Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - The Matrix Vs. Russell Brand
Aired: 2023-09-19
Duration: 01:17:56


=== Government Overreach and Surveillance (11:39) ===

[00:00:01]  Fill her up!
[00:00:02]  You are listening to the gas humans.
[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.
[00:00:17]  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, Dave Smith.
[00:00:34]  What's up, everybody?
[00:00:34]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
[00:00:37]  I am Dave Smith, and that beautiful put him right there is Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
[00:00:43]  How are you, sir?
[00:00:44]  It's a high-profile show now.
[00:00:46]  I feel like I got to declare that I work in office.
[00:00:49]  I've had sex with a celebrity.
[00:00:50]  I don't know what it takes to even be on the show anymore.
[00:00:54]  Yeah, it does take a lot.
[00:00:56]  It does.
[00:00:57]  We're stepping it up little by little, but you're getting there, Rob.
[00:01:00]  You've always met the criteria.
[00:01:02]  All right.
[00:01:02]  Anyway, guys, we got a lot to talk about on today's show, but let's just get out of the way.
[00:01:07]  If you haven't already watched my new, my brand new comedy special, please go check it out.
[00:01:13]  Share it with a friend.
[00:01:14]  Do all you can.
[00:01:15]  We just broke 300,000 views in three weeks.
[00:01:20]  I'm very happy about that.
[00:01:21]  It's really, it's very nice that so many of you guys have watched it.
[00:01:24]  Let's keep these numbers going up.
[00:01:26]  And thank you for all of the positive feedback.
[00:01:28]  And of course, me and Robbie the Fire Bernstein, as you guys know, are stand-up comedians.
[00:01:32]  We travel all over the road.
[00:01:34]  We will be coming to a town near you soon.
[00:01:36]  Me and Rob are going all over the place.
[00:01:39]  We are going to SkankFest in a couple weeks.
[00:01:43]  Then we're going on our first ever tour in Europe along with Luis J. Gomez and Zach Amico.
[00:01:48]  And then just all over the United States of America after that.
[00:01:51]  ComicdaveSmith.com for all of my ticket links.
[00:01:54]  And then just next week, I'll be in Governor's.
[00:01:57]  Rob can't make that one.
[00:01:58]  Rob comes with me almost everywhere I go.
[00:02:00]  But for this one, Chris Vega will be with me.
[00:02:03]  So come check me out in Long Island at Governor's There.
[00:02:06]  Rob also goes all around the country headlining himself.
[00:02:10]  Robbie the Fire for any of his tour dates.
[00:02:13]  What do you got coming up soon, Rob?
[00:02:15]  This weekend, I'm in Ithaca in Boonville with Howie Dewey.
[00:02:18]  And then one porch tour weekend left, which is going to be Vegas and whatever.
[00:02:26]  They have Phoenix.
[00:02:27]  Phoenix.
[00:02:28]  And then I got to line up my December and then we're already into next year.
[00:02:32]  And then it's the last porch tour of the season.
[00:02:37]  The mythology is that if you show up to the last porch tour of the summer and you make a wish, it always comes true.
[00:02:45]  I can't guarantee.
[00:02:46]  I can't guarantee that that's accurate.
[00:02:48]  I'm just saying this is what everybody says.
[00:02:50]  This is what everybody says.
[00:02:51]  Okay.
[00:02:52]  So if you don't want your wishes to come true, then don't go see Rob's final porch summer porch tour.
[00:02:58]  But I can't.
[00:02:59]  I'm just saying your wishes will come true if you accept Jesus into your heart.
[00:03:04]  There's a few steps.
[00:03:05]  Okay, let's get into it.
[00:03:07]  Because there's a couple things that I really wanted to talk to all of you good people about.
[00:03:12]  The number one thing, and this just happened yesterday, but it has been quite a story.
[00:03:22]  And this is the character assassination attempt on Russell Brand.
[00:03:29]  And for full disclosure, let's start out from the top.
[00:03:34]  I will say I am somewhat biased.
[00:03:37]  I like the guy.
[00:03:39]  I've been on his show.
[00:03:42]  And I also, and I'm sure you feel this way too, Rob, even though we're very different people from Russell Brand.
[00:03:51]  He is stylistically a very different guy than me and you are.
[00:03:56]  He's from a different country, but he's a guy who started in stand-up and kind of became a political commentator of some sort and is a very anti-establishment guy.
[00:04:09]  And I'm sure that there's part of both me and you that can relate to that.
[00:04:14]  And there's something about that that we love.
[00:04:17]  And he goes on shows like, you know, Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher.
[00:04:22]  I'm sorry.
[00:04:23]  Real, real time with Bill Maher.
[00:04:24]  Politically incorrect was a show from the 90s.
[00:04:26]  Real time with Bill Maher and kind of just like makes everybody look stupid of the corporate press people.
[00:04:31]  And so there's, so, so there's something I like about him.
[00:04:35]  So I just full disclosure, I'll give you my bias up front.
[00:04:41]  But the story is more interesting than just that.
[00:04:45]  And it's interesting for several different reasons.
[00:04:47]  And when I start by saying the attempted character assassination, that's not to say however you feel about the allegations made against him.
[00:04:58]  The point is just that that's what's going on here is that they're attempting to assassinate this guy's character.
[00:05:04]  And that in itself is, I think, interesting why they would be doing that.
[00:05:09]  So I'm sure you saw this, Rob, on social media and stuff, right?
[00:05:14]  Yeah, I have a breaking rape news ticker.
[00:05:17]  So if anything comes up in the category, I'm on it right away.
[00:05:20]  You know, the crazy thing is if you just think that someone committed rape, it comes up on Rob's ticker.
[00:05:26]  It could actually read rape thoughts, which is the technology is groundbreaking.
[00:05:33]  Yeah, so look, obviously, Russell Brand is a guy who started as a stand-up comedian, was in a bunch of big movies and was kind of like a celebrity, was a, I think, a self-admitted, I haven't read his book.
[00:05:51]  I've watched a lot of his shows, but I haven't read his book, but I believe was a self-admitted alcoholic and drug abuser and kind of like a womanizer and was living this crazy lifestyle while he was a famous like actor in a bunch of these movies.
[00:06:08]  He then stopped all of that, like got sober and stopped doing these movies and then started being a huge critic of the kind of the global empire, I will say, on every level, a critic of the warfare state, of the COVID regime, of all of this stuff, just of the corruption within the kind of establishment.
[00:06:37]  And now he's being brought down with all these allegations from when he was like a movie star, which that in itself is kind of interesting, right?
[00:06:50]  But it's like when he was in that world, no one was attempting to bring him down.
[00:06:54]  But now once he's left that world and gotten clean and all of that stuff, now he's having to deal with this.
[00:07:01]  It's a coordinated attack from several different corporate media outlets, all kind of coalescing at once against him.
[00:07:12]  And this is where we are.
[00:07:14]  He made a video basically saying that this was a coordinated attack against him and he denies all of these allegations and that they're just not true.
[00:07:23]  So that's the facts of what's going on.
[00:07:29]  Before we get into this, I'm going to read one of the NPR article and then there's a couple other things we could talk about.
[00:07:34]  But is there anything up top that you, what were your initial thoughts of this situation?
[00:07:39]  Well, just based on what you were just saying of they weren't taking him down at the time, that's almost the more interesting article is because now you got a changed person or seemingly a changed person.
[00:07:50]  He's not out there.
[00:07:51]  He's not involved in this behavior.
[00:07:52]  So it doesn't seem like taking him down prevents more of this behavior.
[00:07:55]  So, wouldn't the bigger news story be who are the individuals that protected him while he was a movie star?
[00:08:01]  And are those people still protecting?
[00:08:03]  Are there new predators in the system being protected by Hollywood?
[00:08:07]  You would think that if you were trying to, I guess, prevent the harm of women, that that would almost be the more interesting story: is who are the people who are in power who allow for such behavior?
[00:08:18]  And how rampant is such behavior that it's just allowed for within these systems?
[00:08:22]  I would think that that would almost be the bigger and more interesting story if this whole thing is true.
[00:08:28]  Yep.
[00:08:28]  And you'll see that look, this is this is something that's been a major theme on this show for you know a decade.
[00:08:37]  I don't know how long have we been doing part of the problem.
[00:08:40]  Um, I know you've been here with me, Rob, for at least like seven, seven years or something like that.
[00:08:46]  And then I was doing it for a few years before you fabricated.
[00:08:49]  Has it been seven?
[00:08:51]  Something, I don't know, something like that.
[00:08:53]  Um, but I've been doing part of the problem.
[00:08:55]  I, yeah, I mean, I started over 10 years ago when I first started it.
[00:09:02]  We had like no audience.
[00:09:03]  Uh, and then I stopped for a little bit and then came right back to it.
[00:09:08]  But it was about 10 years ago that I came back to the show.
[00:09:12]  Um, and one of the major themes has been that there will be these rules, and this is kind of how political correctness in general operates: is that there are these rules that they'll make, but then there's a lot of selectivity in who they hammer with them and who they don't, and to what degree they hammer people with, and to what degree they don't hammer people with.
[00:09:39]  So, you know, like, look, Joe Biden has had accusations of sexual assault.
[00:09:47]  He's had accusations of, I don't know what to say, wildly inappropriate shit with family members.
[00:09:56]  You know, he's on camera groping children, you know, like a lot of really wild shit.
[00:10:04]  But every single day when the media talks about him, this won't be what they bring up.
[00:10:12]  This just won't come up.
[00:10:15]  Joe Biden also, by the way, talked about integrated schools at one point and said that he didn't want his children growing up in a racial jungle.
[00:10:28]  This doesn't come up much.
[00:10:30]  You know what I mean?
[00:10:31]  Like, this just doesn't come up.
[00:10:32]  However, Donald Trump said, grab him by the pussy, and that comes up all the time.
[00:10:38]  It's very selective who they break.
[00:10:41]  You know what I mean?
[00:10:42]  Like there was like the Ron Paul newsletters are something that gets brought up by the mainstream media every time they mention Ron Paul.
[00:10:52]  But, you know, Joe Biden saying that Obama spoke without a Negro dialect, that just won't come up as much.
[00:11:01]  You know, like, so it's just, there's lots of things that you could hit everyone for, but you choose who you hit and who you don't hit.
[00:11:08]  You know, there was a pedophile ring that was busted that included the most powerful people in the world going to an island to have sex with children.
[00:11:26]  And we know that some of the most powerful people in the world were friends with this guy, went to his island.
[00:11:32]  You know, where is the demand every single day within the corporate press to get Epstein's list?

=== The Problem with Vague Accusations (15:21) ===

[00:11:40]  You know, this, this scandal, the one we're talking about right now, is going down in England.
[00:11:45]  A prince there was very good friends with Jeffrey Epstein, flew on his plane several times.
[00:11:52]  There doesn't seem to be nearly as much of an effort for them to figure out what happened with him.
[00:11:57]  Let's get the details on that.
[00:11:58]  But no, they want to go after Russell Brown.
[00:12:00]  So again, that is not, just to be clear, that's not to say that I don't know what happened here.
[00:12:06]  Maybe Russell Brand did the things they're accusing him of.
[00:12:09]  It's still interesting that they're trying to go after him and not after other people.
[00:12:15]  That's something right away worth noting.
[00:12:18]  So that's one of the things that I keep in my mind.
[00:12:21]  And I think a lot of people are, this is why a lot of people are going to be skeptical about these claims.
[00:12:28]  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.
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[00:13:24]  And right now, you can get 15% off each order when you use promo code Dave or follow the link in the episode description.
[00:13:31]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:13:32]  Let's here.
[00:13:34]  I'm going to let's start reading from the NPR article on this.
[00:13:41]  And then we could talk about, you know, a few different things here.
[00:13:43]  But so here's, here's NPR.
[00:13:46]  They wrote this article.
[00:13:48]  This is from earlier today.
[00:13:50]  Excuse me.
[00:13:50]  This was late yesterday.
[00:13:53]  This article came out.
[00:13:54]  The title is British Media Report Rape and Emotional Abuse Allegations Against Russell Brand.
[00:14:03]  I'll say already at the top, right, there's something about that title that just drives me crazy.
[00:14:16]  And this happens a lot when there are these like me too type of things where there will be an allegation of some horrific crime.
[00:14:28]  And you'll go, okay, that's very serious.
[00:14:32]  And then instead of just dealing with that very serious allegation, they will also try to like kind of pile on as many other things as possible.
[00:14:44]  You know what I mean?
[00:14:44]  To just almost like make the case more damning.
[00:14:47]  But really, you're like, this is just a distraction.
[00:14:51]  You know, like there'll be like with a lot of guys who have gone through like me too type things, they'll have these things where they're like, one woman says he, you know, he raped her.
[00:15:03]  And then three other women also said he's a jerk.
[00:15:07]  And you're like, wait, what?
[00:15:08]  Wait, what?
[00:15:09]  Like, that's ridiculous.
[00:15:11]  Why are you lumping all of this together?
[00:15:13]  But just think about this, this title.
[00:15:15]  British media report rape and emotional abuse allegations.
[00:15:21]  Like, what?
[00:15:23]  It's kind of like rape is a very clear crime.
[00:15:26]  Emotional abuse is a very vague thing to accuse someone of.
[00:15:32]  Like, what do you even mean by emotional abuse?
[00:15:34]  Like, that's like so up to interpretation.
[00:15:37]  But anyway, sorry, what were you going to say, Rob?
[00:15:40]  Rape and murder are usually, those are like the two worst crimes.
[00:15:43]  That's why we're up together, rape and murder.
[00:15:45]  Imagine if we were talking about a murder and they go, hey, we actually have reason to suspect that this guy killed someone and got away with it.
[00:15:52]  And also he yelled at people at work.
[00:15:54]  Right.
[00:15:55]  Those shouldn't even exist in the same article.
[00:15:57]  And the fact that you're grouping them together already presents like we're not having a serious conversation about, is there a rapist out in the wild?
[00:16:06]  Yeah.
[00:16:06]  It's literally like you go like, this guy is accused of murder.
[00:16:10]  And also, like, if you're trying to merge into the right lane and he just won't let you in.
[00:16:16]  He just won't.
[00:16:17]  He'll just keep going.
[00:16:18]  It never even slows down a little bit.
[00:16:20]  He doesn't even look like you're looking right at him and be like, dude, I'm trying to merge.
[00:16:23]  And he'll just look straightforward.
[00:16:25]  You know what I mean?
[00:16:26]  I'm sorry.
[00:16:27]  I don't even know what you mean by emotional abuse.
[00:16:29]  I'm sure there's some forms of emotional abuse that could be really horrible.
[00:16:32]  Don't lump that in with rape.
[00:16:35]  Those are two different things.
[00:16:37]  And I know YouTube doesn't like that word.
[00:16:38]  God damn.
[00:16:39]  We're going to have to, we might have to bleep this out.
[00:16:42]  We don't have a great system running here.
[00:16:44]  Sorry, that everything seems to be kind of guilty once it hits the news.
[00:16:50]  So like, for example, that guy, Danny Masterson or whatever from that 70s.
[00:16:55]  Yes.
[00:16:55]  He actually just got prosecuted and he found out he was guilty of rape.
[00:16:58]  I didn't follow that case at all.
[00:16:59]  But if the guy actually, I mean, court of law said the guy's guilty of rape, he's going to jail for 20 years.
[00:17:04]  But then last year you had Brian Callan and Chris Dahlia.
[00:17:08]  Allegations came out on the news.
[00:17:10]  No court case ever happened and they lost their entire careers because of it.
[00:17:14]  Now, I would understand if we lived in a, you know, a real Christian society here where nobody ever had sex outside of their marriage, that maybe just having sex outside of your marriage would be something that, you know, companies go, oh, this is morally repugnant.
[00:17:28]  We can't have a cheating person working here.
[00:17:31]  Like, I actually remember Tiki Barber lost his job years ago for nothing other than he was cheating on his wife and he kind of showcased himself as like a very, you know, TV personality.
[00:17:43]  And in that world, cheating on your pregnant wife when you're looking like the suit and tie nice person, that didn't work because it was against brand.
[00:17:52]  I understand that.
[00:17:52]  I understand if you present as a certain brand, you turn out not to be that brand, you can get fired.
[00:17:58]  But there just needs to be some sort of a separation between broad accusations, particularly if they are of criminal nature, and then people actually going to court and I guess prosecuting these things.
[00:18:13]  Yeah, I completely agree.
[00:18:14]  Like there's, and it's very strange.
[00:18:17]  And I really get your point too, that you're making like where it's like, so what is the standard, like culturally, you know?
[00:18:23]  Because it seems like the standard isn't that.
[00:18:26]  Now, now I do think, like, I'm, I'm, I don't know, in, in my older days, I'm, I'm a fairly traditional person.
[00:18:37]  And I do think it's really wrong to like, I think if you're married and particularly if you're married with kids, I do think infidelity is genuinely wrong.
[00:18:47]  And I think that's something that shows a lack of character.
[00:18:50]  But it's also like, then you go, but it's not as if the whole culture is agreeing with me on that, you know?
[00:18:58]  So we're like, we're supposed to pretend this is some horrible offense.
[00:19:01]  Like, okay, well, then maybe we should act like that across the board.
[00:19:04]  But when it comes to these accusations of like heinous crimes, and I'm not saying the criminal justice system is perfect.
[00:19:14]  Obviously, if you guys know the show, I think it's far from that.
[00:19:17]  But there's got to be some type of system that can't just be someone said it.
[00:19:24]  And now we're all supposed to treat you as if you're guilty of this crime.
[00:19:28]  There's got to just be a little bit more than that.
[00:19:32]  This is, you know, like The thing about accusations like this just being reported are like, so now you just want to taint this person with this accusation when all of us as the observers have no idea what happened.
[00:19:51]  And also, I think the role of journalism was or should be, if the criminal court system fails, then you get the article of why is the criminal court system failing?
[00:20:05]  Here's all the evidence that we gather that this actually should have at least gone to trial.
[00:20:10]  Or how come this was left off?
[00:20:12]  Like, I don't understand how he was acquitted because look at all these stories and evidence that we have.
[00:20:19]  And then here's the conflict of interest of the judge.
[00:20:22]  It's clear that this was a corrupt court system.
[00:20:25]  Or yeah, this guy might have been guilty of a drug charge, but look at what the, look at the aftermath of these people going to jail for drug charges.
[00:20:32]  That's usually the way in my head, journalism is supposed to operate of, oh, look, there was a corrupt mayor and cop in England that the following cases were brought before them and they brushed it under the rug because this was a celebrity.
[00:20:47]  That's not the claim here.
[00:20:49]  Where are the criminal proceedings here?
[00:20:51]  Did any of these women actually try and pursue charges?
[00:20:54]  And if not, then that should be the news story.
[00:20:56]  Why is it that four women with serious charges never like, then I guess maybe the conversation is mental health and why women aren't prosecuting and filing the necessary charges or why aren't they feeling accepted?
[00:21:09]  So like, there's a different story here than here's four random accusations, some of which that shouldn't be grouped together.
[00:21:20]  And so now this person shouldn't be allowed to work.
[00:21:23]  Yeah.
[00:21:24]  Yeah.
[00:21:24]  Well, all right, here, let's, let's read from the article a little bit here, okay?
[00:21:28]  So, and this is just one.
[00:21:29]  Obviously, there's been a ton of articles written.
[00:21:32]  So here, here's reading from the NPR article.
[00:21:35]  Russell Brand has been accused of rape, sexual assault, and emotional abuse.
[00:21:41]  According to a joint investigation published Saturday by British media, the actor denies the allegations.
[00:21:50]  The allegations against the British entertainer emerged in an investigation by the Times, the Sunday Times, and Channel 4.
[00:21:58]  So these are all British corporate media outlets.
[00:22:02]  Channel 4, if you don't know famously, was the Kathy Newman interview with Jordan Peterson.
[00:22:12]  So you're saying, you know, so this is just to give you a frame of reference of the type of journalism we're talking about.
[00:22:19]  Here's the quote.
[00:22:21]  Four women have alleged sexual assaults between 2006 and 2013 while he was a presenter for BBC Radio 2 and Channel 4 and then an actor in Hollywood Films.
[00:22:35]  The Times said in an exclusive report, which was jointly authored by journalists Rosman Unwin, Charlotte Wace, and Paul Morgan Bentley.
[00:22:45]  Others have made a range of accusations about Brands controlling and abusive and predatory behavior.
[00:22:54]  Again, there's something just about lumping all of these things together.
[00:23:02]  Like controlling and abusive and predatory.
[00:23:08]  Doesn't almost sound like just all words that sound like something wrong without being specific at all.
[00:23:14]  And I just think, look, I don't think it's unreasonable to say if you're going at someone like this, be fucking specific.
[00:23:22]  Like, what are you saying right now?
[00:23:25]  Why is the word, look, you started with the word rape.
[00:23:30]  It is the harshest word in the English language.
[00:23:34]  It cuts like a knife, okay, to accuse someone of that.
[00:23:38]  There's like such a fundamental thing.
[00:23:40]  When you say the word rape, it's the type of word that I think most decent men, I think, I think me and you, Rob, would fall into this.
[00:23:49]  When you say someone raped, so you're like saying, I'd like I'd fucking kill you.
[00:23:56]  You know what I mean?
[00:23:56]  Like you did that to some, any woman in my life, and I would fucking murder you if you did that to them.
[00:24:03]  That's like such a word to start with.
[00:24:05]  And then to even just throw in the word controlling.
[00:24:09]  Like, wait, what?
[00:24:11]  What does that mean?
[00:24:13]  Like, explain it.
[00:24:15]  Like, you got, you got to write one or two, one of two articles.
[00:24:18]  Article one is, why hasn't this person been brought to trial for rape?
[00:24:23]  And then here's all the evidence of a rape claim.
[00:24:25]  And why hasn't this been prosecuted?
[00:24:28]  And then you go, wow, that's a crazy article.
[00:24:31]  Why did the cops overlook this and what's going to happen?
[00:24:33]  Right.
[00:24:34]  And then there's a second article, which is, why aren't we more outraged over this changed person's behavior 10 years ago?
[00:24:42]  And look at how shameful he was in his personal life at the time.
[00:24:45]  Those are two different articles.
[00:24:47]  And what they're also right.
[00:24:49]  And what they're saying here is that, like, you know, we'll get into the details in a second, but it's like they go, if you go fishing for someone who, especially someone like Russell Brand, right?
[00:25:00]  Who is like an A-list movie star, good-looking guy who was clearly like sleeping with a lot of women.
[00:25:06]  And they go, so you probably have now hundreds and hundreds of women you can go talk to.
[00:25:12]  And you go, okay, we've got four women or whatever.
[00:25:15]  We got one woman who says he raved at one woman who says he was abusive.
[00:25:20]  And then, but we also got a bunch who said he was controlling.
[00:25:23]  And you're almost just kind of like trying to throw that in to pad the statistics, you know, to be like, oh, let me make this sound more convincing.
[00:25:32]  But like, what does controlling mean?
[00:25:36]  There's no one's ever been in a relationship ever where someone, at least one or both of them, weren't attempting to control the other one.
[00:25:46]  That's just, that's what being in a relationship is.
[00:25:49]  And controlling seems like it could be anything.
[00:25:55]  I'll tell you, me, like, me and my wife have an like an unbelievably great relationship.
[00:26:02]  I don't think there's any, there is not anybody who knows me.
[00:26:07]  There's not anybody who knows my wife, our friends or family or any of us who would say that like Dave and Lauren don't have a really good relationship.
[00:26:18]  No, literally no one.
[00:26:19]  There's not one person.
[00:26:21]  And we both control the shit out of each other.
[00:26:25]  Like, there's, there's lots of things that where we would both be like, yeah, you're not going to do that.
[00:26:33]  You're not going to do that.
[00:26:34]  We would be like, I don't know.
[00:26:36]  You could call it controlling.
[00:26:38]  So like this word just means nothing.
[00:26:40]  And so that's, that just shouldn't be in this article.
[00:26:45]  If you're a journalist and you're talking about someone committing a heinous crime and you're reporting on that, you shouldn't be, again, like we said before, it's like, it's like saying like, this guy is accused of being a murderer and a jerk.

=== Why Criminal Process Matters (13:37) ===

[00:27:02]  Those two things should not be in the same article together.
[00:27:05]  Okay.
[00:27:05]  Anyway, I'm going to keep reading.
[00:27:07]  Brand issued a video statement on Friday denying the allegations.
[00:27:11]  You guys can all go check out that video if you want to.
[00:27:15]  According to an accompanying report about the investigation process published by The Times, the Sunday Times launched its inquiries into Brand's conduct in 2019 after the news organization, quote, was made aware of allegations against Russell Brand relating to his treatment of women.
[00:27:35]  The Times said that over the past few years, reporters have interviewed, quote, hundreds of sources who knew or worked with Brand's ex-girlfriends and their friends and family, comedians and other celebrities, people who worked with him on radio and TV, and senior staff at the BBC, Channel 4, and other media organizations.
[00:27:57]  The media organizations said reports have also seen private emails and text messages.
[00:28:04]  So, here you go where they say, well, look, it's the way they're making it sound.
[00:28:10]  Like, look, we've done this exhaustive investigation.
[00:28:14]  We've talked to all of these people.
[00:28:15]  We've been all around.
[00:28:16]  But yet, what they're coming to you is that we've got four people, four people who are making accusations.
[00:28:23]  Now, I'm switching up here articles, but the quote from the Associated Press was that the women said they only felt ready to tell their stories after being approached by reporters, with some citing Brand's newfound prominence as an online wellness influencer as a factor in their decision to speak.
[00:28:49]  So, what's going on here is that they're saying they basically launched this huge investigation since Russell Brand has become an outspoken critic of the regime, and that these women only wanted to speak, only spoke because they were approached by reporters.
[00:29:13]  I'm sorry, but there's something really sick about that.
[00:29:17]  It's one thing if, look, if a woman who was abused by someone, someone, let's say someone committed a crime against a woman and they wanted to approach a reporter.
[00:29:30]  Well, look, I think it's reasonable to say if you're accusing someone of committing a heinous, violent crime, then probably you should go to the police.
[00:29:43]  You should report.
[00:29:45]  You know what I mean?
[00:29:46]  Like, there should be some type of criminal process.
[00:29:48]  Now, I'll be the first to grant that our state-run criminal justice system is not great.
[00:29:54]  Okay.
[00:29:55]  So, maybe you can understand where, like, hey, the criminal justice system has failed them and they want to go to the media and say, look, this very powerful man, he committed a crime against me.
[00:30:05]  Okay, I can understand that.
[00:30:08]  But that's not the situation here.
[00:30:11]  They're saying that the media went to the women and then got them to say he did this horrible thing.
[00:30:23]  Can't you see where that's just so fucked up?
[00:30:27]  Like, think about this, right?
[00:30:29]  Someone like Russell Brand, who admits to being like a drinker, a drug guy, and a guy who is just like getting laid left and right.
[00:30:38]  This guy is the, I don't know what to say.
[00:30:41]  In terms of like trying to get pussy, what percentage is Russell Brand in, Rob?
[00:30:47]  0.0001, the absolute top.
[00:30:51]  Like, you know what I mean?
[00:30:53]  Like a movie star who looks like him.
[00:30:55]  So, and in his day, he was, he's probably with a thousand with it.
[00:31:01]  You know what I mean?
[00:31:02]  And they're going and they're saying, we're trying, they're going to ask every single woman if they have it.
[00:31:09]  And they got Thor to say, yeah, he did something fucked up.
[00:31:14]  And now they're just going to run this with no like proof of it.
[00:31:19]  Isn't that a little bit fucked up?
[00:31:21]  Like, I'm not saying I know what happened.
[00:31:23]  I don't.
[00:31:24]  Maybe he did something.
[00:31:25]  Maybe he did something fucked up.
[00:31:27]  It's not beyond the realm of possibility to me, but it's so wrong to just run with this reporting and him having no like due process.
[00:31:38]  You know, like, oh, okay, I understand it's not a court of law.
[00:31:41]  It's not he's going to jail.
[00:31:43]  Maybe the standard isn't exactly the same, but shouldn't there be some standard that he gets to like, you know what I mean?
[00:31:51]  Like, not just be ruined by these accusations.
[00:31:55]  Just seems horrible.
[00:31:57]  And it seems very convenient.
[00:31:59]  It certainly seems like if you're outside of this system and you're not making the players money, then they'll sit down and go, well, how do we not compete with the guy?
[00:32:07]  Well, we drum up a dirty story.
[00:32:10]  And I mean, that line literally says, hey, we went looking for people to cancel this guy because he shouldn't be in the wellness space.
[00:32:18]  And we found four women who were willing to help us get cancel him from working in the wellness space.
[00:32:24]  Now, yeah.
[00:32:26]  Yeah.
[00:32:26]  With all that said, I read like the problem is there's almost like an admission within the article of, hey, we went into this with dirty intentions because we think this person should be canceled.
[00:32:37]  And so we did our homework to get him canceled.
[00:32:39]  And here's our story to get him canceled.
[00:32:41]  And then you already got to separate the fact that if you actually believe that the guy committed rape, then that should just be the article.
[00:32:48]  What do you need more for it?
[00:32:49]  You're almost reducing your major argument of, hey, this guy raped someone.
[00:32:54]  You're like, and also he was mean to these other people.
[00:32:56]  And then I'm reading the article and you've got four stories, two of which are, I guess, criminal and really bad, which is and they sound like they could have happened, which it and probably should be criminally prosecuted.
[00:33:11]  If you actually invited a lady over, like, it doesn't sound outside the realm of being a celebrity, of having had sex with a lady, being on a lot of drugs and calling her over and going, hey, me and my friend, and that she would be uninterested in that.
[00:33:24]  And maybe you were so fucked up that you were too put too put or more than too pushy.
[00:33:29]  But then go criminally prosecuted.
[00:33:31]  This seems like more of a mechanism by which anybody can be dirtied in the news with any sort of wrongful claim.
[00:33:40]  And then it's like, I don't know how much to like, and so then that opens up the door to shame people for what's not criminal behavior publicly.
[00:33:48]  And then, and then what happens?
[00:33:49]  So they get canceled.
[00:33:50]  It takes them two years to come back.
[00:33:52]  They lose sponsors.
[00:33:53]  So then money's lost.
[00:33:54]  It takes some time to come back.
[00:33:55]  It's like, what it just, I don't know.
[00:33:58]  It's like maybe it's just my crazy brain.
[00:34:00]  They're just, there's no separation here between criminal behavior and what might just be a shameful home life.
[00:34:07]  And like, what is the process here by which we don't just have a media that could drum up a story on anybody to essentially ruin what you might have built?
[00:34:18]  Yeah.
[00:34:19]  I think that, you know, the issue is: look, and we can kind of like wrap up on this and move on to the next topic, but I think what we'd all say is that it's almost like, look, there's two problems that you're trying to control for.
[00:34:32]  Okay.
[00:34:33]  So one of the problems is that there are, um, there, there could be somebody who assaulted a woman and she, uh, you know, whatever doesn't want to come forward with it right away.
[00:34:50]  Uh, like rape in these type of situations or sexual assault in these type of situations are inherently difficult crimes to prosecute.
[00:35:00]  It's not like, you know, a ski mask, knife in the bushes rape where someone jumps out where it's more like just like a blatant violent crime.
[00:35:10]  This is more like someone woos you into their home.
[00:35:16]  And then what happened there by the nature of the crime is like there are no witnesses.
[00:35:22]  You're alone.
[00:35:23]  It's very hard to prove, right?
[00:35:25]  And especially if years go by, if you're ashamed of what happened and then years go by, it's very hard to prove.
[00:35:30]  So that is one problem.
[00:35:32]  It's a real problem.
[00:35:33]  So perhaps, right, there is some girl who was really raped by a guy and then say 10 years later comes out and goes, this guy raped me.
[00:35:43]  And she has no way of proving that.
[00:35:46]  So that's a real problem.
[00:35:47]  You'd want that woman to be able to get justice, right?
[00:35:52]  But then there's another problem that you have to control for, which is that women can lie.
[00:35:58]  Women can distort the truth.
[00:36:00]  She could come out and say 10 years ago, this guy raped me and he didn't.
[00:36:03]  And that's not what happened, right?
[00:36:05]  So you have both of these problems and it's impossible to like kind of control for both.
[00:36:10]  And then you're left in a situation of saying, well, what am I to believe?
[00:36:14]  What am I supposed to do in this situation?
[00:36:17]  And the other thing is that in terms of the second problem is that if there is a guy who has, let's say, let's just say slept with 500 women, which I don't think is unreasonable to think Russell Brand is probably in numbers something like that.
[00:36:35]  It's almost a guarantee that, and this is just the way male-female sexual relations go, is that I'm sure there's a certain number of the girls who he slept with being a famous, you know, good-looking celebrity who were like, I'm happy to just have sex.
[00:36:53]  That's all I want to do, right?
[00:36:55]  But then there's probably another percentage of them who are kind of like hoping it led to something.
[00:37:01]  And then if it doesn't, they're going to be a little bitter and resentful.
[00:37:05]  And then of those, now you're dealing with like hundreds of women.
[00:37:09]  And out of those, is there one of them who'd be willing to like look back at it and after they regret it, say, I think it was wrong what happened to me?
[00:37:17]  And then maybe even be willing to say, I think it was criminal what happened to me.
[00:37:21]  And then maybe if they were coached by some corporate journalist, be willing to say something like that.
[00:37:28]  And so once you start looking at the numbers and then you go, oh, and so you found Thor?
[00:37:37]  The truth is, we just have no way of knowing whether it's the first problem or the second problem.
[00:37:45]  We have no way of knowing.
[00:37:47]  This one might age poorly when it turns out to be a Cosby situation.
[00:37:51]  And in two days from now, 45 more women come forward.
[00:37:54]  Yeah, but then, but I'm, again, I'm not saying it's not true.
[00:37:57]  I'm just saying we have no way of knowing.
[00:38:00]  That's all.
[00:38:01]  So you're right.
[00:38:02]  Maybe it will age poorly.
[00:38:04]  But I'm just saying that like there's there's no way for us to know.
[00:38:08]  And I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this information other than say, I almost got to just default to innocent until proven guilty.
[00:38:17]  And that's where did you come up with that from?
[00:38:20]  Yeah, I know.
[00:38:21]  Well, I'm saying that sucks if the person is really guilty and you just can't prove it.
[00:38:27]  You know, that sucks.
[00:38:28]  But it sucks a whole lot more if the person is really innocent and we just have to assume they're guilty.
[00:38:34]  Because if that's the case, and this is the essence of innocent till proven guilty, is that if it's the opposite, then we lose everything.
[00:38:42]  Then anyone can just be accused of something and then they're just guilty in our minds.
[00:38:48]  And then there's no such thing as freedom.
[00:38:50]  And then there's no such thing as fighting against the regime because anyone, an accusation can just ruin anybody.
[00:38:56]  And so I'll say this.
[00:38:58]  If Russell Brand did the shit he's accused of doing, then fuck him.
[00:39:03]  And he's a piece of shit and he should suffer consequences for it.
[00:39:06]  But if not, then this is horrible that they would do this to somebody, you know?
[00:39:12]  And I feel like I have to err on the side of the ladder until I have actual proof.
[00:39:17]  And the other thing is that you can also go, even if he is guilty of this shit, then fuck him if he's guilty of this shit.
[00:39:26]  But at the same time, fuck you, corporate media, because I know you don't really care about who's guilty of this shit.
[00:39:32]  I know you don't.
[00:39:33]  I've watched you.
[00:39:35]  I've watched you.
[00:39:36]  Well, President Bill Clinton can still go anywhere he wants to fucking go.
[00:39:41]  And he said many women accuse him of rape, very credibly, with a lot more evidence than anything that's been presented by Russell Brown.
[00:39:50]  So that's kind of that, that to me, more or less is where I'm at.
[00:39:54]  It seems unfair that unsubstantiated claims just made publicly can end a career.
[00:40:01]  I think Brian Callen's probably the best example of that.
[00:40:05]  Also, we can understand that like in New York City, they changed the statute of limitations, not just on rape, but like on child abuse.
[00:40:11]  And then you ended up with a lot more cases actually being criminally prosecuted.
[00:40:16]  So like, you know, it kind of goes both ways, but just the public accusation, guilty, lose work, doesn't really make sense because we've already seen that be wrong.
[00:40:29]  And if you're an enemy of the state, it just seems to be their chosen mechanism to try and, you know, Kavanaugh.
[00:40:36]  What happened there?
[00:40:37]  The guy, we got a rapist on the Supreme Court?

=== When Public Guilt Fails (03:51) ===

[00:40:39]  I don't know.
[00:40:40]  No, no one is in position.
[00:40:42]  Dude, all the other accusations fell apart.
[00:40:45]  There was one woman who said 35 years ago he pushed her on a bed.
[00:40:50]  She couldn't give a date or a location, but said he pushed her down.
[00:40:55]  And this like became a national story.
[00:40:57]  And then like three more accusations piled on it.
[00:41:00]  And then those other three all fell apart.
[00:41:02]  And like, that's what, you know, it's also like with these things, if these guys didn't do, if they didn't do it so often and so recklessly, maybe when something like this came out, we'd all go, whoa, that's pretty crazy.
[00:41:15]  No one would say this unless it was true.
[00:41:17]  But the truth is they'll say it constantly when it's not true.
[00:41:21]  So, and then when it's somebody who's like such a dissident voice, it's, you know, if the standard is that anonymous people can just accuse you of committing a crime a decade ago and they don't have to provide any evidence that you did it and they can just say that, then forgive me if we're going to be a little suspicious of that.
[00:41:45]  And when that happens to somebody who's like a dissident voice, who's anti-establishment, forgive me if we're going to sit there and go, I think this might be bullshit.
[00:41:56]  And if it's not bullshit, then I feel bad that so many people have that attitude.
[00:42:01]  But I also, I don't blame, if it isn't bullshit, I don't blame the women who are coming forward.
[00:42:07]  I blame the fucking stakes in the corporate press who have completely blown their credibility is what I'd said.
[00:42:13]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Sheath Underwear.
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[00:43:27]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:43:29]  Okay.
[00:43:31]  Let's switch gears because there is something else I wanted to talk about.
[00:43:35]  And I don't know why.
[00:43:37]  Maybe this isn't even worth bringing up, but it just, it makes me so angry and even more angry than false rape accusations.
[00:43:45]  And this is really speaking to my autism.
[00:43:49]  But so I saw the breaking points, which is Cigar and Jetty and Crystal Ball's show.
[00:43:59]  They were on the hill for a little while and then they went independent and they do breaking points.
[00:44:04]  This is one of the biggest, like, I'd say like biggest alternative media shows out there.
[00:44:11]  And I will say I've enjoyed a lot of their coverage.
[00:44:15]  I really enjoyed their coverage.
[00:44:17]  I think this is back when they were on the hill, but they had really great campaign coverage of the 2020 election, like before COVID hit, where they were breaking down kind of like Biden versus Bernie Sanders versus Donald Trump and all of that.

=== Minimum Wage and False Anger (03:19) ===

[00:44:30]  And they were really on point, I thought, with a lot of their stuff.
[00:44:33]  And I really, I particularly like Cigar.
[00:44:36]  I think he's really good.
[00:44:38]  I don't agree with him on everything, but I think he's really solid.
[00:44:41]  But they had this video that I just saw today because I watch their videos sometimes.
[00:44:45]  So I guess the algorithm shows me their stuff.
[00:44:48]  And they just had this video today on that someone, I don't even know who the guy in the video is, but it's a video about the minimum wage.
[00:44:57]  And it just, look, I know this stuff has been torn apart for ever, but it's unbelievable to me that this type of bullshit propaganda can still be put out there.
[00:45:08]  So I gotta, I just, I, I have to respond to it.
[00:45:11]  And I need you to as well, Rob.
[00:45:13]  So let's, let's pull up this video and let's, let's, let's break this down.
[00:45:18]  You know, it's funny.
[00:45:20]  You wouldn't tell an employer that you plan to put in so little effort that if you put in any less effort, it would be illegal.
[00:45:26]  And yet that is exactly what minimum wage is.
[00:45:30]  And is it possible to live anywhere on a US's minimum wage and not just subsist, not just barely scrape by, but experience some level of comfort?
[00:45:40]  Because the origin of the minimum wage in the U.S. is a commitment to the idea that if you're working full-time, you shouldn't have to experience poverty.
[00:45:50]  You work 40 hours a week, whatever you're doing, developing software or working on an assembly line or behind a deep fryer.
[00:45:57]  You should be able to relax after work and not worry about whether or not you have enough money to both pay rent and eat.
[00:46:04]  All right, pause it.
[00:46:05]  1,800.
[00:46:06]  Just pause it.
[00:46:07]  Just pause it.
[00:46:10]  Ah, Jesus.
[00:46:11]  Jesus fucking Christ.
[00:46:12]  It's unbelievable that this shit can still go out there.
[00:46:15]  So he said, you wouldn't tell your boss that you're going to put the minimal effort, level of effort of work in that isn't illegal, would you?
[00:46:26]  But that's what they're telling you.
[00:46:27]  It's like, well, right.
[00:46:28]  Because there's no law that dictates the amount of effort you have to put into a job.
[00:46:36]  Cause like, that'd be really fucking stupid.
[00:46:41]  And so it's just like your boss can fire you if you're not working.
[00:46:48]  I don't know.
[00:46:49]  It's a weird turn of phrase, but I will tell you that most general employees who are low salaried, I find that when I ask them for something, they react like a five-year-old that I just said had to clean their room.
[00:47:02]  I have to, oh, and then they don't really do it.
[00:47:05]  They do it at a pace so slow that it's not helpful.
[00:47:08]  You're almost like, can I just go behind the counter and do this?
[00:47:11]  I don't mind that I have to, can I just go onto that computer and put the thing in?
[00:47:15]  You know what I mean?
[00:47:15]  It's like they really stammer like a four-year-old that you asked to go upstairs for something.
[00:47:21]  So I think they currently do exactly what you are describing.
[00:47:25]  You just gave it a very strange turn of phrase of what's not quantifiable.
[00:47:30]  Right.
[00:47:30]  Yeah.
[00:47:31]  And yeah, okay, it's legal.
[00:47:32]  It's legal to go to your job and do absolutely no work at all.
[00:47:37]  And by the way, lots of people don't go above and beyond at their job.
[00:47:41]  And yeah, okay.
[00:47:43]  So anyway, and then he just goes into this thing about what you should get if you work.

=== Living Wages vs. Survival (15:25) ===

[00:47:49]  But again, this is all just so stupid.
[00:47:52]  I mean, like, there's no, look, there's nothing that you should or shouldn't get.
[00:47:58]  We, I mean, I suppose in a sense, we all should, you know, like, what if I said, we all should live in mansions?
[00:48:08]  Why shouldn't you?
[00:48:10]  Like, why should, you know, if you, if, if you're a human being, you should live in a mansion and whatever.
[00:48:18]  You should have a happy marriage with a really good-looking person and you should have, well, you know, like, you say all these things about you should, but what, what if I were to say to you, like, look, you should, um, like, if you're a guy, you should have a smoking hot wife.
[00:48:39]  Like, okay.
[00:48:41]  Yeah, in some sense, sure, I can understand that.
[00:48:45]  But in the real world, the only way to make that happen is like, I don't know, you got to go, you got to go convince some smoking hot chick to want to marry you.
[00:48:56]  That's the only way to get a smoking hot wife.
[00:49:00]  Now, maybe you can make some abstract argument that that 400-pound fucking, you know, kid with acne should have a smoking hot chick, but I don't know.
[00:49:12]  Unless we're going to force some hot chick to be with her, if he can't convince one of them to be with her, then he's not going to get that.
[00:49:18]  And so this whole thing about if you work 40 hours, you should have this.
[00:49:22]  This just isn't the way to think of it.
[00:49:24]  This just isn't the way to even conceive.
[00:49:26]  This is childish thinking.
[00:49:29]  The more adult way to think about this is to be, what do you, what do you earn?
[00:49:39]  What do you make someone else want to give you?
[00:49:42]  That's the reality of it, right?
[00:49:44]  Like, what do you, what do you do that is so compelling that someone else goes, I have to give this to you.
[00:49:51]  Sweatshops were a big issue in the U.S.
[00:49:54]  And one way of combating this was to institute a minimum wage.
[00:49:58]  In 1938.
[00:49:59]  Hold on, pull this back a little bit.
[00:50:01]  Pull us back a few seconds.
[00:50:02]  I want to hear what this motherfucker just said.
[00:50:04]  And eat.
[00:50:05]  In the late 1800s, sweatshops were a big issue in the U.S.
[00:50:09]  And one way of combating this was to institute a minimum wage.
[00:50:14]  In 1938, this was set at 25 cents.
[00:50:18]  Pause it.
[00:50:19]  Pause it right there.
[00:50:20]  He went in the late 1800s.
[00:50:22]  Sweatshops were a big problem in the United States.
[00:50:26]  And so to combat this, in 1938, we imposed a minimum wage of 25 cents.
[00:50:33]  So 50 years later, like, what are you, you just jumped half a century.
[00:50:39]  What are you talking about, dude?
[00:50:42]  This is an insane response.
[00:50:44]  Hey, you know, in 1885, we had a big problem.
[00:50:47]  So we addressed it in 1940.
[00:50:50]  What?
[00:50:51]  Like, no, listen, when they say sweatshops, what does a sweatshop really mean?
[00:50:57]  What they mean by that is that there was factory work with bad conditions for low wages.
[00:51:05]  And I understand that sounds really bad when you talk about it in 2023, but you just have to put these things in perspective.
[00:51:13]  Like, for example, imagine, okay, imagine I snapped my fingers and every inch of human productivity was erased.
[00:51:26]  Like we were all sent back to just the state of nature.
[00:51:32]  Like it's all of us, but we're just in the state of nature.
[00:51:37]  No clothes, no materials, no nothing.
[00:51:39]  We're starting from scratch, from day one.
[00:51:43]  We just have trees and leaves and fucking forests, and that's it.
[00:51:47]  That's all we have.
[00:51:48]  Okay.
[00:51:49]  At that point, whatever work we're going to do is going to be brutal, right?
[00:51:57]  There's no easy work.
[00:51:58]  There's no minimum wage.
[00:52:00]  We just have to work for everything we get.
[00:52:03]  And then we work and work and work and work, you know, and we build some shelter and we whatever.
[00:52:09]  We get to a next level and we start like domesticating animals.
[00:52:13]  We start getting wealthier and wealthier and wealthier.
[00:52:15]  Okay.
[00:52:16]  Then you could talk about how work will be a little bit better, but it's still brutal and brutal and brutal because it takes years and years.
[00:52:23]  So yes, if you go back to the end of the 1800s, yeah, working conditions were bad and wages were not as high.
[00:52:36]  You know, okay, fine.
[00:52:38]  That's true.
[00:52:40]  But the thing that got us out of there was not some government legislation about what people had to be paid.
[00:52:46]  I mean, imagine when I snap my fingers and I go back to when they were just in the state of nature and me and you are looking at there, Rob, and we're like, holy shit, we're going to starve to death.
[00:52:56]  We just made an outfit out of leaves and now we're going to go have to hunt our food.
[00:53:01]  And then someone else just stood up and they went, no, I think there should be a minimum wage.
[00:53:10]  You'd be like, oh, okay, but that doesn't change the reality of the situation at all.
[00:53:13]  We have to produce something here.
[00:53:15]  We have to go hunt.
[00:53:16]  We have to get food.
[00:53:17]  We have to build shelter.
[00:53:19]  That doesn't mean anything.
[00:53:20]  And so, okay, fast forward to the late 1800s and you can say, okay, the conditions weren't that great.
[00:53:27]  And you know what changed that?
[00:53:28]  Was that 50 years later, there was a law that said there was a 25 cent minimum wage.
[00:53:34]  It's like, no, that's not what changed that.
[00:53:36]  What changed that was that we kept producing more.
[00:53:39]  We kept producing more and then people made more and more stuff.
[00:53:42]  And then they could demand more and more of a wage.
[00:53:45]  This is just fucking, this makes no sense.
[00:53:48]  All right, let's keep playing.
[00:53:50]  When FDR was pushing for this legislation, he called it a living wage, saying that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.
[00:54:06]  Firstly, I hate the way the guy talks.
[00:54:09]  I hate his whole thing.
[00:54:10]  But we'll just, we'll stick to the talking points here.
[00:54:13]  The concept that no company should be allowed to pay its core, like its people less than a living wage, wouldn't they be closed within a week?
[00:54:22]  If you're telling me that the people physically can't live, then don't I have an inoperable business if I'm paying them less than what they need to be alive?
[00:54:31]  I mean, I hate to be so literal about this, but if you're telling me- Well, yeah, it's a bullshit term.
[00:54:36]  Yes, it's a bullshit term.
[00:54:38]  If you can't live off of your wage, then you probably wouldn't accept that wage.
[00:54:42]  And you wouldn't be there at the end of the week.
[00:54:44]  You'd be dead.
[00:54:45]  The company of ghosts.
[00:54:47]  Seems like that.
[00:54:48]  Yeah, sure.
[00:54:49]  Like, I know.
[00:54:50]  By the way, I don't know.
[00:54:51]  Like, if you've ever, like, been to like a McDonald's or a Wendy's or a Dwayne Reed or like something like that, like, wherever you'd go, that people are making a minimum wage.
[00:55:00]  I'm not saying they're doing great, but they do seem to be living.
[00:55:04]  And then what?
[00:55:06]  So let's just be real.
[00:55:07]  Let's stop using these bullshit terms and have a real adult conversation about this.
[00:55:12]  And if you work more than a 40-hour week, does it then become a living wage?
[00:55:16]  So like if you stack two of these jobs, are you now making a livable wage?
[00:55:20]  Yeah, it's got to be within 40 hours.
[00:55:23]  Yeah, it's just fucking ridiculous.
[00:55:25]  So let's, all right, let's keep playing.
[00:55:27]  Single business and every single worker, and he went out of his way to clarify living wage as a decent wage.
[00:55:34]  And this was when he was pushing for a minimum wage.
[00:55:37]  So I think it's safe to say that a minimum wage was meant to be a decent wage.
[00:55:43]  Zero days worth for a fair day's wage.
[00:55:46]  So now that I've said wage too many times, where do you have to go to lives on the U.S. federal minimum wage?
[00:55:55]  Can you pause for a second?
[00:55:56]  Yeah, yeah, let's pause.
[00:55:58]  Pete, by the way, I'll just say it's genuinely embarrassing for breaking points that they're putting out this socialist propaganda bullshit.
[00:56:06]  It's just so fucking embarrassing for them, man, that they're supposed to be the ones.
[00:56:10]  And I like cigar and I like these guys.
[00:56:12]  I'm not like trying to be rude to them, but this is such a humiliation for them that they're putting out this socialist propaganda.
[00:56:20]  That this is the idea of, oh, yeah, it's supposed to be a living wage, which means a decent wage.
[00:56:28]  And let's see where you can go to get this wage.
[00:56:31]  We just have, I'm sorry, I just feel like we have to respond to this.
[00:56:34]  So I'm sorry, go ahead and I'll be tearing this apart in the next minute.
[00:56:38]  Okay.
[00:56:39]  Almost every social benefit outside of your income will, or from my understanding, typically is relative to the wealth of that area.
[00:56:49]  I bet there's nowhere in the country where you're earning a non-living wage where you can't afford to live because I bet that means government might be subsidizing your housing, then subsidizing your food, then also subsidizing your health care needs and also subsidizing your children's education.
[00:57:11]  Well, of course, all of that's true.
[00:57:15]  It also your minimum wage is just a bonus on top of the fact that government's already socialized all of your other needs.
[00:57:22]  If anything, government's made it easier for the corporation to pay you a non-living wage that they then tax and steal through inflation.
[00:57:30]  Well, there's, look, there's definitely some truth to that, but there's even much more to it.
[00:57:34]  But let's play a little bit more of the video because I'll go off in a second here.
[00:57:39]  And here, minimum wage is $15 an hour if you're working 40 hours a week.
[00:57:45]  You're going to be left with about $1,800 a month after taxes.
[00:57:49]  Well, you should spend roughly a third of your.
[00:57:51]  Okay, so let's pause it right there.
[00:57:54]  So he's saying in New York City, if you're making minimum wage, you're going to be left with $1,800.
[00:58:00]  By the way, what did he say?
[00:58:02]  After taxes.
[00:58:06]  Of course, that shouldn't be a part of the conversation at all.
[00:58:10]  That you're still getting taxed.
[00:58:13]  No, no, the government should be forcing you to make more money, but we're not even going to like, we'll just like leave it completely off the table that they're stealing money from you, even when you're making minimum wage.
[00:58:27]  Okay.
[00:58:29]  Okay, let's keep playing.
[00:58:31]  $600 a month, which is insane here.
[00:58:35]  Let's see what that gets you.
[00:58:37]  Nothing, which is why New Yorkers spend more like two-thirds of their income on rent.
[00:58:42]  What can we get for less than $1,200?
[00:58:46]  Two apartments in the entire city under $1,200, at least on this.
[00:58:49]  Let me pause again.
[00:58:50]  $1,000.
[00:58:50]  Pause it.
[00:58:51]  Go ahead, Roth.
[00:58:52]  This is infuriating and not true.
[00:58:55]  You can live in New York City for $600 a month.
[00:58:56]  It's with roommates, and it sucks.
[00:58:58]  And guess what?
[00:58:58]  That's what we all did.
[00:59:00]  Most of the comics I know are doing.
[00:59:03]  No one has their own place.
[00:59:04]  What are you talking about?
[00:59:05]  That's what genetic.
[00:59:06]  Let me tell you something, dude.
[00:59:07]  And this is like what's so goddamn fucking infuriating.
[00:59:10]  What did they say the number was?
[00:59:11]  $1,800 a month was what they said after taxes.
[00:59:15]  Yes.
[00:59:15]  Was that right?
[00:59:16]  $1,800 after taxes?
[00:59:17]  Okay.
[00:59:18]  All right.
[00:59:19]  So I make very good money.
[00:59:24]  I make, I don't know what, whatever it is, the median household income in America, I make a huge, you know, 10 times, 20 times more than that.
[00:59:36]  I made less than $1,800 a month in New York City for at least a decade.
[00:59:43]  For at least 10 years of my life, I made less than $1,800 a month in New York City.
[00:59:49]  Rob, me and you were very good friends through this time when I would have killed for $1,800 in a month, right?
[00:59:57]  Because I was devoting all of my energy to a career that paid substantially less than minimum wage.
[01:00:04]  Substantially less, okay?
[01:00:06]  And I was doing that because I believed in myself.
[01:00:09]  I was betting on myself that I would get to this point where I am now, where I'd make much more than minimum wage.
[01:00:15]  And I survived in New York City off of that.
[01:00:18]  Because yes, the idea that you're going to live by yourself is, yes, that's ridiculous.
[01:00:24]  And so what people in New York do is they have multiple roommates and they have all types of, oh, okay, fine.
[01:00:30]  But so that's, and by the way, that's just one portion of all of this.
[01:00:33]  This is not portraying a real thing here.
[01:00:36]  But yes, that is true that you cannot support yourself in the most expensive city in the world off of minimum wage.
[01:00:48]  But what are you proving here?
[01:00:51]  What point do you make?
[01:00:52]  Here, let me let me pull this up.
[01:00:54]  Okay.
[01:00:54]  So there's just some stats.
[01:00:58]  This is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
[01:01:00]  Okay.
[01:01:01]  So these are 2020.
[01:01:04]  The last year stats were available.
[01:01:06]  73 million workers were paid hourly rates.
[01:01:12]  That represents about 55% of all wage and salary workers get paid by the hour.
[01:01:18]  Okay.
[01:01:19]  Of that 55%, 1.5% of all hourly paid workers made the minimum wage.
[01:01:33]  What guys are even adults?
[01:01:36]  Hold on, Roth.
[01:01:37]  We'll get there.
[01:01:38]  We'll get there.
[01:01:41]  So let's be clear again.
[01:01:43]  About 55%, a little more than half of the workforce is paid hourly.
[01:01:52]  1.5% of them make the minimum wage.
[01:01:59]  So it's, let's say, a little bit more than 0.75% of the entire workforce make minimum wage.
[01:02:10]  That's what we're talking about.
[01:02:12]  Okay.
[01:02:13]  Within that percentage, the overwhelming majority get a raise within one year.
[01:02:22]  One year.
[01:02:24]  So, so to not make minimum wage, what you need to do is something.
[01:02:34]  Try a little bit.
[01:02:37]  Just try.
[01:02:40]  Something like 99 plus percent of the workforce makes over minimum wage.
[01:02:47]  And I understand that maybe you think their wages should be higher, but you're talking about the absolute bottom percentage.
[01:02:54]  Now, Rob, you asked what percentage of the minimum wage are teenagers, and it's almost half, a little bit less than half.
[01:03:07]  A little bit less than half are teenagers.
[01:03:09]  So these are teenagers coming into the workforce with no work experience, nothing.

=== Productive Work at the Bottom (07:04) ===

[01:03:14]  And that this is all they command.
[01:03:17]  This is all they bring in.
[01:03:18]  So that's what.
[01:03:19]  So to make this whole argument about how like you can't support yourself in the most expensive city on a minimum wage, like, yeah, that's right.
[01:03:28]  You're not supposed to.
[01:03:30]  You're not supposed to.
[01:03:31]  That's right.
[01:03:32]  You have to add something.
[01:03:34]  Listen, you can't like, it's like this idea that, but if you work so hard, you should be able to support yourself.
[01:03:42]  This is childish shit.
[01:03:43]  This is the type of shit I read my four-year-old in a fairy tale before she goes to bed to make her feel better.
[01:03:50]  When adults are talking, we should talk like men.
[01:03:53]  What do you produce?
[01:03:55]  What value do you add?
[01:03:58]  You know, when you go out in the world, there are things that work.
[01:04:06]  You know, there's, there, there are houses.
[01:04:09]  Like, the second I step out of my house and just look around, there are big houses that are structured that can home families.
[01:04:20]  That exists because someone built them.
[01:04:24]  They are, they have electricity, which allows heating and air conditioning and television and internet and all of these things, right?
[01:04:35]  That's because men built that.
[01:04:39]  There are roads that are paved so that we can get from here to the store and we can get food and we can get all the things we need because someone laid down that pavement.
[01:04:51]  The store has food because there was a farm and there was a butcher and there was a trucker and they all came together to work to make this happen.
[01:05:00]  It's not just that they did something.
[01:05:02]  They didn't just go outside and fucking do push-ups for 10 hours and go, I worked really hard.
[01:05:09]  The point is that they did something productive.
[01:05:13]  The butcher did something so someone else can eat.
[01:05:16]  The trucker moved it from the butcher to the grocery so someone else could purchase it.
[01:05:21]  The person who laid down the pavement laid it down so there's a road so we can get there to get home.
[01:05:26]  Everybody, you get paid based off how much you produce for other people, how valuable you are, not just because you work.
[01:05:36]  So if you are in the bottom 1.5% of the 70% who make wage salaries and you're not in the vast majority of that bottom 0.75% of all workers who gets a raise the first year, then you need to do something to be more productive.
[01:06:00]  The answer isn't that the government needs to come in and legislate that you get more.
[01:06:06]  And the thing that's like so infuriating about this, Rob, and I know you get this, is that there's something where breaking points is almost trying to be like, they're trying to take this populist energy and go, you know, look, there are these guys at the bottom.
[01:06:22]  They should get more.
[01:06:24]  These people at the top are ripping them off, right?
[01:06:27]  And that's kind of, we agree with that message more or less, that the guys at the bottom should get more and the people at the top are ripping them off.
[01:06:34]  We agree with that, that populist message.
[01:06:37]  But this is what makes me so angry about this shit is that it's like, and cigars should know fucking better than this, man.
[01:06:45]  I mean, I know he's not a part of the video, but he should be embarrassed that this is on his fucking channel.
[01:06:50]  Is that you're not arguing that the people at the top pay more to the people at the bottom.
[01:06:55]  You're arguing that the people in the middle who are actually productive should have their wealth, their wealth stolen to give to the people at the bottom because that's all that fucking happens.
[01:07:07]  And you're arguing that the people at the bottom who actually want to move up in the world should get fucked over.
[01:07:14]  That's what you're arguing if you're arguing the minimum wage should be raised.
[01:07:17]  Because you know what?
[01:07:18]  There's a bunch of people.
[01:07:20]  Let's say this, right?
[01:07:22]  Keith, you know, Keith Knight said this in a perfect way when he was on the show last week, two weeks ago, whatever it was, where he goes, you know, there'll be economists who talk sometimes about the bottom 20% in America.
[01:07:37]  And they'll say things like Paul Krugman will be like, you know, the bottom 20% in 1980 had this, and the bottom 20% today still only have this.
[01:07:48]  But the flaw in that is that they're pretending that it's the same people.
[01:07:52]  You know what I mean?
[01:07:53]  Like they're going like, oh, the bottom 20% have that, but now today the bottom 20%, but meanwhile, the bottom 20% in 1990, lots of them are in the top 10% today.
[01:08:03]  The bottom 20% is a whole new group.
[01:08:05]  It's almost like if you were going, and this is the way he put it, whereas if you were going, did you know that freshmen in college were the average age was 18 in 1980?
[01:08:16]  And today, freshmen in college, the average age is still only 18.
[01:08:20]  And that just shows you that freshmen haven't aged in all of these years.
[01:08:25]  And you're like, well, no, that's not actually true.
[01:08:28]  No, they've all aged.
[01:08:30]  Literally all of them have aged.
[01:08:31]  And this is a whole new crop.
[01:08:33]  And so you're acting like these people, these minimum wage workers are kept down.
[01:08:38]  But the truth is that the vast majority of them graduate out of that and develop skills and move up and up and up and up for most people, for the overwhelming majority of people who work minimum wage jobs.
[01:08:51]  It's a stepping stone to move up.
[01:08:54]  And they need that because they come into it without a lot of skills.
[01:08:59]  And so they need to get this job.
[01:09:01]  Just imagine you're somebody who has no skills, no education, nothing, the person that everyone really wants to help.
[01:09:10]  Well, you go get a minimum wage job and you kick ass at that.
[01:09:13]  And you kick ass at that.
[01:09:15]  And then you can fucking move up.
[01:09:18]  And now, if nothing else, you have some job experience.
[01:09:22]  You have something to put on a resume.
[01:09:24]  You have an employer who will, you know, write you a good letter of recommendation.
[01:09:29]  Now maybe you can get something above minimum wage.
[01:09:32]  So, but what do you do if you raise the minimum wage?
[01:09:36]  What do you do if you say, hey, instead of $15 an hour, you got to pay that guy $25 an hour?
[01:09:41]  What you do is deny a whole lot of those people who would have had an opportunity to get those that job the opportunity.
[01:09:49]  Because the truth is that a lot of times, and I'll say this, Rob, I'll throw this back over to you in a second.
[01:09:55]  I'm sorry.
[01:09:55]  I'm ranting.
[01:09:57]  Here's the thing: when people talk about what's fair, what's right, these are vague terms.
[01:10:06]  I don't know what's fair.
[01:10:07]  What's fair might be that everybody, you know, gets a mansion.
[01:10:12]  I don't know exactly what's fair.
[01:10:14]  But when you talk about what you bring in versus what you get.

=== Raising Wages Denies Opportunities (07:37) ===

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[01:12:18]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[01:12:21]  A lot of times in companies, there's this tendency to feel like the people at the bottom go, it's not fair.
[01:12:30]  You know, I see a lot of money coming into this company, and I think it's not fair that I'm not getting more.
[01:12:35]  But if you really want to think about fairness in a different way, it may not, it may not work out so well for them.
[01:12:42]  The truth is that in a lot of companies, let's say Gas Digital, for example, this company.
[01:12:49]  The truth of Gas Digital Network is that there's a few shows on this network that make money.
[01:12:57]  Right, Rob?
[01:12:58]  You know the back end of Gas Digital pretty well.
[01:13:00]  There's a few shows on this network that make money.
[01:13:03]  And then there's several shows that cost money.
[01:13:08]  That's the truth.
[01:13:10]  Now, the shows that make money tend to subsidize the shows that cost money.
[01:13:17]  Yet the shows that make money make a lot more money than the shows that don't make money.
[01:13:22]  And it'd be very easy for those people at the bottom to say, hey, we should get more money.
[01:13:27]  We're not making as much money as the big shows.
[01:13:29]  But the truth is, if you really want to be fair, you actually should make less money.
[01:13:35]  And the shows that bring in money should make more money.
[01:13:38]  Now, we're okay with that because we also understand that's how every business works.
[01:13:43]  Every business works where the people who really generate all the money kind of subsidize the people who don't generate as much money.
[01:13:49]  And we hope that, well, maybe they'll get to a place where they generate more money and then it'll all be better for all of us.
[01:13:56]  But the truth is that most of the time, when someone is hired for eight bucks an hour, they don't generate any money to that company.
[01:14:06]  Someone's just willing to give them a chance and say, hey, come in here and work.
[01:14:12]  You don't generate any money right now.
[01:14:14]  I'm probably losing money by hiring you, but I see some potential in you.
[01:14:20]  That's what happens a lot.
[01:14:21]  I see potential that maybe in three years you could be generating money.
[01:14:25]  So I'll give you a little bit of money right now.
[01:14:28]  And maybe later on, you'll generate money for all of us.
[01:14:33]  That's how I feel, right?
[01:14:34]  I have one of the biggest shows.
[01:14:36]  I have two of the biggest shows on Gas Digital.
[01:14:40]  Sometimes Lewis and Ralph will say, we got a new show coming on board that has some potential.
[01:14:45]  Now, when that show comes on board, immediately I'm losing.
[01:14:52]  I'm sharing revenue with them that could just go to me, but now it's going to go to them.
[01:14:58]  But I'll go, you know what?
[01:15:00]  I like these guys.
[01:15:01]  They got something.
[01:15:02]  Maybe in a year or two, they'll blow up and then they'll bring in even more revenue that we'll all share in.
[01:15:10]  So it's worth it.
[01:15:11]  Okay.
[01:15:12]  But that's usually how it is when someone hires someone for a minimum wage position, that they're going, all right, right now I'm taking a loss on you, but you got some potential.
[01:15:20]  So let me get you in here so that maybe if you work hard and you develop your own value, you can start bringing it in for all of us.
[01:15:29]  But if you were going to do that for eight bucks an hour and then someone goes, no, not eight bucks an hour.
[01:15:35]  You got to pay them 50 bucks an hour.
[01:15:37]  Then you go, I just can't afford to do that.
[01:15:40]  I can't afford to do that.
[01:15:42]  I'll do whatever the rate is that I have at Gas Digital.
[01:15:45]  I'll be fine with someone doing that right now.
[01:15:47]  But if someone goes, nah, Dave, you got to pay them more and more of what you're bringing in right now to invest in their potential.
[01:15:54]  I'd go, no, let's just not do it.
[01:15:56]  Let's just not.
[01:15:58]  So you're not on the side of the little guy by advocating raising the minimum wage.
[01:16:03]  You're screwing over the little guy in the worst fucking way.
[01:16:07]  And if you actually wanted to help people get out of poverty and pull themselves out, you'd go, make there be no minimum wage.
[01:16:15]  Make the people who want to work hard and add value to themselves, let them come in at whatever value they can.
[01:16:23]  Because if they're not going to do that, then you're just denying them opportunities.
[01:16:29]  All right, you go ahead, Rob.
[01:16:31]  Oh, well, I think, you know, this guy's mostly getting it wrong.
[01:16:34]  So I think this shitty dork in his stupid sweaters, who's soft-spoken and confused, what he should be saying when he gets his opportunity again on media and television is going, guys, I have no idea this work.
[01:16:46]  Change nothing.
[01:16:47]  I'm somehow very lucky in this system.
[01:16:50]  So nobody changed anything.
[01:16:51]  Don't do anything.
[01:16:52]  They're really doing, just keep doing that because I somehow am making a living and I'm very confused by all of it.
[01:16:59]  That's look, it's the base, it's the basic thing where I go, the minimum wage is not a floor that you're, this is what Walter Block always said, right?
[01:17:07]  It's not a floor that you're pulling up, lifting everyone up with.
[01:17:11]  It's a hurdle that you have to get over.
[01:17:16]  If you're going to get hired, you have to be worth at least what they're going to pay you, right?
[01:17:21]  I mean, maybe you could be worth a little bit less and they'll be like, okay, maybe you'll get there in a few years.
[01:17:26]  But the higher you make the hurdle, the higher it is, the tougher it is for people to jump over it.
[01:17:32]  That's it, man.
[01:17:33]  Goddamn, fuck this socialist propaganda bullshit.
[01:17:36]  How is it?
[01:17:37]  It's like the wage gap or like all these other dumb things.
[01:17:40]  The fact that people still like push this minimum wage shit just blows my mind.
[01:17:46]  All right.
[01:17:46]  We're way over time.
[01:17:48]  Rob, catch you soon.
[01:17:50]  RobbieTheFire.com, comicdavismith.com.
[01:17:54]  That's it for us.
[01:17:55]  Catch you next time.