Mark Clair and James Smith analyze the Liberty Movement's shift from passive observation to urgent intervention, contrasting Mexico City's social masking norms with New York's legal mandates. They critique "post-libertarian" coalition-building within the GOP and Mises Caucus, arguing that corporate reliance leaves individuals vulnerable to state overreach. Citing Ron Paul's debate boldness and the threat of technocratic medical apartheid, they advocate for alternative communities and financial systems. Ultimately, the discussion urges abandoning apolitical leisure to prevent being crushed by expanding government power, while highlighting how crisis can reignite spiritual seeking among atheists. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Welcome to Part of the Problem00:02:53
Fill her up.
You are listening to the Gash Digital Network.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, James Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am very happy to welcome to the show today Mark Claire, the host of Lions of Liberty, an OG in the Liberty podcasting world.
You guys might know him from his sub stack or from the Lions of Liberty, or you might know him because I have a residency on his show as a debater.
And I think I would have.
I've done like five or six debates on the lines of liberty.
That's a pretty good number.
Yeah.
At least five or six debates and who knows how many other brando appearances he made.
That's right.
You're like the fourth lion, kind of.
Yeah.
I like to think of myself that way as the fourth little lion, like a kitty cat, along with the big lion.
Fox that scurries around us once in a while to kind of like feed off of our prey.
Well, you are really, so you run the flagship show at Lions of Liberty, and then you have, you know, other shows underneath you.
John Coder and Adam.
Let's put it that way.
That will make Brian very angry for sure.
There's John.
There's some other guy.
What was his name?
Steve?
I forget.
No, that's Brian McWilliams.
Brian McWilliams as well.
I love all those guys.
But you've been doing your show.
You're like, I remember listening to you guys before I ever started podcasting.
When did you start?
I started in September of 2013, approximately one month before the debut of the Tom Woods show.
Wow.
So you're even the four Tom Woods.
Now he's got 2,000 episodes and this huge events and all these things.
Don't get me wrong.
He's doing that.
These are the 2,000 episodes.
What are they?
Like 13 minutes long?
I mean, like, anybody can do a thousand, like, you know, five-minute conversations.
Sure.
No problem.
Try getting drunk for two hours a week.
Yeah, really.
Try that.
It was so weird is just yesterday and we had this episode coming up and I just, the YouTube algorithm showed me, for whatever reason, my episode of libertarians drinking liquor in living rooms or whatever.
It just popped up.
It was from way back.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it was funny.
I listened to like a little bit of it and it was just so interesting to see what we were talking about in 2016 or whatever it was at the time.
I don't know, like Trump and how, oh, the liberals are freaking out about Trump.
The Burden of 2,000 Episodes00:13:16
And seeming like a big deal at the time.
Yeah.
So we actually, we had planned to do this episode a few weeks back.
And I wanted to get this in before I had the new baby, but my wife, being the stubborn woman that she is, went through.
We can never stick the schedules.
I know.
It's really...
As she started going into labor, I was telling her, I was like, this really.
But Mark Claire is coming on.
I was like, it's Mark.
Okay, fine.
I'll text him.
Whatever.
And then they were like, the heads coming out.
And I was like, I'm on the phone.
So if you could please.
And then we named him Mark.
We did.
I mean, not literally, but we did.
Yes.
We all.
I know.
You know.
She knows.
There we go.
So you're in Mexico as we speak to you now, which is why your video is a little bit choppy.
Which is why I'm about a half second behind my voice probably on the video.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The voice.
Well, as long as the audio is good, I feel like that's all that matters.
So I know that you, you, uh, you know, you, you've, what we wanted to talk about on this episode was kind of your take on the response to the last 18, 19 months, whatever, since March of 2020.
I feel like I've been saying 18 months for six months.
So I don't know.
It's probably 18 months for a while now.
I've done, I feel like I've done a lot of counting in my mind where I'm like, okay, how many months is it?
March, April, May, June, you know.
But your, your take on all of this, but it's, it's a, maybe we could just start with the fact that you've really, you've changed your life a lot since all of this COVID stuff has happened.
And you got married, if I'm correct, and you've moved to Mexico.
I'm there.
Yes.
Yes.
Those are you for sure.
How are you liking that?
Well, it's, it's awesome.
We're in Mexico City right now.
I'd say somewhat temporarily.
Like this is probably not a long-term landing spot, but my, my wife is born and raised here.
This is actually where we met about a year or so before all this COVID stuff happened.
And yeah, we're here.
I mean, we have a really good support network here.
Her family's here.
So it's a really easy place for us to be.
And yeah, just in terms of like living expense, I mean, especially compared to Los Angeles, I maybe spend 30% of what I spent to live for having a much larger place and eating much, I don't know about better food, but more locally grown food.
Like, I mean, there's no supply chain issues here.
Like we buy our food from, you know, the farmers that come to the market on Sunday and sell you their food.
So, you know, it's, it's just a, it's a different way of living.
Like the last time I was here in Mexico was a year ago when I got furloughed from my job when COVID first hit.
And when we were here then, we were in a really small town about three hour or now, about an hour and a half outside of Mexico City.
So that was a much different feel than being in the city.
So, you know, but yeah, it's, it's, it's very different in some ways.
In other ways, it's like, like as far as culture goes and COVID, like, yes, there aren't the same kind of like restrictions, like nothing is shut down really.
But there is like, if I go for a walk around the city for like an hour, like maybe, maybe I'll see one other person without a mask.
Usually it's just me or me and my wife.
We're the only people not wearing masks.
And there's no mandate that says you have to wear a mask.
Like most stores, you do have to wear them, but people just wear them wherever they go.
And I think that's like one of the things that we're learning from the COVID regime or the COVID era or whatever you want to call it is that, you know, a lot of so much of this stuff, like we focus so much on government and on the laws and this and that.
But a lot of what we see happening around us is happening irrespective of laws, irrespective of government.
So I'm here in Mexico City, everyone wears a mask.
I get funny looks for not wearing a mask.
No, that has nothing to do with any law.
That's purely, you know, whatever mass hysteria slash propaganda combinations has led people to think, yes, I should wear a mask when I'm walking my dog outside alone or when I'm sitting in the park exercising alone or running or riding my bike.
I mean, it boggles the mind.
So in that sense, it is actually worse than Los Angeles, only in that, on that very one specific topic.
And not every other way, it's much better.
Yeah.
No, it's a, it's a really important point.
I've, I've made that on the show several times, but so I've had a similar experience where it's not that we were wrong that the state, you know, rules don't matter.
They certainly matter.
And we've learned that a lot over the last stretch that they really matter.
But you also realize how much the culture matters.
And I've talked about how, so I live in like a red, a very, I'd say a very red town in a blue state.
And there, you know, there's Trump signs all over, you know, especially not so much anymore.
They've calmed down a little bit, but there were Trump during like election time and stuff, like all, all over the place.
And the, you know, when I first got here from the very beginning, which was the very beginning of the COVID, you know, lockdown era, no one wore masks.
Just wasn't fucking done.
No one did.
I take my daughter to the playground.
No, it's everyone's just normal.
It's like the before time.
And then right after we had my son, we were at, you know, we had to go to the best hospital in the world and the best NICU in the world and be in New York.
And there's no mask mandates there right now, but outdoors, everyone is wearing masks outdoors.
I mean, people have their children masked outdoors and they look at you like you're kind of weird for not having it.
And it's here, people will cross the street.
Like they'll see us coming without masks and you can literally see the looks on their face.
They're like, oh shit, we better book it to the other side or else who knows what we might get from these unmasked heathens.
Yeah.
And man, it's something.
And you start to realize you're like, wow, that is equally, if not far more important than whatever edict the governor has has declared this week.
It's like, what do the people around me think?
Are they acting in a sane way or not?
And, you know, that's, man, I mean, at least for me, I'd go, man, I really want to live in an area where people around me are somewhat sane about this shit.
So that's that's why this is probably is not a permanent spot, but right because I can't live around this forever.
I can't do it.
Well, you start to wonder how long are people going to have that attitude?
And then it's, it's like a slippery slope where you're, you know, it's an obvious slippery slope where you're like, okay, so even if COVID like isn't like the thing anymore, are you going to go back to just, we don't wear masks anymore?
Are you going to be like, well, it's safer than other germs, you know, the flu or the cold or whatever.
Like, is that just life for now on?
Because that seems pretty weird.
In a lot of places, yes.
In almost every place, yes, I think, especially in major cities where for some reason this, you know, has taken hold even more.
You know, even some of the major cities in red states, it's almost the same thing.
So I don't know if it's something about the metropolitan culture that leads one to follow certain ways of thinking or, you know, have certain cultural norms take hold.
I don't know what it is because, I mean, it's similar here.
I mean, this is the biggest city in the country and it's the most masky place in the country.
And I don't know if that's, I don't think it's a coincidence, but I don't know.
I'm not smart enough to really be able to analyze fully exactly why all that is, but there does seem to be a direct correlation.
This doesn't apply to Mexico so much, but a direct correlation between like the deplore, the attitude about deplorables and Trump supporters and that sort of condescension.
There seems to be a correlation between that and we must wear a mask and you must take this jab or you're going to lose your job.
And by the way, we're going to ruin your life and you can't go grocery shopping anymore.
I've said this before.
Maybe it's just my own personal bias as someone who's like from New York City.
And I know you, you know, are living in LA and all that.
And like, I just kind of, for my own personal benefit, wish, and also I think it would have been better for the country, but I wish Trump had just crazy overreacted at first and been like, oh my God, COVID, everyone needs to wear a mask and everyone needs to lock down and we need to do all these things.
Because if he had, I really do think that all the blue states and all the liberals and leftists would have said, you're a fascist and we're not going to do that.
And I'm taking my mask off.
And I really, I really think it's as simple as being reactionary against the other side.
And so they were just like, well, if you're doing that, we're going to do the opposite.
And man, I just think the world would have been better if they had been like, you're a fascist to tell me to put my mask on.
And so I'm going to take it off.
But it didn't go that way.
It seems to flip so quickly, though, because it wasn't that long ago that people were saying, oh, I'm not going to take this Trump vaccine.
This thing rushed to market warp speed.
I'm not putting warp speed directly in my veins, but now six months later, you can't get on a plane or eat or whatever.
I mean, that's we're not there yet, but it's what's being advocated for very openly.
But that's kind of my point is that I wish it was Trump in there advocating for all the stuff that we're against.
And they would just, they would oppose it, just being that, right?
Even the vaccine, Kamala Harris was saying, oh, I don't know.
I wouldn't trust the Trump vaccine.
I mean, is it experimental?
Has it been approved fully by the FDA and all that shit?
And so, I don't know, whatever.
I mean, who, who the hell knows?
Counterfactuals, who knows?
But so I was, I remember seeing a video clip of yours when you were on Buck's show on Buck Johnson's show, who is great, by the way.
Now, I didn't see, I didn't catch the whole episode, but I saw this clip and you were talking about nervous.
What did I say?
I black out an interview.
You were talking about the Jews and you said all of the world's problems.
All.
You were very specific.
You really accentuated all of the problems.
And I was like, wow.
If my dad's listening, he needs to understand a sense of humor.
And this is, this isn't a vac sarcasm, father.
No, so this is, this was months ago.
And it was about, this is silly, but it was about the debates that I've had on your show against silly people.
Let's call them.
Because I've had some debates on your show against really great, smart people who we all love, like Eric Brakey and Thoe Bishop and most recently, Jason Stapleton and like really good smart people.
But he was talking about the other ones against the sillies.
And you were just like, you were like, listen, let me tell you about these people.
I have no time for them anymore.
They need to all just like get the hell out of the way.
And I remember seeing that clip and that was the first moment where I was like, whoa, that's a little different than the Mark Claire that I know and love.
It seemed like you are, and I've seen this from a lot of people.
A lot of people have really been kind of radicalized over the last year and a half or so.
And it's tough being radicalized when you're already an anarchist.
You know, like, where do you go from there?
Where do you go?
All right.
I was, I wanted to destroy the government, but now I'm really pissed off.
Right.
But so I, that was the first thing I saw where I was like, oh, okay, I see that this is you're, you're one of the people who this last, you know, 18, 19 months, whatever is having a big effect on.
And like, what, so I don't know.
I guess what I'm asking is like, what is your, what is your take on kind of the libertarian movement, the liberty movement, whatever been over this stretch of time and how you feel about, I don't know, some of those types.
All right.
I'm going to get a little nerdy with you right now, which is also a segue to promoting my other podcast, the Second Print Comics podcast, a little nerdy side venture I have with my friend Renzo Martinez, where we talk comics and that sort of thing.
But my analogy is in Marvel Comics, there's a character called The Watcher.
He's basically this big bald alien who just kind of, he watches what goes on.
He observes.
He sees what's happening.
He doesn't intervene usually.
So I've kind of seen myself in many ways as even really since the beginning, I've never, not that I've tried to take sides.
I've just, I've always tried to like look at things from everyone's point of view.
I bring on people from all different sort of like aspects of libertarianism, what have you.
I host debates where people have different points of view.
And I do say pretty unbiased most of the time.
I mean, well, maybe not against those people debates, but against like Eric and Thoe.
Like I am usually pretty, I don't really have a mindset going into it.
I am really just want to see what you guys say to each other and how it all plays out.
So I've kind of seen myself as the watcher very much over the years, where I'm pledged not to intervene.
I'm just, I'm just here to watch, observe, and create a platform for people.
But it's become really hard to do that in the last year and a half.
And more so just because like, I don't know, I think for a long time podcasting and talking about libertarian ideas, it was like a really fun hobby to me.
It's like something that was interesting to do.
I really like having conversations till three in the morning at the bar about philosophy or, you know, hosting podcasts and going on rants about this stuff or just seeing where the ideas lead us.
But it's just been something fun to me.
Cognitive Dissonance in Debates00:15:33
It's something that.
Yeah, it's been a big part of my life.
I don't want to downplay it, but it never felt like even though we're talking about important things, we're talking about bombs, we're talking about the destruction of the money supply and things that obviously do affect people's lives.
It still never felt as serious anyway.
Of course, it feels serious sometimes, but it never felt personal, I guess.
It never felt real in terms of affecting my own life.
But now it's not just affected my personal life, frankly, in positive ways, because frankly, all the difficult things that have happened to me in the last year and a half have all led to even better things.
So I look at everything as bring it, universe, wherever you send me, I'm ready.
But I see it changing people.
I see it changing the way people act with each other.
Even something that so many people blow off, like on the left, like, oh, it's just a mask.
It's just a mask.
Well, I mean, a mask covering up our mouth and our facial expressions, like that really hinders communication.
I find it, especially here in Mexico, where I'm already speaking a different language, like it's really hard when I'm trying to talk to someone with a mask and I'm using shitty Spanish and they're using, you know, they don't know English.
And then we also can't see each other's mouths.
I have trouble with that in Manhattan.
Yeah, really.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, no doubt.
And yeah, so I mean, I think, I think just little things like that are affecting humanity in ways that I cannot ignore.
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So yeah, when, when it's really hard, I mean, I guess we, I guess this was during the COVID area that we did some of those debates, but maybe it's just weighed on me more and more and more and more.
We're like, this Archie Flower, Andy Craig, like, like, is Dave a racist type bullshit?
It's just like, oh my God, we have a meme up for 30 minutes.
Like, how can I, how can I care about that shit anymore?
And how can I, how can I even pretend to be unbiased with shit like that?
Yeah.
I can't.
And so, yeah, to go back to my nerdy analogy, like, yeah, it feels like the only time the watcher intervenes in Marvel Comics is when shit gets really serious, so serious that I just can't stand by and watch anymore.
And that's kind of where I feel like we're at right now, where I don't know if a lot of people, I know that people in the liberty community understand the severity of the situation, sort of, but a lot of the actions I see and a lot of the way, the ways people are approaching things, they don't match the severity of what they even say it is, you know?
And so I just, I think there's a lot of cognitive dissonance there.
I am, when I talk about this stuff now, I'm talking to like my younger self in many ways too, because I think for a long time I kind of wanted to pretend like, well, this is just blow over in a couple of weeks.
I felt like kind of like that, that meme of the dog sitting in the kitchen where it's on fire.
And he's just like, this is fine.
You know, I think we've all done that a little bit.
We're like, ah, maybe in a couple of weeks.
Let's just, I mean, there was even a period last year where, you know, I think it was like last summer when cases started to go down and then Los Angeles opened up and seemed like, okay, maybe they're just forgetting this whole thing.
Then suddenly it's like it's two months later.
It's like, take this jab or lose your job.
You're like, oh, okay, I guess that's guess that didn't blow over.
But, you know, the direction this has been going in where people's lives are being destroyed over fucking nothing, over no legitimate health concern whatsoever.
And it's only getting worse and more and more detached from the reality on the ground.
I still feel like some people are living in 2016 or 2012 or 2008 and are not taking.
I'm not even talking about the political, what political avenues people choose to take or what have you.
That's one thing.
But even just in their own lives, I mean, when I see people still not realizing, like, you can't count on your corporate job, dude.
You cannot count on your corporate job.
Even if you want a vaccine, you can't count on your corporate job.
Like, we're all being replaced.
This is happening.
Like, open your eyes.
And it's hard for me to sit back and not intervene and not at least ring the bell a little louder, maybe, and really talk about more of what I'm seeing out there.
Because, like you said, man, I'm an OG.
I've been doing this shit for eight years in podcasting and I've been in the Ron Paul thing since 2007.
And I've been reading Ron Paul since 2000.
So I think I've been around long enough, observed long enough to, you know, to have my opinion maybe matter a little bit.
Well, that's, I guess maybe it's funny because I'm not a comics guy, but that's a great analogy.
And this is why when I saw that clip of you on Buck's show, that this is why it kind of like stood out to me because you are, without knowing that character, you are in the opposite of that.
You should have never played that one.
Should have been Brian McWilliams, but yeah, really.
But and he's, he's not suited for that.
He's definitely not just a passive observer.
No one would call him that.
But that you're kind of the guy who's like interviewed all of the you've interviewed everybody who's ever anyone in the liberty movement.
And you've always kind of been the guy who's willing to host everyone and give them a fair shot and kind of play like, well, I believe in liberty, but let's hear what you have to say and what you have to say.
And so it was kind of interesting to like hear you really go out on this.
And I think you're right.
And this is something that to me has been really, you know, I remember talking about in the Joe Jorgensen campaign where she was giving speeches in it might have been like May or June of 2020.
And she's giving speeches outdoors in a park, you know, to whatever it is, 60 people or something.
And they're all in masks.
Very generous of you.
Yeah, I'm trying to help.
And they're all in masks, you know, watching her.
And she's giving a speech about like socialism versus capitalism and the centralization of power versus this and that.
And you're like, lady, you know where you are.
There's an audience in masks in front of you.
Like the hugest thing ever has happened.
And are we just going to not address it and talk about like the, you know, now this isn't an attack on libertarianism to me.
It's just like, can you not notice that every societal norm that we have has been flipped upside down?
This would be, if you had predicted it a year earlier, a cartoon.
No one could have possibly imagined that this would actually happen.
And it's happened.
And you're not spending your whole speech talking about this.
Like it's it's as if bombs are going off around you and you're talking about, you know, like, you know, marginal utility or something.
Like this is just seems like running down and you're like, should we change the paint in the kitchen here?
You know, like, I just noticed that egg white is not the same as off-white.
How do they get the eggs out of there anyway?
So it really is something.
And that's something that's been a major theme of, you know, my show for a while and yours.
And, um, and I, I know, you know, like I've, I talked to Pete, uh, Pete Quinones, who, who I love very much.
And you were, you were just on his show.
Yes.
You've heard of it.
Yes.
You were just talking to him.
And I remember talking to him about this around maybe April, May of 2020.
We were on the phone and he was saying that a lot of the other libertarian podcasters were coming to him and saying, you know, my numbers are just dipping.
Like no one cares about podcasts during the lockdowns.
And Pete was like, well, my numbers are doing really good.
And I was like, yeah, I'm actually having like the best months I've ever had.
And I kind of felt guilty about that.
Like I was like, everyone else is out of work, but this is great for me because everyone's listening.
But also I realized that it's like, well, every episode I'm doing is about COVID.
And probably almost every episode I've done since then has been about COVID.
I mean, there's been a few others.
You know, I did, I did a bunch about ending the war in Afghanistan and I've done, you know, some other things here and there.
And of course, I'll have some segments here and there that I'll just about are about silly shit.
But the overwhelming focus of my show for the last, you know, since this started has been about this.
And you're like, how could it not be?
How could you not focus on this?
How could you watch all of this happening around you and still just be sticking to like whatever, you know, as Tom Woods always says, like civil asset forfeiture or something.
You're like, yeah, that's bad.
But also four-year-olds are wearing masks before they're allowed to go inside a building.
Isn't that a little bit more important than our shit that we were bringing in before this that no one cared about then?
You know?
Yeah, it's just like, it's hard to even, it does feel like some people, there's a couple of different people trapped in time warps.
There's some people that are trapped in the time warp of like the first week of COVID when they're like the people are falling in China and those whatever nonsense videos.
And they're like, oh, you can get it if you like breathe on someone from in another room.
And now people are acting like that is just the case when anybody paying any attention has seen like none of that stuff is true.
And none of the fearmongering that came out in the beginning was true.
And none of the wild nonsense even about asymptomatic spread doesn't even seem to be true.
But again, that's just another aspect where like we talked about, like this is this whole thing is detached from reality.
And that's where I really find it, you know, I find things difficult right now because it's, it's, it goes against everything I've ever thought as a libertarian, as someone that at least I believe, I don't know if it's actually true when I think about it, that I believe I came into these ideas through following logic and following reason to the right place.
I don't know how true that is.
In some ways, maybe I just felt the spirit of Ron Paul lift me up because, you know, that's what really, that's what brought me from just like thinking about politics in my mind.
It brought me into the movement was literally like Ron Paul lifting my spirit out of my body and forcing me, not forcing me.
He didn't violate the NAP, but sending me into action, sending me into doing this podcast into talking about all of this stuff.
So that's really what sent me down the road here.
But I've always tried to think of myself as, you know, I think my colleagues at Lions Liberty and so many of the people I know in this sort of liberty world, we think of ourselves as the logical ones, the rational ones, the one that, the ones that actually follow reason where it takes you.
But it, I mean, it's so apparent now that at least for a gigantic portion of the population, that does not apply like at all.
Like, I mean, we've seen Tom Woods doing heroic work, like looking at all this stuff and, you know, breaking down all the charts, like showing over and over and over, there's no correlation between any of these policies and anything with the virus.
And it doesn't matter.
It just doesn't matter.
It doesn't, it's good stuff for like people like us.
Like it's red meat for us.
Like we like it.
We hoorah rah it and we're like, yeah, look at that.
See that chart?
That proves that we're right.
And it doesn't move anybody because they're not being moved by that.
I don't say, I shouldn't say anybody.
I shouldn't say anything.
Yeah.
See, see, we're right, exactly.
So where I would push back against that is that, because I've talked to Tom about this, Tom's audience has been way bigger than ever before.
Like he's gotten a huge bump off of this.
And me too.
You know, I've hashtag me too.
I've also been raped by Tom Woods.
And I, uh, uh, but you know what I mean?
So like there is something.
There are a lot of people out there who you kind of can reach because there are people out there who are like, wait a minute, this like again, but it's not that your point is wrong.
There are certainly, you see like masses of people are still moved by this.
And I'll say that I think I really, so around, let's say like right before COVID hit, I remember the podcasts I was doing were at the time.
So like you're talking in January, February of 2020.
Or yeah, right.
There was a lot of stuff.
It was like the primaries, like the Democratic primaries early on.
I was talking a lot about Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard and what was going on in the Democratic Party and then Donald Trump, you know, getting ready for his reelection campaign.
And I remember thinking one of the big themes to me was like, man, no one's really buying into the kind of like corporate press narrative the way they used to be.
Like, wow, it's really all falling apart for them.
And then this COVID thing hit and it was like two weeks of corporate press fear mongering before everyone was willing to give up everything.
I mean, like literally everything, just give up, hey, you know, we might need martial law.
We might need, you know, people might need to go house to house, like whatever.
I guess I just, well, I'm out of work.
I've been deemed non-essential by my government.
And that, and, and so it really did, I don't know, it makes you take a step back and go, oh, shit, there's still a lot of power.
Like we thought, maybe we thought it was deteriorating, but there's still a lot of power within this establishment that we thought was falling apart.
Yeah.
And I should say, like, I would almost say like, like stuff like this, like you doing what you do, like Tom doing what he does, like all of us doing what we do in our, in our various ways that we do with our platforms or what have you.
It's not like, if I thought it was literally hopeless, then I wouldn't even do it.
You know, it's not like I'm doing this to get rich or anything.
Trust me on that.
But, you know, it's, it's, it's more to me.
I think I look, I think there was a time, like, especially during those Ron Paul days, when I really thought if I just got to enough people, like, yes, of course, they're all going to get it.
They just need to watch the videos, you know, watch the Ron Paul video.
Watch this really Giuliani moment.
You're going to get it.
And, and I, I, I guess my first indication that wasn't true, if I want to go to a little older story from like 2007, 2008, Brian McWilliams and I were so on board the Ron Paul thing.
We like, we hosted a, we had a beer pong fundraiser for Ron Paul.
Uh, and then we also like put on shirts and ties and knocked, went door to door, um, you know, trying to sell the idea of voting for Ron Paul in Los Angeles, California.
And we were so fucking stupid and naive that we actually thought that if we just told people the positions that they already agree with, because this is a liberal area, people are anti-war and people do want to decriminalize drugs.
And that's those are the positions that we'd led with knowing that.
And we thought, surely we're going to win these guys over.
And this guy's the best on this stuff.
Come on.
And we would go and people would agree with us.
They'd be like, oh, yeah, I'm totally on board with that.
Of course, I want to end the wars.
That sounds great.
And then they'd take one look and see, oh, you're talking about some Republican adios.
See you later.
I think it's just there's something about, I don't know if it's a left, right brain thing or just the tribalism thing.
There's a big disconnect between the truth and reasoning with people and how they actually end up acting or what they actually end up supporting in the political realm.
And I think to me, like what I've realized with like a lot of this liberty stuff, it's not that we can't affect anybody or we can't affect people on an individual level.
Waking People Up Again00:11:19
But to me, I think I realize it's more about finding your people.
It's more about finding that remnant, as Ron Paul might say.
It's more about finding that people were, I don't know if it's like literally a gene or something in your DNA, or there's something that within a lot of us that just has that more skeptical mind where we just don't take everything at face value.
To me, it's kind of like more about finding those people and maybe just sparking the interest in them and getting those people in.
But I think, I don't think I can actually like, like, honestly look at myself, look at the man in the mirror and say, oh, yeah, if we just tell enough people about this, surely we're going to win them all over.
Like, I, after that, yeah, I agree with that.
Certainly, we're not going to win them all over.
I also, I think there's a few things that work there, right?
Like, I think that who you are and how you're approaching people, you know, is going to make a big difference.
So I think in a weird way, like I've noticed in my life, like I've converted way more people from being a public figure or whatever than a personal figure.
So even people in my life who like I know and know me very well, there's, there's almost more of a resistance to me convincing them about shit than just someone who found my podcast, which is, I've thought about that a lot as weird because, you know, in your personal life, it's almost like then they have to admit that this guy who they know, who they know a whole bunch of the flaws about, you know, like is like, oh, fucking Dave.
Dave converted me.
Like, really?
That guy had that asshole had all the answers.
Whereas like someone who just finds my podcast will be like, yeah, it's just podcasts.
I don't know.
It's a guy talking in front of a camera.
Maybe he knows what he's talking about.
And the problem with going door to door, not that it's always pointless, but is that you're the guy at the door.
Yeah.
And you're only hitting one person.
And one person's like, I don't know, did the guy at the door just change my mind?
Whereas like the guy with a microphone in front of him who's saying something in a confident manner, he might make, you know, so like there's something where like that that guy might, but I will say that I think I like I still really believe, and I actually believe more than ever that the idea of waking more people up is really important.
And I, I'm not saying that we can do it to everybody.
I'm not saying that we can do it to the majority of people, but I think that me and you were woken up at one point and that other people, there are other people out there who are, you know, potential, potentially can be woken up.
And like, I think now is like the time.
So here's maybe where, you know, I heard you on a Pete's podcast the other day.
And maybe where I disagree with you is that I actually think that the old strategy of this kind of like the liberty movement and bringing more people on board, I actually think this is our moment.
And so this is where it kind of like makes me a little, it hurts me a little bit when I see some of the people within our movement going, you know what, we kind of got to give up on this like waking people up, spreading this message.
Because I kind of see it like in 2012 for me was really the time where it seemed like, oh, this is really working.
Like the Ron Paul movement was way bigger in 2012 than it was in 2008.
And then after that, Rand Paul kind of stumbled.
Other forces kind of came out, the nationalist right, the socialist left.
We kind of had to backtrack.
And now I feel like I think the liberty movement is actually the strongest it's been to me since 2012, 2013.
If you look at like, I don't know, like the growth Tom's had in his show and I've had in my show, what you guys are doing.
If you look at Young Americans for Liberty, the Mises caucus, like a whole bunch of, you know, a bunch of different factions, even Tho Bishop and what he's doing in the Republican Party, like all of this stuff.
I feel like this is the best moment we've had to try to convince the people who can be reached.
And I agree with you, there's a lot who can't be, but the ones who can be reached, now's the time to go, look, this is all madness, man.
Like we don't have to live like this.
We literally could.
You go to Florida or you go to Texas and it's 2019.
Yeah.
Because they decides, they decide so.
You could just decide that that's what you're living in and live that way.
It's no problem.
By the way, I was just looking at the thing the other day with the Amish.
Have you seen like some of the stuff with the COVID results of the Amish?
They just did nothing and they had better results.
They're like, yeah, no, we're not, we're not even going to the hospital.
We don't care.
And no one's going to force vaccinate the Amish because they have, they've done it.
They've done, they've basically done what people need to do to survive.
Yeah.
They just did it.
They were way ahead of their time, I guess, because like they're kind of untouchable.
Like no one's coming in to invade the Amish.
They would kind of do their thing.
Listen, they would, the Amish put us to the COVID left of them.
Like they, they'd have people who are dying of COVID and me and you would be like, you should probably go to the hospital.
And they're like, no, you shall not.
Yeah, I think I saw something like where they would like, they would get COVID and then they just all like go into the room and like, all right, let's go get our COVID.
Like two weeks later, they come out.
They're like, all right, curve's flat.
We're good.
Like, even me and you at that moment would be like, all right, you guys should probably keep your distance and that guy should probably go to the hospital.
And they were like, ye shall not abandon thy COVID positive.
But so you know what I'm saying?
So like, but anyway, I just think that I guess this is where there were a few things that I heard you say on Pete's podcast where I was like, well, I, you know, this like, it bums me out a little bit because it's like, look, I get where you're coming from.
And of course, there's a whole bunch of libertarians.
And it's always kind of been the segment of the liberty movement that we are trying to get better or get out or whatever.
But the segment that we're kind of like, come on, guys, like get your shit together that are like not focused on how bad this is.
But our segment, our little area of the liberty movement has been great on this the whole time.
They've been the ones telling the truth and kind of killing it.
And so you're like, to me, it's like, well, now's the moment.
Now's the moment to go like, really like, like, wake people up and tell the truth and get them to recognize what's going on.
Yeah, I guess it all comes down to like what, and I don't know, maybe there's a specific thing you might, I might have said on the show.
Like I said, I black out during interviews.
Who knows what I say?
But if there's something specific I can respond to, but just in the, just in the general sense, like, I mean, I'm, I'm not opposed to just the idea of what we've all been doing all these years of, you know, when we say spreading the message of liberty, sometimes I think like, is it really even spreading the message of liberty or is it just telling the fucking truth?
Like, you know, when you're out there talking to Scott Horton or, you know, about the wars or talking to whoever about what's been going on with COVID, like it's not even just liberty.
It's not even like liberty shit.
It's just truth shit.
It's just, here's what the fuck is happening.
And I guess that's what, I guess at this point in my life, and when I see what's going on around me, it's not that I'm not like post-libertarian, I'm not after libertarianism necessarily.
Like I agree with libertarian philosophy.
I'm not throwing that away.
But I also have to look at what's happened around us in these years.
And I think that there has to be more than just, let's just talk about this philosophy.
There also has to be corresponding actions.
And that's what I'm focusing on more personally is trying to wake people up, is trying to do what you're doing.
But I want to wake people up to the severity of it.
Because like I was saying earlier, I still see, okay, this is what I see a lot of people doing.
I see a lot of people that are in this business of waking people up, whether it's the Mises Caucus or not.
I'm not talking about anything specific, although I guess I did just name them.
I actually did talk to Michael Heist earlier today for about an hour because he heard my show on Pete and he was like, hey, man, if you want to talk about this stuff more, and I talked to him for about an hour today and he did.
Yeah, you shouldn't have tweeted.
You shouldn't have tweeted that you were going to come on this show or you just shouldn't have known.
You're going to get a Michael Heist phone call.
You're going to get a Michael Heist coaching session first.
Yeah.
So, I mean, it was really good talking to him, actually.
I'm glad he reached out to me because, you know, I think I was talking about sort of one aspect of the Mises caucus.
And, you know, he talked to me a little bit more about some other aspects that maybe don't get as much of the headlines or the press or whatever you want to call Twitter, Twitter fights.
But, you know, it's, you know, just a lot of what they do in terms of coalitions, in terms of supporting local races.
And I'm all for that stuff.
I'm super for that stuff.
What worries me now is when I see a lot of people that are, okay, take whatever political path you want or don't.
Like, I don't care what you do.
I'm down south of the border.
Go join whatever caucus or whatever local GOP, whatever you want to do.
I'm cool, cool with that.
If it works, I want it to work.
That's the thing now.
And Mike did say something to me, you know, about I think a big difference between maybe some of the people being called post-libertarians and maybe like the Mises caucus or people that are just trying to spread the message is the is time preference is and libertarians having low time preference, not trying to seize power right away, trying to play the long game of waking people up.
And I'm not opposed to that because it's what I've been doing this whole time.
It's what I've been doing this whole time, these 20 years I've been involved in this shit.
But the time preference is shorter for me now because now I kind of see where we are.
And I think that the biggest difference is like, I just see this urgency here.
Like it's affected me personally and I was ready for it, not in all the way, not in the, not in the complete sense.
Like, I don't know.
I don't know exactly where all my income is coming six months from now, but I at least was in a position where I wasn't afraid because I didn't know how I was going to feed my family next week or two weeks later or and I didn't have no skills that I could use.
I didn't have no connections.
I have a lot of connections.
I have a lot of wealth, not in the necessarily the sense of a huge bank account, but I have a lot of the wealth in terms of people that are willing to support me, people that are willing to help me, people that are willing to connect me to other people.
And that is, you know, and maybe that is part of the wealth that people do generate by being involved in various political movements, whether it's a Mises caucus or joining their local GOP or whatever.
So any way people can do that stuff, I think is wonderful.
But what I see a lot of people doing is investing a lot of time into politics and into a path that I don't see an immediate sort of return for.
And that's okay, but I don't think it's okay.
And I don't like I've heard you talk about it before.
Like some people just don't want to, you know, don't want to be, you know, independent.
They want to go to work.
They just want to go to the ball game and come home and watch TV afterwards.
I get that, but I'm kind of here to say, no, you can't have that attitude anymore.
You can't just have that attitude because you're going to get run the fuck over and you're not going to have that job in a week.
And then you are going to wonder how you're going to feed your family and you're going to regret that you just wanted to go home and watch the fucking ballgame.
Yeah, I agree with you that I think we should tell people who have that attitude that it's like, okay, you can have that attitude, but keep your eyes open and realize that this is where this is all going right now and that you may not, you may not have this same opportunity to just be that guy in the future.
And so I, yeah, I think, I think that's a very valid point.
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Let's get back into it.
You know, Jeff Dice said something to me when I was interviewing him on Tom's show.
I was like, Monday Tea Plug.
Ooh, go check it out.
Lions of Liberty.
And anytime Jeff Dice is on a podcast, it's always worth listening to.
You will always hear something from Jeff Dice.
If he's on any interview or any show or anything, you'll always hear at least one thing where you were like, fuck, that was really valuable.
Like, damn, this guy's smarter than me.
Yeah, that's like, that was really, I didn't think about it like that.
But he said, uh, to me, he goes, you know, when you're in the middle of a revolution, no one ever goes, we're in the middle of the revolution.
Like, no one ever goes, oh, no one ever goes, the French, like, if you were in that moment in history, no one goes, the French Revolution started yesterday.
You know, it's not till like 10 years later that you go, oh, that was the revolution, you know?
And so, whatever we're in the middle of right now, I mean, I don't know if it's a revolution or not, but it's, it's something.
It's something.
And it's already started.
Yeah.
And it's, we're well into it, you know, that all of the norms have been overthrown and all of this.
So yeah, there's something to that.
And so I don't think anyone should just be going, eh, I just, I clock in at nine, I clock out at five, and I can count on that forever.
That's not, you know, my, my, my point.
But I, I do think that, you know, just different people have different values and what they want to get out of life is it's hard for us to dictate what they should be wanting to get out of life.
But as I said to Jason, uh, when I debated him on your show, uh, uh, not too long ago, was that I'm not opposed to any of this idea of like, you know, you should get your life together and make sure your income is independent and all of that.
Yeah, you're a great example of it.
Well, yeah, right, right, leading by example, right?
How could I, how could I say that?
And yeah, when you say that, like sometimes I think to me, the um like you said, the example of it is is sometimes more important than than even preaching it.
And and I, you know, there was this, uh, I think, was it Gino?
Some comic had this joke that I thought was really great back in the day.
He did a funny thing with it, but he basically just said, um, he was like, my dad never sat me down and told me not to hit women.
He just treated my mother with respect.
And I kind of got the point.
You know, and he never slowed me down and did that either.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he kind of had a bit about it, like that was funny after that.
But I thought there was something about that that was really like a great point.
Like, you know, you don't necessarily have to like sit someone down and go, hey, this is wrong.
You just kind of lead by example.
And so I've talked about this before.
But like someone like Scott Horton, okay, he never tells you how to live your life ever.
He just talks about the wars.
You know, like there's that's it, that's all he gives you.
But if you're a big fan of Scott Horton, you know, you kind of get that he's telling you to like be prepared, do your research, work hard, care about other people.
You know, like all of these things are just, they're almost implicit in what he's giving you.
Because obviously, the reason you like what he's saying is because of, you know, he clearly does all these things.
And so I think like when you said Ron Paul kind of called you into action in a way, I think a lot of the value of him was not just that he, you know, introduced us to the non-aggression principle, but that he was this guy who was willing to tell the truth when it was really dangerous to tell the truth.
And there's something about that that's like, fuck, I want to stand behind that guy.
I mean, that's like, there's, there's something important about that.
And so that is, and, and the, the post-libertarian thing or whatever, there's, I think there's a bunch of different people in that group, and it's, it's hard to take on their ideas.
And I, I don't even think they like that label.
So I'll stop using it.
But that was the label they came up with, I think.
So I don't know what to do.
Yeah, I think, I think Buck did like one live stream where he said like post-libertarian and then suddenly it just be, or maybe it was also in a title of a Pete episode, and then suddenly it just, it's the term for anybody kind of talking about it.
So yeah, I don't mean it in a derogatory way at all, but I'm just saying it's like, I would give pushback to anyone who says there's not value in standing up and telling the truth.
I think that's what I'm going to be doing.
Right.
Yeah.
I agree with you completely.
I mean, that's, that's something that like I have just like I felt called to action when Ron Paul was doing his thing.
And I felt that's when I started to feel like, okay, I can't just keep politics to myself.
Like this guy is on stage being made fun of, being mocked, being literally laughed at by the, not just his debate opponents in their fancy suits while his is just like fitting like it looks like shit.
Like mom sent him to a bar in Mitsville.
Like, all right, just put it on.
And the moderators too, like the people that are supposed to be the unbiased ones.
They're supposed to be the Marc Clairs.
You know, they're supposed to be just moderating and watching, laughing at him and mocking him.
I mean, you didn't even do that to Archie Flower.
And they're going to do that to Ron Paul.
Exactly.
And that, but that really gave me the, I guess, the courage, really, like the fact that he could be so bold in the face of such adversity, like being made fun of, being mocked on national TV and being, you know, chastised by Rudy Giuliani, being told, you must apologize.
I can't do the list.
You must apologize for that, Dr. Paul.
And he just, instead of not, not just did he not back down, he doubled down and tripled down.
And that, that drew me into action.
It drew me from just someone who just thought about politics in my head.
Like I literally didn't talk about it with anybody.
It was just like a personal hobby.
That was just my thing.
I read some Murray Rothbard books and no one else knew what was going on.
But it drew me to start talking about this stuff and to start telling the truth about what I thought.
And then now I feel like I'm sort of going through that again now in a different way, where I think that I'm just seeing things.
I don't know.
I don't want I'm in this weird spot where I don't like want to knock the efforts of people that I know are awesome that are my brothers that are literally like anybody that came from the Ron Paul movement is like, I consider a brother or a sister or what have you.
Like you're my people, you know?
And not that many sisters.
Let's get real.
It's mostly brothers.
The one, the one, I'm not even sure if she really was one, but whatever.
But yeah, I mean, like, these are my people.
So like, and I honestly, when I went on PGO, I didn't even intend to bring up the music caucus at all.
It just kind of came up because I think I'd probably, you know, how Twitter is, man.
Like people get into some shit and you see some shit and you see someone say some stupid shit and you're like, oh, that's guys of me.
And then, you know, it just, and I'm sure like most of these Twitter spats, and I get into them too.
I'm like, you know, I'm not going to act like I'm innocent here.
Even, even when I tell myself I'm not going to get into them anymore, I just, it's one day later.
One day later, I'm like, well, fuck you then, dude.
Like, what am I supposed to just sit here?
I'll start tomorrow.
Like, but it's a weird, Twitter is such a weird thing, dude.
Where like, I'll just be like, okay, well, whatever.
I'm not going to fight on Twitter anymore.
And then I just happen to because I'm sure I miss a hundred for every one I catch.
But then there's one I catch where I just look at my phone, like my phone vibrates and I look at it and someone's like, you know, Dave, you suck.
And I'm like, you're going to come right onto my phone and tell me I suck when I'm writing.
I'm sitting here holding my child.
I'm literally like, I'm in a dark room and like my daughter's napping in the other room and my son just fell asleep in this room.
And then it's like, so it's like, you suck.
And I'm like, I suck.
You suck.
It's just so bizarre.
Weird world we live in.
It's in all of us and none of us can resist that dopamine hit we get from the likes and the retweets.
You know, it is what it is.
But, but you are in the liberty world, Mark.
You are the teacher that we all love who hurts us more when he just tells us he's disappointed in us than when he actually punishes us.
So I will say that when you, when you said on Pete's show that you were like, well, the Mises caucus, the whole strategy, you said something like, it seemed like a good idea in 2016, but now this seems pointless.
And I did, I, I, I wonder about that.
And I'm not like, I'm angry that you said that, but I wonder, you go, do you really like, do you think it's pointless for, I don't know, is it pointless for me and Michael Heist to go on Tim Poole's show or for me to go on other shows and,
you know, like, like tell people about what the liberty perspective on all of this is and how it's not as if we're going on there and and doing what you criticize the other libertarians for doing and pretending like the last 19 months haven't happened.
We're going on there and, you know, like really talking about like, well, this is how crazy the last 19 months are.
Is should we not be doing that?
If, if not, what else should we be doing?
Yeah, I definitely wouldn't say you should not be doing that.
And not at all.
I think, and talking to Mike today, did kind of clarify things a little bit for me.
I think we two have differences in the way we see things.
I think it just comes down to the idea.
Okay, this is what it comes down to for me.
It's not, it's not the idea of like spreading the message.
Like, and of course, if there's going to be a libertarian party, I'd still rather it be like you guys running it and you guys having the messaging.
Like, if it's going to exist, sure.
I'd much rather have you guys than, you know, than I'm not going to name names, a bunch of other people doing it.
But I guess what I've had to think about a little more is like, okay, to me, the biggest, like, I think you make the best case because I've seen you do it in a number of debates on my show.
I think you make the best case possible for the Mises Caucus strategy.
Just the idea of, look, we're not the duopoly.
There are a lot of people that reject the duopoly.
Well, they say they do, but they don't when it actually comes to voting.
But there should be somebody representing this other way.
There should be someone that's saying, no, this is, these are not the only paths.
These are not the only political paths.
These are not the only philosophical paths.
And I think you make the best possible argument for that.
And I'm not really going to argue against doing it.
I'm not going to argue against doing it in terms of like communicating.
And I don't know.
Did you get on Tim Pool because you're in the Mises caucus or did you get on Tim Pool because you're Dave Smith and you've been on Joe Rogan and like the answer, the answer to that, though, is that no, I could have gotten on them anyway, but they're more excited because of this.
So that's like the value to me.
Like there's no question like, no, I was on Tim Pool.
I've been on his show a few times, but there's no question he got more excited about what I was doing because he's like, oh, Dave's thinking about running as a third party candidate.
Oh, and Michael Malice would be his press secretarian.
Oh, that's that's like, so this has been my thing the whole time.
I can keep doing what I'm doing and I will keep doing what I'm doing, regardless of whether I end up, you know, I could, I could abandon the whole Libertarian Party thing tomorrow, like whatever.
And for the record, I would if I thought there was a better vehicle forward for liberty.
Like, this is a big thing that I have with the whatever.
I hate to use the term again, but the post-libertarian crowd, whatever, you know, whatever the term is, right?
If you're saying, like, oh, well, you're just trying to spread the message, but we should actually be seizing power.
Like, okay, show me who's seizing some power and then do it.
And then show me and then show me what's up.
And then I'll come follow you.
Like, I'm not against that.
But I don't see anyone seizing any real power.
And so I'm just saying, how can I better promote the fucking message?
And I do see that, oh, yes, using the Libertarian Party, which I don't think is like evil or corrupt in any way to promote libertarian ideas, you know?
And you were in the party before I was, dude.
You were the one who was like convincing all of us to join it.
And so I'm like, okay, so that's, and I do see that Rogan and Tim Poole and Kennedy and Greg Gutfeld, a lot of these guys, they got way more excited when they thought, oh, I might be the guy planting my flag in this party because for whatever reason, the American mind just leans toward that.
Like, oh, that's a political option.
So now let's hear what he has to say.
In the same way that Ron Paul, as you know, you know, because you were there since 2000, he was saying all the same great shit, but it wasn't until 2008 that everyone started actually listening to him.
Well, why is that?
He wasn't any better or any, he was just, he was running for president.
So that's, that's when they started caring.
So that's kind of, you know, that's the fact.
I wouldn't argue and I'm not going to push back on the idea of spreading the message and waging poor people up.
I guess for me, it comes back to the reason I just don't, the reason I have a hard time anyway, because like, again, like, I didn't come on to Pizza Joe thinking I was even going to bring up the Mises Caucus thing.
It just is kind of what came out, you know, it wasn't like to go on there and it was just the truth of what I was thinking live real time, because I've been doing all this stuff real time.
Like I'm when I watch the debates with you and Tho that I'm hosting or you and Breakie, like I'm, I really am just like listening to both of you guys and like thinking both ways.
And like I said, I think you make the best case for the strategy.
And if it's what people are most passionate about, I'm not going to tell you not to be passionate.
But again, for me, it really comes down to the urgency of the situation.
And I don't even know if we have till 2024, man, for a lot of this shit that's going on right now.
You might be right about that.
So that's why I think for a lot of this stuff, like if people are in the Mises caucus and they're putting a lot of time and effort into this and they're looking long term that, okay, we'll wake a bunch of people up.
We'll get a lot of attention for Dave and a lot of attention for the ideas by 2024.
And then maybe by 2028, we do this.
Like, I think you're this, I think your time preference is off.
Maybe your preference isn't off, but I think your horizon is wrong.
I don't think you have that kind of time because by then you can't go to the grocery store, you can't go to work and your kids have been jabbed twice.
I guess that's what it is for me is that I just, I don't see it grasping the urgency of the situation.
And that's why I said it feels more like a 2016 thing when it's like, okay, we got Trump here, we got Hillary there.
This is a perfect opportunity to tell everybody what we believe.
But you already do have like a large segment of the country who thinks the election, I don't want to get you guys off YouTube or whatever, but thinks the E-L-E-C-T-I-O-N might not have been totally up to snuff.
And thanks January 6th, people that did something on that day might not have any rights and should go be in jail forever.
Like this is the kind of shit we're dealing with now.
Yeah.
This is the kind of year we're dealing with.
And maybe it's just as, maybe it's just as much of a folly to do it in the GOP and think you can do something there.
I don't know.
I'm not advocating for any particular political strategy necessarily, but I just think that like, if we're having this thing where in 20 years, we're really going to build up that libertarian party.
I think that's just a folly.
And I think you got people need to be looking at, again, I'm not going to say what about political paths like one or the other.
Saving Money vs Political Conflict00:06:08
Like that's not really my thing as much as like, just look at yourself first, man.
Like look at the fucking man in the mirror.
And again, I'm talking to myself, former person, former versions of myself and current, the current version of myself.
Like, look inside first, man, because we need to win.
The real battle is not against everything around us.
It's not of ideas.
Like, the first battle is right here.
And for a lot of people, you're not ready to face what's coming.
Like, and I'm not saying I am either, but I think a lot of people aren't either.
And I think I know I am more than a lot of people.
Yeah, so I know a lot of people that just like I know a lot of people that are against all the mandates that are aware of what's happening and are also caving to it already very quickly, thinking, well, I'll just take the shot to get me by this thing, this hurdle, this, this obstacle, and maybe not understanding that when you do that, you have, you are now part of the system.
You are now part of this technocratic medical apartheid that is coming.
It's not coming.
Like you said, we're in it.
We're already in it.
So I guess to me, it's an urgency thing.
Yeah, it's been interesting to me, like as I've, I've called this like medical apartheid and a cast system, all this thing, and people see people even more, even in the mainstream world, like in the cable news world and stuff, they'll be like, oh, that's outrageous.
And I'll be like, well, tell me how it's not that.
And they'll be like, well, just because it's about, you know, yeah, well, it's public health.
It's like, oh, okay.
That's all that's what you have.
So, okay, so I don't, I don't really disagree with anything you said there.
I just, you know, I feel like to me, when, um, and this isn't really to you, I guess maybe I'm just in a weird way using you to say this to other people, but then I want to transition to something else that I want because I'm not, I didn't just, you know, don't want to just argue with you about this.
Not that we're even arguing, but I not to other, to say this to other people, it's like, yeah, look, I mean, look, I do think the urgency is about as high as it could be.
And so if someone's got a better plan of what we can do to try, and I realize it's like a monumental task to try to roll any of this back, but I still think it's worth trying.
And to me, that's the Ron Paul greatness was that, yes, this is monumental and we probably will only move this a centimeter, but you know what?
We're going to put everything we have into moving this a centimeter.
That is not, as I was saying with Jason when we were talking, debating on your show, that is not in conflict with also get yourself in the best situation you possibly can put yourself in.
You know, like that's, I highly recommend that.
And believe me, I'm doing that myself.
So I'd be crazy to tell anyone else not to do that.
But if anyone has not necessarily in conflict, but I do, I have seen a good number of people.
And I'm not trying to try to pick on Mises Caucus people.
The reason that I, the reason it comes up with Mises Caucus people is because I'm in the Facebook groups and I'm friends with most of these people.
So that's why it comes up.
Okay.
But like I see a lot of people saying, like, oh, I can't go to this.
I'm too broke.
I don't have money for it.
Oh, I don't, or, or I've seen people saying, I don't, there's an employer job mandate, vaccine mandate coming up.
I have to do it because I don't know how I'm going to feed my family the next week.
And that's who I'm talking to.
That's who I'm saying.
Yes.
I will actually say maybe for those people, it is a conflict to be spending money or time on a political venture.
Well, if you're that broke, you probably shouldn't be spending money on anything.
But my guess is, but my guess is if those people are that broke, they're not spending money on anything anyway.
My guess is if those people are that broke that they're fucking, you know, like doing what they can to get by.
Some of them are active, active leaders in the caucus.
So whatever.
I mean, maybe you're right.
Maybe you're not.
Yeah.
Active leaders who are an active leader.
I don't want to get into personal shit.
I've just seen a lot of people say a lot of things that makes me think, well, bro, maybe you shouldn't spend your time on this.
Maybe you should get your shit in order so you don't have to have this problem.
Well, I certainly think that maybe they should spend their time, you know, like making sure that they're in an okay situation.
Or maybe we should just fucking like fundraise a ton better that people who are like leaders in the party are actually in okay positions and don't have to do that.
Or be doing the David Portnite point thing, like helping out other businesses that are suffering for this thing.
Maybe the money should go more towards stuff like that, towards like outreach to real people.
Well, yeah, but there's political candidates.
Well, yeah, maybe you're right.
I mean, look, there's always like kind of maybes about where money should be spent or resources should be allocated, but maybe they should be allocated to that person who's like trying to fucking wake people up and like trying to like kind of like get more people, you know, even whatever percentage of the population it can be against this shit.
Maybe we should be trying to save this ship as it's sinking.
I mean, try our best.
I guess that's maybe, and someone might people, and I hate the pill stuff, but someone might call me blackpilled for saying this, but I guess maybe that is maybe that's where a bit of the divide is, where I don't, I think the ship is going down no matter what.
And all we can do is get on some lifeboats, you know?
Yeah, but if the ship's going down, then what difference does it make if we do the David Portney thing and save some businesses as the ship's going down?
That's like saving the cafeteria on the bottom of the ship.
Like, okay.
Well, maybe there's some good food in the cafeteria.
I don't know how far we can go with the ship analogy.
No, I mean, I think, I think we can, I think the more people become aware that they need to save themselves, the more, and, and we can help each other through that.
And I think that's an important aspect of all this.
And maybe that is, maybe that is a great thing that comes out of organizing in any way, whether it's through a Mises caucus or whatever you want to do.
I don't care, post-libertarian, GOP, whatever.
Maybe the best thing that comes out of organizing like this isn't even necessarily the thing that it's intended for.
Maybe it's just the friends you made along the way, you know, but the community you've made.
No, no, you're, I think you're right about that.
I think, I think that might be it.
That we at least all get, that we at least are all together and you get more people who are like-minded and you connect with them.
And yeah, yeah, maybe you're right.
Maybe that, maybe that's right.
Maybe we fail ultimately, but we at least like have some community around us.
And this, that's, that's, um, I wouldn't say that's part of the reason, but one of the things that I've been talking about a lot over the last couple of years is like family and values and religion and all and God and all this stuff.
I think it's one of the most important things you do.
I think right now.
I think that's like, maybe, maybe that's ultimately what this is all about.
And so that is a good transition because I did not want to let you get out of here before we talked about that a little bit, because I know you've written about this a little bit recently on your Substack and you've talked about this on your podcast.
Blue Chew Special Offer00:02:08
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Faithful Agnostics and Atheism00:13:16
But here's where we really agree is on your take on atheism and God and where that's all kind of played a role in the liberty movement and beyond the liberty movement.
And so I really liked the thing you wrote.
And I've been saying very similar things about this kind of what I think is the myth or the false promise of atheism that I bought into at one point.
And that the idea that you really can leave God out of all of these worldviews and where that ends up getting you is kind of right back to the same place.
And so I don't know, like, what, where are you with that right now?
Well, you and I both come from a long line of like atheist Jews, you know, when you're like raised Jewish and you do all the shit, but then you're like, you talk to your family and you see how they act and you're like, oh, this is just like a fun thing we do.
This is just like our culture, but it's not like, you know, we're, I mean, I don't speak for everybody, but you know, you know what I mean.
And so I think for a long time, I considered myself that.
I was just, I don't know, I've gone through phases.
It's kind of weird.
The relationship between me and like religion and spirituality has just kind of always been like, I don't know, up and down, I guess, because I've always, I've always considered myself like rational or what have you.
And I think that I've always, for a long time, I shouldn't say always, like, you know, I went through my stages in like, you know, as a teenager and then even into like my 20s, maybe into my 30s, where I just had that kind of attitude of that very materialist, very logic and reason attitude that, and sometimes even the condescending like, oh, they go to ask the magic sky god how to act in order to be moral or, you know, the same old shit you hear.
And I think one thing that I've realized is that, okay, maybe I was the idiot.
Maybe these people that have been doing these same rituals for thousands and thousands of years that maybe from the outside, I thought, well, that's kind of silly.
Well, that's obviously not, you know, maybe I was the idiot because maybe those societies are actually really successful and maybe they actually build communities together.
Maybe they're like the fucking Amish.
They don't have to worry about any of this bullshit now because they have had their own rituals that have worked for them for so long.
So I think the first step for me has just kind of been recognizing that a lot of this stuff works.
Now, maybe I don't understand all of it.
Maybe I don't really get all of the traditions and I don't have to to see that they work and to see that they work a lot better than, and I don't think there's a there's I think there is a correlation between, you know, a lot of the same kinds, I don't want to generalize too much, but a lot of the same kinds of people that outwardly reject, reject God or specific religions or what have you, a lot of those are the same people that are extremely religious about mask wearing, for example,
or about posting their picture with their baptism in their arm for their own religion, you know?
I mean, so what it seems to happen is that no, and look at them.
And sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, but and kicking people out for blasphemy and condemning people to hell for saying the words.
Just watch.
I mean, it's, it's, yeah, I was going to say, just watch when the third shot, when the fourth shot people don't want to take the fourth shot, how bad the three-shot people turn on the four-shot people and how bad the two-shot people turn on the three-shot people.
I mean, it's going to be like Dr. Seuss book or something.
But yeah, I mean, that's why I, I, that's another thing that I try to say.
Like some people that are taking these shots that don't want to, it's one thing if you've done the, you know, done your own calculation, like my parents got it and I can see why they did, especially my mom's really high risk.
So maybe that's more worth it for someone like that.
Yeah.
But for people that know they don't want it and know that, okay, I'm like 35 years old in great shape.
This is like, I don't need this.
For people that are just taking that to get by, I would actually say you're not getting by.
You're actually digging your hole and making things worse for yourself.
Even if in the short term, it would be more difficult for, you know, for somebody I know, it's more difficult in the short term to not to not do that.
But I think I'm a low time preference.
But I think I think you're going to be better off in the long run by even by forcing yourself out of the system, by forcing yourself to find these communities, like find these alternative pathways.
Like I think the biggest value, again, in like this community, the greater liberty community are all the people that I've met over the years, all the connections I've made over the years, and all the alternative systems that are being built in the background that a lot of people don't realize are happening, alternative financial systems.
Obviously, we all know about cryptocurrencies, but I think there's going to be, there's going to be an alternative to just about everything.
You just have to find it.
But if you've already kind of stepped your way into the medical apartheid, the technocratic system that's not just coming, it's here.
It's a lot harder.
It's going to be a lot harder for you to get out of it later than to get out of it before it happens, before you're in it.
Because if you try to get out of it later, now you're a traitor.
Now you have no legitimacy because you already took it.
You already said it's fine.
You didn't object.
You can't say you object to it.
You just took it.
So of course you don't object to it, really.
So what are you doing, traitor?
But for people that don't know what I think, I think also just like kind of, because look, I will say, maybe the one thing I disagree with on that is that like, look, I mean, we all been, we've all been, I mean, I pay income tax.
I've, I wear masks on airplanes.
Yeah.
I did, you know, I've done, I do a lot of things that, you know, I don't support.
And so I don't, I don't think the fact that I've done them necessarily means that I support them.
But with this one, to me, I mean, to the people that are like religious.
Well, that's right.
So it's like, it's not even that necessarily you support it, but it's like, wouldn't you rather find the people right now who don't want to fucking support it?
Like if you were, if the income tax was just 1913.
Yes.
And it was just applied and there were a lot and we had the internet and there were a lot of people who are like, we're not going to pay this fucking thing.
Don't you kind of want to go with those people?
Then you at least kind of like network with them, at least meet them.
So I agree with that.
And I really do try to like, I try to push a lot of people because I know there's a lot of like young, particularly men who listen to my show and the young women who listen to my show.
One girl.
They're basically dudes.
They're basically a dude when you think about it.
I try to push them and be like, look, like think about like community, family, God, all of this stuff.
And that I really thought the point you made about, you know, that I agree with a lot is just that, you know, as someone who was a former atheist, the desire to worship is hardwired, man.
And you see this all over.
Like there's almost no one you could think.
Maybe there's someone, but man, there's so few people who are just like, no, I just don't worship.
I just don't worry.
They worship like not believing in something.
And that's what they worship.
There's still like a passion to be for something so strongly that it's in a spiritual level above and beyond this material.
Yeah, you use the example.
I think it was in your sub stack where you wrote, what is it, Tom Brady is a God or something like that.
And now, of course, people are saying that in jest, but it's like you're still using that language.
You're still kind of thinking of it that way.
I remember watching this atheist verse Christian debate.
It might have been, might have been like Sam, what's his name?
One of the new atheists.
No, not Sam Cedar, but That guy's a good debater.
He was on my show.
Yeah.
I had him on like many, many years ago.
Yeah.
And funny, no one gets mad about me for having him on.
You've been through this stuff too, though.
No one gets mad if it's leftists.
He's old leftists.
But no, but fucking anyway, it might have been Christopher Hitchen.
Oh, Sam Harris.
Sam Harris is what I was thinking of.
But one of them was talking about.
So it was a Christian versus atheist debate.
And they were in the middle of the debate.
And one of them was saying, the Christian was saying that evil spirits will prey on you if you start making choices that are against God's will and something along these lines.
And then in the rebuttal, the atheist said, look, this idea that we have to believe in spirits or ghosts or gods, this is all ridiculous.
And then he started addressing that point.
And he goes, look, everyone knows that if you, you know, that there are dark forces in the world.
And if you do a lot of drugs, you can like blah, blah, blah, or something like that.
And you're like, wait, what's the difference between dark forces and evil spirits?
I mean, what do we are?
Aren't we just calling the same thing different names?
Yes.
Like, so even in the most hardcore atheists' worldview, be like, think about all of the things you're describing and tell me that they're really any different.
Like, I'm not saying you have to ascribe to this religion or that religion or any one of them.
But what are you really saying?
That there's no, there's no meaning to any of this.
There's no purpose.
All right.
Yeah, I'm certainly not saying like I'm kind of like, I don't know, I described myself.
I was on with a Tommy Salmons, Year Zero, a great podcast the other day.
And I kind of described myself as a like a faithful agnostic.
Like I don't have like, I'm not saying I have the answer.
A lot of other people have their answers and it seems to work for them.
And I've taken things from a lot of different religion religions and I've definitely felt a spiritual side of things at various moments of my life.
You know, I haven't had a birth child, so I haven't had the experience that you had with that, but I have had moments.
One of them was the moment I got married where I felt my, I wasn't even expecting it.
I actually just was like, okay, we're going to go do this thing and get the paperwork done.
And I felt my spirit like move and literally like lift out of my body and like merge with my wife's soul.
And that's how it felt to me.
Yes.
Is that rational or reasonable or logical?
I don't know.
I guess not, but it's what it's what I experienced.
So no, I definitely, that was before I had a kid, but I definitely felt something when me and my wife got married.
And I'll tell you, there was something about whatever.
I mean, I've told this, you know, story on podcast before, but when I really, that was when I had my daughter and forget what I've been through the last few weeks.
I mean, that was like, there's just no debate in my mind about it.
But when I first had my daughter and I was just so scared that I could, you know, lose, because there were complications in that pregnancy, nothing like this one, but in that one.
And where I was just like, I started like grappling with the fact that I was like, oh my God, I could lose my wife and my daughter.
Like I could walk out of this hospital with no one when I thought I was going to walk out of this hospital with my new family and realize how powerless I am.
And when I realized how powerless I was immediately, it's not like anyone had to coach me into it.
Immediately, I just went to like talking to God.
And as someone who was an atheist my whole life, I'm like, you know, after doing that, I'm like, wow, that was, that was kind of weird.
It was immediately went to that.
It's in your biology.
Right.
Like, and not only that, it was my default, but my default was believing in him with certainty and trying to negotiate with him and tell him that I'll be a better person and I'll do all these good things if he just takes care of me.
And then you leave there and you're like, wait, so when the chips really were down, my immediate default was to think, okay, I believe in God and I know he wants me to be a better person.
And I know he wants me to do all of these good things.
And you're like, that's, that's, that's something to think about.
I mean, I've been in a similar situation, not with a child, but I've been in a similar situation.
Let's just put it that way.
And I did the same thing.
Like, I just like. started praying.
Like I just got on my fucking knees and it was just like polite.
And I just went through probably something similar where I was bargaining.
I was like, look, I will, okay, well, I will stop doing this thing.
Stop doing that thing.
I'll do fucking anything.
Please, And it's the things you already knew you were supposed to stop doing.
Right, right.
You already knew.
It's not like it's, it's not like like you're saying.
Yeah.
It's not like you're saying like, I will sacrifice this or build a statue to you.
It's like the things.
It's like I will be a more moral person.
I will stop doing these bad things.
And so to me, that's like after experiencing that, those powerful moments.
And now I've had like many of them.
It's like, I just feel like I'd be an asshole to pretend that didn't happen and like just go on.
And especially when, okay, there's like billions of people over tens of thousands of years that have all done the same thing in their own way in various different ways.
Sometimes it's too Ganesha.
Sometimes it's, you know, whatever, but it's kind of just the same thing.
And it seems to work for a lot of people.
That doesn't mean that every prayer is answered or what have you, but and I don't know.
I can, I can probably never sit down with a total rationalist or materialist and say, I can tell you for a fact that this thing I did led to something better for me.
But either way, even if, even if it's just in our own heads, it's our own conscience telling us to be better and do things that we already knew we should have done.
Johnny's Point Event00:02:48
So that's the worst case scenario.
Yeah.
And that's, and, and, and I feel like, uh, I, I feel like that's something that makes me a little bit uncomfortable to talk about it because I like just having rational, pure arguments.
But also at the same time, at least if you're an atheist, you have to admit that like, if you're a pure atheist, you are, I mean, the, the highest level of elitist that you could be.
You look down at 99.99% of humanity who's ever existed because that's what they've believed in.
Hey, all right, we got to get out of here.
You're having a big event in Mexico.
Is that correct?
Yeah, I'm not, I'm not the one putting on it, but yeah, I'm pretty much the star.
There's some other guy, Johnny the Johnny the Steamer.
I don't know.
What is his name?
Oh, Robbie the Fire.
That's right.
He's doing a stand-up out there.
Yeah, I'll send you a link.
He's up and coming.
But yeah, there's an event being put on by our good friend, Johnny Profita of the Pedalink Fiction Podcast in Sayulita, Mexico.
So much unlike Mexico City, where everyone is wearing masks, Sayulita couldn't be any more the opposite.
There's basically COVID doesn't exist.
So if you're looking for a break from all of this shit, from all, from COVID, from seeing even a mask in sight, you got to come to Sayulita.
It's December 10th to 12th.
I wish, I know you're going to post the link in the show notes.
So it's something like Sayulitasuperspreader.eventbright.com feels right.
But if that's wrong, just go click on the link.
We'll post the actual link.
Man, it's like event something else.
You did not sound confident in that.
But the point is, there's an event.
But the point is there's an event.
It's going to be really fun.
There's going to be a bunch of live podcasts.
I'm going to be there.
Buck Johnson from Counterflow, Clint Russell from Liberty Lockdown, that Robbie, whatever dude.
And I'm actually, this is a very rare event.
I'm not sure if you're aware of this, Dave.
There's a very rare event that's going to be occurring there.
And no, it's not an aligning of the planets.
It is a rare Marc Claire stand-up comedy set.
I'm actually going to be setting up for Robbie the Fire.
Wow.
All right.
It's going to be short.
It's going to be short, but you got to come in person to see it.
And we're going to be doing a bunch of live podcasts, drinking tequila, just having a good time and living like it's 2019.
So come on out.
There you go.
I wish I could be there for that, but that's awesome.
And Mark, I really appreciate it, man.
It's always a pleasure to talk to you.
And this was kind of cool because every time we've talked before, like I've done your show a whole bunch of times and the debates and all the other stuff, but it was interesting to kind of pick your brain a bit and see where you're at and all this.
And hey, man, got to talk to the watcher.
Yeah, that's right.
And I think you're wiser than a lot of the people who aren't watching and are just yapping the whole time.
So thank you very much.
And of course, go check out the Lines of Liberty podcast.