Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - Michael Rectenwald For President
Aired: 2023-09-16
Duration: 01:04:30


=== Woke Ideology and Campus News (08:35) ===

[00:00:00]  Fill her up!
[00:00:02]  You are listening to the gas digital move.
[00:00:09]  We need to roll back the state.
[00:00:11]  We spy on all of our own citizens.
[00:00:13]  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.
[00:00:27]  You're listening to part of the problem on the gas digital network.
[00:00:31]  Here's your host, James Smith.
[00:00:34]  What's up, everybody?
[00:00:34]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Heart of the Problem.
[00:00:37]  I am very, very excited for this one.
[00:00:40]  Welcoming onto the show Michael Rechtenwald.
[00:00:43]  Many of you probably know him from his appearances on Tom Wood's show, on Tucker Carlson, Glenn Beck.
[00:00:49]  He's also an author of, I believe, 12 books, most recently, The Great Reset, which is phenomenal.
[00:00:55]  I highly recommend it.
[00:00:56]  Michael Rechtenwald, welcome to the show.
[00:00:58]  How are you, sir?
[00:00:59]  I'm great.
[00:01:00]  Great to be here, Dave.
[00:01:01]  Thanks for having me.
[00:01:02]  Now, I am under the impression that you have an announcement that you would like to make right here on Part of the Problem.
[00:01:07]  What pray tell may that be?
[00:01:09]  Yes.
[00:01:10]  Well, I am running for president for the Libertarian Party.
[00:01:16]  Yeah, well, we're very president of the United States.
[00:01:22]  Let's be clear about this.
[00:01:23]  Yes, we're all really excited and thrilled about this, particularly to have like a Mises Institute guy, a hardcore libertarian, particularly one who has written extensively about the rise of wokeism and this new kind of political correct totalitarianism.
[00:01:40]  I think that is one area that a certain wing of the libertarians tend to miss and on really understanding what a threat that is.
[00:01:50]  And in many ways, it's the biggest threat to the prospects of a free society.
[00:01:55]  So I'm so glad that you jumped in the race.
[00:01:59]  Let me ask you this, because I know a little bit about your story, but I want to talk about it for any of the listeners who don't.
[00:02:06]  And I can learn a little bit more about it as well.
[00:02:09]  So you were a college professor at New York University.
[00:02:14]  I'm also from New York City and I've hung out around there many times.
[00:02:20]  And you are one of these guys, which I love this story because so many great libertarians, people like Hans Hermann Hoppe and Walter Block and Thomas Soule, started out as Marxists, and then they were confronted with these libertarian thinkers and they had radically changed their worldview.
[00:02:40]  So you were a Marxist.
[00:02:42]  And then tell me the story.
[00:02:43]  Like what happened?
[00:02:44]  What did you get introduced to that kind of woke you up?
[00:02:46]  Well, I mean, it started out when, as a Marxist, I started to criticize the woke regime and the woke craziness on campus and around the country.
[00:02:58]  And I was interviewed by the New York University student newspaper.
[00:03:05]  They ran an interview and went on the record as myself.
[00:03:09]  And within two days, all hell broke loose.
[00:03:12]  I was coerced by the dean.
[00:03:15]  I was called into the dean's office and coerced into a leave of absence.
[00:03:19]  I was accused of wrongthink, literally, by this committee, the diversity, equity, and inclusion group.
[00:03:27]  Then this took off.
[00:03:28]  It hit the news.
[00:03:30]  It was picked up by the New York Post, then Fox News and on and on, and became national news.
[00:03:37]  And I was assailed by the left altogether, not just these campus radicals, that is, and the faculty only, by the way, and the administration, but the whole left.
[00:03:49]  So it really was the left that drove my awakening from leftism.
[00:03:58]  Was uh.
[00:03:59]  Not, it wasn't so much an intellectual thing at first, it was uh very much a trauma.
[00:04:05]  Frankly, I was traumatized by these people and uh then I started to investigate uh the history of uh leftist criminality, uh the Soviet Union, uh China, uh its other satellites and all that, and uh also then began to plumb into, plummet into uh reading.
[00:04:26]  Uh I got introduced to Mises and I started reading Mises and then uh, before you know it, I started as a civil libertarian and then became an economic libertarian and then uh, from Mises to Rothbard to Hoppe.
[00:04:43]  So now, and that's basically been the progression and uh, I haven't looked back.
[00:04:48]  Uh, i'm firmly.
[00:04:49]  I've been writing for, as you said, i've been writing for the Mises Institute for years now.
[00:04:54]  Um, i've been, i've been podcasting for them as well.
[00:04:58]  Uh well, that that'll be on pause for now because uh of the candidacy, but uh yeah, that's been.
[00:05:04]  That's the story in a nutshell.
[00:05:06]  Uh I, I was uh.
[00:05:08]  So this is a story I think a lot of people understand uh because, you know, people have been assailed by this woke, totalitarian uh ideology and their followers and uh this causes transformations in people's thinking and that's what happened with me.
[00:05:25]  Yeah, it's interesting.
[00:05:26]  I mean look, getting to uh, getting to Mises, to Rothbard to Hopa which, of course, is is very similar to my, you know like uh my, my conversion to libertarianism it's the best, that's.
[00:05:36]  The best path, by the way, is to Rothbard to Hopa.
[00:05:39]  Um, a lot of people may not get that far, but I do think that you're right that there is a massive awakening in the country about just how in insane the radical kind of woke left has become right and it's.
[00:05:53]  It's in a sense, it's because they're overplaying their hand and giving us an opening uh, in a sense.
[00:05:59]  Can you tell me?
[00:06:00]  So, when you were first uh, a professor at NYU and when you started speaking out about this stuff, what were the things that you were seeing that you were speaking out against?
[00:06:08]  Oh, I was speaking out against uh, safe spaces and uh uh, the banning of halloween costumes uh the uh, all kinds of crazy stuff, and uh, and also like uh, the no platforming of speakers, the way they were uh, banishing speakers from even coming to campus or otherwise uh, burning down the campus, as in the case of Berkeley.
[00:06:33]  All this stuff was uh uh coming uh, or already had hit, and when I started to speak out and it just so happens that I was rather prescient because they got worse.
[00:06:43]  Uh, I don't think a lot of people noticed it right away because it looked like this was just a mild phenomenon of blue-haired kids on campus, but I contend that it's actually the official dogma of the state at this point.
[00:06:57]  Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, and around that same time, I think for a lot of us who weren't on college campuses it it's one of these things where you see that it's happening, but it's hard.
[00:07:09]  It's hard to know Exactly how prevalent it is.
[00:07:11]  It's like, okay, so I saw one video of it here on one campus.
[00:07:15]  But I mean, that, and there was also part of it from an outsider perspective who's not on a college campus, where as this first started, it's so crazy that it's hard to even believe that it would be going on everywhere.
[00:07:28]  You're like, they have safe spaces for adults on college campuses?
[00:07:33]  Like, there's a place to hide out from ideas that you don't like in a university.
[00:07:39]  At NYU, they even had petting animals and pacifiers in these safe spaces.
[00:07:45]  So they were literally distributing pacifiers to people who were traumatized by the Trump campaign.
[00:07:53]  So that's what was going on.
[00:07:56]  Well, I didn't even know about the pacifiers.
[00:07:59]  I had heard the animals before, but my son, we're weaning him off the pacifier now.
[00:08:04]  He's almost two.
[00:08:06]  He's not even two yet.
[00:08:07]  And we were like, you know, he can have it to sleep, but he really can't have it when he's just playing in the playroom because that's just like he's got to start getting off of this.
[00:08:15]  He's not even two yet.
[00:08:17]  They're giving 20-year-olds pacifier.
[00:08:19]  Yeah, it's funny because the things like that really have nothing to do with whatever your view on economics, you know what I mean, or your view on the role of government is.
[00:08:29]  But it's almost like, how could anyone not look at that and go, okay, this is crazy, no matter what your politics are.

=== Biotics Economics and Cultural Orthodoxy (02:47) ===

[00:08:36]  Right.
[00:08:37]  It just so happens to be an extension of the nanny state, you know, down to the institutional level.
[00:08:42]  But yeah, at first blush, it just looked to me like utter insanity.
[00:08:46]  I didn't had no idea what was going on.
[00:08:48]  And I had been a leftist, as I said, and I criticized this social justice creed and their activities from the left at first.
[00:08:58]  I was actually speaking as a communist at the time, and they still assailed me.
[00:09:03]  Yeah.
[00:09:04]  Yeah, because it seems like that doesn't really matter anymore.
[00:09:07]  It's not about economics to them.
[00:09:09]  I mean, like, it's kind of like the economics now are pushed behind the scenes.
[00:09:13]  Like, like BlackRock and Vanguard may have some economic plans, but what they are is really cultural.
[00:09:19]  You know, like, I mean, I know the term means a lot of things to different people, but they're by definition, they're cultural Marxists.
[00:09:25]  You have to, that's right.
[00:09:26]  You have to accept the cultural orthodoxies.
[00:09:28]  It's not like it's not, if you, if you say the means of production should be publicly owned, fine, but it doesn't matter unless you admit that trans people are being genocided right now.
[00:09:41]  You know, like that's, that's really what's important to them.
[00:09:43]  That seems to be what's driving the whole movement.
[00:09:46]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Z-Biotics.
[00:09:51]  Z-Biotics Pre-Alcohol Probiotic is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic.
[00:09:58]  Let's face it, after a night out having some drinks, I'll tell you, I don't always bounce back the next day like I used to, but now, thanks to Z-Biotics, there is something you can do.
[00:10:07]  Here's how it works: when you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut.
[00:10:12]  It's this byproduct, not dehydration that's to blame for your rough next day.
[00:10:17]  Z-Biotics pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down.
[00:10:22]  It's designed to work like your liver, but in your gut where you need it the most.
[00:10:26]  Just remember to drink Z-Biotics before drinking alcohol, drink responsibly, and get a good night's sleep to feel your best the next day.
[00:10:34]  So if you're going to be drinking this Halloween, make sure to pair those cocktails with Z-Biotics to avoid a rough next morning.
[00:10:41]  Give Z-Biotics a try for yourself.
[00:10:43]  Go to z-biotics.com/slash P-O-T-P to get 15% off your first order when you use the promo code P-O-T-P at checkout.
[00:10:52]  Z-Biotics is backed with a 100% money-back guarantee.
[00:10:56]  So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money.
[00:10:59]  No questions asked.
[00:11:00]  Remember, head to zbiotics.com/slash P-O-T-P and use the promo code P-O-T-P at checkout for 15% off.
[00:11:08]  Thanks to Zbiotics for sponsoring today's episode.
[00:11:11]  You also, I know, you know, you wrote the book about the great reset.
[00:11:15]  You were phenomenal during COVID at really being one of the people who was blowing the whistle on this whole insanity and how there was something bigger at play here.

=== Living Under a Globalist Regime (10:52) ===

[00:11:24]  And this was not simply about, you know, how deadly this virus actually was or whether or not the lockdowns were as effective as they should have been, but that there was clearly a bigger plan being implemented by the ruling elite.
[00:11:41]  Can you want to talk about that a little bit?
[00:11:43]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:11:44]  So, you know, the conclusion I've come to is effectively that the means that these elites use are actually the ends that they seek.
[00:11:54]  So whenever they're, you know, claiming that you need to be locked down, you need to be vaccinated, you need to be masked, you need to keep social distancing.
[00:12:04]  This is really what they're after is to lock you down, to put you in a mask, to social distance you, and to vaccinate you.
[00:12:12]  This is really the end game.
[00:12:13]  It isn't about COVID.
[00:12:15]  And similarly with climate change, for example, it's the same thing.
[00:12:20]  The means that they're using or attempting to use or beginning to implement are the ends being sought.
[00:12:27]  They don't want you driving cars.
[00:12:28]  They don't want you having an air conditioner.
[00:12:31]  They don't want you even burning logs in your backyard.
[00:12:35]  And now I read today they don't want you to have pets.
[00:12:39]  There's just an insane amount of stuff.
[00:12:41]  And it's really, this is authoritarianism or totalitarianism when it becomes global.
[00:12:47]  We're talking about a totalitarian order that's being ushered in.
[00:12:51]  And I talk about that in great depth in the Greg Reset and the struggle for liberty.
[00:12:56]  And I treat all this from a libertarian perspective.
[00:13:00]  It is not conspiratorial or conspiratorial rant.
[00:13:05]  It's not a conspiracy theory.
[00:13:06]  I actually tie all these things down with sources and everything is very tightly documented.
[00:13:14]  What's what's going on?
[00:13:15]  Yeah, it's not a conspiracy theory.
[00:13:17]  It's just a conspiracy.
[00:13:18]  It's a conspiracy that is happening.
[00:13:20]  Yeah.
[00:13:21]  That's right.
[00:13:21]  You know, and whatever, I mean, I don't know.
[00:13:24]  I think the term conspiracy theory, which was first coined in the wake of Jack Kennedy's assassination to kind of demonize the people who dared.
[00:13:33]  You know, these are so these crazy people with all of their conspiracies.
[00:13:37]  And by the way, we're going to seal the records of what happened forever.
[00:13:40]  You'll never be able to tell what it is.
[00:13:42]  It's like, yeah, that term is, and don't get me wrong, there are some goofy conspiracy theorists.
[00:13:48]  But the truth is that elites do conspire.
[00:13:52]  That is a fact.
[00:13:53]  And we're living through many different conspiracies right now over the last few years.
[00:13:57]  And there are things just like from lower levels to higher levels, but selling the war in Iraq was a conspiracy.
[00:14:04]  They all conspired to push these lies.
[00:14:06]  Killing the lab leak story was a conspiracy.
[00:14:10]  We can look through Fauci's emails that we have now and see that he conspired with other scientists to misrepresent the information so that people wouldn't think it came from the lab.
[00:14:19]  And why?
[00:14:20]  Well, because he was behind the lab, behind the production of the virus in that lab.
[00:14:25]  He had funded Echo Health and Boston, who funded the Wuhan laboratory.
[00:14:32]  So he was totally connected to it.
[00:14:34]  His hands are so dirty.
[00:14:36]  It's unbelievable that he's not in jail, except for the fact that we're under this particular regime.
[00:14:42]  Yeah, no, that's exactly right.
[00:14:43]  Exactly.
[00:14:44]  And it's something, it really is like a lot of this stuff.
[00:14:46]  It's like it's fascinating because we're living through it.
[00:14:49]  But you're like, if this was in a novel and we hadn't lived through any of this, you would kind of be like, this is far-fetched, man.
[00:14:56]  Like, no one's going to be, it's like, oh, it turns out the guy who was the face of the pandemic response actually made the virus.
[00:15:03]  You're like, dude, this is just getting a little too out there.
[00:15:06]  If this were just like, if you submitted this to a publishing company, but like, you're like, oh, no, all of that.
[00:15:10]  You're like, and you got the college kids with pacifiers.
[00:15:13]  Like, come on, what type of world?
[00:15:15]  No one's going to believe this is real.
[00:15:17]  And yet.
[00:15:17]  It was so crazy, Dave, that I ended up writing a novel during the pandemic.
[00:15:21]  I wrote a novel called Thought Criminal, which is about, you know, another type of pandemic.
[00:15:25]  And just to get people to think about what was happening.
[00:15:29]  If you put things in fiction, a fictional framework.
[00:15:33]  And then people can extrapolate from that to their own experience.
[00:15:37]  That's what I try to do in that novel.
[00:15:38]  Yeah.
[00:15:39]  Yeah.
[00:15:39]  No, I understand what you're saying because when you look at it just as a story, you kind of see what's going on sometimes in a more clear way than when you're just documenting what's actually happening.
[00:15:48]  So obviously you're running for president.
[00:15:51]  The big issues of our day are, I mean, to me, the biggest one is this proxy war of choice that we're involved in with Russia.
[00:16:02]  What are your thoughts on the war in Ukraine?
[00:16:06]  What's your platform for how to deal with Ukraine?
[00:16:08]  Well, my platform is very straightforward on that.
[00:16:12]  We need to absolutely withdraw all support for this war, all funding of this war and all the arms that are being sent over there to exacerbate this conflict.
[00:16:24]  And I think the war is really being staged largely to try to undertake another coup.
[00:16:33]  They want to get rid of Putin.
[00:16:35]  This is really the ultimate objective, I think.
[00:16:38]  And so they've changed it from, you know, defending Ukraine to defending Ukrainian democracy, which doesn't exist, by the way.
[00:16:48]  And they sometimes admit that in effect, what they really want to do is dethrone Putin.
[00:16:57]  They want to get him out.
[00:16:58]  And so they're using Ukraine as a staging area.
[00:17:02]  And they're feeding this human fodder into this cannon of death.
[00:17:07]  It's despicable.
[00:17:08]  Plus, it could exacerbate to the point that it precipitates World War III, which could become nuclear.
[00:17:16]  So I say basically we must end the war because if we don't end the war, we'll be dead before we end the Fed.
[00:17:26]  Okay, I like that.
[00:17:27]  And that covers your Federal Reserve military policy as well.
[00:17:31]  So very good.
[00:17:32]  Yeah, it's been really wild to see and then to even see for some people who had woken up to some degree during all of the COVID insanity to see that all of the same people, their number one priority shifted to this war in Ukraine.
[00:17:49]  And, you know, and right on a dime, it's like it just, that's what ended.
[00:17:52]  My buddy Kurt Metzger, the great stand-up comedian, he has a great bit about that where he was like, he was like, do you support Ukraine?
[00:17:59]  You got to give it to him.
[00:18:00]  He was like, he goes, Putin was wrong for invading, but you got to give it to him.
[00:18:04]  He did cure COVID.
[00:18:05]  So that was pretty cool.
[00:18:07]  It's a great joke.
[00:18:08]  But like, yeah, it is true.
[00:18:09]  But all those same people who were lying to you about everything through the pandemic, they are now saying the number one priority is this war with Russia.
[00:18:17]  And just you should be as suspicious of that as you are about everything else they tell you about COVID policy.
[00:18:24]  There's something, there's a different goal in mind here.
[00:18:27]  And it seems to me that the goal here is kind of the oldest goal in the world, right?
[00:18:34]  It's world domination.
[00:18:35]  It's taking over the world.
[00:18:36]  The American empire gaining more and more power.
[00:18:39]  And whatever this new plan that they seem to have here.
[00:18:42]  And again, this is not conspiracy talk.
[00:18:44]  I'm just, I'm taking these people at their word.
[00:18:47]  When very powerful people like Klaus Schwab and people at the WEF and all of these guys, when they say these things, when they say they want us to be eating bugs and not eating meat, when they say that they want a central bank digital currency, I'm taking them at their word that that's what they mean.
[00:19:01]  And it seems that they want to take over the world or at least as much of it as possible.
[00:19:05]  They've already got a lot of it, and that this is the new plan going forward.
[00:19:09]  And man, this just has to be fought against.
[00:19:12]  And I think this is why it's so important that you're running for president.
[00:19:16]  And I know that there are candidates out there like RFK Jr. and Vivek Ramaswamy who say some good things.
[00:19:24]  Man, we need one candidate who's just saying all of the right things.
[00:19:28]  Do you kind of see that as your role?
[00:19:30]  Yeah, my role is to tell the truth.
[00:19:32]  And however that falls out politically, that's what it is.
[00:19:37]  My main modus operandus is to tell the truth, however unsavory it might appear to some people in all cases.
[00:19:48]  And then that is really the only way to run a campaign in this current condition.
[00:19:57]  I mean, we're looking at criminality.
[00:19:59]  We're looking at oppression.
[00:20:01]  We're looking at tyranny.
[00:20:02]  We're looking at all of this at the same time, plus, you know, cultural subversion, and you name it.
[00:20:10]  All of these things are being, we're being, it's an onslaught of constant inversions of reality, complete lies.
[00:20:18]  So that's why I say my campaign is to wreck the regime.
[00:20:23]  That's what it's about.
[00:20:25]  I love that.
[00:20:27]  Obviously, winning the presidency from the Libertarian Party is a long shot.
[00:20:32]  All of the rules are kind of stacked against you.
[00:20:36]  But one of the things that I've always felt that was very valuable about running like a pure libertarian who understands all this stuff is that it can generate a lot of enthusiasm.
[00:20:46]  Right now, especially because we're in the middle of this massive realignment politically, there's just opportunities unlike there's ever been before.
[00:20:55]  You gave a speech a little while back.
[00:20:58]  It was some event that the Mises Institute was holding, and you laid out a list of, it was something, I think it might have been nine points.
[00:21:08]  Nine point plan, yeah.
[00:21:09]  Yeah, you're at the nine point plan of how we can fight back against this, the great reset, how we can fight back against what they're doing.
[00:21:18]  And so this, I want to ask you to get into that a little bit.
[00:21:21]  But to me, this is what's really exciting because there are ways that we can fight back.
[00:21:25]  And you saw with a couple examples, like with Bud Light and with Target, there was like, oh, you know, like the people actually can land some black eyes on these powerful interests.
[00:21:37]  And so this is what I think, what I like.
[00:21:39]  The excitement of the campaign then translating into this.
[00:21:41]  So why don't you explain that a little bit to people, like what it is that you think people can do to fight back against the great reset?
[00:21:48]  Absolutely.
[00:21:49]  So, you know, we are in a situation where our real only alternative, the real recourse that we have is by effectively localizing our power and getting rid of federal power, getting it off of our backs, getting it off of, get the globalists off our backs.
[00:22:10]  I think we're living under a regime that is globalist in its motives and direction.

=== Refusing CBDCs for Digital Freedom (04:20) ===

[00:22:17]  So the great reset can be foiled locally and through decentralization and nullification.
[00:22:26]  Those are the principles, but I have a plan that foils it by virtue of refusing CBDC, refusing to use it.
[00:22:37]  So what does that mean?
[00:22:37]  We have to have parallel alternative currencies in place.
[00:22:42]  Of course, Bitcoin is one.
[00:22:44]  And then gold and silver, liquidatable and transmissible with a storehouse of gold.
[00:22:51]  And then you make purchases off of that sum.
[00:22:55]  We need to absolutely resist the use of the CBDC because It totally closes the totalitarian circle.
[00:23:05]  It makes all of your transactions transparent to the Fed.
[00:23:08]  Effectively, you'll have a bank account with the Federal Reserve.
[00:23:12]  And that means, now, I know, of course, the Fed is a private company, but it also is a federal agency.
[00:23:18]  That means the federal government will know about your spending and savings and debt, probably.
[00:23:25]  So refusing CBDC.
[00:23:29]  And you have to have, of course, alternative currencies in place in a parallel structure of economic producers and consumers who will accept the currency that you're using.
[00:23:40]  And then, of course, we need to reject digital identity.
[00:23:47]  It sounds rather benign on the face of it, but it's really connected to the CBDC.
[00:23:54]  The Bank of International Settlements has said that without a digital identity, you can't really institute CBDC.
[00:24:02]  So that'll be connected totally.
[00:24:05]  I should mention about the CBDC also is that this means that they could actually control what you spend and what you spend it on.
[00:24:13]  That means if they don't want you to use your quota of gas for the week or you're trying to buy a weapon, all of this could be forbidden by the CBDC.
[00:24:24]  They could actually shut it down.
[00:24:25]  And if you become known or suspected to be a political dissident, they could restrict your use entirely.
[00:24:33]  So, and digital identity is a major ploy to basically get everybody connected and under a certain profile that is connected to the CBDC that they use then for social credit scores and so forth.
[00:24:51]  This is all really underway.
[00:24:53]  It sounds like it's future-oriented or far-fetched, but it's not.
[00:24:59]  Yeah.
[00:24:59]  No, no, you're absolutely right.
[00:25:01]  And it is really the creepiest idea that you'd be in a place.
[00:25:07]  I mean, this is the thing that, you know, look, shows like mine are going to be done.
[00:25:13]  Like if this comes here, we're not going to have this is, look, one of the things about the United States of America that we still to some degree have.
[00:25:22]  Our government, you can make a very strong argument that our government is the worst government in the world.
[00:25:28]  Now, maybe not quite to its own people, the level of say, like North Korea that they do to their own people.
[00:25:34]  But if you look at what we've done to the people in, say, the Middle East, quite a bit worse than North Korea, you know, like killed a lot more people.
[00:25:41]  Again, you can make debates about this stuff, but I'm just saying one of the things that we've maintained in America that you don't have in some of these other countries is that you can still be a political dissident.
[00:25:55]  Now, there are problems.
[00:25:57]  I mean, you certainly, as you know, you can be forced to leave a job as a college professor.
[00:26:02]  You can be shadow banned on the internet.
[00:26:03]  You can be outright banned.
[00:26:05]  There are still things that can happen.
[00:26:07]  However, I would much prefer to be me in America than in Russia right now.
[00:26:14]  In Russia, you're not just, you know, for all the war propaganda about how bad they are.
[00:26:18]  The truth is, you're not just going to start a podcast and start talking about how much you don't like Vladimir Putin's policies.
[00:26:24]  That's here.
[00:26:25]  We still do this with some degree of freedom.
[00:26:29]  That is over if we have a central bank digital currency.
[00:26:33]  That's the end of that.
[00:26:34]  We now join them where they won't have to haul you off to prison.

=== ESG Monopolies and Corporate Censorship (15:21) ===

[00:26:38]  They'll just make it so that advertisers can't spend any money on my program.
[00:26:42]  Anybody can't contribute to my show.
[00:26:44]  Once they control that, or that I can't spend any of my money getting groceries or whatever, they'll have complete ability to do that.
[00:26:51]  This is it's a game changer and it's the most important thing to be resisted.
[00:26:57]  And it's, you know, it's also because I think sometimes, and this is why I really love you as the Libertarian Party candidate, because I think it's a lot of libertarians or even really well-read ones who have read all their Mises, Rothbard and Hoppe.
[00:27:16]  They don't necessarily know about this because this is such a new thing.
[00:27:20]  And I think sometimes they don't recognize what the threat is and what's actually going on here.
[00:27:24]  Another thing, yes, I agree entirely.
[00:27:27]  This is, you know, I've get pushback for this kind of stuff because I get pushback from libertarians who say, you know, we got enough problems with the Fed itself.
[00:27:36]  I agree.
[00:27:37]  The Fed needs to be abolished, audited, and abolished.
[00:27:40]  But this is a further centralization of banking.
[00:27:44]  And this ties everybody into this Fed system.
[00:27:49]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, a brand new sponsor we're thrilled to have on board, which is Crossed Sabres Coffee Company, roasted on demand, packaged, and shipped within 48 hours.
[00:28:02]  If you like a smooth, less bitter coffee, this is for you.
[00:28:05]  It is freshly roasted and it's right from the farm.
[00:28:08]  Grown at high altitudes with volcanic rich soils, it really has that fresher taste.
[00:28:14]  They also have a special edition blend, Whiskey Barrel, is a traditional single-origin blend of coffee aged in a whiskey barrel for 30 days and then roasted to order.
[00:28:24]  And if you prefer K-cups, Crossed Sabers has them roasted on demand too.
[00:28:29]  Unlike store-bought K-cups, which are sitting on shelves for weeks or months at a time, they get them roasted and shipped to you within 48 hours to keep that freshness.
[00:28:37]  Veteran, it's a veteran-owned and operated company.
[00:28:40]  A portion of the proceeds from each purchase are donated to veteran-serving organizations.
[00:28:45]  And right now, you can get 15% off each order when you use promo code Dave or follow the link in the episode description.
[00:28:52]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:28:54]  There's other things too that are really problematic that I don't think any other libertarian candidates are addressing at all.
[00:29:00]  And that is the ESG.
[00:29:02]  ESG is an extragovernmental, parallel governmental coercion regime, okay, that is forcing producers into producing certain things and eliminating other things.
[00:29:17]  And it controls how they produce everything and what, in fact, they're able to produce and therefore what we're able to buy.
[00:29:25]  So it's kind of a cartel scheme that drives competitors out of business.
[00:29:29]  That's what's in it for them.
[00:29:31]  And it controls consumption to a great degree.
[00:29:34]  So they're going to be basically not producing things that you want.
[00:29:39]  And this is a complete distortion of the market, of course.
[00:29:43]  And it is, you know, it is a beast because it is a monopoly scheme.
[00:29:49]  First of all, this is a monopoly scheme.
[00:29:51]  So it's about eliminating laissez-faire.
[00:29:54]  I mean, Claude Schwab has said this directly in his books, that he hates what he calls neoliberalism.
[00:30:01]  But what he means by it after he defines it is the free market itself.
[00:30:05]  And they want to eliminate the free market.
[00:30:08]  And ESG is a means by which they're doing this.
[00:30:12]  ESG, of course, stands for Environmental, Social and Governance Index.
[00:30:16]  And part of the ESG is the S.
[00:30:18]  And that's rating companies and eventually individuals on their social score.
[00:30:24]  And that is how well they abide by these woke dictates.
[00:30:27]  And this is being absorbed into the state.
[00:30:30]  Biden's first veto in office was vetoing a bill that would have prohibited ESG investing of pension funds.
[00:30:41]  So that's the only veto that he's issued.
[00:30:45]  And that's because they want this ESG.
[00:30:48]  And of course, this is about total control as well.
[00:30:51]  This is about controlling the company's behaviors and individuals' behaviors.
[00:30:56]  It is about restricting everything that we can do.
[00:30:58]  And the social credit score comes on top of that.
[00:31:02]  So, and the other part of the ESG is G, and that is really about how much these companies and you as an individual comply with governmental dictates.
[00:31:14]  Right, right.
[00:31:15]  And it is a fascinating, which I actually was just learning about.
[00:31:18]  In fact, Vivek Ramaswamy was one of the ones who was talking a lot about this, but that this is one of the ways that the politicians kind of manipulate these standards is that they're, it's like what Jimmy Hoffa, this used to be how he got so in with the mob and got powerful, was like, and it wasn't like he like had so much money, but he was the head of the union.
[00:31:41]  And so he could control where all their pensions were invested.
[00:31:44]  So it was this enormous amount of money that he could then decide where that money is going to be funneled.
[00:31:49]  And then that, from that, you get enormous power.
[00:31:52]  And what we have now is these public unions.
[00:31:57]  So when you, these politicians have complete control of all of the pensions of every public worker within their state, which is, you know, the only people who still have pensions in today's society, pretty much are the ones who work for the government, who get it from the taxpayers.
[00:32:11]  So now they can say, we'll give all of this money to BlackRock, but only if you keep up with these ESG scores, only if you invest the money this way.
[00:32:20]  So it is the politicians driving these shadowy private companies that then enforce all of this on the entire country.
[00:32:28]  It's really, when people wonder, they're kind of like, wait a minute, I understand that there's this mentality that swept college campuses where they've decided the new fad is like that there's no such thing as gender.
[00:32:42]  Like, okay, you can kind of understand where 19-year-olds are getting into this, this crazy stuff, particularly 19-year-olds who grew up without families and have been medicated their entire life, but that's here nor there.
[00:32:54]  But you're like, why did every single corporation in America decide there's no such thing as gender?
[00:33:01]  These aren't 19-year-olds.
[00:33:03]  These aren't 19-year-olds who are being like, you know, kind of like swept away by some argument a liberal arts professor is making.
[00:33:11]  What's going on?
[00:33:12]  And this is what's actually going on here, that the government is directing these shadowy corporations to insist that they all push this.
[00:33:21]  This is why it's happening.
[00:33:23]  Yeah, that's exactly right.
[00:33:24]  And Jimmy Hoffa is Larry Fink, in effect.
[00:33:27]  Larry Fink of BlackRock is pushing all this through the markets.
[00:33:32]  He says basically he will starve your company of capital investments if you do not abide.
[00:33:38]  And why is that important to us?
[00:33:41]  It's obviously a distortion of the market, but it's about total control over all spending and control over what we can consume, control over all production.
[00:33:51]  And it's a monopoly scheme, as I said.
[00:33:54]  It's a way of getting rid of competitors.
[00:33:56]  And that's what's in it for them.
[00:33:59]  So I argue in the book, you got to divest from ESG.
[00:34:04]  It's feeding the beast.
[00:34:06]  So find a way to divest if you have investments in these and portfolios that have any stocks at all.
[00:34:13]  I know I'm speaking to a sliver of people, but also your banks are involved in this.
[00:34:19]  So you've got to pull your funds out of banks that are promoting ESG.
[00:34:24]  And Brian Moynihan of Bank of America has said, if you don't, if you, a company or a person doesn't meet the ESG bar, you will not get a loan.
[00:34:35]  You will not get money.
[00:34:37]  You'll be starved on the vine.
[00:34:39]  Yeah.
[00:34:40]  And right.
[00:34:40]  And as you said, from like a libertarian point of view, like not, this is not a product of anything resembling a laissez-faire market.
[00:34:48]  This is not, Bank of America is not just some private company.
[00:34:52]  You know, they're a member of the Federal Reserve.
[00:34:55]  This is our own government who's doing this for us.
[00:34:58]  Now, that's another thing I wanted to mention.
[00:35:01]  What we're saying, too, is what is the state today?
[00:35:05]  It's not just the government at this point.
[00:35:07]  We're looking at the absorption of corporations into the state.
[00:35:11]  They have become state apparatuses or what I call governmentalities.
[00:35:16]  We can obviously see this with big tech.
[00:35:19]  We see this through the Twitter files, but I knew this back in 2018 when I wrote Google Archipelago, that big tech is a state apparatus.
[00:35:28]  It is being absorbed by the state and is being used for state functions and largely repressive functions of censorship, propaganda, and narrative control.
[00:35:41]  So, you know, we have to look at the state in a broader perspective than we've been used to as libertarians and start to see the state as the regime inclusive of these governmentalities.
[00:35:55]  And big pharma is obviously a governmentality.
[00:35:59]  It's also been absorbed into the state.
[00:36:01]  Look how they got monopoly and liability, listed liabilities for these vaccines and monopoly over them through patents.
[00:36:10]  And then what did the state get in exchange for granting these limited monopolies and this effective, you know, limited liability?
[00:36:22]  They got increased powers of coercion over the population.
[00:36:27]  And the same goes, of course, for the military-industrial complex.
[00:36:30]  This was the obvious one for many, many years.
[00:36:33]  What do they get from it?
[00:36:35]  They get money, of course, but the state then expands its power and it also represses the domestic population.
[00:36:43]  It cows them into submission and it spies on them.
[00:36:48]  So, you know, these are, this is how we have to reconfigure our understanding about what the state is and what it is we're opposing.
[00:36:55]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:36:56]  I mean, it's like because there are libertarians.
[00:36:58]  Also, one of the issues is that this stuff is a little bit complex.
[00:37:02]  And so it's like you have to do a little bit of work to actually understand it.
[00:37:05]  But to think of, for a libertarian to think of BlackRock or Vanguard or one of these companies as like, well, that's just a private company.
[00:37:13]  And hey, if they choose to invest their money this way, they have a right to invest their money.
[00:37:17]  It's like, it's like, it's on the level of saying like, hey, Raytheon's just a private company.
[00:37:21]  And if they make their missiles this way, that's how they make their missiles.
[00:37:25]  It's like, no, that's not at all.
[00:37:26]  They're in the web of state power.
[00:37:29]  They exist because of state power.
[00:37:31]  They exist to perpetuate state power and they benefit from it.
[00:37:34]  And they're benefiting and perpetuating everything we're against.
[00:37:38]  And so we oppose them.
[00:37:40]  That's the libertarian message.
[00:37:42]  Get that through your head, libertarians.
[00:37:44]  That's why you can't say about social media.
[00:37:46]  Well, it's their platform.
[00:37:48]  It's a private company.
[00:37:49]  They can censor whoever they want.
[00:37:50]  Well, they're censoring them at the behest of the state.
[00:37:54]  They're censoring them at the behest of the FBI and other agencies, Department of Homeland Security.
[00:37:59]  We saw this with the Twitter files.
[00:38:01]  We see this in Missouri versus Biden.
[00:38:04]  It's very clear that these companies are operating at the state's direction.
[00:38:09]  Yes, 100%.
[00:38:10]  And then the other thing that happens here, and this is another reason why I think it's great that you're in the race, is that there will be some Republicans, let's say, who will come out and say, you know, yeah, I'm against all of this stuff.
[00:38:27]  I oppose wokeism and I oppose censorship on social media, but their solutions then is censorship.
[00:38:35]  It's always some next government program, some next government plan, which is, and it's frustrating, but as I try to say often to my right-wing listeners that, look, when the Department of Homeland Security was created, when the Patriot Act was passed, it was libertarians who were telling the conservatives, do not support this.
[00:38:58]  This is going to be a disaster.
[00:39:00]  It's going to be used against you.
[00:39:02]  And now look at it.
[00:39:03]  Who's the war on terrorism on now?
[00:39:05]  It's on the same right-wingers who supported George W. Bush in creating all of this stuff.
[00:39:10]  It was domestic terrorists.
[00:39:11]  Right.
[00:39:12]  So you would think we would have gained a little bit of credibility at this point when they go, well, what we need to do is nationalize Twitter, you know, and go, no, do not do that.
[00:39:23]  This is going to, it can still get so much worse than it is now for you.
[00:39:26]  And so there's got to be kind of someone who can say, no, listen, we oppose all of this stuff, but we also recognize that the problem here is government intervention into the market.
[00:39:35]  And the solution is to get government out of this entirely.
[00:39:38]  Absolutely.
[00:39:39]  Like you have DeSantis in Florida.
[00:39:42]  You know, he's a big culture warrior, but his solution to infiltration of wokeness in the academy, including in the curriculum with CRT and LGBTQIA ideology is to ban it, which is just absolutely insane.
[00:40:01]  That's exactly what they want you to do because then they can point to you and say you're the authoritarian.
[00:40:07]  And secondly, what we need is competition in this marketplace.
[00:40:11]  Competition in all of the areas of ideas and so forth.
[00:40:16]  So the answer is always competition.
[00:40:18]  I think that if it, you know, what it is, if these ideologies, these forms of thinking have been established as monopolies.
[00:40:28]  They've been established as monopolies through state funding.
[00:40:31]  So what we need to do is end the state funding and the monopolization of ideas and the monopolization of the market and then establish liberty and competition.
[00:40:44]  Yeah, 100%.
[00:40:45]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Sheath Underwear, the underwear of legends.
[00:40:51]  And here's something crazy.
[00:40:53]  Sheath has been advertising on this podcast for over three years.
[00:40:57]  And I am telling you, this is the truth.
[00:40:59]  I still have the first pair that they ever sent me.
[00:41:03]  I still wear it, and it's still just as comfortable as it was when I first got it.
[00:41:07]  I cannot stress to you guys enough, Sheath Underwear is the best pair of boxer briefs I've ever worn in my life.
[00:41:13]  It is the only underwear I wear.
[00:41:15]  I threw out all my other boxer briefs, and this is it for me.
[00:41:18]  You just feel better when you're in a pair of sheaths.
[00:41:21]  And they're a great company.
[00:41:22]  They've been a longtime sponsor of this show.
[00:41:24]  They also have other clothing options.
[00:41:26]  They have shirts and hoodies and stuff like that.
[00:41:28]  Great, great company.
[00:41:29]  Go check them out.
[00:41:30]  Get the most comfortable pair of boxer briefs you will ever put on your body at sheathunderwear.com.
[00:41:36]  And if you use the promo code problem20, you're also going to get 20% off your next order.
[00:41:41]  Go support the company that supports us and get the most comfortable pair of boxer briefs you'll ever own in the process.
[00:41:47]  Sheathunderwear.com, promo code problem20 for 20% off your next order.
[00:41:52]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:41:53]  All right, I want to switch gears here because I just want to talk about a few other issues that are very important.

=== Public Property and Border Principles (12:42) ===

[00:41:59]  I wanted to talk a bit about immigration.
[00:42:02]  This is another thing that I'm really glad that you are where you are on this issue.
[00:42:07]  I think there are some libertarians who still support the notion of open borders.
[00:42:14]  As I've been saying for years, this is not the correct libertarian position.
[00:42:18]  It's just not, that's not actually the correct understanding of libertarianism.
[00:42:22]  And perhaps more important than that, for a presidential campaign, it is a it's just a deal breaker.
[00:42:31]  It's a killer.
[00:42:33]  Yes, as soon as you say that, whatever anybody, the truth is that probably like, I mean, even amongst the Democratic Party base, open, none of them come out and say, I'm for open borders because it's an enormously unpopular position.
[00:42:50]  But for a libertarian to say it, no one's going to listen to any of the rest of the great things you have to say if you're for that.
[00:42:55]  It's also not the correct position.
[00:42:58]  But I wonder if you could explain where you're at on the topic of immigration and also kind of how that seems to also be a huge component of what the ruling elite wish to push on us.
[00:43:10]  Yeah, that's right.
[00:43:11]  So go ahead.
[00:43:12]  That's a huge part of it.
[00:43:13]  I'll start with the latter point that the elite want to have open borders because they're looking to dissolve national sovereignty.
[00:43:19]  And they're not doing that for good reasons, like getting rid of the state.
[00:43:22]  No, no, they want global statism, which is the ultimate enemy because global statism can be utterly totalitarian.
[00:43:30]  And there's no escape when you have a global state, when you have a one-world system.
[00:43:34]  So I'm talking about localization all the way down.
[00:43:38]  So how do you resist globalism and how do you resist statism?
[00:43:42]  You resist them through decentralization and nullification.
[00:43:46]  Now, as terms of immigration, what I would say there is that in a private property society, the only borders that would exist would be the borders around your property.
[00:43:58]  And then you would have full determination over who enters or can't enter into that property.
[00:44:05]  Now, we don't live in a private property, fully private property society by any stretch.
[00:44:09]  We have public property, and that's a conundrum.
[00:44:13]  It's a very tricky idea.
[00:44:15]  But one way to look at public property is that it really is the property of the citizens, of people or taxpayers.
[00:44:26]  That's whose property it is.
[00:44:28]  So to just invite anybody into the country or to allow them to come in without an invitation is to infringe on the rights of those taxpayers.
[00:44:39]  It's effectively saying it's a violation of the non-aggression principle.
[00:44:44]  It's saying your property has no meaning and there is no property here.
[00:44:51]  So we're going to do whatever.
[00:44:52]  We're going to let these people in unvetted, unfiltered, completely unfettered immigration.
[00:45:00]  What we should have is local control over immigration.
[00:45:04]  And that is to say, if California, I mean, I'm for decentralization.
[00:45:09]  So if California wants to have an open border with Mexico and they decide to do that, then that's their business.
[00:45:16]  They should do it.
[00:45:17]  But if Idaho wants to close their borders to these same immigrants, they should be able to do it.
[00:45:23]  And this goes down to the local level.
[00:45:25]  If a certain city or town within California doesn't want unfettered immigration into their locality, then they should have that right.
[00:45:34]  The idea here is that we have, there's no way to get out from under this totalitarianism without decentralization and nullification.
[00:45:43]  So as I say, private property is the ultimate principle.
[00:45:48]  The question of public property is a very tricky one.
[00:45:52]  But in most cases, you can look at public property as, first of all, property that's been wrested from the taxpayers against their will and given to the state so that it's already stolen property to begin with.
[00:46:09]  And then on top of being stolen, it's being thrown wide open to whoever might take it.
[00:46:18]  So I know that's not necessarily the most congenial view with reference to some libertarians.
[00:46:26]  I'd call them left libertarians at best, who argue for utterly open borders.
[00:46:32]  And they say, you know, you need to have liberty, liberty, but liberty doesn't mean I can infringe on your property rights.
[00:46:39]  That's not quite the opposite.
[00:46:41]  Quite the opposite.
[00:46:41]  Yeah.
[00:46:42]  Well, look, I mean, it's like this.
[00:46:44]  And it's hard to fit this on like a bumper sticker because it's a more complex issue.
[00:46:49]  But I always say it like this: I go, look, there is kind of when with the government existing, there are violations of the non-aggression principle in different directions.
[00:46:59]  Now, the libertarian principle is: if I have a cousin in Italy and I invite him onto my property and some government agent won't let him come, then absolutely that's a violation of the non-aggression principle.
[00:47:12]  However, when you have hundreds of thousands of people uninvited just marching across the border, they do not have a right.
[00:47:21]  They don't have a natural right to enter property that they haven't been invited to.
[00:47:25]  So that's also, and especially when you look at, I mean, the opinion polls on it, it's somewhere like 90% of the country opposes open borders.
[00:47:32]  So you're like, so the domestic population does not wish for you to be here.
[00:47:39]  There's no libertarian principle that says you have a right to enter property that you were not invited onto.
[00:47:44]  And so we do have a conundrum as long as government's involved.
[00:47:47]  But the best thing, the best thing is, as you said, either the most localized control that you can get or the idea that Hans Hermann Hoppe floated out, which was kind of like build a wall, have complete control of the border, and then have an inviteee system that you have to sponsor, but you have to sponsor and take financial responsibility.
[00:48:05]  That's the best approximation to like a libertarian order where only invited people can come.
[00:48:13]  They can't then be a burden on the taxpayers.
[00:48:15]  And the people who are uninvited simply can't come.
[00:48:19]  Yeah.
[00:48:20]  So, yeah, that's what Hoppe points out.
[00:48:22]  Look, there's a difference between goods and property.
[00:48:24]  So, you know, libertarians, some libertarians always like to make this very simple analogy between goods and people.
[00:48:32]  But there's a very big difference between goods and people.
[00:48:34]  Let's admit that.
[00:48:35]  One thing is that people have a will.
[00:48:37]  They have wills and they can do things without being invited to do them.
[00:48:42]  And goods are when they're purchased are already invited.
[00:48:47]  So there's a big difference and we need to clarify this.
[00:48:51]  It's a complex issue, but I think the principles make it very clear.
[00:48:56]  Yeah.
[00:48:56]  You know, another thing that Hoppe pointed out that I thought was just such a brilliant insight on this topic of immigration is what you almost always have are like the people who are the people who like kind of support open borders or something close to that are also like kind of on the side of free trade.
[00:49:13]  And then the people who support restricted restrictions on borders tend to be protectionists.
[00:49:18]  But what they don't realize is that there is this inverse relationship between free trade and immigration, where the more free trade you have, it tends to make these third world countries richer.
[00:49:31]  And the richer those countries are, the less people are going to be fleeing from them and immigrating to our country.
[00:49:37]  So it's actually the correct correct libertarian position is to like have border restrictions and have free trade with these other countries.
[00:49:46]  More free trade, this, you know, having total free trade would obviate this problem a great deal.
[00:49:53]  It might even eliminate it to a certain extent.
[00:49:55]  It would make it a non-issue largely because if you, you know, if you are importing goods from Mexico or other or South American countries, then of course they're going to have jobs for people.
[00:50:09]  I don't think people move somewhere to the United States because they really want to leave their homes unless they're being under siege.
[00:50:19]  They're under some sort of a dictatorship or something like that.
[00:50:21]  And then I think there are special circumstances like that.
[00:50:25]  That comes with an invitation, though.
[00:50:28]  And there you go to the port of entry and it gets determined there.
[00:50:32]  But, you know, I think people generally like to stay home and they leave because there's nothing they can do there.
[00:50:38]  There's no opportunity.
[00:50:41]  They're being shackled.
[00:50:42]  And that's because of trade restrictions.
[00:50:44]  Yeah.
[00:50:45]  Absolutely.
[00:50:46]  And also some intervention in these countries from our three-letter agencies that make the situation much worse.
[00:50:52]  So ending all of that stuff is a much better step than any of that.
[00:50:57]  And I would also just say, and I'm sure you agree with me on this, just ending the whole war on drugs.
[00:51:02]  I mean, the reason why this is why there's a market for these gangs to come through here, they exist in the black markets, call off the whole stupid prohibitions or make the situation much better.
[00:51:12]  It's a deadly, deadly regime, this war on drugs.
[00:51:16]  It's not only causing deaths by drugs because of the contamination of drugs by virtue of lacing it with fentanyl or whatever and killing people that way, but also the basic hostilities that are created by virtue of it, the warfare between gangs and between the government and these gangs.
[00:51:41]  It's ridiculous.
[00:51:43]  Just legalize it.
[00:51:44]  And anybody at 18 years old or over, it's up to them what they put in their bodies.
[00:51:50]  Yeah.
[00:51:50]  Well, it's not stopping them.
[00:51:52]  I mean, it's not stopping people.
[00:51:53]  You know, I hear some of these right-wingers talking about this.
[00:51:56]  And they will, they'll, and look, I mean, it's, it's horrific.
[00:51:59]  The numbers are appalling.
[00:52:00]  It's something, it's, I think, over 100,000 overdose deaths a year.
[00:52:05]  And that's just overdose deaths.
[00:52:08]  I don't know what the number of people who are ruining their lives on the stuff is, but it's many times more than just the ones who killed themselves this year on it.
[00:52:15]  But you go, okay, so even when the stuff's illegal, you're still having people using it.
[00:52:19]  And you know what?
[00:52:20]  Fentanyl is actually a drug that's a very important drug to use in hospitals.
[00:52:24]  You know what I mean?
[00:52:25]  Like it's very, it's very important for, I, you know, I know about this.
[00:52:28]  My newborn baby had open heart surgery.
[00:52:31]  He was on fentanyl for a few days.
[00:52:33]  So he didn't feel the insane pain of that.
[00:52:37]  We do not, however, see a problem of people going to their local hospital and overdosing on fentanyl.
[00:52:43]  Right.
[00:52:43]  Because it's not a black market.
[00:52:44]  They're controlling exactly how much to give you.
[00:52:47]  They know the dosing.
[00:52:48]  You're not going in there and they're giving you morphine.
[00:52:50]  Oops, that morphine was laced with fentanyl and you just had an overdose.
[00:52:53]  That happens in the black markets.
[00:52:55]  You legalize this stuff.
[00:52:56]  You get rid of it.
[00:52:57]  Put it in the legitimate market.
[00:53:00]  Don't outlaw it.
[00:53:01]  Don't prohibit it.
[00:53:02]  And therefore you get producers, just like in other cases, you get competition and the better producers will win.
[00:53:08]  And the ones that are inadvertently or otherwise killing people are driven out of business very shortly.
[00:53:15]  So it's a matter of competition and it's a matter of legalization.
[00:53:20]  Get rid of the war on drugs.
[00:53:22]  Get rid of this deep, this deep, this criminalization.
[00:53:25]  Yeah.
[00:53:25]  It's funny.
[00:53:26]  The funny thing is, even in government schools, they all taught us that this was the lesson of prohibition.
[00:53:31]  Like even they all concede it that they were like, yeah, yeah, you can't do this because then this ends up happening.
[00:53:36]  Yeah, but it doesn't count across the board for some reason.
[00:53:39]  Even though alcohol is a very deadly drug too.
[00:53:41]  But that one was always like really crazy to me because they'll literally, even the government schools were perfect on this.
[00:53:47]  They would just teach you the history.
[00:53:48]  Well, here's what happened.
[00:53:49]  They tried to prohibit it and then it led to the rise of gang cultures and all these people dying because of like bad alcohol that was made in someone's bathroom.
[00:53:56]  So we all realized you can't do that.
[00:53:57]  You have to legalize that.
[00:53:59]  And then you look around and you're like, but we do have this problem with overdoses and gangs.
[00:54:03]  Yeah, right.
[00:54:03]  You know, it doesn't seem to apply.
[00:54:05]  I don't know what it is.
[00:54:06]  I think it's just conditioning.
[00:54:07]  Yeah.
[00:54:09]  And that's marketing too.
[00:54:11]  I think that's marketing and anti-marketing, really.
[00:54:13]  When you have a free market and you have a free market in goods, when I said alcohol is deadly, it is in certain doses and certain and certain routines of drinking.
[00:54:26]  And it's not deadly in itself.
[00:54:28]  Yeah, when you have an open market in drugs and alcohol and people know what they're getting because they're told by the producer and they all consume it at their own risk and at their own discretion.

=== Moral Culpability in Israel Aid (09:48) ===

[00:54:42]  Yeah.
[00:54:42]  Well, look, I mean, and there's, and you could make a very strong argument that alcohol is the worst drug of all drugs.
[00:54:47]  We could.
[00:54:48]  Because it is, first of all, it's far more prevalent.
[00:54:51]  It's, I think 50% of the murders in the country, like the person who kills them is drunk.
[00:54:57]  Drunk driving is a huge driver of vehicle deaths and horrible accidents.
[00:55:04]  It destroys marriages.
[00:55:06]  It destroys families.
[00:55:07]  But then, like, I also like to have a bourbon.
[00:55:11]  Yeah.
[00:55:11]  I don't do any of that.
[00:55:12]  You know, just because some people do something when they're under the influence or overconsume doesn't mean you prohibit it for everybody.
[00:55:21]  I mean, that's the whole thing.
[00:55:23]  That's liberty.
[00:55:24]  You can't take the exceptions and make them a rule for the majority.
[00:55:29]  And obviously, the majority is able to consume alcohol without undertaking these nefarious activities and accidents and so forth.
[00:55:39]  Okay, I do, but before we wrap up, I want to ask about two more topics.
[00:55:44]  I want to ask about China and Israel.
[00:55:49]  So there's, because this is another thing that I think really separates us from even some of these like kind of dissident right-wingers, the nationalist populist types, who are very good on a lot of issues.
[00:56:00]  Yes.
[00:56:01]  But when it comes to these two countries, they all of a sudden become everything that they're Joe Biden when it comes to these issues.
[00:56:10]  Yeah, absolutely.
[00:56:10]  I mean, let's start with China, if we will.
[00:56:13]  Sure.
[00:56:14]  China, you know, the saber rattling with China has to stop.
[00:56:18]  This is insane.
[00:56:19]  I mean, what are we trying to do here?
[00:56:21]  And, you know, speaking of which, the Ukrainian war drove China into Russians' arms.
[00:56:28]  So this has been a disaster.
[00:56:31]  So, you know, look, our enemies are actually within.
[00:56:36]  Okay.
[00:56:36]  Our primary enemies are actually within.
[00:56:39]  Who is more of a threat to you than this state?
[00:56:42]  Not China.
[00:56:43]  Okay.
[00:56:43]  So we need to leave this saber rattling.
[00:56:48]  It has to end.
[00:56:49]  This is outrageous.
[00:56:51]  It's going to precipitate a conflict that we don't want to be involved in.
[00:56:55]  So China is communist.
[00:56:57]  Okay.
[00:56:57]  Well, we can't convert them by virtue of trying to threaten them or else embargo their goods and things like that.
[00:57:06]  The only way they're going to overcome their system is from within, from the people within that state rejecting the CCP and overthrowing it.
[00:57:16]  And I hope they do that.
[00:57:17]  I do hope they do that because the CCP is a seriously repressive regime.
[00:57:22]  But it is not our business in terms of international affairs that we try to engage in this bellicose rhetoric with reference to China and these policies that are also inflaming the potential conflict between the United States and China.
[00:57:40]  Yeah.
[00:57:40]  100%.
[00:57:41]  On Israel, we should stop aid to all foreign countries.
[00:57:45]  This has got to end.
[00:57:47]  We're militarizing Israel to the teeth.
[00:57:50]  And they were probably the most, I mean, they have more arms there than any other country in that region.
[00:57:57]  And they are, I think, repressing a good segment of the population.
[00:58:02]  And so why are we giving them aid?
[00:58:06]  Now, I'm not saying on a scale of one to 10 where Israel is.
[00:58:10]  I'm not going to say the worst state in the world because you say that you're accused of anti-Semitism.
[00:58:16]  Of course, you say anything about Israel.
[00:58:18]  All of a sudden, you're an anti-Semite.
[00:58:19]  This has nothing to do with race or identity or religion or anything.
[00:58:24]  This has to do with the fact that we're arming and we're giving military funding to this country, and they are using some of that money to bomb their basically captive neighbors.
[00:58:39]  That's got to stop.
[00:58:40]  So we at least shouldn't be abetting it.
[00:58:43]  We have no business abetting that kind of behavior.
[00:58:46]  And certainly our business with Israel is to let them do what they will.
[00:58:50]  And again, in that state, they need to come to terms with their own leadership, and we should leave ourselves out of the matter.
[00:58:58]  Yeah, 100%.
[00:59:00]  I couldn't agree more.
[00:59:01]  And there is some bizarre thing.
[00:59:02]  Like, I'm Jewish and I don't, you know, like the Jewish influence on the Mises Institute, say, it's like hard to overstate.
[00:59:10]  It's Mises Institute.
[00:59:13]  But there's like, it's so, there is this bizarre thing, which is so, it's so, it's such bullshit and it's so weaponized.
[00:59:19]  We're like, if I come out and I go, oh my God, like Germany's energy policy is just insane.
[00:59:25]  This makes no sense that they're going for all these climate initiatives.
[00:59:28]  No one goes, oh, so you're an anti-Germite, huh?
[00:59:31]  You just, you just hate German people, I guess.
[00:59:34]  Do you?
[00:59:34]  Like, what?
[00:59:35]  That would be ridiculous.
[00:59:36]  It's like, I don't ridiculous.
[00:59:37]  Yeah, like we're talking about these governments.
[00:59:39]  And in addition to this, you know, there's both with Israel and with Ukraine and in a lot of these situations, there's, it's not just that foreign aid is wrong philosophically.
[00:59:50]  And it's not just that, as the great Ron Paul would always say, foreign aid is robbing from poor people here to pay rich people in other countries.
[00:59:58]  But there's this tremendous moral hazard that comes along with it.
[01:00:01]  Right.
[01:00:02]  Because like, you know, Ukraine would have come to a negotiation already with Russia if we weren't giving them all of this aid.
[01:00:10]  But because we give them this aid, it allows them to fight.
[01:00:13]  And then the war goes on longer and more people die.
[01:00:16]  And the same thing is true in Israel, where they would kind of be forced to at least attempt to negotiate with their neighbors, to come to some type of deal, if it weren't for the fact that we continue to prop them up.
[01:00:28]  So it would be better off for the people in the region.
[01:00:30]  It would be much better off for the American taxpayer.
[01:00:32]  It would be better off for our military.
[01:00:35]  Just get out of the game of all of this stuff.
[01:00:37]  That's right.
[01:00:37]  And morally, we would be less, we wouldn't be culpable like we are now.
[01:00:41]  I think we're morally culpable for propping this up.
[01:00:46]  Yeah, absolutely.
[01:00:47]  All right.
[01:00:49]  Yeah, go ahead.
[01:00:50]  Whatever else you want to talk about.
[01:00:51]  First of all, I think that we can in this country and not this election cycle, and I'm not saying this is me.
[01:00:58]  We can have a Javier Malay moment in this country.
[01:01:02]  But first, we need to get 5% at the, we need to get 5% at the polls.
[01:01:08]  We need to get the Libertarian Party on the record as a real third party that is actually in competition.
[01:01:15]  And then we can, at some point in time, have a Javier Malay moment.
[01:01:21]  Secondly, I'm from Pittsburgh.
[01:01:23]  Guess who else is from Pittsburgh?
[01:01:24]  Who's that?
[01:01:25]  Ron Paul.
[01:01:26]  Wow, look at that.
[01:01:28]  I'm not putting myself on Ron Paul's level.
[01:01:30]  I'm just saying we have that in common.
[01:01:32]  Oh, that is good to know.
[01:01:33]  I forgot Ron Paul's from Pittsburgh.
[01:01:35]  That's right.
[01:01:35]  Before we move, we always just associate him with Texas, but that's right.
[01:01:39]  He was originally from Pennsylvania.
[01:01:42]  Well, listen, I'll just end by saying I know there was a lot of people who wanted me to run this year.
[01:01:50]  I was considering it for a while until I ultimately, as I've mentioned before, for family reasons, decided not to.
[01:01:57]  I just want to say I'm so grateful to you for doing this.
[01:02:00]  I think it's heroic.
[01:02:01]  I think somebody really needed to get in there.
[01:02:03]  I think it makes more sense for it to be you than me.
[01:02:06]  I'm just a shit talking comedian and you're like an academic.
[01:02:09]  And well, yeah, but you're an academic and you, you, you're an author.
[01:02:12]  And I think it's like, I think that's the right look for us to be a serious party.
[01:02:17]  And I'm really excited.
[01:02:19]  I mean, look, this has already been a wildly interesting presidential season.
[01:02:24]  The Donald Trump indictments, the RFK's campaign, Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign.
[01:02:29]  But I think entering Michael Rechtenwald into this scene is really going to shake things up.
[01:02:34]  And now we've got somebody who's really inserting our views into the national conversation.
[01:02:40]  It's not that, just to be very clear, it's not that I'm making the perfect the enemy of the good.
[01:02:45]  It's not that I'm saying some of these other guys are good, but I want perfect.
[01:02:49]  The issue is that they won't solve the problem.
[01:02:52]  These ideas won't solve the problem.
[01:02:54]  We're a patient bleeding out right now.
[01:02:57]  And you're going, well, a band data is better than nothing.
[01:03:00]  It's like, actually, it's the same.
[01:03:02]  Unless you can stop this bleeding, we are going to die.
[01:03:06]  So this is what we need inserted into the conversation.
[01:03:09]  It has to be inserted and without qualification, without equivocation, and with as much clarity as possible.
[01:03:16]  And I think that I can do that.
[01:03:18]  That's what I've undertaken to do.
[01:03:21]  I'm very grateful and quite a bit surprised when the Mises caucus approached me to do this, but I took it on because I think it's too important to pass up.
[01:03:31]  And so to get to my campaign page, go to Rectonwald 2024 and follow me on Twitter at RechTheRegime, R-E-C-The Regime.
[01:03:43]  And look forward to seeing you there.
[01:03:45]  Guys, make sure you go support.
[01:03:48]  Guys, make sure you go support this campaign in whatever way you can, whether it's just following on Twitter and sharing stuff, retweeting, getting the message out there.
[01:03:57]  If you can donate to it, that would be largely appreciated.
[01:04:00]  But let's make a lot of noise.
[01:04:02]  You got my full support and endorsement.
[01:04:04]  I'm really excited about this season.
[01:04:06]  I'll be doing whatever I can to help.
[01:04:08]  And I have a feeling we'll be talking quite a bit more over the next few few months.
[01:04:15]  So thanks for taking the time today.
[01:04:17]  Best of luck on the campaign trail.
[01:04:19]  Thanks so much, Dave.
[01:04:20]  I appreciate it.
[01:04:21]  And thanks for handing me the torch.
[01:04:23]  I'll take it from here.
[01:04:24]  Absolutely.
[01:04:25]  Absolutely.
[01:04:26]  Happy to.
[01:04:27]  All right.
[01:04:27]  Thank you very much.
[01:04:28]  And thanks, everybody, for listening.
[01:04:29]  Catch you next time.
[01:04:30]  Peace.