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April 21, 2019 - Real Coffe - Scott Adams
44:18
Episode 501 Scott Adams: The Coup in Progress, CNN Destroying Climate, Those Pesky Russians
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Hey everybody!
Happy Easter!
I hope you've got your cup or your mug, your tankard, your stein, your thermos, your flask.
I hope it's full of your favorite liquid.
I hope it's coffee.
I have my coffee.
And now, it's time for the Simultaneous Sip.
Please join me.
Oh, somebody wants to change my mind.
90 seconds, eh?
Well, maybe we'll do that later.
I've got plenty to talk about today.
There's news all over the place.
Number one, I think there were eight churches attacked in Sri Lanka for Easter.
Eight bombs went off, presumably Islamic terrorists.
And I ask myself, what is going to stop more and more churches from being attacked?
And at the same time, we're seeing a story about apparently the government of the United States is considering labeling fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.
Now, not because it kills a lot of people who try to take it recreationally.
That's bad enough.
But the government is actually concerned that it could be used as simply a weapon.
You take a bunch of it and you do some bad things.
Now, some of you know that my book called The Religion War, which I wrote back in 2003.
What year did this come out?
Let me check. Why don't I see the year of my own book?
I think it was around 2003.
And I predicted that the future of the world, which would be somewhere around now, according to my prediction, because it was a near future, not a distant future prediction.
And by the way, this book is fiction, but it holds predictions in terms of the story.
And the story was that the bad people The Islamic terrorists would start using hobby-sized drones to attack anything they wanted, and that ultimately those drones would carry chemical weapons because they're light.
The obvious chemical weapon that they would carry is fentanyl.
I would say the odds of a weaponized drone carrying fentanyl is close to 100%.
Eventually. Close to 100%.
So this predicts that the likely conclusion of such attacks, since they couldn't be stopped very easily, would be an all-out war of extermination.
In other words, only one religion would win, and they would be heading toward extermination unless the hero of the book can change something.
So I'll leave that a mystery.
But I'm wondering if...
We might actually get to the point where it might be illegal to use the internet if you have a religion, a certain religion.
Could it be we'll reach the point where you're just not allowed to use the internet because it would be too dangerous to give you access to the internet if you're a certain religion?
That would sound like a horrible, horrible outcome, but all of our future outcomes look horrible.
Because if we have a full-out religion war, we could lose a billion people.
That wouldn't be the end of the realm of possible, a billion people.
So let's hope that doesn't happen.
And let's hope we get a handle on fentanyl.
Now, if fentanyl was labeled by our government a weapon of mass destruction, how would we act differently toward the cartels?
Because it's not as obvious as it would seem.
You think to yourself, well, if the cartels have these weapons of mass destruction, then wouldn't our military be able to go in and just kill them all?
And the answer to that is not so clear.
Because militarily and defense-wise, yes, we totally would have the right to do it and the ability to do it.
But... The cartels might be the only thing keeping terrorists from using fentanyl.
Think about it.
Who would be worse off if fentanyl was ever used as an actual weapon of mass destruction?
If somebody tried to use it to kill a bunch of people all at once, who would be the big losers in that besides the victims?
The cartels. The last thing the cartels want is to lose their income model, which is that if they keep the fentanyl deaths under a certain level, and it's onesies and twosies everywhere, that the military of the United States will not move against them because it looks like a drug problem.
The moment fentanyl transitions from a drug problem to a military problem, The cartels are going to be destroyed.
Because we would move our military in.
We would occupy.
I think we would actually occupy Mexico if there were no other option and fentanyl started to be used as a weapon of mass destruction.
So the cartels...
Probably have a pretty strong interest in making sure that no fentanyl crosses the U.S. border unless it's going to be used to just kill one person at a time with overdoses.
I mean, they would prefer that that person stay alive because then they're repeat customers.
So in the weirdest, most corrupt and sick way, the cartels are probably our best protection Against massive fentanyl deaths, so long as we're willing to accept, say, 50,000 individual overdose deaths a year.
If we're willing to allow that every year, the cartels get to stay in business.
We don't attack because we call it a drug problem, and everything's fine.
But one fentanyl attack that got identified as going through a cartel Doesn't matter how big the attack is.
Could be a small attack that didn't kill as many people as they hoped.
But just one terrorist getting through with fentanyl over the southern border that came from Mexican labs in the cartels.
I think we would move against them militarily.
I think we would occupy. That's what I think.
So we'll see if that happens.
Here's the question of the day.
Have you noticed that every time there's some Russian in the news, somebody involved with the Mueller report, let's say, every time you hear about a Russian, whether it's the Russian lawyer or Russian whoever, who talked to whoever, don't we always say that that Russian is connected to the Kremlin?
It's just automatic, right?
Oh, this Russian is totally connected to the Kremlin, therefore Putin is directly or indirectly behind everything.
But there's one exception.
There is one Russian or Russians, they're part of the same story, that have never been alleged to be connected to the Kremlin.
Until I just saw an article that's starting to suggest it in the New York Times.
Chuck Ross article I just tweeted.
And the idea is, Wouldn't we assume that the Russians behind the Steele dossier, whoever fed that misinformation, wouldn't you assume that they were associated with the Kremlin?
Because that's the most likely people associated with the Kremlin.
But here's the problem.
If the Kremlin was providing the Steele dossier information, that was 100% anti-Trump.
And what are the chances, let me ask you this, what are the chances that a Russian national, if there were any Russian citizens involved, I don't know that we know that yet, there was a Russian speaking, a native Russian speaking person, who is apparently a source for steel, but we don't know who that person's sources were in addition.
So, what if, What if this was like every other Russian connection, it was connected to the Kremlin?
Wouldn't that destroy the entire narrative that the Kremlin was trying to help Trump?
Because the story that I'm seeing is just not fitting with the Russians are all trying to help Trump.
Somebody's saying it could be Ukraine and maybe we'll find that out.
But shouldn't we at least be speculating every five seconds the way we speculate on everything else?
Shouldn't we be speculating the most obvious thing?
That the Steele dossier was Kremlin-connected?
And if that could be demonstrated to be true, and maybe we'll someday know that, wouldn't it prove that Russia's motive was not to get Trump elected?
You can't have both of those things being true.
The current narrative is that, oh yeah, Russia was definitely trying to help President Trump.
That was their motive.
But the moment you tie the Steele dossier to the Kremlin, that motive disappears.
And nobody...
I feel like it's this big black hole where it's the most obvious thing we should be talking about because the answer to that question could be the answer to everything.
Everything would make sense a different way if we knew the answer to that question.
Was the Steele dossier connected to anybody connected to the Kremlin?
If so, then that means that Russia was just messing with us and didn't really care who won.
Because at that point, Trump only had, what, a 5% chance of winning, according to everybody?
So why would they try so hard to take out somebody who had only a 5% chance of winning?
Well, it would be because they're not trying to change the result so much as they're trying to cause trouble.
Now, the other thing that I don't see the news discuss, even though it's been reported, so we know it's a fact, is that that little Russian troll farm Did anti-Clinton memes, but also anti-Trump memes.
They did both!
How come that's not, you know, why is that not reported every time that troll agency is mentioned?
Why do we say the troll agency was to help, was to help Trump?
How can you explain that some members of that same organization were making anti-Trump memes?
Were they trying to help Trump by making anti-Trump memes?
Did they think that someday they would be caught and that, you know, 10% of them being anti-Trump would help them say, no, no, we're being fair?
Somebody saying Chuck Ross has literally said all of this.
That may be true, given the article that I just saw.
But why isn't that the headline?
Why is that not the main thing people are talking about?
The other thing that's amazing is I'm trying to figure out how much is confirmation bias on my part and how much is just a mystery.
And I'm going to ask you the question that probably all of you are wondering.
Why are Clapper and Brennan not in jail?
I actually don't know the answer to that question.
Does anybody here know that?
Because it's one thing to have some random pundit Go on television and say, well, I suspect or I speculate this happened, or what if this happened?
That's what pundits do.
But when two very recent heads of our intelligence agencies, who were literally in charge when all of this Russian stuff happened, when they run an obvious coup against the United States, and I think at this point, how could you not call that a coup?
Because the two people who knew the most should have been Clapper and Brennan.
They should have known the most about how this Mueller investigation was going to end up.
They should have known that it would end up the way it did, which was there was no direct connection.
If those two people didn't already know that, It's a big problem.
If those two do not say every time they mention the Steele dossier or that the Mueller report was in any way influenced by the dossier, if they don't say in the same breath, but you can't trust that because that might have been a Kremlin operation, if they're not saying that, it feels like there's some jailable offense here.
Now, I'm no...
I'm no expert in the law, but I assume, you know, Bob Barr's looking into this.
And if he's not, if he's not, we should get rid of him.
I mean, if Bob Barr is not looking into this, he should be fired.
And I'll even go further.
If President Trump allows this not to be followed up on, then he should be voted out of office.
I can't support President Trump if he's not trying to put coup attempt people under the greatest scrutiny they could be.
Nothing illegal. I'm not asking for anything illegal to happen.
I want the legal system to handle it.
But they should be pretty aggressively going after the people who are obviously the...
It's just obvious that they were central to it.
However, I will say that I'm not entirely convinced That all of the people who you could imagine were part of this massive coup attempt, I'm not convinced that they were all talking to each other.
Because they wouldn't necessarily have to.
There might be clusters that talk to each other, so you could imagine that some of the FBI people talk to each other.
You could imagine that Clapper and Brennan might have talked to each other.
You can imagine that clusters of people talk to each other.
But it's a little hard for me to imagine that they've actually communicated across all those domains to have this one massive anti-Trump coup attempt.
I think everybody just knew what they needed to do.
Everybody did what they could do.
Everybody watched the news and they said, okay, they're handling it this way in the news, so I'll do my thing.
It feels like everybody just sort of knew what to do.
Similar to any resistance movement, it doesn't necessarily have to be coordinated from the top.
It could be little cells.
Sort of like terrorist cells.
So I would say that the coup is more like a series of terrorist cells operating independently.
That's my guess. Why is there no reporting on how bad the Russians are at interfering with US elections?
I've said this about terrorists too.
If you made me a terrorist for a week, I could do more damage to whatever country I was trying to damage than any terrorist has ever done.
I could do that in a week.
I'm sure of it.
I'm not even guessing. I'm sure I could personally do more terrorist damage in one week than any terrorist has ever done to any country.
I'm positive I could.
I'm not going to give you suggestions, but it wouldn't be that hard.
So I'm wondering why the terrorists don't do a better job.
It makes me think that the terrorists at least at the central planning level don't want to do Too much of a good job because it would activate our military to do a lot more than we do.
So it feels like the terrorists are just trying to, you know, improve their brand, if you will, and help things domestically.
I don't think they really plan on taking out the United States because long before that became a possibility, The United States would mobilize and they would do such horrible things to whoever was behind it and anybody who might be behind it that I can't see it would be a good strategy.
So likewise, when I look at the Russian interference in the election, I too accept that the Russians attempted to interfere.
But why did they do such a bad job of it?
Can you tell me that there were Russian hackers who Who were experienced enough to do all this hacking, and yet they couldn't do a better job than everything collectively we've seen that they did?
Because those memes looked like a high school project.
They were not scientific.
They were not well made.
They didn't look especially American.
I mean, it was the worst job of interfering you've ever seen.
Now let's go to the question that's been bugging me for a while.
And here's a question I don't know if anybody's talked about it in the way I'm going to talk about it.
We've seen a lot of attention to the fact that President Trump publicly, I think it was during, I can't remember if it was during the debate, when he looked at the camera and he said, Russia, if you have those missing emails, we'd like to see them,
in essence. Now, the surface level of coverage of that is, hey, the President asked Russia to get those emails, and within days, the Russian hackers actually hacked into the DNC, was it? And got a bunch of emails.
Now, here's what I ask you.
If a candidate from the United States says in public, Tongue in cheek, but serious as well because I'm sure he'd like to see the emails.
If he says in public, hey Russia, if you got those emails, I'd like to see them.
Now let's say Russia hears that because of course they do.
What is Russia's best play?
What is their best play?
Is there best play to say, oh, excellent!
It looks like Trump's on our side.
Let's do something for him, and then we've got a partner.
We're going to collude with this guy.
Did Russia say that?
Because that's the way it's reported, right?
It's reported as though Russia said, yes, Trump can be our friend.
We'll do something for him because he asked for it, and then we're working together, and then, you know, Russia has a little control over him.
Yay! Do you think Russia thought about it that way?
If you put me in Russia, and this situation comes up, let's say I'm Putin, and I hear the news that the President looked at the camera and said, hey Russia, you got those emails?
Love to see them. Here's what I would do, and I'm not Putin, but I'm apparently smarter than every pundit who's talked about it.
If I'm Putin, I say, you know what would really mess with them?
Is to get those emails.
There's nothing we could do worse to Donald Trump and simultaneously maybe to Clinton, but there's nothing we could do that would mess up their system more than actually doing what he just asked us to do in public.
There's nothing we could do that would be better to mess them up than doing what he asked.
Does that sound like they were on his side?
Because it's being reported uncritically that he asked for these things and Russia did it, and therefore they must be on his side.
If I were the Russian who had heard that request, I'd say, oh, we can totally mess with him.
Let's actually give him what he's asking for if we can't.
If we can make this happen, this is going to be frickin' awesome.
It's going to rip their country apart because they're actually going to think that he's working with us.
This is amazing.
Let's just do this thing and screw Trump big and screw the country.
In what world did Putin say, yeah, he asked for it in public.
Let's give it to him.
They're going to figure out it was us.
That should work out.
That should work out fine.
I can't even imagine Putin going through that process, but it's easy to imagine him saying, yeah, let's just mess with him.
If you can get those emails, this would be great.
Just get those emails. That is going to make them crazy.
That makes far more sense as a hypothesis than that they were publicly getting these emails To help Trump at the same time they were doing the Steele dossier?
Maybe. Maybe.
Might have been behind that.
Don't know. Why isn't anybody talking about it except one article in the New York Times?
All right. I wonder how much mileage Trump could get by accusing Joe Biden of colluding with Russia.
Think about it.
Could Trump accuse Joe Biden, because he was part of the administration, of colluding with Russia?
I feel like he could.
And it wouldn't be like a strong connection or anything, but the Trump administration included Clapper and Brennan.
It included Obama.
It included everybody who was putting together this conspiracy.
Joe Biden was on the team who planned a coup against the United States.
It feels like...
He says, Scott, you're confusing two sets of email.
Yes, let me clarify.
The hacked emails were the Democratic...
were the DNC. I believe that Trump asked for Hillary's email, which we have never seen.
But as it's reported, they're treating him like they're one and the same the way it's reported.
But you're right. There's a clear distinction.
Those are different email situations.
And if I got any of that wrong, let me know.
All right. Let me see.
Do you remember when all the Democrats were waiting for for the Mueller report before they decided before they decided if if they wanted to remove the president through impeachment they all said well let's wait till that we get that report and then we'll decide and then the report comes out and the report says that Russia kept offering to collude and the administration turned them down every time that's it So they get information from the report that's all the wrong way.
And so then they say, okay, all the new information we got pushes it in the other direction, away from impeachment, so we'll impeach.
It kind of tells you everything you need to know about the value of actual facts.
Completely useless.
Nobody cares about the facts.
Trump asked Russia to give emails to the press.
It's the same thing. It doesn't matter who they gave it to, it would end up in the press.
Alright. Have you noticed that CNN has gone anti-nuclear power?
So CNN is running, coincidentally, a special about Chernobyl.
Do you know why CNN is running a special now?
About Chernobyl? Chernobyl.
Is it because Chernobyl is in the news?
No. Is it because Chernobyl...
There was something new that happened in Chernobyl?
No. Oh, I'm sorry, it's HBO. HBO is running the special.
But I thought I saw that...
Wasn't CNN also running something about that?
Oh, it's an anniversary?
Well... So somebody's saying CNN and HBO. So I'll need some clarification.
All right. But CNN did run a survey thing, like a little quiz on their page.
And the quiz allowed you to pick what you thought would be the most powerful thing we could do about climate change.
And then they give you the answer.
And the answer they give you is that nuclear power would be just a fraction of as useful as wind power for dealing with climate change.
That's right. They give you a quiz and then they tell you the right answer is that wind power is many times better in terms of a solution for climate change than nuclear power.
That... It's about as misleading as you could possibly be.
Now it is true, you could make an argument which is that nuclear has some issues and, you know, nuclear plants in the past have been hard to approve, etc.
And they've had certain risks.
So all of that is true if you were to take a straight line and say, okay, how much could you get from wind power?
You know, how quickly could you ramp up wind power?
And it turns out you could ramp up wind power very quickly.
So they say, and I believe that's true, seems like wind power could be ramped up fairly quickly.
But you still got to store it.
And I don't think we have a solution for what happens when the wind doesn't blow.
So in other words, you have two solutions that both require a major technological set of improvements in order to work.
There is no such thing as a wind power solution Unless you also have massive battery storage, which has not been solved by technologists.
We don't know how to make batteries economically at the scale that you would need.
We don't know how to do that.
Likewise, Generation 4 nuclear does need to iterate a bit To figure out which solutions work, which are the safest of the several solutions.
But it all seems within an engineering domain.
Meaning that if you test and you iterate, you definitely are going to get a better end result.
It's something that is very much an iterative process.
You do more iterating, you get better results.
Same is probably true for wind and batteries.
But who is able...
To predict which of those things we haven't yet solved will get solved first.
Who is it who is smart enough to see the future and say, oh yeah, we'll definitely solve the batteries problem before we'll solve, you know, a good design for generation four that can also get approved easily.
That's a hard prediction.
Bill Gates says nuclear is the way to go.
A lot of smart people who have looked into it say nuclear is the way to go.
I say, if you're not doing both of them, you're stupid.
Let me say it again.
If you're not doing both of them, you're stupid.
Because we don't know which one will be solved better.
If you ask me, do I know for sure The Generation 4 nuclear will always be the smart way to go compared to wind and figuring out how to get batteries that work.
I don't know that.
But I'm positive you don't know it either.
I'm positive our government doesn't know it.
And I'm positive that scientists don't know it, no matter how confident they feel.
Because they can't really know the future.
But I will say that if you're not doing both of them, And solar too.
If you're not doing all of it and doing it hard, you're not really trying.
So don't pretend you care about climate change unless you're doing all the things that we think are potential and you're doing them hard.
So anyway, my point is, it seems that CNN and maybe the left-leaning press may start to say some negative things about nuclear now.
Because they know they need to.
I've said this enough in public that I'm sure somebody's noticed.
The moment that the Trump administration says publicly that they've done a lot of things behind the scenes, the Energy Department is promoting Generation 4, etc.
So the government is actually doing Generation 4 promotion at the industry level.
You just don't hear about it publicly.
But if Trump, for example, came out and said, well, climate change may or may not be the problem you say, but it doesn't matter, it still makes sense to go hard at all these technologies for energy.
We should push hard on all three, solar, wind, and nuclear.
If he did that, he would take the argument away.
From a political perspective, if the president said, let's go hard on all three of these, why would we possibly not go hard at all of them?
If he said that, it would completely ruin the argument against him for climate change, and he wouldn't even have to accept that climate change is real.
That's the beauty of it.
He wouldn't even have to say that he knows it's real or isn't.
He could just say, this makes sense no matter what.
No matter what, you should go hard at all three of these.
And I worry that the left-leaning press is going to start demonizing nuclear just to take that away, so that people will be afraid of nuclear and they won't be able to hear, no, no, you're thinking of your grandfather's nuclear power.
That stuff has some risks.
The newer stuff is closer to zero.
It's going to be a hard sell once the press gets people worked up about nuclear.
All right. That's all I got for today.
There was somebody here who wanted to convince me of something in 90 seconds.
And I have to say it was a good pitch.
Because now you're causing me to put on my headphones, and I don't remember who it was, but I'm going to change headphones.
Hold on. All right, so whoever it was, whoever it was who said you wanted to change my mind in 90 seconds, first of all, that's a pretty good pitch.
There isn't much you could have said.
That would cause me to change my plans and take a call.
But when you say, I'm going to change your mind in 90 seconds, and you're talking to somebody who talks about persuasion, I don't even care what the topic is.
I just heard that and I thought, I wonder if they could change my mind in 90 seconds.
And I don't even know what the topic is, but I don't remember who was promising.
Was it Dan? Let's see.
I want to find out. I forget.
I should have watched the name of whoever said they were going to change my mind.
Dan, was that you who wanted to change my mind?
Okay. Thank you very much.
What's the topic and what are you changing my mind from and to?
Well, essentially it's to do with the death penalty.
I just need about 90 seconds to talk to you about a few things.
Wait a minute. What side do you think I'm on in the death penalty?
Well, I was going to get to that.
How can you change my mind if you don't know what my current position is?
Well, that I was going to ask you.
Just something that you said a few weeks back about...
Fentanyl. And you called for the death of the people who produced the fentanyl.
And it sort of took me by surprise.
So I googled what was Scott Adams' position on the death penalty.
And unless it's changed since then, that's fine.
It'll render this conversation moving.
So let me clarify.
I'll tell you my position.
I'd like to see the people in other countries...
Who are the big fentanyl dealers, I would like to see them killed.
Ideally, China killing its own citizens and ideally Mexico killing its own citizens.
But in terms of big dealers in the United States, I would be in favor of the death penalty for the big dealers, like the really high quantity ones, not the buddy who gave a friend some fentanyl.
So, that's my position.
Go ahead, change my mind.
90 seconds. Okay. Well, it just involves really just describing a few scenarios that you would consider and just a question or two after that and then that should be it.
Okay. So, alright.
Alright, in order to establish a baseline, let's just make sure we're agreeing on what we're talking about.
Let's just say that you're walking down the street on a bright sunny day and you were to see me approach a woman and her child and brutally murder those people.
If I'm arrested and tried and convicted in a state that implements the death penalty, would you agree that I should be put to death under the current laws as a death penalty case?
If the law says that you should put to death, then that's the law.
Right. Okay, well, that's in keeping with your statement, and I understand that.
Now, I would ask you to repeat the same exact scenario, but in this instance, instead of seeing me walking down the street committing a crime, you see a beloved family member, perhaps like an uncle, that maybe raised you, you love him, and you see him, for whatever reason, it's a scenario, so you're seeing your uncle now commit this horrible crime, and...
Would you still be in favor of the state putting him to death?
No, because I would kill him as soon as I saw it happen.
I'd kill him myself. That's terrible, but I understand.
Yes, so yes. So the answer to the question is yes, of course I would be in favor.
Okay, that's in keeping with your statement, and I actually fully expected that you would say that, but the final scenario is the one that I think might persuade you to change your mind.
There's a brutal murder that takes place in the neighborhood.
Your uncle, same uncle, was seen in the vicinity around the time of the murder.
He also had an opportunity Turns out he knew the victim, and he was known to have some sort of ongoing feud, again, for the purposes of the scenario.
Your uncle was arrested and tried and convicted of the murder, and he sits on death row.
There's only one problem.
You are the only person who knows that your uncle's innocent.
You're the only one. Your uncle is convicted and put on death row.
Okay. And for the reasons of shoddy police work, missing evidence, lying witness, you know, a lawyer, corrupt...
Right, he's unfairly... Okay, he's unfairly jailed.
He's unfairly thing, and you're the only one who knows that.
And after 10 years of you visiting him in jail, the state puts him to death.
Are you okay with that scenario?
No, let me clarify.
Let me clarify.
Let me answer the question.
Let me answer the question.
I am not in favor of the death penalty when we don't have physical proof that the person was on the scene of the murder.
So if we don't have the uncle's DNA, we don't have a video...
That wouldn't be enough.
So no, I would not be in favor of the death penalty unless there's a clear, unambiguous connection putting the person at the scene at the time.
Okay, that's fair, but now here's the crux of the issue.
You are aware that there have been innocent people put to death under the death penalty.
Innocent people, known to be innocent.
Yes, yes, yes, I'm aware of that.
So you know that there's been people recently released that have been spending years in jail.
I'm not saying how any of this has anything to do with the point.
So you're way over your 90 seconds.
Get to the point. Okay.
The point is this. If there's a mother sitting in a prison talking to her innocent son, she knows she's innocent.
Okay? And he's going to be put to death and you have to...
Say it without an analogy.
Because the analogies are non-persuasive.
So everything that's, suppose you imagine there's a story, it's good for making a point, but now you're at the point where you have to change my mind.
So just make the point without a story.
Alright, okay, so to me, saying that you support the death penalty in this case means that you're actually okay with the occasional innocent person being put to death.
You have to tell the mother that, look, I need to have revenge for all these deaths, so I want to kill more people, and I know that your son was innocent, but I'm actually okay with your son being put to death.
If we can just stop with all this death and just let people stay in jail for the rest of their lives, at least we give a chance to...
Okay, so you didn't do it without the story.
So make the point without a story.
Just say your point. Right.
My point is, are you okay with saying that you support the death penalty, which means that you are going to support the occasional innocent person being murdered by the state?
Yes. You are.
You're okay with that. Yeah, of course.
How could you be in favor of the death penalty without acknowledging that some innocent people will be killed?
Of course. Well, that's not a very nice thing to support, I don't think.
Well, that's why, Dan, I say that I'm only in favor of it when you can guarantee that the person was on the scene of the crime at the time of the crime.
So short of that, I would not be in favor of it.
So most of your examples...
Yeah, but that's...
The odds...
Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
Sorry. Under my scenario, the odds of somebody being wrongly killed by the state goes from way too high to really, really small, but possible.
And so, like with any other major policy...
That the country does.
Somebody almost always dies.
Anytime you make any kind of big change on anything that's a life and death issue, people die.
So you really can't, unfortunately, you can't say that the possibility of somebody nice dying It should stop you from doing it.
We don't use that standard for anything.
Yeah, but unless you stop the death penalty.
You don't have to kill more people.
You can keep them in jail. And look up Nathan Myers and Clifford Williams.
They spent 43 years in jail for murder.
One of them was actually on death row.
All right. I'm going to cut you off because now you're off topic.
All right. All right. So, my death penalty opinion is nuanced.
And that makes it look like...
We generally think that people fall into one of the two sides because there's usually a no death penalty or yes death penalty.
And I'm not on either of those exact sides.
I'm in yes death penalty in the worst situations, especially if multiple people are being killed.
And if we can guarantee through physical evidence that there's no question that the perpetrator was on the scene at the time.
Those would be my two situations.
That would take the risk down to not zero, but very close to zero.
And I would say that the benefit of making fentanyl a death penalty situation for the big dealers, not the typical street stuff, but for the big dealers, is that it sends a message to society that this isn't like other things.
If you put a death penalty on something, you're sending a communication about the size and the extent of it.
And for me, killing a few innocent people, it might happen.
Would be way bigger benefit in terms of communication than not doing it.
So that's my opinion.
And yes, I do accept that it would be rare, but just like every big law change we have that has anything to do with life and death, people die.
So you can't make a change because of that.
Anyway, thank you for trying, Dan.
I appreciate it.
The point, I will tell you that if you've watched me for a while, you should have known that leading with an analogy to some completely different situation was never going to change my mind.
But it was a good effort, just the same.
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