Jan. 26, 2017 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
41:38
3572 President Trump to Defund PBS/NPR? | True News
President Donald Trump's administration is planning significant cuts to government spending. It is being reported that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting may be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated completely. Trump Team Prepares Dramatic Cutshttp://thehill.com/policy/finance/314991-trump-team-prepares-dramatic-cutsFreedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Main Radio.
Okay, first of all, what the hell were presidents doing before Donald Trump?
The flurry of activity, of focused, purposeful action, of busy days and increasing liberties.
What the hell was everyone doing before?
I mean, I know Barack Obama was working on basically his two-issue sports rotation of improving his golf swing and setting fire to America through race baiting, but it seems like stuff is going down.
Now, One thing you're going to hear quite a lot about from Parasitical Pseudo-Artists is the cut in funding, about half a billion dollars or so, from National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting Service, that's NPR and PBS, and of course the Arts Council, the grants agencies and so on.
And yes, not a lot of people know, like this leftism erupts all over the place.
And for a lot of older people, it's like, where the hell is this coming from?
What kind of foreign meme invasion is occurring in America?
Well, of course, there's all the stuff that goes on in colleges, which is monstrous leftist indoctrination.
Ooh, I escaped just as that door was coming down, grabbed my Indy Jones hat and got the hell out.
But the left has a massive taxpayer-funded radio network of 700 affiliates.
People on the left suck at talk radio in general.
There are some exceptions.
Hey, Dave.
But in general, they're pretty bad at it.
They've tried over and over again to try and break into this talk radio market, and they're really, really bad at it.
Now...
Before the internet, you could have some kind of weird justification for it on pragmatic grounds.
You know, well, people got to get their news and there's nobody out there servicing these communities.
But now everyone has a cell phone and internet pretty much, so you don't need it.
I mean, who on earth bothers waiting for the six o'clock news anymore?
If you're curious about something, just come here.
Come here.
Come a little closer.
Or go wherever you find your immediate news.
I remember I had an experiment back in the day.
This is when Lady Diana, in the true reality of postmodern fairy tales, came to a fiery death in a Paris tunnel while dodging paparazzi.
Not quite living happily ever after, but curing A lot of women of the fantasy of princesshood.
Hey, I really want to be treated like a princess.
Oh, really?
You want to be married off at 12 for political reasons?
I don't think you do.
But back in the day when it broke, the news broke, it was TV and radio that broke it.
I went online and I was refreshing and refreshing because I was kind of curious how long it took for the online communities back in the 90s to report on news.
And it was quite a while.
It was where you had to go to the TV for news.
Now, of course, you don't and TV is way behind.
Yeah, broadcast television, FM radio.
I think Denmark's just getting rid of FM radio completely, or Norway or someplace like that.
But yeah, it's in significant decline.
Broadcast TV, FM, fewer and fewer viewers every year.
So...
Reagan did actually want to do this, but was talked out of it by other conservatives.
You know, the old pick your battles, which means fold like somebody with, you know, four aces and a piece of sauerkraut in a poker hand.
But...
Yeah, they've been pretty, NPR and these guys, pretty anti-Trump, very anti-Trump, you really could say.
And I love the fact that Donald Trump holds grudges and there are consequences.
I think it's beautiful.
I think we've had enough of this turn the other cheek, and now it's cock the other fist.
The PBS, pretty leftist.
The NPR is, you could say, ridiculously leftist.
This is from 2011, a statement by the co-host of NPRs on the media.
If you were to somehow poll the political orientation of everyone in the NPR organizations and all of the member stations, you would find an overwhelmingly progressive liberal crowd.
Yes, NPR, National Propaganda Radio.
Just ask yourselves, if you're not hard left and you applied for a job at either of these outlets, would they give you a job?
Of course they win!
Because they're bigots!
They're bigots!
They only want to hire in the mirror image.
They only want to create an echo chamber.
They don't want to hear from anyone on the right.
They just want to run their little leftist propaganda machines, hide out from the free market, and indoctrinate the senseless.
And so, yeah, you know, when I was in the art world, like for those who don't know, I was...
I spent a couple of years at the National Theatre School in Canada studying acting and playwriting as an actor, a playwright, director, did the whole thing.
And it's a hard slog if you're not hard left.
I remember the very first day I showed up at the National Theatre School we were ushered into, a guy's office, and he said, Oh, aren't you all very young, white, and bougie?
I think that's short for bourgeoisie.
Now, of course, looking at us all in the same way was pretty sad.
Some kids came from rich backgrounds.
I did not.
But we're all just one big, giant, class-based blob of Jabba the Hutt excrement that he somehow had to mold into willing Bertolt Brecht-style proletariat soldiers for the coming class war.
But anyway, I digress.
So it was tough, you know, coming from...
I was an objectivist back then, so I don't know if you'd call that hard right.
But, you know, the government that's just into protecting property rights, protecting persons and property, national defense, police, and so on.
And it was rough, you know.
You know, same thing in...
I went to three different universities in Canada.
I went to York or Glendon campus.
I went to McGill and I did my graduate degree at the University of Toronto.
Hard, hard slog.
You know, you've got to bite your tongue.
You've got to pick your battles.
And, you know, no one...
No one came to my defense.
Nobody was like, oh gosh, you know, I can see you're having a bit of a hard time.
As somebody who's not on the left in these institutions, you know, we've really got to open it.
We've got to be diverse.
We're really into diversity.
People say, why am I skeptical of diversity?
Well, A, facts, and B, having been on the receiving end of unbelievable amounts of intolerance and sexism and, you know, the anti-white male stuff and all of that.
I mean, the idea that the left is into diversity, I mean...
I'd pull the other one, but I don't have the other one.
They stole it from me and redistributed it for third world votes.
But anyway, so yeah, I don't forget.
I don't forgive.
And I'm patient.
See, Canada has the same garbage going on, publicly funded arts, publicly funded arts.
Radio and television.
The UK, Australia, you know, all of the colonies are infested with this leftist crap.
And, you know, these arts grants people, you know, the people who give grants to artists, I'm relentlessly leftist.
Ooh, open borders, race-baiting, anti-Christianity.
I mean, they consider Robert Mapplethorpe's gay porn pictures to be high art.
And...
Well, there was a publicly funded, called the Piss Christ, where they took a crucifix, I think, and loaded it in a bucket of urine because art, you see, just like Hamlet, except the complete opposite and absolutely horrifying.
And, you know, if you've got a liberal political issue, it doesn't matter what it is, open immigration, gender identity, gun control.
Climate change.
There's a government-funded art project promoting it.
And recently the agency doled out ungodly amounts of money for a play about activist lesbians who are, quote, staunchly opposed to gun ownership.
End quote.
$20,000 for a series of climate change-themed public art installations in Minneapolis.
And the Arts Council also approved a theatrical interpretation of President Obama's deferred action plan.
Spent $40,000 of your money on that.
They also funded, because the race baiting, they funded a play that is all about Michael Brown.
You know, the hands up, don't shoot.
Thoroughly debunked.
Completely false.
But nonetheless, reproduced in the art world with your money.
This National Endowment of the Arts, the NEA, they didn't do anything to promote the Iraq War.
I'm not saying they should, but they didn't.
Or advocating for the No Child Left Behind policies and so on.
Oh, sorry.
There was one art project.
The only art project that mentioned, I guess, either Afghanistan or Iraq.
There was a $10,000 grant for a photograph and oral history exhibit of female wounded men.
Warriors.
Now, naturally, when Donald Trump talks about cutting arts funding, people think he's anti-art.
You know, this is, I mean, this is such an old claptrap.
The moment anybody makes this equation, oh, you're against the welfare state, you don't like charity.
Oh, you're against government education, you don't like education.
Oh, you're against forced government subsidized to propagandizing leftists, you hate art.
I mean, this person is just solving, I am retarded!
And I'm sorry to use the term.
That is an insult to retarded people.
It's not their fault, but these people do have some responsibility.
It's just, well, if the government doesn't do something, then it won't get done.
I go back to 1850, to Bastiat, and I give you this quote.
Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society.
As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.
We disapprove of state education.
Then the socialists say, we are opposed to any education.
We object to a state religion.
Then the socialists say, we want no religion at all.
We object to a state-enforced equality.
Then they say, we are against equality, and so on, and so on.
It is if the socialists want to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
This is just one of these, you know, flares.
You know how you find people in the ocean at night, they shoot up this flare?
Well, um...
This is how you find idiots.
They just, well, if the government's doing something and you say you don't want the government to do it, if they say, well, then it won't get done!
It won't get done!
It won't get done!
Well, it's just, I'm an idiot!
Run!
Save your brain cells.
I'll eat them and won't even put them to any use.
And of course, back in 1850, when Bastiat was writing this, the vast majority of teachers were men.
By 1870, two-thirds were women.
And we seem to have lost this thread just a little bit.
It may just be a complete coincidence.
So, Pan-America Executive Director Suzanne Nassel has released a statement.
She says that the proposed cuts, Trump's cuts, would, quote, usher in a new dark ages in America.
Yeah, not a hysterical overreaction at all.
You might actually earn your money through voluntary interactions and providing value in the free market.
Whoa, I can't even.
I'm literally joking.
Ah, madness.
So yeah, they want to abolish, this is reported in the Hill, the Trump administration, abolish the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts.
So, this is what she has to say.
And I'm going to just, you know, give you my thoughts.
She says...
The Trump administration's plans reported in The Hill this morning to abolish wholesale the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts are an outrageous abdication of the U.S. government's proud history of supporting groundbreaking research and creative endeavors that have served as engines of innovation and bolstered America's stature as a haven for free thinkers and a global leader in humanity's shared quest for knowledge.
I have a dictionary and very little else.
So, what does this mean?
Outrageous!
Wait.
She's a woman.
She's making an argument based on feelings and sentiment and appeals to emotion.
Hey, first time for everything, don't you think?
Groundbreaking research, creative endeavors.
Okay, so if these things are so important and so valuable, then go sell them to investors.
Go get money.
Go sell them on the free market.
Go and do what I do and go out on the free market and try and provide value to people and ask them for money.
It's really not that complicated.
And also, I don't...
See, here's the thing.
I don't think technically you really understand what being a free thinker is.
So you're being a free thinker means that no one is punishing you violently.
I mean, they may punish you socially, but nobody's punishing you for saying things that they disapprove of.
Unless, of course, well, you're an ethno-nationalist and a white person, in which case you can get punched in the head and people will celebrate it because they really don't understand where this stuff leads.
Or maybe they do and they want it to go there.
But anyway, we're hunting communists today.
Wait, that's wrong.
Well, communists killed more people than Nazis, and the guy's not even a Nazi.
Anyway, so you're not a free thinker if you're forced to subsidize ideas you disagree with.
See?
That's kind of how it works.
I am taxed to pay to subsidize people who say things I extremely disagree with at every conceivable moral, intellectual, emotional, rational, and empirical level.
I'm not a free thinker if my productivity is stripped from me and I'm forced to subsidize people whose opinions I consider repulsive, reprehensible, and bringing about the downfall of everything I hold dear.
So no.
If you want to be a free thinker, we remove impediments.
And it's not a free dater if you want to rape someone.
The initiation of force changes things a bit.
So she goes on to say, The National Endowment for the Humanities, founded in 1965, is a leading source of funding for humanities programs in the United States.
See, right now there, humanities means leftist indoctrination.
To most people.
And I'm not saying they're entirely wrong.
So when you say, well, it's here to protect the humanities...
See, Trump got into power because people find this stuff vicious, ugly, and repulsive.
You know, when Milo Yiannopoulos has to go with private security guards to go and share some ideas at a college campus...
And sometimes he's not even allowed to.
That's what people look at as the humanities.
It's this leftist, brain-killing, molding indoctrination camp.
And, yeah, leading source of funding.
See, for you guys, the humanities is great because you're on the receiving end of money, right?
The government forces people to pay you money to indoctrinate people.
And so you want to do that because you like your...
Your ideas.
And the people on the other side who are being forced to pay for this indoctrination, like the Christians who are forced to pay for Pierce Christ, if you had a shred of empathy, you would at least understand why they'd have some objections.
So she goes on to say, its grants support cultural institutions including museums, libraries, and public television, as well as universities and individual scholarship.
See, here's the thing.
Museums Just charge people to come in and be great at what you do.
People don't have a right to have a museum.
They don't have a right to have it.
Libraries?
I don't know.
I mean, Kindle, really.
I mean, you have nine bucks on various websites.
You get all the books you could possibly read.
There's the internet.
Yeah, maybe they serve a purpose, but find a way to make it work.
Public television?
Public television is what the public doesn't want, by definition.
Whatever you force people to pay for, they don't want.
You see how that works?
Whatever you force people to pay for, they don't want.
See, if I ask a woman out on a date and she says yes, then we go out on a date.
If I have to chloroform her and put her in the back of my windowless van and drive her to see the stars, I don't get to call it public dating.
That is kidnapping, right?
Public television is what people don't want.
If they wanted it, they'd support it voluntarily, right?
They'd give donations, if they'd give donations to me, or they would sit through ads or whatever it is.
So public television is just everything that people don't want in any way, shape, or form.
Supporting universities.
Well...
It has supported over 7,000 book projects, including 16 Pulitzer Prize winners.
Oh wait, are those Pulitzer Prizes awarded by a whole bunch of other leftists?
Is it like a leftist circle joke, ookie-kookie celebration of all that is destructive to Western civilization?
Well, that's a possibility, don't you think?
And she says it also supports the United States Newspaper Project cataloguing over 60 million pages of historic newspapers for future use by scholars.
That's a good thing, right?
See, if it's a good thing, then the scholars should pay to access what you're doing.
See, that's how it works.
How do you know if what you're doing has value?
People give you money for it.
It's not that complicated.
Not that complicated.
Open a sand shop in the Sahara, you're not going to get a lot of money because you're not really providing any value, which means you're kind of wasting your life and you're wasting precious social resources in the pursuit of something that people just don't want to pay for.
Price is how you know whether your life has value.
Are you doing things that people want?
Whoa!
Don't you think it's useful to have 60 million pages of historic newspapers for future use by scholars?
Compared to what?
Compared to finding a cure for cancer?
How about having a private space program that is fully funded by investors whose money is taken to pay for?
So we don't actually just have pretty much only dead people who've been to the moon now.
So, compared to what?
If it's a value by scholars, you know, scholars get paid a lot of money through the government, right?
They get tenure protection, they get a lot of money through the government.
And so they can afford to pay for this stuff, or the universities can afford to pay for this stuff.
So, good.
Now we'll find out if it's actually valuable, or just a make-work project for people who like to squint.
I don't know.
Now she says...
The National Endowment for the Arts, also established in 1965, supports participation and scholarship in the arts, works to ensure equal access to arts and culture for all Americans, and partners with state and local leaders to support creative initiatives at the community level.
Its funding supports literature, visual arts, dance, theater, museums and arts, education programs around the country.
So charge.
Charge if it's worthwhile.
And if you want to provide services to people who can't afford to pay for whatever reason, you want to go do, I don't know, here's how to do Japanese origami folding in the inner city, then get your charitable people to figure out.
That way they can figure out if you're doing something.
Compete with other charities.
Find out if you're doing something useful.
It's getting money from the government and saying, I produce value!
No, you don't.
You don't.
You consume precious social resources.
And you draw people into this dead-end arts world where they otherwise could have done something productive with their lives.
So she says, the announcement that this is even under consideration casts a sinister cloud over our vibrant national culture, stoking fears that the Trump administration aims to usher in a new dark ages in America.
U.S. leadership and innovation in arts, culture, and the humanities are wellsprings of American greatness and the envy of the world.
So good.
If you're so valuable, then people should give you money for what you do.
I mean, I would not want to live where I got money from the government or even some other institution.
And then, I mean, I want to see the view count.
I want to see the donations.
I want to find out if what I'm doing has value to people, if it has impact to people.
Why is this show so great?
Why does it reach so many people?
Why does it change so many lives?
Because of price.
Because I know when I'm doing something that's valuable because people give me more money for it.
Just saying you create value when you're taking money by force from people Hey, you in the basement, you really love me because you're sticking around.
As I change the lock to make sure it can't be picked.
We're so valuable.
We contribute so much.
We're so incredibly wonderful and everyone loves us so much.
We're the envy of the world.
Okay, so then people should pay you for it.
No!
Don't let that happen!
She goes on to say, This proposal sends shivers down the spine of all Americans who value research, scholarship, and creativity, and who recognize the mortal blow that eliminating these vital agencies would strike at the heart of treasured sectors of our society.
Again, so we're so incredibly valuable that people must be forced to fund us.
Ideas, so wonderful, they have to be mandatory, enforced by the state.
You can't pick both.
The moment you take state money, you're saying, you're crap.
Fact.
Fact.
The moment you run for state money, the moment you have to force people to pay for what you do, you are crap.
You are parasitical.
You are vicious.
You are predatory.
Vital agencies.
Yeah, I get it.
You want non-leftists to be forced to pay for your leftist propaganda.
I understand that, but...
The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper names.
Sentimental garbage.
Anyway, she goes on: "Even apart from the essential resources at stake, the signal sent by this gesture is a slap in the face to artists, writers, researchers and scholars who are learning that the administration seems to consider their work worthless." Worthless!
You know, there's a few phrases that...
I'm working on this book called The Art of the Argument.
Anyway, there are a few phrases that you know people are just not thinking really much at all.
One, of course, is bashing.
You're just bashing, you're bashing, bashing.
It's a meaningless phrase.
It means nothing.
A slap in the face.
It's just designed to evoke an emotional response.
It's not an argument.
It's just an appeal to emotion and sympathy.
They got a slap in the face to artists.
You know what's a real slap in the face to artists?
Saying that people must be forced to pay for what they do because nobody would voluntarily choose to pay for what they do.
That's kind of a slap in the face.
And of course, the kind of artists who want that are the kind of self-indulgent, modern, artistic, navel-gazing, crap merchants who wouldn't be able to survive in the free market.
Even with all the leftist propaganda, like in high school and junior high, the leftist propagandists aren't merchants, can't compete in the free market.
So, yeah, it's a slap in the face to the artists to say that people have to be forced to subsidize them.
And it's a slap in the face of the taxpayers to take money from them by force and give it to your preferred.
See, to your preferred artists.
These people, these councils, these people, they love having this power.
They love having the power of people coming up and kissing the ring and begging for money.
I mean, it's a sadistic kind of power.
But, yeah, I mean, these people hold on to millions and millions of dollars.
And they can dole it out.
This makes them incredibly popular.
People defer to them at parties.
People are constantly licking their boots and toadying up to them in the hopes of getting approved in a grant and so on.
and they get to dominate and dictate the philosophical and left versus right paradigms that they subsidize.
They get to make sure that people fit right in to that horrible basket of leftist indoctrination and leftist ideology.
They have a lot of power.
And power is physically addictive.
It's more physically addictive than cocaine.
So, yeah, it's not the money that fundamentally they're mourning the loss of.
It's the mourning the loss of the power.
Oh, yes.
Well, if you play your cards just right, I might see my way clear to dropping you maybe $10,000, maybe $20,000.
But you have to please me.
And you have to make sure that you're correct in what it is that you're putting forward.
And maybe, just maybe, you know, if you play your cards right, I might just be able to give you some money.
Ugh.
Ugh.
That kind of toadying, the kind of people who are basically in pursuit of and want that kind of toadying, I find a leech on my left nut sack more appealing, but maybe that's just me.
Consider their work worthless.
Oh, you see, stealing people money and giving it to you, well, you'll find out how much your work is actually worth when you put it out to the free market and find out things.
So, I mean, I have a long history with this kind of stuff, because I knew artists, like, all they wanted to do was get some grant from the government, and I'm going to go and turn none of it with my bourgeois interpretation of throat singing.
God almighty, can you do something that adds value to someone's life?
Is that even remotely in the cards at all?
Update!
On January 23rd, the College Art Association published the following statement.
For more than a century, the College Art Association has represented art historians, artists, museum professionals, designers and others who think and care about the visual arts and its impact on our culture.
We do this in part through direct advocacy for artistic and academic freedom.
Like many other Americans, we have closely watched the proposed changes to the federal government.
Recent news reports reveal that the U.S. President intends to propose the elimination of funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, NEA, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, NEH. This proposal is reportedly based in part on a recommendation by the Heritage Foundation that states, As the US Congress struggles to balance the federal budget and end the decades-long spiral of deficit spending, few programs seem more worthy of outright elimination than the National Endowment for the Arts.
Yeah, okay, see, here's the thing.
Now, what they're going to say, of course, is they're going to say, well, as a percentage of the total federal budget, it's rather meaningless.
It's a rounding error.
It's minuscule.
Well, first of all, it's still money.
Half a billion dollars, yeah, that's still money.
Maybe it's only 0.001% of the federal budget or whatever it might be, but it's 100% of your budget, so clearly you're not being very objective about these things.
If 100% of your paycheck relies on government spending, yeah, you can't be.
I mean, it's a conflict of interest.
Nobody should take what you say seriously about it all.
But it's a cultural impact.
You know, you guys, come on.
I've been in there in Canada.
I know, I know.
You guys, you hate the Christians, you hate the Republicans, you hate the right-wingers, you hate the small government people, you hate the free market people.
I get it.
I get it.
And so you have, for decades, been attacking them.
And this has had significant cultural impacts.
Significant cultural impacts.
Because the culture that you're trying to create, you know, portrays these people as terrible, bad, racist, sexist, homogenous, sorry, homogenous, I don't know what that word means, racist, sexist, homophobic, and so on.
And Naturally, what happens is the basket of deplorables that you try and encase these people in, well, they've got to raise their kids in this culture and their kids go to school, which is influenced by some of the stuff you do and the teachers are influenced by some of the stuff you do.
And so they say, well, all of this is terrible and you've got to explain to your kids.
So it's kind of personal.
Like the culture that you're creating, the hostility that you've poured into things.
Well, you know, there's a crazy little thing called blowback.
It's real.
And so, yeah, they're...
They're going to cut your funding?
Of course.
I mean, the bear.
Poke it at your barrel.
So they say, we offer our complete and total opposition to these efforts.
Since the 1960s, the NEA and NEH have supported artists, writers, museum professionals, and a wide variety of scholars of various disciplines in creating new work and scholarship.
Yeah, okay.
You know, I can go and pee a haiku in the Sahara Desert in a windstorm.
So what?
I have created a haiku.
Therefore, you must be forced to give me money.
Come on.
Come on.
I've done sit-ups.
You must be forced to date me.
I bought a new camera.
You must be forced to pay for it.
Come on.
If it's so valuable, if what you're doing is so valuable, then people will pay for it.
If what you're doing, if people really care about it.
Then they will give you money.
See, if you say that this arts funding represents the will of the majority, well, the majority voted for it.
They don't oppose it.
So go, just forget that you don't need the government then.
The government is a massive overhead that's inefficient.
What you need to do is if the majority of people support what you do, then go and ask them for money.
Go ask them for money.
Now, if only a tiny minority of people support what you do, then isn't it kind of wrong in a democracy to take money from the majority when only a tiny minority approve of what you do?
You can't win.
Like, you can't win this argument, which is why you're into indoctrination rather than making arguments.
So, I don't know.
We're so valuable!
Good, then people will pay you voluntarily.
No!
They go on to say, and listen, just by the by, because, you know, these comments get a little boring.
I use different voices for different things.
See, a lot of people only listen.
Like, I sometimes do air quotes or I do quotes in presentations.
Some people only listen on the podcast, and they need to know.
I don't want to say quote, end quote, quote, end quote all the time.
So, yes, I'll use different voices.
It's not because I'm trying to be Mel Blanc on steroids or cocaine.
It's because the majority of my listeners are audio only, so...
Which means they're missing out on quite a few nose hairs.
But anyway, they go on to say, the NEA supports thousands of cultural and educational organizations, and in a few cases, individual artists.
Yeah, and how many of those are Republican organizations, and how many of those are Republican artists, and how many of those are small government or libertarian artists?
Come on.
They say, the NEH, which strengthens teaching and learning in schools and colleges.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
When I was younger and I had a couple of pimples, there was some medication that was out there.
I can't remember what it's called.
And it said, helps control the acne cycle.
I always remember that.
Helps control the acne cycle.
And that's funny to me because they didn't say gets rid of pimples.
It's like helps control the acne cycle.
What does that mean?
Is that provable?
Yeah, I don't know.
Does it reduce 50% of your acne within three days?
That helps control the acne.
I strengthen teaching and learning in schools and colleges.
That's my plan.
How do you know if you've succeeded?
Well, the teaching and learning is a strengthener.
I don't know.
As a guy, I've been an entrepreneur now for a quarter century.
And this is why I knew what Donald Trump was going to be like when he got into office.
I mean, the guy's an uber entrepreneur and has been for decades.
And I've been an entrepreneur in some really challenging fields for a quarter century.
I know what happens when a real entrepreneur, as opposed to a community organizer or trustafarian, gets into the office.
And so none of this comes as any surprise to me whatsoever.
Oh, Steph, it's like you're psychic.
It's like, no, you just have experience and you know how things work.
So let's see here.
That creates access to educational scholarship and research nationwide.
Okay, then charge people for access.
In addition, the NEH is a strong supporter of museum exhibitions throughout the country.
Because, you know, it's really hard to bore children without forcing them to go to an exhibit that nobody wanted to fund.
They say, combined, the budgets for the two agencies are less than $300 million.
The organizational grantees generate hundreds of millions of dollars in matching support and countless new works of art and scholarship.
Great.
So if you can already get the money from somewhere else, you don't need the money from the state.
They say, these works and related projects are studied and enjoyed by millions of Americans in museums and other venues.
Now, see, it's an interesting thing.
Last time I went to a museum, and I like to go fairly regularly, last time I went to a museum and other venues, I had to pay to get in.
So why am I being taxed for something I have to pay for?
Oh, right.
Because you don't want to have a real job.
I get it.
I understand it.
It's really, really alarming.
But it's going to be the greatest thing for you guys.
I guarantee it.
You're going to actually be diverse.
You're going to have to reflect more than just extreme left-wing ideology.
You're going to have to embrace the diversity that you claim is such a wonderful value.
They say the cultural sector of the U.S. economy generates more than $135 billion in revenue and employs over 3 million people in small towns and large cities countrywide.
Great.
That's a lot of money.
Huge amount of revenue.
So go and get it.
Go get that revenue.
Go get them, boys!
Go!
Catch!
Fetch!
Fetch!
Here's the revenue!
Go, go, go, go!
Get them!
Get them!
Frisbee!
Revenue!
Go get them!
Bring them down!
There you go.
Look, you got some exercise.
They say, given that the respective budgets of the NEA and NEH represent only a tiny fraction of the entire federal budget, their planned elimination cannot logically be seen as a cost-saving measure.
Oh, my God.
I love it when leftists use the word logic.
I don't know whoever wrote this, if they're a leftist.
I'm just talking about the general arts world.
Given that the arsenic I put in the person's soup was only a tiny fraction of their soup, it can't be considered a murder attempt.
Okay, that's an extreme example, but you see what I mean, right?
It's a tiny fraction of the entire federal budget.
It cannot logically be seen as a cost-saving measure.
Actually, it can't.
If you cut government spending by half a billion dollars, logically, by definition, that is a cost-saving measure.
Now, again, your budget may go down 100%, the government's budget may go down a much smaller, of course, percent, but yes, that is the very definition of a cost-saving measure.
Not spending money where you spent it before It's the very definition of a cost-saving measure.
Now, they could say, well, the government spends this money but gets much more in generated revenue and job creation and so on, in which case entrepreneurs should be handling it.
Because if entrepreneurs handle it, at least we'll get some diversity.
At least it won't be the one-sided, leftist, Bertolt Brecht-style, Mutter Cottage and her Kinder kind of indoctrination.
It's going to be better.
It's going to be better.
The leftists are going to be better, too.
Like, the leftist artists who just get this money, they don't have to work that hard, which is why I doubt a lot of great artists coming out of these guys.
You know, when Bertolt Brecht went over and worked for East Germany, his work.
Anyway, you'll be in the free market.
I'm better.
Like, why don't I want to take money, the money that gets offered by...
Why don't I want to take this money?
I want to be better at what I do.
That's the challenge.
That's what I want.
I love the chance of being able to fail.
I love the fact that people can pull their subscriptions if I do things that they don't like.
Sometimes I like it when they do, if it's important.
But you'll be better.
You'll have real diversity, which you say is a real strength, right?
You are writer-phobics.
You are deplor-phobics.
And you need to mix it up a little.
You need to be challenged.
You need to have your ideas challenged.
You'll get out of your complacency.
Government-funded stuff is crap.
The latter or latter doesn't matter.
So they say, yes, so cutting half a billion dollars cannot logically be seen as a costly measure.
See, this is the thing, too.
If you're that bad at math and reasoning, you really shouldn't be in charge of any money at all.
And they say, rather, it appears to be a deliberate, ominous effort to silence artistic and academic voices.
Huh.
Right.
Of course it's deliberate.
You don't accidentally cut things.
Is it ominous?
Well, it's ominous to you because it's a lot of money that you want and you might not get it.
So of course it's ominous.
To silence artistic and academic voices?
Well, let me tell you.
As a non-leftist director, actor, writer, novelist, poet, fiction and non-fiction author, my artistic and academic voice was repeatedly attacked and silenced by the left in academia and the art world.
So it seems a little precious when you guys won't hire anybody not on the extreme left or won't give grant money to anybody who's not following your politically correct narrative.
It's kind of precious for you guys to rail and complain about silencing artistic and academic voices.
You get it?
That's what you guys freaking live for.
That's all you do is silence artistic and academic voices.
Not just those who directly might want to get grants for things that you don't consider to be politically correct, which you'll say no to almost inevitably.
But what about the people who can't afford to become artists because they have to pay so much in taxes to support your sorry leftist asses?
Are you silencing their artistic and academic voices?
Yeah.
Such projection.
Such projection.
It goes on to say, representing a potentially chilling next step in an apparent effort to stifle and eradicate oppositional voices and cultural output from civic life.
Yeah, because again, all of the people from the right, all of the people from the objectivists, all of the Christians, you guys love giving money to Christian plays, right?
I mean, I'm sure I can riffle through all of your grants and find a lot of people on the right, a lot of small government people, a lot of people, you know, I've got to play about race and IQ. Am I going to get funding?
You know, the amount of censorship that goes on with these guys is ridiculous.
So the idea that they're, oh, you're going to silence voices, it's like, you get that's basically your whole business plan, right?
By eliminating the support of these agencies, the government undermines the unifying potential of the arts, culture, and education that encourages and nurtures communication and positive discussion.
Unifying potential.
I mean, it's just an echo chamber of leftist escalation.
CAA leadership is monitoring the possible elimination and or reduction of funding for the NEA and the NEH and how it may affect our members and the work they do.
CAA will communicate and collaborate with other cultural and educational organizations and learned societies to determine potential future advocacy options.
Yeah, you're going to fight it.
And...
Trump won.
And you won't win the fight.
I mean, of course you're going to fight.
I mean, of course you're going to.
I mean, you want the free money.
Of course, you don't want to face the market.
You don't want to diversify.
You don't want to be in contact with those you pretty much define as evil because of their ideology while claiming that you're the victim of some kind of suppression because you can't get government-coerced free money for your bullshit propaganda.
So yeah, you're going to fight for it.
And you're going to lose.
I mean, it's a new dawn.
It's a new day.
And I'm feeling good.
They say we urge our fellow CAA members to contact their representatives in Congress to let them know the importance of maintaining a robust national publicly supported framework for artistic and academic freedom.
Yeah.
It's called the internet.
It's called the free market.
It's called movies.
It's called documentaries.
It's called books.
They're very cheap to publish these days.
Let them know you are a member of CAA and together we are advocating for continued public funding for the arts.
Don't cut off my gravy train of socialist redistribution, please.
Through our collective strength.
Ooh, collective.
That's an interesting word.
You don't hear that too often from the right.
Through our collective strength, we can ensure that public funding of scholarship and art making continues.
Free from political and commercial interference.
Ah, there you see.
Free from political and commercial interference.
It is an interference to my artistic vision for it to provide voluntary value to other people.
It's an interference for my artistic godhood and greatness.
For people to actually have to voluntarily fund me either through buying my art or my products or donating to my cause.
Yeah, so the statists traditionally love these guys because they get to take money from Christians and give it to socialist atheists.
They get to take money from conservatives and give it to socialist indoctrinators.
Of course the government loves this stuff for the most part in the past.
And these guys will, you know, try and mess up their enemies and reward their friends, punish their enemies.
You know, the usual...
You know, Versailles Treaty garbage that goes on.
So yeah, I mean, I know there's going to be leftists out there like, oh no, the free market is coming.
I can't get free money from the government.
Look, join me on the internet.
It's great out here.
It's fun out here.
It's exciting out here.
You won't waste your life as a parasite of power.
You will do great stuff.
Come, challenge me.
Create better shows than I do.
Create better shows than Milo's or Mike Cernovich's.
Just create fantastic shows.
Out Paul Joseph Watson, Paul Joseph Watson.
Just do fantastic, great stuff.
And let us match our intellects like expert tennis players across a net of voluntarism rather than slinking through the blood-soaked corridors of power using the force of the state to take money from people who dislike you and use it to further intensify their dislike of you.
Because this was going to happen sooner or later.
Government's going to run out of money.
At least this way you have an opportunity because the government isn't running out of money at the same time as the economy is collapsing completely.
This is your chance.
Because for those on the left who really, really want this kind of power, who really, really want this kind of money, the government doesn't pay you because you're some sort of great artist.
