Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - John Stewart's Flawed Logic
Aired: 2023-03-07
Duration: 01:11:43


=== Fighting Government Overreach (13:40) ===

[00:00:00]  Fill her up.
[00:00:02]  You are listening to the Gash Digital Network.
[00:00:09]  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.
[00:00:34]  What's up, everybody?
[00:00:35]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
[00:00:38]  I'm the libertarian Tupac, aka Dave Smith.
[00:00:41]  He is the king of the caulks.
[00:00:43]  Robbie the Fire Bernstein, aka COVID Jesus.
[00:00:46]  What's up, brother?
[00:00:47]  How you feeling?
[00:00:48]  Oh, I'm having a good time.
[00:00:50]  I partied with those Free State Project people.
[00:00:52]  Did Lewis's gig on Friday night?
[00:00:54]  Fun weekend.
[00:00:55]  Oh, you were up in the Free State.
[00:00:56]  I knew you were opening for Lewis, but I didn't even realize you were up there in New Hampshire.
[00:01:00]  Where were you guys?
[00:01:00]  I did a gig at the Quill little libertarian clubhouse thing party.
[00:01:06]  It's a separate thing.
[00:01:07]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:01:08]  Ton of fun.
[00:01:09]  Nice, nice, nice.
[00:01:10]  Very good.
[00:01:10]  Robbie the Fire Bernstein up in the free state.
[00:01:13]  We love our people up in New Hampshire at the Free State Project.
[00:01:17]  Good, good people up there.
[00:01:18]  And of course, me and you will be out this weekend in Potts Town, Pennsylvania at Soul Joel's Comedy Club, doing a bunch of stand-up comedy shows and a live part of the problem podcast.
[00:01:29]  And then we got a bunch more stuff coming up after that.
[00:01:31]  Comicdavesmith.com for all of our tour dates and ticket links and all that good stuff up there.
[00:01:38]  Rob's got a weekly show in New York City, RobbieTheFire.com.
[00:01:42]  You can find all his stuff there.
[00:01:43]  Anything else particularly that you want to plug?
[00:01:47]  Ski, steamboat, couple weeks away.
[00:01:49]  That's it.
[00:01:51]  Yeah.
[00:01:52]  There's a show too, by the way.
[00:01:55]  It always sounds like Rob's just doing a gay vacation.
[00:01:58]  Ski, come ski with me.
[00:01:59]  You want to do a steam?
[00:02:00]  Let's come steam.
[00:02:02]  You're like, no, there's, but there'll also be like a stand-up comedy event at that thing.
[00:02:06]  Anyway, also, by the way, I do want to let you guys know, as our wonderful producer, Brian, reminded me to tell you before the show starts, we're on Rumble now.
[00:02:15]  So, you know, it's probably only a matter of time before we get kicked off everything else.
[00:02:18]  So go check us out on Rumble, part of the problem on Rumble.
[00:02:22]  I'll tweet out that channel soon.
[00:02:25]  So yeah, try to get some people to go over there just in case.
[00:02:29]  Just in case.
[00:02:30]  Although, of course, you should still subscribe on YouTube.
[00:02:32]  We're almost at 100,000 subscribers here.
[00:02:35]  Subscribe here.
[00:02:36]  But pretty soon when we're wiped off the map to zero, then, you know, come find us over there.
[00:02:41]  Anyway, let's get into today's episode.
[00:02:44]  So let me kind of preface before we start today's show with the topic that I'm going to start today's show with.
[00:02:52]  Because Rob, I will tell you, this is something I struggle with a little bit deep inside my soul.
[00:02:58]  Okay.
[00:02:59]  And I've talked about this a bit on the show, but there's this dynamic that I have trouble kind of balancing out.
[00:03:08]  So one of the things that I've always strived to do with this show was to prioritize the most important things.
[00:03:18]  And I've always kind of felt like, and it's not to say that we won't talk about nonsense sometimes.
[00:03:23]  It's fun to talk about nonsense.
[00:03:25]  We're comedians.
[00:03:26]  We make fun of nonsense.
[00:03:27]  And okay, you always have to, you know, everything in life is a balance.
[00:03:31]  You can't always, you know, like you can't always, you can't work all day long.
[00:03:37]  And you can't just spend time with your family all day long, right?
[00:03:40]  Because if you did either one, like if you just work all day long, you're not being good to your family.
[00:03:43]  And if you just spend time with your family all day long, everyone starves.
[00:03:47]  You know what I mean?
[00:03:48]  Like that, you always have to balance things out.
[00:03:50]  And you also have to just sometimes relax and do something that's fun because that recharges your batteries.
[00:03:55]  And you get the point I'm making.
[00:03:56]  Anyway, but I try, and I think I've done a pretty good job over the years on this show of like prioritizing the most important worst things that are going on and what matters the most and focus the most issues on the most focus the most energy on that.
[00:04:11]  And of course, you know, the things that we want to talk about are always like, I don't know, wars and, you know, the currency being destroyed, central banking and government corruption and media corruption and just all, you know, whatever, you know, economic devastation and the stuff that we think really, really matters.
[00:04:33]  You know, deep state corruption, whatever.
[00:04:37]  And then there are these topics that I feel like are largely distractions.
[00:04:42]  These things that are intentionally used to distract people from the things that really matter.
[00:04:48]  And so while I think the vast majority of Americans would probably be on the same page that inflation is really bad and it hurts left-wingers and right-wingers all the same, but, you know, culture war issues just kind of pit everyone against each other.
[00:05:04]  And I've long since, you know, for a very long time, I've made the claim that I think these culture war issues are intentionally heightened in order to get all of the plebs battling with each other rather than coming together and realizing that they have a common enemy.
[00:05:22]  But that being said, sometimes these distraction issues can be pushed to such a level that it's actually something that really needs to be dealt with.
[00:05:33]  And I think that's kind of where we stand with the trans ideology being pushed on children.
[00:05:42]  I know that it's a distraction.
[00:05:44]  I know what they're doing.
[00:05:46]  Like I can see the game.
[00:05:48]  And so I'm torn on one level where it's like, I don't want to fall into this game because I know that's what they're trying to get us to do.
[00:05:56]  But at the same time, when they're indoctrinating children with incredibly toxic, damaging, you know, propaganda, that's not something that you can just dismiss as like, well, that doesn't matter.
[00:06:10]  What really matters is central banking.
[00:06:12]  You know what I mean?
[00:06:13]  You get like the balance that I'm trying to strike here where it's like, okay, well, yeah, I mean, look, central banking does really matter, but also this has reached a point where it really matters.
[00:06:22]  So I want to try to talk about this a little bit, but I also want to like caveat, like recognize that what's going on here is that they're winning when we just focus on this and fight each other over it rather than kind of figure out a way to like defeat this and then focus on the issues that really matter.
[00:06:38]  Does that make sense at all?
[00:06:40]  Or am I just rambling?
[00:06:41]  Based on what you were saying, I would almost describe it as if a guy's robbing you and he's got a gun stuck in your head, to your head.
[00:06:47]  So the fact that he's robbing you is still a problem, but you got to kind of address the gun first.
[00:06:51]  So it's like what's going on to kids, it is real.
[00:06:55]  It might be that they've escalated and they've taken their bad policies so far that they are doing something horrible to kids.
[00:07:03]  And yes, it's a problem that in talking about that, we're not talking about inflation.
[00:07:07]  It doesn't change the fact that it's a real problem.
[00:07:10]  Yeah.
[00:07:10]  And right.
[00:07:11]  And even as you said with your example of like the gun to your head all of a sudden becomes the bigger problem, then they're robbing you.
[00:07:17]  You know, look, again, like I've said before, I am somewhat, to borrow a word from the left, I'm somewhat privileged in the fact that I'm lucky.
[00:07:25]  You think you're a lady?
[00:07:26]  So you don't have to deal with that?
[00:07:27]  I'm somewhat privileged in the fact that I'm fairly lucky.
[00:07:30]  You don't have to deal with those thoughts.
[00:07:31]  Although some days, some days I'm not so sure, Rob.
[00:07:34]  You know, every now and then, you know, I check my nails like this instead of like this.
[00:07:38]  You're putting on chapstick and you're like, what if this had a little color?
[00:07:44]  Yeah, I'll tell you, I'm not a big chapstick guy.
[00:07:45]  I just do find, maybe it's an insecurity of mine.
[00:07:47]  I find that whole thing just.
[00:07:50]  Anyway, okay.
[00:07:51]  So I'll tell you, though, right?
[00:07:54]  What I'm getting at is that I'm a little bit, I'm, I mean, I've worked very hard at what I do, but I'm also fortunate, you know, and that I'm doing pretty good right now.
[00:08:04]  And I, like, my kids are not going to be indoctrinated by this stuff.
[00:08:08]  But if I was in a situation where I, like my kids were being indoctrinated about this, you couldn't tell me anything was a bigger priority than this.
[00:08:16]  You couldn't tell me anything.
[00:08:16]  And in fact, when the next generation is just being like their minds are being perverted by some of this really like, I mean, stuff that we're talking about that like 10 years ago, everybody would have been together that this is insane to push this on children.
[00:08:34]  And if the next generation is having this stuff pushed on them, there's a real argument that that's actually a lot more important than the currency being destroyed.
[00:08:43]  And I'm saying this as someone who really, I think more than the average person understands how horrible the currency being destroyed is, you know, but I'm just saying like this is also really, really important.
[00:08:54]  Okay.
[00:08:55]  So that's kind of my preface to all of this.
[00:08:58]  There's a clip of Jon Stewart, who, look, I'm not, you know, I'm not a Jon Stewart hater.
[00:09:07]  I always thought the Daily Show was great.
[00:09:09]  I really, I was a fan of his during the George W. Bush years.
[00:09:13]  Sure, he stole the name of our show and he ran with it, but God bless you, Jon Stewart.
[00:09:18]  I think his real name is Leibowitz or something like that.
[00:09:21]  He really wanted a job.
[00:09:22]  I'm a Jew named Smith.
[00:09:23]  What am I going to hate him for switching it up a little bit?
[00:09:26]  By the way, Bernstein, we got to figure out something better.
[00:09:29]  Anyway, the point is, I don't hate Jon Stewart, but there's this clip of his.
[00:09:34]  And there was something I thought was really fascinating about it.
[00:09:37]  This clip's going super viral.
[00:09:39]  And it really almost demonstrated in a way the common theme that a lot of people have talked about about living in two different realities.
[00:09:51]  Like there is one reality that a certain percentage of people live in where they feel that Jon Stewart just wrecked this guy.
[00:10:00]  And then there's the other reality that I'll refer to as reality, where it was just ridiculous.
[00:10:10]  And like, it's when you're living in reality and you see this and you're like, wait, what?
[00:10:16]  How I saw this clip presented was Jon Stewart brilliantly lures this anti-trans right-winger into a beautiful trap and then destroys him.
[00:10:27]  Like that's how I saw this preface.
[00:10:29]  Let's play the clip and then me and you can talk about this a little bit.
[00:10:34]  Even rights have responsibilities and that within those responsibilities, responsibilities and order.
[00:10:42]  Otherwise, it's chaotic.
[00:10:44]  I'll go you one further.
[00:10:45]  You want to ban drag show readings to children.
[00:10:47]  To my house, yes.
[00:10:48]  Why?
[00:10:50]  What are you protecting?
[00:10:50]  Why can we prohibit children from voting, those under 18 from voting?
[00:10:54]  Why are you banning that?
[00:10:55]  Is that free speech?
[00:10:56]  Are you infringing on that performer's free speech?
[00:11:00]  They can continue to exercise their free speech, just not in front of a child.
[00:11:03]  Why?
[00:11:03]  Can we just pause already?
[00:11:05]  I know that this is not the core of what we're playing for this video, but if you're Jon Stewart, isn't the start of this just embarrassing?
[00:11:15]  I mean, the confidence that he has in asking a guy, does that really need to be answered for you?
[00:11:20]  I mean, for all the talk that you hear about liberals being pro-pedophilia or pro-pedophiles or indoctrinating people for being more okay with living in a landscape, I don't understand.
[00:11:32]  Give the question back to Jon Stewart.
[00:11:34]  What about tranny drag shows or drag shows for kids?
[00:11:38]  Seems like this should be for kids.
[00:11:41]  It looks to me to be child abuse every time I see it.
[00:11:44]  When I see the videos on Twitter, I actually get upset and got to move on.
[00:11:47]  It looks like child abuse.
[00:11:49]  And now you're asking a guy about this.
[00:11:52]  Well, right.
[00:11:52]  And as we've talked about before, like even the ones, if he's talking about drag queen story hour, where it's not that, just to be completely fair, I want to try to steel man the opposition.
[00:12:02]  It's not that.
[00:12:03]  It's not a man with his ass out or like fake titties out or something like that.
[00:12:08]  It's just a drag queen reading a story to kids.
[00:12:11]  But it's still just like, why?
[00:12:14]  Like, why are we doing this?
[00:12:16]  Why can't it just be a person reading stories to kids?
[00:12:20]  Like, what the hell is going on in this world?
[00:12:23]  Now, and again, however you feel about the legality of it, let's play the rest of this and we'll get through.
[00:12:28]  It's not a very long clip.
[00:12:29]  So let's just play it and we'll kind of break down every angle.
[00:12:32]  It does have a responsibility to protect.
[00:12:34]  I'm sorry.
[00:12:35]  The government does have a responsibility in certain instances.
[00:12:37]  What's that?
[00:12:37]  It's the leading cause of death amongst children in this country.
[00:12:41]  And I'm going to give you a hint.
[00:12:43]  It's not drag show readings to children.
[00:12:45]  Correct.
[00:12:46]  Yes.
[00:12:46]  So what is it?
[00:12:48]  I'm presuming you're going to say it's firearms.
[00:12:50]  No, I'm not going to say it like it's an opinion.
[00:12:52]  That's what it is.
[00:12:54]  It's firearms more than cancer, more than car accidents.
[00:12:58]  And what you're telling me is you don't mind infringing free speech to protect children from this amorphous thing that you think of.
[00:13:05]  But when it comes to children that have died, you don't give a flying fuck to stop that because that shall not be infringed.
[00:13:15]  That is hypocrisy at its highest order.
[00:13:19]  So these are all these people like Jon Stewart wrecked this guy.
[00:13:24]  And I'm just saying, look, man, no, he didn't.
[00:13:29]  That is, that is not hypocrisy.
[00:13:31]  That's not what hypocrisy is.
[00:13:33]  And let me like, just to, to, there's something, first off, there's something very bizarre about how angry Jon Stewart got over this.

=== The Hypocrisy of Free Speech (03:22) ===

[00:13:41]  Like, I, especially because it's like, here's my perspective on it, right?
[00:13:46]  Like, I'm, I'm a hardcore libertarian.
[00:13:50]  I really care about, you're saying the government is going to step in and do this and ban this activity.
[00:13:57]  But Jon Stewart doesn't feel that way.
[00:14:00]  He's not a libertarian.
[00:14:01]  He's fine with the government coming in and banning all types of things, whether it's banning people accepting a job for five bucks an hour, or it's banning people, say, owning guns, or it's banning people.
[00:14:12]  Like the list goes on and on about what Jon Stewart would be fine with the government banning people from doing, but he's furious that you're floating out the idea of banning drag queen story hour.
[00:14:24]  It's just, it's bizarre.
[00:14:26]  And then he, what he claims is hypocrisy is just, this is just ridiculous.
[00:14:32]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, a brand new sponsor on board, and that is Facet.
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[00:16:36]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:16:39]  Let me give you a logical analogy.
[00:16:41]  And before, because I know this is a common thing that midwits like to do, is if you ever use a logical analogy, they go, you're equating this thing and that thing.
[00:16:51]  Like if you go, saying this is like saying this, it's not saying they're the same thing.
[00:16:56]  So understand, it's a logical analogy.
[00:16:58]  I'm not saying these two things are the same.
[00:17:01]  I'm attacking the logic of the first statement.

=== Defending Kids from Guns (15:30) ===

[00:17:04]  So let's just say that you were proposing banning grown men doing masturbation shows in front of children.
[00:17:17]  Okay?
[00:17:17]  Let's say you were proposing that that should be illegal and that there should be a punishment for adults who do that to children.
[00:17:25]  Okay.
[00:17:26]  Just say hypothetically, that's the conversation you're having here.
[00:17:29]  And then Jon Stewart goes, well, wait a minute.
[00:17:34]  How many people, how many kids, what do you think is the leading cause of death amongst kids?
[00:17:40]  And let me tell you, it's not masturbation shows.
[00:17:44]  You know what kills a lot more people than masturbation shows?
[00:17:47]  Automobile accidents.
[00:17:50]  And you're not willing to ban automobiles, but you're willing to ban this.
[00:17:54]  What a hypocrite you are.
[00:17:57]  Do you understand how outrageously stupid the logic of that is?
[00:18:02]  Like to just go, oh, it's an apples to orange comparison.
[00:18:06]  Like this, neither of this make, this makes no sense whatsoever.
[00:18:10]  Now, this is, you can feel however you want to feel about the government banning drag stories for kids, okay?
[00:18:19]  However you feel about it.
[00:18:22]  This line of logic is outrageously dumb.
[00:18:28]  Like it's, I can't even believe that there's a portion of the country who looks at this and feels like this is some victory for Jon Stewart.
[00:18:35]  This makes no sense whatsoever.
[00:18:36]  And by the way, also, I know some comedian has touched on this before, but apples to orange, even as I said it, that's the worst phrase.
[00:18:45]  It's the worst saying because apples and oranges are something that like could very easily be compared.
[00:18:51]  You know, just two times, it's like apples to kangaroos or something like that, you know, just very different things.
[00:18:57]  But what is the difference between even the criteria of what kills more kids doesn't make any sense, just like in the in the example of masturbation shows versus car accidents.
[00:19:09]  Well, obviously one kills more than the other, but why is banning one okay?
[00:19:14]  I'm using this as an example because I assume we're all okay with banning masturbation shows for children, right?
[00:19:20]  So why is one okay to ban and the other one isn't okay to ban?
[00:19:23]  Well, because one is just completely unnecessary and destructive and debatably like, you know, or not debatably, clearly an act of like sexual aggression.
[00:19:36]  Whereas, you know, okay, the drag story hours, you can argue about that, but it's clearly unnecessary.
[00:19:40]  And like, why the hell are we doing this?
[00:19:42]  Whereas automobiles do not just kill people.
[00:19:46]  They also serve a legitimate function.
[00:19:48]  And it would also like be costing something to ban them.
[00:19:52]  And it's not as simple as like, oh, like, oh, it's just, we'd just be in a better world if we banned cars than we were just banning car accidents.
[00:19:59]  We'd also be banning people's ability to get around and things like that.
[00:20:02]  It's just a completely different apples to oranges thing.
[00:20:06]  And so like, that's the same thing with guns.
[00:20:08]  Like, yeah, look, there are kids who die because of guns.
[00:20:11]  Now, I think what really.
[00:20:15]  I believe what makes that the number one thing that kids die of is suicides.
[00:20:20]  It's like teenagers committing suicide.
[00:20:22]  And that's horrible.
[00:20:23]  And, you know, maybe you could have a law that's more specific than that, like someone really recklessly leaving their gun out where their kids can get them or something like that.
[00:20:32]  But look.
[00:20:35]  Okay, so have you ever seen Rob like the stats on what they call defense of gun uses?
[00:20:43]  Like it's kind of hard to get exact data on it.
[00:20:47]  I've seen estimates that range literally from, I think, 100,000 a year to 1.7 million a year.
[00:20:55]  So it's very hard, depending on who like does the testing and how exactly they measure it.
[00:21:00]  It's a difficult statistic to really get.
[00:21:03]  But there is this thing called defense of gun uses where people, someone breaks into your house and you pull out your gun and they run off.
[00:21:13]  And we don't know exactly what would have happened if they hadn't done that.
[00:21:16]  There's things where people shoot in the air and people run off.
[00:21:19]  There's things where people just lift up their shirt and expose that they have a gun and that guns actually also prevent a ton of death.
[00:21:27]  Now, how much exactly is hard to say?
[00:21:30]  How much assault, how much rape, how much all of these things.
[00:21:33]  I'm sure all of us have seen videos online of people where like some innocent person was being attacked and a gun saves them.
[00:21:40]  This happens a lot.
[00:21:42]  It's again, the range is somewhere between 100,000 and 1.7 million times a year that a gun is used to prevent some act of aggression.
[00:21:53]  And then I guess you can't even compute how many times people don't even engage in an act of aggression just because of the assumption, oh, that guy might have a gun in his house.
[00:22:01]  It's not worth it.
[00:22:02]  Absolutely.
[00:22:03]  Absolutely.
[00:22:04]  That there's like how many, if it was known that the entire country was disarmed, what would the rate of, say, home invasions be?
[00:22:13]  What would the rate of carjackings be?
[00:22:15]  Like, right, these things are very hard to imagine.
[00:22:17]  But so, no, it's like, so, okay, yeah, guns cost lives.
[00:22:20]  They also save a ton of lives.
[00:22:21]  And by almost all of the best evidence, they save way more lives than they cost.
[00:22:27]  So you could just as easily flip this around and go, how many lives are saved by Drag Queen Story Hour?
[00:22:33]  You know what I mean?
[00:22:34]  Like it's, it's, it just makes no sense at all.
[00:22:37]  This is so mind numbingly stupid.
[00:22:42]  And yet people are celebrating this because Jon Stewart says that's hypocrisy.
[00:22:46]  No, it's not.
[00:22:47]  But what's really interesting about this is that it's like, like, like I said, it's living in two different realities.
[00:22:54]  There's one reality, which I saw a bunch of people like online who are going, wow, Jon Stewart just wrecked that guy.
[00:23:01]  And then there's another reality, which we'll just call reality, where they go, where you just look at it and you go, oh, dude, you can't even defend the position.
[00:23:11]  You just have to pivot to some other topic and then start arguing that and not even like really flesh out the argument over why we should or shouldn't ban guns.
[00:23:22]  You know, like there's so much to get into there.
[00:23:25]  Like, what are you talking about, Jon Stewart?
[00:23:26]  Because you're not talking about, by the way, for all like so many of like the liberal types will go, we're not trying to round up your guns.
[00:23:34]  We're just trying to like ban AR-15s or something like that, right?
[00:23:39]  Like, isn't that what they always say?
[00:23:40]  Oh, what are you, a right-wing conspiracy theorist?
[00:23:42]  We're not trying.
[00:23:43]  But then they fall back on arguments like this, which the like, it's not like there's an epidemic of kids killing themselves with AR-15s in order to like support them.
[00:23:54]  You don't have long enough arms.
[00:23:55]  How are you going to get it?
[00:23:55]  That doesn't make sense.
[00:23:56]  Yeah.
[00:23:57]  You're going to fall over and just like break your nose before you kill yourself.
[00:24:01]  But like, you know what I'm saying?
[00:24:03]  In order to support the point that Jon Stewart is making, you'd have to be talking about banning all guns.
[00:24:08]  Okay.
[00:24:08]  What does banning all guns look like?
[00:24:10]  What will it take?
[00:24:11]  to ban all guns.
[00:24:13]  Do you think you're going to disarm Texas?
[00:24:17]  Like, what do you think that's going to look like?
[00:24:19]  Just writing something down on a piece of paper?
[00:24:22]  No.
[00:24:22]  I think it's probably going to look like going door to door with a militarized police force, having shooting confrontations left.
[00:24:30]  My point is it's probably going to look more like a civil war than anything else.
[00:24:34]  So it's just like, you know, there's so much more to it than to just say, oh, Jon Stewart goes, because you don't fucking care.
[00:24:43]  That's what Jon Stewart says to him.
[00:24:44]  You don't care about those kids dying.
[00:24:46]  It's like, Jesus, man.
[00:24:48]  So if you don't want to ban cars, you don't care about the kids who die from car crashes, right?
[00:24:54]  This is like a really shitty way to argue.
[00:24:57]  But of course, this is like the thing, because he can't even sit there.
[00:25:01]  No one can sit there and actually defend why drag queens reading books to kids should be a thing.
[00:25:10]  Why transgender shows for children should be a thing.
[00:25:15]  Why any of this stuff?
[00:25:17]  Why drag your kid to trans we?
[00:25:19]  Why should any of this be a thing?
[00:25:21]  This is so insane.
[00:25:23]  Like, what do you do?
[00:25:24]  Give me the defense of why this is something we should be doing to our kids.
[00:25:29]  This is bonkers.
[00:25:31]  And to sit there and go, look, this ideology is being pushed on children across the country.
[00:25:37]  Now, okay, it's true that like the numbers of children who have sex, like reassignment surgery is not very high.
[00:25:52]  There's not a ton of kids who are having that.
[00:25:54]  The number of children who are given puberty blockers is higher than that, but still not insane.
[00:26:01]  But children are being indoctrinated with this ideology all throughout the country.
[00:26:07]  And it's led to like this crazy increase in the number of kids who are identifying as trans.
[00:26:13]  These are not kids who just like the kids who have gender dysmorphia.
[00:26:16]  These are like, it's a whole new thing where they've created a fad out of this and it's being pushed constantly.
[00:26:22]  And so when you see someone standing up being like, this should be illegal to do this.
[00:26:28]  Even as someone who's like a libertarian who almost wants, I want the government to be like involved in nothing at all.
[00:26:35]  But on this one, I'm like, yeah, look, dude, this is like, I don't know.
[00:26:39]  There's lots of things that we say that children aren't allowed to do.
[00:26:43]  Lots of them.
[00:26:44]  You know, again, like in the same with the example I used with the masturbation show, it's in the sense that Jon Stewart is using the term free speech, which I understand what he means.
[00:26:54]  You could say the same thing about that.
[00:26:56]  Like you could be like, hey, look, if adults want to go to like a sex show, they should be allowed to go to it because it's like free speech, free expression, you know?
[00:27:06]  Okay, but we all agree children shouldn't be allowed to, right?
[00:27:10]  And that should be like a crime if you perform that in front of a child.
[00:27:14]  So like, why?
[00:27:16]  So then I'm sorry when you're talking about children, this like free speech appeal just doesn't work.
[00:27:22]  Anyway, just so crazy that people thought this was like, oh, fucking Jon Stewart nailed them.
[00:27:28]  Like it's just like he nailed the fucking, you know, the neocons when they were lying us into war in Iraq.
[00:27:33]  He nailed this guy too.
[00:27:35]  Like you're like, no, he was awesome back then.
[00:27:38]  This is stupid.
[00:27:40]  It's also not hypocritical because he could theoretically go, you know what, I am very concerned with gun control, but this is also a problem.
[00:27:48]  So I'm going to deal with this and then I'm going to get to the gun control.
[00:27:51]  Now, that's not of his opinion.
[00:27:52]  The argument that Jon Stewart's trying to make, which is a very manipulative leftist trick, is going, why is it that you're hyper-focused on this thing?
[00:28:00]  Well, you introduced it.
[00:28:02]  Like, they do this thing where they introduce these things into culture and go, well, you're evil because that's not important.
[00:28:06]  You're hyper-focused on it.
[00:28:08]  Well, if you're saying it's not important, then why can't we just get rid of it?
[00:28:11]  And if you are saying that it's important, well, then it's important for me to have a discussion about it too.
[00:28:16]  You see the trick that they pull?
[00:28:17]  They put him into the society.
[00:28:19]  And then when you get upset about it, they go, oh, you're a bigot.
[00:28:22]  That shouldn't be important to you.
[00:28:24]  Well, if you're saying that it's not important, then let's just get rid of it.
[00:28:27]  Well, we can't just get rid of it.
[00:28:28]  Oh, so it's important.
[00:28:29]  Yeah, I actually saw some leftist tweeted something.
[00:28:32]  Like they go, no one would even be talking about like transgender things with kids if it wasn't for these right-wing extremists.
[00:28:40]  No, you introduced it.
[00:28:41]  Wait, what?
[00:28:42]  Like, what are you talking about?
[00:28:43]  Like, they just invented it?
[00:28:45]  Like, they just made this up?
[00:28:46]  Like, we haven't all seen this being pushed out.
[00:28:48]  Like, they brought it to the schools to have a conversation about it.
[00:28:51]  They started doing tranny story happy time hour in schools.
[00:28:55]  They got the funding for it.
[00:28:56]  And now they're having a conversation about it.
[00:28:58]  No, you guys introduced it.
[00:29:00]  And that's why everyone's commenting on it.
[00:29:02]  Yeah.
[00:29:02]  Yeah.
[00:29:03]  No, there's, there's like, look, even where I am.
[00:29:07]  So, well, this isn't exactly where I am, but it's a couple towns over.
[00:29:11]  But I'm in a pretty conservative area.
[00:29:14]  Like, it's a red town.
[00:29:17]  And where my brother-in-law and his kids go to high school in like a pretty, or his daughter graduated already, but she went to high school in like a pretty conservative area.
[00:29:32]  And it's like a small, it's like a rural town, like a country, you know, area.
[00:29:37]  And there were like whatever.
[00:29:40]  It's not like crazy, but there were two transgender kids in her high school class who graduated with her in a small class.
[00:29:48]  And it's just like, it's like this has gone everywhere throughout the country where there are more and more kids identifying this.
[00:29:55]  And they asked in, which I think I may have told this story before on the podcast, but they asked my wife's nephew.
[00:30:06]  They asked him on his first day of, in his first day of high school, his freshman year, his first day in his algebra class.
[00:30:14]  The algebra teacher goes around the room and asks everyone what their pronouns are, which I don't know.
[00:30:21]  There's something just so funny about that to me where I just think about it.
[00:30:23]  Well, that's what I'm saying.
[00:30:26]  I identify as far face and I will refuse to sit here if you address me by anything else.
[00:30:31]  But you know, there's something about like, you know, when you go from like middle school to high school and there's something, you know, like that age, like when you're, when you're like an eighth grade, say, compared to a senior in high school, the difference is like insane.
[00:30:46]  Like it really is like, they're men to you.
[00:30:49]  You're like, I'm a boy, and that's like a man with muscles and chest hair.
[00:30:55]  And you know what I mean?
[00:30:55]  Like, it's just like a whole different.
[00:30:57]  And you go your first day and you're in this world of like these men and women and you're like, holy shit, what's going on?
[00:31:04]  And your first day in an algebra class, no less.
[00:31:07]  They have to look at you and go, so are you, what are you, like a dude or what?
[00:31:11]  Like, it's just so bizarre.
[00:31:13]  So maybe I'm showing my age, but it's so weird to me.
[00:31:17]  This is the thing.
[00:31:18]  But anyway, I'm just saying they push this on the kids, you know?
[00:31:22]  Like they're like, hey, what are you?
[00:31:23]  Just a boy or girl?
[00:31:24]  Are you something more special and unique that we're all going to be interested in?
[00:31:28]  If you are that.
[00:31:29]  It's like there, there's just no doubt that when I went to school in the 90s, there wouldn't have been two transgender people in your graduating class.
[00:31:40]  There just wouldn't have been.
[00:31:41]  And I went to school in a very like progressive area.
[00:31:43]  There just wouldn't have been.
[00:31:45]  And it's not because anyone was stifling it or saying that wasn't a thing.
[00:31:49]  It's just because this idea wasn't put into children's head.
[00:31:53]  And so it's completely reasonable.
[00:31:56]  for lots of people to be like, whoa, what are we doing here?
[00:31:59]  Let's think about this before we experiment on this next generation of kids.
[00:32:04]  Like, what are the ramifications of this going to be?
[00:32:07]  Again, like me and you mentioned, I think just previously, but the biggest study on this that's been done showed that kids with gender dysmorphia, about 80% of them, I think it was a little north of 80% of them, got over it with no treatment.
[00:32:22]  Like if you don't treat them, they just, they, they, they move past it and they ultimately accept that they're, they're the gender that they are.
[00:32:32]  And so like, what are we doing?
[00:32:34]  And this is insane.

=== Why Insurance Is Broken (02:59) ===

[00:32:35]  And so the, the thing that's so infuriating about this Jon Stewart clip is that he, he doesn't grapple with any of this.
[00:32:42]  He doesn't even address like the concern, doesn't even like address any of these like points about what exactly is going on here, why we're doing any of this.
[00:32:52]  He just pivots to this incredibly weak gun control argument that like almost positing the idea that we could just ban all guns with, I suppose, zero cost associated with that and therefore take care of child deaths from firearms.
[00:33:10]  And then, of course, if you don't want to do that, we assume you don't care about that.
[00:33:14]  That's why.
[00:33:16]  It's really disgusting what he did there in that clip.
[00:33:19]  I bet math questions now are like, on Tuesday, you're on a train headed to New York City.
[00:33:24]  You saw a lady wearing a skirt.
[00:33:25]  You imagined yourself wearing that skirt.
[00:33:27]  Then you get to the city.
[00:33:28]  You play basketball with your friends, work out, feel very masculine, but are sexually attracted to the other boys on the team.
[00:33:35]  You take the train back home.
[00:33:36]  What gender are you and who are you attracted to?
[00:33:40]  You're like, on Tuesday, you were on a train and the student's like, I actually identify as a train.
[00:33:45]  So I'm not exactly on a train.
[00:33:46]  I am on the train.
[00:33:47]  And they're like, I'm so sorry.
[00:33:48]  On Tuesday, you were a train.
[00:33:50]  Turns out you're Pete Buddha Judge.
[00:33:53]  There you go.
[00:33:54]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is CrowdHealth.
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=== False Claims About Equality (15:00) ===

[00:35:34]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:35:36]  All right.
[00:35:36]  So on this similar topic, another little clip that was going viral was Michael Knowles, who we've, you know, we've given some gruff to on this show before.
[00:35:53]  We did an episode where we really took him to task when he was on Tim Poole's show, speaking all types of dumb shit about liberty.
[00:36:03]  But Michael Knowles was recently at CPAC, and he said something that has gotten him, has landed him in a lot of heat.
[00:36:10]  Let's play the clip and then let's talk about some of the fallout that he's received.
[00:36:14]  It is all or nothing.
[00:36:16]  If transgenderism is true, if men really can become women, then it's true for everybody of all ages.
[00:36:24]  If transgenderism is false, as it is, if men really can't become women, as they cannot, then it's false for everybody too.
[00:36:34]  And if it's false, then we should not indulge it.
[00:36:38]  Especially since that indulgence requires taking away the rights and customs of so many people.
[00:36:45]  If it is false, then for the good of society and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.
[00:36:58]  The whole preposterous ideology at every level.
[00:37:04]  There can be no...
[00:37:05]  Okay, so I don't, we talked about this briefly before the show, Rob, and I don't know if you're disagreeing with me on this or not, but I think he's, look, obviously he said the word eradicated is a little bit of a provocative word to say.
[00:37:21]  He's certainly not being guarded against his words being misconstrued or being weaponized against him.
[00:37:29]  But he's also giving a speech at CPAC and he's trying to get the crowd going and stuff like that.
[00:37:33]  The response this has been, okay, so here was the Daily Beast headline.
[00:37:38]  It said, Michael Knowles says transgender community must be eradicated at CPAC.
[00:37:46]  And they put eradicated in quotes and then he just says transgender community must be eradicated.
[00:37:51]  Now, I would just say it's very, he came out and said that this is libelous and he demands a retraction.
[00:38:04]  It's probably not enough to win a lawsuit would be my guess, but clearly they're trying to make it sound like he's saying these people should be like, you know, killed, like he's promoting a genocide or something like that.
[00:38:21]  Where it seems to me fairly obvious that that's not the point he's making.
[00:38:26]  He actually said as an ideology at the end.
[00:38:30]  He's saying that like we should stop indulging people in this, like, in their delusion, that we should stop pretending that they can actually be the opposite sex.
[00:38:41]  That like if a man says he identifies as a woman, he is a woman.
[00:38:45]  We should stop pretending that's true.
[00:38:46]  I think he's probably would be arguing that we shouldn't let biological males play in women's sports.
[00:38:52]  We shouldn't let biological males go to women's prisons or something like that.
[00:38:56]  To me, it's unfair to characterize what he's saying as if he was talking about exterminating people.
[00:39:06]  What do you think?
[00:39:08]  Oh, that's fine.
[00:39:09]  I agree with you 100% that I don't think he's actually calling to eradicate.
[00:39:13]  He's talking about the ideology, but he's being an authoritarian and his false distinction between kids and adults, I think, is very not fair.
[00:39:22]  Adults should have the freedom to do whatever the hell they want, which includes if they want to spend money to alter their gender and they want to interact with other people that will respect them for being a gender other than the one that they think they were born into.
[00:39:34]  I might not agree with it, but I don't care.
[00:39:36]  It doesn't bother me.
[00:39:38]  He starts off by saying this is either true or false.
[00:39:41]  And if it's true, it should be true for everyone.
[00:39:43]  If it's false, it'd be true, false.
[00:39:45]  I just don't agree with that when it comes to kids.
[00:39:49]  Let me split the difference there.
[00:39:50]  See, I think you raise a really good point.
[00:39:52]  So it's not, I would say he's right with his claim about truth.
[00:39:59]  But as typical, I think maybe he misses a point about liberty.
[00:40:03]  So, uh, so it is, he makes a fair, look, it's fair to say that if it's true that you can switch, like if it's true that you being a man, once you identify as a woman, you're now a woman, which is the claim, right?
[00:40:20]  If that's true for adults, there's really no reason why that shouldn't be true for kids.
[00:40:27]  I don't agree with that, though, because kids don't have the faculties yet to make that determination.
[00:40:32]  Well, that's hold on, hold on, but that's a slightly different thing to say.
[00:40:36]  So I agree with you on that.
[00:40:38]  I'm just saying the point that if it is, let's say it's real, like the claim transgender women are women.
[00:40:45]  If you're a man who identifies as a woman, then you are a woman.
[00:40:49]  Then there's no reason why theoretically it couldn't be true.
[00:40:52]  Now, I'm not saying the kid has the ability to make that decision, but it could be true that you're a boy who's really a girl.
[00:40:59]  Once you grow up, you'll realize this.
[00:41:01]  But it might have been true the whole time.
[00:41:03]  So I think there's to some degree a truth claim there.
[00:41:08]  But there's a different, so in other words, basically what I what I would say, right, Rob, is that if there's an adult who is, there's an adult who's a biological man who claims, who's a transgender woman, who claims, I'm really a woman inside.
[00:41:26]  I want to be called she, her, and trans women are women and all of this.
[00:41:30]  I will say that I think factually they're wrong.
[00:41:34]  I don't think that's true.
[00:41:36]  However, they are an adult and they have their liberty to live their life however they want to.
[00:41:42]  That's what I believe they ought to be allowed to do.
[00:41:44]  You ought to be allowed to live your life however you want to.
[00:41:47]  And like you said, if you want to be around other people who respect that, fine.
[00:41:51]  Kids do not have that liberty.
[00:41:53]  Children do not have that liberty in the same way that they don't have liberty to go to a strip club or to consume alcohol or to do lots of other things that we restrict their liberty on.
[00:42:04]  So even though this is just my point, and you can disagree with it if you want, but even though the truth claim might be the same for adults and children, the liberty claim is different.
[00:42:15]  Like we don't let kids drive cars.
[00:42:18]  We don't let kids get tattoos.
[00:42:20]  We don't let kids gamble.
[00:42:21]  There's all types of things that we allow adults to do that we don't allow kids to do.
[00:42:28]  And so I would argue that we shouldn't be allowing kids to do this.
[00:42:32]  That is slightly different Than claiming that what they're doing that the claim that you can switch your sex or switch your gender or whatever is true.
[00:42:42]  Does that make sense?
[00:42:44]  Yeah, I mean, but it's the foundation of his approach is authoritarian.
[00:42:50]  It's that I'm going to make this determination for everyone, including adults.
[00:42:54]  And so I take issue with that.
[00:42:56]  And I think that there's a firm distinction between kids and adults.
[00:43:00]  When it comes to kids, they are unable to make a determination that is this impactful of their lifestyle.
[00:43:07]  When it comes to an adult, if they want to make a decision that they feel more comfortable is the other gender, I don't understand it, but I don't care that they want to make that determination, nor do I feel comfortable with such a grasp on truth or their mental health or anything else to tell them that they should have to live a different lifestyle.
[00:43:26]  Well, that's fair.
[00:43:27]  And it's certainly true that we understand on many different issues that kids just cannot make these type of permanent decisions for themselves.
[00:43:37]  We understand that on many different levels.
[00:43:39]  So whether it's, you know, whatever, it's a little bit arbitrary where you draw the line and what age.
[00:43:44]  Should it be 18?
[00:43:45]  Should it be 19?
[00:43:46]  Should it be 22?
[00:43:48]  I don't know.
[00:43:48]  But we all recognize that there has to be some distinction between adults and children.
[00:43:54]  And yeah, we don't let children make these decisions.
[00:43:56]  That's just the fact.
[00:43:57]  Children don't like have full autonomy.
[00:44:02]  And it'd be a really, really ugly world if they did.
[00:44:05]  So that's, so I do agree with you on that.
[00:44:10]  Probably, you know, he using the word eradicate didn't help his cause ultimately.
[00:44:18]  But I will say that I also take taking a step further, if we're not just talking about what, if we're not talking about legality or we're not talking about, you know, anything about freedom, I understand there being an argument, particularly from the conservative perspective, to saying that like we shouldn't agree with this delusion in adults either.
[00:44:42]  Like, and once we've kind of like reached this point, now I personally, the way I feel about this, and I've kind of maintained this for a while, and I've known some trans people.
[00:44:54]  I am a, if someone presents themselves as a woman, I'll call her she, her.
[00:44:59]  I don't like, I don't have a problem with that.
[00:45:01]  I'm not going to like be a dick.
[00:45:02]  In general, I don't try to like hurt someone's feelings.
[00:45:05]  I mean, maybe if they're being really shitty to me, I might respond in kind.
[00:45:09]  But in general, you're like, yeah, whatever.
[00:45:11]  I'm not like trying to like, I'm not running up to trans people and telling them, you're living a lie or something like that.
[00:45:17]  But if we're having a conversation on a podcast about this, or if we're having a conversation about what's real, what's truth, which is what Michael Knowles was getting at, I'd go, yeah, no, you are, you can't change.
[00:45:32]  Sex is a biological reality, and you can't change that.
[00:45:36]  And we certainly do not have the technology or anywhere near to actually do that.
[00:45:41]  And so, yes, it is, it is, when you say trans women are women, you're making a false claim.
[00:45:48]  I will say that if that comes up.
[00:45:50]  And so his point about either that's true or that's not true, I think essentially he's right about that.
[00:45:56]  And I think it's not true.
[00:45:58]  So that's, you know, more or less, that's, that'd be my take on that.
[00:46:02]  So anyway, anyway, just the point, though, that the Daily Beast is doing him dirty.
[00:46:06]  Like, obviously, if someone said, like, you know, we have to eradicate poverty, no one is sitting there and going, you mean you want to genocide all poor people?
[00:46:15]  Like, you know what I mean?
[00:46:16]  It's not that, it's clearly that wasn't what he was saying.
[00:46:20]  If we, you know, we have to eradicate corruption doesn't mean we're going to kill everyone who's corrupt.
[00:46:25]  You're saying we want to like cure it or get rid of this or whatever.
[00:46:30]  Okay.
[00:46:31]  So anyway.
[00:46:33]  Okay, let's move on.
[00:46:36]  There were a couple other things we wanted.
[00:46:38]  Let's go to Bernie Sanders.
[00:46:40]  There was an interesting moment.
[00:46:42]  Bernie Sanders was on Bill Maher's show.
[00:46:45]  Russell Brand was on as well.
[00:46:47]  Russell Brand was phenomenal.
[00:46:48]  If we have time, we'll play some of his clips too.
[00:46:50]  He was just great.
[00:46:52]  Really interesting to see him there.
[00:46:53]  But Bernie Sanders came on later in the show and was a guest.
[00:46:56]  And there was a real interesting moment where Bill Maher asked him, or I guess it was in overtime where there's like listener questions and they started getting into the difference between equality and equity.
[00:47:13]  Let's take a look at that and give our thoughts.
[00:47:16]  Using equality of opportunity with trying to guarantee equity and outcomes.
[00:47:21]  Okay, that's interesting because I think this word equity has come into the language in the last few years.
[00:47:26]  And before that, we didn't hear it a lot.
[00:47:27]  And I think a lot of people hear equity and they hear equality.
[00:47:32]  It's the same word.
[00:47:33]  And it's not the same word in the same concept.
[00:47:36]  So how would you differentiate between equity and equality?
[00:47:41]  Well, equality, we talk about, I don't know what the answer to that is.
[00:47:47]  Coming to think of it, you know, equality is equality of opportunity.
[00:47:52]  All right.
[00:47:53]  We live in a society.
[00:47:54]  We want all people to have whatever color your skin is.
[00:47:58]  Equity, I think, is more guarantee of outcome, is it not?
[00:48:02]  I think so.
[00:48:03]  I think it's so.
[00:48:03]  Okay.
[00:48:04]  So which side do you come down on?
[00:48:07]  Equality.
[00:48:08]  Equality.
[00:48:08]  Yeah.
[00:48:09]  Okay.
[00:48:10]  Boys, any comment on that one?
[00:48:15]  Go ahead, Rob.
[00:48:16]  Any thoughts you have on this?
[00:48:19]  All right.
[00:48:19]  I wouldn't want to have to sit down and define equality versus equity because that's not the world I live in.
[00:48:24]  That's not the way I approach things.
[00:48:26]  I approach things from a freedom and value perspective.
[00:48:29]  But if you're Bernie Sanders, this is your entire thing.
[00:48:32]  I don't think you can just say, well, I guess I think I equality is the one I think I like.
[00:48:37]  That one.
[00:48:37]  Let me check with the guy who wrote the book for me.
[00:48:39]  Maybe he can tell me which is the one that I'm supposed to stand for.
[00:48:43]  How are you saying?
[00:48:44]  He didn't have an answer.
[00:48:45]  He did not have an answer for this.
[00:48:46]  This is your whole thing.
[00:48:47]  Basic question.
[00:48:48]  So it's like, it's literally like asking a libertarian.
[00:48:51]  It's like, so you have a non-aggression principle?
[00:48:54]  And you go, I don't know.
[00:48:57]  I mean, I guess I don't really have a take on that.
[00:49:01]  Like, by the way, the reason why this conversation is so stupid for a bunch of reasons, everyone just gets this wrong.
[00:49:08]  And I hate, I hate when right-wingers or conservatives or even just anti-leftists or whatever use the term equality of opportunity.
[00:49:19]  I hate it.
[00:49:20]  Because it's like, first off, equality and equity, at least the way these terms are being used, the words don't actually mean different things.
[00:49:29]  They don't.
[00:49:30]  Like equality means the same.
[00:49:33]  That's literally what it means.
[00:49:34]  It means the same.
[00:49:36]  They are equal.
[00:49:37]  Two plus two equals four, meaning it's the same.
[00:49:42]  It's the same thing.
[00:49:44]  And so when you say we should have equality, that's suggesting that everyone should have the same.
[00:49:50]  That is suggesting equity in this same sense.
[00:49:54]  But whatever, typically the way they sparse this out is that, no, you're saying equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome.
[00:50:07]  But of course, this is almost just, it's ridiculous to me that people can see all of the all of the problems that come with equality of outcome, but then can say they're for equality of opportunity and not realize that all of the same problems apply to equality of opportunity.
[00:50:29]  How could you truly make everyone's opportunity equal?
[00:50:32]  This would be impossible.
[00:50:33]  Like, what does that even mean?

=== What Equal Opportunity Means (08:54) ===

[00:50:35]  And then someone like Bernie Sanders can say, no, no, no, I'm just for equality.
[00:50:39]  I'm just for equality of opportunity, you know?
[00:50:42]  And then he can logically from there, I think with strong, somewhat strong footing, say, and that's why everyone should have the same education and the same health care and the same housing and the same all of this.
[00:50:53]  So we all start out with the same opportunity, you know?
[00:50:57]  And they're like, what, okay.
[00:50:58]  So now the conservatives who say, I'm just for equality of opportunity, you've given away the whole game because everyone has to have equal opportunity.
[00:51:06]  If everyone has equal opportunity, like what does that mean?
[00:51:11]  So someone who's like a really, like someone who's worked really hard their whole lives so they can give their kids a great life.
[00:51:18]  Now their kids are going to have a better opportunity than someone else's kids.
[00:51:22]  So now we got to equalize out for that, right?
[00:51:24]  I mean, if they're all going to have the equal outcome, then obviously we'd have to take from that family and give to some other family who didn't work really hard and their kids don't have the same opportunity as they have.
[00:51:36]  So you get right back into the same point.
[00:51:38]  No one's ever going to have equal opportunity.
[00:51:41]  Now, the whole notion of equal outcomes or equity, that everyone ends up exactly the same, right?
[00:51:49]  We all see the problems with that and they're all over the place.
[00:51:53]  That, you know, I think it was Thomas Sowell.
[00:51:56]  But if you're Bernie Sanders, wouldn't you prefer equity?
[00:51:58]  I mean, you'd think.
[00:52:00]  Yeah, I mean, if you're talking in ideals, why wouldn't you want everyone to end up at the exact same place?
[00:52:05]  Right.
[00:52:06]  I mean, we're talking about, you know, magical wands of things that can't happen anyways.
[00:52:11]  So why not go for equity?
[00:52:14]  Yeah.
[00:52:14]  Well, and look, I mean, once you start with equality of, like, my, my point is more or less that they're the same thing and that one leads to the other.
[00:52:23]  I mean, if you, because if you think about it like this, like human beings, we go from like generation to generation to generation, right?
[00:52:30]  Like, that's kind of how this works.
[00:52:32]  We have a finite lifespan and then there's another generation that comes out with a finite lifespan and then them.
[00:52:37]  So if you're talking about starting at an equal point, well, if you end up at a non-equal point, then the next generation starts at a non-equal point.
[00:52:45]  So we're going to have to equalize it again, right?
[00:52:47]  We might as well just keep like making things the same.
[00:52:50]  And so you end up at the same ending point.
[00:52:53]  And this is where you get to all of these things, like whatever, any example of this, whether if there's a disproportionate outcome for different racial groups or something like that, we go, oh, look, this is racism because all of the racial groups didn't end up at the same point.
[00:53:09]  And then if they don't end up at the same point, then the next generation obviously is not going to have an equal opportunity to go do whatever they want to do in life.
[00:53:18]  If you're like, oh, there's a wage gap.
[00:53:20]  There's a wage gap.
[00:53:22]  Well, what does that have to do?
[00:53:23]  That's a complete equity-based argument, right?
[00:53:26]  It's an equality of outcome.
[00:53:28]  The outcome is that men end up making more money than women.
[00:53:33]  Now, why is that?
[00:53:34]  Well, it's largely because of the choices that men and women make, or it's largely because of, you know, who works what jobs or something like that.
[00:53:42]  But all of this is nonsense.
[00:53:44]  It was, I believe it's Thomas Sowell who pointed out that even if you had pure equality, if you like, if every human being was in the exact same position, the same amount of wealth, the same amount of resources, the same living conditions, the same education levels, the same everything, one day later, you'd have inequality, right?
[00:54:11]  Because they'd make different decisions and different things.
[00:54:14]  They'd have different abilities.
[00:54:15]  There's just no way, like there's no way to actually maintain this elusive idea of sameness.
[00:54:23]  Well, constantly stealing from people.
[00:54:25]  You probably have to take an arm from a bunch of people.
[00:54:27]  So you got some people with no arms, so you probably have to, you'd have to just constantly be lowering people a peg.
[00:54:34]  Well, there's this great, there's this great book that Murray Rothbard wrote called Egalitarianism, a revolt against nature.
[00:54:41]  And the point that he was making was that it's the whole, the whole process of nature is things not being the same, not being equal, but being different.
[00:54:52]  And that in order to kind of force everything back to being the same, you actually have to be fighting against the very nature of what we are.
[00:55:01]  And so this is just all, it's just insane that Bernie Sanders has no answer, hasn't thought about this at all, hasn't even like considered these possibilities that like, oh, yeah, there's actually no way to insist that we're all going to be the same.
[00:55:16]  But I just really, really obviously like, I think most people probably listening can kind of understand the flaws in Bernie Sanders thinking here.
[00:55:24]  And most people, I hope, listening, I guess even Bernie Sanders claims that he can understand why equality of outcome is not what your goal should be.
[00:55:35]  Like Bernie Sanders is against equity.
[00:55:39]  He's against equality of outcome.
[00:55:41]  Well, it's if you end up in a bad outcome, he doesn't want to help you.
[00:55:45]  That's your own problem.
[00:55:46]  Right.
[00:55:47]  So then he's kind of destroyed, right?
[00:55:48]  Like his whole worldview is kind of destroyed because it's like, oh, as long as they started the same, then it doesn't end up, it doesn't matter where they're going.
[00:55:55]  Like it doesn't matter where they end up.
[00:55:57]  Which means every time I earn money, I shouldn't have to have it taken from me and given to someone else.
[00:56:01]  Yeah, that's starting to the same point as him.
[00:56:03]  That's your outcome, right?
[00:56:06]  So, right.
[00:56:07]  It just, it destroys his whole worldview if he admits this, which is why he tries to pass it off like, oh, whatever.
[00:56:12]  I haven't even thought about it.
[00:56:13]  I guess just equality, whatever the difference, even, even though that word kind of means the same thing.
[00:56:19]  But you could see where like, how are you going to enforce the fact that everybody, even if someone was just more talented or if someone just worked harder or if someone was just more fortunate or something like that, we all have to end up at the same place.
[00:56:32]  It just makes no sense.
[00:56:34]  But it also makes no sense that we would start at the same place.
[00:56:37]  And so I would just, I would really encourage like people trying to push back on this socialist crap to just drop this idea that equality, sameness, does not exist amongst humans.
[00:56:50]  We're all different.
[00:56:51]  You know, this is like a weird thing that like people on the left, they love this kind of like, well, we're all unique and we're all the same.
[00:56:59]  It's like, well, which one is it?
[00:57:01]  Which one?
[00:57:02]  Either we're all unique or we're the same.
[00:57:05]  By the way, if we're all the same, if everybody's equal, then diversity isn't our strength because there's no such thing as diversity because we're all equal, right?
[00:57:15]  Like all these ideas just make no sense.
[00:57:18]  It's just so goofy.
[00:57:20]  It's like, no, look, there's going to be people who work very hard.
[00:57:27]  In fact, I would argue as, you know, a parent, and as I think this is true for most people who have kids, that there's no greater motivator than giving your kids a good life.
[00:57:40]  That's what you're working hard for, is to give your kids more advantages.
[00:57:45]  You're literally, my life is spent with my primary goal being that my kids do not have an equal opportunity to everybody else, that they have a better opportunity than everyone else.
[00:57:59]  That's what motivates me more than anything else.
[00:58:02]  Okay.
[00:58:03]  And there's going to be some people who are motivated by that, and there's going to be other parents who aren't motivated by that.
[00:58:08]  And no matter what goddamn government policy you want to enact, you're never going to equalize for that.
[00:58:14]  It's just impossible.
[00:58:15]  And if you tried to, you have all the same problems that you would have trying to equalize for outcomes because you're basically doing the same thing.
[00:58:24]  You're just trying to have equal outcomes for the previous generation.
[00:58:29]  It's all the same thing.
[00:58:30]  It's all so ridiculous that Bernie Sanders, but it really is unbelievable that Bernie Sanders is able to play this game where he just kind of goes, no, I don't know.
[00:58:42]  You know, I don't really even know.
[00:58:43]  I don't know what the differences are.
[00:58:45]  It seems like an incredibly foundation.
[00:58:48]  That's like the foundational question for your entire worldview.
[00:58:51]  How do you not have an answer for that?
[00:58:53]  It would be also interesting just to flip it to what do you think is the ideal level of wealth redistribution?
[00:59:00]  And how do you think it should actually work in practice?
[00:59:04]  What are the government agencies?
[00:59:05]  How do they facilitate it?
[00:59:07]  Why do you think they work better than the market?
[00:59:09]  Just give me the, in practical terms, what amount of money do you think should be taken away from people that have it?
[00:59:15]  And how do you think it should actually be redistributed?
[00:59:18]  And I bet he wouldn't even have an answer for that.
[00:59:20]  Yeah.
[00:59:20]  Yeah.
[00:59:21]  No, he would just, he would dodge and just go, well, look, what I think is that healthcare is a human right and people should have healthcare.

=== Andrew Tate's Underwear Scheme (02:54) ===

[00:59:29]  You know, and just like kind of like.
[00:59:30]  So quickly, where does the money come from?
[00:59:32]  And how are you getting it to the people that need the healthcare?
[00:59:34]  Just give it to me in simple terms, Mr. Smith.
[00:59:37]  I just look at the billion, though, should not be all the billions.
[00:59:40]  Why do they need the billions?
[00:59:41]  All right, fine.
[00:59:41]  So how much are we taking from them?
[00:59:43]  And how does that help the people that you say need it?
[00:59:46]  Yeah.
[00:59:46]  No, but that's it's it's you realize the guy has like no interest in actual like thoughtful interaction in this stuff.
[00:59:56]  He's just like, well, let me move to my next platitude.
[01:00:00]  And that's why he doesn't like the question.
[01:00:01]  You can already see he doesn't like the question.
[01:00:03]  He's like, dude, just set me up for a platitude.
[01:00:05]  I'm not trying to like answer these like philosophical questions.
[01:00:09]  Well, isn't it incredible that that strategy's worked?
[01:00:11]  I mean, in terms of, I guess this is your brilliant representative of socialism, a guy who can't even answer a foundational question.
[01:00:20]  Yeah.
[01:00:20]  Yeah.
[01:00:21]  He's your guy.
[01:00:22]  He's your guy.
[01:00:22]  The guy who completely supports, by the way, the war in Ukraine is fucking, this is your real like left-wing hero who caves and endorses Hillary Clinton, caves and endorses Joe Biden, pulls back the Yemen resolution, the war powers resolution, and yeah, whatever.
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[01:02:08]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[01:02:10]  Okay, so before we wrap today's show, there was one other thing that I just wanted to mention.
[01:02:17]  And I really just felt almost kind of like obligated to mention this on the podcast.

=== Charges Against Andrew Tate (08:29) ===

[01:02:24]  I wanted to just speak briefly about this Andrew Tate fellow who I don't know.
[01:02:31]  Rob, are you familiar with Andrew Tate?
[01:02:33]  Yeah, but zero.
[01:02:35]  Like I hadn't come across the guy's content organically in any capacity.
[01:02:39]  I only started hearing about it once there was outrage over how offensive he was and then had no interest in looking into him at all.
[01:02:47]  So he was irrelevant to me up until this Romania shenanigans.
[01:02:52]  Yeah, so I was not familiar with Andrew Tate, I think, until he got canceled.
[01:02:57]  And then like I started seeing him everywhere.
[01:03:00]  It was one of these few, which is something really interesting about that.
[01:03:02]  There's so many people who kind of get canceled and go away, you know, and get removed from the conversation.
[01:03:09]  Andrew Tate was an example of somebody who it seemed like got canceled and just got amplified.
[01:03:15]  Like he was just everywhere, you know?
[01:03:18]  So I didn't know much about him before that.
[01:03:21]  I've seen a few clips.
[01:03:22]  I will preface by saying I'm no expert on Andrew Tate.
[01:03:26]  I don't exactly know all of the like exactly.
[01:03:28]  I know he was like a real deal kickboxing world champion and he seems to have made a lot of money.
[01:03:36]  And I've seen a few clips of his.
[01:03:38]  From what I've seen, from the limited things that I've seen, I am not a big fan.
[01:03:47]  I'll say I did see him say some really great stuff about like the COVID like insanity and he was good on that.
[01:03:52]  And he's good on being like, you know, anti, you know, crazy radical feminist and stuff like that.
[01:03:58]  But just giving my two cents on it, I don't like all that pimp shit.
[01:04:03]  And I really don't like people who are like pushing that pimp shit on young men.
[01:04:08]  To me, this is like it's like some 15 year old fantasy nonsense and it's really bad advice to be giving to young people.
[01:04:17]  You don't need a wife.
[01:04:18]  What you need is a house with 14 women that live in it and a cam service where you rent out their pussies by the hour.
[01:04:25]  I just I don't like it.
[01:04:26]  But you know, I'm a family man.
[01:04:28]  That's not what I think should be promoted to like young men.
[01:04:31]  I just again, I think it's an immature kind of it's a very teenage family.
[01:04:42]  Yeah, right.
[01:04:43]  Well, whatever.
[01:04:43]  So that's not my thing.
[01:04:45]  I don't, I'm not like a fan of what he does.
[01:04:49]  But what's been more interesting or not more interesting, but what's been more important or worthy of speaking up on is the fact that this guy has now, evidently, he's been, he's had these allegations against him of sex trafficking.
[01:05:05]  Again, I don't know any of the details about this, but he's been held in a Romanian prison now for months and no charges have been brought.
[01:05:15]  And from what I understand, they're basically in Romania, they're allowed to hold you in prison for, I believe, 30 days before they have to bring charges.
[01:05:23]  And then they can ask for an extension.
[01:05:25]  They asked for another extension of 30 days and then another extension of 30 days.
[01:05:29]  And evidently they're asking for another extension and they can hold you for like up to 180 days before they even have to bring charges.
[01:05:37]  And this is an outrage and just absolutely appalling.
[01:05:42]  And I think that it's if there are like libertarians out there, like we're, we're libertarians.
[01:05:51]  We believe that you in the presumption of innocence.
[01:05:55]  We believe you're innocent until proven guilty.
[01:05:57]  If you don't have the presumption of innocence, you have no liberty.
[01:06:01]  There is no liberty unless you are presumed innocent, right?
[01:06:05]  Like this, it doesn't matter.
[01:06:07]  Like you could say, oh, I believe in all the freedoms in the world, but if I accuse you of something, you lose all your freedom, right?
[01:06:12]  Then you don't really have any freedom.
[01:06:14]  only have freedom if you're innocent until proven guilty.
[01:06:17]  That's like the foundational principle of liberty.
[01:06:22]  And I think it's kind of incumbent on anyone who believes in liberty to at least say, like, this is really appalling and horrific.
[01:06:32]  And we should be opposed to any government just if you believe you're innocent until proven guilty, then what they're doing is enslaving an innocent person.
[01:06:45]  He's got to be treated as he's innocent.
[01:06:47]  He hasn't even been charged of a crime, let alone convicted of a crime.
[01:06:52]  And even that would be in a government court, which we may have some issues with.
[01:06:56]  But I just, I feel like there's a lot of, let's say, okay, there are a lot of libertarians that I think often give libertarianism a bad name.
[01:07:12]  I'd say, you know, things come to mind, like the Cato Institute arguing the libertarian case for vaccine mandates or something like that.
[01:07:24]  And they end up, you know, whatever.
[01:07:27]  They end up becoming what a lot of people look and go, oh, look, this is how horrible libertarians are.
[01:07:32]  But my argument would just be that they're not doing libertarianism right.
[01:07:37]  That's not actually the principles that believing in freedom would lead you to.
[01:07:40]  And I know everyone, oh, you're not a real libertarian.
[01:07:42]  I'm sure there's lots of people who say, I'm not a real libertarian.
[01:07:45]  I don't care to get into that stupid game.
[01:07:48]  I'm just saying that like, if you actually follow the principles that even they are claiming to follow, then like obviously your position would just be that you're opposed to vaccine mandates.
[01:07:58]  And there's a lot of these libertarians, like, you know, whatever, the Reason Magazine, the Cato Institute, a lot of the kind of like the those type of libertarians who would be the first to say we should have criminal justice reform and they should talk about, you know, they would talk about nonviolent drug offenders and things like that, but they won't say, come to the defense of the January 6th protesters who are sitting in jail right now.
[01:08:28]  Like they just won't touch that because that's, what's the reason?
[01:08:32]  Is it because libertarian principles really lead you to believe that people who enter government buildings when they're not supposed to, even if maybe the police removed the barricade and then let them in, they deserve to sit in solitary confinement for 300 days?
[01:08:49]  Is that really what they believe?
[01:08:50]  No, it's just that it's, you know, a little bit difficult to stand up for those guys.
[01:08:57]  You don't want to stand up for the guy who you think like, ooh, that might make me look bad.
[01:09:01]  Then I might get called some type of Trumpist or something like that.
[01:09:05]  I don't want to be called, you know, and like, it's like, look, we either believe in these principles or we don't.
[01:09:09]  And if we believe in them, then we should stand up for all the people who are wrongly incarcerated.
[01:09:15]  And that includes the people at January 6th.
[01:09:17]  That includes, you know what I mean, people who are in jail for gun possession charges, for drug possession charges, for whatever, you know, like whatever, like it is.
[01:09:26]  And also that means we should stand up for Andrew Tate and say like it's the U.S. government should absolutely be demanding this guy's immediate release or charge him and fucking give him a trial, like one or the other.
[01:09:41]  Either bring charges against him or fucking, you know, or let him go.
[01:09:46]  And it's just, it's outrageous.
[01:09:47]  It's appalling.
[01:09:48]  And it's very clear, like almost like what they're trying to do here.
[01:09:52]  Because like once you do this, once you can imprison someone in a Romanian prison, my God, just imagine what that's like.
[01:09:59]  Once you can do that, it's almost like the whole idea of a fair trial goes out the window because you know what you're doing.
[01:10:06]  You're essentially torturing somebody until they confess.
[01:10:10]  And so they got him and his brother and two women who were with them as well.
[01:10:15]  And so they're holding all of them until someone gives them some fucking dirt.
[01:10:18]  And you know, at a certain point, you'll just say anything probably to get fucking better treatment.
[01:10:23]  So the whole thing is just disgusting.
[01:10:25]  And, you know, the whole essence to me of believing in liberty is that, you know, whether we agree with someone's opinions or not, or whether we agree with someone's decisions or not, we argue they have a right to do it that way.
[01:10:40]  Or they have a right to live their life how they want to.
[01:10:42]  They have a right to express their opinion.
[01:10:44]  And it's just, it's horrible what's happening to that guy.
[01:10:48]  And I hope he gets let out or charged or something, you know?

=== Robbie's Pennsylvania Story (00:49) ===

[01:10:53]  Anyway, anything you want to add to that, Rob?
[01:10:57]  It's an odd story.
[01:10:58]  I mean, it's crazy that the Romanian government can't buy a child from Epstein by now to show up in court and claim to have been trafficked.
[01:11:07]  How is there still not even a victim?
[01:11:10]  Like, at least frame him by now.
[01:11:11]  I mean, what are you doing?
[01:11:13]  Yeah.
[01:11:14]  Really?
[01:11:14]  All right.
[01:11:15]  All right.
[01:11:16]  Well, that's where we're going to wrap up on this show.
[01:11:18]  Don't forget to come see me and Robbie the Fire in Potts Town, Pennsylvania.
[01:11:22]  Coming up March 10th and 11th, we'll be out there at Soul Joel's Comedy Club.
[01:11:26]  Comic Dave Smith for comicdave Smith.com for tickets.
[01:11:30]  RobbyTheFire.com for all of Rob's stuff coming up.
[01:11:33]  We got a lot that we're going to be doing this year.
[01:11:36]  Me and Robbie the Fire are coming all around the country to a town near you.
[01:11:40]  So come check us out.
[01:11:41]  Thanks for listening.
[01:11:43]  Peace.