I don't know.
It's been, everything's a haze to me.
But so Governor Abbott in Texas passed that or signed into law this mandate ban.
Did you see that?
What I'm saying?
Now, I have not had a chance to really dig through the fine print of all of it.
And I've actually, I've seen some people who were arguing about this.
So I don't even know exactly who's right or who's wrong on this, but they were debating whether this just bans vaccine mandates by state actors or whether this actually bans private businesses from mandating vaccines.
And I believe it's the latter.
I believe this actually bans private businesses from saying you have to be vaccinated to work in whatever business it might be.
Unless it was bad reporting from the sites that I read this article from, no.
That is always possible.
Yeah, no, Fercy, why would the governor need to ban the government from a mandate enforcement?
You wouldn't use that language.
You would just say, we're not going to enforce a mandate.
Yes, I suppose you're right.
But even that would be something just to say, hey, we are going to, we are not going to participate in any federal ban, like meaning like, you know, Joe Biden saying companies with 100 workers or more or something like that, you know.
So, um, but regardless, just assuming it is the latter, which I believe it is, that's that's how it's being reported.
That he's just saying you can't have a vaccine man, a vaccine mandate.
I don't care if you're a business or whatever, you're your own company, I don't care.
And there's something really interesting about this to me, and really interesting about the libertarian response to this development.
So, this got a lot of people, the Libertarian Party Twitter account, and Justin Amash and some other big libertarians were bashing this for libertarian reasons, you know, because, well, this is a violation of private property rights.
And, you know, you don't have a right to tell a business what they can and can't do.
And that is true by technical libertarian, you know, philosophy that you, a business has the right to say, we don't want to hire people who aren't vaccinated, or we want to make our employees get it, or all of this stuff.
But I got to tell you, I'm okay with it.
And it's been an interesting thing to kind of think this through and realize that, you know, whether this is perfectly libertarian or not, and the answer is it's not.
We don't live in a perfect libertarian world.
And we live in a real threat right now to liberty in this country.
And seeing people fight back against it kind of makes me happy.
And I'm not going to spend any time complaining about it.
I think that go ahead.
No, I was going to say, I think it's very different coming in response to Biden making a law that every company has to enforce this, because even if you were to take the more libertarian approach and just say, if you're within the state of Texas, you don't have to comply with that law, there might be some confusion and people would go, well, I don't want to find out that I did have federal liability or lose contracts in other places.
If he actually steps in and goes, it is against Texas law.
So then now Texas, I don't know the way that this works from here, but apparently Biden, it's Biden versus Texas.
Did Biden overstep in making his laws Texas, or does Biden have the authority to make such a law and Texas has to comply with it?
But once that law was made by Biden, it's not good enough for Abbott just to say, hey, we're not going to enforce that here because you don't know what your liability might be with the federal government.
Yeah, that's exactly it.
So you hit the nail right on the head.
So in theory, right?
My response, and I said this when I was on Tim Poole's show, when he was asking me kind of just like in theory, would you support banning businesses mandating vaccines?
And I basically said, I gave the libertarian answer, which is my answer.
I said, no.
I mean, I go, that's not even necessary.
Who cares about that?
I was like, no, I would just say, I would just be against any type of government interference in this at all.
And that, you know, government has absolutely no right to force people to get a vaccination and businesses can do whatever they want to.
And it's not even necessary to ban businesses from doing this because the market will take care of all of this.
You know, like they're, I mean, if there's one business who wants to turn away a huge portion of their customers and a huge portion of their workers, okay, go compete with the other ones who will take that business and take those employees.
It seems fairly straightforward.
However, when the federal government is coming in and saying, I mean, just by decree and saying that, you know, whatever it is, that OSHA is going to do this, no matter what the exact law is, saying that, you know, all these companies and big companies that have 100 or more employees have to mandate vaccines or get tested or whatever, but pretty much pushing in that direction.
Now there's going to be a whole lot of companies in Texas who are like, even if you say that, will go, yeah, I know you're saying that, but the federal government is kind of pushing me in this direction.
So it almost requires, in a defensive sense, someone to step up and say, no, you can't do that here.
You are in violation of our state laws if you do that.
And just to keep things in perspective here, Texas is not like, you know, this isn't a town of a few thousand people.
This is Texas.
This is Texas is bigger than many countries in the world.
And so it's a big deal.
It's a big area.
And for them to say, no, this is against our laws, you know, that would put those big corporations in a position where if they're operating mainly or primarily or even largely in Texas, they might think twice about doing that.
I'm okay with that.
There's also already anti-discrimination laws imposed on businesses.
So for a new anti-discrimination law to come around that's actually in my favor, like unless you're going to unwind the other protections that other people have, you're really just extending the protections that already exist.
So for example, if they made an anti-discrimination law against conservative point of views or your political opinions, that you can't be fired from your employer because of your political views as stated online.
Would it be smart of libertarians to say, well, how dare you tell a business that they can't discriminate against employees?
Well, those laws already exist.
So why wouldn't I want that protection for myself when it's already afforded to multiple other individuals?
Why Businesses Use Podium00:02:27
Like that doesn't, it doesn't, it just doesn't seem like a winning strategy when the other side of it's not going away.
Well, it's yeah, exactly.
Or you could just make it explicitly against libertarians.
Like let's just say that there was like, you know, whatever.
There's a being against the Fed makes you a terrorist and you're not allowed to have employment.
There's a federal edict that says anyone who opposes the Federal Reserve is a terrorist and should be fired.
And then one state, you know, governor says, you're not allowed to fire someone for being against the Federal Reserve and being a libertarian or whatever.
Would we sit there and go, well, those are both infringements on liberty.
And so I don't.
Or would we just go, you know what?
Even though none of this is perfect, I'm kind of on the side of that guy.
Like I understand what a big threat to our whole thing this is.
So I'm going to, I'm not going to spend any time, let's say, bashing that guy.
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And this is a thing that I, you know, I got into it with a few different people on Twitter about this, and I haven't been tweeting that much because I've been busy with a lot of other stuff.
Fighting Big Government Mandates00:14:51
But this is like what I'm trying to get across to people that I think some libertarians are not understanding or are willfully on the wrong side of.
And to be fair, again, with all this, I think it's the majority of people in the liberty movement are totally on the right side of this.
It's it is the minority.
Um, and unfortunately, that includes the uh some people in the LNC at the top of the libertarian party.
But when you have right the the biggest threat to not only liberty, but to our, you know, the basic way of life in America in my lifetime, which is the COVID regime.
With, I mean, I think there's no doubt about this.
I don't, I really don't even understand how anyone could argue about this.
You have, you know, over the last, you know, 18, 19 months, you know, a thing where the government, state governments, the federal government has just gone nuts, gone nuts on absolutely suspending any pretext, any pretense of liberty existing in this country.
And what do you have?
What power source do you have fighting against that?
What do you have?
DeSantis.
I mean, one or two other cool governors.
Right.
And like, you know, I mean, when I say what, what power source do you have fighting against that?
You have podcasts like this who, you know, our days on YouTube are probably numbered.
And, you know, like, what do we have?
I don't know.
We have a nice little following on this podcast.
There are some other good ones.
There's, you know, Alex Berenson and, you know, Rogan, the king, who we'll get into a little bit more later.
He might, you know, fucking be on the right side of this.
And there might be some other people, but what actual power do we have, you know, to fight against this?
Not much.
You have about three state governments.
And that's it.
And it's, it's, what is it?
Florida, South Dakota, and Texas.
And to be honest, South Dakota, even though they're the best, they, you know, they never did any of this crazy COVID nonsense.
Um, they're not really fighting against any of this because it's South Dakota and who cares.
Free people live there.
Yeah.
A lot of rich people's money is parked there.
Yeah.
I mean, I love South Dakota.
I had a lot of fun there at Freedom Fest and everything.
And there's some really cool people there.
And sure, if you look at South Dakota versus North Dakota and look at their curves, it's great as an example for people who care about examples and logic and all of that to go, ah, well, you know, they didn't do the mask mandates and the lockdowns.
And look, their curves better than North Dakota.
So, okay, great.
But there's a reason why Joe Biden doesn't really give a shit to ever bring up South Dakota.
But he does bring up Florida and Texas all the time.
Like, because Florida and Texas are two big fucking states with large populations, the size of some nations, you know?
And so the fact that they're doing things different really means something.
And so what do you have?
What do you have to fight against this stuff?
And if one of the people fighting against this, okay, they're going to mandate something that's not perfectly libertarian.
Yeah, that's okay.
But that's not like, I just don't understand how anyone could think that.
Like, what's the biggest threat to liberty?
Is the biggest threat to liberty that maybe a state government would mandate that you can't discriminate against the unvaccinated?
Or is the bigger threat to liberty that state governments would mandate that you must discriminate against the vaccinated?
So the thing that drove me crazy is like seeing this, this, it was even before it went into effect or anything, but just this being proposed and all these libertarians jump on it right away, like trying to be these like autistic perfectionists saying like, well, that's actually not perfectly libertarian either.
Like, oh, okay.
Yeah, you're right.
But can we take into account the bigger picture here?
Like, look, I'm not saying that's the right move or if I was governor, that's what I would do necessarily.
But at least he's fighting on the right side.
At least he's banning discrimination rather than legislating discrimination or legislating isn't even the word.
I don't know.
Just through fiat decree forcing it.
I mean, how could we even like, how could that even register on the on your radar?
And then the other thing that that drives me crazy is like, so, you know, Daniel McAdams, who is, he's Ron Paul's co-host on the Liberty Report.
And he had this thing that he used to say.
And I think it's, there's really something to this.
I'm not saying it's like 100% perfect law, but there's really something to this.
And his thing was he goes, and he's like a, he's been a journalist for decades and he does a lot of stuff on foreign policy.
That's kind of like his area of expertise.
And his thing was he goes, libertarians should never be never be useful to the regime.
So he goes, never attack the CIA's targeted enemies.
It's like if someone was stepping in to be a regulator of the CIA, don't be like, hey, government shouldn't have regulators.
Well, yes.
Well, that's a good example of it.
But the way he was using it was like, if in 2002, say you're a libertarian and in 2002, as the war propaganda against Iraq is building up and you're a libertarian and you're writing a bunch of pieces about how un-libertarian Saddam Hussein is.
And you're just writing a bunch of things where you're like, you know, Saddam Hussein doesn't give his people liberty and he doesn't do all this and that and he's a really bad guy.
It's not that you're technically incorrect.
Like, yeah, Saddam Hussein is a bad guy.
But Daniel McAdams' point is just like, stop.
Because who are you aiding?
You're aiding our big government.
So why are you doing that?
And you see this a lot from different libertarians.
And it's hard exactly to decide whether you should give them the benefit of the doubt and go, you guys are really, really blue pilled or to be, this is a little bit more nefarious than that.
And you're actually trying to aid the regime.
Like you're regime libertarians.
You're either blue pilled libertarians or regime libertarians.
I'm not sure which is worse.
But when it comes to things like that, you know, as soon as they want a war in Venezuela, you start talking about how awful, you know, monetary policy in Venezuela is.
Like, okay, but we have awful monetary policy here too.
So what the fuck?
Like, why are we, why are you focusing on that?
And it just feels like that to me, where I just see when this comes out that Governor Abbott is going to ban vaccine mandates, all of the sudden,
there's these a lot of libertarians who are real hesitant to speak up about the lockdowns and the vaccine passport and a lot of this other shit will be jumping on how non-libertarian it is to say a business doesn't have the right to fire unvaccinated workers or to not serve unvaccinated customers.
And you're like, I don't know, dude, you seem really quick to jump on that one.
But what about the real threat to liberty?
What is the real threat to liberty?
That we're going to go down this road where we have a two-tiered system when everybody who didn't take the COVID vaccination is now a second-class citizen mandated by the governments that they're a second-class citizen.
Not just like the market decided that, like mandated by the governments, or the fact that the governments will come in and say, you can't do that.
We got to keep doing what we've always done.
I'm not saying either one is perfectly libertarian, but I will take my pick of those two for sure.
And the fact that I even see libertarians arguing about this stuff is kind of nuts to me.
I mean, yeah, you don't have to agree.
Yeah, it's not perfectly libertarian, but okay, it's better.
It's clearly better.
You know, I...
Also, there's an additional level of stupidity is that at least states' rights gets a little bit closer to liberty, where you might have different states and you can pick which state you want to live in.
And so this would be a pretty interesting fight between state rights and federal.
And obviously, it's not the first time that there's In this kind of stuff between Fed and states, but this is a really interesting one.
So maybe Texas actually wins it and then he can rewrite the law.
But this is a step in the right direction of let's have the conversation of can the Fed mandate, like it could be that this unwinds the Fed thing entirely, where all of a sudden it just we find out that Biden didn't have the authority to do this.
And because the state's actually opposing it, maybe it gets the Supreme Court.
I don't really know the legal structure of how this gets played out.
But the point being, if you want your perfect libertarian thing where he doesn't mandate against businesses, but does something else, this is probably the best starting point for us to establish state versus federal power and possibly unwinding the Fed law.
So I really don't get their perspective here.
Well, imagine to me, like the example that I think of is like someone, because oftentimes the ones who are opposing war will be left-wingers, you know, historically.
Not always, but and a lot of times those left-wingers will say, well, we should, what, what's their big thing, right?
You've heard this from left-wingers your entire life, probably.
Well, we shouldn't support wars because we could spend that money back at home.
I don't know if you realize this, but it's changed ever since women were having problems in those other countries.
Well, yes, now we have to support wars.
But anyway, but the idea that, you know, that's been a thing that left-wingers will say, right?
Like, it's like, we shouldn't go fight wars, you know, all these wars for oil because we could spend that money on education or whatever.
And, you know, if someone who was really opposing the wars, like a governor or something like that, was going to say, hey, listen, we will not send our state's money to that war because we want to spend that on health care and education or something like that.
Now, I mean, I would just support that person, even though, yes, that's not the perfect libertarian answer.
And okay, yeah, you're right.
We don't want the government to spend that money on anything.
But you can also, you know, like even in the libertarian world, you could recognize that there's aggressions and government policies, but that doesn't mean they're all the same.
Some are worse than others.
And war is worse than social programs.
And in the same sense, you go banning, you know, or legislating, enforcing that businesses ban unvaccinated people is worse than enforcing that they can't.
And I got to say, it's like, I understand the libertarian allergy to state power.
We don't want to use state power.
That's kind of the whole thing that we're against.
And I get that.
And I'm against that too.
But I can still kind of notice what's going on.
And I feel like, and maybe this will be a theme that we'll address more later on the show.
But I feel like it's almost like when people want to like say, like, well, that's bad, but that's bad too.
And we're all, we're against all of these, you know, state policies.
It's like, do you guys not understand the moment we're living through?
Do you not understand what's going on here?
That this is like a really big deal and a dangerous situation.
Because if you do understand that, then I think maybe you'd realize, yeah, the solution probably won't be perfect, but anyone who can take down the COVID regime, I'm willing to hear them out.
And as far as abuses of state power go, just legislating, again, not legislating, or in Abbott's case, maybe legislating, but even that, You know, using state force to mandate that people can't have vaccine mandates, I'm kind of okay with it.
And I'll tell you, even though it's not perfect by libertarian standards, you're not going to hear me spend any of my time, like in the same sense of the Daniel McAdams thing, when people, when there's drums of the drums are beating to go to war with Iran, you're not going to hear me spending a lot of time talking about how horrible Iran is, even though they are, they are a horrible government.
But when they start talking about going to war with Iran, I'm going to talk about how America is the aggressors in this situation.
And in the same sense, when this stuff is going on, I'm not going to be bashing Governor Abbott.
I'm going to be talking about how Joe Biden's the aggressor in this situation.
Harry's Razor Special Offer00:02:46
And before him, Trump and Fauci and Cuomo and all the fucking awful COVID regime masters.
Anyway, go ahead.
No, I think you summed it up.
These people are wrong.
State power.
Let's do whatever we can to keep Biden in check because they're trying to do everything they can to enforce these mandates and get everyone boosted all the way up.
Boosters on the boosters.
They got no science behind any of their policies.
And every dumbass who is being compliant, even if they've been vaccinated, is, I don't know, what world do you want to live in where government gets to mandate, take away freedoms and mandate health policies that aren't even backed by science?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
That's exactly it.
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Free Speech And Consequences00:15:04
Should I even mention this?
All right, I guess I will because it's just, God, it just pissed me off so much.
But the so the Libertarian Party, um, and this is what drives me crazy, right?
So they So there was this thing recently in the Libertarian Party, and this is why we're embarking on this project to just take the Libertarian Party and make it a force for actual liberty, which is what they claim to be.
And I think if people who actually care about liberty were to decide we want to do this, then it's done.
And that's kind of happening.
And this is basically what the essence of the Mises Caucus project has been all about.
And they're doing a great job, by the way.
And it's really, it's going great.
But so there was this push after Joe Biden had that, you know, when he gave that speech and he said that, you know, he's directing OSHA to enforce that companies with 100 or more people have to, you know, have these, have to be vaccinated and all of this.
And there was a push that they go, listen, we will donate money if the Libertarian Party cuts an ad right now to say, hey, we oppose this.
The third big political party in America.
I know everyone thinks it's just Democrats and Republicans, but there is this other one.
And we are against all of this.
I'm sorry.
Which side are we again?
Are we against Governor Abbott?
We're against before Abbott.
This is just against Biden and the COVID regime and forcing people to get vaccinated.
Wait, they're going to get money for saying an intelligent thing?
Yes, that's right.
So they did it and they agreed, we'll take the, we'll start raising money.
And it took weeks and weeks and weeks.
And they put out an okay ad.
It wasn't great, but it was okay.
Was it like really meek?
Like, hey, we think maybe this is a bad idea because it's not really that great.
It was better than you would think.
Okay.
But not as good as you would hope.
And also just took so much time that by the time they did it, people, you know how it is today.
Like people are like, this was no one's even thinking about this speech anymore.
They should have had it out that night.
Like all you need to do is have a guy, have one dude who's good at video editing.
Listen, I've had videos that have gone viral.
I mean, the video I had with what's her name, that chick who was at the State Department under Obama when I was on Kennedy, it's gotten like millions and millions of hits across different social media platforms.
I never cut that thing up and put it out the way it did.
Someone did.
Some fan cut it up and put it out and then it just took off.
I've had several videos like that.
Me and Spike Cohen and a bunch of different people in the libertarian world have been saying all the right shit on this for a long time.
Just edit it up and put it out and be like, this is our party.
That's all you have to do.
You just have to have someone who knows how to do that.
So now, by the way, I don't know how to do that.
I just know how to talk this shit.
I don't know how to edit this shit, but whatever.
That's it.
The point is, it's not that hard to do.
But so they finally do that after weeks and weeks.
But then, you know, a lot of people will go, well, this is the problem with the Libertarian Party is that it's just, oh, you know, it's like you have to go through all these people.
Everyone has to approve it.
It's, you know, it's like a thing where you can't expect them.
Right, kind of.
The irony of that.
But, but my point is, that's not even true.
That's not even the thing.
The problem is that they don't have their hearts in it.
This is the problem.
So they were silent about lockdowns for months and months.
And they were silent until I forced them not to be about the riots all through the summer of 2020 for months.
And they're silent about all this other stuff.
But when Abbott passes this ban, they're right on it, right on it, all of a sudden.
They're right on top of it, hours later.
And this is what pisses me off.
Why do you take so long to come out when the obvious pro-liberty side?
But if it's the other side, you spring into action.
So they said this.
God, you know, John Gruden.
You know him?
He's the football coach who got in trouble.
Did you see this story?
I saw the story.
I didn't dig into the details, but I remember recently on YouTube seeing videos of him on the sideline just saying the most ridiculous things to people and it just being hilarious start to finish.
So I don't know specifically what was said.
And obviously, as a good American citizen, I'm sure if I read those words, I would fire him on the spot too, even if it was a decade ago.
I would say 10 years ago, I can't believe you said such words.
But this is the thing, right?
So the Libertarian Party, and this is at the heart of it, this is my thing.
And people can, I don't know.
You know, I think sometimes people like who are our opponents in the liberty world, if that's the world they're in, you know, kind of act like we're these like right-wingers or racist transphobes, xenophobes, or all this shit.
Even though like, come on.
I mean, come the fuck on.
There's nothing to do with what we're about.
It has nothing to do with what we talk about all the time on this show.
My point is just like what you care about, what you respond to immediately and what you don't.
So the day that this happens, right?
And John Gruden is a football coach and he won a Super Bowl like a while ago with the Bucks.
I think he went to a Super Bowl with the Raiders, lost, and then won with the Bucks, I believe.
So the story with him is that some emails that he sent a decade earlier, private emails were released where he said some shit.
And from what I saw, I mean, we were joking around about this on Legion of Skanks.
I don't know if there was something worse that I didn't see, but from what I saw, it was like him being a football coach, basically.
They were like, ah, what do you think of Joe Biden?
He was like, he's a girly man.
He's, you know, a girly man who wants to be around these fruitcakes and blah, blah, blah.
You know, being a football coach.
I don't know.
Not saying it's perfect, but Jesus.
So here's what the Libertarian Party posts on Facebook.
They said freedom of speech means that the government may not restrict your right to say that thing.
It does not mean that you are free from the consequences of that speech.
Those who use bigoted or hateful language deserve to be exposed so that society can see their true character.
That was their post.
Now, here's my thing with that, right?
It's interesting that there's a belief in libertarianism.
There's a belief in human liberty and in private property rights, the non-aggression principle, right?
This has nothing to do with that.
This is outside of the scope of what it means to believe in human liberty, to believe in self-ownership, private property rights, and the non-aggression principle.
This believing that those who use bigoted or hateful language deserve to be exposed so that society can see their true character.
That's like some other separate belief that is not the same as believing in property, non-aggression.
You know what I mean?
Like that's a different thing.
And that they're so quick to jump on and let everybody know.
Yet nothing else like, it's funny.
They're allergic to anything else like that.
You know, maybe like if they were to say, we believe if you're in a marriage, you should be faithful.
They would never say something like that.
You would never catch the Libertarian Party higher up saying something like that.
And by the way, I don't think they should.
Because your job here is to be libertarians.
Your job here isn't to tell people how they should run their marriage.
Now, I personally do believe if you're in a marriage, you should be faithful.
I believe that if you have kids, you should love those kids.
But that's not really the role of libertarians jumping into a political party to start telling you how to run your marriage and how to run, you know, how to raise your kids and all of this like that.
But those are values that I really believe in.
But you're not going to catch them saying anything like that anytime soon.
But to say those who use bigoted or hateful language deserve to be exposed so that society can see their true character.
Can I you're like what let me just say, and then you go ahead, but what happened here was someone's 10-year-old emails were leaked to ruin him because he said like things that were politically incorrect in those emails.
It does not listen.
All I'm saying is that the idea that I believe in human liberty, that I believe in self-ownership, the non-aggression principle and private property rights does not in any way imply that I then also believe that if you privately emailed someone something 10 years ago, you should be ruined over that.
That's just insanity.
And normal people don't have to believe that.
It doesn't follow from that.
But that, by the way, you don't need a big ad campaign.
You don't need all this public pressure.
You don't need to wait weeks and weeks for them to come out with.
No, that they'll come out with the day of.
The day of.
They'll be out there saying that shit.
And I wish they didn't, I wish they realized this.
This in not only does it embarrass us, not only do normal people not agree with us, but like not agree with this, but this is like, this is what holds us back.
What's the point of that?
They also said, by the way, in a comment after this, is that libertarians support free market consequences for your actions.
And that may include the effects of cancel culture.
It's just like, it's just fucking embarrassing, man.
Like the idea that libertarians, I mean, okay, I guess, again, they worded it in a way where it's like not technically untrue.
Yes, we support what may include cancel culture, but no, you do not at all, because you believe in human liberty, have to support the idea that someone should be canceled for their fucking 10-year-old emails being leaked that where they said something fucked up any more than like, you know, they could say it may include cancel culture.
Yeah, libertarians also may support the person who leaked those 10-year-old emails never getting a job again or being able to support their family.
We may support that also, right?
But they're not going to come out and say that.
So here's where a lot of people, I think, in that scene think that we have some crazy right-wing bias or something like that.
But it's like, I don't really think that's it.
I think that is just like, I don't, why does this garbage have to be associated with the belief in human liberty?
I agree 100%.
And I think driving that point home of that they're focusing on the wrong things, to just pick apart their phrase deserves to be exposed.
That's very much so evil unjustifies the means.
So like, should we be hacking people's computers?
Like we should hack everyone's computers.
We should see if they're using bigoted language and we should expose them.
Even if they're otherwise good people and maybe use language in a joking fashion, it deserves to be exposed.
Who knows?
Yeah, what was the whole quote again?
Here, I'll read it for you one more time.
Yeah, who knows, dude?
Was it a joke or not?
Freedom of speech means that the government may not restrict your right to say things.
Okay, I agree so far.
It does not mean that you are free from the consequences of that speech.
Those who use bigoted or hateful language deserve to be exposed so that society can see their true character.
Yeah, so I have two problems with this.
One, every single one of us has a private life.
And if you don't harm other people and you like, none of us want to be criticized at this standard.
No one wants to be privately observed in their home, want old emails, like, you know, thinly combed through to find some expos.
Like every one of us is guilty of being a human being, every single one of us.
And if you want to go through all of our track records for our entire lives, we can make every single one of us guilty because we're all human beings.
No one wants to live by this standard.
And that's not morality.
Morality is not, hey, I once made a bigoted comment in an email.
Like it doesn't mean like if you send an email to the Hitler Association of America saying, hey, I want to go fucking kill these other groups of people, right?
Then maybe that's of interest.
But even so, if it was 10 years ago, you might have had some weird evening where for some reason you were feeling some weird way and you wrote an email and it doesn't even feel like it's not.
And any of these, the one, the one you're talking about involves like an aggression.
Like I want, you know, like for libertarians to go, it's like, look, if there was, let's say there was, I don't know, someone who came out as gay to their employer.
I mean, that guy we got to be bigoted towards.
Yeah.
No, that's what I'm saying.
And so this guy came out, told his employer, they were at the bar one night and he goes, hey, you know what?
I've never told you this, but I'm gay.
And that's the first time I've ever told anyone that.
And the employer said, whew, you're gay?
Well, you're fired.
I don't want gays in my office.
You know, would the Libertarian Party say, you know, freedom of speech means that the government can't restrict your right to say what you want.
It doesn't mean that you're free from the consequences of your actions.
Now, I'm just saying, by the technicality of the libertarian law, that would apply.
Cancel Culture And Libertarians00:03:55
Right.
But do you want to support the guy being bigoted to you?
Do you really want to support that?
Like, no, you'd be like, like, first off, a libertarian, if you're just the libertarian party and you're just espousing libertarian principles, then truthfully, you have nothing to say about that.
I mean, that guy has a right to do that.
But if you're just being a decent person about it, you'd be like, really?
You fired him just because he said he was gay?
That's fucking, that's really shitty to do.
Okay.
So I wasn't even so gay that you guys realized till he told you.
So that's one of the keepers.
It was, he was, as far as gay people go, he was doing a great job.
He was keeping it under wraps, right?
But so you get my point, right?
It's like you're kind of choosing culturally.
You're adding all this other stuff that doesn't really have to do with libertarianism into libertarianism.
And what you're adding into it is that we support cancel culture.
Why would you want to do that when so many people hate cancel culture?
And disproportionately, the ones who might be interested in what you have to say, Libertarian Party, they hate cancel culture.
And this is what's crazy is that in the middle of like this COVID regime and the kind of like woken sanity of the country and the biggest government ever where they're talking about spending, you know, $3.5 trillion and claiming that it's free and all of this stuff.
Like that, what you're going to come out and say is that like, hey, we're the libertarians.
And you're not going to say, hey, we're against the COVID regime.
We're against all of this insanity.
You know, all this crazy stuff being taught to kids in public schools and in colleges.
Hey, you know what?
That's all government programs.
And you know, all of these wars, that's a government program.
And all of this debt is a government program.
And the reason why your prices are rising so high is because the government program called the Federal Reserve is printing money like there's no tomorrow.
And we actually have answers to bring us back to normalcy.
Instead, you're going to spend any inch of, you know, space of column space or Facebook post space saying, yeah, you know, we really do think if someone said something wrong 10 years ago in a private email, they should be fired.
Really?
Like, really?
That's what you guys are coming out to say.
Again, I'm not saying you got to say some right-wing shit.
I'm not saying that you should come out and say, you know, if some woman, you know, wasn't a faithful wife or something like that, she should be fired from her job or she should have consequences for saying that.
You don't have to take a left or right-wing position on this.
But why are you jumping into cancel culture?
Like this is, it's just again, there's two, there's two options for why you do something like that.
And one is that, you know, you're really blinded by this woke ideology.
And two is that you are trying to sabotage this movement.
And either way, that's a real problem.
And that's what the Mises caucus is here to fucking address.
It's not that we're trying to say, hey, you need to be right-wingers or for what the crazy accusations against us.
And this is the funny thing.
It's like, if you don't buy into this bullshit, like if you don't have this religious view, then they go, well, you must be like a fucking right-wing alt-right racialist or something.
And it's like, no, not that.
I'm just saying, stop doing this dumb shit, you idiots.
Also, wool culture is a tool of the global elite to enforce socialism upon all of us.
Snarky FDA Comments Explained00:15:34
Yeah, that's a good thing.
That is a fair point, right?
Why do we have to adapt the culture of our enemies?
I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, I share all of the cultural values of the people who stand for everything against what I stand for.
I stand with the big banks and their ESG scores because we need to do everything we can to take the power away from the private markets to enforce wool culture.
Right.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
All right.
Let's move on.
We got a couple of videos that we wanted to play on the show.
And I think both of them are worth looking at.
So let's jump into this because this was a big, like trending, popular thing.
So Joe Rogan, my brother, Joe Rogan, had Dr. Gupta.
Is that his name on the show?
Yes, from he's he's CNN's resident doctor and they got into it over, you know, Rogan, who had thrown out kind of rhetorically, but had thrown out the idea that he could sue CNN, which I think he probably could over their coverage of him.
This was really interesting.
Let's play this clip.
So for you, Joe Rogan, I would say you've had it.
Yes.
To now get one shot of the vaccine.
No.
Why not?
Because I have better immunity than I would if I was vaccinated.
Right.
Don't I?
I think your immunity is really good.
So why if I've already gotten through COVID and I was really only sick for a day and then five days later, I was negative and I do have the natural antibodies now.
Why would I take a chance in getting vaccinated on top of that?
By the way, I'm glad you're better.
I'm glad it only lasted a day.
You're probably the only one at CNN that's glad.
No, The rest of them are all lying about me taking horse medication.
We should talk about that.
That bothered you.
It should bother you too.
They're lying at your network about people taking human drugs versus drugs from veterinaries.
Isn't it?
Okay.
So I already thought this was pretty interesting that he goes, that Dr. Gupta goes, oh, that bothered you, didn't it?
And Rogan had the perfect counter.
He goes, well, it should bother you.
It should bother you that I said that.
And so I just already thought that was kind of interesting.
Like, yeah.
Like, yeah, of course it would bother him.
Why would it not?
Gupta is almost like, yeah, we play a game and you're kind of on the other side.
So we were playing the game that we play.
And he's like, wait, but you're a fucking doctor and you're supposed to be the voice of medicine on the network.
And they're lying about what medicine is.
You're supposed to be the doctor of medicine on the cable news network.
Like, I don't know.
I mean, look, I'm the comedian on the libertarian podcast.
You know where I'm coming from.
But you're not supposed to be.
That's not what you're claiming to be.
You're not claiming to be the left-wing doctor on the totalitarian cable network.
You're claiming to be the doctor of medicine on the cable news network.
So shouldn't it bother you that they would say this?
Anyway, let's keep playing.
Not a flattering thing, I guess.
It's a lie.
It's a lie on a news network, and it's a lie that's a willing, that's a lie that they're conscious of.
It's not a mistake.
They're unfavorably framing it as veterinary medicine.
Well, the FDA put this thing out.
You saw that.
Did you see that thing that the FDA put out?
What did the FDA put out?
It was a tweet and it was snarky.
I admit it.
They said, you are not a horse.
You are not a cow.
Stop taking this stuff or something like that.
Why would you say that when you're talking about a drug that's been given out to people?
Game boss for millions of people.
There's something telling about the fact that the FDA put out a tweet and he's saying, I admit it.
What do you have to admit on behalf of the FDA?
Well, he is not saying snarky.
Right.
All right, right.
But there's no reason for him to need a comment on the way the FDA would approach talking about ivermectin unless the FDA and CNN somehow collude on narratives.
So he's not saying it.
He just kind of gave away that there is some sort of official narrative amongst these parties.
And even though that statement didn't come from CNN, he'll even admit that that is a snarky way of approaching their narrative.
Right.
So why wouldn't his thing just be like, you know, the FDA did this thing, which I thought they shouldn't have been snarky like this?
And go, I'll admit that they were snarky.
Yeah, you make a very good point, Rob.
Why do you have to admit?
What are you with them?
Does it pain you to admit that like, yeah, the FDA, first off, they shouldn't be snarky.
Second off, it's stupid.
It's stupid and dishonest and wrong.
Like, again, look, the heart of this whole thing right here with this argument.
And by the way, Dr. Gupta, we're not even going to have time because we're going over to play that clip.
But the idea that he's going to say that they called it horse dewormer or that the FDA said, you're not a horse, you're not whatever, a pig or blah, blah.
This is so stupid.
It's the most dishonest, like misleading, like, you know, as fake as fake news could be.
It's on the level, there's been a bunch of funny memes about this, but it's like claiming that someone taking the Mectin is taking horse dewormer is I saw one meme that said Joe Rogan, it was like Joe Rogan, I drink water and then CNN.
And they go, Joe Rogan drinking a liquid that's used as a nuclear coolant.
You know, like it's that's what, you know, it's like if someone said, I ate a burger and you go, oh, you're eating dog food?
Because beef is also used in dog food.
That's, that's the level of what they're saying.
It's like, yes, I mean, there is this like the parts of the same drug that are used in some horse medication, but it's also prescribed for people.
And so this is all, and for him to say the problem with the FDA, and he'll admit that they're being snarky, but can't just come out and say that like, yeah, this is like, this is an outrage that the FDA would say this.
Yeah, as Brian pointed out, penicillin is used for a whole bunch of animals.
Like this is, it's all, it's just crazy.
And you, you really touched on something there where his attitude is, look, I'll admit the FDA was a little bit snarky.
Why do you, why is that an admission?
Why does that, why does that hurt?
By the way, you're, you're supposed to work for CNN.
You should be glad to shine a light on a corrupt government bureaucracy.
Shouldn't hurt to say that.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
All right, let's keep playing.
It's been given out to billions and billions of people, a drug that was responsible for one of the inventors of it making the Nobel Prize in 2015.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A drug that has been shown to stop viral replication in vitro.
You know that, right?
Why would they lie and say that's horse dewormer?
I can afford people medicine, motherfucker.
This is ridiculous.
It's just a lot.
But don't you think that a lie like that is dangerous on a news network when you know that they know they're lying?
You know that they know that I took medicine.
Like, here it is.
This is ironic.
You got to put it right here.
Somebody gave it to me.
All right.
Hang on.
The thing is, we're like going so fast.
Like, I feel like I'm missing.
I'm missing.
Do you think that's a problem?
Well, I don't.
Dude, what did they say?
They lied.
What did they say?
I was taking horse dewormer.
First of all, it was prescribed to me by a doctor.
Yeah, yeah.
They shouldn't have said it was a bunch of other medications.
If you got a human pill, because there were people that were taking it, the veterinary medication.
And I, you're not, obviously.
You got it from a doctor.
All right.
All right.
Pause it right there.
Pause it right there.
Oh, man.
Oh, oh, did you get the human version?
And we probably shouldn't have said that about you.
You know, there's a lot of people who are taking it from a veterinarian.
Were there?
Really?
Let me see those numbers, Dr. Goop.
This is, this is what they're reduced to.
Well, a lot of people were taking it from, you know, their, their vet.
So that's, oh, really, really.
Actually, a lot of people are getting it prescribed by their doctors.
So fucking apologize.
Apologize right now.
Rogan should have been harder on this guy.
I mean, Rogan was great, but he should have been harder on him throughout the episode.
And he would even say that.
But I do give Rogan credit for not letting him change the subject right there.
I think it's bad etiquette to ask follow-up questions to people that are trying to create news propaganda.
It's just not the way it works.
You're supposed to only ask once and then let them change topic.
So, you know, bad etiquette.
And by the way, just to clarify what you said when you said people are being prescribed by their doctors, actually not that easy to get prescribed by your doctors as they're getting reprimanded for making these medications.
So sadly, if you have a doctor who's looked at the medical research and thinks that it's fitting for you, we are not allowed to make independent decisions, even with medical guidance any longer.
Yep, that's right.
That's exactly right.
And of course, Merck came out with a big statement about how they think ivermectin is not a good treatment for COVID.
And then a few weeks later announced that they're coming out with a new treatment for COVID.
So what's interesting is that might have something to do with it.
Oh, it for sure does.
What's interesting about their new treatment and showcases the problem with all earlier treatments.
I don't know that much about Merck.
I'm not telling you to go take the Merck medication, but it actually had very clear data indicating it was good.
It was very clear.
It was like a 50% reduction.
Trial study, 14,000, I think for 7,000 that was hospitalizations, and then death was just like, it's like when you actually have good data, it's pretty easy to just go, hey, here's the case and here's the data.
Haven't done that much digging on Merck.
But the second I saw those numbers, also, just one more thing about the Merc, which was interesting.
They actually ran the test in risk groups.
So like they purposely gave it to like 65 year olds and people that could potentially be hospitalized.
No, that was, yes, I saw that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I'm just saying.
That says, no, you're right.
You're right.
That says something.
But still, the fact that they would, no, that part of it, you're completely right about.
The fact that they go, hey, our old drug, forget that, because we got this new drug coming out.
This is pure conspiracy.
What I'm about to say is pure conspiracy.
I did one Google search of it and it came back as basically being inaccurate.
But the actual function of the Merck drug, I'm not talking about the chemical formulation.
I don't know about that, but the actual functionality sounded to me to be very similar to ivermectin.
Ivermectin seems to prevent viral spread.
So like if you catch the virus, if you catch that you have the virus early and you're taking ivermectin, theoretically, it prevents the virus from like duplicating.
So you might not have as severe of an illness from as much as I understand of ivermectin and from the two articles I saw of the Merck product, it seemed to work in a similar fashion, which overall just seemed a little bit shady, but it's not something I've done a ton of research on yet.
Okay, fair enough.
All right, let's keep playing.
Ivermectin can be a very effective medication for parasitic disease.
And as you say, it's probably, you know, I think what, a quarter billion people have taken it around the world.
I get that.
Way more.
So way more.
Billions of people have taken it.
Can I just come back to the one?
I want to talk about it.
No, no, no.
Two things on the left.
You have before we get to that.
Does it bother you that the news network you work for out and out lied?
Was outright lied about me taking horse dewormer.
They shouldn't have said that.
Why did they do that?
I don't know.
You didn't ask?
I didn't think there was.
You're the medical guy over there.
I didn't ask.
I should have asked before they had such glee.
No, no, I watched.
You watched?
I watched.
You watched.
No, I don't think there's.
No one takes.
Joe Rogan says taking livestock drug despite warnings.
Yeah.
Jamie, you had to pull this up.
You want to play it?
This is your news network.
I'm going to watch.
I'm going to watch.
Rogan telling his 13 million Instagram followers that he was treated with several drugs and he included ivermectin on the list, a drug used for livestock.
The FDA and the CDC warned against using to treat COVID.
Turns out I got COVID.
Look at the two kitchen sinks out of it.
They did that.
It's monopoly.
You see the original video versus that?
I look like shit there.
Do you know that?
I think you look good.
Pause.
Frednisone.
That's enough, Jim.
I don't think Aaron had glee.
Oh, well, it's more Brian Stelter was the gleeful one.
But the point is, that's a lie.
By the way, not only is that a lie, they absolutely put a filter over Rogan.
Like he didn't look like that in the video when he's talking about it.
They put a filter to make him look sickly.
This is how insane this whole thing is.
Joe Rogan uses animal medicine.
But look, we can cut out the rest of it.
We don't need to play the rest of the video.
But it's not just like there was one of them, like Aaron Burnett, the one they just played there, Brian Stelter, Don Lemon, Jake Tapper, a whole bunch of them.
Safe Pandemic Medication Options00:02:48
They all covered this and had to go nuts because someone really, really popular with a huge audience let people know that he was prescribed this by his doctor and that he got better way fat like, very quickly and he was prescribed several things but that he recovered very quickly and they couldn't let that be known.
So they have to say he took this animal medicine and and like I don't know, this is bananas doctors.
Doctors gave this to him for a reason.
And by the way, I think the reason is this.
And Rob, as someone, you've taken this medicine when you had the same virus.
The reason essentially is that there's been mixed results in the studies about how effective the Mectin is at helping out COVID, especially if you take it early, which is the only time it's really effective.
It's not going to be effective if you're way late into devastating COVID.
But it does, you know, there's been some studies that indicate that it helps, some that it doesn't.
But there's almost zero negative effects to taking it.
And so a lot of doctors go, yeah, just take it.
It's not really going to hurt you and it might help.
But the idea of saying like, oh, we're telling you to take horse dewormer, like, as I've said before on the show, if you repeat that, you're just, man, it is really just an indication.
It's like, it's like when you say something like, you know, all species will be extinct in one generation due to climate change or something like that.
It's like, you're just repeating some bullshit you've heard.
And from some, by the way, corporate interests.
That's where these talking points are coming from.
I also don't give me that shit.
According to these people's framework of COVID, it's this deadly pandemic that has, you know, ended life as we know it.
You got a medication that the minimum has anecdotal evidence that it might work and that U.S. doctors would like to be able to prescribe for it.
Why wouldn't you at least run the study?
You've got something that we know is safe, has been prescribed a lot of times and it might work.
And you think that this is a pandemic and you don't want to try the thing.
And then you want to, and then they want to present it as if it's not safe.
They're very, they're very slick with their language.
You can even go look at the actual FDA document about recommending not taking ivermectin.
And there's a cartoonish picture of a nurse holding a horse's face right next to a doctor.
So like even the FDA is kind of walking with that.
Bill Crystal Debate Points00:06:28
Yeah, it's funny.
I mean, I could send it to Brian to put it in the notes because I'm including that in my end of year thing.
But there's like, it is right off the FDA.
Initially, they were trying to misrepresent it as being dangerous, even though they weren't quite using that language.
But I'm just saying, if you honestly believe that we're in this horrible pandemic and there's anecdotal evidence that this safe medication might work, why wouldn't you run a single study just to establish?
Yeah, really, really.
The thing that's so crazy about it is just to see this.
And this is what I said about it.
And we're going to wrap up after this.
We'll play the Jon Stewart one on the next the next episode because we wanted to talk about that.
But I just, I got to wrap this one, this one up in a second.
But what really stood out to me about this whole exchange, right, is that I said it's, I tweeted something about this the other day that I go, this reminds me of the Scott Horton Bill Crystal debate.
It reminds me of a bunch of cable news appearances that I've had.
And it reminds me of the Ron Paul, who is the best out of any of the people I just named.
In order to Ron Paul, Scott Horton, Joe Rogan, but whatever.
Where anytime back in 2008, 2012, when Ron Paul was running for president, one of the coolest things was that anytime he had to debate one of the big guys, you know, he would get in these situations where it's like, it's not just like, like, me and you might make really great points on this show.
And people listening might go, fuck, that's a really good point.
But there's something more powerful about after that, if I'm able to go on some cable news show and then the official person, like the really big person, you know, the head of the State Department is there against me.
And they have no response to the good point I make.
Or it just, I just wreck them, you know, that.
And then you go, oh shit.
Not only is he making a good point, but these guys who are supposed to be the official, they have nothing to say back to that.
Like they literally can't even handle this point.
And I've had several experiences like that.
And the thing that was so cool about Ron Paul, the reason why, what was the moment that got everyone excited, the Giuliani moment, or these moments with Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum, whoever they were, where what was cool about those presidential campaigns is that you couldn't wait for who he was going to debate next because no one could stand up to him.
Like he, if they tried to, he'd wreck them on any of that.
And that was what was cool about Scott Horton versus Bill Crystal is that, you know, you had this guy who's the guy, like one of the top neocons in the world and one of the architects of actual American policies and not like any silly little policy, a policy of war.
Like this guy, you know, you think, okay, we love Scott Horton here and he's our guy.
But when he faces Bill Crystal, Bill Crystal will have something to say to him.
And what did Bill Crystal have to say to him?
He came out as anti-war.
Yeah, yeah, right.
Oh, yeah, I'm anti-war.
And nothing and had nothing.
You know, well, the Balkans were good.
And then Scott would be like, well, here's what happened in the Balkans.
And he's like, well, I just have to disagree.
Oh, all right.
I guess we're not debating anymore, Billy, right?
Like that's, that was basically the thing.
And this was interesting to see Rogan, who like me, like you, will be the first one to tell you.
He goes, I don't know.
I'm just a comedian.
I'm not a medical doctor.
I don't fucking know, but you are the medical doctor for CNN.
So what should happen here in the correct world, in the right way that it's supposed to go, is that the doctor for the cable news network should be able to tell Joe Rogan.
And this is one of the things I love about Joe.
And he'd be the first one to go, oh, yeah, okay, totally.
But this is because the doctor is supposed to tell him, no, Joe Rogan, you're misunderstanding things.
Here's how it works.
And then Joe Rogan would go, oh, shit.
Okay.
Yes, that's a good point.
You're right.
That's why the cable news network is saying what it's saying.
And you're their official doctor and you have all the, you know what I mean?
Like it just, it's like he should be able to handle this.
And what does he have?
He has nothing.
Nothing.
Rogan is completely right in this moment.
He's just, there's no debate.
There's no debate.
It's on the level of Joe Rogan ate, you know, a steak and CNN reported Rogan eats dog food.
And you go, when you say Joe Rogan eats dog food, you're kind of implying that Joe Rogan opened a bag of dog food and started eating what was inside of it.
And then what's CNN's defense?
Yeah, well, I mean, by the way, he does eat dog food.
I've talked to him.
He's a friend of mine.
He does eat dog food.
But the point is that, like, right, If a news network says you eat dog food, they're implying that you open a thing of dog food and start eating it.
Not that steak is also an ingredient in dog food.
And this is an incredible white pill.
It's an incredible white pill to realize that these guys, this is how bad their arguments are.
They are so used to being in their own world where everybody has agreed on the parameters and no one really pushes back.
And this guy, Gupta, is just trying to sell a book.
So he'll go on the big show on Rogan's show, but because bigger than anything he's going to do on CNN, but he can't, he's got no argument.
I don't know.
There's something about that that's really important to recognize and I think very encouraging, I would say.
Gupta Book Promotion Fail00:00:54
Okay, that's going to be our episode for today.
Oh, go ahead, Rob.
I want to plug some dates.
I'm running an end-of-year recap once again, hitting a bunch of cities.
I will be in Mexico with the peddling fiction guys, and then I'll list off some of the cities.
You can go to my website, Robbie the Fire, New Hampshire back at the shell, One Night Already Sold Out, Albany, Maryland, Philly, Chicago, and New York City, RobbieTheFire.com running an end-of-year thing.
You guys will love it.
So, you know, come hang out.
Fuck yeah, dude.
And we'll make sure coming into the next year, we'll have a bunch of dates together.
We're going to go do a whole bunch of shit.
So that's awesome.
Go see Rob's end of the year stuff.
Thank you guys once again for all of the kind messages and support and all of that shit.