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Nov. 5, 2017 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
03:19:01
3885 Avoiding Stress While Society Collapses - Call In Show - October 29th, 2017
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All right. Few things you need to know.
You can follow me on Twitter at Stefan Molyneux.
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And my new book, The Art of the Argument.
It's a great read and empowering.
Tome, theartoftheargument.com.
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As well, you can get a free trial if you want.
And this book makes it all worthwhile.
So we had five callers tonight.
The first was a man who wanted to know how you're going to raise your kids with good, rational, intelligent values and still have them somewhat fit into the society, the kids' society and adult society in which they live.
The second caller wanted to know how to debate marriage and state power.
He's from Australia, but of course it's a bit of a worldwide phenomenon, so we got deep into that.
The third caller, yes, may have stepped on more than a few ranty landmines in my heart and mind.
But he wanted to know how he's not going to get depressed, consuming all this information about the collapse of the West.
So I think you'll find my perspective surprising and liberating.
The fourth caller brought in a family member under some tentacle arm of the DACA program and And now that family member from Venezuela is not really working out.
And he's like, well, should I send him back?
Do I keep him? My parents are going to get mad at me.
My family's going to get mad at me.
What do I do? And the fifth caller is in love with a man but has a few red flags that might be worth paying attention to.
And we went over that in, I think, some really good and powerful detail.
And it's good to have a list and check it twice when it comes to committing your life to someone.
So it was a great set of calls.
Thanks, everyone, so much for your attention.
Don't forget, freedomainradio.com slash donate.
But first, the show.
James wrote in and said, We feel like we have all the resources necessary to physically provide for our child, but our concern is how to raise them with a philosophical mindset without compromising their overall socialization and avoiding them becoming disenfranchised and thus demotivated by society, education, and work.
Naturally, core principles of philosophy are beneficial to these things, however we are concerned that the current social climate means that teaching will come across and requiring them to swim against the norms and values they are taught in school or by friends, thus providing them with confusing messages.
For example, the social shift towards relativism for most aspects of life, including gender, runs counter to our views that not everything can physically be relative.
These two opposing approaches are likely to cause an internal conflict for the child, perhaps forcing them to feel like they must choose between either our views or the view of their school slash peers.
Although we will not push political views on them, the ideologies of the left now encompass so many aspects of life, and learning that ideological conflict in these areas may be unavoidable.
We aim to equip them with the philosophical tools to decipher the world and teachings, rationally and logically, but it appears that school and wider society may overshadow and discourage this type of approach.
It is an issue for parenting and also a criticism of wider society and how it is possible to feel so overwhelmed by the systems in place that rationality and logic appear difficult to teach your own children without suffering consequences.
We would appreciate insights into ways in which adherence to ideas that run counter to society's chosen ideals impact interaction with society.
For example, whether knowing that these ideals are counter to the general population can impact views on the validity of society and ability to find common ground or a sense of belonging in society.
What can we do as parents to ensure the best outcome for our child so that they grow up in a loving and intellectually stimulating environment that will develop them into a strong and confident individual?
That's from James.
James, how you doing?
Other than quiet.
You might need to unmute.
Come on, we didn't spend 10 minutes on your question.
Hello? Can you hear me?
Yeah, there we go. Ah, brilliant.
Sorry, I thought I clicked on mute there.
I don't know what's going on. Firstly, thank you for having me on the show.
My pleasure. Would you say, James, that it's you or your wife who is more concerned about this, or is it about equal?
I would say it was about equal, to be honest with you.
Why do you want your kids to get along with crazy people?
It's not necessarily that we want them to get along with crazy people.
It's just, I mean, since when we were children, we sort of grew up thinking, well, if we see an adult, for example, we kind of automatically assume they know best.
So you don't really critique them or challenge them in any sort of way, you know, simply because they're an adult or perhaps they're an authority figure.
So really, we just want to be able to teach the child To really critically engage and actually think for themselves.
And even more so, not just other people.
Sorry to interrupt.
So you want to teach them to think for themselves.
That means that they're not going to get along with programmed leftist child idiot robots.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
So isn't that your choice?
Everyone feeds their kids junk food.
How do I not feed my kid junk food and have them get along with other kids?
Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess it would be a good thing to teach them about teaching critical thinking, logic and whatnot.
So that they can learn to avoid those types of people.
I mean, I've got people, or sorry, friends at university right now, and they've gone into student housing with people who all of a sudden have these absolute insane problems.
And we can feel sympathy for them.
And I could tell you a whole list of issues they've had, and clearly it's, you know, related back to their, the parenting.
But I think it would help if some of my friends, you know, could actually engage critically and think, oh, actually, I see some emotional signs here.
I perhaps want to withdraw myself from these people.
That's a little bit different because it seems to me like...
Do you want to put your kids in government schools?
We might have to.
Why? We're looking at ways in which we could homeschool.
But why would you have to?
Well, I mean, as I said, I haven't really looked into it, into the finer details or the points of it.
But... That's kind of where we're going at the moment.
No, no. Come on, man.
Why do you have to? You say it like it's gravity.
Like, okay, why do you have to put your kids in government schools?
Well, at the moment, that's just...
It's kind of difficult to answer, really.
Because... I mean, I don't want to say that's just what you do, but that's kind of like the default, if that makes sense.
And as I said, we haven't really looked into the finer details of homeschooling.
I mean, we are looking at one of us going off to work, which is currently me, and Abigail will be staying home for the next few years and bringing them up.
But as far as actually educating our child, we're still just simply looking into that at the moment.
Do you want to call back when you have looked into it more?
Because if you're not ready for the questions, then I don't know how we can have a conversation.
The big question is, do you put your kids in government schools or not?
And if you haven't really thought about it and don't have any standards, I don't know how we can chat.
I mean, of course you don't put your kids in government schools.
Of course you don't. Listen, James, every single advance that you like was advanced by people whose kids were picked on brutally at school.
What? You're an abolitionist?
You don't think that black people should be slaves?
My God, says some horrible kid, I'm going to beat you up for being an end lover or whatever it is, right?
You think women should have property rights and the rights of contract?
Oh, you're terrible, you know, and so...
Everyone who advances society, their kids have to deal with retrograde programmed idiot child robots.
You know, sorry, that's just the way it is.
If you like the fact that you have certain freedoms, if there's separation of church and state, somewhat freedom of speech, some remnants of the free market, you're enjoying the fact that people went against the grain and their kids had to take a few lumps.
I mean, if your kids have to be held hostage to the lowest common denominator...
of the other children around, how can you have any progress at all?
I mean, really what I'm just saying is that we haven't looked into the finer details.
I mean, I know, sorry, I just repeated myself.
But I mean, I would prefer not to say we're definitely going to be homeschooling and lie if we haven't specifically looked into the finer points of it.
But really what I'm trying to get at is how do we teach them I mean, it's not just going to be simply, if we take them out of school, then they're magically then going to be able to think critically.
And I know that they would still engage with, you know, you could say brain-dead lefty children, you know, when we take them to a play school for a couple of hours a week or something, just so they can learn how to free play and negotiate and whatnot.
Well, they can't learn to negotiate with kids who've never been negotiated with.
So, how do you teach children reasoning?
Well, how do you teach children how to walk?
You give them opportunity and rewards.
And so, the way that you teach children how to reason is you give them benefits for reasoning and you give them negatives for not reasoning.
So, my daughter can make a case for anything she wants.
I want a unicorn.
I want a pony to live in the basement, whatever.
She can make a case For anything she wants.
And if she makes a good enough case, I'll seriously consider it.
And if she makes an excellent case, she's got it.
Okay. So it's as simple as that.
And if she makes a bad case, I will say no.
Not because I disagree with the conclusion, but it's like, you know, I want it because I want it is not an argument.
I mean, you think I'm annoying, but not an argument outside my family, you should see me inside my family.
Although the only good news is my daughter says it to me as well.
So yeah, you just, they get what they want through reasoning in the same way that they get what they want.
If they want to go and get something, they have to learn how to walk in order to get it.
If they want to go upstairs, they have to learn how to climb stairs.
It's facilitating the fulfilling of their desire.
To me, there's no punishment if my daughter doesn't reason.
I just don't give her what she wants if she doesn't make a good argument.
Okay, so basically you need to kind of set up as a negotiation then.
So if they say, I know, Dad, I want this.
It's not a simple case of you just simply go out and get it or you bribe them perhaps to do something.
Let's say, I know you wanted to take them for a walk or something.
You wouldn't just say, I'll give you some sweets.
If you go out, you would try and maybe pick up on something which they've been really wanting to do.
Like, I don't know, play a board game or something like that and say to them, well, If you come for a walk with me, I promise I'll play a board game with you.
That certainly can be.
You can negotiate on that.
I don't do a huge amount of that because we always try and find something we all want to do, although that can take a while.
My daughter, she wanted to try a piano.
I'm not going to go out and buy a piano because I'm very cheap.
We can go and rent a piano.
We can go down and choose a piano, rent a piano.
And I simply make a deal with her.
Say, okay, well, you can either pay for it yourself through your allowance, or I'll pay for it, but then in return for me paying for it, you need to commit to practicing and lessons.
And I'm actually learning it at the same time too, which is...
Kind of cool and kind of neat.
You should hear me rip through Yankee Doodle.
It's a thing of beauty. So you simply make the negotiation.
And if she practices, then we'll keep the piano for the term of the rental or whatever.
And if she doesn't practice, it's going back.
And this going back thing, it's not, I'm taking your piano away.
It's like, well... I mean, the phone company, like if you rent a car and don't make the payments, they don't call you up and yell at you.
They're just, you know, sorry, we have to take the car back because you didn't make the payments.
And it's like, so the price of keeping the piano is practicing.
And if she doesn't practice, then there's no...
There's no punishment, right? I mean, it's just the piano stays because you're using it, because you're practicing it.
And so you just make deals and you enforce it, because that's life, right?
I mean, you make contracts all the time.
If you don't pay your phone bill, they'll cut off the phone.
You don't pay your power bill, they'll cut off the power.
I mean, unless you're in Puerto Rico, in which case they barely turned it on to begin with.
So it's just around all of these kinds of negotiations.
The kids always want something, as we all do.
Kids always want something. And to me, you know, if...
I will absolutely facilitate you learning piano, but you have to keep learning piano.
And when you stop practicing piano, the piano goes back because nobody buys something that you've got to dust and clean and tidy just for the sake of having money burn in the front yard.
So that's my particular perspective on things.
Kids don't usually need to be taught how to reason.
Like all of us, they simply respond to incentives.
You know, why do you go to work? Because they pay you, you know?
I mean, so there are incentives everywhere.
And if kids learn to understand that they get what they want in the world through being rational, through making good arguments, and not through, you know, tantrums or bullying or manipulation or withholding or storming or whatever, right?
Then, like water, they just default to the easiest course to get what they want.
And that, as the parents set up, should be rationality.
Yeah. Okay.
So, I mean, I guess... That does lead actually into quite well what I'm asking, is that having just gone through university, both me and Abigail, I mean, we see a lot of people basically, I mean, I went to Hong Kong quite recently, and we had a couple of PhD students, you know, tagging along.
And I remember he came out with one of these Marxist quotes saying, oh, Karl Marx is the greatest person ever.
And I'm thinking, Hang on a minute.
You're a PhD student.
You're obviously well-read. Otherwise, you wouldn't be doing a PhD.
But there was a complete lack of rationality there.
It's almost as if his...
His own individuality or critical thinking just got completely sucked out of him during his three or four years of his undergraduate and his master's degree.
It almost felt like he completely capitulated to what society has been telling him over in the UK. You don't get a PhD otherwise.
With very rare exceptions, a PAD is a giant mark of slavish shame.
Brand on the forehead.
I am now owned by the globalists and they gave me a piece of paper as my own marking of being their property.
So yeah, of course he is. Exactly.
And this is my point.
I mean, I've managed to completely slaughter the guy on, you know, the non-aggression principle and free market capitalism and all this sort of stuff.
But he was still kind of failing to kind of Sorry to interrupt, James.
Why would he want to?
If he mouths these stupid, evil socialist slogans...
Then he gets a PhD.
He gets a professorship.
He gets tenure. He gets four months off of the summer.
He gets a job where he can't be fired eventually.
He gets lovely conferences in exotic locations.
I mean, there's a huge pot of gold at the end of that shitty sickle rainbow.
Hammer and sickle rainbow, I guess you could say.
So why...
I mean, you're basically saying to someone...
Don't cash in your lottery ticket because it might raise your taxes.
I mean, this is the situation he's put himself in.
And if he were to become rational now...
Then the last decade of his life in higher education has been worse than useless.
He's actually destroyed his own mind in the service of evil.
That's a tough pill for people to swallow.
It's not about the rational argument.
It's about the compromises and destruction of personal integrity and selling your soul to a very tangible devil.
People don't want to look in the mirror and see a monster.
Yeah. And I guess, as I was saying in the UK... We're absolutely littered with this kind of thinking, essentially.
I mean, my boss at the moment, I work for a very small company.
He's around about 71, bless him.
But, you know, he's a small business owner and he's saying, oh, I agree with quite a lot of the stuff that Jeremy Corbyn says.
I'm just kind of peeking above my monitor thinking, is this guy for real?
And a lot of people, I mean, I work in town planning, and some of the crap they come out with in the policy, policies...
Wait, hang on a second. James, you're complaining about a Marxist you work for the state?
Pardon? You're complaining about a theoretical Marxist and you work for the state?
Oh, I don't work for the state, no.
Oh, okay. Sorry, I did actually.
I was a planning enforcement officer just to learn how the planning system worked in the UK. I did that for a year, but now I'm in the free market.
I'm in as a planning consultant.
But my point is that, you know, it's absolutely listed everywhere.
And my concern is, even if we teach our child, you know, rationality and, you know, critical thinking, mine and Abby's concerns are, what if our child then kind of thinks, well, You know, if I did go and take a PhD, then, you know, I'm sorted for life.
I'm going to then, you know, trade in my personal integrity.
So how do we kind of put a kind of like a shield or a barrier to kind of protect them against that, really, so that they continue to be rational rather than, you know, just giving into perhaps what their friends say or virtue signaling on Facebook or stuff like that, really?
I don't sort of quite understand.
Has Abby ever had an affair?
No. Why won't she have an affair?
How do you prevent her from having an affair?
How do you keep her faithful?
Well, I treat her very well.
You become someone for whom there is no substitute.
Can't do better than me, right?
And so, first of all, you just be a great parent.
You teach them rationality.
You teach them that the world is populated by no small proportion of crazy people.
And it is the job of good people to reject the bad people and save the ones in the middle.
So, I mean, if you're saying, well, why won't she or he or she be taken over by terrible things in the future?
Well... You are the very best parent that you get, your very best parent that you can be, and you let the chips fall where they may.
You can only control, of course, your own decisions in the moment.
You cannot control the 7,000th domino of tomorrow, right?
And that's another point with my question is, you know, once they do begin to kind of hold crazy people at arm's length and some of the irrationality and the complete Emotional kind of BS that really goes on.
How do I then kind of ensure, teach them how to not kind of lose validity in society?
I mean, I know society is riddled with problems.
What do you mean by lose validity?
In the sense that, how do I put it?
It's difficult for me to put validity in...
You mean being liked by crazy people?
It's not be liked by crazy people.
It's not that. It's like when we were doing our degrees, for example, especially Abby, I think this really hits us since, you know, we've been together is that she kind of took the red pill and just completely saw a different perspective when I was speaking with her.
And she just began to become very demotivated in her studies and she was doing law.
And I did see her grades drop.
Quite significantly, you know, towards the end of the final year.
So it's really just how do we prevent them from becoming demotivated when they suddenly realize, oh, actually.
No, but Abby was denormalized after two decades plus of a particular perspective while she was in the middle of higher education, right?
Yeah. So your kids won't be in that situation because they'll be rational from the beginning.
They're red-pilled at birth, right?
Okay, yeah. The red pill is Abby's nipple.
That's their red pill right there.
I've just got this weird image in my head right now.
Good. That's what we aim for.
If it isn't having sex with a North American river order or trading a water buffalo for sex, I just don't feel I've done my job.
Why did you come up with that?
Yeah. It just struck me that a little nipple looks a little bit like a red pill, that's all.
A red pill? Yes, right.
I'm not talking about what I do with my Swedish berries.
Or am I? So no, listen, trust in the Lord.
Trust in the Lord and let the world go.
Trust in reason, trust in philosophy.
Act as well as you can to keep your children rational.
My daughter, people say to her, oh, you're homeschooled.
Don't you miss your friends?
I have my friends, she says, and other kids, why would I want to spend time with them?
Yeah, and this is something actually which struck me quite recently.
I mean, since leaving university, me and Abby and actually one of two of my other friends have done what we like to call the Facebook cleansing or the Facebook culling.
And I went from about 200 people who essentially I just didn't really care.
I felt like they added much, you know, to my personality.
And I just cut them straight off.
And I think I've only got around about 30 odd friends now.
Well, you only had to cut them off because you weren't being assertive enough.
Because trust me, if you say things that lefties don't like maybe twice, they'll just cut you off.
Yeah. Okay.
Could you explain that a little bit more?
Had you said things to your friends on Facebook that they had found offensive?
No, not really.
Right, so they would have cut you off.
You know, it's amazing.
If you're just honest and have integrity, then you'll be amazed at just how your society self-selects around you.
People who have integrity and are curious and critical thinkers will be drawn to you as you are drawn to them.
And the people who are allergic to thought will flee into the wilderness.
Yeah.
And to us, I think I have actually seen that quite a lot.
I mean, I used to play, well, I still do play something called Airsoft.
And I was part of the Airsoft Society quite a while at university.
And the leader of the group was very...
I would say Alpha in the sense that he was quite dominant in the sense that he had a lot of people, a lot of newcomers to the society who would always kind of seek his approval almost.
But I mean, he was, again, very sort of left-leaning.
And I had a real kind of, I wouldn't say a power struggle with him, but it was more of a sort of, well, I'm not going to take your bullshit.
I'm just going to tell you as it is straight.
And He really tried to get me on board, really tried to kind of bend me to his will for quite a while, probably about a year or so, realised it wasn't going well.
And then he just kind of blocked me out completely.
He just never really talked to me ever, would always kind of hide in the corner when I walked in the room.
So I can see what he's saying there.
Oh, yeah. No, I mean, the left gets that it's a battle.
The right is still waking up to it.
All right. Well, I hope that helps.
Do keep us posted on how your fertility program goes, and I look forward to chatting with you again.
Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you.
All right. Up next, we have Sebastian.
Sebastian wrote in and said, I'm an Australian, Christian, and currently in university.
My question is on the hot topic in our society for the last 13 years, marriage equality.
It has been a long, at times pointless, roundabout debate which often devolves into name-calling and accusations of bribery.
Often used as a tool for politicians as a distraction from other issues, the slippery slope argument is that this will lead to the low-key persecution of Christians, mostly, as I saw unfold within America through the Christian bakery and florist stories.
Now my alternative to this is removing marriage altogether as a government institution that it becomes a tradition done within the community.
This historically and religiously was its original intent.
The alternative way of circumventing this issue is civil unions.
This is legally similar to marriage without the low religious undertone.
If the individuals want the marriage ceremony, they can then do this in whatever manner they want.
Put plainly, rather than debate about marriage equality, the third alternative is the removal of government from marriage eliminating the issue altogether.
When I discuss this as an option to people, it is either sidestepped, ignored, or they don't seem to understand this as a conceptual way of approaching the issue.
I'm wondering, is this a valid option I can campaign for in my community?
If so, what is the best way to construct it as a concrete argument?
Not as a much moral one, but as a logical way of approaching the issue.
That's from Sebastian. Hey Sebastian, how are you doing?
I'm going great, Stefan.
How are you? I'm well, thanks.
Did you know that you can be polygamous and it's still recognized as a valid marriage in Australia?
I think I was somewhat aware of that.
I'm aware there's some legislation with Victoria as well that allows some religious minorities to marry minorities.
But that might have been changed.
That was somewhat in legislation last year as well.
Yeah, it was last year. So last March, the full court of the Family Court of Australia ruled that a polygamous marriage is illegal in Australia, but a foreign marriage, which is potentially polygamous when it is entered into, will be recognised as a valid marriage in Australia.
And marriage is potentially polygamous if it is not polygamous, but the law in the country where the original marriage took place allows a polygamous marriage of one or both partners to the original marriage at a later date.
That's quite fascinating because, you know, we just want other cultures to assimilate into our own culture.
Apparently that's best served by dismantling our own culture piece by piece.
That's how you've assimilated.
Come in, move into the building as the giant politically correct wrecking ball goes into the side.
Yeah, go ahead. Well, something I wanted to lead with, which is kind of a big basis for how I view Australian politics, and most Australians that I come across kind of agree with this, is we're culturally and politically in Australia about five years behind America and often referred to as Little America.
Though I was thinking the other day, in some way, we're kind of a lot more like Canada, as we have similar positions of both freedom of speech and on guns.
It's the whole, we're the little brother of the two big brothers.
Well, no, Canada, there's higher per capita ownership in some places in Canada than in America.
So, Canada and America, sorry, Canada and Australia are not quite in the same situation regarding guns.
But go on. And we...
The way I see it, it's kind of like we often look at either and decide what path we're going to follow, which is very weird.
It's kind of like we don't tend to go down our own path.
We just copy whatever particularly America is doing.
But there's a bit of lag.
So I think it was about five years ago that America had gay marriage completely.
Palmer did something with the legislation that allowed it.
And now it's five years on and it looks like it's going to get passed in Australian politics either way.
Well, and of course there was this argument that said if gay marriage gets passed, then the definitions of male and female are going to go wrong.
Down the toilet. And now, of course, you have in many places in America and other places, you can be a man and go into a girl's washer if you self-identify as a female.
And you are now trying to get girls to go into the Boy Scouts.
Although I doubt very much it's going the other way.
So the slippery slope argument, and of course as you point out, Christians have been persecuted, even theoretical ones.
You know, will you bake a cake for a gay wedding?
Funny, they don't go to Muslim bakeries and ask that.
I wonder why! Very brave!
These people picking on Christians they know are going to be nice.
To a fault, I might add, my dear Christian friends.
To a fault. So yeah, the slippery slope argument has some...
There's reinforcement based on subsequent events, but of course, government should have nothing to do with marriage.
Marriage should be a contract that may end up being enforced in government courts, but government shouldn't have anything to do with marriage.
It should not define what a marriage is.
It should have nothing to do with the institution as a whole, other than perhaps enforcing prenups or other contracts entered into as part of the marriage situation.
I mean, the government doesn't say every corporation that merges has to follow Exactly this kind of negotiation with exactly these kinds of parameters and principles, people just get to negotiate and the government will enforce the contractors to some degree or another.
And it should be the same thing with marriage.
Marriage should be thought of the merger between two corporations and the corporations happen to be sovereign individuals.
They negotiate, there may be standard templates they want to work with, and then the government could enforce things afterwards.
But of course, the only reason the government in America got into the marriage business was to prevent blacks and whites from marrying way back in the day.
I think it was in the 1920s.
It started in the South.
And of course, it was pushed by the Democrats who wished to resist miscegenation between the races.
So, no, of course, the government should have nothing to do with it.
But one of the reasons, of course, why it's become such a hot issue is because there are government benefits and pensions.
And, you know, spouses get sometimes health insurance and so on through the state.
So, because there are so many statist goodies hanging off the institution of marriage, this has, you know, it's like the rings that Sauron gives to the people.
Hey, look, here's some free stuff for you.
And then they end up skinny on a black horse.
Yeah, they give all these goodies to people, and then through these goodies, they end up having to enforce what a marriage is, and then that definition gets expanded, which generally tends to undermine gender definitions as a whole.
Yeah, I mean, the slippery slope argument has some empirical data behind it.
My goal would be to say, Government shouldn't have anything to do with marriage, but that's a very difficult thing to undo at this point.
Right. So, what would kind of be the early steps as an individual to kind of speak to people about that?
Because I found when I've proposed this as an option, maybe I'm not explaining it correctly, or They just don't understand the idea that the government doesn't have to have their hand on absolutely everything.
Sorry to interrupt.
Okay.
So if you work, I don't know how it works in Australia.
Maybe you do, Sebastian.
But if you work for the government, your spouse gets covered under a variety of benefits, right?
I'm not too sure on that.
I'm more aware how it is in America.
I don't think it's that extreme in Australia.
I'm pretty sure it is.
You do get that.
I mean, it would be really remarkable if it doesn't.
And the reason that you need to look this up is that in the States...
There are sometimes, if you look at insurance companies, will pay death benefits, so to speak, to a spouse.
Or if you have, let's say your husband, traditional male-female marriage, your husband worked for some company, for the government, you get some pension, and then if your husband dies, then the spouse gets, the surviving spouse gets the pension, or if the wife dies and she was the worker, the surviving husband gets the pension.
The pension, right? And the reason for that, of course, is that if your husband dies one day after he has worked paying into a retirement fund for 30 or 40 years, then it doesn't seem very fair that you don't get a penny out of it.
So there's lots of financial arrangements, both public and quasi private, that are tied into whether or not you're married.
And it's important because if you just say, well, I'm going to give my benefits to a friend of mine.
I'm going to give my benefits to my sister who's on the other side of the country.
Like, it's sort of like the immigration thing, right?
I mean, to be married and to be interviewed and to know the answers to these complex questions of how much do you know your spouse or how well do you know your spouse and all of that.
So, marriage, whether or not it's bound into state power directly, marriage needs to be defined for a variety of reasons.
Also, you know, if you go out with a girl for two weeks and break up with her, she doesn't get half your stuff.
But I think, was it in Australia?
What Australia, in Australia recently, I think I remember reading that even if you maintain separate residences, at some point you might, the woman could petition to have some sort of common law contract between the two of you if you've been dating long enough.
I mean, it's really nutty stuff.
I mean, oh, I've got a photo of his toothbrush in my bathroom.
Give me half his stuff!
So marriage does need to be defined in some legal manner.
And of course, the government loves to pull all of these complexities and all of this stuff into its own definition of marriage.
So then, of course, what happens is, and I completely understand this, don't get me wrong.
So what happens is, a gay couple comes along and says...
Well, why don't I get the same benefits as a straight couple?
I'm committed. I'm devoted.
I'm monogamous. We're going to be together forever, in contradistinction to most gay relationships, which apparently are measured not only by the inch, but by the nanosecond.
But the gay couples say, well, I was with this guy for 30 years.
We were monogamous. He died.
I don't get his pension, right?
I mean, I don't get to visit him in hospital if he gets sick.
His spouse gets to go in.
A friend doesn't. So, I understand where gays and other non-sort of male-female relationship people are coming from.
I mean, I was in theater school.
I live with gay guys. They're human beings and they want things just like everybody else.
And who's to say that's not fair?
But the problem is, is that if you wish to get the government out of the marriage business...
Then what you're doing is you're saying, we need some other methodology to define what marriage is, and then you're going to have a whole bunch of pressure groups all wanting to be part of that definition for a variety of both government and non-government reasons.
Even things like adoption or...
Yeah, just a wide variety of benefits, healthcare, and other things.
Or, of course, if you have a gay couple, and they want to buy a house, and they're both good earners, let's say their combined income is $200,000.
If they're just kind of boyfriend-boyfriend, or there's no particular...
When they then apply for a loan from the bank, well, if you're a husband and wife, you both put down your combined income.
There's a lot of reasons why you want to know.
Marriage is basically a public declaration of, ideally, of course, monogamy and fidelity and permanence to your relationship.
You're saying, that's it. I'm taking this person.
I'm not looking for anyone else.
This is it until the day that we die.
One of us dies or whatever.
That kind of commitment starts a whole bunch of moral and legal and social balls Moving.
You know, you can't just, oh, we've gone on four dates.
Let's go and invest in a house together.
Well, will I consider it combined income?
Because people will say, well, how do we know it's going to be combined income?
You've gone on four dates. You could break up tomorrow.
And so having that binding which gives you that sort of two-in-one flavor, two acting as one joined at the hip kind of flavor for a wide variety of legal reasons, it's really, really tough.
I don't know you can get the government out of the marriage business completely.
Or if you do get the government out of the marriage business completely, someone's still going to need to figure out who's married.
And who's not? And traditionally, this has been male-female with a big public declaration.
Other groups want in.
It's hard to say, well, you just can't and you shouldn't because reasons.
But it is a challenging and complicated issue.
I'm not sure it would be my first pick on what to work on, but I'm happy to hear your thoughts.
Well, some of the people I discussed about this...
Particularly recently when I was saying I was going to go on the show, they made the point, let's just get this passed and then worry about this issue after, which I'm guessing that is how it is going to eventually unfold.
If it's not this vote, it'll be the next vote.
Sorry, get what passed? The legislation, the marriage equality legislation.
Right. Because part of the reason a lot of Australians are fearful of this is we had a...
A schools program called Safe Schools, which like there's some theories to say it was like the forerunner to this legislation or it was trying to normalize certain behaviors.
And I'm not just saying like a man and a man together or a woman, woman together.
Like it was going in the territory of the similar thing with America being I think Michelle Obama had some transgender running some kids program.
So essentially the Safe Skills was a skills program that promoted all types of sexuality despite the parents' protest.
And the same people that were pushing Safe Skills are the same people pushing the gay marriage legislation.
So to me, it looks like a political, it's being used, the gays are being used as a political tool in order to further some agenda.
Right.
And of course, that's happened with blacks and Hispanics in America as well.
And it happens with Muslim immigrants in England.
They used to forward the leftist agenda because they so reliably vote for Labour and so on.
So, look, I agree.
And just at a personal level, like I saw this picture on Twitter the other day of some drag queen in full Satan makeup, reading a story to a bunch of like five-year-olds.
I think that's the one I'm referring to.
Yeah, that's a challenge for...
Quite a lot of people, and I can't really get on a high horse in a soapbox and chastise them all for it, you know?
I don't care so much about the drag thing.
The full Satan get-up, the full, like, curly horns, Bahamut, full-on Podesta-style Satan stuff, that's a challenging conversation to have with your kids.
I mean... Why was the she-devil reading us stories?
I guess that's an interesting question.
And I leave it to people to...
But here's the thing. You know, if people in the West are very concerned with gay rights, they should go and deal with sub-Saharan Africa or Africa as a whole.
They should go and, like, there's so much work for them to do in Middle Eastern countries, in Muslim countries, in African countries.
There are so many countries where gays are murdered.
Or go protect albinos in African countries where they're I would just say, if you really care about gay rights, Then go and, like, there's so many things to deal with.
Why on earth are you dealing with a relatively minor issue compared to being thrown off a building?
Where the hell is your sense of proportion?
Why is this an issue for you?
Because as it turns out, the left don't care about gays.
They don't care about blacks.
They don't care about Hispanics.
They don't care about minorities.
They don't care about women. They only care about power.
And they will use these groups as pawns, which is a terrible way to deal with human beings.
Human beings are not simple utility objects to be used like a parrot uses a cracker.
They are individuals and should not be used as pawns on a political chessboard, but that's what the left does.
So you just have to penetrate this nonsense that it's about equality or it's about sympathy for homosexuals or whatever.
It's nothing to do with that. It's nothing to do with that because if you're On the right and you're black.
If you're on the right and you're gay, if you're on the right and you're a woman, But they'll mess you up.
Hard and bad and ugly and vicious and character assassinations and throwing things at you and pulling alarms and trying to dump acid into the vents of your social gatherings.
I mean, it's got nothing to do.
They don't care about the gays.
And finding ways to expose that is really important.
And the one thing I will say to Christians as a whole, and get comfortable, this is going to be a little bit of a rant.
One thing I will say to Christians as a whole, stop being so damn nice.
Stop being so nice.
You know who's winning in society?
You know who's winning in the world?
People who aren't very nice.
And I am very much one for being nice, but being nice, you have to earn it.
You have to earn being nice. Like, you have to earn honor.
You have to earn respect.
You have to earn integrity.
If I buy something from you online and you don't ship it to me, guess what?
I'm not going to pay you.
Because reciprocity is key to integrity.
And the Christians seem to have, I don't know, if this...
There was this muscular Christianity that went on in the 19th century, which had a lot to do with the self-confidence, perhaps overconfidence, of Western civilizations.
It was great that there were lots of advances in the West, but it wasn't great that there were these massive empires all over the world that...
Helps bring down Western values as a whole.
Hey, let's have an empire!
Now everyone can come to our country, and we lose everything, potentially.
And so, there was this muscular Christianity in the 19th century, and I don't know if the intense cuckiness that's coming out of the Vatican these days, or just this weird Marxist infiltration, I mean, Marxists go everywhere, and This Marxist infiltration of Christianity seems to have been very harsh, very intense.
And people blame this a lot on women.
I just want to sort of point this out.
People are saying, oh, if we gave women a vote and that was the big problem.
That's not the problem. That's not the problem.
You know where there are women?
China! You know where else there are women?
Japan! You know where else there are women?
Eastern Europe! Are those people taking endless amounts of third world refugees?
No, they're not! So the thesis goes aside completely.
And the one thing that they are aware of is human biodiversity.
They are aware of differences in race and IQ. They are aware of differences in brain size between the races.
They are aware... Of all of these things.
And that is why in the Far East, like in the Oriental countries, in China, Japan, Thailand, Korea, and so on, they don't take these countries because they fully recognize that ethnic homogeneity can be a significant predictor of social peace and stability.
And they're very aware, and the late Professor Rushton, Canadian professor used to talk about this.
He would say, well, I get all these messages from people in China and Japan saying, like, why don't you people talk about human biodiversity?
Why don't you talk about race and IQ? I mean, this is the essential fact.
This is the one essential fact you need to know in the world today.
And he would have to write back and say, because leftists, because Marxist hysteria, because, I don't know, clergy plan?
Who knows, right? But so...
Christians got to stop being so nice.
I mean, in some ways, I feel a lot more pro-Christian than the Pope, because, you know, I'm encouraging Christians and saying, yes, you have to stand up for the West.
Yes, you have to stand up for values.
Yes, you have to, to some degree, save the atheists who hold you in contempt.
That's all right. Jesus did it, and it's a good—it can be a good— It's not.
It's not. And this is a big history with Christianity, which is the be nice, be nice, be nice, until massively cornered, and then be extraordinarily aggressive.
And I think a balance.
You know, I don't want to be like the Germans.
They're either at your feet or at your throat.
They're either trying to conquer or Or invite the world to conquer them somewhere in the middle.
Please, you Teutonic nutjobs would be just great.
But you have to stop being so nice.
You have to stop thinking that the world and your beliefs are anything other than existing in an amoral Darwinian void of the will to power.
Christianity spread, I agree, not primarily by the sword but by the word, but it was a pretty damn confident word.
And if you have the belief and you have the faith and Jesus is your guy and the New Testament is your essential Bible, then you have to stand firm, stand deep, stand tall, and stop being nice.
If you want to see who's winning, who's winning are all the people who Who are being as difficult as humanly possible.
Because unfortunately we are, as we generally are in the world, in the West, in a state of extreme appeasement.
And appeasement means the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Appeasement means the people who can cause the government the most trouble get the government's attention and get from the government what?
What they want. You know, why are they pouring massive amounts of money into inner cities in America, into black communities and other communities?
Because Because they care about these communities?
Hell no. If they cared about these communities, they'd be promoting two-parent households.
They'd be winding down welfare.
They'd be doing a wide variety of things that they're not.
But they're doing it because they fear the cities are going to burn down, and maybe they're right.
So, if you hold the power...
Fire. If you hold the power, and it doesn't have to be fire specifically.
Why do people appease the left?
Why do they appease the mainstream media?
Because the mainstream media are not very nice.
And they will go after you and make up lies and slander and all kinds of God-forsaken stuff.
Especially if you're a public figure, because especially in America, the laws are just insane.
You have to prove malice.
Ooh, that's going to be easy, especially because everyone knows that rule ahead of time, so they're never going to write down anything malicious.
So, stop being so nice.
God helps those who help themselves.
If you want the favor of the Lord to shine on your ventures, you have to show the Lord that That you have faith, that you believe, that you are willing to take risks, that you're willing to stand up and be difficult.
Be the giant rock in the way of the stream that changes its course.
Everyone in the Christian world, they're trying to navigate this.
Like, oh, I'm going to leave on the stream.
I'm going to paddle this way. I'm going to paddle that way.
I'm going to try and alter things. No!
Just be difficult! Say no!
Go on strike! Do everything legal!
Publish, condemn, attack.
You know, not that I'm advocating it, but Christians used to be so confident they burnt people at the stake.
Now, again, somewhere between washing the feet of migrants and burning people at the stake would be excellent!
Legal, peaceful, but assertive.
For God's sakes.
It's a 2,000-year tradition.
It's the foundation of Western civilization.
And it's given more gifts than I gave credit for in my entire first 45 years of life.
Very sorry about that, but I was blind.
I was blind, but now I see!
Stand for Christ!
Save the world and stop being nice!
you are serving the wrong direction when you're too nice. - I'll just add to that 'cause that was fantastic.
The church tends to do best when it's under pressure, that make and break.
The church is actually growing.
The largest growing church at the moment is in China because they're under communist rule.
So it's either make or break.
They either are a Christian or not a Christian.
And that seems like in the West, Christians have become complacent because there's such an easy thing to become a Christian.
Whereas in China, the threat of death, imprisonment, in jail, if that makes sense.
People find reason In desperate circumstances, and it is the curse of every thinker to imagine that people find reason before desperation.
It's horrible. It's so...
Repetitive in history.
Things get good.
Things get nice. Things get easy.
Oh, we can have a welfare state.
We can have socialized medicine.
We can take in the odd desperate refugee who manages to ride the back of a whale shark to our shores.
No problem. We've got a high IQ population.
Therefore, welfare is going to be very rare because most people are going to do a lot better joining the free market than they are on welfare.
Ah, but you see, what happens is then the lower IQ populations have a lot of kids.
And next thing you know, or you import a whole bunch of lower IQ populations and then guess what?
Now you have 10, 20, 30% of your population who do far better on welfare than they will in the free market.
And your welfare state begins to collapse and you have a whole bunch of people.
Oh, we've got a high IQ population.
They're going to take care of themselves.
They're going to exercise. They're not going to gain too much weight.
They're going to eat healthy. They're going to be active because they're high IQ. And so they can see down the tunnel of time to 10 years down the future, 20, 30 years down the future.
I mean, I want to have an active old age.
I just started this new...
I mean, I work out like a couple of times a week and I do like half hour of hard cardio and I do maybe 45 minutes of weights and I try to get, you know, my 10,000 steps in a day so I stand while I do my shows and for the most part...
And I'm on the treadmill when I'm on the phone.
And, you know, I just want to stay active.
Now I've just started doing, I've thrown into the mix this 20-minute workout that makes me feel like a wounded arthritic frog.
But, you know, I'll get there and join the wasp waist woman on the screen and not throwing up when I'm doing my burpees.
But anyway. So, you design these systems for these high IQ populations, and then the low IQ populations reproduce like crazy, and if they don't, or even if they do, you import millions of low IQ people, and suddenly, oh my goodness, healthcare costs are going through the roof.
Why? Because less intelligent people are less healthy.
They're more overweight.
They smoke more. They drink more.
They do dumb things.
Why? Because they're kind of dumb.
No offense, you know, there are short people, there are tall people, there are smart people, there are dumb people.
And you design all these systems for an IQ population to average 100, then you start bringing in people with an IQ between 80 and 85, and it's like designing a bridge for foot traffic, and then you try to land...
A Boeing 747 on it.
Oh, structurally, this doesn't seem quite a sound.
And all of these systems which were difficult enough to sustain with the IQ 100 population.
Oh, also, when you have an IQ 100 population, because more people do better working than being on welfare or having a whole bunch of kids, or both, usually both.
You have more taxpayers and fewer people consuming, but when you have less intelligent people around, there are fewer people paying taxes and more people on benefits.
It's not a national debt.
It's an IQ debt. It's not unfunded liabilities.
It's low IQ liabilities.
Like, I'm sorry to be so blunt, and I, you know, people, oh, you keep bringing this issue up.
It's like, yes, I'm sorry that Copernicus keeps bringing up at an astronomy conference that the Sun is the center of the solar system, not the Earth.
I'm sorry about that, but it's kind of relevant, because if everyone keeps talking about the fact that the Earth is the center of the solar system, you gotta keep putting up your hand and say, nah, you people are completely incorrect.
This is the fact that you need to understand.
This is the fact...
That causes civilization to hang in the balance.
This is the difference between the East and the West.
This is the difference between China and America.
This is the difference between England of the 21st century and England of the 19th century, for better and for worse.
So, stop being so nice, people.
It's not going to work.
You know, the one thing that the government generally never has to worry about?
Oh no! What if the Christians get really angry?
Do you think they're thinking about that?
In England? Do you think when they're looking at the demographics in England, they're saying, wow, you know, those Christians, man, they could riot.
Those Christians, man, they might go on strike.
Those Christians might gather.
Those Christians might cause trouble.
Christians are like the silent kid in the warring household.
Everyone just steps past them and forgets about them, and they don't even get fed.
They just waste away in a corner and play with their figurines with a little fading, battery-dead flashlight in the hovel underneath the stairs, just trying to stay out of the way of the kicking, screaming, throwing vase chaos outside.
But you can't hide forever.
You can't hide forever.
How many times have you ever People say, oh no, there was this racially charged incident.
Someone beat up a Christian.
Oh no, the Christians are going to set fire to their own neighborhoods.
Never happens. It's never a factor.
It's never a factor.
And unfortunately, because the state is an appeasement mechanism, a brutal power seeking, if you don't give the government any trouble, Again, I'm not talking about anything illegal.
If you don't give the government any trouble, if you don't give society any trouble, if you don't give your friends any trouble, you are going to be plowed under like last year's scarecrow.
You got one skinny little hand sticking up from the clot of history.
And you know what happens?
Right after they plow, they put a whole lot of cow shit down.
And that's the fate. Nice.
So I hope that helps.
I appreciate your call.
I wish you the very best of luck with your challenges.
But yeah, just stop being nice.
And that's what's needed.
I mean, Jesus wasn't nice.
Jesus didn't like the money changers.
What did he do? Write a blog post?
Nope. Went down there with a whip.
Again, I'm not talking about anything illegal.
I'm just talking about the allegory.
All right. Thanks a lot. Let's move on to the next caller.
Thank you. Oh, right up next we have Sergei.
He wrote in and said, I've already moved from Germany to Eastern Europe to at least have some peace of mind by not having to live in the midst of all this degeneration and civilizational decay.
Yet I can't opt out of seeing the Sword of Damocles above so many things I love and care for.
This feeling often prevents me from enjoying my daily life, which actually isn't bad.
It makes most of my conversations with friends inevitably turn political.
Stefan and I might not have the exact same worldview, but I would like to know how he, as a professional political commentator who sees some of the dangers looming on the horizon, would recommend to deal with this kind of anxiety.
That's from Sergei. I assume it's Sergei.
Yes, that's the correct pronunciation.
Well, I appreciate the question and I have wrestled with it off and on over the years.
I'll give you some thoughts.
Get comfy. There's a few and then you can let me know what you think.
Is that right? Okay, great.
First of all, it is emotionally suicidal to care more about people than they care about themselves.
We all know this, if you've ever had somebody really self-destructive in your life, and I grew up with one, if you've ever had someone really self-destructive in your life, they will pull you down with them if you continue to care for them more than they care for themselves.
You are fundamentally helpless in this situation.
You can speak the truth as far as you are able.
You can speak out loud.
You can bring forward the facts to people.
But as the old saying goes, if you're not the state, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
So you can speak reason to the world.
Maybe if you have the ability or the charisma or the will or the fortune, you can run for office.
And maybe you can affect some change in that way.
But as somebody who merely consumes what is going on in the world, you cannot care more for people than they care for themselves.
The German population, for instance, voted Angela Merkel and company back into power recently.
In France, there was a clear choice.
Between somebody who was largely open borders and Marine Le Pen who, while she had a lot of socialist failings, was very concerned with French heritage and French history and wished to do what she could to maintain it.
The Information was clearly presented.
Now, the AFD did do very well.
I don't know if there's time enough, but the AFD did do relatively well in Germany.
But the information was put forward very clearly, and people made their choices.
And the people who made their choices in Europe in the recent elections and the ones to come, they made their choices With the most amount of knowledge at the fingertips of a voter that the world has ever seen.
You know, in the past, when I was growing up, you had to rely on the mainstream media.
You had to rely on historians.
You really couldn't get the primary sources very easily, I remember.
For some of my research, for my master's thesis, I had to go to microfilms.
I mean, you wouldn't believe it.
You wouldn't even know. You had to...
These tiny, like, spy little shrunken down newspapers.
You'd load them on and scan around and read and search.
Just after I finished my thesis, a lot of the great works came out on CD-ROM. Multimedia.
Not only redundant, but too late for me.
Media means multi already.
But anyway. So...
There's no shortage of information.
So either they're ignoring the information, they're staying inside their own bubble.
And people are perfectly free to do that.
People are perfectly free to stay in an echo chamber, to only listen to those who agree with them, and to not seek any outside information.
And should any outside or contrary information cross their path, they are free to call down all the airstrikes of vicious verbal abuse and rejection and ostracism and hostility and rage.
They're free to do that.
That's part of their free speech.
And they're free to vote, of course.
For people, well, the people that they voted for.
And if people won't change their minds according to reason and evidence, in history, they tend not to survive.
And by that, I don't mean that every society which survives is rational.
But if something isn't working, then people tend not to survive.
If they ignore that it's not working.
You know, if you have some horrible lump on your body and you just don't go to the doctor, well, you probably aren't going to do very well in the long run.
You've got some horrible toothache and you don't go to the dentist.
Well, you're probably not going to do very well in the long run.
So, people are free to ignore that which doesn't work.
They're free to ignore that which poses extraordinary and escalating dangers to the way of life their ancestors fought and died for.
Perfectly free to do that.
I, this is where I've come to, and it's relatively recent, so I don't know if it's fixed in stone, Sergei, but this is where I've come to.
I won't care for people more than they care for themselves.
I have fought... Long before I was in any kind of public eye, I fought hard.
I fought as a teenager for reason and evidence.
I fought in theater school for reason and evidence.
I fought in the business world.
I fought in academia. I made presentations.
I wrote extra papers.
I talked to professors. I engaged with students.
I was in the debating society.
I have been...
Fighting with Aragorn-like flourishes, the orcs of irrationality, for many, many decades.
And now, I've gone from personal conversations and presentations to a couple of hundred students at a time, to over half a billion views and downloads of rational arguments.
Not always perfect arguments, but reasoned arguments.
Now that is more than I ever could have imagined.
It's not as much as I want to do, but it's more than I could have reasonably imagined in the past, and I'm extraordinarily happy and proud and grateful to everyone out there for making these opportunities possible.
The primary responsibility is not with the ignorant, but with the knowledgeable, but inactive.
It is A secondary crime.
It's like lying by omission.
It's a secondary crime if you avoid information counter to your thesis.
But if you have information counter to a bad thesis and you stay silent, to me you are far more morally culpable than somebody who has avoided that information.
Let me put it to you this way.
If you're someone who has some weird lump on their back, like some mole that looks like something emerging out of John Hurt's chest in a sci-fi movie, then...
Maybe you didn't see it for a while.
Maybe you see it. Maybe you think it's gone away.
Maybe you think it's a bit of tree bark or something like that.
Maybe you think you're turning into an ant or someone that Thaddeus Russell thinks can make a baby with someone.
Who knows, right? But...
If you don't see it, you don't know about it, you find out about it, you don't really act on it, you delay, you procrastinate, and so on.
Okay, it's pretty irresponsible, pretty bad, particularly if people are depending on you.
And of course, the future depends on the actions of the present.
We all have children, whether we have them directly biologically or not, we all have children called the future.
And that's one thing.
And I have not much sympathy for people like that.
However, what if you are a dermatologist and you see this on someone's back and it's like, whoa, what the?
Sam living hell is that thing?
And then you say nothing.
Who's more responsible?
Who's more culpable? The person who's avoiding for their own benefit in the short run or the professional or the expert who sees the disease and says nothing?
So, the way that I fight the despair, and successfully too, is I say to myself, you know, what I do is not an accident.
What I do is not...
It's not like I just sort of wake up and turn on a camera and...
Right?
I mean, there is a lot of spontaneity in what I do, which is why I think it's worth listening to, but it is not random.
It is not... I have a very conscious set of thoughts and ideas that inform and guide what it is that I do.
And one of those are, do the very best that you can, do the very most that you can, to make the world a better place, to make the world think, to make the world reason.
Because one of two things is going to happen.
Either the world is going to get more rational, in which case, good job, you, well done.
You can take your place among the greats of human history.
Whether that's personal or general, not particularly important.
So do the most you can.
Or, people won't listen to you.
In which case, you will not regret their passing.
I hate to say it. I really, literally hate to say it.
And it's just my own personal perspective, right?
I mean, you can take this as you like.
But if you are an expert and you see, if you're a dermatologist, you see someone with a godforsaken mold that needs to be checked out, And you spend days or weeks cajoling them, saying you'll pay for their visit, just come in, it'll be checked out, it'll be painless, it's still early enough that something might be done, and you don't have to suffer with this, and you do all of that.
And the person still won't come for a free checkup, for a biopsy, for a removal, for some weird thing with a freeze gun.
I mean, they won't.
And then the person dies. Can you really regret such a passing?
Well, no, because they had every conceivable opportunity to get fixed, to get better.
And they chose to deny reason, evidence, and expertise in the pursuit of the fantasy that nothing dangerous was growing around them.
I cannot mourn the passing of such a person.
I cannot. And maybe this comes from this sort of hard experience of growing up with a self-destructive person.
But I can't.
I can't do it.
Do you know why? I mean, there's a number of reasons, but I'll tell you the most personal one.
The personal seems to be.
You know, they'll have to say the personal is the political.
For me, it seems quite often the personal is the universal.
But I'll tell you why. It's a personal story here.
Very brief. Who's kidding who?
The reason why I can't mourn this kind of passage of self-deluding, self-destructive, and damn well don't listen, fools, It's because, you know, there are people in my life, they're gonna die.
One day, they're gonna die.
I'm gonna die. One day you're gonna die.
Everyone around you is gonna die.
And there are people in my life I love so dearly, so deeply, so, if I could, eternally, that when they die, My heart may break forever.
And I know, I know I will be lecturing myself with they would not want you to stand over their grave and cry your bone marrow into a bottomless void for eternity.
I know that they will say in my mind in The afterlife we all live in known as the memory of others.
That they will say, I do not want you to be sad until the end of your days.
I do not want my death to cast a shadow over every waking moment of your future life.
I want you to be happy that I lived, not sad that I died.
And there will be that, and I will strive.
To eat those words and digest them and fill myself up with something other than loss and sorrow.
And I will get up and salute their memory and march off to the day like I'm marching to a war I don't expect to win and try and grin and sing along the way.
It's a long way to Tipperary.
It's a long way to go.
And I will. And I will find a way to be happy after the loss of Of those I love.
And I hope that they will miss me when I'm dead and I hope that they will get up and march into their day like a war they can't win but sing and dance along the way.
And these are people I treasure and love and respect for their courage and their virtue and their integrity and their sense of humor and their good spirits and their loyalty and their beauty.
Beauty of their spirits and of their Spontaneity in their joy, their humor.
So I've got a deep awareness, especially since my own cancer scare, but I have a deep awareness of the fragility of things.
That we all walk through our days Like somebody strolling or scurrying or creeping through a minefield with no detector, waiting for the click.
Every step we put down might be a floor that falls away and dumps us in a shallow grave or a deep grave.
So there are people I'm going to lose that I love dearly.
I will not give them the same emotional space as those who are foolish and silly and shallow and stupid and vicious and vile and cowardly and evil and who screech and scratch and squawk at people bringing them the necessary bandages and deep medicine of integrity and honesty and virtue necessary to save their god-forsaken existences.
Those people I will do nothing to push them.
But I will not mourn their falling.
Because there are those who work hard to save the world and who take bitter, bitter blows in the pursuit of the good.
Look at James O'Keefe just gave a speech the other day, got handed two new legal documents, two new lawsuits, I assume.
He has how many, to my mind, frivolous and unjust lawsuits floating around his organization?
He gets up. He marches, I assume, into the day.
I admire him enormously. He marches into the day.
Well, he, I think, walks into the day as into a war he can win and might.
You can support him at projectveritas.com.
If people I respect and love die, I want to be able to mourn them.
And I will not cloud that mourning by having an equal attachment to the fools who bring about not only their own demise, but often the demise of those who come after them who deserve far better.
And I'm not just talking about people in Europe, even the boomers, who will scratch and scream and scrape and claw at anyone who talks about rolling back their unjust benefits, the pensions and everything, all the health care that they want.
That they did not pay for.
Oh, well, the government took our money.
So what? You know who else took your money?
You know who else took money?
A whole bunch of cheats in the world have taken people's money.
Bernie Madoff took people's money.
I gave them my money.
I should get it back with interest.
Sorry, he lied and cheated you.
I gave my government the money.
Get it back with interest. Nope, they lied and cheated.
There's nothing there. Nothing there except a noose around the economic necks of the next generation.
That's all. That's all that's there.
And you can take what you did not earn at the expense, like vampires who can survive sunlight not after 4pm, and you can fasten your arthritic teeth on the jugulars of the next generation who will have not one-tenth the economic opportunities that you had.
But I cannot mourn. I cannot mourn those.
I cannot mourn the murdered by circumstances or accidents as much as I murder those who take their own lives by their own hands.
I cannot mourn the virtuous in the same way or even in the same direction that I mourn the foolish, the ignorant, and the evil.
Europe, as it is currently constituted, cannot stand.
It's not even fundamentally about immigration or migrants.
It's not fundamentally about that.
Europe cannot stand because it is attempting to deny that which does not work.
It is attempting to deny the reality, the principles of that which does not work.
Collectivism, statism, taxation, debt, power, regulation, control, indoctrination, none of these things work in the European context.
Europeans do not breed well in captivity.
Europeans do not flourish under fundamentally foreign indoctrination, and Marxism to me is not fundamentally a European doctrine.
For reasons I've gone into in the past.
You can watch my truth about Karl Marx for more on that if you want.
But Europe cannot last because it has set up an unsustainable system.
If you build a house, build a tower, if you build a tower, not Tower Hamlets, but if you build a tower that is weak, Do you blame the wind or do you blame the architect?
If you build a bridge from Balsa Wood, do you blame the seagull that lands on it and takes it down or do you blame the engineer who built it?
I do not blame the migrants.
I do not blame the people who come for 10 times better income without even having to work.
Who wouldn't make that decision?
I don't blame the people who step on the poorly made bridge in the full confidence it will stand for breaking it.
I blame those who designed the bridge before and those who support the bridge in the present.
Europe cannot stand because Europe stands for unreality.
Europe supports reality.
And viciously defends immorality.
The welfare state, the socialized healthcare, the endless national debts, the indoctrination of the young, these things are foreign and alien to the essential principles that have driven the West, which is, for the last few hundred years, free markets, separation of church and state, personal responsibility, Christianity, free will, individual conscience.
And scientific knowledge.
The acceptance of reality. Human biodiversity is a fundamental reality.
Groups differ in IQ. Groups differ in ethics.
Groups differ in beliefs.
And some of those beliefs are environmental and some of those beliefs are genetic.
If you have a certain population instilled in a belief for many, many, many generations, the genetics then end up conforming to that belief.
Because those whose genetics and personalities deviate from those beliefs end up not breeding.
And those whose personalities and innate characteristics are more in alignment with those beliefs, they get to breed more.
It happens that way.
This is science. This is evolution.
These are basic facts.
And people who reject basic facts do not last.
People who think that tigers are cuddly do not last.
People who think that sharks are dolphins do not last.
And people who think that poison is a spice do not last and if they have been told repeatedly and they do not listen and they scornfully sneer at anyone and everyone who tells them basic scientific facts that they do not wish to hear what can be done?
nothing can be done And nothing needs to be done.
Because nature will do it anyway.
Nature will do it anyway.
And I cannot mourn the passage of people who do it to themselves.
You deny reality.
You attack the honorable.
You slander the competent.
You scorn the knowledgeable.
You sneer at the experts.
Vanity and viciousness have their consequences.
services.
It is not possible to stand between a fool and his ending, unless you're willing to join him, which of course is allowing the fool to rule your ending as well.
And what you say may come to pass.
The whites might lose Europe.
They may flock to Eastern Europe.
They may become like the Jews without a homeland.
Well, not having a homeland for the Jews has helped breed the most intelligent Ashkenazi Jews, the most intelligent population the world has ever seen.
I hate to think that's what's necessary, but stop caring about people more than they care about themselves.
Because, you see, if you care about their outcomes, there's a funny kind of emotional alchemy that occurs.
If someone's self-destructive behavior drives you crazy, then they gain power out of making you crazy.
They gain power out of their pursuit of their own self-destruction.
It's a funny kind of thing that happens.
Pounding back projections is the essence of Of transmitting self-knowledge.
Don't allow people to project themselves into you.
Don't feel anxious for people who are self-destructive.
Because in a weird way, and it really happens in my experience, if you become really anxious for people, you become really, you can't sleep, you're stressed, you're worried.
The people who are genuinely in danger feel less anxious.
It's like a load that they toss to you.
Here, you carry this giant heavy stone that makes your knees bleed and buckle.
You take the world that Atlas has to stand and buckle under.
If you approach the self-destructive with bemused indifference, you know what happens?
They start to feel anxious themselves.
If someone around you is self-destructive and you stop worrying about them, they will start to freak out.
Because what they're trying to do is they have this anxiety.
Don't worry. People in Europe have this anxiety.
Everyone in Europe has this anxiety.
But what they hope to do is they hope to find what's called a poison container or a vessel they can retch their anxiety into.
See, what happens is they act in self-destructive manners and then people around them get anxious.
And then what they do is they scorn other people's anxiety and that's how they keep their own anxiety at bay.
You know, this is all idea of, you know, the word scapegoat comes from, that all the sins of the tribe were thrown into a gate, a goat, sorry, and then the goat was taken out into the desert and killed.
And that way, all the sins were rejected in the goat, the goat was killed, and the tribe was now sin-free.
There are other sacrifices in religions as well.
But don't do it. Do not take other people's burden.
Do not carry other people's burdens.
Says an old song, Christa Burke.
Brother, can you spare me food and give me a drink of wine?
I've been traveling on this road for such a long, long time.
I have seen the wonders, but most amazing of them all, I believe I felt the weight of the risen Lord.
On a night like this there came a stranger on the road.
Heard him stumble, heard him fall, I helped him with his load.
Well, the further that we walked, well, the heavier it became.
And I believe I felt the weight of another world.
The weight of another world, the weight of somebody else's anxiety.
Do not carry it. Throw it back to them.
Throw it back to them.
Feel no anxiety for the self-destructive.
It is their only chance.
If you take on somebody else's toothache pain, they never go to the dentist.
If you carry somebody else's load, they never question whether they should be holding it in the first place.
Do not allow people to project into you.
Listen, as a public figure, this happens all the time.
People are always trying to project into me.
I will not have it. I will not have it.
I have six million different ninja moves to prevent people from projecting into me because I want them to own their own stuff.
I want them to own their own feelings.
So when stuff happens in Europe that seems bad, next year in Germany, the migrants get the right, I hear, to invite their family members in.
It's just nature taking its course.
You can't stop it.
You certainly can't stop it by feeling anxious.
That's the least likely path to stop it.
Now, can it be stopped?
Sure. Sure it can be stopped.
People can wake up. People can change their minds.
People can change their votes.
People can go on legal strides.
People can gather. People can do anything they want.
Remarkable things have happened in this world.
Astonishing things have happened in this world.
Unforeseen acts... Of will and revelation and virtue.
I mean, look at what's going on in the entertainment industry, in the sports industry these days with these allegations of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, rape.
This is a bottle that has been bubbling for centuries.
It's out. True or false, it certainly is going to be discussed and things may change.
Remarkable things can happen out of nowhere.
Who was expecting this? Sure, they can change.
They can do whatever they want.
They're sovereign individuals.
But it will take a kind of courage that they may find in an extremity.
But you feeling anxious for them is you denigrating their capacity to change themselves.
If you feel all of the anxiety for them, what you're basically saying is, I have no faith that you will be able to fix anything.
Okay. If you have no faith that they'll be able to fix anything, don't feel any anxiety.
Because it's a bad thing that's going to happen, but is it really in the long run?
If people reject and refuse reality, should they get a magic pass from nature to continue existing?
It sure hasn't happened in the history of evolution, to my knowledge.
You know, if a particular, you know, when rabbits breed like crazy in the Australian outback, where there are no dingoes because they ate someone's baby, and the rabbits just reproduce like crazy in the middle of nowhere.
God doesn't send down care packages of carrots.
They outstrip their resources.
They starve. It's sad.
But that's the way nature and evolution work.
Deny reality, and you are wiped off the blackboard.
I wish it weren't so.
It's not the universe I would have designed, but it's the universe we've got.
And expecting some sort of miracle intervention is not reasonable.
The only miracle intervention is courage.
So, observe it as an object lesson.
Sometimes humanity has to learn some extraordinarily bitter lessons.
And sometimes the suffering is extraordinarily deep and extraordinarily wide and can go on for a long time.
And it's a shame. But that's what happens when people don't listen to reason.
And you know what happens? After a certain period of suffering, after a certain period of agony, after a certain period of denigration and humiliation and loss, do you know what people say?
Fuck it. Next time, we'll listen.
Next time, we'll think.
Next time, we won't have the arrogance to scream down the experts.
We'll shut up and listen.
Next time, we'll learn.
And you know what?
Next time, they just might.
So, that's what I've had to think about it.
I hope that gives you some help.
Well, can I respond to that?
Yeah, yeah, please. That was quite a lot to take in, so if you forgive me, I need to narrow it down to some of the major points that I think really matter here.
So, one of the first points that you brought up that I am not personally or individually responsible for the ignorance and the apathy that most people show towards All these issues that should affect basically,
well, themselves in the first place.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Sergei.
I know I just gave a long speech, but if you could boil it down to a succinct pushback or question, I'd appreciate it.
Oh, well, that's a couple of points.
Okay, one of the things that I gather from your advice, Is that I should not bother with people, let's say, who I cannot save and who I am not responsible for saving, if I get you right.
Yeah, you can't save people. Yeah, to which I would respond, or whether that doesn't, well, limit the No, no, no, no. Come on. Just because not everyone is going to take your medicine doesn't mean that you don't put your medicine out there.
You can't save everyone and you can't save everyone.
That doesn't mean your effects have no actions.
I mean, it's not like the fantasy of omnipotence that you can walk around the world and alter physics and change people's minds through some sort of dial pad.
The opposite of that is not, well, I'm going to retreat from trying to change the world and pursue mere hedonism.
It's recognizing that, sure, you can affect people.
Sure, I mean, why on earth would I be doing this show if I didn't think I could affect people?
But I am not responsible for what people do with what I say.
Well, yes, exactly.
I mean, I don't consider to stop dropping red pills around or stuff like that.
I probably will still talk about all these issues as much as I can because, well, some people are actually listening.
A few, but It's worth it, I guess.
And sorry to interrupt, but there are a lot of people out there who will pick up your red pill, turn it over and throw it on the ground and grind it under her heel just because they like hurting you, just because they're sadists and nasty trolls and so on, and don't give them that pleasure.
You know, hey, take the red pill, don't take the red pill.
I'm fundamentally not invested either way.
Give people that responsibility.
I'm used to this. And there's another fundamental question I would like to ask you about the response that you have given, which, again, I gather from your advice that you suggest that I tune out a little bit and don't get involved too much with things that I cannot directly influence,
let's say. And my question is towards The foundation of morality, basically, because isn't it true that, at least that's what I believed for a very long time, that the only thing needed for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing, right? That's what I've been taught.
When I was in school, meanwhile, I don't believe many of the things that I was taught in school, but one of them was When we were going through the period of National Socialism or the Communist Terror or stuff like that,
and I heard stories of, you know, essentially the How people knew that others were sent to concentration camps, were sent to certain death, that all these horrible things were going on, but they just kept silent and They did nothing.
They tried to not get themselves involved in these issues.
And yeah, maybe, you know, if I was German back in the time of National Socialism and I have spoken up against the genocide that was happening to various peoples, maybe the only consequence of that would have been that I would have been put into prison and they would have achieved nothing, of course. That's not a pragmatic thing to do, but I kind of feel that it's the right thing to do.
And if I don't do it, then I feel bad anyway.
Do you get what I'm hinting at?
Well, then if you're not free, you're not free.
Because listen, there's a marketing aspect involved to ideas as well that people don't like.
A lot of people don't like.
And it's shallow and it's surface, but it's very real.
In order to sell ethics to an irrational world, you have to have something or be someone that people want.
I mean, if you want to sell a diet pill, you show a fat person followed by a skinny person.
Oh, I want to be that skinny person, so I'll buy the pill.
So, if you want to sell philosophy, if you want to sell reason and evidence, being like this tortured, nail-biting, nihilistic, the world's going to end kind of guy, sadly, you may be completely right, but sadly, you're just a fat person trying to sell a diet book.
Maybe you have the best diet book in the world, but you're fat.
And so, you have to have a certain amount of personal happiness in order to be able to sell.
philosophy in order to be able to sell the worldview.
Sure, I am full of enough knowledge to collapse the heart of a mortal.
I am full of enough perspective, a lot of which I don't even share, but I'm full of enough perspective to crack the sound heart of a battalion of Roman optimists.
And I am responsible for that knowledge.
I respect that knowledge.
I'm not going to let immorality win.
And by that I mean, I'm going to be responsible enough to virtue, to the future, to not let it break me.
To hold forth something, a perspective, a happiness, a commitment, a passion that people can yearn for, that they can look up to, that they can respect, that they can seek to emulate, and that's how it spreads.
Because The world is doomed.
The end is nigh.
It's all over. Sadly, we'll sell nothing.
It will sell nothing.
There's a reason why they don't put a woman with pimples on the face of a face cream ad.
You have to have something that people want.
You have to have an energy, a positivity, a perspective that people want.
I could let the knowledge plow me under.
I have conversations with people in my life regularly, like, if you could pull out that stupid module called I Know What's Going On, would you?
Is ignorance bliss? Look at people downtown on a Saturday night, like dinosaurs, dancing as the sky lights with the comet.
If you can't change it, do you even want to know about it?
If you can't change it, why not go dancing?
And enjoy your last hours.
Because I think it can be changed.
But if you let the knowledge plow you under, you won't do any good.
So, well, good men should do something.
Yes, good men should do something.
But there's a few things, as I say, they should not try and take ownership for that which they do not own.
Because that leads you to a life of frustration.
And the feeling of omnipotence, the feeling that somehow you should change things that you cannot change...
It's how evil takes you out of the social equation.
Because it makes you unattractive and therefore nobody wants to listen to you.
It makes you negative and therefore nobody wants to listen to you.
It makes you morose.
It makes you like Marvin the Paranoid Android from that old book by Doug Adams, right?
I mean, it makes you unpleasant to be around and that's how evil seals you off from social effects.
It makes you miserable with facts and makes you repellent.
To those who might be able to change.
Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, well, I get it.
I get that you need to present yourself in a good way to get your point across.
And obviously, for that, you need to be self confident and positive and all the set of good skills.
Yeah, if you have kids and they have to have an injection, and you have to have an injection, and you go first, Then you don't scream.
Like, let's say it really hurts.
You don't say, oh my god, I just fell like a shark chewed my arm off.
Oh man, that is...
Oh my god, that's incredibly painful.
Your turn, honey. What's going to happen?
You say, yeah, it really wasn't that bad.
Right? I'm actually really...
I'm actually not really a doomsayer in that regard.
Maybe my question has given off a wrong impression.
I'm actually... Well, in the long term, I'm optimistic.
How do I prevent having a constant feeling of anxiety, which interferes with the pleasure of my day?
You know, I do read these questions.
You know that, right? Yeah, I do know that.
Okay. One more thing.
You mentioned that we shouldn't take ownership of the situation in, let's say, Europe at large, the big picture.
But aren't we, in a way, forced to?
Because whether we want to or not, we have to live in this society.
Our personal faith, our personal happiness is also intertwined With society at large, with the people we live with.
I don't know which Greek philosopher...
But how do we even know what's happening in Europe is a bad thing?
And I don't mean to be nihilistic or relativistic.
It's a genuine question.
No, seriously, let's say...
Let's say smoking does interfere with your ability to get an erection, right?
So, let's say that smoking, which is very bad for you...
Let's say that smoking prevents you from having children, or significantly reduces your chances of having children because you can't get it up.
And you can't pull out the man sauce with a turkey baster, so there you go, right?
So, let's say that.
And let's say there's a whole island full of smokers.
And you go to them and you say, you know, you really shouldn't smoke, and here's why, and here's a picture of the lung, and blah blah, here's the science, and this is blah blah.
And let's say...
That they just keep smoking.
And let's say a lot of them die.
What's happened? Genetically, what's happened is pig ignorance and stubbornness and stupidity has been taken out of the gene pool.
Oh, I agree. From a Darwinian perspective, maybe most of Europe does actually deserve eradication.
Well, deserve is, again, one of these phrases that almost has a moralistic element.
You know, it's not a question of deserve, it's have you earned the right to continue to exist in a Darwinian world?
I agree.
According to the laws of nature, let's say that's what not only should be happening, that's what's going to happen.
I actually agree that.
But yeah, it all comes down to the same problem I was initially mentioning, is that we can't just be an individual atom floating around all the rest of society.
We are actually on the Titanic, you know, where we know better than all the Right, so you know what you want to do?
Hang on, hang on. I understand you're on the Titanic, but you're not all the same distance from the lifeboats.
Well... No, seriously.
If you know the ship's going down, well, first of all, if you see it heading towards an iceberg, you say, Z-O-M-G, we're heading to an iceberg.
We should turn. You go to the captain and say, we should turn.
You go to the engineer. You go to the guy steering the ship.
We should turn. We should turn. There's a big iceberg.
And they're like, ah, you're crazy. Well, you know what I do?
I go to my cabin, I get my stuff, and I get to a lifeboat.
Well... Because I'm not going down with that ship.
Okay, but what if you regret the sinking of the ship you loved so much?
You don't have a choice?
You go down with the ship or you get on a lifeboat.
Those are your choices. You can have time for regret later.
What should we live for if all the good things that are worth to be preserved, worth to be defended, worth to be fought for, are just going to be chipped away?
What is good about Europe that it needs to be saved right now?
Well, right now, literally nothing.
What is so great to save in its current form?
Ignorant, ridiculous, aggressive, self-righteous, pompous, virtue-signaling fools!
I absolutely get it.
What was great about the late Roman Empire?
Absolutely nothing. That's why it was destroyed.
But we still, after the destruction of the Roman Empire, had the ability to take inspiration from its glory and greatness and to start a renaissance.
We still had the opportunity to restructure the broken pieces.
Okay, 1,200 years later, sure.
Yeah, but if Europe is gone completely and is turned into just an extension...
Europe is a vampiric monster.
Europe is a vampiric monster feeding on the imaginary children they refuse to have.
If the pandas won't fuck to save their own species, fuck the pandas.
Like, what is there to save in the great glory of Europe?
Look at the last hundred years of Europe.
Two nightmarish world wars.
The germination of fascism, socialism, national socialism, and communism, which spread out like a goddamn plague.
I know, I said that communism wasn't specifically European, but it did originate in Europe.
I hate communism more than anyone else.
I understand that, I understand that. But look at the last hundred years.
You know, like that old Janice Jackson song, What Have You Done For Me Lately?
Europe! What have you done for us lately?
Two giant world wars. Massive debt, fiat currency, imperialism, empire, invading and redrawing all the maps of the Middle East, the consequences of which we're still living with today, selling off the unborn to foreign bank strips for the sake of stuffing your fat gullet with fiat currency in the here and now.
What is to be saved and what should be saved?
There's some nice architecture from Europeans who lived a long time ago.
And there are a few traditions from some good Europeans who lived a long time ago that the current Europeans can scarcely be lifted to lift a fat finger to save or protect.
What is there that is so great to be saved at the moment?
Well, you turned out to be more pessimistic than I would have expected.
Actually, I thought... No, no, no.
Don't give me your emotional analysis.
Tell me. Hey, talk me out of what I think is a realism.
Yes. Talk me out of it.
Tell me what is so great about Europe.
Increasing hate speech laws, massive debts, fighting, laziness, corruption all over the EU, the European Parliament, a hotbed of sexual aggression, assault and harassment.
Tell me. What is so great?
An apathetic population that scarcely lifts a finger to march against their oncoming disasters.
What is so great? Just one question I'm curious about.
Have you been to Europe? Have I been to Europe?
Of course I've been to Europe. Oh, okay.
I was just curious.
I actually think that there is a lot of European things that are worth to be loved.
It is more of the Europe, not the Europe of the big banks or the big politicians of the European Union.
It's more the culture of our ancestors that we are from birth.
Ancestors. See, that's the point.
That's the point. If you have to go back 150 years, that's kind of a stretch.
No, I don't. I was given all these things by my own parents and I intend to raise my own children in the very same spirit.
Of all the things that make Europe great, that make Europe beautiful, that have created the strongest, fiercest, It's the most developed civilization that the world has ever seen.
Europe is the jewel of the crown of humanity and I am not willing to pass a million.
Europe was the jewel of the crown of humanity.
What is it now?
It is in a desperate state, but we cannot forsake it.
No, it's not a desperate state.
Because the Europeans aren't desperate.
The Europeans are very confidently voting for Emmanuel Macron.
They're very confidently voting for Angela Merkel.
And they're very confidently not demanding Brexit as a people.
So, they're not desperate.
If they were desperate, I would respect the living hell out of Europeans.
I agree, I think.
Essentially, what I believe and why I don't consider myself a conservative, for example, It's because I don't think there's anything worth conserving.
Actually, I would support hasting the decline of the Europe we have now.
But I fundamentally believe that as long as we do not destroy our most basic ethno-cultural continuity, and that is only possible if we are swamped by foreigners.
Wait, but what cultural continuity?
You mean the culture of entitlement and massive welfare spending and avoidance of military responsibilities and self-hating cuckery as the result of the Second World War, very few of whom anyone is alive is responsible for.
The massive welfare state, is it?
I mean, is it the lack of cultural pride?
Is it the rejection of basic biological sciences about the differences between the races?
What exactly in this asylum called Europe do you think is worth saving?
Yes. Stefan, you're talking, I think, like we never had bad times before.
Like we never had the late Roman Empire, like we never had the Weimar Republic.
Dude, if you've got to go back 1700 years, that's not Europe.
History repeats itself.
It is going to repeat again.
Right, and Europe has had 2500 years to figure this shit out.
And it's not like you've got to get...
You don't have to go to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's backyard and dig up the Gulag archipelago from his backyard.
It's right there on the internet.
Available in a moment.
And if Europe has had 2,500 goddamn years...
To figure this shit out.
Stop violating property rights.
Have a small or no government.
Stop having taxes. Stop having fiat currency.
Stop having a central bank.
Stop having endless stupid wars.
Get yourself a gold back or a basket of commodities back currency.
Stop having endless national debt.
Stop selling off the future for the sake of the present.
Europe is a colony of aging vampires.
And you're like... But we gotta save them!
No! The European children will be saved by the demise of the mindset of Europe right now, which is currently preying on them forever!
I totally agree with what you just said.
Do you know this meme picture of, you know, weak men create bad times, bad times create strong men, strong men create good times and stuff like that.
I truly hope that we will just be able to go on in the circle, that we will be able to pass the bad times right now.
I mean, the late Roman Empire survived on slavery and bribery.
The average young man in the late Roman Empire was impressed into being a godforsaken, minority-slashing Roman soldier-slave for about 20 years.
And if he survived that, he was given an acre and a half of land.
When the Roman Empire fell, freedom came once more to Europe.
When the EU falls, there will be unpleasantness.
And that's why, hopefully, with social media, with the internet, with these great conversations, Sergei, hopefully, after 2,500 years, Europe will finally get it through its own thick Teutonic skull!
To not do this shit over and over and over again.
Oh, we're doing well.
Let's have a big government. Oh, we're doing well.
Let's raise taxes. Oh, we're doing well.
Let's indoctrinate the children with government schools.
Oh, we're doing well. Let's have a central bank and borrow ourselves into oblivion.
It's the Roman Empire all over again.
Oh, we're doing really well. Let's shovel as much hands as possible into the hands of women through alimony, child support, and divorce laws so that they spend like crazy and boy up this stupid artificial environmental destroying consumerist economy.
Maybe at some point they'll suffer so much that they'll put down the crack of fiat currency, never to touch it again.
We're down to one tooth, but we're smiling.
That's what I said just with less detail.
The only thing, the absolutely only thing, like the baseline, I would like to add.
I mean, I totally agree, but I would stress that we cannot give up On the ethnocultural continuity thing that I mentioned.
Because yes, we are in decline.
Things are going to get worse before they get better.
But the only way we can carry on after that is if we preserve our genetics, our blood.
Because if our population is replaced, then our history ends.
After the bad times, there will be no times at all for us.
That's the only thing that really matters.
I'm willing to accept bad times.
I prepare actually for blood in the streets, to be honest.
I have no delusions about that.
I don't want to conserve Europe in the present state, but I want to be able to continue after the current disastrous anti-human experiment of the last decades fails entirely and is hopefully destroyed in its fundament.
That's the only thing I have to add.
Okay, well, I certainly wish you the best with that plan and project.
I mean, the Jews have been without a country for thousands of years, or at least they were until 1948, and it made them a very smart and very in-group preference kind of group.
People get mad at the Jews.
It's like, well, they're very, very smart and they have a very strong in-group preference.
Maybe instead of getting mad at them, you should just emulate them and have an in-group preference yourself.
So I appreciate that.
And it's certainly been a good, rousing discussion.
Thank you very much for your time.
Let's move on to the next call. Thank you for the conversation.
Thank you. Goodbye. Alright, up next we have Goose.
Goose wrote in and said, I have to choose between A,
end all legal processes with him in an attempt to send him back to Venezuela and face retribution from my anti-Trump, pro-immigrant social circle and my family who don't believe he is a problem for me or this country, or B, allow him to remain and burden my beloved United States with yet another anti-American, parasitic, pseudo-refugee who will make it harder for a more deserving immigrant.
How do I choose between A or B? What is more important here, humanity or conscientiousness?
Should I give this person one more chance?
Or should I take preventative means to preserve myself and this nation?
That's from Goose. Oh, hi, Goose.
How are you doing? I'm good, Stefan.
How are you? I'm well, man.
That is quite a choice.
Quite a question. I want to ask a couple of questions.
First, just to gauge my level of potential sympathy for your family member.
Sure. Is he a socialist?
Is he a lefty? What is it that he doesn't like about America?
Um... Is it racist?
So, given that I mentioned DACA in my question, I just want to make clear that he is actually an adult, right?
Because DACA is this kind of funny program that pretends that 35-year-olds or I don't know, whoever, adult.
So, he claimed amnesty or pseudo-amnesty under DACA, but he's actually an adult?
Yeah, he's 19. But was he 19 when DACA came in?
I mean, obviously not, right?
But how old is he? I don't remember the year DACA started.
Do you mean the year that he came to the United States?
Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, no.
He was already 18 years old, so he was technically an adult, legally an adult.
So he does not meet the qualifications, to your knowledge, under DACA? No, not exactly.
So there are a lot of programs related to DACA. I don't know how familiar you are with I know you've done a lot of presentations on DACA, but there are these other programs that aren't DACA. And what happens is there's been some legislation that has allowed these programs to exist because DACA was created.
Right. So if he was a kid when he was brought in, then DACA applies.
If he was an adult, then it doesn't, if I understand it correctly.
Sort of. The principal point with DACA is when that child arrives, right?
And then it doesn't matter how old they become.
It could be 35 or whatever, right?
Sorry, I don't want to get too much involved in the labyrinth.
Let's just say that his status is questionable.
Yeah. Yeah, there are some questionable elements to his status.
Actually, as a matter of fact, he doesn't have a status.
He doesn't have a status?
Oh, so he's not even applied under DACA? No, it doesn't apply to him directly at all because it's a related program which...
Someone required him to have a guardian, someone petitioned to be his guardian, and that was me.
So once that happens, then he's basically assigned to be my dependent under the state.
Okay. Got it. Got it.
So he's a 19-year-old dependent under the state.
Yeah. This all makes perfect sense to me.
All right. So what doesn't he like about America?
Well, you know, I think that what he's really saying when he talks about how he doesn't like America is just how he feels when he's in the country.
So the fact that he's not close to his family and that people are quite serious with regards to work and study in the U.S., I view those things as very good things.
He pretends to view these things as very good things.
I think he obviously sees the benefit.
You know, he doesn't like to have to work hard.
Venezuelan people, and I'm saying this as a generalization before anybody tries to correct me with any number of examples.
No, listen, you know what? Don't be defensive.
Don't apologize. People understand what you're saying unless they willingly won't understand, in which case apologizing is just a sign of weakness.
So just go on with your generalizations.
Of course you don't mean all Venezuelans, but let's not waste time with these kinds of apologies to people who won't listen anyway.
By the way, I didn't apologize.
I'm just clarifying that it is a generalization.
There's many hardworking Venezuelans and people who want to make the country better.
But a large majority of them that allowed for the type of government that stepped in are, in fact, very lazy people.
And it is part of our culture. They were sold socialism and they bought it.
No, actually, it's like we demanded it.
Yes, yes. I mean, definitely, Hugo Schaffers wasn't a wolf in sheep's clothing.
He was a wolf in wolves' clothing.
He was an out-and-out, I'm going to take a whole bunch of money from rich people and give it to y'all.
Well, even if that was the exact...
Politics that he wanted to sell, we would have taken it.
I mean, you have to understand that the reason why Chavez came into power was because there's so many people who thought that because they are Venezuelan, they deserve all of the richness that was created by principally many foreigners.
Yeah. Yeah, no, he taxed the hell out of the oil companies, nationalized a bunch of stuff and ran up the debt and the usual socialist nightmare, which feels great for a half a decade and then results in a century of misery.
But I want to clarify that it wasn't just him.
There were a lot of policies like there was a nationalization of oil before him.
Culturally, we've just always had this idea that we should be a mono-economy or mono-culture in the sense that we can and should depend on oil because it's easy money.
All these other things that involve the development of a civilization like the mass adaptation of engineering and science and technology.
This is the horrible thing that happens, which is that dumb people vote for free stuff.
It turns to crappy times, and then sometimes only the smarts survive, and that's how nature rescues society from dumb people.
It's a horrible, horrible cycle, and I wish it wasn't the case, but it's just the way it works.
Yeah, absolutely. And I don't know where Venezuela stands exactly on IQ rankings.
84. 84.
So, not very high. Yeah, 84.
It's Detroit. So, is this guy a lefty?
Do you know what his politics are?
Is he like, we miss Chavez, we'd like to bring him back from the dead and dance to him like African people trying not to avoid a plague?
Well, so he doesn't...
Particularly like Chavez, but doesn't attribute many of the problems in Venezuela to him.
He thinks Madura is the devil, which is fine.
Is he smart?
No, I don't think so.
Is he like average for Venezuela?
Perhaps, but I don't have the highest IQ. I actually haven't officially taken an IQ exam.
If you're listening to this show, trust me, you're up there.
Well, based on the results from practice exams, I'm above average.
That's clear.
I'm also – based on my work and the type of people who I can work with – No, this is funny.
This is all that should happen in hiring places across – Well, so I am not the arbiter of intelligence,
but I do believe that there are Definitely some indicators that people who are not well versed in intelligence and IQ can understand.
I'll just give you a quick example.
He claims to have been a recipient of a scholarship for an engineering program there.
I thought that this was interesting because one of the Sort of fundamental practices of, I think, every single engineering practice is calculus and obviously quite a lot of advanced algebra or sometimes trigonometry or some sort of area of math that you have to be pretty good at.
And I remember I was trying to gauge exactly how much math and science He could do because I was interested in getting him involved in programming as we see that technology is probably the fastest-growing sector.
He's young. He has a lot of time to get involved in technology and develop some great skills.
I know that you have a background in that, so obviously there's something for you to fall back on.
As I was...
I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to hurry.
So he claimed to know a lot about math, but he doesn't know much about math.
No, he can't do basic arithmetic.
He can't do basic arithmetic.
Okay, see now you could have just told me that and saved myself five minutes.
All right, we gotta keep keep this hustling along because there's a lot to cover and I want to make sure we get to your issues and time is obviously limited for each caller.
So he's he's dumb as a bag of hammers, right?
Yes, but my point about mentioning the fact that he received the scholarship for this program is that, well, something's wrong there.
Because if you can't do basic math and can't convince me that you have the skills to be in— No, he's lying.
He's either lying or it's like the kind of thing where it's back of a matchbook.
I checked off! That I'd love to become a dental assistant, and it's basically the same as being accepted to dentistry school, like the drummer for Queen.
But, yeah, so he's either lying, he's dumb, or, like, it's just some ridiculously low standard for him to get into something like that.
So, okay, yeah, so, of course.
And, you know, when you lie, you want the short-term benefit of lying rather than the long-term benefits of people trusting you.
And so, yeah, he's dumb, and he's not a nice guy, not an honest guy.
Did you know this about him before you brought him over?
Not entirely, but I had my suspicions.
Okay, from one, from zero to 100%, 100% being what you have now, what percentage were you before he came over?
Maybe like 60 to 70%.
So why did you do it?
Well, because I had faith in him.
No, that's not an answer.
Why did you do it? Because there had to be a reason why you wanted to have faith in him.
Oh, absolutely.
Why would I have faith in him?
No, why do you want to have faith in him?
Why did you do it? Why did you bring him over?
Because you had to sign the paperwork to bring him over, right?
Correct. Look, I'm just asking the question without any particular good or bad, but why did you do it?
Yeah, I thought that it would be a good opportunity for him.
And one of the reasons why I even brought him in the first place, because signing that paperwork happened later.
So I made that decision after several months.
I brought him over simply because I thought he was in a really bad situation.
I had started a business with another family member, and I thought that he could provide labor for us, and we can just help him out and get him out of this situation.
And did he end up working for you?
He did. And how's that working out?
Not so well. Why is that?
Because he doesn't seem to understand how businesses need to form.
Because he's done. Yeah.
But I gave him the simplest tasks that I thought he could handle and apparently...
He can only do—well, he can do these things.
This is a problem. It's not just—it's like he's—I remember you mentioning this in a program once in one of your—I don't know.
It was another one of your shows.
But you mentioned that a lot of criminals have enough of a high IQ to be able to commit a crime or to figure out a way to get their reward.
But not understand that they can apply that type of intelligence into other fields.
I think that's sort of what's going on.
So is he – I mean, I would assume he has personal flaws over and above the ones that he's not responsible for.
It's not his fault that he's dumb any more than it's somebody's fault that he's short, right?
I mean, but you don't take the five-foot-two guy and put him in the NBA. Even if he's hardworking, he's just not going to be able to jump as much, right?
Yeah. So, does he have personal flaws that you feel are unrelated to his low IQ, like entitlement or laziness or pomposity or vanity or I should be above this or other?
You know, you can be IQ 85 and you can be a good, hardworking, sensible person.
It doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be unproductive.
It's just, you know, you can be a short person and you can still play baseball or basketball in your neighborhood, right?
So does he have personal flaws over and above the IQ issues or the intelligence issues that are further interfering with his productive ability?
Absolutely. And that's the reason why there's this conflict.
And what are they? Well, we've mentioned them throughout this conversation.
So the fact that he's lied about certain things and he believes that he can...
Well, he believes that he can lie to me and that I'll believe those lies, right?
You know, that's one aspect. The laziness is another.
The entitlement is another.
And then I think that his willingness to embrace some family values, which I think have been very problematic throughout my family.
And what are those?
Well, there's a welfare state mentality.
Oh, like the American taxpayer owes him a living just because he's breathing and that's about it?
No. More like if someone in my family is doing well and has money well, then I deserve a portion of that.
Oh, I see.
A bit more of a personal welfare state.
Correct. Okay, okay.
Is that person you?
No. That's who I started my business in.
And does your family, did your family know this about him before he came over?
I believe so.
The difference being that they may not have wanted to believe that this was going to be a problem.
What? They knew that he was entitled dumb and lazy, but they didn't think it would be a problem?
Well, you don't know my family.
I think I'm getting there, though.
And you also don't really know my culture, because that's kind of a big problem.
That's how we ended up in the situation that we have.
Right. Right.
Well, is he on government assistance at the moment, or is it mostly just family helping him out?
No, it's us. Right.
And how many members of your family are on welfare?
If any. Oh, maybe.
Do you mean our internal welfare?
No, no, no. Yeah, let's start with government welfare first.
Oh, I don't think there are any.
Maybe one, possibly, like unemployment.
Right, okay. And in terms of, well, personal welfare, you know, if the money's being earned, it can be handed out internally to a family with no particular larger moral questions or issues.
There may be some aesthetic ones.
So, you kind of brought him in.
Giving him access to America, which kind of isn't yours to give.
I mean, I know the laws say you can do it, but morally, it's not really yours to give.
It's not like you or I, you know, built America, and therefore we can hold it out as a reward to people, right?
Absolutely. And what do you think, not what do you think, what do you know is going to go on with this guy in the future?
What's going to happen with him?
He might end up okay.
I'm not really sure.
What? How old is he? You said 19, right?
Yeah. Okay, so his personality was formed 14 years ago, pretty much.
So what's going to change? Well, you mentioned this actually with the other callers.
Actually, you mentioned this in terms of your daughter and how you're raising her.
You provide the right incentives and the right conditions and You can shape behavior.
And that's sort of what I... No, but he's an adult.
He's not a toddler. Well, of course, it's much harder.
What makes you think it's possible at all?
Well, I don't think he wants to go back to Venezuela.
That's one. I also think that...
Look, it's definitely not set in stone, but there are enough people even with low IQs who, if they find themselves in a situation where they could potentially lose a lot...
Oh, so if you threaten him with deportation, he might change?
Slightly, perhaps.
But then when the threat of deportation is lifted, let's say he gets some sort of permanent status, then he's just going to fall back into his laziness, isn't he?
I don't necessarily think so.
And the reason why is because if let's say that the threat of deportation, which is sort of the case right now, made him seek work and he had to work hard and pay his bills and then pay for his schooling or whatever other opportunity that he might want.
Do you really believe that he's going to then abandon all of that and attempt to get on public welfare?
Well, I don't know because I don't know him, but I certainly know that there are lots of people who get jobs, and if the welfare rates go up, they quit and go on welfare.
And there are people who, when the welfare rates go down, they quit welfare and get a job.
So there are direct financial incentives, and if he's not that smart, then he's not going to do very well in the free market.
And therefore, the value of the welfare state is going to be proportionately higher to him than it would be for you, for instance.
So again, I don't know, but there are certainly some incentives that would pull him in the wrong direction.
Strong ones, too. There are some of them, and that's true.
I don't know what he would be receiving under welfare, but...
In the U.S., if you start working hard and you actually gain experience, you can make quite a bit of money.
No, no.
No, see, I mean, if he's not smart, right, if he say he's the average Venezuelan IQ of 84, he's not going to make a lot of money.
IQ and income are very, very closely related.
There's no magic.
I mean, I guess he could win the lottery, but that's not going to make him happy because low IQ people who win the lottery just end up more miserable.
And of course, if he knocks some woman up, then he and the baby mom are going to go on welfare, or at least she will, and that lowers his incentive to work.
But no, if he's not smart, I mean, even if we take out the factor of his personal failings of entitlement or arrogance or laziness or whatever, you just look at the IQ, it's a very, very strong predictor of income.
There aren't people who run companies with an IQ of 84.
Like, there just aren't. Because IQ 84 people can't do it.
It's like asking a blind man to review your painting.
It's not going to happen.
If you combine the low IQ with the personal failings as well, that makes it even worse.
I'm just telling you, I can't predict the future and I don't know this guy, but statistically, he's not going to do well.
Well, I think it's obvious that he's not going to do well.
I know a lot of poor people who at a very early age were able to become successful because they had a high IQ. They just didn't have money.
That's not his case. Oh, you mean because he might have money that he might do well?
No, no. I mean that given the fact that I brought him to the richest country in the world and I have a skill set that Well, it's quite marketable.
Hang on, hang on.
Sorry to interrupt, Goose, but it's the richest country in the world because it's not full of IQ84 people.
If it were full of IQ84 people, it would be exactly like every other IQ84 country in the world.
Like Venezuela. So saying that he has this great opportunity as an IQ 84 people in the richest country, he's got more opportunity perhaps than he would have had in Venezuela.
But again, you have the undertow of the welfare state and you have the undertow of he could get a woman knocked up and then you get all kinds of government benefits pouring into the household, which makes it tougher to get up and go and work at a very not rewarding job.
But it's not like there's this magic sauce in the air that creates incredible opportunities for IQ 84 people in America.
There isn't. It's like, you know, there's tall people who, like, there's lots of money in the NBA because America is a very rich country and people like to watch sports.
That still doesn't mean that somebody who's 5'2 can make it in the NBA. Does that make any sense?
If everybody in America was 5'2, there'd be no NBA. Sure, I think there's one of these players who's very short, but, you know, it's an exception, right?
I understand what you're saying.
It's just, you know, the most obvious one I can think of.
I know there's an exception, but it's the easiest one for people to usually visualize.
Well, but so you mentioned about...
Well, whether or not he...
I mean, we're really talking about whether he can adapt, and I think that that's what I realized at some point...
Listen, I'll cut to the chase here, because we can go back and forth about this, and we're dealing with statistical averages for the most part, so they're of limited utility.
So I'll tell you my sort of mental test for this.
The way that I look at immigration goes something like this.
If I'm looking at someone...
And I say to myself, okay, pretend there was no welfare state, no government-run education, no socialized healthcare, no nothing, right?
And this guy, who I'm thinking of bringing over to the country, this guy is like a business.
Now, I've been an owner in a business.
When you're an owner in a business, you make the profits, but you also are responsible for the losses.
Like I personally signed staggering loans to cover payroll while we were waiting for a big order to come in.
And, you know, it was pretty nerve-wracking stuff.
Boy, it really focuses your ambition pretty strongly.
Yeah. So the way I look at it is something like this.
If this guy was a personal investment of mine, like he comes over and I'm going to get...
25% of the money he makes, or I'm going to pay 25% of the losses he incurs.
Would I do it? And not just him, but his children and his children's, like, my children are going to be bound into this as well.
Now, if it's some neurosurgeon from Denmark, let's say, not that complicated.
Right? Because he's gonna make a lot of money and I'll get my 25% and, you know, his kids are probably gonna be pretty smart and they're gonna have good opportunities and so, you know, that's pretty good.
Also that means that if he goes to jail, I also get 25% of his jail time.
Like, all the pluses and all the minuses are tied to me personally and directly.
If he knocks up a woman, then she has to move into my house.
I mean, if he knocks up a woman, they're not married, he can't support her, she's going to move into my house, and I'm going to have to help raise and pay for that kid.
If he knocks over a liquor store and does four years in prison, I have to do a year in prison.
If he makes a million dollars, I get a quarter of a million dollars.
If he costs the system a million dollars, I have to pay $250,000 into the system.
Like, just imagine that you're...
Economic life was directly tied to this person and your children's economic life were directly tied to his children.
You understand the scenario as a whole, right?
Well, that's why I formed this question.
Right. So, if that were the case, right, if you were directly tied to the pluses and minuses of this guy's actions for the rest of his and your natural life and your children were directly tied to his children's successes and failures for the rest of their natural lives and it kind of went on forever, what would you do with him now?
Would you keep him or would you send him back?
Well, I don't know why you're asking me this question.
It's obvious that I would send him back, but the problem is...
No, no, no. That's all I asked.
So you would send him back if you were personally responsible for the pluses and minuses he created or cost society?
Yeah, if it was a loss.
Well, that's your answer.
Except you're not looking at the other portion of the question, which is that even that being the case...
There are these other social issues going on.
A lot of people have begun really wanting to attack me because they feel like what I'm doing is inhumane.
I don't necessarily think that way.
Oh, like your friends and family, right?
Yeah, correct. Yeah, that's tough.
That's tough. Sometimes you have to make a tough decision in life.
I don't know what to say. Yeah, I'm going to have to piss off a lot of people if I do that.
And one of those people is my business partner who thinks that this situation can be remedied.
Sure, listen. I mean, it's easy to be generous with other people's money.
I'm not accusing you of this, but other people.
It's easy to say, let's be humane, let's be nice, let's be wonderful.
Oh, King Kong of moral posturing standing on top of the...
Empire state building of ultimate virtue signaling cuckery, right?
I mean, of course it's easy to be generous with other people's money when you're not personally paying for anything.
Yeah, sure, let's be generous.
Let's open up the borders. Let's not deport people.
Let's be nice. Right?
I mean, I understand that, of course, but I don't care what people's moral opinions are unless they're paying something.
Like, I don't care.
I mean, I don't care what your family's moral opinions are.
They're not paying directly.
So what does it matter?
Would you like things to be better in some abstract manner in the world?
Sure! Do you want to pay $10 for it?
No. Okay, well, I'll take your second answer over your first one because, not yours, but the first answer is meaningless.
They're not paying. Now, the reason I ask The question about whether you would tie your economic and legal fortunes to the person you're bringing into the country is because those are actual facts.
That is actually what's happening.
It's all clouded by taxes and debt and money printing.
But these are the actual realities, is that the people that you're bringing into are tied to your and your children's financial future, for better and for worse.
Because if that person commits a crime, your kids are going to go to tax jail for a certain amount of time because they're going to have to pay for him, which means they get to work for no pay, to be a slave, to pay the taxes, to keep this guy in prison.
If he ends up on welfare, they're put in welfare jail, welfare tax jail.
They've got to work without recompense to transfer the money to this guy because he's on welfare.
Or if he just takes bad care of his health and he ends up running to emergency every third week for some injury or maybe he gets diabetes and then your kids go to medical tax jail to work without pay like a slave to hand over money to this guy.
Now, if he goes and founds a company and makes $10 million a year, well, that boosts the economy.
That helps people get jobs and you participate as a member of that society in all of those good things.
But to make it a real issue, that's why this exercise, you say, you don't know why I'm asking it.
Well, this is important. Because that's the reality.
That people cost money or they create money when they come into your country and their children and their children's children and their children's children's children will be part of your society unless something radical occurs.
In which case, that is the instinct, the gut level.
Like, we don't weigh things intelligently when they're all abstract.
But when you make them personal, That's when we actually weigh things.
You understand? Can we be nice with other people's money?
Well, then anyone who says no is just mean, because it's not costing them anything, but they're still saying no.
But if you think about it in terms of what it costs or benefits you and your children directly, that is a real equation.
And this is what people say, oh, we should get all these migrants coming.
Okay, well, open your house.
And bring them in. J.K. Rowling, George Clooney, Emma Thompson, et al., right, to go from Paul Joseph Watson's great videos on the subject.
All these people who live in all white gated communities seem to be very keen on migrants.
And George Clooney had a house, a villa, I guess, a hugely expensive villa in Italy until the migrants moved in.
And then he left and fled to America because it was too dangerous an environment to raise his children in.
Ooh, even with the security, even with the gated communities, even with the high walls with barbed wire and the roving darks, too dangerous.
So, I don't care, like when people say, oh, it'd be nice to have this, it'd be nice to do that, sure, let's give healthcare to the poor and let's give money to this and migrants to that.
If you don't have any skin in the game, you're worse than useless.
So the fact that your relatives think it would be nice for you to take America's tax money and give it to your potted plant brain family member, why do I care?
I mean, I know you care.
I mean, they're a family and so on.
But just explain it to them and say, listen, it's not our country.
It's not my country. It's not your country.
It's nobody's country as far as you get to make decisions that impact other people's taxes that way.
So I don't get to give him America's tax money.
I don't get to give him citizenship or residency or any kind of legal status in America because he's not working, he's not contributing, and he's not smart.
And I don't have the right to inflict him on the American taxpayer.
It's not my country to give away.
He's also immoral and Not helping my business grow and actually cost us money at some point.
Oh, yeah. And he's a liar. Because he says he's got an engineering scholarship and, you know, he can't do basic addition, right?
So he's a liar.
He's entitled. He's lazy.
He's annoying. He's pompous.
I mean, think of how much time and energy you've wasted on this.
Yeah. How much? Give me a sense.
How many hours you've been thinking and worrying and wondering about this and managing him and trying to undo the damage he did to your business?
Oh, too many. Too many.
I mean, it used to be that if you wanted an immigrant to come in, you had to sign a piece of paper saying that you were responsible for what they did.
I don't think that's the case in many places anymore, but that was a way of making it real.
That was a great vetting process, right?
You know, if they come here and they end up shooting up a Christmas party, you're going to jail.
Huh, now we've got some great vetting.
If they end up on public assistance, we're taking the money out of your house, your bank account.
Co-sign your immigrant.
They are attached to you now, legally and financially.
That's a great way of vetting things, and that's how things used to work before the welfare state, of course.
Yeah, and that's one of the reasons why you just mentioned how there's all these celebrities who argue that we should take in refugees.
And for all the people in my social circle who were very angry at me for voting for Trump and said, first of all, I thought that was interesting because they said, you know, oh, he's anti-immigrant and all these Trump supporters are like that.
I'm like, I'm a Trump supporter and I just brought one in.
If you're so pro-immigrant, why don't you take in this person?
And I said the same thing to my family.
I said, well, you know, I can always just transfer all the documents over to you, and you can be responsible for this person financially.
Did they do that? Absolutely not.
No, no, of course not. It's a lot more fun to LARP at ethics than to actually be good, right?
Yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, you have the answer, I think, in your gut, if you think of tying yourself and your children to his...
Future. So, yeah, people will be upset with you.
Yeah, I mainly just worry about the person who I'm doing business with because, you know, I think that she's rational enough to understand what my value is, like how much money I can actually produce for the business.
Does she have kids?
Well, she's my mother, so yes, me.
Oh, you're working with your mom and your mom is very keen on the other relative, the one you brought in?
Just give him one more chance.
Yeah, because she's a woman.
Yes. She's a woman, so the one more chance is kind of key to femininity, and it's why everyone at BuzzFeed has no testosterone.
Yeah, and the males who I talk to in my family are like, well, you know, he's got to go, or...
Goose, don't you know? You're part of a patriarchy.
Just do what men do and take the consequences.
Man, you have all of this male privilege.
You've got penis power.
Wield it like the mighty scepter that it is.
Yeah, and I think that although, you know, your arguments are sound, right?
You're providing evidence for your reason about why he will likely not develop and become more successful.
But I did feel like if it wasn't for all these women interfering in my family, that I could have actually whipped him into shape.
I think all of them defending him and constantly telling him that, oh, it's okay, or, you know, You know, telling me that I should be easier on him in front of him.
Sorry to interrupt, but all you have to do then is if you end up sending it back, just say, and the ladies get upset, just say, well, it's your damn fault I had to send him back because you babied him.
All right. I appreciate the question, and we're going to move on to the next caller, but I wish you the very best of luck.
Do let us know how it shakes out.
Thank you. Alright, up next we have Grace.
Grace wrote in and said, However, when I talk to him I connect on a deep level.
I really care about him, but don't want to be wasting time on someone who can't provide me with the life I want.
I see potential, but I'm not sure how much time we have.
There's been some tension in my family with me dating him, but they've never met him, and he's come a long way in improving himself since I've known him about a year.
I've seen a bit of a rift form between myself and my family, but I also wonder if that's just part of me growing up and starting my own life.
What can I do to help him help myself and stay right with my family?
That's from Grace. Well, hey, Grace.
How are you doing tonight? I'm doing well, Stefan.
How are you? Good. You didn't sponsor this guy from Mogadishu, did you?
No, sir. Not at all.
Just checking. Or Poland, for that matter.
All right. And how old are you guys?
I'm 25 and he's 30.
Hmm. I thought this could be a long call.
Might not be. He's 30.
No career. Yeah, I mean, I kind of had an idea of what you'd say.
How pretty is he, Grace?
I mean, I think he's cute.
Give me a 1 to 10 here.
Well, I mean, objectively, I guess a 7.
And where are you at? Well, I mean, me?
I... Probably about a seven if I lost weight and eight.
And how much overweight are you?
Like probably 20 pounds.
Right. Okay. And have you been overweight for a while?
About maybe a year or so.
Okay. And what happened?
You say you've known this guy for a year and you also gained 20 pounds in a year.
Well, I mean, I don't know about 20 pounds, but it's like People don't think I'm fat, but I think I am because I know I am.
I weigh too much, and I used to be really fit, but I would run every day, and I ended up, like, I was losing weight this past spring.
I had lost, like, 15 pounds, and it ended up slowly coming back because I quit running because I was just exhausted by working so much and my job, and there was one day I was like, I just need to stop and take some days off because I literally ran every day, so I just kind of stopped.
And without that good habit, I gained weight.
So that's what happened. Well, not without that good habit.
It's that you kept eating as much even though you weren't running.
Well, yeah. Yeah.
No, it's funny for me. Like if I occasionally I'll get injuries, like I'll push myself too hard for a workout and then I can't work out.
And you know what's fascinating is I just...
My eating declines enormously because it's like, yeah, less fire, less wood.
So anyway. And...
It's interesting to me because you talked about some stuff which I assume, well, and some of which, of course, are not his fault, death in the family and so on.
What about the medical issues?
Are they lifestyle-related or just kind of bad luck that you know of?
Bad genetic luck.
Bad genetic luck, okay.
Yeah, it's just heart problems and it's just he can't really gain weight, so that's pretty much it.
Heart problems? What are we talking?
Like an enlarged aorta.
He can't overexert himself too much or there's a risk of his aneurysm bursting.
Holy crap! So he's also like a blood bag time bomb as well, right?
Kind of, but it's not super bad.
I mean, he's been to the doctor and he's gonna get it checked again and there's a certain enlargement level that requires surgery and he hasn't been there yet.
And what has been his problems with alcohol?
It just was the path, like, I think it was a few months before I met him is when he got started, because he moved in with a roommate, and they really just coped that way, and he cut back back in March or so when we started dating.
He used to drink a lot every day, but then he stopped when I, you know, I started hanging out with him and his roommate a lot, and I would tell them all the time, I was like, I'm worried about your livers, guys, this is stupid, you need to stop.
And so, you know, as we started dating, he would replace drinks with water, drink water more and more.
And he actually stopped drinking as much and had a much lower tolerance.
When we did go out with our friends, he wasn't buying nearly as many drinks or any of that.
So he improved a lot.
He just was coping the wrong way when he was with this roommate.
And what does he do for money?
How does he make money? We worked at a restaurant.
That's how I met him.
And he's on the promotion track.
Wait, but what does he do in the restaurant?
Right now, he's a trainer and he's trying to be a supervisor.
A trainer in what? Just production at the restaurant.
I don't know what that means.
I mean, I know about the restaurant business.
I've worked in restaurants for years.
Just making food.
But like a cook? No, it was like...
Kind of like fast food, but a little bit better.
It's just quick turnover, you know.
And what does he make an hour? Eleven dollars.
So he's 30 and he's making 11 bucks an hour.
Mm-hmm. And any benefits?
Yes, he has insurance.
Right. And whatever else, you know, the typical benefit stuff.
Okay. And how many hours a week does he work?
At least $38 or so.
He tries to get overtime when he can and he's one of the only people they'll give it to.
Oh yeah, he's number one of the $11 an hour people, right?
Basically, he'll work up to like $60 if he can.
And if he gets supervisor, what does he make?
It's going to be negotiated, but hopefully at least a few dollars more.
I'm not really sure how all that works.
So it could go to like 13 or 14 bucks an hour if he gets a promotion.
Right. Right.
And from there? From there, he's thinking about moving to a factory because he's just trying to get a couple drinks.
Wait, what? Sorry, he wants a promotion at the restaurant so he can move to a factory?
Well, it's just in the meantime, because he has insurance through this company, and he wants to get a couple surgeries taken care of, use his PTO to recover, have some downtime, and then while he's recovering, he's going to find a new job where his friend works, and it pays very well, and they do raises very frequently, and there's just a lot of potential there, so...
We've already, we were already talking about him moving, but, you know, I've really, he's also come to this conclusion himself to just go ahead and get these surgeries while he has this really good insurance.
And then after he recovers, look for a- So he's going to end up costing far more than he's making.
Because he's going to get thousands of dollars in surgeries, but hang around on 11 bucks an hour, right?
I know that the employer is not paying for it directly, but it ends up reflected in the premiums, right?
Right. And what do you think of that?
Well, I think that I, we both worked there for, I worked there almost a year and it was, it's kind of frustrating because the good thing about this business is that you can have a flexible schedule and we stuck around and you did get benefits and there's the potential for overtime.
So it's kind of like in the short term, it's worth it to stick around.
But as we both consider our futures, we were kind of like, we need other options.
Like I already have a better job.
In a nicer place.
And it's not a restaurant. I work in healthcare now.
And so he's going to move on to a better job soon too.
After, you know, we re-evaluated both our situations.
I'm sorry to interrupt. So I guess he graduated high school at 17.
What's he been up to for the last 13 years?
That is, he's done various jobs.
He used to live in another state.
And he did some various jobs here and there.
He worked at Other factories in his state, but he uprooted when his mother had cancer, and that's why he's in my state, and he's only been there three years.
Sorry, did he have jobs that had any kind of growth or anything he could use reference as a stepping stone to anything better?
Because it sounds like he spent 13 years working his way up to 11 bucks an hour, which doesn't sound great to me.
Yeah, I know. I don't really know what he used to do, honestly, because I guess I just haven't really pressed him on all of that.
We've talked a little bit about where he came from, but he said, yeah, it was just various factory jobs, and that's all I really know right now, honestly.
All right. Now, you said that he's improved a lot over the last year that you've known him.
You said he's come a long way in improving himself since I've known him for about a year.
Yes. In what way has he improved himself?
You mentioned the drinking. What else?
It's mostly been the better health habits and a better attitude at work because if you can imagine, someone who was drinking a lot didn't really have the best attitude and take things too seriously at work.
Substance abuse in a restaurant?
Whatever next! No, not...
Right, right. I mean, you ever see Gordon Ramsay checking his employee washroom for cocaine?
Oh my god. Alright, go on.
I just mean, you know, he drank a lot.
And so when he's at work, when you're at work, you're stressed out and he just didn't care about, he just acted like he didn't care about anything.
And once, you know, we started dating and I was talking about, you know, you're doing this and this and this.
And how do you think that looks?
Are you, you need to cut back on this?
It would be a good idea. And he, so he started working really hard at work and that's why they started considering him for promotion.
Because he changed a lot in his attitude and started working harder and better.
But why would you want...
I mean, so you've...
I don't want to say nagged, but you've nagged him to get better with regards to work habits and optimism and drinking and so on.
But why would you want to play Little Miss Fix It this way?
Like, fixer-upper. Why don't you choose a guy who's functional rather than try and make a guy who's functional?
It's just because when we've developed a friendship, like when I would hang out with him, we could talk about all kinds of things, like topics that are important to me, like similar to the ones you discuss, you know, with other people on your show.
Well sure, so he's a good friend.
Okay, he's someone you can talk about things with, but that's different from the father of your children, right?
If that's what you want. Well, he has always treated me very well, and he's a real gentleman.
Well, you'd want that from your friend, right?
You wouldn't want a friend who didn't treat you well, so I'm still not sure how he gets upgraded to potential father of the kids.
I guess it's just the way I feel about him.
I can't really think of something to say other than I just love him.
I have a good connection with him.
And what do you love about him?
I just want to spend a lot of time with him.
What do you love about him? His personality?
Be a little more specific.
That's like saying he's carbon-based.
Everyone has a personality, so what do you love?
I'm not saying you don't love him. I just want to know what you love about him.
No, I understand. It's hard to put in words.
I mean, I guess it is for me, but I love his sense of humor, and he is smart.
I mean, we can talk about a lot of things, and he's witty, and I like how he treats other people.
He's a really nice person, and people like to talk to him.
He's really good with strangers.
He can start a conversation, and he knows a lot of interesting things, and so he's just really good to talk to and hang out with.
I'm not disagreeing with you.
I'm just trying to square the circle that's, I'm sure, just in my mind, Grace, which was that you said that he was kind of nihilistic or negative at work, but you're saying he's sort of very positive and popular.
I'm just trying to understand this.
Help me resolve that. I understand.
It was really just, he was, I feel like, personally, from what I could tell about him, because it was not making sense that he would work very hard and try to do a good job and Help out other people at work and then say things like, oh, nothing matters.
Who needs love? Blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, you don't mean that.
It was inconsistent with his behavior.
So once I started talking to him about it, it was like coming out that he just didn't...
He was just kind of miserable and didn't...
He didn't know how to...
I don't know. I guess he had a lot of feelings that he hadn't worked out.
And... Once he started talking about them with me and kind of making sense of everything, he just dropped the negativity.
He realized it was a stupid way to be acting.
So he said, nothing matters.
Who needs love? So, pretty nihilistic, right?
Yes. And he was drinking a lot of the time?
Yes. And how long, do you know, has he abused alcohol for?
It probably was about, it might have been a year or a little less, because it was really just as long as he lived with that dude, and I know he didn't even live with him a full year.
Wait, so he didn't have any alcohol problems before he lived with this guy?
No, it was, they just started, it was like this social thing, having parties, and they just, that's what they did together.
So this guy's a bit of a conformist, right?
Because this other guy, like, he's got heart issues and he's drinking.
That's not a great combination, obviously, as far as I can imagine.
But so he's like, oh, this guy drinks.
I'll drink. Oh, Grace wants me to change.
I'll change. Grace wants me to stop drinking.
I'll stop drinking. Grace wants me to be more positive.
I'll be more positive. Like, who is he?
I mean, I guess, like, unfortunately, I know he's 30, but I guess he's still sort of...
Finding that out.
Because I had him take the ACE test.
Yeah, I was going to ask about that. And he got a high score.
He was a 6 or a 7, he said.
Wait, did you not review it with him?
Did you not talk about it with him?
Well, no, no. We have talked about it.
We've talked a lot about his life and his history.
And that's how I knew.
I was like, he's been through a lot.
And I only had him take it just because I was taking it for this phone call.
Sure, right. And he... That's what he said, and he said it would be a six or seven, and I knew that because I knew he had a stepdad.
I knew his mom had been physically abused, and she's also dead now, and so is his younger brother.
What happened to his younger brother?
Well, he had a brain tumor, and he was just found dead on a couch at somebody else's house one day.
Did he not know he had a tumor, huh?
Nobody knew. He was pretty young.
Wow, that's terrible. And he had had some erratic behaviors before it happened.
So they're thinking like he was doing those things because of it.
And no one really knew because they thought he was just being a bad kid.
Right, right, okay. It could have been that.
Right. And he passed away a couple months after his mother did.
And that was only like three or two years ago.
And do you want to get married and have kids?
I do. And does he?
Yes. How many kids do you want?
I want at least three, I would say.
How's that going to happen on $12 or $13 or $14 an hour?
Oh, because you might work in a factory, right?
It's obviously not going to.
Well, it could, it just would be challenging.
Right, right. You know, people had kids in the Great Depression, right?
True. So, is it because he could work in a factory?
I mean, I think that, I think he can figure it out and he will make it work because we've had this discussion and I've said, you know, I want to have a family and we need to be provided for because I'd like to be a housewife.
I don't mind working, but when I have kids, I don't want to and I want to homeschool them.
And so, he realizes this and if we're not going to have, if it's not going to turn out that He could provide for a family.
Then I've said, it's not going to happen.
And so we're both very motivated right now to try to, you know, he wants to get a much better job after he gets his health in order.
And I'm working right now trying to save up with a, you know, much better job than the restaurant one.
And then he's going to transition to getting a new job as well.
So like we sort of have a plan.
It's just going to take some time to get it in order.
And why does your family not like him, Grace?
Because of his alcohol problems, and he did have a DUI, which he...
I mean, I don't know all the details, but he had been taking pain medication because he does also have a hernia.
And if you have any amount of a drink with a medication that you're not supposed to drink with, it's driving while impaired.
So that's happened to him, and he was on...
I guess probation it is for the amount of time he was supposed to and he went to his classes and paid his fines and all that so that had happened and I knew about it when I first met him but I've had a family member very close to me in the house who's also had a DUI who worked through it and did all the proper steps and you know has is doing well so I saw you know I don't know.
It's just like they were really wary of that fact but I wasn't so much because I've seen people do the right thing and it's never gonna happen again.
So he was on pain medication, he drank alcohol and he drove a car?
Yes. And he drove a car I assume badly enough that he got pulled over?
No, he'd actually been hit by someone else and the person took fault but the Maybe it was badly.
Maybe he seemed bad to the officer.
I don't really know. Obviously, I wasn't with him at the time, so I don't really know all the details, but he only got looked at because there was an accident.
Right. Okay. Okay.
Well, obviously, there are some challenges.
You know, health challenges.
I guess he's only spent a small amount of time drinking.
I would go over his ACE in more detail, adverse childhood experience.
But... If you love him, and he's the guy for you, and you're willing to live with these things, I mean, it's going to be a challenge financially.
You know, people don't tend to change a huge amount.
Now, you say, well, he's smart.
But if he's smart and making $11 an hour in a restaurant, that to me is worse.
Because it means he's got potential.
He could be doing better things with his life.
But you met him, and he's like a 29-year-old nihilist.
Making dark change in a restaurant.
But smart and funny and charismatic and people like him.
It's like, well, why the hell is he doing so little with his life then?
Do you know the answer to that?
I mean, what I would think is like depression because I ended up there when I had nothing really.
I felt at the time going for me and I was lost and I didn't know what to do.
And so I... Because, I mean, I'm 25.
I shouldn't be working at a restaurant.
But I majored in the wrong thing.
And I had tried to go to grad school and picked this job up while I was in grad school.
But I also don't like university anymore for, you know, a lot of the indoctrination reasons.
And I was kind of like, I was just going because it's what you do.
Oh, you're supposed to get a degree.
You should get a master's. It shows you're really smart.
I was kind of buying into that for a minute.
And I decided not to.
But I kept the restaurant job for a while just because it was working and then I moved on to this other job.
So I was just kind of lost myself.
I imagine it's a similar thing.
Because when you're depressed, you don't really do the best for yourself when you're not thinking right.
And he just didn't know how to change his thought patterns.
because I went through the same thing personally.
Hmm.
So I'll tell you what I'm getting from the conversation, which I'm really enjoying, and I appreciate you sharing this level of detail.
I really do. So, you want to be with this guy, and the reason I say that, of course, is when I've raised a few red flags, you've basically given me answers or avoidances or evasions or excuses, not all of which are terrible or anything like that.
But you're not curious about my reservations.
It's not blaming or criticizing.
I'm just sort of pointing out what I'm experiencing.
That there are certainly some red flags kicking around here, right?
I'm sure you're aware of that.
But when I bring them up or when you bring them up, you don't...
You explain them away.
And you give him excuses.
And what that means is you really want to be with him.
Right. So I don't think there's anything I could say that would change your mind, if that makes sense.
No, I understand. That's part of why I called is because I'm just kind of like confused as to why I do just wave things away.
Like, I do want to be with him and I want to make it work and I'll probably end up doing that.
But that's where the friction is with my family.
It's like, they don't get it.
Because I came to all these conclusions myself and for the longest time I was trying to avoid dating him just because I was like, you know, the health thing?
Wow. Or this or that.
Broken family. But I just...
Felt the way I felt, you know?
I didn't know what else to do.
But the feelings won't last.
You know that, right? I mean...
You can't base a marriage on feelings.
I know that sounds like marriage is, but you shared values and admiration and respect and ethics and virtue, like all the stuff I write about in real-time relationships.
Free! Just for today and every other day at freedomainradio.com slash free.
But feelings won't sustain the relationship.
I mean, if feelings sustained the relationship, everyone would stay married.
Because everybody, pretty much everybody's happy on their wedding day, right?
And excited to be married and looking forward to the honeymoon and So feelings don't sustain a marriage.
It's like saying feelings will make you healthy.
No. You have a desire to be healthy.
You have a desire for a happy marriage, but it's what you do that counts and what the other person does that counts.
Love is our involuntary response to virtue, if we ourselves are virtuous.
If there are virtues, like I asked you, what do you love about him?
You said, he's funny, he's smart, he's chatty, and he knows things.
None of those are virtues.
None. Whatsoever.
And I said, well, what's positive that he's done?
Over the last year.
And all you gave me, Grace, was he's less negative.
He has removed some negatives.
That's not the same as a positive.
And he's got a heart issue.
He's got a hernia issue.
He comes with potential significant liabilities.
Medically. His family, I assume, is problematic, to put it mildly.
Your family doesn't like him.
So the real question is, Grace, not what you would want.
Because marriage is about children.
Would your children want him the most of anyone you could get to be their father?
Would your children want this man the most?
Would your children choose him as the best father?
Um, I suppose not.
I mean, obviously the way I've been seeing it all is we're just working on it together and, you know, trying to improve.
I talk about things.
I mean, I talk about virtues all the time.
No, no, no. Okay, let's go back to the kids.
Because you're fogging me here, right?
Yeah, I know. Sorry. What would the pluses and minuses?
Like, so your kids get older, right?
Let's say you have three kids with them and your first kid starts turning, you know, the age of curiosity and skepticism and objectivity around sort of 11 or 12.
And your oldest kid, let's say it's a girl, your oldest daughter sits down with you and says, okay, mom, I want to talk to you about dad.
Here's the pluses and here's the minuses as I see them.
And what would she say? Um, what would she say?
Yeah. I suppose she'd say, you know, dad's got obviously bad health.
I don't know how long he'll be here or...
I guess at this moment he doesn't have a good enough job or why don't we have more things?
I'm not really sure what else.
Okay. Of course genetically he's had two family members die of maybe lifestyle for the Mom, probably not with the brain cancer for the younger brother, but, you know, he's got hernia, he's got heart issues, you've got two dead family members.
It's not a fantastic gene pool for health issues.
Right. And so, it's one thing to be in poor health, it's quite another thing to be in poor health and poor.
Right. And if he's got heart issues, is he going to be...
Is he going to be able to roughhouse with them?
Is he going to teach them how to swim?
Is he going to be able to play volleyball?
Is he going to be able to run up and down jungle gyms with them as kids want you to do?
And now your kids will play with each other and so on.
But is he going to be able to participate in a robust manner?
You know, I'll tell you this, man.
When I was going through chemo and radiation treatment, it was a little tough to be Joe Energy with my daughter.
I mean, it was a little tough to get up the stairs sometimes.
I mean, it was a little rough. And, you know, that for me was a couple of months.
But if he's got, you know, maybe they can be solved surgically and maybe that's going to introduce other complications.
Lord knows hospitals aren't always the very best places in terms of long-term health.
But if there's going to be limitations on his participation, if you're not going to have much money, and you want to raise three kids, you have to move out of town, don't you?
You have to move into the country. Now, if you're going to move into the country to save money, to get cheaper, and you're going to homeschool, so you don't need to be close to a school, then you're going to be more isolated, I would assume, right?
You've got some elbow room around you and so on, and maybe you'll have nice neighbors or whatever, right?
So, you know, it's going to be a lot of family time, I would imagine, in the country, right?
I mean, it's going to be a lot of, there's just the three of you, the four of you, the five of you.
And if he's not able to participate as much, if he's going to get tired, if he's going to need to lie down, if you're worried about him on a trampoline, if you're like, it's just, it seems like kind of difficult environment.
Poor, potential bad health.
And if his health gets worse, what if he can't work?
Are you going to go back to work?
Like, it just, he better be really, really funny and really chatty.
And he better know some really interesting things.
And what if he dies? It's going to be tough to get life insurance for him, right?
Probably. What if he dies?
You know, he hasn't taken care of his health if he's been drinking with a bad heart.
I assume he's not taking much care of his health.
Is he overweight at all?
I assume not. Oh, no.
Oh, you said he couldn't gain weight, right?
Right. He is very active, though.
He does very long walks and things like that.
It's just he can't do super vigorous Like, he can't lift anything really, really heavy or something, you know, something like that.
That would be too difficult.
But he does... He does enjoy volleyball, and he does enjoy really long walks, like endurance-type exercise.
See, now here, and again, this is not a criticism, this is just pointing it out.
I understand. When I'm pointing out a potential issue, you're giving me a reason why it's not an issue, and that tells me that you want to be with this guy, and it doesn't hugely matter what I say.
I'm not trying to be insulting or anything.
Like, I kind of know when people's minds are made up already.
Yeah, I understand.
I just don't know why I couldn't.
Come to your same conclusions and just accept it.
Accept what? Just accept that he's probably not a good partner.
Look, I'm just asking questions.
I'm not, you know, I haven't said be with him or don't be with him.
I don't tell people what to do. That's not the point of philosophy, right?
But you asked me sort of what are the challenges, what are the pluses and minuses?
True. Well, here's the other thing, too.
You marry the person when you don't think you can possibly do better.
That's when you get married, right?
I couldn't do better than my wife.
She couldn't do better than me.
And we've been married 15 years now.
I feel more certain of that now than the day I married her.
So if you feel, or if you believe, if your gut tells you that you can't do better, that's your guy.
If you think you can do better, there's going to be problems.
Because you're going to look at him, right?
This is the best things are.
You're young. You're relatively healthy.
You've got opportunities.
You've got things going on in the future.
Marriage is a long time, baby.
I'm over 50. Things are getting just a little creaky.
Just a little. Not too bad.
A little creaky. But, you know, it's a foretaste of all the joys to come.
It's like that, I can't remember, some writer said, yeah, when I was young, I wanted to write a comedy about getting older.
Now I'm old. It's really not so funny.
So, things don't get easier in many ways in life.
They do get harder, although the 50s so far have been a very joyful decade for me, and I'm very sort of pleased about that.
But... The marriages I've seen that run into trouble are where one person or both people kind of look at each other and said, eh, could have done better.
Could have done better. Especially like you're 25.
Who knows where you're going to be in your career?
A couple of years, maybe you're an educated, intelligent woman.
You were close to doing a master's, so smart.
It's a long life, and you better be certain that you can't do any better.
When you get married. Because if at some point you look at that person and say, I aim too low.
Well, that's a challenge.
And that's my major concern.
Oh, yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
I guess my problem right now is I don't care if I could do better.
Because I just like him that much, you know, I'm just in it right now.
So I don't even think that way, because it doesn't matter to me.
Because I just care about him.
Yeah, but I still don't know why.
Funny, smart, and chatty. Who gives a rat's ass about that stuff?
I mean, if you want funny, turn on the comedy channel.
I guess it's just because I feel like we've grown together in a short time.
But how have you grown? You've told me how he's grown, that you've nagged him into being a better person, or at least a less irresponsible person, a more positive person.
How has he helped you?
How is he contributing to your growth with the conversations?
He encourages me a lot, and it's very helpful.
We've happened to go through the same things working at this restaurant.
So he's there with me while I'm learning how to stop other relationships that really are dysfunctional, like certain friendships that are just no good.
And I've gotten better at, you know, recognizing that when it's happening.
But this is all, Grace, this is all utility to you.
Like, what do you admire about him?
This is all, like, utility. He's useful.
You know, like, I gotta put a nail in the wall.
Oh, look, he's a hammer. Like, this is utility to you.
He entertains you.
He gives you good conversation.
This is all utility. He helps you at work.
He's encouraging. But what do you admire about him?
What do you respect about him?
What do you look up to that he does?
Well... I... He's definitely loyal.
Like, that's something I really like about him.
He's good to his friends and he will...
Wait, are his friends good to him?
Um, yes. Then how did he end up drinking for a year when he has a bad heart if his friends are good to him?
Well, that was a shitty friend and that's why we don't talk to him anymore.
No, but he has other friends. Didn't his other friends intervene?
Why did you have to come along and intervene?
If he's got such great friends, Grace, why was he miserable and negative making 11 bucks an hour snarling in the back of a restaurant?
Why did you have to come along and make him a better person if he's got such great friends?
I mean, some of them are not so great, and we've transitioned away from them.
Like, that's something I've done, he's done, but it's kind of...
There are a lot of relativistic type people, and we...
The more we talk, the more we realize, oh, wow, I don't actually like that person.
I just talk to them because I work with them and see them every day.
Kind of relationships.
There's a lot of that going on.
He has one very good friend who has been really encouraging of all the changes he's making.
They hang out a lot more now than they used to because he's cut out the gross people, I would say.
And what did this one good friend have to say when he was drinking?
I don't know that he said much about it, honestly, because I just don't know what they say to each other.
Okay, so there's a lot of information you don't have.
You don't know what he did when he was working around the country.
You don't know what happened with his DUI very much.
You don't know much of what's going on with his family.
You didn't even review his ACE.
You don't really know much about what's going on with his friendships, but you love him.
No, you need him.
I can hear this in your voice.
You are passionate for him.
You need him. But need and love are not the same thing.
You need a meal, you'll eat anything.
You love a meal, you'll wait for the best.
You need him, right? You're attached to him.
Yeah, that's true.
Right. And what's the passion in your voice at the moment?
What's going on? It's just because it's been an ongoing thing for me.
I don't know. I guess I just probably was...
Very lonely, and I just feel like I want to be with him, and I care about him, and I want to.
I really do, but I do also, I guess, need him, but at the same time, I kind of don't.
I mean, I could possibly say I don't, because I've been alone a lot of my life and done a lot of progress through loneliness, and I don't know.
I feel like, I guess maybe I do, but I don't know why then.
Why you need him? Yeah.
Yeah. Because he makes you feel powerful, right?
Because you're having an influence on someone.
And a positive influence, don't get me wrong.
It sounds like you've helped him a lot.
But you have...
He has given you power.
I don't mean this in a bad way.
But I would assume that you've not felt very effectual or you've not felt like you've had a lot of control or influence in people in your life in the past and he is willing to listen and change.
And that can be quite addictive to have such a positive influence on someone.
Does that make sense? Yes, absolutely.
Have you had trouble being a positive or having positive influences on others in the past?
People who've needed to listen?
People who I know you had an alcoholic when you were growing up?
Definitely. And was it your mother or your father?
My sister. Oh, your sister?
She started drinking heavily in college, so she got into some trouble with that.
There's still daily drinking in my family.
I don't want to say if it's super excessive or not.
Wait, hang on. How did your sister get in trouble with drinking?
What happened? She had a DUI, but she really got pulled over for how she was driving.
And did she ever listen to you when you told her what she needed to do?
Honestly, at the time it happened, I wasn't really sure what was going on.
No, no, no, the drinking as a whole, not the time.
Oh, no. If I said anything, if I say I'm cutting back on drinking, honestly, I can't say I've really had that conversation with her, like, I've talked to her about, obviously, I would say, don't smoke.
Smoking's bad. It's really stupid, especially if you want to be athletic.
But she does that anyway, so why would I talk to her about drinking?
I've said, I'm not going to drink.
Drinking's bad, but that doesn't mean anything to her.
She'll do it because she likes to.
She didn't listen to bad health choices, and your boyfriend did.
Yes. So that's very powerful for you, right?
Did your parents have dysfunctions that you wanted them to change but they didn't listen or you didn't have the conversation?
Oh, I guess I haven't quite had the conversation because growing up it's not really your place but I will say like when I talk to the other people about just issues I'd say they are workaholics and spend a lot of time and energy on their careers and not so much on the household.
So this guy who has no career is not going to be tempted by that, so he's safer?
I suppose so, yes.
Well, no, I don't want to tell you your experience, but that's the first thing that popped into my mind.
No, I mean, I could see where you'd come up with that.
You know, if he was some high-functioning lawyer, you'd be like, oh boy, I've seen this movie.
I mean, yes, I will admit that's something that disinterests me a lot about those kinds of professions, is that I wouldn't want to be with a man who's not ever going to have time for his family.
Yeah. No, I've known some very high-functioning professionals, and they have, not all of them, but a lot of them, have really terrible relationships.
And it really comes out in the teenage years with their kids.
Absolutely. That would be my experience.
And if you said, let's move to the country so I can homeschool my kids, a high-functioning lawyer...
Well, it may not be number one on the list, right?
So this guy gives you a sense of your own shape because he listens in a way that other people haven't.
And he changes in a way that other people haven't.
And he gives you influence in a way that you may have not had before.
Because you, I mean, it's the old cliche and it's a strong cliche.
And there's a reason why it's a strong cliche, which is that kids don't want stuff.
They want their parents. And parents give their kids stuff.
Because they're guilty and they're not around.
Parents aren't around. They're off there making money.
And then they give the kids stuff, but the kids don't want stuff.
They want their parents. They want a balance.
Many, many years ago, I wrote a play called Teeth.
And I won't get into the whole thing, but it was basically a play that revolved around the idea of teeth.
And... There were two fathers in the play, and one of the fathers had so much money that his children had perfect teeth, but they never smiled.
They got them whitened, they got braces, they had perfect teeth, but they almost never smiled because they were so lonely.
Because their father was working all the time to give them the money To have perfect teeth that they never show to the world.
Because they were sad.
They were lonely. They didn't want perfect teeth.
They wanted a father. But all they got were perfect teeth.
On the other hand, there was another father who spent so much time trying to compose crappy classical music that he only worked part-time and his children had no money to go to the dentist.
And they were in pain.
And he got annoyed that they were crying from toothache when he was trying to compose and his wife was going crazy.
I can't fix their teeth with your terrible music!
And there was another, it's a whole other bunch of stuff in the play, but I was really wrestling with that when I was younger.
You do need stuff!
As a family, you need stuff!
You know that's why you're worried about 11 bucks an hour.
But you've seen the other extreme.
You may be bouncing from one extreme to another, from workaholics to no career.
There may be something in the middle.
Just saying there may be, potentially, something, just something, in the middle.
But if you know why you're with the guy, look, you can know all of these things and still be with the guy and whatever, right?
I mean, you can know, oh, this is why I fit like a key in a lock and turn with this guy.
This is why it fits. This is why it feels right.
This is how it assuages.
My pain. That's fine.
All is permitted with knowledge.
All is permitted with self-knowledge.
If you have self-knowledge and you know why you're doing things, you can do just about anything and still be right.
So if you know why you're with the guy...
If he's going to be around in a way that your father wasn't, if he's going to listen to you in a way that your sister didn't, if he's not going to outgrow you professionally if you're a stay-at-home mom,
if you feel secure with him because he can't do better than you, and he's a Poor health, 30-year-old with an $11 an hour job, he's not going to be pulling prime meat, so to speak.
That's fine. If you know all the reasons why you're with him and can accept those reasons, more power to you.
Self-honesty is the key.
Once we know, we can do.
But doing in the absence of knowing is dangerous.
Does that make any sense?
Yes, it makes absolute sense.
I mean, I know he won't be making $11 forever, and that's why we're trying to, like I said, build.
And if it works out, it will.
If it doesn't, then I do need to try to find something better that will be right.
But all of that makes a lot of sense, and I think you're right about how it's fitting into a key with a lock.
I do want someone who I know will have time for us, and I don't know.
You made a lot of sense.
Good. All right. Well, I hope you find what you're looking for, and I appreciate once more your honesty and your openness in this conversation as I appreciate everyone's openness and honesty.
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