Dave Smith and Rob dissect the shifting media narrative on Ukraine, noting how Time magazine now admits the Pentagon's counteroffensive claims were false without accountability for war deaths. They analyze global protests in Washington D.C. and London as a unified message against Israel's Gaza actions, rejecting "human shield" justifications while highlighting how Arab nations historically ignored Palestinian suffering via American aid. Comparing this intensity to the George Floyd case, they argue external oppression draws more outrage than internal issues like domestic violence or "black on black crime," suggesting the Ukraine war ends due to election optics rather than military success. Ultimately, the episode posits that humans resist foreign tyranny more fiercely than their own government's oppression, a dynamic illustrated by the stark contrast between global focus on Israel and the ignored Yemen crisis. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Funding Our Own Enemies00:14:10
Fill her up!
You are listening to the gas digital human.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the gas digital network.
Here's your host, James Smith.
All right, what's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I'm Dave.
This is Rob.
We are in the green room at the American Comedy Club out here in San Diego.
We've been having a fun time out here, haven't we?
Dude, this is San Diego is apparently a great market for us.
San Diego shows have been fucking packed.
They've been awesome.
We did a live podcast last night.
You guys will probably see that if it doesn't get, I don't know.
It was a dicey one.
It was.
But I had a fun time.
We mixed it up with some evangelical Christians, learned a little bit about the history of Jesus.
Yeah.
And yeah, it was a fun time.
But we've been having a good time out of it.
And I met my new wife.
She does.
She's a fun, she's a handsome lady.
She's a handsome bird you got there.
And she's great at just standing there, which is what I like in a bird lady.
That is, that's true.
She doesn't yap much, which is big.
We watched Lewis win his fight against Tim Butterly.
Butterly had a good showing, but they did, so that was fun.
We've had a...
Tam Lewis looked good.
I felt like I was watching a boxing, I mean, not the actual boxing, but like his actual figure was like when you watch someone get in shape for a boxing movie.
No, Lewis's boxing looked great, except compared to a boxer.
Yeah.
And his body looked great except compared to someone with a good body.
No, I was very turned on by Lewis J. Gomez in this fight.
Listen, if you compare them both to former Lewis, they were incredible.
Nah, he had abs.
He had toned bodies.
He was glistening with the sweat coming off of him.
Listen, first off, your wife's right here.
So calm down.
But no, Lewis is good.
Lewis got in good shape and he did a really good job.
I was proud of him.
Mike Harrington got robbed, but what are you going to do?
Things happen.
Okay.
So.
I hope Alex Stein starts showing up to like city council things with the giant check.
Oh, dude.
Alex Stein's never going to cash that giant check.
He doesn't even want a real check.
He just wants that giant check.
God damn, that guy is good at social media.
Just him posting, humping the check.
I would love to see him just at a city council thing.
Like, hi, I just want to talk about this giant check that I got that the other guy wasn't able to cash and really could have used for his family.
It would have made such a difference to Harrington to have.
But all right.
Anyway.
All right.
So this is going to be a little bit of a shorter podcast because we got a show that we're about to go do.
We got a couple shows, actually.
It's our last night here.
But there's a few things we wanted to talk about.
So we talked about this a little bit on the live show, but I think maybe there's a few things we could say about it more than we did because we were kind of joking around, as we tend to do in the live shows.
But this was a really big deal.
And there's more to it even now than there was last night when we recorded that show.
So the first big thing that happened is a couple days ago, there was a Time magazine piece written by the same guy who gave Zelensky the person of the year, which it really did mark, and you see this happen a lot in the media, in the establishment, corporate media, where you see, there's a very weird dynamic.
And we've all, I mean literally every single person listening to this show right now, me and you, we've all experienced this a lot, where there's this weird dynamic where there's a thing you've been saying for a while that is totally illegitimate to say.
And you're a bad person if you say it.
And everybody who knows anything and every single expert will tell you that is totally wrong and you're fucked up for saying this.
And then all of a sudden, one day, it's just printed.
And it's just okay to say it now.
And now it's totally fine.
I mean, the examples we could come up with this are countless.
But like everything from like the vaccine doesn't actually stop the spread of COVID or like the virus coming out of the lab.
Yeah, that's a great example.
The virus, the lab leak theory, which at a time would literally get you banned off of all social media platforms.
All of a sudden, it is just okay to say that.
And then it's actually, yeah, that's probably what happened.
And now everybody, even Fauci, like even guys like that who would have said you're a horrible person for saying this will now say, yeah, it's definitely a possibility.
And we're looking into it.
So anyway, what happened with this Time magazine piece is now all of a sudden, the things we've been saying for quite a while aren't, you're allowed to say it.
We've, just in the last few years, me and you have been ahead of several of these things.
But what the piece was basically saying is that Ukraine can't possibly win the war, that they know that the war can't be won.
The Pentagon has, you know, for the entire last year, they've been, what are you talking about?
The counteroffensive's going great.
Ukraine's going to win.
We have to keep funding them because they're going to win.
And now it's all of Zelensky's top people are, they even called him delusional in the piece.
And it was reported in this piece that the military is straight up ignoring orders.
They're telling them to march forward and they're refusing.
The generals on the ground are like, we're not going to do that because our military has been destroyed.
And then there was an announcement just earlier today that the Americans are pushing negotiations.
So it seems like there's been kind of, you know, as there are in these moments a lot, there's this drastic pivot toward, there's never like an apology that comes along with it.
There's never a recognition that we were wrong for smearing all the people who said this, but it does seem like there's a pivot to now kind of being like, you know, okay, we're going to move away from this war.
We were joking on the live show the other day that, you know, America's like, look, you knew what this was, Ukraine.
But this is our, this is my, Israel's my wife.
Like, you were just my side piece.
But it is a pretty big, it's a big deal.
This has been one of the biggest stories in the world for the last couple years.
And it's pretty crazy that just like this, they will once again get away with pivoting toward what we've been saying the whole time without any admission.
And a lot of people needlessly died.
We basically just caused countless Ukrainian deaths for absolutely no payoff whatsoever.
And for all the war hawkery of China, Taiwan, I mean, this must make it so much more likely that China goes, hey, I can get away with taking Taiwan.
There's certainly a strong argument to that.
It's amazing how much of the war propaganda will just evaporate at this point.
All of the things like, well, if Vladimir Putin gets Lu Hansk, then he takes Poland.
And now when you know he's in Germany.
Oh, is that a concern anymore?
Or like, let's be honest, everyone's going to drop that because they knew it was bullshit.
And the crazy thing about it is that I remember, because I had a lot of debates about Ukraine.
I did several of them.
And I did a few Rogan appearances where I talked a lot about Ukraine.
So I heard back from a lot of people.
I got a lot of feedback off this thing.
In fact, the biggest video clip I've ever done was off the war in Ukraine.
Like it went more viral than anything I've ever done.
And it's amazing how much people, like real people, not like, you know, people who are like being paid by Raytheon.
I mean, just like real people will repeat the things they've heard from the corporate press to you.
Like they will genuinely tell you, like as if they believe it, that no, but if he wins in Ukraine, then Vladimir Putin is going to reconstitute the Soviet Union and he's going to move into Poland and then we've got a war with NATO and all of these problems.
And it's just interesting in this moment to see.
It's like, dude, like you, real person who's arguing that.
Look, they don't even believe this.
Because if they did, at least one of them would be like.
Okay, we got to stop funding this war in Ukraine.
But the real concern here is what we told you the concern was this whole time.
But you won't hear a word about that because no one's actually concerned.
No one actually thinks that Vladimir Putin is going to move into Poland next.
And so anyway, it's just like, you'd hope at least for some of those people, you'd be like, look, even they know this is bullshit.
You're repeating the propaganda that these people will just abandon the second it's unpopular.
Yeah, that's when hopefully people actually go after them at the debates.
Like, do you know that your policy is responsible for X amount of Ukrainian deaths?
Do you know that there was the region will never recover?
You know what I mean?
That's where you really have to go after these people.
Your policy caused the following harm.
What was the payoff?
It's such a good point because, you know, look, I mean, we were not only, we were simultaneously discouraging negotiations as of a year and a half ago.
And on top of that, we were funding the war, giving them a blank check.
So if Vladimir Putin ends up getting whatever he wants now, which is what clearly is going to happen, all we did was prolong the war for no benefit.
Yeah, how much money did we spend?
How much death was there?
And then where's the accountability?
Unless Putin ends up invading and taking all of Europe and you and I were wrong this whole fucking time and we got to eat crow, how many people are going to be fired for the deaths and money lost on what was just a failed philosophy?
It wasn't true.
Like how many times can we keep taking actions on things that they say is absolutes and then you turn around, they're unequivocally false and everyone just gets to keep their job and just the whole system, it just moves on.
It drives me nuts.
Well, there was, you know, we had on our last episode that we did before we left on this trip, we did the segment on Bill Maher's show.
Right.
And that clip, shout out to Chief Nerd, who's fucking, I love that guy.
He promotes the fuck out of our shit.
Great, great Twitter follow, by the way, if you're not following him, go check him out.
But he shared that clip, so that clip went pretty viral too.
But it was the thing, one of the things that was really incredible about that was just this moment.
And I think the reason why it went viral and the reason why that clip, what we did, like kind of resonated with people was because it is unbelievable where they, no matter how right we are.
And when I say we, I don't mean to take like the credit from me and you.
I'm speaking broadly of us, the people listening.
Rob.
I'm talking about Rob, only Rob.
But you know what I mean?
Like no matter how correct all these dissonant voices are and how wrong the regime gets it, no matter what, there's always this kind of, you know, because we were talking about it earlier.
Like there'll be something like, well, the fact that we took a stand there is the reason why Putin didn't invade Poland, right?
You know, they'll have some way to spin it.
But what was crazy about that clip on Bill Maher's show is that even then, even when they had no way to spin it, when they had, you're just like, look, I was on a school board and I was arguing for school closures and that turns out to be completely wrong.
But, you know, it's these people who are just trying to get their Twitter likes by making us all look bad.
You know, we were working with imperfect information and the noble people at the CDC were doing the best they could.
And that gets a round of applause.
So it's like even that, even when they're just admitting we got it all wrong, they still somehow try to spin it in a way where it's like, but you're the jerk.
So that's what's going to happen with this.
That's what happens every time.
We had imperfect intelligence when we said that Putin was going to go take all of Europe.
Well, it cost 100,000 lives for imperfect intelligence.
Or it'll always be the unfalsifiable counter.
Well, he would have done our efforts.
We checked him there.
So the unfalsifiable counter, what's the word I'm looking for?
The, you know, the, like, what could have happened.
Right.
Jesus Christ, I'm fucking China.
I mean, I still believe if we hadn't been in the world.
Counterfactual is the word I was looking for.
If we hadn't been in Iraq, you know how much more terrorism we would have had here?
Right.
So you can always say that.
Well, if America wasn't the empire, then China would be the empire.
Well, if we hadn't fought all these, you know, then this would have happened.
And so what they'll say, and of course, all of that, it's ridiculous.
It's a religious argument, essentially.
It's because it's unfalsifiable.
It's untestable.
It's unprovable, unknowable.
So they could say, they'll say something like, well, if we hadn't have done this and stood firm, then he would have advanced further.
But that's just ridiculous.
It's more, you could just as easily say, well, if we hadn't have done this, then he would have given all of Ukraine back.
You know what I mean?
Like there's just no, there's no real way of knowing that.
It's what you're trying to do there is like make an educated guess about what would have happened.
And there's actually no reason to think that if we weren't the world empire, China would be.
There's no logic behind that.
It's just an assertion.
And there's no reason to think that if we hadn't done this, Putin would have invaded Poland.
Like you said, if anything, you could probably make a stronger argument that if he was ever going to go to Poland, now would be the time.
We're backing off, right?
What are we going to do now?
So all of that is bullshit.
But it does look at least like for people who are listening, because I always know, you know, when you have a show like we have and it's got a decent size audience, there's always like, okay, there's a lot of people who are listening to us right now who are convinced.
You know, they're like, yes, you've made your case and I'm completely with you.
Or they were already convinced and they already agree with what we believe.
But then there's also other people who agree with us on some things and not on others.
And then there's also a group of people listening who maybe are like not sure, but they kind of find these ideas intriguing and they're like, maybe you're right, maybe you're not.
But I would just say it's like, look, all of these fucking things, like, and I'm not trying to like, look, I'm a flawed person.
Flawed Agents and Healthcare00:03:07
You're a flawed person.
There's a whole lot of shit that we're stupid about, but we are goddamn right about all of this shit.
And we just are.
And we were right about all the stuff through COVID.
We were right about all this stuff through the war in Ukraine.
And as you see the narrative collapsing, you see like this thing where the people who appear on TV, the people who are in the corporate media, the political class, all of them, they fake this certainty, you know?
And they're in a suit and tie and they're the guy who had three different positions at the Pentagon.
And I'm telling you right now that Ukraine will win if we give them this money.
And we're just a couple of fucking comedians on a podcast being like, no, this guy's full of shit.
But just take this moment to look at it and go, oh yeah, that guy was full of shit.
It was completely fake certainty that they, and anyway, transitioning now, almost like pleading.
Like we're right about this thing in Israel too.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
And it's really something, man, to see.
So just today, it's still probably going on.
Well, maybe not.
I guess it's only six here, but it's like 9 p.m.
They may have taken.
Yeah, well, they do.
They respect Shabbat.
No, but there was a protest in Washington, D.C., a pro-Palestinian protest that was, I mean, I heard reports that it was 100,000 people, but I'll tell you, looking at some of the aerial footage of it, I was like, I think that's more than 100,000 people.
Hate Speech and Empathy00:06:19
I don't know.
It's a weird thing.
You know, like when we do stand-up comedy, so we do live shows a lot.
And you kind of learn how to like look at a crowd and gauge how many people are there.
Like you could look at a crowd and be like, oh, that's about 300 people.
You could look at a crowd and be like, oh, that's like a thousand people.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, you have a good eye for that because you've been in front of a lot of crowds before and you know what the numbers are.
But when it gets to that number, you're like, it's kind of hard to gauge.
But it was, it looked like hundreds of thousands of people.
I would gauge it as like 10 Trump inaugurations.
10?
Yeah.
Those were the biggest ever.
I know.
You know, the biggest crowds ever.
But just the way they filled up the lawn.
It was like 10, 10 of those lawn fulls.
Well, I mean, I'm just like showing you now and whatever.
If you, maybe even Brian, I'll like splice in a visual of this, but just showing you this now, right?
So, I mean, look at the amount of people there.
Right.
This is a ridiculous amount of people.
And this is in Washington, D.C. Sorry, that was a Vivek Ramaswamy clip.
But this is in Washington, D.C.
This is happening.
There was another huge demonstration in London today.
Of course, me and you went to one unintentionally.
There have been all around the world, of course, all through the Muslim world.
There's been these protests.
And you just watch this happening.
And it's almost like, you know, it's the thing I've been saying now for a while.
But look, even if you're just coming at this from the most pro-Israel point of view, do you not see what's going on here?
Like, even if you, even if, and obviously this is not my position, but let's just say hypothetically that you take the position that all I care about is Israel and Palestinian life means nothing or whatever the justification is.
You know, they voted for Hamas and therefore they don't have a right.
You know what I mean?
Like whatever.
Israel has to do whatever it has to do to defend itself.
Like even from that position, do you look around at what's going on here?
You know, I was arguing with a family member of mine earlier today on the phone.
And like I'm Jewish as you are.
And I was arguing with one of them.
I was trying not to argue, but they're kind of having a conversation about this stuff.
And they were talking about how there's just like, look, what we've seen over the last couple of weeks is that there is this tremendous anti-Semitism.
Like people hate the Jews.
And that's just the fact.
You want to ignore that, but people, because this is a family member who's older, you know, and they're like, people from my generation, we know about this.
Your generation doesn't understand this as much, but my generation knows that people hate the Jews and they're just waiting to find an excuse for that.
And like, I don't exactly accept that.
I will acknowledge that, yes, there has been some stuff that I think is wrong that has been revealed in all of this, and that it's not simply a reaction against Israel and Israeli policies.
There's, you know, we see, we talked about this earlier at lunch, but, you know, like when you see those people like tearing down the posters of like the hostages, which is a weird thing to do.
That is very bizarre.
Now, I understand when someone puts up a poster of like missing person in Brooklyn, it's not really a missing person poster.
Like, this isn't like when someone lost their dog and you put it up a poster like, hey, if you see this dog, could you bring it back to me?
Like, obviously, these hostages are in Gaza.
They're not in Brooklyn.
No one in Brooklyn's going to see that poster and then be like, let me keep my eye out for that woman.
You know what I mean?
But it's just a symbolic thing.
It's a show of like, you know, look, we have feelings and empathy for these people.
But people just tearing that down is a very weird thing to me.
Because it's not as if there's like, it's not as if the poster was like, build more settlements on the West Bank now and you're tearing that down.
That's not an objection to Israeli policy.
There does seem to be something there that is like, I don't know.
Anyway, the point I'm making is like what I said to my family member who is making this point is I go, okay, let's say you're right.
Let's have the starting point that you're right.
That I'm wrong when I say that I don't actually think our country is dominated by people who hate Jews.
I think Jews are doing very well here.
And I think the vast majority of people don't really even care or have a problem with it.
Maybe I'm wrong.
You're right.
Anti-Semitism is everywhere.
And all it takes is scratching the surface to realize that they would do another Holocaust tomorrow.
Like people just really hate Jews that much all throughout Europe, all throughout, obviously the Muslim world, even in the United States of America.
Let's say you're right and I'm wrong, okay?
They would do another Holocaust tomorrow.
And as they will also say by their worldview, that Israel is this tiny little drop in a sea of Islam, right?
And like if Turkey and, you know, Qatar and Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Jordan and all of these countries decided to attack Israel, Israel's fucked.
There's nothing they could possibly do.
They'll all be slaughtered again.
And in fact, all of these people throughout the world would cheer it on if that happened.
Let's say you're right.
Well, when you see at least 100,000 people protesting in Washington, D.C., you see protests across every fucking European country and all through the Middle East, and you're right that all of these people hate Jews and they would do a Holocaust again, then wouldn't the best course of action be to tread lightly?
Like, wouldn't you look at that and then go, oh, okay, we better really think about our next move here.
Like, because like if what matters is Israel's survival and there's all of this anti-Semitism and you're screwed if they do end up going to war with you because you're just a few people, you're this tiny minority, then wouldn't you go, okay, maybe we should cool it with the slaughtering of innocent civilians.
Maybe we should cool it with the rhetoric we're using right now.
You know, you hear like the rhetoric coming out of Bibi Netanyahu and all these guys, all these fucking guys in the IDF.
Like maybe you guys should chill.
All I'm saying is like, remember how right we were with Ukraine?
Joining the Crowd Health00:02:18
Okay, we're right about this one too.
That like even from the most pro-Israeli perspective, wouldn't you go, all right?
Let's like, what are we doing here?
Because all this talk about flattening Gaza, it seems like the world is sending a message that is like, we're not accepting that.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
I think it was something we said at the start of it, but I kind of, I would say I have a very good understanding of social media news and optics and spin and story.
Probably a bit of an expertise.
At the beginning of this, I said with an open internet, I don't think they will be able to control this storyline because it's interesting to me.
Kids Dying in Conflict00:15:18
The only time I ever heard, hey, Gaza's an open-air prison ever was the two times we had Scott Horden on the show.
Other than that, I never heard that.
I never heard anyone say it.
It's not a topic that comes into focus in the news all that often.
When all of a sudden you're talking about blowing up buildings with innocent civilians and I can see that picture on Twitter, that's not going to fly.
And unless you can scrape that stuff off the internet, it's not, and then just going, oh, well, we dropped a leaflet and so they're actually the human shields and so is human shields.
We have no other way.
I'm not buying that argument.
Other people aren't buying that argument.
This just, you're not going to win selling this as that you're being on the side of morality.
Well, it's all, I mean, the argument, first of all, the argument is self-defeating in a sense, because the argument will be, well, look, we tell all of these people to leave.
We warn them before we blow them up.
But also, Hamas is using them as human shields.
So you're kind of like, wait, well, which one is it?
Are you saying you're like, and they'll go, you know, when we warn them to leave, Hamas won't let them.
You're like, okay.
Why even warning them?
So what does the warning do then?
So then the warning is completely irrelevant.
And like, yes, I'm not, I don't think anyone, I shouldn't say not anyone.
There are goofy leftists out there who make really bad arguments.
But you know what?
That's true on just about any topic you have, right?
Goofy leftists make goofy leftist arguments.
But none of us are saying that like Hamas is innocent in all of this.
That's not the claim.
But if Hamas, if your claim, again, I'm not even disputing.
I mean, okay, I am disputing some of these claims, but for the sake of argument, let's not dispute the claim.
Okay, Hamas is holding them all hostage and won't let them leave.
So now it's okay?
So now their lives don't matter at all?
So now none of us should have any feeling about this.
You know, someone sent me, because I just, I did a debate recently.
Maybe I'll talk about that for a second.
But I did a debate the other night while we were out here on this topic.
And in response to it, like the overwhelming response was very positive.
But, you know, whenever you have an issue like this, where there's very people very passionate on both sides, you get, you know, some people.
So one of the responses that someone said to me was they sent a picture.
I guess it was like a graphic of all of the children or a bunch of, like, I don't know.
I didn't like verify that it's real, but I'll accept for the sake of argument again.
I'm accepting a lot for the sake of argument, but I'm sure these are all the Israeli kids who got killed on October 7th.
So there's just a picture of all these children.
And they're like, they're like, take a good look at this image, Dave, and then think about what you're saying.
And it's like, yeah, dude.
Like, I don't know.
It's right.
You're asking me to have feelings for these children, which I do.
Like, I don't know.
Look, I got two little kids.
And whenever I see these pictures of little kids who are dying in any of this shit, I see my own kids in them.
That's like, I think that's the feeling that most parents have.
And just most decent people, even if you don't have kids, that's kind of how you feel.
Like, I see my own kids in these kids' faces.
And you're like, oh, my God.
Like, it's hard to describe.
Like, something happening to one of my kids is like the worst thing I can possibly imagine.
Like, whatever the worst thing is in the world, it's like so much worse than that.
Whatever being tortured to death myself, something happened to my kids is like a thousand times worse than that.
I can't explain.
And when I see these, these Israeli kids who died, you're like, yeah, it's the worst thing in the world.
But the only question is, like, why is that supposed to go away when I'm talking about the kids in Gaza who are dying?
Because I'll tell you, when I see those images, I also see my own kids in those kids' faces.
Like, I feel the same way.
And you're like, okay, so it's horrible that it happens.
It's all horrible.
But why is it when we're talking about like this military action that you're choosing to undertake?
You know, it's not as if, look, if it was a scenario, right?
And this is kind of like the way people who argue on the pro-Israeli side, they almost try to make it like this is the scenario.
Like, look, let's say hypothetically, somebody, let's say a Hamas guy, I'm over here with my kids and I have a gun and he's over there with a bunch of kids in front of him and starts shooting at me and my kids or I have a rocket launcher or something, whatever.
And he starts shooting at me and my kids.
And I either got to sit here and let my kids die or shoot this rocket launcher up and blow him up and kill all the kids.
Okay, you know, I get it.
I would do that if I was in that situation.
I'd feel awful that these kids are dying, but you go, hey, man, I was in a situation where it was either my kids or your kids, right?
But that's not the situation.
That's kind of like the hypothetical they're trying to create, but that's not the situation.
And if it was the situation, I'm not saying no one, but believe me, not nearly as many people would be objecting to what they did, including us.
Like we would be like, hey, that really sucks.
You know what I mean?
Like that's sad that these kids died, but what were they supposed to do?
But that's not the situation.
The situation is more like this guy shot at your kids, then runs away, escapes, is now in a building miles away with 100 kids in the building.
And so it's not an imminent, my kids are going to die if I don't blow this building up.
It's more like, okay, there's a guy in that building who we want to bring to justice, but if we bomb the building, it's going to kill all of these kids.
That totally changes the, that totally changes the calculation, right?
Like, cause now it's like, oh, you don't have to do this.
You have several other options.
You could wait him out.
You could track him with metadata.
could use facial recognition cameras.
And by the way, Gaza is the most surveilled area in the world.
All of these things are options to the Israelis, but they're not pursuing any of those.
So the thing is that there's like, I don't know, basically, I guess I would say, I'd say anyone, anybody who could look at like the Israeli kids who died and not have any feeling for them, that's insane.
And like you've lost your soul.
But the same thing is true for anyone who doesn't have any feelings for these kids in Gaza dying.
And why the hell should it not apply to both sides?
It's just madness.
It's madness to not have those feelings for any innocent children who are dying.
Anyway, back to the point that I was making before.
And I guess I've probably, I don't know how much I've said this on the podcast before, but there is this dynamic in the Muslim world where there, and I guess this is partly, this is just a dynamic between governments and their people.
It's something we talk about a lot on this show.
But governments always, I've fucking been talking about this for like fucking at least a decade publicly.
But there is this weirdly kind of, you could say democratic force, a democratic rule of nature to the way governments rule.
And this is true whether your government is a democracy or not.
Because like even if, let's say you have a theocratic dictator in some country, and just by the nature of government, there's always like, well, there's one dictator.
He's got his little cabinet.
He's got his advisors.
He's got his police and his military force.
But that makes up what percentage of the society?
1%?
Maybe 5% if they're really huge.
You know what I mean?
But there's still another 95 to 99%.
So you have this theocratic dictator and one day, you know, 700,000 people show up outside his palace and they're demanding, we want policy X.
That dictator tends to go, you know, I've been thinking about it and I am instituting policy X. Because there is a democratic force, even if there's no votes.
Like there is this force where like he knows he will die like Muammadafi died.
And he doesn't really want to do that.
He doesn't really want to be dragged out of his castle and fucking sodomized to death.
And the dynamic in the Muslim world, particularly in the Arab countries surrounding Israel, is that basically since the 70s, the solution was America will pay them all off.
That America will pay off Egypt.
We will pay off Saudi Arabia.
We will pay off these countries.
But you got to be friends with Israel.
Maybe you don't have to be friends with them, but you damn sure can invade them.
And you basically are going to have to look the other way about what they're doing to the Palestinians.
Now, this is not an ideal situation because this is what has allowed Israel to get away with doing what they're doing to the Palestinians since then.
They've basically taken out of the equation that you have to worry about these other bordering Muslim countries, which was the big concern of Israel early in its existence, right?
And they even took out Saddam.
Well, right.
Right.
So in, but in 1948, they had a war with surrounding Arab countries.
In 1967, they had a war with surrounding Arab countries.
In 1972 or 73, it was they did, right?
But this hasn't been an issue for Israel since the 70s.
Now, that's not necessarily great if you're a Palestinian, because this basically took off all of the pressure for them to have to negotiate with them.
But let's say, again, coming from the pro-Israeli point of view, this has worked out pretty good overall for you, right?
Because basically, they've been bought off to not to look the other way, to not go to war with you, and they keep getting their money.
But as you start to slaughter the people of Gaza, you start to put a lot of pressure on this natural democratic force.
Because all of these states, all of these Muslim states surrounding Israel, if you were to take an opinion poll about how the people of those states feel about what's happening to the Palestinians right now, it is 100%, 100% of the population is against what Israel is doing to the people of Gaza.
So you're now creating this situation where you're actually fucking with the cost-benefit analysis.
Because of course, all of the people who are in power in Saudi Arabia and Jordan and Qatar and Egypt and all that, they like their power and they like their money, right?
But you know what they like even more than that is not being Muammar Gaddafi.
So there's only so far you can push them before their own population rising up might make them go, might even make the military dictatorship in Egypt go, you know what?
We're going to reconsider this calculation.
We're going to run a cost-benefit analysis on this and we'll actually forego the billions of dollars that America gives us.
I'm not disagreeing with you here and I'll plead ignorance.
And I agree with you that it does seem like, particularly in Saudi Arabia, that they had to walk away from the peace deal and that there's bad optics in getting along with Israel or having good relations with Israel while they're oppressing the Muslim communities or the Palestinians that live there.
And maybe this happens and I just don't know it, but why don't you see more of a humanitarian effort from all these other countries or an effort to take in refugees from Gaza?
It seems like this used to be like the old claim from what I remember of when they used to teach us the Israel advocacy that the other countries like purposely have kind of left the Palestinians there so that they're a group of people that would be oppressed and make Israel look bad.
I seem to recall that argument at some juncture in time, but I'm just wondering if all of the citizens of those other countries care so much for the Palestinians, why isn't there like some sort of a humanitarian effort?
Well, there's been lots of pushes for humanitarian aid that have been blocked by Israel over the years.
But Egypt's like a hard-taking people.
Egypt will not let them in.
And Egypt has a border.
Right.
So that's...
No one else has offered.
No one's been like, hey, we'll set up a refugee camp here if Israel will let them out.
Well, okay, so there's a few things going on there.
I mean, number one, I think that's ideal.
You shouldn't have to flee where you live or someone else will take you.
I think, you know, my understanding of it is, first of all, that that is a legitimate argument, I think, that like the pro-Israel side makes.
I think that is totally legitimate.
Like, I even said that when we were responding to the Ben Shapiro video, if you remember, like one of the points he made was that, look, when all these Jews had to flee all the surrounding Muslim countries, Israel welcomed them in, and yet none of these Muslim countries were welcoming the Palestinians.
But I'm just saying, that is a fair point.
I think there's no question that Israel cares more about Jews than these other Muslim countries care about just Muslims anywhere.
So I think also, though, there is a feeling, and this is probably somewhat legitimate, that there is this belief that they're going to take back the land, kind of, that the Muslims, this is kind of at the essence, what the Hamas River to the Sea, like what's in their charter really means, is they're like, no, that's our land.
We're not fleeing to go into these other countries.
Like, we're one day going to win this struggle and take back our land.
I think it's a fair criticism, though, that like none of these surrounding Muslim countries like offer any type of like...
And correct me if I'm wrong.
Internet people always will.
Maybe there have been real efforts that I'm just kind of not aware of.
I do know.
I think Israel even ran like missions to get people out because they were all second-class citizens when they were, like, I think all those Muslim countries at one point had decent Jewish, like, I know people, Jews that got out of Iran, but I think like, you know, I think there's a fair amount of Jews that like Israel almost had to rescue out of those countries.
Yeah, I think that's basically right.
I mean, I think it was different in different countries like this.
It happened in Iraq and Iran and Jordan and a lot of those countries around there where there were Jews.
Right.
And they basically had to get the fuck out.
And I don't know.
I'm not like the expert in this, but like I think there was a range of how violent it was toward them.
Right.
Or how either way, it was, let's say, in all cases, an inhospitable environment where Jews had to.
This is just a hilarious story.
It's hot.
It's not going to bring any insight to anybody in the world, but it was just a hilarious story that comes to my ADD mind.
There was when the Taliban just took back over Afghanistan, there's one Jew left in Afghanistan.
And the military went to his house and said, we will evacuate you because you're the last Jew in Afghanistan.
Yes, I remember this story.
We don't think this is going to be a good situation for you.
And he said, I'll leave if you pay me.
And they're like, we're not paying you to leave.
We're here to rescue you.
If you want to stay, you can stay.
No one's paying you to leave.
Dude, that is, and I say this with love.
It's our people.
That might be the Jewiest story in the history of the world.
When he goes, I'll leave if you pay me.
They go, sir, you just won most Jewish man in the world.
Did you know that?
We'll pay you with a plaque.
We'll pay you with a plaque.
It says the most Jewish person I've ever heard of.
You go, sir, we risked our life to get here to try to save you.
Coffee, Veterans, and Outrage00:03:13
There's literally nothing for you to sell us right now.
Like, what do you, what is it that you, what leverage do you think you have?
Yeah.
Okay.
So all of that, I think, is, I think the stuff about other Muslim countries is a very fair, a very fair point.
I do think, though, that there's a lot of times people, the pro-Israel side, will make this argument.
Like they do, which like is fair enough that they go, well, look, there's all this outrage against Israel, but what just about the way Saudi Arabia treats its own people?
How about the way Saudi Arabia treated the people of Yemen?
How about the way all these countries are, you know what I mean?
It's like, well, why not outrage about that?
And so it's not that there's no point there.
And okay, some people are more guilty of that hypocrisy than others.
I don't think we're really guilty of not focusing on the way Saudi Arabia treated the people of Yemen.
You know what I mean?
But fair enough.
It doesn't get as much international outrage for sure.
But again, it does not follow from that, that therefore it's okay for you to flatten Gaza and to try to exterminate 2 million people.
It just doesn't follow from that, that it's okay for you to do it because those guys are doing fucked up shit too.
It's like you can't be like, if you're beating your wife and you're like, yo, what are you doing?
You can't be like, well, her ex beat her too.
He beat her even worse than I did.
So what is she going to go back with him and get beaten even worse?
Like, yeah, that's not actually a justification.
It is a reasonable condemnation of her ex.
Fair enough.
But it's not a justification for you to continue doing it.
So that's kind of the thing.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
Just from a purely self-preservation and optics standpoint, in the George Floyd case, I remember watching that case and you're like, oh, they're throwing him under the bus.
Yeah.
And I wasn't expecting, but I was like, there was just enough bad publicity here.
They threw him under the bus.
The Ukraine war is coming to an end because I don't think they can sell it to the American public anymore.
They're coming up on election season.
They got to cut their losses.
They literally just don't have a way to continue to send funds.
Crime Analogy and Horton00:05:04
On the Israel thing, I don't know why this came into focus more than the Yemen thing, but for some reason, because of probably because of the terrorism that that's like gripping right away.
I mean, that's shocking.
They flew over a wall and they desecrated people.
And like, we get fascinated by violence and tribalism.
And so it's instantly like fascinating.
Like, holy shit, the most horrible thing just happens to these people.
How are they going to respond?
And then it's like, the eyeballs are on you now.
Yeah.
You kind of, once you're in that situation to go, hey, why are all the eyeballs on us and not this other thing?
They're on you right now.
And you're losing the well, that's right.
And so, and there's something about, well, look, there's two things that I think of when you bring that up.
Number one is it's also like, yeah, but you kind of demanded all the eyeballs on you.
Right.
You kind of demanded all the eyeballs after this terrorist attack that happened to you, which like fair enough.
You have a right to do that.
Go, look how horrible this was.
Look what happened to us.
But then people are still watching.
Right.
And then people start going like, yeah, and why did they do that?
What came before this?
And wait, what's coming after this?
You know, then the other thing is that, and this is something that in different areas, I feel like particularly conservatives, like conservative ink types, always point this out, where there's a hypocrisy where like, okay, if a white cop goes into a black neighborhood and like beats the shit out of some guy who didn't deserve it, it gets all this outrage.
And then there'll always be some conservative on Fox News who's like, but what about all the black on black crime in that area?
And like on some level, they're making a fair point.
They're making a fair point that it's like, yeah, look, it is kind of crazy that this gets all of the attention.
And then this problem, which is actually far worse, doesn't get nearly as much attention.
However, there is another side to that, which is that, you know, the oppress, the oppressor from outside is always going to kind of be a bigger story and draw more resentment than an oppressor from within.
That's just kind of human nature.
In the same way that, look, like this was an old Scott Horton analogy, I guess an analogy, a thought experiment.
But I always really loved this.
Credit to Scott Horton.
I'm not claiming that I came up with this, okay?
It's his, but it's a really good thought experiment.
But he was like, imagine we were a free country, okay?
Imagine we were just a free society.
And then the Soviet Union still existed and the Soviet Union invaded and captured America and took us over.
And then the Soviet Union said, we were a free country at this time, so we didn't have an income tax or anything like that.
And the Soviet Union said, we are going to create the USSIRS.
And this is going to be, it's a taxing body.
And we have now, because we're communists and we took over your country, we have determined that it is a crime to be productive.
And the penalty for producing something is a fee.
And the more you produce, the higher your fee goes.
And by the way, you know how you have a Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate yourself?
Yep, that's abolished.
You must incriminate yourself to the USSIRS every single year.
And you must, you have no right to privacy.
We will go through all of your documents.
And if you get anything wrong on these documents, like your punishment for being a productive member of society is you must pay a fee.
But if you misrepresent yourself, if you, in a sense, invoke your Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate yourself, the penalty is prison.
Okay, if that happened, we'd all know what we were looking at.
We'd be like, oh, we've been captured and we now live in a totalitarian society.
Period.
End of question.
Like we'd all know what that was.
But because it's our own government that does the exact same thing, literally what I just described to you is just the IRS.
But because it's our own government that does it, it's not as obvious to people.
You know what I'm saying?
But if it was the Soviet Union who did that, let me tell you something.
We'd have a terrorism problem in America where people would be running up and throwing Molotov cocktails and screaming in the name of Jesus, we're free people.
And we wouldn't consider them terrorists.
We'd consider them freedom fighters.
You know what I'm saying?
And like, look, I'm not saying it would be justified then if they targeted innocent people, but I'm just making the point that an outside force coming in and dominating you is always going to be a bigger news story and meet bigger resistance than your own society dominating each other.
And that's why if some white cop comes into a black neighborhood in Chicago and beats the shit out of some woman there, it is going to get the neighborhood up in arms against that cop more than the fact that they have their own crime problem that's much bigger than that.
Part of that is just human nature.
It's almost, I mean, you could say that it's cultural or that it's actually an ingrained racism in all of us, but that if you look in another part of the world, like let's just say Hamas was blowing up its own buildings.
We go, man, that's a fucked up group of people.
Weekend Plans and Racism00:00:59
I hope they figure that one out.
But there's no one to yell at to go, hey, that's not right.
Yeah.
Whereas if someone starts going into someone else's area, then you're, then it's easier to go like, hey, that's not right.
Yep, exactly.
They just texted me that they're opening the doors now.
So we got to wrap this podcast up.
I've had a great, I'll say, I always love everywhere we go, Rob.
I always have a good time traveling with you.
This has been a particularly great, great run here in San Diego.
So a lot of fun in San Diego.
Come out to San Diego if you ever get a chance.
Smelly homeless people, but aside from that, these people are all right.
All right.
And we'll be back with a brand new episode when we get back home.
And a lot more stuff.
Arlington, Virginia, next weekend.
Oh, yeah, next weekend already.
Was it just Friday, Saturday?
Just Friday, Saturday, Arlington, Virginia.
And then at the end of the month, we got Poughkeepsie back at Laugh It Up, which was really fun.
One night only, right?
Really fun last year.
Yeah, yeah.
I think we're just Saturday.
Just one night only.
Yeah, get the tickets here because I think we sold that one out last year.