Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - The Return Of Clint Russell
Aired: 2021-11-30
Duration: 01:09:11


=== Why I Stayed in Miami (06:33) ===

[00:00:00]  Fill her up.
[00:00:02]  You're listening to the Gash Digital Network.
[00:00:08]  We need to roll back the state.
[00:00:10]  We spy on all of our own citizens.
[00:00:12]  Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
[00:00:16]  If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
[00:00:22]  Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
[00:00:26]  You're listening to part of the problem on the Gash Digital Network.
[00:00:30]  Here's your host, James Smith.
[00:00:33]  What's up, everybody?
[00:00:34]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Heart of the Problem.
[00:00:37]  I'm very happy to be joined by my homie, Clint Russell, host of Liberty Lockdown.
[00:00:44]  And I would say, one of the fastest rising stars in the Liberty movement.
[00:00:52]  And but listen, over the last year, year and a half or so, you really have been one of the guys who's come into their own and developed a huge audience.
[00:01:01]  So thank you for taking some time and joining me once again.
[00:01:04]  Welcome back.
[00:01:05]  Absolutely, brother.
[00:01:06]  I wouldn't be here without you.
[00:01:08]  So anytime you call, I'm going to be here.
[00:01:09]  Don't you sweat it.
[00:01:11]  Well, I appreciate that.
[00:01:12]  And yeah, no, really, though, it is, I think over the last, whatever, you know, I guess we could measure it by COVID times over the last 15 days.
[00:01:24]  It feels like two years, but yeah, it's only been 15 days.
[00:01:27]  It was only 15 days and we're almost there.
[00:01:29]  We're almost done.
[00:01:30]  We're on day eight.
[00:01:31]  Don't you worry.
[00:01:32]  Well, you know, you know, mine has to be less than two years because the name of the show is Liberty Lockdown.
[00:01:38]  So it was obviously inspired by the lockdowns.
[00:01:40]  I started in May 2020.
[00:01:41]  So yeah, it's my timing will forever be known because I am named after the most tyrannical thing to happen in our lifetime, unfortunately.
[00:01:50]  You have had a phenomenally strong two weeks as far as podcasting goes.
[00:01:55]  You've built up quite an audience in such a short period of time.
[00:01:58]  It has been explosive.
[00:01:59]  I mean, I went from literally unknown to, you know, semi-known in two weeks.
[00:02:06]  This is a quantum leap.
[00:02:08]  Well, it's fun for me to kind of see the new voices in the liberty movement who have kind of built up large followings.
[00:02:18]  And I guess some of them are getting booted off of these platforms these days.
[00:02:24]  But I think you read Reed Coverdale, of course, host of The Naturalist Capitalist, Josh Smith, who hosts Break the Cycle.
[00:02:38]  You guys are really the three I would think of who like over the last year and a half have really kind of like exploded and built up big shows.
[00:02:47]  It certainly has it has felt like that.
[00:02:49]  I mean, I got to give a shout out to my Tower Gang boys.
[00:02:52]  They're doing their thing.
[00:02:53]  We got Jose with No Way Jose and Toad and Dave doing their thing on Tower Gang.
[00:02:59]  So but yeah, it's, I mean, that's all I'm doing.
[00:03:01]  I love those guys.
[00:03:02]  I love those guys too.
[00:03:03]  Yes.
[00:03:03]  Tower gang is great.
[00:03:04]  I've done the show.
[00:03:05]  I'll do it again.
[00:03:06]  I know.
[00:03:07]  I love our promo reel has you telling Dave to go fuck himself.
[00:03:11]  So it's my favorite thing.
[00:03:12]  Every time, every time we start the show, it's just terrific.
[00:03:16]  And when I come back on, I will open the same way again.
[00:03:20]  He deserves it.
[00:03:21]  Well, I'll tell you what I like about it too, is that I think, you know, it's like I've been, I've been in this for a little while now, and you kind of hope that you're like, okay, well, let's get some more people, like some more voices in this.
[00:03:33]  And what I like is that almost all of the voices that are gaining traction are really good people.
[00:03:39]  I don't see like any of the people who drive me crazy like gaining a big following or anything like that.
[00:03:45]  It's really like, oh, and so it makes you, it gives you a little bit of faith in humanity again.
[00:03:49]  It's like, oh, okay.
[00:03:50]  Yes, the guys who actually have something to add, those are the guys who like people want to listen to.
[00:03:54]  Okay, that makes sense.
[00:03:56]  Yeah, no, it is, it is kind of a white pill.
[00:03:58]  It's like you question the nature of not just the overall American culture, but even so far as to get down to the micro and say the libertarian culture, I really started to question that, especially during the lockdowns.
[00:04:11]  I mean, that's why I got involved is because I was so disappointed in the LP.
[00:04:14]  I was like, what the fuck is happening?
[00:04:15]  Why are we not like on the front lines of this thing?
[00:04:17]  And to have found this small community of really passionate, really good people.
[00:04:24]  Something I didn't expect is that there's so many family men, you know, like a lot of these guys have kids.
[00:04:29]  They're married.
[00:04:30]  It's like, it's, it's, I don't know.
[00:04:33]  I just didn't expect it.
[00:04:34]  But I'm thrilled to have found it.
[00:04:35]  I really have had my faith in humanity restored and I owe some of that to you.
[00:04:40]  So I really appreciate it.
[00:04:43]  Well, please.
[00:04:43]  I mean, I'm all, I'm just passing on stuff that's been passed to me.
[00:04:47]  So I appreciate that, but don't give me too much credit.
[00:04:50]  But so, so I wanted to talk to you about this.
[00:04:52]  By the way, now that I got two kids and so I don't have that much time.
[00:04:56]  Half the reason I wanted to have you on is just because we haven't talked in a while.
[00:04:59]  It's just, I don't have time to make phone calls.
[00:05:00]  So if I want to talk to my boys, I got to have them on my podcast and then we'll just talk.
[00:05:04]  But so you went on this kind of journey around the country.
[00:05:10]  And we, you know, you, you were one of the contestants on the Legion of Skanks house party thing, and you had your house out there and you sold it and left.
[00:05:20]  And I see your background here is a different place.
[00:05:25]  So what have you been doing and where did you end up?
[00:05:28]  Oh my God.
[00:05:29]  So I spent like three months basically just traveling and I drove all the way across the country from San Diego all the way to Miami.
[00:05:36]  And I obviously met up with you at Freedom Fest in South Dakota.
[00:05:41]  Then I went all the way down to Texas.
[00:05:42]  I hung out with Scott Horton on his boat and, you know, got high as a kite.
[00:05:46]  It was amazing.
[00:05:46]  And then continued to migrate up and over and ended up in Miami.
[00:05:51]  And obviously I went to Tom Woods 2000 and that was an amazing event too.
[00:05:55]  Really incredible how many people are approaching me, how I approach you, where people are like, man, you kept me sane over the past year and a half.
[00:06:02]  Like I really appreciate what you're doing.
[00:06:04]  I like people calling me a hero and shit.
[00:06:06]  I just, I can't even fathom what's what's happened in such a short period of time.
[00:06:10]  But and then I got to Miami and I just, I, I felt as if I needed to spend some more time here.
[00:06:17]  So I got a six-month lease.
[00:06:20]  I don't think Miami is going to be my permanent home, but I wanted to have a home base from which I could still record, still put out the show that everybody is getting on board with, and simultaneously continue to travel and figure out where I want to live long term because California ain't it, unfortunately.

=== The Lady in the Elevator (05:00) ===

[00:06:34]  And I think you realize the same with New York.
[00:06:36]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:06:38]  So what's, I'm curious, what is Miami like?
[00:06:41]  Because of course, Miami is a big city, but it's in Florida, which is kind of, you know, the DeSantis free state of Florida that is resisting the COVID stuff.
[00:06:52]  So what's the impact of the COVID stuff in Miami?
[00:06:56]  Are people masked up?
[00:06:57]  Is it like, are you wearing masks in businesses and stuff?
[00:07:01]  Not in businesses for the most part, which is thrilling.
[00:07:04]  It seems as if it's basically what it should have been, which is if you're crazy, you get to continue to wear a mask.
[00:07:09]  And if you're sane, you can just basically not.
[00:07:12]  And that's fine by me.
[00:07:13]  Like, I don't care.
[00:07:13]  If you're crazy, please wear a mask.
[00:07:15]  It's fine.
[00:07:16]  I don't care.
[00:07:17]  But I don't want to see your crazy face.
[00:07:20]  Go wear a mask.
[00:07:22]  And it also identifies you for me so I can know to avoid you.
[00:07:24]  So it's perfect.
[00:07:26]  So yeah, it's good.
[00:07:27]  It's better here.
[00:07:28]  There's no real mandates that are happening, which is terrific.
[00:07:32]  I will say, though, that I still don't like the culture of having about 40% or so of the people that wear masks, even where it's not required.
[00:07:40]  It's there is something about that that is really dehumanizing.
[00:07:43]  It breaks down human communication and being able to have any sort of like semblance of relationship with these people in public that are strangers.
[00:07:55]  Like there's just the casual smile or the conversation in passing.
[00:07:58]  Like none of that really happens anymore.
[00:08:00]  That you have, I was approached by a lady in an elevator at the Publix, which is the big grocery store here.
[00:08:04]  And I got in the elevator.
[00:08:06]  I was with my dad and my brother were visiting.
[00:08:08]  So they were in there with me.
[00:08:09]  And none of us are wearing masks because we're all, you know, woke on the nonsense.
[00:08:12]  And this poor, poor old lady looks at me and she goes, no masks.
[00:08:17]  And she grabs her own.
[00:08:18]  And I go, no, no, no mask.
[00:08:20]  And she goes, well, you're vaccinated at least, right?
[00:08:22]  And she's talking through her mask, mind you.
[00:08:24]  And I say, no, none of us are.
[00:08:26]  And then she goes, and she grabs it again.
[00:08:28]  And I just stop and I was like, I was like, ma'am, just so you know, even if, even if we were, you could still get it.
[00:08:36]  So as long as you're vaccinated, you're as safe as you're going to be.
[00:08:39]  And she just looked at me with like abject horror in her eyes.
[00:08:42]  You know, and I was, I was being kind, I was being gentle, and it just doesn't matter.
[00:08:47]  They're just so deeply propagandized.
[00:08:49]  And even in the great free state of Florida, you still have the crazies that are abundant.
[00:08:55]  Yeah, man.
[00:08:55]  It's almost like you just want to like, like, almost like say to these people, it's like, hey, listen, do you remember the before time?
[00:09:03]  I know.
[00:09:03]  Like, do you remember 2019?
[00:09:05]  Like, let's say you were worried about the flu in 2019 and you wore a mask everywhere you went.
[00:09:14]  Well, what would you think about that?
[00:09:15]  Wouldn't you think, okay, that's a little bit silly.
[00:09:18]  And then you got in an elevator with someone and you went, have you had your flu vaccine?
[00:09:22]  Have you like you?
[00:09:23]  You would think this is crazy too, right?
[00:09:25]  Okay.
[00:09:26]  Now, I'm not saying for anyone that COVID is exactly the same as the flu.
[00:09:30]  The truth is, oftentimes it's better.
[00:09:33]  But I'm saying, like, yes, you're probably not going to, but no, but a lot of times it's worse too.
[00:09:38]  It's not.
[00:09:38]  And yeah, and it's more contagious.
[00:09:40]  And there's other, but still, the point is that to just share an elevator ride with someone when you have a mask and are vaccinated, to worry about them, you're like, yeah, this is a, it's a, it's like a mass psychosis hysteria.
[00:09:57]  And it is, it is something, man.
[00:09:59]  Yeah.
[00:09:59]  It's, and I feel bad.
[00:10:01]  I don't have I, one of the things that I think about people on our side is that sometimes, and I'm sure I'm guilty of this too, but it's easy to fall into just having contempt for these people.
[00:10:12]  But when it's a, when it's a little old lady in an elevator, like, I don't, I don't hate her.
[00:10:17]  No.
[00:10:17]  I just feel so bad.
[00:10:19]  I feel so bad that so many people have failed her, that she's living her life in this state of fear.
[00:10:26]  I saw a video today where it was this older couple, 95 and 85.
[00:10:30]  So not old, older, but very, very old.
[00:10:33]  And they had been kept apart for over a year and they were reunited for the first time.
[00:10:37]  And everyone's, you know, commenting on it, like, oh, how sweet.
[00:10:40]  Because they, they approach each other.
[00:10:42]  He puts down his cane.
[00:10:43]  She, she stumbles away from her walker.
[00:10:46]  They're so thrilled to see each other.
[00:10:47]  And I'd be lying if I said it wasn't touching, but simultaneously, I was filled with rage.
[00:10:52]  Yeah.
[00:10:53]  Filled with rage that these people in the last, God knows, 1% of their lives, probably, maybe 2% of their lives are robbed of 10 or 12 months or whatever it was of the presence.
[00:11:06]  And they had been married for 80 years, Dave.
[00:11:08]  Yeah, I just can't.
[00:11:09]  I mean, it's, but I also part of that, I just can't understand how they could fall for that, especially people that old.
[00:11:14]  I just feel like almost this, like, weren't you a part of a better generation that knew better than this?
[00:11:19]  Didn't you fight in World War II?
[00:11:21]  Look, even, even if, if COVID was everything that the worst hysteric says it is, I'm not, I'm 80 years old.
[00:11:33]  I'm not leaving my wife.

=== The Butterfly Effect of Fame (11:25) ===

[00:11:35]  No.
[00:11:36]  Just no way.
[00:11:37]  We're going down together.
[00:11:39]  We're dying together.
[00:11:40]  Or we're, you know, whatever.
[00:11:43]  That's, or we're making it through.
[00:11:44]  That's it.
[00:11:45]  There's no question about it.
[00:11:46]  It's like, I'm not, especially when we know these might be our last days together.
[00:11:51]  I would die with a smile on my face knowing that I got a couple more days with my wife in there.
[00:11:56]  And with my kids, at like at that age, if I thought I was a threat to them, I might stay away.
[00:12:03]  Sure.
[00:12:03]  But if they, if it was a threat to me, I wouldn't sacrifice one afternoon with them at an age when you could croak at any minute.
[00:12:12]  Like you don't know, tomorrow's not guaranteed.
[00:12:15]  This might be my last lunch with my daughter, who's, you know, it's hard to imagine me being her being an adult.
[00:12:21]  She's almost three, but you know, she's not quite ready to handle lunch on her own yet.
[00:12:25]  But at that point, I mean, oh my God, I mean, like any last moment I could have with her, I would never.
[00:12:31]  And so it's just so, I don't know, it's so weird.
[00:12:34]  So weird to think that people are living like that.
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[00:14:30]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:14:32]  There has been a loss of, I don't know, the, it's funny because people are obsessed with death, right?
[00:14:39]  But simultaneously, they're not valuing their lives.
[00:14:42]  It's like, why are you afraid of dying?
[00:14:45]  It's because you value life so much, but you're not even enjoying your life.
[00:14:49]  So why are you afraid of dying?
[00:14:50]  Like there's some contradiction there that I don't really understand.
[00:14:53]  And it breaks my heart.
[00:14:55]  But in their defense, there's a decent chance that it was not their choice, that one of them was probably in a assisted living facility that didn't allow visitors.
[00:15:03]  And perhaps they don't have the financial capacity to move him into some facility that does, or it's state ordinance.
[00:15:08]  Like, I don't know.
[00:15:09]  I don't know the circumstances.
[00:15:10]  So I don't want to throw these old people under the bus.
[00:15:11]  They've had a hard enough year.
[00:15:13]  But I'm just saying overall, any society that does that, it just doesn't seem long for this earth, man.
[00:15:19]  Like that seems like a recipe for disaster where you have sacrificed any semblance of humanity and community and love and sacrificing to be with your loved ones.
[00:15:30]  Like this is just a very dangerous recipe that I personally refuse to participate in.
[00:15:36]  And I'm grateful that so many people are starting to see our vantage point on this.
[00:15:40]  Yeah.
[00:15:40]  Well, that's one of the things that's so interesting about you and your kind of rise to popularity in this in this world is that you started a show that was specifically about.
[00:15:52]  And for people who haven't watched your show, I highly recommend go check it out.
[00:15:56]  You cover a lot of different topics in the liberty sphere and stuff, but that you started a show specifically geared toward being opposed to the lockdowns in a moment when a lot of people who claim to believe in liberty were kind of running away from that because it was a dangerous position to have.
[00:16:13]  And then just you blew up because so many people wanted to hear that.
[00:16:17]  And I remember talking to Pete Quinones at the beginning of the lockdowns.
[00:16:25]  And me and him were talking on the phone.
[00:16:27]  And he told me, he goes, you know, all these people in the liberty world are saying that like their podcast numbers are going way down.
[00:16:34]  And he's like, how are yours doing?
[00:16:35]  Like, mine are going up.
[00:16:36]  And I was like, mine are way up.
[00:16:38]  And, you know, it was interesting to see that because it's like, oh, well, here's why.
[00:16:44]  Because you guys aren't talking about the crisis that's right in front of us.
[00:16:48]  And those of us who are willing to do it and actually treat it with the importance that it deserves are obviously like, what, if you're talking about current events and somebody's at home and can't leave their home and you're like sitting there talking about, well, you know what?
[00:17:03]  I think is like socialism doesn't work and free market capitalism works and the centralization of power doesn't allow for prices.
[00:17:11]  And like, you know, okay, we all agree on that.
[00:17:13]  But of course, what people want to hear about is the moment they're all living through.
[00:17:17]  And so I think that does, like I said before, it's a nice white pill for me that people responded so well to what you were doing.
[00:17:25]  Yeah, I just think that it's so funny too, because this is why you have become, you know, the preeminent libertarian oriented podcasters, because you have consistently talked about the topical item and you've done it courageously.
[00:17:38]  And that if you've watched your rise, I don't know how anyone could conclude anything other than, hey, truth is actually what libertarians want to hear.
[00:17:45]  And they want to hear it said with courage.
[00:17:47]  And it's like, that's all I did.
[00:17:49]  I literally just followed your lead and I did it out of passion, not to, you know, mimic you or anything.
[00:17:54]  It was just like, this is the obvious truth of the situation is that no matter the danger, we cannot enable the government to do this to us.
[00:18:03]  And if we allow this to happen, we're going to pay forever for it.
[00:18:07]  And it's like the Libertarian Party, again, this perfect example.
[00:18:11]  You were on the front lines talking about the Trump nonsense when it came to his Russian collusion stuff.
[00:18:18]  And so many of the blue-pilled libertarians were buying it, hook line, and sinker.
[00:18:22]  And it's like, yeah, well, after a certain amount of time, you get to a point where you just go, well, fuck these people.
[00:18:26]  I'm not going to listen to these idiots that buy anything the mainstream narrative or mainstream media tries to sell them like or corporate media, excuse me, Michael Mouse.
[00:18:34]  And that's all I'm doing.
[00:18:36]  I'm just continuing on that trend because that's what brought me into speaking about politics.
[00:18:41]  So why would I change now?
[00:18:42]  Yeah.
[00:18:43]  Well, I feel like I feel like that's what I got from Ron Paul was, and not that I was trying to, the same as you said, not that I was trying to mimic him, but that I was inspired by it.
[00:18:53]  I just thought that was the most awesome thing ever was that it's not, it was about talking about the crises that are facing real people and telling the truth about them.
[00:19:04]  And not like, why should we be afraid to say something if we know it's the truth?
[00:19:11]  And like, I just realized it was like when he said that to me, I realized that I loved hearing someone tell the truth.
[00:19:20]  And so I wanted to give that to someone else too.
[00:19:22]  And like, I wanted to, I wanted to be that guy.
[00:19:24]  I'd rather be that guy than the guy who's going, well, I probably avoid the truth, but maybe something approaching the truth.
[00:19:32]  And anyway, that's, that's always what I try to do.
[00:19:36]  That's what I'm getting all this shit on Twitter for.
[00:19:39]  Well, exactly.
[00:19:40]  Exactly.
[00:19:40]  Because I still just want to tell the truth about all this shit.
[00:19:42]  And I love it when there is someone who's a political figure who's willing to be booed.
[00:19:48]  Like that is that is real serious courage because Ron Paul took that Julian Giuliani moment and he just said, We are partially responsible for the blowback that happened on 9-11.
[00:19:59]  Not we, as in us, the American people, but as in like the policy decisions of our predecessors, like it was disastrous, and you can't ignore that fact.
[00:20:09]  You cannot ignore it.
[00:20:10]  I don't care if you were the mayor of the city when it happened.
[00:20:13]  I don't give a fuck about your accolades that you received in that moment.
[00:20:18]  You have to acknowledge that what we did overseas creates real serious ramifications at home.
[00:20:24]  And that is a powerful thing.
[00:20:25]  We have you today because of that moment.
[00:20:28]  Yeah.
[00:20:29]  Think about the butterfly effect.
[00:20:31]  If not for that moment, you may not be involved with this.
[00:20:34]  And because of that, I may not be involved with this.
[00:20:36]  And God knows how many people aren't involved.
[00:20:38]  Yeah, a lot, a lot of other people.
[00:20:39]  If you're doing the Ron Paul butterfly effect, a lot of other people.
[00:20:42]  Exactly.
[00:20:43]  So I'm going to continue in the Ron Paul tradition of getting booed and sometimes being wrong, but speaking from the heart and being as honest as I possibly can 24/7.
[00:20:54]  And if that loses me, fans, fine.
[00:20:56]  You know, I'm not, I'm not really in this for fans.
[00:20:59]  I'm in it for growth.
[00:21:00]  I'm in it for the experience.
[00:21:01]  I love getting to do what I do.
[00:21:03]  And that's all it's about for me.
[00:21:05]  Yeah, it's, it's, um, I've said this before, but I think there's something like to, um, I feel this way, like as a comedian, as a stand-up, and as a libertarian podcaster, and all this, that sometimes it's about like, what are you willing to say that you really believe that might piss off everyone who's listening to you?
[00:21:29]  And if you can find that thing, that's the most important thing for you to say.
[00:21:36]  Like, the most important thing for you to say is the thing you really believe that that is really going to piss people off.
[00:21:41]  Because if you find something that you really believe that everyone's already going to agree with, well, how valuable was it to really say that?
[00:21:49]  You know, would you mind condemning racism for me right now?
[00:21:52]  Right, exactly.
[00:21:52]  You know, exactly.
[00:21:53]  And then even something like that, it's right.
[00:21:55]  Like, while there's like a hysteria about racism, you condemn racism, which is basically just like pandering to the hysteria.
[00:22:03]  So, okay, yeah, I mean, yes, we are all against racism, but when everyone already agrees with that, how valuable is that to say?
[00:22:10]  But if you find the thing that's really going to make your own, like even you know, oh, this is going to hurt.
[00:22:18]  So, and and the, I feel like the further you get, the bigger an audience you get, the more your incentives line up for you to not say that, for you to not do that, because you're like, well, listen, why should I do that when I could just say the thing they'll all cheer for?
[00:22:33]  And this will keep me getting more popular and the money coming in and all of this.
[00:22:37]  But that's the most valuable thing.
[00:22:39]  And so, like, just like you said, that's what I thought was so great about Ron Paul was that he was like, listen, I'm going to say that he always did that.
[00:22:46]  And I try to, I try to do the best I can to live up to that.
[00:22:53]  But look, all none of us are perfect.
[00:22:56]  But I did start a whole here.
[00:22:57]  I guess we could talk about this for a little bit.
[00:22:58]  I did, I did start a whole thing.

=== When Libertarians Lose Sight (14:54) ===

[00:23:00]  Maybe I didn't start.
[00:23:01]  Maybe Those started it.
[00:23:02]  I don't know.
[00:23:03]  But I think I definitely, I'm at least partially to blame or to give credit to, depending on how you look at it, for making it the thing, which look, here's the issue, right?
[00:23:14]  I got a newborn now and almost two months old, tomorrow, two months old.
[00:23:20]  Tomorrow is the 29th, I think, right?
[00:23:22]  Yeah, tomorrow, two months old.
[00:23:23]  And he naps on me.
[00:23:28]  Same thing my daughter did.
[00:23:29]  So, so he, when I put him down, he'll wake up and cry.
[00:23:33]  But if I'm with him in the rocking chair and newborn babies nap like all day long, you know, they'll take like 30-minute naps like nine times a day.
[00:23:40]  So you're just, I'm in the rocking chair and I have to lean back and he's like here and you have nothing.
[00:23:45]  So I'm holding him right here.
[00:23:46]  My wrist, I'm getting like carpal tunnel in my wrist, like holding him like this.
[00:23:49]  But then I have one free hand and I have nothing else I can do.
[00:23:54]  I tweet.
[00:23:55]  I have noticed, I have noticed a re-weaponized Dave Smith over the past couple of years.
[00:23:59]  Well, what else am I going to do?
[00:24:01]  So I'm like, well, I'm like, so let's start some shit, you know?
[00:24:03]  And then I go for about a half hour and then he wakes up and then I go downstairs and I play with my daughter and him and we all have fun.
[00:24:10]  And then I go back up, you know, and I'm like, wow, what happened since then?
[00:24:14]  So anyway, but so I did, I started this whole thing or though started, but I jumped on this whole thing on Twitter about, and this was kind of me trying to do that, like be like, I know, look, I know this will bother a lot of libertarians.
[00:24:28]  And it bothered a lot of the crazy ones, but also bothered a lot of the good ones who I really like.
[00:24:32]  But I was talking about the idea.
[00:24:35]  And I guess this is somewhat inspired by when I was in, I had to, I moved back briefly to New York City when my son was in the NICU, because that was the best hospital in the world.
[00:24:47]  And so I was going to get him the best care in the world.
[00:24:49]  And I wasn't going to have my daughter living far out of the city.
[00:24:52]  So we were all like, we're doing this.
[00:24:54]  We're all moving back in.
[00:24:55]  I needed them to be very close together so we could do that.
[00:24:58]  And while I was there, it was interesting.
[00:25:02]  I mean, I left in March of 2020.
[00:25:07]  Like, I didn't really, now I've been back.
[00:25:10]  I work there a lot and I do agent skanks there and I go in all the time, but I haven't been there like living there with my daughter.
[00:25:17]  And I haven't had the experience of going to the playground with my daughter, who was like one when this happened and is almost three now.
[00:25:28]  And it's a different world.
[00:25:30]  And going there, well, first of all, I guess the kids wearing masks, three-year-olds wearing masks at the playground, that's pretty weird.
[00:25:37]  And also the homeless people there.
[00:25:41]  Kind of a problem for me.
[00:25:43]  And it was a major thing where there are people who are like passed out on the benches while your kids play a few feet away.
[00:25:53]  And, you know, I don't know how much time everyone listening to the show has spent in big cities, but passed out homeless people on park benches are not what you want your three-year-old to be seeing.
[00:26:04]  And so anyway, I was talking about this and I was like, I don't even know.
[00:26:09]  I guess it started with us talking about old Rothbard 90s essays, but I was just like saying, yeah, I basically think that they should be kicked out, which seems like a very reasonable position to any reasonable human being.
[00:26:25]  Like, yes.
[00:26:25]  You unbelievable status.
[00:26:26]  How dare you.
[00:26:27]  Right.
[00:26:28]  Like, as if the right, I'm so unbelievable that I think like they should be told, hey, buddy, you got to leave.
[00:26:34]  And then I get all these responses like, so you want them, you know, you want the cops to brutalize homeless people.
[00:26:40]  Like, well, no, but I do think they should be told to leave.
[00:26:44]  But I part of this was that I had had this experience.
[00:26:48]  And part of it was that I think this is an interesting thing for libertarians to discuss.
[00:26:52]  And also it's that I think this is a real crisis that is happening throughout major cities in America right now, and that libertarians better have an answer to.
[00:27:01]  And I posted a thing the other day about how libertarians really don't have an answer that I have heard of other than Rothbard's to this, to this problem.
[00:27:10]  And Rothbard's answer, of course, was the cops get them the fuck out.
[00:27:15]  And a bunch of libertarians have responded to me with all of these answers of like, well, well, listen, here's what we have to do to eliminate regulation and how, you know, zoning laws and all of this.
[00:27:26]  And I'm like, yeah, yeah, no, listen.
[00:27:27]  It's not that I'm unaware of the shit that I've been talking about for a decade.
[00:27:32]  Not that I don't understand libertarian philosophy.
[00:27:35]  No, I know a lot of those things would make life easier and almost certainly would result in less people being homeless.
[00:27:42]  I'm saying right now, there are homeless junkies sleeping in a playground.
[00:27:50]  What's the answer to that?
[00:27:53]  And I have not heard one.
[00:27:56]  And this has been blowing up on Twitter.
[00:27:58]  Like all of Liberty Twitter has been talking about this.
[00:28:01]  And I still have not heard one other than two.
[00:28:05]  It has been a binary other than they should be removed or tough.
[00:28:11]  You got to deal with it.
[00:28:13]  And that's it.
[00:28:14]  I don't know.
[00:28:14]  Go to your private playground or go to this or leave or whatever it is.
[00:28:19]  And I just got to say, I don't think two is a very serious answer.
[00:28:24]  No.
[00:28:25]  And let's be honest, the reason Thau Bishop has had success with pushing people towards the GOP is because many libertarians approach these topics with a dare I say autistic approach of there are decades of reasons why this now exists and we can all see them.
[00:28:43]  And so it's going to require an extended period of time to remedy it, to which I can, I agree.
[00:28:49]  Yes.
[00:28:50]  Yes.
[00:28:50]  Of course.
[00:28:51]  Of course.
[00:28:51]  Like, like, yes, I understand that there are many just tons of variables that have gone into creating this and it didn't happen overnight and it's not going to be fixed overnight.
[00:29:00]  However, there is a solution that can remedy this immediately.
[00:29:05]  And if libertarians don't have a counterproposal, then what do you think the voters are going to do?
[00:29:11]  They're going to vote for the guy who says, I'm going to sick the police on these homeless drug addicts that are ruining your cities.
[00:29:17]  And if that happens, then we are now back losing, where we have increased state power that is now going after these homeless people, which you allegedly care about, not you, but the people that are saying that you're wrong.
[00:29:29]  And now what?
[00:29:31]  So, I, I, and I, I've, I really tried to stay out of this topic because I was like, you know, I don't, I don't go to parks.
[00:29:38]  Like, I don't even give a shit about this, but I did travel from San Diego to Miami.
[00:29:43]  And let me tell you, there is a homeless epidemic in every single city that I went to.
[00:29:48]  I mean, it is really bad.
[00:29:50]  And not even every city, some smaller areas that you wouldn't have suspected.
[00:29:53]  It's crazy.
[00:29:54]  There are so many homeless drug addict, mentally ill people in this country.
[00:29:58]  And it's like, I have tremendous sympathy for what they've gone through.
[00:30:02]  Simultaneously, I sold my house because a homeless dude shit in my front yard and I want to beat that dude's ass.
[00:30:08]  So like, I have, I have some of my own, you know, bias here that I'm trying to sort out.
[00:30:16]  But it's, it's a problem, man.
[00:30:17]  And if we, if we don't have any, any sort of offer to these, the voter, then yeah, they're going to go with, you know, DeSantis telling them we're going to put these people in prison or whatever.
[00:30:26]  Yeah.
[00:30:26]  So I agree with all of that.
[00:30:28]  But just on top of that, it's not even just the voter as much as it is the person listening who could either be persuaded by our ideas or go, this is just, you just don't have anything here, man.
[00:30:42]  Like, I'll go with the person's ideas.
[00:30:44]  Like, even if it's not casting a vote for you or someone else, it's just casting a like, well, I'm not going to listen to you anymore.
[00:30:52]  I'm going to listen to this guy, or I'm not going to identify as a libertarian.
[00:30:55]  I'm going to identify as a right-winger or whatever it is.
[00:30:57]  It's like, if you're sitting there and saying, like, well, your principles mean that in order for you to be consistently pure in your own mind, you won't do something that would allow these three and four and five-year-olds to play in a safe environment because you feel better about yourself, not advocating that.
[00:31:20]  And but, you know, to me, like, first of all, that's appalling.
[00:31:26]  Like I find that to be almost like I compare it to like some like communist type mentality that you're like, well, I have this ideology in my head and my ideology being perfect is more important than the suffering of children.
[00:31:39]  Like that's, and I just, I'm appalled by that.
[00:31:42]  But on top of that, I don't even think the ideology is correct.
[00:31:46]  Like I don't, and this is the point I was trying to make, which I'm sure I could have done a better job as always, but you know, like there is this weird thing.
[00:31:55]  And this is what I found so interesting about this.
[00:31:58]  And of course, I tweeted a couple of things about this.
[00:32:00]  And then my weakness is that I can't resist bad arguments.
[00:32:04]  And so I just have to be like, no, I'm sorry.
[00:32:07]  Especially libertarian bad arguments.
[00:32:09]  I can't resist.
[00:32:10]  But so the idea that keeps coming up, and Rothbard wrote a lot about this, particularly in the 90s.
[00:32:17]  He said something, and I'll butcher the quote, but it was along the lines of, he said, some libertarians are so perfect on high theory, but so devoid of common sense that it not only discredits them, but it discredits their beautiful high theory that they have.
[00:32:36]  And there's really something to that where people go, not only, listen, even if you go, look, we have all the long-term solutions and we or the best ones possible, but we're not going to do anything about this.
[00:32:49]  That people go, well, fuck that.
[00:32:51]  Whereas like, there's no reason why you can't go, well, listen, here's the ideal that we get to this.
[00:32:56]  But in the meantime, someone's got to tell these guys to beat it.
[00:33:00]  And there's really, I'll tell you, and here's the real crux of the issue to me.
[00:33:04]  And this has to do with the immigration debate.
[00:33:06]  It has to do with the homeless problem.
[00:33:08]  It has to do with a lot of these things.
[00:33:10]  The idea that public property should be open to everyone, no matter what the situation is, has nothing to do with libertarianism.
[00:33:23]  You cannot deduce it from libertarian principles.
[00:33:26]  You cannot say, well, I believe in self-ownership and private property rights and the non-aggression principle.
[00:33:33]  And I believe taxation is theft.
[00:33:35]  And therefore, when the government steals from people, everyone of the world owns that equally.
[00:33:43]  Like that last part doesn't follow.
[00:33:45]  And I actually believe that no libertarian really believes that last part, but they act as if they do.
[00:33:53]  And, you know, I've argued with a lot of people online about this where you're like, oh, okay.
[00:33:58]  So what exactly are you saying here?
[00:34:00]  If the government owns anything, then they can't exclude anyone from it.
[00:34:05]  Because no one really wants to follow that implication all the way to its logical conclusion.
[00:34:10]  So why is it that if there's a playground and there's homeless drug addicts all over it, we can't get the cops to just kick those people out.
[00:34:21]  And don't give me this shit about like, well, you're setting a precedent that cops could then be violent toward other people.
[00:34:27]  They already are.
[00:34:28]  Yes.
[00:34:28]  That's already, that's, that's been done and over with.
[00:34:32]  Yes.
[00:34:32]  So if they're being violent to everyone else, I'm not saying beat the shit out of the homeless guy.
[00:34:36]  I'm saying make him leave the minimal necessary force to keep him away from children.
[00:34:42]  So children can play in an environment where they don't have to look at a dude jacking off before he does fucking heroin.
[00:34:49]  This is a crazy position.
[00:34:51]  I'm telling you, like people may think that you're being hyperbolic with that, but downtown San Diego, multiple times I have seen dudes, not just with heroin needles sticking out of their arms as they're unconscious on the street.
[00:35:04]  And this is San Diego, which is not LA where it's really, really bad.
[00:35:07]  This is San Diego.
[00:35:08]  And then also dudes covering themselves with blankets, jerking off on the street.
[00:35:12]  And it like, it happens all the time.
[00:35:14]  And it's like, do you want your kids around that?
[00:35:16]  Do you think that anyone's going to respect your opinion if you say, well, that sucks.
[00:35:21]  And that's all I have to say about it.
[00:35:23]  Like, no, people are going to, people are going to want some ideas and some solutions.
[00:35:27]  And the solution can't be, well, once we reform the medical system to deal with mental health better, and then we put social workers to replace the police, and then we defund the cops and then we do this and we do that.
[00:35:39]  It's like, all right, come on, man.
[00:35:41]  Like, these people have kids that are four today.
[00:35:44]  They aren't waiting for them to be 14 to go use that public park.
[00:35:47]  So you better have an answer, like soon.
[00:35:50]  And I, you know, it hurts me.
[00:35:52]  I don't like to say it, but after great in-depth reflection, I can conclude, concluded that Rothbard probably was right.
[00:36:00]  That if you can put liability back on the cops, then that's probably your best short-term solution is to unleash the cops to go deal with it.
[00:36:09]  And no, I don't mean unleashes and like put them in gulags or use crazy violence, but well, yeah, a little right.
[00:36:17]  Yeah.
[00:36:18]  I mean, do what they have to do to keep like drug drug addicts and like vagrant drug addicts away from children.
[00:36:29]  I think that should be priority number one.
[00:36:32]  And it's very interesting to see some of the responses that I've got from libertarians who oppose this, who really, I think, have not thought this through at all.
[00:36:41]  And many of them, it just becomes very apparent don't have kids.
[00:36:44]  And not even don't have kids, but haven't even thought about what it's like to have kids.
[00:36:48]  Like one of the guys, and someone I really like, I won't name him here, but someone I really like, who's a member of the Mises caucus.
[00:36:56]  And he said to me, he goes, look, dude, like the first thing you should do is just move out of that area.
[00:37:03]  And you're like, yeah, already did that.
[00:37:06]  But then my boy needed heart surgery.
[00:37:08]  So I had to go back to that area.
[00:37:10]  So don't, it's not as simple as that.
[00:37:12]  You know what I mean?
[00:37:13]  And then also I have the resources.
[00:37:16]  Exactly.
[00:37:17]  I have the resources.
[00:37:18]  I can just move.
[00:37:18]  Not everybody can afford to be taxed for the resources and then have resources on top of that to move out of that area.
[00:37:24]  But I'm lucky I do.
[00:37:26]  But I'm also still kind of thinking of those people who don't, right?
[00:37:29]  Of course.
[00:37:29]  So, but he goes, he goes, either move out of the area or just bring a gun with you next time.
[00:37:36]  And, you know, you're like, dude, do you really like think this through?
[00:37:40]  I'm going with my three-year-old.
[00:37:43]  Now, and he goes, well, why don't you do it yourself?
[00:37:45]  You know, tell them to leave, bring a gun with you and make them leave.
[00:37:47]  You're like, look, I don't know how to explain this to people.
[00:37:52]  I would, there are- Don't call the cops commit a felony, brother.

=== Gun Rights vs Public Safety (03:34) ===

[00:37:55]  There is almost nothing.
[00:37:58]  There are things someone could say to me or approach me in a certain way that would get me to beat the shit out of them in real life.
[00:38:06]  With my three-year-old daughter with me, you'd have to be threatening her before I'd lay a finger on you.
[00:38:13]  You could say the most fucked up shit ever to me, approach me in any type of way.
[00:38:17]  And I would look over at my three-year-old daughter and be like, This guy's being silly.
[00:38:21]  We're going to go home because he's so silly.
[00:38:23]  I would never get it's not an option to get in a fist fight in front of my three-year-old daughter because that would be traumatic for her to see her father in that situation, let alone pull out a gun and like threaten someone to leave.
[00:38:40]  My daughter needs to get on that fucking slide, bro.
[00:38:43]  Get out of here.
[00:38:44]  Are you out of your mind that you think this is possibly an option that I could just go, oh, yeah, you know, like right at the playground?
[00:38:52]  I'm just, it's like, come on, man.
[00:38:54]  This is none of this is practical.
[00:38:56]  And so, like, no, someone needs to be the one who's in charge of this.
[00:39:02]  And I don't think it's unreasonable for libertarians to say, like, look, we don't believe that we believe everything should be privatized.
[00:39:11]  And under those situations, there'd be no problem like this, obviously, right?
[00:39:15]  They're gonna have a big problem with heroin addicts at Disney World.
[00:39:19]  Like, that's just not a big problem because they won't let them in.
[00:39:22]  And that's fine.
[00:39:24]  But to say, if there is this public property, that we shouldn't maintain it in something simulating what it would be like as a private enterprise.
[00:39:38]  Like that now, that's not saying that's not a perfect theory.
[00:39:41]  It has to be applied within reason because I've heard other people say, you know, well, I mean, Bob Murphy said, and I know he's, he's, he was being tongue in cheek a little bit and saying this in jest, but he goes, well, maybe that's okay to ban all marijuana users from, you know, government roads.
[00:40:01]  And I said, okay, you can apply the situation.
[00:40:04]  You can apply that idea in a ridiculous way.
[00:40:09]  But how about public schools insisting that teachers can't smoke pot on school grounds?
[00:40:19]  Is that unfair?
[00:40:20]  Would libertarians object to that?
[00:40:22]  Would they say, well, that's a violation of his freedom and he's a nonviolent criminal and you would use force.
[00:40:28]  You would send men with guns to fight.
[00:40:31]  It's like, yeah, okay, fine.
[00:40:33]  I would.
[00:40:33]  Like in this imperfect situation, we have to find some way to reasonably deal with these problems.
[00:40:40]  And I don't think that it's reasonable to say that, like, listen, if people are doing drugs and leaving needles on the ground and like taking over entire blocks and playgrounds and all of this shit, I think, I think they should be forced out and by whoever has to do it.
[00:40:57]  And I don't think there's anything unlibertarian about that.
[00:41:00]  In fact, I think it's a, you're in a situation where your choice is almost, look, if you just let homeless people take over this playground, then it becomes a public homeless playground.
[00:41:11]  And now the taxpayer is subsidizing homeless drug addicts.
[00:41:16]  Right.
[00:41:16]  And okay, I don't like the taxpayer subsidizing anything by force, but I'd rather they subsidize a play area for beautiful little boys and girls to play than for homeless drug addicts to do heroin.

=== Cuts Clothing Sponsorship (03:16) ===

[00:41:30]  Yeah.
[00:41:30]  I mean, if that makes me not a good libertarian, then okay, fine.
[00:41:34]  Well, I've already been called not a good libertarian for not supporting private businesses implementing vaccine passports.
[00:41:41]  So I'm over people demonizing me for having slightly, I don't know, gray area libertarian takes that I feel very passionate about.
[00:41:50]  I feel that a sit-in to a private business that is alienating half the population after the president of the United States came out and said, you can't have these people as your customers.
[00:42:00]  I'm fine with that.
[00:42:02]  And I'm like, it is a very complicated topic and it's one I never thought I'd encounter.
[00:42:07]  It's a fascistic alliance between, you know, government and business.
[00:42:11]  And there's no way to know what the business owner actually truly believes in their heart.
[00:42:14]  So I'm going to err on the side of that business wants my money.
[00:42:18]  That's what I'm going to err on the side of.
[00:42:20]  And if that makes me not a libertarian, because they are telling me to leave and now I'm sitting in and I'm screwing up their business.
[00:42:25]  Okay.
[00:42:25]  I don't want to live in a country that honors property rights to the point that we have an apartheid state.
[00:42:32]  No, thank you.
[00:42:33]  Right.
[00:42:34]  And you know what?
[00:42:34]  Okay.
[00:42:34]  So let's like even transition to that.
[00:42:37]  And we could talk more about if someone wants to come like debate me on the fucking topic of the homeless people being evicted from public grounds, we could get into that more.
[00:42:46]  I'm open to this if someone wants to.
[00:42:49]  I do say the last thing I'll say on that, and because I want to get into, I think this is a more relevant and interesting way to apply these principles.
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=== Finding Therapy with BetterHelp (10:41) ===

[00:44:46]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:44:48]  Uh, but I'll just say that there is, and I made this point when I was, and you were in the thread when I was arguing with Ace, who I like very much.
[00:44:56]  I don't know him personally, but I like him.
[00:44:57]  I think he's a good dude.
[00:44:59]  Um, but like, um, when I was making the point where I was like, look, there is no libertarian who rejects this principle completely.
[00:45:06]  They may not admit it, but they don't reject it completely.
[00:45:10]  Like, there are some, no libertarian is actually going to say that public property is always open to everyone, and that that's the correct position.
[00:45:21]  You're not going to say that any random, you know, drug addict can go hang out and do drugs at a public elementary school.
[00:45:32]  You're not going to say that.
[00:45:33]  You're not going to say that anyone that someone illiterate should be accepted to a public college.
[00:45:39]  You're not going to say that.
[00:45:40]  You're just not going to say that.
[00:45:42]  You're going to say that they have a right to, you know what I mean?
[00:45:45]  Like, like you're not going to say that a teacher found watching, you know, child pornography in class, like, okay, it's not facing the children.
[00:45:55]  It's just facing himself.
[00:45:56]  So it's not like an act of aggression that he can't be fired.
[00:45:59]  So you're not going to say that.
[00:46:01]  You're just going to start arbitrarily drawing lines of when it is okay and when it's not okay.
[00:46:06]  But to you, I'm happy to have this conversation with anyone who wants to, you know, challenge me on it.
[00:46:12]  But so to your point, I think this has been one of, and I know you took a stance on this.
[00:46:19]  This has been one of the issues that libertarians have been divided over.
[00:46:24]  And I'll tell you that I was until the Biden OSHA mandate, I was still holding on to the view that, look, we don't even need to ban businesses from firing people for not have or insisting that they have the vaccine.
[00:46:46]  Who the fuck cares?
[00:46:47]  The market will settle that in a second.
[00:46:49]  You want to be the only business that discriminates in your area?
[00:46:52]  Okay, everyone else is going to crush you.
[00:46:55]  And that's, and it did seem like to me, that was the correct position.
[00:46:58]  But once the Biden OSHA mandates came in, even though they've been pushed back, pushed back, and all of this stuff, a lot of the businesses have still been insisting on it.
[00:47:09]  And once you have a federal mandate that says you have to either be vaccinated or tested, if a state government is to say, well, we take no position on that, then many of these big giant corporations, like say in Texas or something like that, are going to go, all right, well, you take no position, but the federal government is telling me that I have to have these people vaccinated or tested weekly.
[00:47:36]  So I'm going to err on the side of safety and not be against any government.
[00:47:40]  And like governments affect markets in profound ways.
[00:47:44]  And so it almost seemed at that point necessary for there to be some state government that said, no, listen, it's illegal here for you to do that.
[00:47:54]  And yeah, look, I do think, look, I think you're a libertarian if your ideal is a private property-based society, you know, consistent with the non-aggression principle and all of that.
[00:48:09]  But sometimes there's a certain point where we don't know exactly what's going to be best to lead to that.
[00:48:15]  And there's no question to me, right?
[00:48:18]  Like without the massive propaganda campaign of the corporate press, without the unprecedented outrageous tyrannical policies of the lockdowns and the mandates and the vaccine passports and all of this stuff, there's no question that you wouldn't, we'd be in 2019, you know?
[00:48:36]  And so now we're not because of all of those things.
[00:48:41]  And so the idea that you'd say, well, look, whatever can get us kind of back to 2019, whatever can usher that back in, yeah, it may not be perfectly libertarian in the moment, but it's also not perfectly libertarian to say, well, look at all of that and respond with nothing.
[00:49:00]  Yeah.
[00:49:01]  Like I said, to start this all off, I don't want to live like this for the rest of my life.
[00:49:06]  Like, I'm sorry.
[00:49:07]  I really enjoyed my life pre-lockdowns and I will fight until I die to get it back.
[00:49:12]  So that's how I feel about it.
[00:49:14]  And if you, if you feel me on that, then you should be willing to consider that perhaps the most principled libertarian stand is we stand by and we watch all of this tyranny happen and none of us pick up weaponry to go fight and defend ourselves.
[00:49:26]  Well, then you're going to end up in a dystopic nightmare because we have existed in one for quite a while now.
[00:49:32]  And I'm unwilling to allow this to continue.
[00:49:36]  I think a lot of people feel the same way, but they're not really willing.
[00:49:40]  Like they would rather feel as if they're principally principle and correct and just that's what they want.
[00:49:47]  And I just don't care.
[00:49:48]  Like I and I know that may make me sound as if like, oh, I'd be capable of great evil.
[00:49:53]  My intention is to retrieve my liberty and nothing more.
[00:49:57]  I'm not trying to take anyone's freedom away.
[00:50:00]  I just want mine back.
[00:50:02]  And that's, you know, that's my principle.
[00:50:05]  And it bothers me that people don't really, they don't seem to have the same urgency about this.
[00:50:11]  And I've been doing this show for a year and a half now.
[00:50:13]  And it's like, like, this is, there's so much that's happening week after week that's tyrannical and insane that I can't even fill enough shows, like I don't even do enough shows to cover everything.
[00:50:24]  It's unbelievable how rapidly things have sped up and granted, I wasn't doing a show before, so maybe I wasn't paying attention, but i'm pretty damn sure, and you can confirm or deny, that things have gotten nuts over the past two years, that's for sure.
[00:50:40]  So yeah it's, it's.
[00:50:41]  I mean, today on the Morning Morning NEWS, Fauci says he cannot uh, dismiss the concept of further lockdowns.
[00:50:49]  And then I had a buddy today DM me who's got military context.
[00:50:52]  And I don't want to scare people, but he threw out the idea.
[00:50:55]  And the only reason I'm bringing this up, because I don't really like to start rumors, but the only reason I'm bringing this up is because I think it's very important that we are galvanized instantaneously on this if it happens, is that they are considering a federal level lockdown of the unvaccinated in this country.
[00:51:12]  That's what he heard.
[00:51:13]  That's what he heard that they are doing operations to prepare for with the military.
[00:51:17]  It's happened in a lot of other countries across the planet.
[00:51:19]  And that's the only reason I'm mentioning it because I wouldn't have thought it possible two years ago, but now I have to take it seriously.
[00:51:25]  This shit is serious.
[00:51:27]  Like it is very, very serious.
[00:51:29]  And I'm doing everything in my power to prevent a hot conflict, which I feel like if we go down this path many, like not too many steps further, that's where we're going to end up.
[00:51:40]  And ultimately, my greatest driving force is peace.
[00:51:43]  And I don't want war, but I also want to be free.
[00:51:46]  So I have to balance all of these things out.
[00:51:48]  I have to try not to end up in hot conflict, but I also have to try not to become a slave because I will not be one.
[00:51:54]  So, you know, where everyone finds the balance in that is up to the individual.
[00:51:59]  Yeah.
[00:51:59]  No, I think that's exactly right.
[00:52:01]  Well, you see it.
[00:52:02]  Look, New York declaring a state of emergency is that was an ominous sign that something, because all that really means is it's like, look, we've basically declared dictatorship again.
[00:52:21]  And so just so you know, whatever comes next, we have a right to do this.
[00:52:27]  And there's, I mean, something like there, I mean, the numbers in New York City right now, there couldn't, or it was New York State.
[00:52:36]  I'm sorry, that declared it, but the numbers in New York City right now, which is the majority of the, you know, highly densely populated area, is it's a few dozen hospitalizations a day.
[00:52:46]  There's no numbers that justify this.
[00:52:49]  It's just, well, there's this new variant coming.
[00:52:51]  And so we predict.
[00:52:52]  Oh, we predict.
[00:52:53]  You know, like there's been a lot of we predicts over the last year and a half that have not come true.
[00:52:59]  They were just saying that in October, there was supposed to be some huge spike in the Delta variant.
[00:53:05]  Never came true.
[00:53:06]  And they just move on.
[00:53:07]  You know, same, same with Florida.
[00:53:10]  Florida will spike up and they'll go, Florida is going to, in two weeks from now, Florida is going to be a zombie land.
[00:53:16]  And then it just goes back down.
[00:53:17]  And then they just move on to the next thing.
[00:53:18]  So Florida is now the less.
[00:53:20]  Right.
[00:53:21]  Yeah.
[00:53:21]  Right.
[00:53:21]  So fuck the we predict this is going to happen or this isn't going to happen.
[00:53:25]  But all right, guys, let's take a moment to let you know that today's episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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[00:55:26]  All right, let's get back into the show.

=== Awakening People to Lies (13:43) ===

[00:55:28]  I think there's a real battle right now going on.
[00:55:31]  And it is possible that all of this COVID tyranny kind of recedes, but I don't think it's going to recede back to what 2019 was.
[00:55:43]  I think it's going to recede into them jumping on the next thing, which is probably going to be climate change.
[00:55:48]  You know, yeah, we'll see.
[00:55:49]  We'll see exactly what it is.
[00:55:51]  But there's got to be like it's not, it's, it's not the time to distinguish between private and public and toe the line and say, well, you know, I think it's okay that everybody, all these giant corporations do this, but the government doesn't do this.
[00:56:09]  This is the time to blast this entire regime and stand against it and really try to, you know, galvanize the people who are already awake and awaken as many more people as we can.
[00:56:23]  That's that's how I feel about it.
[00:56:25]  And the remarkable thing is we don't have a ton of political power, and yet people still talk as if, like, well, if I if I tweet about something that's slightly un-libertarian, then I've all is lost.
[00:56:38]  It's like, bro, you've been locked in your fucking house for over a year.
[00:56:40]  Like, what are you talking about?
[00:56:41]  Who cares what you tweeted?
[00:56:43]  This shit doesn't matter.
[00:56:44]  So I don't know.
[00:56:45]  I'm just trying to like really get people to kind of eye on the prize this thing because you're right.
[00:56:49]  We are defeating these mandates and we're defeating defeating the vaccine passports and we're defeating a lot of things just by people not complying and it's and it making businesses suffer.
[00:56:58]  But let's be honest, it looks as if the Omicron or whatever, however you pronounce it very variant is it looks like it might be their last push to try and do one more lockdown or something crazy like that.
[00:57:10]  And if we can't come together really, really quickly and say, none of us are going to comply.
[00:57:16]  We're not buying your fear mongering.
[00:57:18]  We've, you know, you're the boy who's cried wolf way too many times and we're not buying your bullshit anymore.
[00:57:23]  Then we have the chance because there is still a huge number of people in this country that buy every single corporate narrative that gets pushed, that we end up being locked down again.
[00:57:32]  And if we do, given the economic destruction that has already occurred and the amount of printing that's gone into covering this up, God knows what that amounts to.
[00:57:41]  And the mental health crisis, the drug addiction, all these other things that we've suffered for the past year and a half, the things that you and I and Tom Woods and a whole bunch of other people have fought tooth and nail to bring to shed light upon.
[00:57:53]  I'm just unwilling to cede any ground at this point.
[00:57:56]  Like we cannot allow them to take another step forward.
[00:57:59]  Every step has to be backwards from here.
[00:58:02]  And that's kind of like, that's my driving force right now.
[00:58:05]  Yeah.
[00:58:06]  Yeah.
[00:58:06]  Well, I think that's exactly right.
[00:58:08]  And I think that the, of course, like the goal for us is to get to a free society or as close as we can.
[00:58:19]  But right now, you have to kind of recognize what the enemy is and what the real threat to a free society is.
[00:58:26]  And whether that comes by public or private means, I want to oppose that.
[00:58:31]  Like, I, you know, I mean, look, at the end of the day, like me and you aren't the government anyway.
[00:58:36]  We're not initiating violence on anyone.
[00:58:37]  So I just want to oppose whoever is pushing the narrative that's going to take us closer to this awful destination.
[00:58:47]  And you're right.
[00:58:48]  I think that when the Delta variant came, they, you know, this was a big, you know, it's kind of like there was a lull and they stepped back up in all of the COVID tyranny.
[00:58:59]  And now it seems like we're right on the precipice of another ramp up in COVID tyranny.
[00:59:05]  And so this is going to be a big one.
[00:59:07]  This is going to be a big one to see what people do and how people respond to this.
[00:59:11]  And I think there are some, there are some signs that would be cause for optimism that people really are, a lot more people are woken up.
[00:59:26]  And that's the key.
[00:59:27]  I think the key is to awaken more people.
[00:59:30]  And some people have made the point that, you know, without the lockdowns, and I've made this point too, that there is a silver lining to this.
[00:59:36]  A ton of people have been woken up to the tyranny of government because of what's transpired over the past year and a half.
[00:59:41]  And I am grateful for it in a weird way, even though I have suffered tremendously from these lockdowns.
[00:59:47]  But the truth is, there is also a tipping point at which the economic destruction will be so cataclysmic that we will not recover.
[00:59:54]  I mean, we will recover over decades, sure, but I'm saying like, if you have a default on the national debt and the complete destruction or the hyperinflation of the US dollar, you're going to deal with a decade plus of recovery.
[01:00:06]  And that's a long time.
[01:00:08]  Like people die during depressions.
[01:00:10]  I don't know if people understand that, but this is not a joke and it's not a game.
[01:00:14]  And like there is real life ramifications when you break an economy, much less the global economy, which has really never happened before.
[01:00:22]  So I just, I'm just trying to address this with the urgency, but my background as a mortgage broker and having managed hundreds of millions of dollars is that I understand this stuff on a level that a lot of people don't.
[01:00:31]  And I'm just trying to like really instill in people that this is not just theory.
[01:00:37]  These are real lives.
[01:00:38]  These are real people killing themselves and dying of drug addictions.
[01:00:42]  Like this is real shit.
[01:00:43]  And if you have bankruptcies across the board, as we saw with Evergrande China, which is $300 billion company, the biggest construction lender in China or developer.
[01:00:53]  And then you have all of these, this contagion effect where you have all these other companies in China that are now missing payments and things like that.
[01:01:00]  That alone, I mean, you could see a contagion effect that affects the U.S. stock market.
[01:01:04]  Tow was down 900 on Friday just on the murmurs of Omicron being a big deal.
[01:01:09]  And God, I have no idea if I'm pronouncing that right.
[01:01:11]  Forgive me.
[01:01:13]  And it's just like, this is all, I mean, we're dealing with a house of cards.
[01:01:17]  And it's just, this is why I support what you're doing so much is because I really feel as if the clock is ticking so loudly.
[01:01:23]  And I'm so grateful to have kind of a Ron Paul 2.0 that is able to get out there and tell people our belief system in a compelling, passionate way that actually wakes people up and gets them to change their lifestyles and gets them to do things differently now, because it's not enough to just rely on politics to save you.
[01:01:40]  Like this is politics has failed us miserably and we're on the precipice of serious economic catastrophe.
[01:01:47]  And it's like, get on board, folks.
[01:01:51]  Well, look, I mean, here's how I feel about it.
[01:01:53]  It's like, look, we can't control government policy, at least right now.
[01:01:59]  We can't control Fed policy, at least right now.
[01:02:02]  We can't control all of these factors.
[01:02:04]  But what we can do is say, hey, there's all of this propaganda trying to get people to believe in this and trying to get people to go along.
[01:02:14]  And we can damn sure play our little part in, you know, getting in there and countering that propaganda.
[01:02:23]  So if nothing else, I can make people think that they don't have to believe all this shit.
[01:02:28]  And that's kind of been my mission from the very beginning is like being like, listen, and I've said this for years, probably at least a decade now, that I've said to whoever will listen that I may not be able to convince you to be an anarchist, you know?
[01:02:45]  And I understand it took me a long time.
[01:02:48]  I had to read a lot of books to convince me.
[01:02:50]  And even then, I had to battle with myself.
[01:02:52]  And it was a whole thing before I actually became an anarchist.
[01:02:57]  But I think I can convince you that everyone is lying to you and that this whole thing is bullshit.
[01:03:05]  I think I can convince you of that fairly quickly.
[01:03:08]  And I'll at least take that.
[01:03:11]  And I don't know.
[01:03:13]  If there's something better than that, then okay, I'm open to it.
[01:03:17]  But I know that I can at least convince people that they are being lied to and they're being lied to for a reason.
[01:03:22]  And if those people who are lying to you think it's important to lie to you, then I think it's important to let you know that they're lying to you.
[01:03:30]  Yep.
[01:03:30]  And what is being immersed in lies and knowing it other than just critical thinking?
[01:03:36]  I mean, what does it require of you to free yourself of that environment?
[01:03:41]  It's critical thought.
[01:03:42]  And that's probably the thing that the American people lack the most because of public schooling and a whole bunch of other variables and indoctrination from corporate media and politicians and everything else.
[01:03:51]  But we have made enormous progress.
[01:03:54]  I look like Trump because I'm inspired by Trump because he helped in this process.
[01:03:58]  And that was probably the best part of his presidency is that the veil was lifted, the mask dropped, and we all got to see how much of this shit was all bullshit.
[01:04:06]  And it's like, this is another example and another opportunity for us to point to people and say, hey, look at these countries that didn't have vaccine passports and mask mandates and look at the results.
[01:04:18]  Like these are opportunities for us to red pill people further.
[01:04:22]  And if we are the people that bring them to that light, they're going to trust us.
[01:04:27]  And that's valuable because you want people, especially that have been lied to, to find someone to trust in that isn't a con artist.
[01:04:34]  That's really key because a lot of people realized they were being lied to and they went with Donald Trump.
[01:04:39]  I don't think Donald Trump's a real honest dude.
[01:04:41]  So I would like for the people that were waking up to follow someone that can actually continue to tell them the truth and allow them to work on their own lives and realize that they need to stand up on their own two feet and fight like hell to retrieve their liberty.
[01:04:51]  And I feel like we have the greatest opportunity in my lifetime to do so.
[01:04:55]  So God willing, we'll do it.
[01:04:57]  Yeah, well, I do think it's a big opportunity.
[01:05:00]  And I was talking last night.
[01:05:03]  I joined on a Mises caucus donor meeting call.
[01:05:09]  And I was talking to a lot of the people who support the Mises caucus.
[01:05:12]  And I was telling them, like, I was like, look, I'm so grateful for everything everyone's done so far.
[01:05:19]  But just know that it's from now till Reno.
[01:05:23]  Like we have a few months in this Libertarian Party before we have accomplished the first part of our mission, which was to be like, we are going to take the Libertarian Party and make it a force for the Liberty movement.
[01:05:39]  And when we do that, I'm really excited about what the prospects for the future are and that we now own the Libertarian Party.
[01:05:50]  And when I say own it, I don't even mean like, I just mean all the people who really believe in human liberty, who really oppose all of this government tyranny, that they have a hub.
[01:05:59]  We have one little like thing that is a political party that does have ballot access just about everywhere that does have a name behind it that can say, We stand up here as the alternative option to the Democrats and the Republicans.
[01:06:15]  Because look, you could get Trump in again, but what's Trump going to do except usher in the next phase of all this nonsense, just like he did the last year of his presidency?
[01:06:23]  What are the Republicans going to do when they take over that?
[01:06:25]  You know, but now you have an alternative option.
[01:06:28]  And even if they're not going to win political power, they can wake up a fuck ton of people.
[01:06:35]  And like, we can really do that.
[01:06:37]  And so I'm excited about that.
[01:06:38]  And I would, there's the shameless plug I'll give you: takehumanaction.com.
[01:06:43]  Go if you can right now.
[01:06:45]  The next few months are the most important time.
[01:06:47]  Go help out the Mises caucus right now.
[01:06:50]  If you're already giving money, if you're given $10, give $15.
[01:06:53]  You know what I mean?
[01:06:54]  If you can.
[01:06:55]  If you're given $100, give $200 if you can.
[01:06:57]  And if not, ask them how you can help in some other way if you can't give money because we're about to do something really cool that's going to make a lot of noise.
[01:07:05]  And I'm pretty excited about it.
[01:07:08]  And also, if you have the time, show up at Reno, become a delegate now.
[01:07:13]  I mean, I'm going to do it myself.
[01:07:15]  And I've never been like, just so people know a little bit about me, I was never politically involved.
[01:07:20]  I was an entrepreneur.
[01:07:21]  I was interested in money and girls and living.
[01:07:23]  And I had no fucking interest in the Libertarian Party.
[01:07:26]  But life, my life was in there, you know, they got in my way.
[01:07:31]  The government decided we're no longer going to let you fucking be you, bro.
[01:07:34]  So I was like, all right, bitch, let's go.
[01:07:37]  This is, this is how I function.
[01:07:39]  Like, I really didn't want to be involved in politics.
[01:07:41]  But if I can have a political party that carries my banner, that messages in a way that I believe in, that can actually wake people up and give me more allies in this fight.
[01:07:50]  As I've said, I don't believe that there's a political solution to this before the economic collapse.
[01:07:54]  However, I want as many people woken up as possible.
[01:07:57]  And we have a tremendous opportunity.
[01:07:58]  Go to Reno, be a delegate, vote for Angela McCartle.
[01:08:01]  Let's get it going.
[01:08:02]  Oh, yeah.
[01:08:03]  Fuck yeah, dude.
[01:08:04]  Well, Clint, thank you so much, brother.
[01:08:06]  I appreciate it.
[01:08:06]  It's always a pleasure to talk to you, man.
[01:08:08]  And we'll have to do this again and again and again.
[01:08:11]  All right, definitely.
[01:08:13]  Real quick, can I just plug my show?
[01:08:15]  Well, yes, I was just going to lead into that.
[01:08:17]  Go ahead.
[01:08:17]  Oh, my bad.
[01:08:18]  My bad.
[01:08:19]  So Liberty Lockdown on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, all over the place.
[01:08:24]  At Liberty Lockpod on Twitter, Liberty Lockdown on Instagram.
[01:08:27]  And over the past month, I have had on an amazing guest list.
[01:08:30]  I need to get Dave back on.
[01:08:31]  I'm sure it will happen at some point, but I've had on Guy Swan, Jessica Vaughan, Ian and Lydia from Timcast IRL, Zuby, Matt Cavey, Adam Curry, Dave Rubin, and a bunch more.
[01:08:41]  The show is incredible.
[01:08:43]  I get to talk to people that open my mind, allow me to think differently, including Dave.
[01:08:48]  It's just an amazing experience.
[01:08:50]  And I really feel like I've created a little family over there.
[01:08:52]  So hop on board.
[01:08:53]  I would love to have you guys.
[01:08:55]  It is one of the best shows out there.
[01:08:57]  I can't recommend it highly enough.
[01:08:59]  And I'm really grateful to you for coming on again.
[01:09:02]  And I always love talking with you.
[01:09:04]  So go support Clint.
[01:09:06]  Liberty Lockdown.
[01:09:07]  Thank you for joining us.
[01:09:08]  Thank you guys all for listening.
[01:09:09]  And we'll catch you next time.
[01:09:11]  Peace.