Feb. 22, 2017 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
06:29
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| They say history repeats itself. | ||
| I'm a big believer in this theory, which is why I try to spend more time on this show talking about big ideas and political philosophies rather than day to day political rumblings. | ||
| Most of our political debates and media coverage has devolved into catchy soundbites and zingers, usually staged around some sort of publicity stunt instead of true substantive debate. | ||
| Even protesting these days seems to be more about screaming and hashtagging than making a coherent argument. | ||
| Just think back to the election itself. | ||
| Did the candidates and the media spend more time on the issues or more time on the circus? | ||
| I think the answer is pretty obvious. | ||
| Understanding political philosophies helps to guide us through the endless noise that comes out of our political machine. | ||
| This is why I've tried to talk about issues like gay marriage in a context which shows you can be liberal and for gay marriage because you want gay people to be treated equally under the law, or you can be libertarian and for gay marriage because you don't want the government involved in a contract between two consenting adults. | ||
| If you understand the philosophic underpinnings of liberalism and libertarianism in this case, It can bring you to the exact same conclusion. | ||
| Without understanding political philosophy, your thoughts on any day to day issue will be guided more by your feelings than by facts. | ||
| We see plenty of feelings over facts in our public discourse these days, and it's partly why we're so divided as a nation. | ||
| By the way, that isn't to say that feelings don't matter at all, because we are humans and of course they do, but the way we're governed has to be based on what is empirically true, not just what makes us feel good. | ||
| Beyond just knowing political philosophies, knowing history is an incredibly important part of having a well rounded understanding of how the world works. | ||
| Think of how many people you talk to who claim to know everything about what tax system is right or what foreign policy is best. | ||
| Next time ask them something like, so tell me the reasons that the flat tax is wrong, or remind me of the history of the Middle East during the Ottoman Empire. | ||
| Everyone on television seems to have the need to pretend they know everything about everything. | ||
| These are the very people you have to watch out for the most. | ||
| If history does repeat itself, I'm not exactly sure what it's repeating right now, and no, I don't think we're repeating Nazi Germany even though it's very trendy to say that these days. | ||
| We truly are at a unique crossroads in American politics, which is why I can't directly compare it to any other time. | ||
| It's not just that America has two diametrically opposed political parties that are caught between the left and the right. | ||
| Now with Donald Trump in the White House, we have a presidential wildcard who has turned political alignments on their head. | ||
| For example, Democrats are now suddenly arguing four states' rights because they don't like all the federal power Trump has with his series of executive orders. | ||
| This political chaos is also pushing massive amounts of people, sick of the extremes on both sides, into some sort of amorphous middle. | ||
| There doesn't seem to be a political leader for this new center, nor anyone in the mainstream talking about it yet, but mark my words, it's here. | ||
| The key to this new center's success will be who sees it first and who turns it into a political movement. | ||
| Whether that means a new party, or reforming one of the two existing major parties, or something else altogether, that remains to be seen. | ||
| On top of this new political alignment, we also have access to information like never before. | ||
| As I talk about all the time, we all walk around with the world in our pockets. | ||
| Right now you can connect with someone across the globe just as easily as with someone across the street. | ||
| The genius and power of the internet's ability to change our physical world can't be overstated. | ||
| This connectivity has started revolutions in the Middle East and shine light on the inner workings of our government via Wikileaks. | ||
| But at the same time, so much of the information is not just noise alone, but noise intended to deflect, confuse, and upset you, made by people who want to profit off you or outright control you. | ||
| Of course, if our mainstream media had done their job for the past 8 years, which is to be the guardian of truth in our society, then maybe the importance of the internet wouldn't be so vital to our functioning democracy in 2017. | ||
| Unfortunately, cable and network news dropped the ball at almost every corner and here we are. | ||
| They cozied to the power instead of keeping it in check, they colluded with the people they were supposed to keep watch over, and they partied with the very politicians they were supposed to be reporting on. | ||
| Now, suddenly the mainstream media is trying to get its mojo back by being hard on Trump, but I would argue that it's basically too late to do that. | ||
| Actually, it's kind of sad seeing them flail around knowing that less and less people are paying attention to them. | ||
| Even right now, there's talk that they are going to cancel the White House Correspondents Dinner because so many in the media dislike Trump. | ||
| Think how actually insane that is. | ||
| When they like the President, they can party with him and drink with him. | ||
| Now that they don't, Well, the jig is up. | ||
| Maybe we needed them to guard the guy they liked as much as the guy they don't like. | ||
| At the same time, we more and more cater the news to ourselves. | ||
| We don't listen to pundits we don't like, we impugn the motives of anyone we disagree with, and we block friends and family who dare have different opinions than us. | ||
| All of this is exactly why we need to know history and philosophy more now than ever. | ||
| We need to understand where we came from so we can know where we're going. | ||
| We need to know why the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution the way they did. | ||
| We need to understand why they yearned for freedom and liberty in a way that seems almost archaic to us now, but is possibly the most important lesson we could learn this year. | ||
| With all this in mind, I can't think of a better guest for this week as we continue our partnership with the fine folks over at Learn Liberty. | ||
| Dan Carlin is a radio and TV personality who hosts two incredibly successful podcasts, Common Sense and Hardcore History. | ||
| As a self-described political Martian, Dan uses thought experiments to try to make some sense of the modern world. | ||
| On his podcast Hardcore History he hosts long, well thought out presentations of historical events set to the backdrop of how we might view these events through a current day lens. | ||
| While he isn't technically a historian, he's proven himself to be incredibly adept at storytelling history in a way that offers some modern day answers to historical events. |
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