The Ben Shapiro Show - August 23, 2020


The Attack On Capitalism: Exploring Socialism’s Shortcomings


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 9 minutes

Words per Minute

192.68817

Word Count

13,440

Sentence Count

876

Misogynist Sentences

7

Hate Speech Sentences

9


Summary

In the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, many assumed that the end of government redistributionism and centralization had come. Instead, socialism has been on the rise in the United States since the 1970s. In this episode, we re looking at the roots of socialism, and why it s a symptom of a larger problem: the distortion of the terms capitalism, opportunity, and hard work in favor of socialism and coddling from the government. Plus, a look at the best moments from the last two years of the show, with unique perspectives surrounding a topic and some of my own reflections on the collection. This week s episode features: Peter Robinson: The communist threat of socialism The best thing that everybody should buy Life insurance Why you could save $1,500 a year by using a Genius Genius Is it possible to save more than a million a year? And much more. This episode is brought to you by The New Republic and New Republic. New Republic is a website dedicated to modernizing the American political system and understanding of the past, present, past, and future. It s a place where we can learn from our past and learn from the past and understand what s going on in the present. If you like what s gone before us, you ll love what s in store for us in the future, you can help us make it so we can make it better, not just better, better, and more beautiful. We lllllllll. . We hope you lllll be a little bit more like that! more like it and more like us - we ll make it a little more like the real you , not less like that less like it. - Peter Robinson -- Thank you for listening to this episode of the New Republic -- it s better than the good old days, not the bad old days. -- Thank you so much -- Peter Robinson. Peace, Joe of the Good Fight Podcast Thanks to Peter Robinson, Joe Gooding, John Rocha, Sr. and Joe Goodall, Joe Goodell, Joe, , and Joe Pizzi, and ? & , for helping us make this podcast to make it great, and thanks to the late, great Joe Goodll


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Peace.
00:00:15.000 That's kind of a shocker.
00:00:17.000 In the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a going theory.
00:00:19.000 The theory was that we had reached the end of history.
00:00:21.000 That from here on in, it was basically going to be liberalism and laissez-faire economics.
00:00:27.000 That the fall of the Soviet Union had definitively shown that the end of government redistributionism and centralization had come.
00:00:34.000 That obviously was untrue because it turns out that the pitch of Marxism in the end is not really a pitch about efficacy or utilitarianism.
00:00:40.000 It's not about making you wealthier or making you happier.
00:00:43.000 It's about changing the nature of man.
00:00:45.000 The basic idea of Marxism, the basic idea of socialism, is that human beings are inherently good.
00:00:50.000 And the only thing that wrecks that inherent goodness is the systems around us.
00:00:53.000 So when we see bad things happening, when we see inequality, when we see cruelty, when we see crime, that is all a result of the evil capitalist system in which we are plunged.
00:01:01.000 So if we just change that, if we just destroy the entire system and replace it with something quote unquote fairer, if we get all of our rights from government as opposed to God, if we stop worrying so much about individual fate and start worrying a lot more about our community as a whole, then life will be better.
00:01:15.000 Now, wherever it's been tried, communism has been a failure.
00:01:17.000 And wherever socialism is tried, it has only been a success to the extent that capitalism supports it.
00:01:22.000 When you look at democratic socialist countries in Northern Europe, for example, it is perfectly obvious that these are capitalist countries with some social welfare policies.
00:01:28.000 However, the rise of Marxist theory, a new, I mean pure, uncut Marxist theory, the idea that income inequality is in essence immoral and exploitation, the idea that free market economics is again exploitation, the basic notion that free exchange is somehow a violation of personal rights, that is on the rise.
00:01:47.000 That's why you've seen the rise of the Squad and the Democratic Party.
00:01:49.000 It's why you've seen the rise of Bernie Sanders, who doesn't really advocate for a Denmark-style system.
00:01:55.000 He more likes the centralized government systems of open communist systems.
00:01:58.000 He's been praising those for literally decades.
00:02:01.000 Now the fact is that the rights-based system of the United States is a good system.
00:02:05.000 Capitalism, free markets, they're not just effective.
00:02:08.000 They're based on the principle that you are an individual human being and that your labor belongs to you.
00:02:13.000 That you have the right to alienate that labor voluntarily.
00:02:16.000 That it requires your consent to remove that which belongs to you from you.
00:02:20.000 And that the best thing that can happen for the world is for people to engage in mutual exchanges.
00:02:25.000 Because the bottom line when it comes to socialism is, I'm here, I'm breathing, give me stuff.
00:02:29.000 The bottom line of capitalism is, I'm not gonna get anything from you unless I give something to you.
00:02:34.000 That free exchange makes the world a better place.
00:02:36.000 It leads to technological development.
00:02:37.000 It leads to prosperity.
00:02:39.000 A part of what's happening here is that so many Americans believe that they hit a triple when in reality they were born on third base, meaning that all of the prosperity they've been experiencing is the result of a system they now decry.
00:02:50.000 They tend to pretend that prosperity is the natural state of man.
00:02:53.000 That being rich, being powerful, being free, all of these things are just how the world works.
00:02:58.000 And so if we chip away at the foundations of our society, everything will be fine.
00:03:01.000 That isn't true.
00:03:02.000 Not only is it not true, it's immoral.
00:03:05.000 Personal responsibility lies at the root of capitalism.
00:03:07.000 Systemic responsibility lies at the root of socialism.
00:03:10.000 There's only one problem.
00:03:11.000 Socialism is not only immoral, it is ineffective.
00:03:14.000 And yet the slogans of Marxism have become ever more popular.
00:03:17.000 Well, this week, we're bringing you the best moments from the last two years of the show, with unique perspectives surrounding a topic and some of my own reflections on the collection.
00:03:25.000 This week, we're looking at the distortion of the terms capitalism, opportunity, and hard work in favor of socialism, free money, and a desire for coddling from the government.
00:03:34.000 We'll jump right into it with Peter Robinson on the communist threats of yesteryear.
00:03:37.000 But first, let's talk about a simple thing that everybody should buy.
00:03:40.000 I'm talking, of course, about life insurance.
00:03:42.000 I mean, there's a lot of stuff going on in the world that makes you think about life insurance.
00:03:44.000 Is it possible to buy it?
00:03:46.000 It is.
00:03:46.000 It's still easy to shop for life insurance right this moment.
00:03:49.000 If you have loved ones depending on your income, you probably should.
00:03:51.000 It is the responsible thing to do.
00:03:53.000 The last thing they need to deal with, if God forbid something happens to you, is loss of income beyond the obvious tragedy.
00:03:58.000 Right now, you could save $1,500 or more a year by using Policy Genius to compare life insurance policies.
00:04:03.000 When you're shopping for a policy that could last for a decade or more, those savings really do start to add up.
00:04:08.000 What's PolicyGenius?
00:04:09.000 Well, it's an insurance marketplace built and backed by a team of industry experts.
00:04:12.000 Here's how it works.
00:04:13.000 Step one, you head to PolicyGenius.com.
00:04:15.000 In minutes, you can work out how much coverage you need and compare quotes from top insurers to find your best price.
00:04:20.000 Step two, apply for the lowest price.
00:04:21.000 And step three, PolicyGenius handles the rest.
00:04:24.000 PolicyGenius works for you, not the insurance company.
00:04:26.000 If you hit any speed bumps during the application process, they'll take care of everything for you.
00:04:30.000 They even have policies that allow eligible customers to skip that in-person medical exam and do it over the phone, which is super convenient these days.
00:04:36.000 So, if you need life insurance, head on over to PolicyGenius.com right now to get started.
00:04:40.000 You could save $1,500 or more a year by comparing quotes on their marketplace.
00:04:44.000 PolicyGenius.
00:04:45.000 When it comes to insurance, it's nice to get it right.
00:04:49.000 Let's start with a man who literally faced communism head-on.
00:04:52.000 Peter Robinson was the chief speechwriter to then-Vice President George H.W.
00:04:56.000 Bush from 1982 to 1983, and then special assistant and speechwriter to President Ronald Reagan from 1983 to 1988.
00:05:03.000 It was Peter who wrote the address from Reagan in Berlin in 1987 that called for General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall, which at the time was incredibly controversial.
00:05:14.000 During his six years at the White House, Peter wrote 300 speeches.
00:05:18.000 For the last two decades, he has hosted Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson at the Hoover Institution, where he has interviewed an enormous number of political leaders, writers, and thinkers over the years.
00:05:27.000 He's authored books including How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life and It's My Party, a Republican's Messy Love Affair with the GOP, and has been published in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and many others.
00:05:38.000 When Peter Robinson found out that he was going to be featured on the Sunday Special again, he sent us this letter.
00:05:43.000 The United States of America as a miracle.
00:05:45.000 Free, democratic, enterprising, and the one country to which millions of the rich and the poor alike on every continent on the planet dream of moving.
00:05:53.000 That's the theme to which Ben and I kept returning when we recorded this conversation several months ago.
00:05:58.000 What has happened since?
00:05:59.000 Ben has published a book entitled, ironically, of course, How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps.
00:06:04.000 And the Democratic Party, failing, as usual, to display any sense of humor, has adopted a platform that takes him up on the suggestion.
00:06:10.000 As Ben knows, as Michael Mowles and Drew Clavin and all students of history know, America has always been a close-run thing.
00:06:16.000 The Revolution might have failed.
00:06:17.000 The Civil War might have ended in a stalemate instead of a victory for the Union.
00:06:21.000 The Cold War might have continued for decade after decade, the Soviet Union steadily expanding its influence in the 1990s and beyond, as it did during the 1970s.
00:06:29.000 None of these things happened for one reason.
00:06:31.000 In each generation, Americans—not all Americans, but enough—recognized what was at stake, remained true to their principles, stood their ground, and fought.
00:06:39.000 Now, it's our turn.
00:06:41.000 That's Inspiring Stuff from Peter Robinson.
00:06:44.000 Interviewing Peter was just an absolute thrill and an absolute pleasure.
00:06:47.000 He's a tremendous historian.
00:06:49.000 His breadth and range of knowledge is incredible.
00:06:51.000 And of course, he is himself a part of history, a key cog in the wheel that led to the fall of the Soviet Union, the actual evil empire.
00:06:59.000 In episode 75, Peter and I talk about whether Americans can unite without an existential threat like communism facing us and the tension of not having a shared view of American history.
00:07:08.000 But first, Peter tells me the story behind writing the tear down this wall line in Reagan's historic speech.
00:07:14.000 Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
00:07:21.000 1987, spring of 1987, Berlin is celebrating its 800th anniversary.
00:07:33.000 Gorbachev is going to visit, the Queen of England is going to visit, and the West German government, remember it was West Germany and East Germany in those days, the West German government asked President Reagan to make a visit.
00:07:44.000 I got assigned the speech and flew to Berlin before, this would be six weeks or so before the president was to speak there, to do some research.
00:07:52.000 I went to the wall, I went to the place where the president was going to be delivering the speech.
00:07:57.000 It's all gone now, but the wall was there, the Reichstag, which was still pocked with shell marks from the bombing at the final battle of Berlin, and behind me was West Berlin, modern city, color, life, movement, recent model cars, and then you look over the wall, And there was almost no motion.
00:08:19.000 Guards marching back and forth.
00:08:21.000 It was as though the color had been leeched out of it.
00:08:24.000 Everything was gray, brown, the buildings even looked dilapidated.
00:08:27.000 So this was a place where you could feel the weight of history.
00:08:33.000 Communism there, capitalism here.
00:08:37.000 This was the place where the Soviet advance stopped at the end of the Second World War.
00:08:41.000 This was the place where the Americans and the British had taken over.
00:08:47.000 So, at that moment, I was a young speechwriter in trouble because what could I write that would equal what you felt there, the felt weight of history?
00:08:56.000 Several other stops in Berlin, including one to the ranking American diplomat who was full of ideas about what Ronald Reagan should not say.
00:09:03.000 West Berlin is surrounded by East Germany.
00:09:06.000 The people who live here are very sensitive to the nuance and subtlety necessary for East-West relations.
00:09:12.000 Don't have Ronald Reagan sound like an anti-communist cowboy.
00:09:15.000 And by the way, don't have him make a big deal about the wall.
00:09:17.000 They've all gotten used to it.
00:09:19.000 And that evening, I went to a dinner party West Berliners whom I had not met, but we had mutual friends back in Washington.
00:09:27.000 And so they put together a sort of a buffet for me, 15 or so people, different walks of life, a professor, a couple of students, and my host and hostess were lovely retired people.
00:09:38.000 He had worked at the World Bank in Washington and retired back to West Berlin.
00:09:43.000 And I asked the question, I said, I've been told by the American diplomat that you've all gotten used to the wall by now.
00:09:51.000 And there was a silence.
00:09:53.000 And I thought, I've made just the gaffe that the diplomat doesn't want Ronald Reagan to make.
00:09:58.000 But then one man raised his arm and pointed and said, my sister lives just a few kilometers in that direction, but I haven't seen her in more than 20 years.
00:10:07.000 How do you think we feel about that wall?
00:10:09.000 And they went around the room.
00:10:11.000 They'd stopped talking about it.
00:10:13.000 They had not stopped caring about it.
00:10:15.000 They had not stopped hating it.
00:10:17.000 And each person told... One man talked about walking to work each morning, and each morning he would walk under a guard tower where there was an East German soldier with a rifle over his shoulder who would peer down at him with binoculars.
00:10:32.000 And the man said, We share the same history, we speak the same language, but one of us is a zookeeper, and the other is an animal, and I have never been able to decide which was which.
00:10:41.000 And then our hostess, a lovely woman called Ingeborg Eltz, who just died a couple of years ago.
00:10:46.000 She must have been younger then than I am now.
00:10:48.000 She was in her, perhaps in her early fifties.
00:10:52.000 She was a very gracious woman.
00:10:53.000 She'd been charming throughout the dinner party, but now she became angry.
00:10:57.000 And she said, if this man Gorbachev – she smacked her, made a ball of one fist and smacked it into the palm of her other hand – if this man Gorbachev is serious with this glasnost, this perestroika, he can prove it by coming here and getting rid of that wall.
00:11:14.000 And that went into my notebook, because the moment she said that, I knew that if Ronald Reagan had been there in my place, he would have responded to that remark.
00:11:24.000 The simplicity, the dignity, and the power of that remark.
00:11:28.000 So the answer, that's a long way around to get to the answer to your question, but if the question is, where did that phrase come from?
00:11:36.000 The answer is, it started with a German woman who lived behind the wall herself.
00:11:43.000 As somebody who was five when the Berlin Wall speech was spoken, the impression that was left in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the communist regime in the USSR, is that it was the end of history, that now everybody was friends again.
00:11:58.000 I mean, even if you watch Terminator 2, you have characters saying to each other, why did the Russians have missiles pointed at us?
00:12:03.000 We're friends now.
00:12:04.000 And there's this great feeling that arises in America that basically it's all over.
00:12:08.000 And it seems as though we've sort of turned our guns on each other as opposed to the existential threat that used to exist out there.
00:12:14.000 Maybe that was temporarily lifted for a brief moment in time after September 11th, but we're certainly back at it to an excessive degree right now.
00:12:22.000 Do you think that Americans have enough in common now to actually hold each other accountable?
00:12:27.000 To see each other as non-enemies in the absence of an existential threat like the Soviet Union.
00:12:33.000 I do.
00:12:34.000 I do believe so.
00:12:35.000 I also believe we have to work at what we have in common.
00:12:39.000 So, I'm trying to say something, I'm trying to put this in a way that gives it some sort of edge or some sort of interest, because this is the kind of thing that you say on the radio every single day, and God bless you for saying it, but I didn't come here just to agree with you.
00:12:54.000 On the other hand, I will.
00:12:56.000 Identity politics, the politics of dividing Americans, that's not only wrong, that approaches, in my mind, that comes close to a kind of wickedness.
00:13:08.000 Because, why is it, think about this, immigration is a problem, we have to, blah blah blah, all that is true.
00:13:20.000 But why is it that a Mexican who just crosses that border within a few months finds himself in a position to better the lot of his, not just his family, but his village back in Mexico?
00:13:34.000 What is it about this country that permits remittances back to Mexico of almost $30 billion a year?
00:13:41.000 Why is it that one of the first things that Chinese do, the Chinese who since 1979 when Deng Xiaoping had his opening to markets, and now there are lots of people in China who are rich.
00:13:56.000 What do they do?
00:13:57.000 They try to buy real estate, right here in Southern California.
00:14:01.000 They try to invest their money in this country.
00:14:04.000 What is going... And the answer, of course, is that the United States of America is a miracle.
00:14:10.000 And it needs to be cherished and sustained and nurtured in every way we can.
00:14:16.000 People who come here... I'm trying to think... Back... Now, Ronald Reagan didn't live to see the kind of uncontrolled immigration that we have witnessed since he left office.
00:14:28.000 And so he was fundamentally pretty relaxed about immigration.
00:14:33.000 But what he always understood, what people of that generation always understood, was that people come here to become American.
00:14:43.000 So the idea that it is in the interest of certain politicians, you and I, I'm sure, could go off and do a whole show on the problems with California, this spectacular state, so blessed in so many ways, so beautiful, so filled with enterprising and talented people.
00:15:00.000 And the homeless.
00:15:01.000 And, yes, okay.
00:15:03.000 The problem with California is the government of California, in whose interest it now is to colonize certain groups or communities of people when they come here for political purposes and try to trap them in a certain kind of mindset instead of permitting them to enter into the fullness of American life.
00:15:21.000 That's just wrong.
00:15:22.000 It is just wrong.
00:15:23.000 So, the answer is, yes, I do believe we have enough in common.
00:15:27.000 We have our ideals.
00:15:28.000 We have American history.
00:15:30.000 The resources of American history From the Revolutionary War, where you see, it seems providential, the way Washington is able to escape from Brooklyn across to Manhattan.
00:15:45.000 The wind blows it the right way at just the right time.
00:15:47.000 The courage to stand up to what was then the greatest empire on Earth.
00:15:51.000 The Civil War.
00:15:53.000 Lincoln, this martyr, giving his life to hold the Union together and to abolish slavery, the greatest generation in the Second World War, I would argue that the Cold War, which is a bipartisan project, it begins with Harry Truman, it ends with George H.W. Bush, and in between, intellectuals behave, by and large, pretty badly, really, during the Cold War.
00:16:19.000 But it's ordinary American people who continue to vote, to sustain the politicians who want to spend the money to do what we need to do, that this country is able to sustain that kind of a project across four and a half years, four and a half decades rather, until communism collapses and the Soviet... By the way, this is a pet peeve of mine.
00:16:39.000 It is now, we're not allowed to say, That our side won the Cold War?
00:16:44.000 It just ended.
00:16:45.000 Nobody won, nobody lost, it just ended.
00:16:48.000 Well, let me point out one thing.
00:16:50.000 The United States is still here, and the Soviet Union went defunct.
00:16:53.000 We won.
00:16:54.000 So, the resources of American history, the ideals that we have, the ability, the... This is your book on the right side of history.
00:17:04.000 The astonishing thing about the Western civilization is not that it's Western.
00:17:09.000 It's that it consists of permanent truths which are open to anyone, from anywhere.
00:17:16.000 And the greatest exemplar of that tradition in the world today is the United States.
00:17:20.000 Yes, of course we have enough resources if we choose to sustain them.
00:17:27.000 Longtime friend of the show, Senator, presidential candidate, and host of the podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz, it's Ted Cruz.
00:17:33.000 From 2003 to 2008, Senator Cruz served as the Solicitor General of Texas, essentially hired to handle appeals involving the state from a constitutionalist perspective.
00:17:43.000 He argued before the Supreme Court of the United States nine times, winning five of those cases.
00:17:47.000 Cruz was then elected as a U.S.
00:17:49.000 Senator from Texas.
00:17:50.000 The senator first became widely popular in 2013, when he gave a 21-hour speech on the Senate floor to hold up a federal budget bill in order to defund Obamacare.
00:17:59.000 It led to a government shutdown and ruffled a lot of feathers, but it also showed supporters that Senator Cruz was committed to walk the walk of a conservative political leader.
00:18:06.000 You can hear him tell this story in the full episode.
00:18:09.000 Cruz joined us and gave his perspective on being raised by a father who fled communist Cuba in the 50s.
00:18:14.000 In regards to America's size of government and its control, and the ever-growing sentiments with regard to socialism, Senator Cruz's story hits home on the need to fight against tyranny.
00:18:22.000 When we let Senator Cruz know that he was going to be in this episode, he sent us this letter.
00:18:27.000 This November, the American dream is very much at stake, as the precious rights and freedoms we cherish are under assault by the radical left.
00:18:33.000 Months ago, following the horrific death of George Floyd, thousands of Americans across the country exercised their First Amendment right to peacefully protest against police brutality and for equal justice.
00:18:43.000 However, these protests were hijacked by violent Antifa members and other anti-American anarchists who would arrive at protests with weapons, rocks, commercial-grade lasers, sledgehammers, and weapons-grade fireworks to use against the men and women of law enforcement, the very people who put their lives on the line every day to protect our lives and rights.
00:18:59.000 This violence should be universally condemned, but unfortunately, Democrats have been largely silent.
00:19:03.000 They've made a cynical political decision and believe it's politically expedient to stand with the rioters.
00:19:08.000 I chaired a hearing just a few weeks ago.
00:19:10.000 Not a single Democrat who participated in the hearing would criticize Antifa.
00:19:14.000 Instead, many Democrats across the country are actually supporting calls from the violent mob to defund our police departments.
00:19:20.000 This is the face of the Democrat Party.
00:19:22.000 A Democrat Party that refuses to condemn Antifa violence, refuses to stand with the men and women of law enforcement, and has Bernie Sanders running the show.
00:19:29.000 That should scare every American.
00:19:31.000 We need to stand for justice, stand with the men and women of law enforcement who by and large engage in proper conduct, and stand for freedom.
00:19:37.000 That is how we protect the American Dream.
00:19:39.000 That's from Senator Ted Cruz.
00:19:41.000 Full disclosure, I've been friends with Senator Cruz for a very long time.
00:19:44.000 I backed him in his original race against David Dewhurst, then the Lieutenant Governor of the state of Texas.
00:19:49.000 I've always found Senator Cruz to be charming and fun.
00:19:52.000 I know you don't always see that side of Ted, but he really is quite fantastic.
00:19:56.000 In episode 54, here Ted tell me about his family and about how his community, the Hispanic community, is a fundamentally conservative community.
00:20:02.000 But conservatives need to communicate the message that connects with them.
00:20:05.000 Politics is my family story.
00:20:14.000 I mean, look, all of us are products of our family story.
00:20:17.000 And my dad, as you know, my dad fought in the Cuban Revolution.
00:20:21.000 I mean, when he was a kid, when he was a teenager, he was fighting alongside Fidel Castro, fighting against Batista, who was a corrupt dictator, and was thrown in prison and he was tortured.
00:20:32.000 And my dad came to Texas when he was just 18.
00:20:36.000 And I grew up as a kid hearing stories, hearing stories about being a freedom fighter, and it actually works out.
00:20:44.000 My father fought with Castro, didn't know Castro was a communist.
00:20:47.000 Anytime I really want to yank my father's chain, I'll call him a communist guerrilla, and it drives him nuts.
00:20:54.000 What he knew was that Batista was corrupt, he was in bed with the mob, you know, Godfather II, you know, that whole... I mean, that was what it was.
00:21:01.000 It was a completely corrupt dictatorship.
00:21:04.000 And the revolution, as my dad describes it, were a bunch of 14- and 15-year-old kids who didn't know any better.
00:21:11.000 My dad left in 57, and he fled Cuba because Batista's army was going to kill him.
00:21:18.000 The revolution succeeds in 59.
00:21:20.000 So 59, Castro declares he's a communist, begins seizing people's lands, begins executing dissidents.
00:21:26.000 And my aunt, my tia Sonia, who I'm very close to, she was still there.
00:21:30.000 She's my dad's kid sister.
00:21:32.000 And she fought in the counter-revolution.
00:21:34.000 She fought against Castro.
00:21:36.000 She ended up being imprisoned and tortured by Castro's goons.
00:21:40.000 And then she ultimately fled Cuba too, came to Texas.
00:21:44.000 And so my cousin Bebe and I, Bebe is Sonia's daughter, the two of us as kids, we literally grew up sitting at the feet of my dad and my aunt and listening to them tell stories of fighting for freedom.
00:21:56.000 And that's what I've wanted to do my whole life for as long as I can remember, since I was a little kid, is in our house, you know, it wasn't that politics was something you just kind of read the paper and, oh, that's interesting.
00:22:09.000 I mean, there was an urgency to it.
00:22:10.000 It was having principled men and women in office.
00:22:14.000 That's how you protect yourself from tyranny.
00:22:16.000 And so that's what I wanted to do my whole life.
00:22:19.000 One of the things that's been fascinating to me, I'm from California.
00:22:22.000 The Republican Party has been eviscerated among Hispanic voters in California.
00:22:26.000 That is not what has happened in Texas.
00:22:27.000 In Texas, what is it, a 55-45 or 60-40 split in favor of Democrats, but it's certainly competitive with Republicans.
00:22:33.000 Here it's something like 80-20 in favor of Democrats.
00:22:36.000 If that, it may be higher.
00:22:37.000 So what has been done in Texas?
00:22:39.000 What have you done in your races to help draw Hispanic voters?
00:22:41.000 So look, in Texas in 2012, I got 40% of the Hispanic vote.
00:22:45.000 In 2018, I got 42% of the Hispanic vote.
00:22:48.000 And that is despite the media demagoguing like crazy.
00:22:52.000 And listen, I think the Hispanic community is a fundamentally conservative community.
00:22:58.000 If you look at the values in our community that resonate.
00:23:01.000 Faith, family, patriotism, hard work.
00:23:06.000 You know, a friend of mine years ago asked an interesting question.
00:23:08.000 He said, when's the last time you saw an Hispanic panhandler?
00:23:13.000 I gotta tell you, I don't think I ever have.
00:23:16.000 Because frankly, in Hispanic culture, it would be seen as shameful to be out there on the streets begging.
00:23:22.000 And yet, You look at hard work, individual responsibility, and those are conservative values.
00:23:30.000 And you also look at what unifies the Hispanic community, which is the immigrant experience, coming to America seeking freedom.
00:23:37.000 That is a message that resonates.
00:23:39.000 But I'll tell you, I had the exact same message in the Rio Grande Valley and overwhelmingly Hispanic communities that I had in Deep East Texas.
00:23:50.000 And the message of jobs and freedom and security, that's a message that resonates.
00:23:56.000 Look, I think the Hispanic community is a conservative community, but we've got to respond to the needs and interests and values in the Hispanic community.
00:24:05.000 If you look right now, today we have the lowest Hispanic unemployment ever recorded.
00:24:10.000 We've also got the lowest African-American unemployment ever recorded.
00:24:14.000 The clown show that is the Democratic 2020 primary?
00:24:17.000 None of them are going to admit that.
00:24:18.000 They're going to go to Hispanics and African-Americans that are seeing the lowest unemployment ever recorded, and they're going to say, these policies are terrible for you.
00:24:25.000 You should go back to the Obama era policies where you had much higher unemployment, much higher poverty.
00:24:31.000 That is nonsense.
00:24:34.000 Let me give you one of my favorite stats of the last two and a half years.
00:24:37.000 The last two and a half years, five million people came off of food stamps.
00:24:42.000 Five million.
00:24:44.000 And look, as Republicans, we've got to be able to articulate that and explain it in a way that that's not just a number on a pie chart.
00:24:54.000 Those are five million real human beings.
00:24:56.000 Those are moms and dads who two and a half years ago, they were dependent on the federal government for their basic food needs, who now presumably they've gotten a job.
00:25:05.000 They're coming home tonight.
00:25:07.000 They're carrying a bag of groceries.
00:25:08.000 They're setting it down on the kitchen table.
00:25:10.000 And those moms and dads are looking their kids in the eyes.
00:25:13.000 They're having the dignity of work, the self-respect of work.
00:25:16.000 That is what the American dream is all about.
00:25:18.000 Being able to provide for your family, achieve your dreams.
00:25:23.000 But we've got to communicate and tell you in the Hispanic community, that is a powerful message.
00:25:27.000 Hispanics don't want to be dependent on government.
00:25:29.000 And what, what, what the socialists, what the Democrats say is they want them to be dependent on government.
00:25:35.000 They want them to be a vassal dependent state, vote for Democrats and be trapped in dependencies.
00:25:40.000 What I, what I know Hispanics want is the independence to chase their dreams.
00:25:45.000 That is a conservative message.
00:25:48.000 Back in episode 13, we were joined by one of the most influential writers of the last half century, David Mamet.
00:25:54.000 Author of a variety of books, plays, and films, including Glengarry Glen Ross, Heist, The Untouchables, and the Academy Award nominated The Verdict and Wag the Dog.
00:26:02.000 A rare outspoken conservative among the mainstream culture, and a critic of communism and fascism, David grew up in Chicago.
00:26:08.000 His parents were first generation Americans.
00:26:11.000 He began writing while in high school and college, and then after graduating, worked any and every job in the city.
00:26:16.000 This introduced him to what the actual working middle class of Chicago was like in the 60s, which refined his style and even drew him towards projects like The Untouchables and one of his more recent books, Chicago.
00:26:26.000 Sitting down with David Mamet was truly incredible.
00:26:28.000 It really was an honor.
00:26:29.000 He's a creative, eclectic guy, and his view on the world as command of language is just incredible.
00:26:35.000 David Mamet had to work to stand on his own two feet.
00:26:37.000 It paid off in a claim down the road doing work he loved.
00:26:39.000 We'll be discussing that here.
00:26:40.000 But for starters, listen to David debunk the phrases economic justice and social justice and discuss with me the dangers of democratic socialism in American government.
00:26:48.000 Thanks for watching.
00:27:04.000 But it sounds like, you know, your basic view of human beings, that all human beings are basically at each other, and that's why we have to come to these basic agreements to leave each other alone.
00:27:13.000 Well, yeah, I was watching yesterday that the great Tucker Carlson, I'm crazy about him, he had some cockamamie, I think Democrat something or other, you know, congressman or something like that.
00:27:25.000 And he says to the guy, the Democrat, he says, wait a second, he says, you guys got nothing left in a golf bag.
00:27:30.000 So what in the world are you going to run on in the midterms?
00:27:34.000 And the guy says, economic justice and social justice.
00:27:37.000 So I said, well, OK, you know, let's let's break it down to the English language, right?
00:27:42.000 What does economic justice mean at the end?
00:27:44.000 How is that different than justice?
00:27:47.000 Right.
00:27:47.000 It's communism.
00:27:48.000 What it means is somewhat it's statism.
00:27:50.000 It means that someone is going to Stand above whatever rules we have for commerce and decide what's just to whom, right?
00:28:01.000 So as Tom Sowell said, whenever anybody says it's going to help A, you say, well, who's going to hurt, right?
00:28:08.000 So economic justice is At the end of the day, it's communism.
00:28:13.000 And communism is someone's going to be in charge of saying what you have to give to me, and I'll keep what I think I want and give it back to you.
00:28:24.000 Which brings me back to when I realized that the whole Marxian idea, from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, really begs the question.
00:28:37.000 Because the term which is missing is, the state shall take.
00:28:41.000 from each according to his ability, which means the state's going to determine what your ability is.
00:28:45.000 The state shall give to each according to his needs. I'm the state, I'm going to determine what you need. You don't determine it anymore. You don't determine what your ability is, the state does. So, so much for economic justice. I thought social justice, how's that different than decaf justice, right?
00:29:02.000 Regular common garden decaf justice, right?
00:29:04.000 So, justice is drawing a line.
00:29:06.000 That's what justice is, like taking a line of type and justifying it.
00:29:09.000 I'm going to say, this is in, that's out.
00:29:12.000 Is there going to be injustice in terms of justice?
00:29:14.000 Yeah, sure.
00:29:15.000 Talmud says, right, where there's law, there's injustice.
00:29:17.000 Okay, great.
00:29:18.000 We're going to have a line, right?
00:29:20.000 Social justice means there's no line.
00:29:22.000 Whoever's screaming loudest gets to say, this is what you have to do.
00:29:28.000 So you say, wait a second, let's refer to the line, let's refer to the law.
00:29:31.000 They say, no, no, throw out that law.
00:29:33.000 The law is insufficient.
00:29:35.000 And I got a guy talking to a shul.
00:29:36.000 He said, well, obviously the Constitution's out of date.
00:29:40.000 How would a 2,000, a 230, a 40-year document possibly be relevant?
00:29:44.000 I didn't want to say, well, then why are we sitting here reading the Torah?
00:29:48.000 But, so what I said was, wait a second, okay, let's say it's out of date.
00:29:53.000 How are you going to fix it?
00:29:54.000 What do you suggest?
00:29:55.000 And more importantly, what are the rules by which you suggest we're going to go about fixing it?
00:30:02.000 Because social justice is fascism.
00:30:05.000 That's what it means.
00:30:06.000 It means that the group of people who has screams the loudest gets to determine what the law is, and that always ends in murder.
00:30:13.000 So, there are two wonderful phrases, economic justice and social justice, which don't mean nothing, as the Samanthists would tell us.
00:30:21.000 They mean something.
00:30:23.000 And the first thing they do is they're an anesthetic.
00:30:26.000 Are you optimistic for the future of the country, or do you think that... Yeah, I feel incredibly... You know, somebody said a long time ago, they said, no democracy survives more than 300 years.
00:30:36.000 So I think that this new shift to a constitutional republic, back toward a constitutional republic, is going to lengthen the viability of the American experiment by 50 to 100 years.
00:30:50.000 What do you think?
00:30:50.000 That's what I think.
00:30:51.000 I mean, I'm a little more pessimistic than you, just because I feel like the pendulum swings pretty far in this country.
00:30:55.000 And it's swung from Barack Obama to Donald Trump, which means that it's going to swing back even further to the left the next time around, just because the Democratic Party by default has made itself into a Democratic Socialist Party.
00:31:06.000 I don't think that there are a lot of substantive conversations being had because people are so angry at each other.
00:31:21.000 And I do think that has to do with the lack of a common base of values.
00:31:24.000 It sounds like when you were growing up, you were growing up with the feeling that, despite all the corruption in Chicago, if you worked hard, you could get ahead.
00:31:30.000 And it was actually your obligation as a decent human being to work hard and make something of yourself.
00:31:35.000 I feel like there are entire generations of people in this country who have been raised on the premise that America is actually a terrible place that is seeking to put its boot on your throat, and that anyone who proclaims that America is good is a perpetuator of this evil system.
00:31:48.000 That's true, but all these generations who were raised in the bubble, I don't think Starbucks can open outlets sufficiently enough to keep pace with that growing population.
00:32:00.000 So what are they going to do for a living after their parents die and they're sitting on the couch and working as a barista?
00:32:05.000 I don't get it.
00:32:06.000 Well, that's the big question, and I do wonder whether these folks have a skill set.
00:32:10.000 Well, they don't.
00:32:11.000 I mean, that's the other thing that gets me.
00:32:13.000 I have a lot of kids.
00:32:14.000 I mean, I want to go live in a shoe with the old woman.
00:32:16.000 That's how many kids I have.
00:32:18.000 But we talk a lot, and I talk to them, and some of them experience the great joy of doing something for a living.
00:32:25.000 Yeah, but I don't know that there are that many people in the United States who actually see that.
00:32:32.000 Maybe I'm the pessimist here, but I see a lot of people in the United States who see work as something to be avoided.
00:32:38.000 They attribute all of their stress to work.
00:32:40.000 Work is always a bad thing.
00:32:41.000 When they talk about things in their life that they want to get over, it's work.
00:32:44.000 You know, for me, my goal is to work until I die, because that's usually how it works.
00:32:48.000 The minute you retire, you're gone, right?
00:32:50.000 So my belief is sort of the belief from the book of Genesis, which is that you are put on the earth to cultivate it, and the minute you stop cultivating it, there's no reason for you to be here anymore.
00:32:58.000 But I think that there are a lot of people who actually believe that they are put here on earth for leisure time and enjoyment, and the more that we require of you, the harder you have to work.
00:33:07.000 That's an inherent flaw in the country.
00:33:11.000 According to Bernie Sanders' logic, we're so rich, why should anybody have to work?
00:33:14.000 Well, Bernie, I think I met him in the old days because I spent a lot of time about the same age overlapping in north central Vermont.
00:33:20.000 I don't think he's ever worked a day in his life.
00:33:22.000 Literally.
00:33:23.000 He hasn't.
00:33:24.000 I mean, he was kicked out of a commune for not working enough when he was in Vermont.
00:33:27.000 Legitimately, it's an actual thing that happened and now he owns a lake house, right?
00:33:30.000 So it's a great country where you can never work a day in your life and have a lake house where you vacation with Bill de Blasio.
00:33:35.000 Well, the question is, which the young won't address, is where does the money come from?
00:33:40.000 They say, from the government.
00:33:42.000 Well, all the government can do is either tax you or steal it from you, or waste it, or spend money on either things that everybody needs but nobody wants to pay for, or things that nobody wants.
00:33:52.000 Those are the only two things the government can spend the money on.
00:33:54.000 So the young person doesn't say, where does the money come from?
00:33:57.000 I mean, what I worry about, I'm not sure that we have a problem of economics so much as, you know, a lot of folks on the left think it's a problem of redistributionism and the economic system and all this.
00:34:06.000 I really don't think that's the problem.
00:34:07.000 I think we do have a problem of virtue and heart.
00:34:09.000 I agree.
00:34:10.000 I think there's a giant hole in the middle of the American soul that has been carved there by 40, 50 years of dependence on government and a belief that there is no higher calling for you.
00:34:21.000 That your job on this earth is basically to experience the most pleasure possible and then die.
00:34:27.000 I don't know what replaces that other than a return to some sort of centralizing values.
00:34:31.000 Well, I don't know either, except that I have a difficult time controlling myself.
00:34:36.000 I mean, I don't want to even attempt to try to control somebody else.
00:34:39.000 It's going to be what it's going to be.
00:34:40.000 Oh, yeah.
00:34:41.000 I mean, I'm not talking about compelling people, but I do think that the appeal of a moral lifestyle has always been a hard sell.
00:34:46.000 And it's a particularly hard sell when there are no consequences to immorality.
00:34:50.000 Well, there's a very good book on the subject, you know, which is called a Torah.
00:34:54.000 You know, what's the consequences for morality?
00:34:56.000 It's a it's a plague or 40 years in the desert or not a think twice about.
00:35:02.000 Let's talk a little bit more about hard work and skill sets with Mike Rowe.
00:35:05.000 Mike was host of the widely popular reality series Dirty Jobs, which, as his website puts it, transformed cable television into a landscape of swamps, sewers, ice roads, coal mines, oil derricks, crab boats, hillbillies and lumberjack camps.
00:35:18.000 Today, Mike Rowe hosts the podcast The Way I Heard It and the Emmy-winning Facebook Watch web series, Returning the Favor, in which he travels the country searching for remarkable people.
00:35:26.000 He also runs the Mike Rowe Works Foundation, which awards scholarships to students pursuing a career in the skilled trades.
00:35:32.000 Mike has made a business out of showing us that hard work truly matters.
00:35:36.000 Talking with Mike was a lot of fun.
00:35:38.000 His personal experiences differ so much from my own, but his transformation from sort of a news guy into a voice for the working classes is really an incredible story and a reminder that so many Americans are doing the kind of hard work and jobs that many of us don't hear about in our daily lives.
00:35:52.000 In episode 12, Mike tells me about his foundation's sweat pledge, skills and work ethic aren't taboo, and why some critics seem to hate it so much.
00:35:59.000 And we discuss the politicization of the skills gap and the large opportunity in America's workforce, the truth of which cuts against the narrative pushed in politics and in the media.
00:36:07.000 Every job eventually becomes a job, no matter how passionate you are about your initial belief in a job.
00:36:18.000 And I love my job and I'm sure you love your job.
00:36:20.000 Eventually it gets to the point where, yeah, I got to get up this morning, got to go to work.
00:36:23.000 And still you're getting up and going to work.
00:36:24.000 Happiness is a, it's a, it's a terrific symptom.
00:36:31.000 It's a terrible goal.
00:36:34.000 It's just a terrible goal, because it's a sucker's bet.
00:36:39.000 If happiness were that tangible, then the same thing would make everyone happy.
00:36:45.000 But obviously, it doesn't.
00:36:50.000 I'm sure of that.
00:36:51.000 I'm not sure of much, but I'm sure of that.
00:36:54.000 I wrote this thing.
00:36:55.000 You'd get a kick out of it.
00:36:56.000 It started, like most everything I do, as an attempt to amuse myself.
00:37:01.000 But after a bottle of wine one night, My foundation awards work ethic scholarships, so we need to have some mechanism by which we can Try to account for work.
00:37:16.000 I mean, how do you measure character?
00:37:17.000 It's virtually impossible, but I wrote this thing called a sweat pledge skills and work ethic Are not taboo.
00:37:24.000 Aren't taboo.
00:37:25.000 Sweat, right?
00:37:26.000 And you have to sign it.
00:37:27.000 It's a 12-point pledge.
00:37:29.000 Sort of part 12-step process, part scout law, right?
00:37:36.000 And some people really, really, really hate it.
00:37:39.000 But one of the first things is, you know, I'm grateful.
00:37:44.000 I won the greatest lottery of all time.
00:37:46.000 I live in America.
00:37:48.000 Two, I do not follow my passion.
00:37:51.000 I mean, it goes down all of these things.
00:37:54.000 It was like a little personal manifesto for me.
00:37:59.000 But I only bring it up because it's become increasingly more important to my foundation.
00:38:05.000 And now, the more I look back on it, it's hysterical, Ben, how outraged people get.
00:38:13.000 I give away maybe $5 million so far, right?
00:38:16.000 Not a ton by foundation standards, but it's a chunk.
00:38:19.000 It's money, yeah.
00:38:20.000 Every year, about $800,000 goes out.
00:38:23.000 And every year, people say, well, why do I have to sign the sweat pledge?
00:38:29.000 And I say, well, you don't have to.
00:38:32.000 It's entirely possible this particular pile of free money might not be for you.
00:38:39.000 And it goes, like, what do you mean?
00:38:41.000 I'm like, well, I mean, there are many scholarship funds that award academic achievement.
00:38:47.000 I'm more interested in awarding attendance, right?
00:38:51.000 I mean, athletic achievement, talent, there are all kinds of rubrics and metrics for measuring value.
00:38:58.000 But where's the work ethic?
00:39:00.000 So that's what we try and do. And forgive me, I'm trying to bring this back to the answer to the question you posed, but I forgot what it is again. So have I. I mean, you took me on the journey and now we're left adrift here. I'm going to send you a sweat pledge. I'm going to send you a sweat pledge.
00:39:13.000 Okay, sounds good. Well, let's hone in on that for a second, the first principle that you mentioned, which is that you won the lottery because you live here, which is something with which I totally agree.
00:39:23.000 But that's a pretty controversial proposition these days.
00:39:25.000 And it's become almost partially a left-right proposition, unfortunately, where you see there's a poll that came out just within the last month that suggested that Republicans, particularly, were very proud to be members of the United States, very proud to be American, and they were very proud to be American when Obama was president.
00:39:25.000 Sure.
00:39:42.000 This was not dependent on who was president.
00:39:44.000 It was 73% of Americans who were Republicans were proud when Obama was president, and 77% now.
00:39:49.000 And for Democrats, it was like 54% were positive when it was Obama, and now it's like 38% because of President Trump.
00:39:54.000 Why do you think there are so many people in the country who look at the situation that they've been handed, which is the freest, most prosperous country in the history of humanity, and think to themselves, I'm a victim in this scenario?
00:40:07.000 And not to discount anybody's actual hardships or past, but why do you think that that's become such a prominent thing in what clearly is a land of opportunity?
00:40:14.000 Because it's not clear.
00:40:16.000 It's not clearly.
00:40:18.000 Of all the divides, the one that worries me the most is the divide between people who are genuinely, genuinely convinced that opportunity is dead and those who are not.
00:40:29.000 Right?
00:40:30.000 The ones who are artificially convinced, or just, you know, paying lip service to it, they don't matter.
00:40:37.000 But there are a lot of people who really and truly, truly believe the system is rigged, and they truly believe opportunity is dead.
00:40:45.000 That's a... they scare me.
00:40:48.000 Not because I'm frightened of them, but because that belief is... that'll kill us.
00:40:55.000 I mean, if that belief really and truly spreads, it'll kill us.
00:40:58.000 This is why the skills gap becomes weirdly political.
00:41:00.000 It shouldn't be.
00:41:02.000 It's just opportunity.
00:41:03.000 It's just 6.3 million jobs sitting there, vacant.
00:41:08.000 But when I point that out, it's very difficult because everything is politicized today, right?
00:41:15.000 What comes back is, well, what does the existence of opportunity mean?
00:41:20.000 In a country where we're fighting over the fact that opportunity may or may not be dead, it's proof positive that it's not.
00:41:27.000 Now that's a problem, right?
00:41:29.000 The optics don't line up.
00:41:30.000 So then you have economic experts with whom I really can't engage because I'm not an economist, but they will tell you why the skills gap is a myth.
00:41:39.000 So here's how it breaks down.
00:41:40.000 If I point to six million available jobs, My friends on the right will tell me that those jobs are available because human beings are fundamentally lazy.
00:41:50.000 My friends on the left will tell me that those jobs are available because employers are fundamentally greedy.
00:41:58.000 And that's where we are.
00:41:59.000 We can't think beyond the fact that our basic philosophies require us to see humanity as either lazy or greedy.
00:42:09.000 Now the truth is, in my opinion, We're both lazy and greedy.
00:42:15.000 Right?
00:42:16.000 And we're neither lazy nor greedy.
00:42:19.000 We're all of it and none of it.
00:42:21.000 And all of it gets measured out in unequal amounts.
00:42:25.000 But we don't have time today to parse the nuance of that.
00:42:32.000 It simply has to be one or the other.
00:42:34.000 So when I post a picture of me standing next to the flag on the 4th of July, I get a lot of pushback.
00:42:42.000 And I think a lot of people who are pushing me back don't really want to push back.
00:42:47.000 They just don't want to see me doing something patriotic because the lines have been drawn.
00:42:54.000 And now if you're patriotic, well then you must be on the right.
00:43:01.000 That's also really super dangerous.
00:43:03.000 It's a false choice.
00:43:05.000 And we have to push back against that.
00:43:10.000 It's incumbent upon us.
00:43:12.000 I think you're doing a decent job of it.
00:43:15.000 I'll try, thanks.
00:43:16.000 I mean, no, honestly, look, you're as biased as I am.
00:43:19.000 You're as biased as the next person, but you can point these cameras at anything you want, and you're pointing them at honest, thoughtful conversation.
00:43:30.000 Longtime television personality, commentator, and Emmy Award-winning journalist John Stossel has spent his career espousing the virtues of individual freedom and exposing the evil of big government.
00:43:40.000 John has hosted and anchored for ABC News, including Good Morning America and 2020, as well as Fox Business.
00:43:46.000 He wanted to bring his message to younger audiences, so he left that show to now produce for his own YouTube channel, where he releases a video every week presenting the case that good things happen in free markets and under a smaller government.
00:43:57.000 Talking with John was a lot of fun.
00:43:58.000 I've been following John's career since I was very young.
00:44:00.000 I've read a lot of his books.
00:44:01.000 And honestly, his view on libertarianism has really affected my own and shaped how I think about the size and role of government.
00:44:08.000 In episode 27, John walks through how his media and journalism career made him hyper aware of the shortcomings of government, particularly in making life better for Americans.
00:44:16.000 We also discuss the countries that the left points to in regard to democratic socialism functioning well, and how the biggest capitalists in the country sometimes become capitalism's biggest enemies.
00:44:25.000 I just wanted to cover something that other people weren't covering.
00:44:35.000 So, at the time, all people did was politics, the weather, crime, disasters.
00:44:41.000 That was news.
00:44:43.000 I thought there's consumer issues out there, psychology, medicine, companies ripping people off.
00:44:50.000 I'll do that.
00:44:52.000 And I did that and won 19 Emmy Awards bashing business.
00:44:57.000 But I gradually watched the regulation that I was calling for and often getting.
00:45:01.000 Sometimes politicians would say, that was great, we're going to pass a law and fix that in Oregon.
00:45:06.000 They created a Department of Consumer Affairs.
00:45:09.000 But then I'd go back and do the same story.
00:45:11.000 We'd send a TV set out to 20 repair shops.
00:45:15.000 Eighteen with a loose part.
00:45:17.000 Eighteen would say, oh, loose part, no charge.
00:45:20.000 Two would rip us off.
00:45:21.000 I'd go back and say, would you ever do this?
00:45:24.000 Yeah, well, watch this.
00:45:24.000 Oh, no.
00:45:26.000 Play the videotape.
00:45:28.000 And it was great television bashing business.
00:45:31.000 And then so we do it again.
00:45:33.000 Now there's the Department of Consumer Affairs.
00:45:34.000 The results are the same.
00:45:35.000 Most people are honest.
00:45:37.000 A few cheat.
00:45:38.000 So what's the Department of Consumer Affairs doing?
00:45:41.000 They have a big dreary room with a bunch of dreary people at desks filling out forms.
00:45:47.000 Now you have to get a license to be a team in your repairman.
00:45:50.000 And supposedly that will screen out the bad guys.
00:45:53.000 But it doesn't.
00:45:54.000 It just lets in the ones who are sophisticated enough to know how to get the license.
00:45:59.000 The immigrant maybe works under, beyond the law in the black market.
00:46:06.000 Everybody has to pay a few pennies more to pay for the lawyers.
00:46:09.000 And the consumer is no better off.
00:46:12.000 So I started reading more.
00:46:15.000 I didn't love the conservative press because it looked like your people wanted to police the bedroom and police the rest of the world, and I didn't like that.
00:46:25.000 And I discovered Reason Magazine, and that was an epiphany.
00:46:28.000 Oh my God!
00:46:29.000 These people get it better than I do!
00:46:31.000 And I became a libertarian.
00:46:33.000 Coming out of Princeton, I was going, oh yes, we know how to solve poverty.
00:46:36.000 My professor said, it's an outrage in this rich country that some people are poor.
00:46:41.000 But then I watched these programs fail.
00:46:43.000 They just teach people to be dependent.
00:46:47.000 And if you look at the graph, I have used this in my videos, of the war on poverty and the poverty line.
00:46:53.000 The war on poverty began and the poverty rate dropped for seven years.
00:46:57.000 And after that, it's gone up and down.
00:47:00.000 Improvement stopped because the government teaches people to be dependent.
00:47:04.000 If you've got a man in the house, your check goes down.
00:47:08.000 And then, most interesting, look at the chart from before the war on poverty.
00:47:12.000 The slope of the line was about the same.
00:47:15.000 Americans were lifting themselves out of poverty.
00:47:18.000 The war on poverty, trillions of dollars, continued progress for five years and then stopped it.
00:47:24.000 So what do you make of the new kind of left argument with regard to the countries they admire?
00:47:29.000 So for a long time, for decades, the Soviet Union was a place where they were kind of interested in the experiment and then for a little while they were interested in Hugo Chavez.
00:47:36.000 And they were interested in Cuba for a while, but now the modern iteration of the socialist movement is in favor of social democracy.
00:47:43.000 So they like Norway, they like Sweden, they like the Nordic countries.
00:47:46.000 This is the one that Bernie Sanders likes to trot out all the time.
00:47:49.000 What do you make of the argument that those countries are cohesive, that they are functioning well, that they have high standards of living, and they also have massive governmental burdens that are driven by enormous regulations and tax rates?
00:48:02.000 Well, first of all, they're not really socialist.
00:48:05.000 And the Denmark Prime Minister went on TV to say, look, we're a market economy.
00:48:09.000 We're not socialist.
00:48:10.000 Government does not control the means of production.
00:48:14.000 And that's the most important thing.
00:48:15.000 Scandinavian countries don't even have a government minimum wage.
00:48:19.000 They do have a big welfare state and they can afford that because they have a homogeneous culture and they have a fairly free private market to pay for it.
00:48:30.000 And the economic freedom indexes, they come out ahead of the United States.
00:48:35.000 I don't know how Bernie calls them.
00:48:36.000 Socialists.
00:48:40.000 Do they innovate?
00:48:41.000 Do they produce anything?
00:48:43.000 Is it an accident that Facebook, Google, and all these exciting wealth-creating companies, or podcasts, have come out of Silicon Valley and California, places far away from Washington, D.C.? ?
00:48:57.000 I don't think so.
00:48:58.000 Yeah, and that I think is always the big distinction that folks fail to make, that socialism freezes things in place and redistributes them, and capitalism generates new and innovative methods.
00:49:09.000 But when it comes to things like healthcare, where the left really is putting its heavy focus these days, what they say is, okay, well, fine, so we sacrificed a little bit of innovation, but there's an entire group of people who have pre-existing conditions, and they don't have a capacity to pay for the healthcare that they need.
00:49:23.000 So what's the best system for providing health care if we're not going to have some sort of baseline government provided health care?
00:49:32.000 It would be presumptuous for me to say what the best system is, but what I've learned is that the more market there is, the better.
00:49:39.000 And poor people with a pre-existing condition are not going to have a market solution.
00:49:44.000 But we have in America Medicaid for poor people, Medicare for us old people, and no hospital emergency room turns away any poor person.
00:49:56.000 We don't really have a free market system because the rest of it is paid for not by individuals but by insurance companies or governments.
00:50:03.000 So what really works is when you go to the doctor and you say, cheat doc, does it really have to cost 200 bucks?
00:50:10.000 I'm paying for this myself.
00:50:12.000 And this is starting to happen with the health savings accounts.
00:50:16.000 Instead of just having the insurance company pay for it, they give you some money and you make some of those decisions.
00:50:23.000 And doctors often say, really?
00:50:25.000 You're paying yourself?
00:50:27.000 Like now?
00:50:28.000 I don't have to wait two months for the insurance company?
00:50:31.000 Okay, well, $100.
00:50:33.000 And then they don't even know where to put it because they haven't had a cash box for so long.
00:50:37.000 But moving toward more consumer-driven, and that means high deductibles, which nobody wants to hear about.
00:50:43.000 Everybody hates that.
00:50:45.000 That's the only answer.
00:50:47.000 And single pay in Europe, you don't pay for anything.
00:50:50.000 That's true in England.
00:50:54.000 Forget about Norway.
00:50:55.000 England, Canada, Australia, and it's true, you don't pay, but the National Health Service in England was created the year I was born, and in some cases they still use that kind of technology, because innovation stops in government.
00:51:12.000 You don't get in trouble if you do what you did before.
00:51:16.000 You know, most young people won't read books.
00:51:18.000 That's why I'm making videos.
00:51:19.000 You mentioned Tucker.
00:51:21.000 I just released a video on Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and it was...
00:51:28.000 I started it with a video defending Bezos against Bernie, saying, how dare Bernie attack this man, who, yes, he's the richest man in the world, but he's made us all richer by lowering prices so much.
00:51:42.000 The Fed even lowered its inflation rate.
00:51:44.000 And they pay vast amounts in taxes, and their investors pay lots of money in taxes.
00:51:49.000 He's good for America, and he's being trashed.
00:51:52.000 But I'm midway through writing this piece, and Bezos caves in to the Progressives.
00:51:57.000 And says, yeah, I'm going to raise all my workers to 15 bucks an hour.
00:52:01.000 Cutting off performance bonuses.
00:52:03.000 Stupidly, perhaps.
00:52:06.000 Still, it's his company.
00:52:07.000 He can do that.
00:52:07.000 He'll find very good workers for that.
00:52:10.000 But then he goes on and says, I'm going to lobby like another craven opportunist rather than a capitalist.
00:52:17.000 I'm going to lobby government to force every company to pay $15 to get rid of the competitive advantage my competitors would have.
00:52:24.000 And since I got lots of robots replacing workers, I'm going to really crush these guys if they have to pay $15 an hour.
00:52:32.000 Capitalism's biggest enemies are often capitalists.
00:52:35.000 Yeah, and this is, I think, a great point that libertarians I wish would make more often, because the kind of pie-in-the-sky, rosy view of free markets is always that people are going to act morally within free markets.
00:52:46.000 But the truth is there are a bunch of people, as long as there's a big government capacity out there, who are going to take advantage of that.
00:52:51.000 This is why when folks say, well, big business is capitalist, like, have you been watching big business?
00:52:56.000 Have you been watching any business?
00:52:57.000 Human beings are willing to take advantage of each other, which is why you do need, and I keep coming back to this, and I think that this is the, not to promote my own ideology, but I'm going to because it's my show, that you do need a tremendous focus on bringing up virtuous people in a free system if the free system is going to last, because otherwise people are just going to try and pervert The system for their own ends, which is exactly what you're talking about with Bezos.
00:53:21.000 And when people say crony capitalism, that's not crony capitalism, that's economic fascism.
00:53:25.000 It's exactly the same sort of state-sponsored monopolism that you were seeing in early, you know, post-Weimar Germany.
00:53:32.000 So it's really, I think it's necessary for libertarians, and I include myself in this number, to spend an awful lot of time teaching people that virtue is necessary.
00:53:43.000 And that's why, you know, the markets are great.
00:53:45.000 But this is where I think Adam Smith differs from the Lord Mandeville bees metaphor.
00:53:53.000 Adam Smith recognizes... I don't know the Lord.
00:53:55.000 There's a very famous... There's a tract that was written right before Adam Smith all about... I forget the name of the tract.
00:54:03.000 It was written by Mandeville and it was basically the... It's a piece of poetry.
00:54:07.000 It's like 500 lines about the economy of the bees.
00:54:10.000 And his basic idea is that economies develop because people have vices.
00:54:15.000 Private vices become public virtues.
00:54:17.000 In other words, you want to buy a nice piece of jewelry, and therefore, this creates economic growth because you want something that you didn't have before, and maybe it's coming from selfishness or greed, right?
00:54:26.000 It's sort of an objective disposition.
00:54:27.000 So my wanting it is a vice.
00:54:28.000 So my wanting it would be the vice in this particular scenario.
00:54:32.000 But what Adam Smith says, and he's correct, is that while that's true with regard to vices that are not inherently damaging to the system, there are vices that are inherently damaging to the system.
00:54:42.000 And so we have to teach people that freedom can only be preserved by people who actually spend an awful lot of time thinking about virtue.
00:54:49.000 Wow, that's bigger than I can digest.
00:54:53.000 Or put into one of my five-minute videos.
00:54:55.000 Yeah, well, let's talk about, for a second, the changes... It's hard for a Bezos to resist.
00:55:00.000 He's almost not doing duty to his shareholders when there's this monster government over here doling out... Put your headquarters here, I'll give you a tax break.
00:55:11.000 In some ways, he'd be a fool not to ask for it.
00:55:13.000 The only solution is to shrink the state.
00:55:17.000 And why did Japan and Germany do so well after World War II?
00:55:21.000 Because we bombed them to smithereens and they had to start over.
00:55:24.000 And they got rid of all the guilds and the special interests that were holding progress back.
00:55:28.000 And then they grew so fast.
00:55:30.000 It's a horribly depressing idea to say that's the only way to stop the growth of government.
00:55:37.000 Maybe it is.
00:55:38.000 Well, I'm not going to go to bombing play because it's hithering.
00:55:40.000 I'm not advocating that.
00:55:41.000 I'm just saying, you keep asking me, how do we convince people?
00:55:44.000 Can we teach virtue?
00:55:46.000 And I don't know that you can.
00:55:50.000 There's perhaps no one who proclaims the glory of capitalism more than radio host and financial guru, Dave Ramsey.
00:55:55.000 As a best-selling author of multiple books, including the widely popular book, The Total Money Makeover, the host of a nationally syndicated radio show and podcast, The Dave Ramsey Show, and the creator of classes and training, like Financial Peace University, Dave Ramsey is a figure of eliminating debt and reaching financial prosperity.
00:56:11.000 Having had great successes, not without hardship in the business world, Dave now spends his time passing on the knowledge he has acquired as a proponent of personal responsibility to achieve personal success.
00:56:21.000 Meeting Dave was really awesome.
00:56:22.000 I know so many people who have turned their lives around because they followed Dave's steps to success.
00:56:27.000 His realistic view of human nature and his reality-based view that you have to take personal, responsible decisions rather than blaming the system is a refreshing one in this particularly system-based thinking time.
00:56:39.000 In episode 36 of the show, Dave and I discussed the myth of cheating your way to the top in business and other victim mentalities, the data on life choices that lead to success, and how wealth equality is actually not fair.
00:56:51.000 When it comes to kind of personal character, how much do you think that financial decisions are about education of people to make the right decisions, and how much is it about actually being able to put off what you want for what you need.
00:57:09.000 That's called maturity.
00:57:10.000 The ability to delay pleasure.
00:57:13.000 And that is a character quality.
00:57:15.000 Integrity, there's a high correlation between integrity, wholeness, not just telling the truth in honesty, but this full-on integrity.
00:57:23.000 You are who you are all the time, that's integrity.
00:57:26.000 And not only do you tell the truth, not only do you honor your word in situations.
00:57:30.000 High data point correlation between that and the ability to build wealth.
00:57:34.000 This idea that you cheat your way to the top is mythology.
00:57:38.000 It truly does not work out there.
00:57:39.000 I mean, think about it.
00:57:40.000 If you go to the local car place and get your car worked on and he cheats you, you tell everybody you know.
00:57:46.000 And you don't tell everybody you know.
00:57:48.000 And if you go in there and he says, oh, it was 35 cents.
00:57:51.000 I fixed it.
00:57:51.000 Don't worry about it.
00:57:53.000 You tell everybody you know, because you just found a unicorn.
00:57:55.000 You know what I mean?
00:57:56.000 So where the guy just did the right thing.
00:57:58.000 And you send your family, your friends.
00:58:00.000 And that's how you succeed in business, is you do the right thing.
00:58:03.000 It's how you succeed in life.
00:58:04.000 You do the right thing.
00:58:05.000 Integrity, the ability to delay pleasure, the ability to say, you know, I'm going to give up something today.
00:58:11.000 I'm going to live like no one else so that later, I can live and give like no one else.
00:58:15.000 That's the way we say it on the show.
00:58:17.000 You know, one of the things that I think is so fascinating about your approach is that it is an approach that is driven by personal responsibility.
00:58:22.000 So much of what's going on in the country, in politics generally, is driven by precisely the opposite attitude.
00:58:28.000 So, you're smart.
00:58:29.000 You stay away from politics.
00:58:30.000 I'm in politics full-time, and it seems like politicians make bank off of basically telling people that nothing they do is their own responsibility, and that everything that is wrong in their life can be blamed on outside forces.
00:58:41.000 In America, how much of what's bad in people's lives do you think can generally be blamed on the decisions they make, and how much can be blamed on outside forces, if you had to balance that out?
00:58:52.000 Well, I think you can be born into a situation where you don't, you know, I grew up in a neighborhood where people said stuff like, the little man can't get ahead.
00:59:04.000 It was a victim mentality.
00:59:06.000 Blue-collar thing.
00:59:07.000 It's like, you know, the union will take care of you.
00:59:10.000 The government will take care of you.
00:59:11.000 I sure hope we can elect a, you know, a president or a congressman will take care of us, because the little man just can't get ahead on his own.
00:59:16.000 And is that a reality?
00:59:18.000 Yeah, if you think it is.
00:59:20.000 If you think you can or you think you can't, you're right, Henry Ford said, you know.
00:59:23.000 And so there's a reality to this.
00:59:25.000 And so the belief is the real privilege.
00:59:28.000 It's not the skin color, and it's not the socio-economic thing.
00:59:31.000 It's the belief in the culture you come out of.
00:59:33.000 I mean, I grew up in Tennessee, and we're hillbilly culture.
00:59:37.000 My family's Scotch-Irish, and proud hillbillies of the best kind.
00:59:42.000 And an interesting bunch.
00:59:44.000 They'll fight you.
00:59:46.000 For their freedoms.
00:59:47.000 And yet sometimes they'll adopt that victim mentality.
00:59:51.000 And a whole bunch of those folks, I mean, J.D.
00:59:54.000 did a nice book, Hillbilly Elegy, that indicated that probably that's a bunch of us are who elected Trump.
01:00:00.000 But it was all that he was a little bit Reagan-esque in that it's up to you.
01:00:05.000 I'll just make it where you can win.
01:00:08.000 I'll do it for you. And there's a different message there in that ideology.
01:00:11.000 But you know the problem is if you start to believe someone else is going to fix your life, whoever it is, your employer, your mommy, the president, the Congress, you're screwed. Yeah well this is one of the things I really fear because I am seeing it rise on both the left and the right. There's a sort of new right-wing populist movement that suggests okay well you know all the problems that you're having life you didn't get married because you couldn't afford it.
01:00:31.000 And it's like, well, maybe you should have made some different decisions.
01:00:34.000 And single motherhood is not a financial decision.
01:00:36.000 It's not that you got pregnant out of wedlock because you couldn't afford it.
01:00:40.000 The classic studies are that 97% of the 30-year-olds that graduated from school, high school, Before they got married, and got married before they had a kid.
01:00:51.000 That's all they did.
01:00:52.000 High school, and they did it in the right order, in other words.
01:00:54.000 97% are above the poverty level.
01:00:58.000 Almost everyone below the poverty level somehow got that out of order.
01:01:02.000 They got pregnant before they got out of school.
01:01:04.000 They got pregnant before they got married.
01:01:06.000 They got married before they got out of school.
01:01:07.000 They got it out of order.
01:01:07.000 It's the success order.
01:01:09.000 All kinds of data points on that.
01:01:10.000 It's statistical evidence.
01:01:11.000 And it's not a political statement.
01:01:13.000 It's just, this is the proper way to live your life.
01:01:16.000 Turns out morals have implications.
01:01:19.000 Character has implications.
01:01:22.000 I fully agree with this.
01:01:23.000 I think that the supposed crisis that we're having in terms of happiness, the rise in the opioid epidemic, although some of that is due to bad diagnoses and people being given medical opioids and all of that, the rise in suicide, the rise in single motherhood, that in the end, these are mostly personal problems.
01:01:38.000 These are people making bad decisions, and they're making bad decisions because they've been taught by society, by the government, by the culture, that if you make a bad decision, it's not really your fault.
01:01:47.000 And at the beginning of wisdom is recognizing that it's probably your fault.
01:01:51.000 Where do you think things start to fall apart, or do you think things are really not that falling apart?
01:01:57.000 You know, it's strange.
01:01:58.000 There's pockets that are falling apart, and there's sometimes a malaise or a fog over some things, but then there's entire segments of the population that are booming like never before.
01:02:08.000 They're having the best years of their life right now, and maybe did even under Obama, you know?
01:02:13.000 They had the best years of their life.
01:02:15.000 But, I mean, we share a book in our faiths, in my Christian faith through Jewish faith, the Book of Proverbs, the Book of Wisdom.
01:02:22.000 And all throughout the Book of Wisdom, the fool is juxtaposed with the wise.
01:02:27.000 The wise does this, the fool does this.
01:02:29.000 Wisdom is this, and wisdom is, in the Hebrew, you know this probably, is the art of living life well, is really what it means.
01:02:39.000 And that's what we've lost.
01:02:40.000 It's wisdom, not knowledge.
01:02:42.000 But we've lost wisdom, as juxtaposed with a fool.
01:02:44.000 And if you read through Proverbs, you go, well, I've done that.
01:02:47.000 I'm a fool.
01:02:48.000 I've done that.
01:02:48.000 So I'm going to quit doing that.
01:02:49.000 So I'm going to be wise.
01:02:50.000 In the house of the wise are stores of choice of food and oil.
01:02:54.000 But a foolish man devours all he has.
01:02:56.000 If you spend everything you make, you're a fool.
01:02:58.000 Fool, fool, fool.
01:02:59.000 I've done that.
01:03:00.000 And then when I quit doing that, I actually saved money.
01:03:02.000 I had some money in the house of the wise.
01:03:05.000 I mean, it was just, it's remarkable, isn't it?
01:03:07.000 And so the art of living life well, and when you start to believe that if I plant corn, I'm going to get corn, if I'm going to reap what I sow, if I'm going to live in a cause and effect world where I actually can impact my own destiny, there's variables around me.
01:03:22.000 There's isms.
01:03:23.000 I mean, there's racism and sexism and baldism.
01:03:26.000 There are people that won't let me do stuff because I'm bald.
01:03:29.000 Hadn't been a bald president elected since television.
01:03:31.000 Go look that one up.
01:03:32.000 It's interesting.
01:03:33.000 But I mean, you know, these kinds of things are very interesting.
01:03:35.000 We've got one with bad hair, but we don't have any with no hair.
01:03:39.000 Sir Jerry Ford was not elected.
01:03:40.000 There's always, you know, I've got a southern drawl, and for years in the radio business, now we've got 600 stations, but for years people in Boston thought we broadcast from a double-wide because we were in Tennessee, you know, with no shoes, you know?
01:03:50.000 I mean, there's all these isms, right?
01:03:52.000 Everybody's got an ism they've got to bust through.
01:03:54.000 I don't care who you are, but if you truly believe because of your ism, whatever it is, that you can't win, you're not going to get corn if you plant corn, then why would you ever plant corn?
01:04:04.000 That's hopelessness.
01:04:06.000 And that's the path of the fool.
01:04:08.000 Yeah, the way that I've put it on my own show is that I root for reality because there's nothing else to root for.
01:04:14.000 There's a lot of folks out there who are rooting against reality.
01:04:16.000 And you see this not only in politics, but you see it in culture, just the general thing where people look at their life and they go, X or Y isn't fair.
01:04:22.000 Here's a person who's really rich, and I'm not really rich, and that's unfair.
01:04:25.000 And you see politicians say this without any solution.
01:04:27.000 They just sort of put it out there.
01:04:29.000 And this is their actual talking point.
01:04:31.000 You say, OK, well, let's assume for a second that that is unfair, and that if you were God, you would even all that out.
01:04:36.000 You're not God.
01:04:36.000 You're not evening all that out.
01:04:38.000 And even if you would even all that out, it wouldn't result exactly in what you want here.
01:04:41.000 Maybe you should stop fighting reality and deal with reality instead.
01:04:45.000 You know, actually, wealth equality is unfair.
01:04:48.000 Because effort is not equal.
01:04:50.000 Smarts is not equal.
01:04:52.000 I'm not as smart as Bill Gates.
01:04:54.000 He's helped more people than I've helped.
01:04:56.000 And as a result, he has more money.
01:04:58.000 I mean, I haven't changed the world with a computer.
01:05:00.000 He did.
01:05:01.000 I'm not Steve Jobs.
01:05:03.000 I didn't do that.
01:05:04.000 Now, I've made a good bit of money.
01:05:05.000 I've helped a whole bunch of people.
01:05:07.000 But, you know, I was arguing with this lady, liberal lady, and she was mad at me because I had made a lot of money selling books to people, helping them with money.
01:05:16.000 And she's like, well, you're taking advantage of all these people that are broke.
01:05:18.000 And I said, You know, when I sold 5 books for $10, nobody was mad.
01:05:24.000 But all you people got pissed off when I sold 10 million of them.
01:05:27.000 And I helped 10 million people.
01:05:29.000 And so, you know, your level of return is the level of help.
01:05:33.000 And so that just defeats the wealth equality argument completely.
01:05:37.000 Because we now know that 79% of the millionaires in America today, 8 out of 10, inherited zero.
01:05:44.000 Zero.
01:05:45.000 Which means they did something in the marketplace.
01:05:49.000 So the American dream is alive and well.
01:05:50.000 And one of the things that I love about your show is that you actually do defend the morality of the free market.
01:05:54.000 And that's something that very few people are willing to do in this day and age.
01:05:58.000 It's all about the shortcomings of the free market, income inequality, the idea that people are being exploited.
01:06:02.000 And it seems like they're coming from this perspective that even basic elements of life, in the intelligent gaps, this should be somehow rectified.
01:06:11.000 And you see this with, they'll use Bill Gates as an example.
01:06:13.000 How is there a Bill Gates in this country who's worth this much money, and then you'll see somebody who's worth no money?
01:06:17.000 And you know, you say, well, he's contributed more.
01:06:20.000 He's, he's, and they say, well, but that wasn't his choice.
01:06:23.000 He was smarter, right?
01:06:23.000 He was smarter.
01:06:24.000 He grew up better.
01:06:26.000 What, how do you answer that?
01:06:27.000 Well, he did.
01:06:28.000 And he is.
01:06:30.000 And, you know, George Clooney's prettier than me.
01:06:33.000 So, I mean, so what?
01:06:35.000 Deal with it.
01:06:36.000 I mean, this is your hand.
01:06:38.000 Play your hand.
01:06:39.000 And, you know, we had a leadership event.
01:06:43.000 We did our entree leadership event last summer and got to spend some time with Condoleezza Rice.
01:06:47.000 And she grew up in a In a segregated neighborhood outside of Birmingham.
01:06:53.000 And she was talking about coming out of that segregated neighborhood to become Secretary of State.
01:06:59.000 She's brilliant.
01:07:00.000 Brilliant lady.
01:07:01.000 And she said, my parents told me my whole life, it doesn't matter where I'm coming from, what matters is where you're going.
01:07:07.000 And you just decide that's what we're going to do.
01:07:10.000 But that has all this all the way back to the do with this thing called hope and this belief that if I plant corn, I shouldn't be shocked if I get corn.
01:07:17.000 If I plant nothing, I can't gripe about the farmer who planted corn and was out there toiling to kill the weeds and in the hot sun.
01:07:25.000 Meanwhile, I'm standing over here watching the guy.
01:07:27.000 And then I go, well, it's not fair that he's got some corn.
01:07:30.000 I mean, I wonder if some of the complaints that are cropping up, particularly among young people, and I speak a lot on college campuses where there are a lot of young people who make exactly these complaints, that this is coming as the result of a breakdown in religious community.
01:07:40.000 Because, you know, I'm a religious person, you're a religious person, there are a lot of rich people, people who have been, you know, I've been a lot poorer, I've been, you know, I've done well.
01:07:49.000 That's changed, but I've watched the same thing happen to people in my community who I grew up with, and so I know all of them.
01:07:54.000 And so it's a lot harder to be jealous of the guy that you've known and grown up with and he can go to for help than some random guy on the street who you have no association with.
01:08:02.000 And as we fragment as a community, there's more of a feeling of, well, maybe that guy owes me money, as opposed to, well, I've known my next-door neighbor my entire life.
01:08:10.000 We go to the same church or the same synagogue.
01:08:12.000 The one area of equality that matters more than any, we are equal, which is we are all equal before God, right?
01:08:16.000 God sees us all exactly the same.
01:08:18.000 With that breakdown, I'm wondering if maybe that's what's caused a lot of the feeling of dispossession.
01:08:23.000 Well, and it also contributes to racism.
01:08:26.000 Also contributes to arguments between religion.
01:08:30.000 I mean, if you sit down and spend time with people and actually develop a relationship with people that have different situations than you've got, you're going to learn there's good people and there's bad people in almost every one of those things.
01:08:41.000 I know wealthy people all over the world that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
01:08:44.000 They're some of the best people on the planet.
01:08:46.000 And I know some of them that will cut your throat.
01:08:48.000 Just to see if you bleed.
01:08:50.000 I mean, and I know some poor people that are some of the best people on the planet.
01:08:54.000 And I know some of them will cut your throat.
01:08:56.000 Hasn't got anything to do with the money.
01:08:57.000 It's got to do with their character or their lack of it.
01:08:59.000 The money just revealed it.
01:09:02.000 If you've enjoyed hearing from our past guests in this collection, be sure to check out their full episodes and hear more of The Conversation.
01:09:07.000 Links to those are in our description.
01:09:09.000 This is the last collection of great moments from the Sunday Special we're bringing you.
01:09:12.000 We will see you here again in two weeks with brand new episodes of the Sunday Special.
01:09:16.000 We're super excited for our upcoming guests.
01:09:18.000 I think you're going to like them.
01:09:18.000 We'll see you here next time.
01:09:30.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
01:09:32.000 Associate producer, Katie Swinnerton.
01:09:34.000 Our guests are booked by Caitlin Maynard.
01:09:36.000 Post-production is supervised by Alex Zingaro.
01:09:38.000 Editing is by Jim Nickel.
01:09:40.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Coromino.
01:09:42.000 Hair and makeup is by Nika Geneva.
01:09:44.000 Title graphics are by Cynthia Angulo.