America First - Nicholas J. Fuentes - The End of Westphalia | America First Ep. 106

00:00:05.000 Good evening, everybody.

00:00:06.000 We're watching America First.

00:00:08.000 My name is Nicholas J. Fuentes, and we have a great show for you tonight.

00:00:12.000 We're a little bit late.

00:00:14.000 We're a little bit late.

00:00:16.000 And there's a reason for it.

00:00:17.000 As you can tell, maybe I got a haircut earlier today.

00:00:21.000 And this is one of those things where you put it all together.

00:00:25.000 We have such a great show, and I'm so excited.

00:00:28.000 High energy, high intensity, high power level.

00:00:32.000 The whiteboard is prepared. 0.99

00:00:34.000 Very complicated stuff going on in the Middle East, in the world.

00:00:39.000 With the budget, so much to get into, but you get all your ducks in a row, right?

00:00:44.000 You get all your P's and Q's together, and then your hair is a little bit messed up.

00:00:50.000 I'm putting water in it, and I'm combing it, and I'm running the towel through it, and it's just getting worse and worse.

00:00:56.000 I don't know if it improved anymore, but that's why we're a little bit late.

00:01:01.000 An exciting day, an exciting show for you tonight.

00:01:04.000 Obviously, there is much going on over the weekend.

00:01:07.000 Nobody was talking about this.

00:01:10.000 Nobody was talking about this.

00:01:12.000 But Israel practically went to war against Syria yesterday over the weekend, and nobody's talking about it.

00:01:20.000 I don't know, maybe they're talking about it.

00:01:21.000 I don't watch television, but as far as I'm concerned, if Iran had done anything like Israel did over the weekend, if Russia did anything like Israel did, if China, if Syria, Iraq, if any country in the world conducted a provocation like Israel did over the weekend, you wouldn't hear the end of it.

00:01:41.000 We'd be talking about it for two weeks.

00:01:43.000 So we're going to get into that and what that means. 0.80

00:01:47.000 Not only for the world, but for the world order, what that means for the system of nations and nation states, because I really think what's going on in Syria is a game changer for human history. 0.88

00:02:00.000 No joke. 0.94

00:02:01.000 So we'll get into that.

00:02:02.000 Of course, there is the Trump budget, which I think we'll tackle first.

00:02:06.000 Go into what's in Donald Trump's proposed budget for 2018, if it's a good thing, if it's a bad thing, if it's going to pass, and all of that.

00:02:18.000 The portraits, folks, what was going on with those portraits today?

00:02:23.000 President Obama was at some gala or something with his wife, and they unveiled these big portraits of him and his wife you know, the president and the former first lady.

00:02:38.000 And what the hell was that all about?

00:02:39.000 I don't know if you guys saw these, but they were commissioned by black artists. 0.93

00:02:45.000 And this is so fitting that, and this is so fitting, particularly for the Obamas, that these two black artists were chosen. 0.99

00:02:52.000 To paint the portraits, and because they were chosen just because of their race, they were terrible. 0.97

00:02:58.000 And isn't that kind of perfect? 0.90

00:03:00.000 Isn't that like a perfect analogy?

00:03:02.000 What a fitting thing to happen to the Obamas, right?

00:03:05.000 You know, gee, what a concept. 0.99

00:03:07.000 People chosen for their race, and they end up being completely incompetent and utter failures. 0.89

00:03:12.000 So, the Barack Obama portrait, it's him sitting there, and you know, I kind of like the Barack Obama one. 0.78

00:03:18.000 It's not something I would choose for me.

00:03:20.000 Like, I wouldn't choose that style if I were getting a portrait done.

00:03:23.000 But for him, it kind of made sense.

00:03:25.000 It was him sitting down.

00:03:27.000 And he was no tie, and he was given kind of this serious expression.

00:03:31.000 And behind him is this wall of greenery, of like leaves, I guess, like a bush.

00:03:38.000 And I don't know, it looked pretty good to me. 0.69

00:03:40.000 I mean, the black complexion contrasted with the green background.

00:03:45.000 It was a good color palette, I thought.

00:03:48.000 You know, again, not something I would pick.

00:03:50.000 I don't think it's necessarily, you know, wouldn't fit with any other president, but, you know, Obama, he was our first gay president.

00:03:57.000 And he was the environmentalist, he was the green thumb, you know, and his wife was out there in the garden planting the vegetables.

00:04:04.000 For him, it kind of made sense.

00:04:04.000 So, I don't know.

00:04:06.000 And it looked okay.

00:04:07.000 You know, I'm not going to lie.

00:04:08.000 Maybe that's an unpopular opinion.

00:04:10.000 I know a lot of people didn't like it.

00:04:12.000 I kind of liked the Barack Obama one.

00:04:15.000 The Michelle Obama portrait, on the other hand, was a disaster.

00:04:19.000 It looked like a third grader drew it.

00:04:21.000 It looked like a third grader painted it.

00:04:23.000 It looked nothing like her.

00:04:24.000 The colors were so muted.

00:04:26.000 It was this modern art kind of goofy thing.

00:04:29.000 And you can go and look at it yourself.

00:04:30.000 But I just want to talk about it because I thought it was.

00:04:34.000 Pretty interesting. 0.96

00:04:35.000 And then on top of that, not only were the portraits kind of silly, not only was the Barack Obama one goofy, not only was the Michelle Obama one, you know, just ridiculous, then there was the fact that he goes up there and he's talking about the portraits and he called his wife hot. 0.97

00:04:50.000 He said, It captures the charm and the intelligence and the hotness of my wife. 0.96

00:04:56.000 And I thought, you know, just when you think this guy couldn't disappoint you anymore, he does it again.

00:05:03.000 It just goes to show.

00:05:04.000 The guy's got no class.

00:05:06.000 The guy's got no respect for the office, no dignity for the office.

00:05:09.000 He doesn't even hold it anymore, and he's still tarnishing it. 0.99

00:05:13.000 And then, on top of that, if that, maybe you don't agree with that, but the person who painted the portrait for Barack Obama that was commissioned to do this portrait, he has painted a number of times, not just once, which would be bad enough, but a number of times he's painted a picture of black women chopping the heads off of white children. 0.97

00:05:35.000 So, the person that paints the Barack Obama picture, he paints at least two times these big pictures of the black queen chopping off the heads of white kids. 0.96

00:05:47.000 So, that's okay, right? 0.99

00:05:50.000 But nobody cares about that, right?

00:05:52.000 If it were the other way around, would you ever hear the end of that, folks?

00:05:56.000 Is that me?

00:05:57.000 Or would we hear about that until kingdom come?

00:06:02.000 We would hear about that until the sun exploded, until the earth exploded.

00:06:07.000 Ceased spinning, we would be hearing about it.

00:06:10.000 And God forbid it even approached something like that.

00:06:12.000 But Barack Obama, a presidential portrait commissioned by a guy who, yeah, you know, casually paints white kids, you know, racial, like ethnic crimes against white people. 0.52

00:06:22.000 But, you know, that's okay. 0.51

00:06:24.000 So those were the portraits.

00:06:25.000 Everybody was talking about it.

00:06:27.000 Thought I'd throw in my two cents as an art critic.

00:06:29.000 But we got to get on to the important stuff.

00:06:31.000 We have to get on to the Trump budget, which I don't want to spend too much time on that because we'll be talking about that.

00:06:38.000 For a long time.

00:06:39.000 Then I want to get into the Middle East because big things pop and little things stop.

00:06:43.000 And there's a lot going on there.

00:06:45.000 But for starters, we got to get into the budget here.

00:06:48.000 And I'm going to whip up our document.

00:06:49.000 And what exactly is in the Trump budget?

00:06:52.000 We finally committed to the budgetary process.

00:06:56.000 We've been doing these kind of monthly stopgap measures for a long time, with two exceptions.

00:07:02.000 We've been doing the month by month government shutdown to government shutdown since 2010.

00:07:08.000 With only two exceptions, in 2015 and in 2016, you had a normal budget passed for the fiscal year.

00:07:15.000 So on March 23rd, as we talked about last week, the money runs out again, and we have to commission, or rather, we have to draft, we have to write, and then the Congress has to pass, and the president has to sign a budget into law by March 23rd for the entire fiscal year, and that will expire on September 30th.

00:07:36.000 So President Trump put forth his budget proposal.

00:07:39.000 It's a 4.4%.

00:07:41.000 Trillion dollar budget.

00:07:43.000 This is one of the biggest budgets in American history.

00:07:47.000 I think it's the biggest.

00:07:48.000 I'm not totally sure.

00:07:49.000 I think it's either the biggest or it's among the biggest, but $4.4 trillion budget.

00:07:56.000 It is expected to create a deficit of $1 trillion.

00:08:02.000 So, the budget's $4.4 trillion.

00:08:04.000 That's a trillion dollars more than we have.

00:08:07.000 And so, it's a trillion dollar deficit, which means that at the end of the year, a trillion dollars is tacked onto the debt, which is already something like $21 trillion or approaching $21 trillion.

00:08:19.000 So, that's probably the most notable thing about President Trump's budget is that unlike previous attempts by Paul Ryan or presidential candidates, even President Trump, who kind of promised this, he wasn't as strong on the fiscal conservatism as, say, Rand Paul.

00:08:33.000 Or Ted Cruz, but President Trump did promise cutting deficits, getting spending under control.

00:08:39.000 It looks like they've kind of abandoned that.

00:08:41.000 If they're serious about getting this budget passed, they've basically abandoned that because this will be a trillion dollar deficit.

00:08:49.000 And those are numbers we haven't seen since the recession, those are numbers we haven't seen since 2008.

00:08:55.000 What's in the budget?

00:08:56.000 We have a historic military budget, the biggest military budget in American history, if it's passed, $686 billion, up $80 billion from last year.

00:09:08.000 And they say they need this to deter threats from Russia and China.

00:09:13.000 $18 billion for a wall, as well as 2,000 ICE agents, 750 border patrol, and 75 judges to expedite the immigration process.

00:09:26.000 $17 billion to combat the opioid epidemic.

00:09:30.000 And these are the major spending pieces.

00:09:33.000 He also unveiled the infrastructure plan earlier this week.

00:09:36.000 That's a $1.5 trillion infrastructure package, but I believe it's only $500 billion.

00:09:42.000 Paid for by the federal government.

00:09:43.000 The rest is state and local.

00:09:45.000 But these are the major pieces.

00:09:47.000 These are the major changes in terms of new spending they're just going to jack up military spending.

00:09:54.000 They're going to modernize the nuclear arsenal.

00:09:56.000 They're going to expand the nuclear arsenal.

00:09:59.000 And they say that they're only going to do that until other countries stop doing that.

00:10:04.000 It's the combating the opioid, more money for our health and human services so that they can combat the opioid epidemic.

00:10:11.000 There's going to be massive money for border.

00:10:13.000 And immigration control.

00:10:15.000 And then to finance a lot of these major cuts, they're going to do a $250 billion cost cut for Medicare.

00:10:22.000 So they're not actually touching the entitlements for Medicare and Social Security.

00:10:26.000 They are cutting Medicare, but they're not actually cutting benefits.

00:10:30.000 I believe it's just administrative things that they're going to try and cut that out.

00:10:34.000 They're cutting SNAP.

00:10:35.000 They're going to make that, and SNAP is food stamps, they're going to make that have a work requirement. 0.96

00:10:42.000 They're going to instruct the states to put in place paid family leave, which is a good thing.

00:10:48.000 They're going to repeal Obamacare, which they say they expect there's going to be significant cost savings for that.

00:10:54.000 There will be cuts to the arts.

00:10:57.000 There will be cuts to NASA, cuts to science, cuts to all kinds of things.

00:11:02.000 And we'll see how it plays out.

00:11:03.000 I mean, this budget won't pass for obvious reasons.

00:11:06.000 The wall, the biggest among them, but also the massive increase in defense spending.

00:11:10.000 They're going to need, obviously, 60 votes in the Senate.

00:11:13.000 And they probably won't get everything that they want.

00:11:15.000 It'll be tough to see what this is going to look like if it all comes together by March 23rd.

00:11:21.000 But I don't think this is going to pass.

00:11:22.000 All by itself.

00:11:24.000 And that's why I'm not too concerned about the fact that this is out of control spending because we don't really know what it's going to look like in the end.

00:11:30.000 This is basically a wish list.

00:11:33.000 And, you know, you put everything you want on your wish list.

00:11:35.000 When I give people my book wish list, I put on 150 books with the expectation, you know, there's going to be five or six or whatever.

00:11:43.000 And so if this is a wish list, if this is a $4.4 trillion wish list, that's, you know, we want this much military and this much immigration, and actually there has to be compromises and maybe there's some cuts and maybe it's not totally that.

00:11:56.000 You know, there's not so much to worry about.

00:11:58.000 But this is the starting point.

00:11:59.000 And if this is the starting point, I don't know if this is the end of the world.

00:12:04.000 Obviously, I'm a budget hawk.

00:12:06.000 I'm a big believer that we have to get our deficits down.

00:12:09.000 Do we have to get them down right away?

00:12:11.000 I don't know.

00:12:12.000 I think President Trump has four years, and we have to work with the Trump economy, I think, before we make significant cuts in the sense that the things that we're beefing up are things that need to happen.

00:12:24.000 Infrastructure needs to happen, not just for safety, not just for defense in a lot of ways.

00:12:28.000 If you're looking at 5G, Telecommunications, roads, a lot of it is national security.

00:12:35.000 You know, when we built the highways, people think that was a big infrastructure thing.

00:12:39.000 That was a defense project.

00:12:41.000 We built the national highways so that we could bring tanks and troops at a moment's notice across the country.

00:12:47.000 So, infrastructure is not only safety, but it's also defense.

00:12:50.000 It's job stimulus, it's economic stimulus, but also it just has to happen.

00:12:54.000 The infrastructure is crumbling.

00:12:55.000 We have to modernize our country. 1.00

00:12:56.000 We have to get in line with the rest of the world, but specifically with Asia. 1.00

00:13:01.000 That's who we're competing against in the next century. 1.00

00:13:04.000 Defense has to be beefed up.

00:13:06.000 I know a lot of alt right people are skeptical about this.

00:13:10.000 They don't understand why we have to spend so much on the military.

00:13:13.000 They say, you know, we're winding down our operations in Iraq.

00:13:17.000 We're increasing them a little bit in Afghanistan, but we're making them more efficient.

00:13:21.000 What happened to bringing the troops home and so on?

00:13:23.000 You know, look, the way it is right now in terms of the global financial system, in terms of the global political system, the global world order, it's built on the back of the American military.

00:13:35.000 And we might not like that.

00:13:36.000 And you may not like that.

00:13:37.000 But that's not going to change in six months.

00:13:40.000 That's not going to change in 18 months.

00:13:42.000 That's something that has to be wound down, or wound down, rather.

00:13:47.000 So I'm not too concerned about that.

00:13:49.000 We beef up the military budget because we have threats in Russia.

00:13:53.000 We have threats in China to our strategic interests.

00:13:57.000 And again, you might not believe that Estonia is a worthy country to have a defense alliance with us.

00:14:03.000 You may think NATO's overexpanded.

00:14:05.000 You may think we have no business in the Pacific.

00:14:07.000 But again, That is a longer term strategic readjustment, not something that's going to take place in a very short period of time.

00:14:14.000 So, in the short term, it makes sense that we're beefing up our defense so that we can continue to be respected in the world, so that we can continue to have our commitments and our strength respected.

00:14:27.000 You understand that even if we don't necessarily want to be in these different theaters of the world, if we were to withdraw, if we were to not have the money to back up our word, not have the money to back up these pre existing commitments, Well, that's a bad thing no matter how you slice it.

00:14:42.000 Even if you don't want us in Estonia, even if you don't want us in Japan or South Korea, if we don't have the money to back up what we've already committed to, well, then we look weak.

00:14:53.000 And then it ends up being more costly in the long run because then we get our power contested in all kinds of regions in the world and all kinds of places.

00:15:01.000 Our enemies are emboldened, not just Russia and China, our great power adversaries, but also non state actors like terrorists, like drug cartels, many other places.

00:15:11.000 So, You know, this is something that is, again, it's necessary.

00:15:14.000 The military spending, I'm a big believer in military spending, even if you don't always use it.

00:15:20.000 I think it's actually more cost effective to have a big military than it is to have multiple wars going on.

00:15:26.000 You know, I would rather have the biggest military in the world by far, and maybe you throw around some Tomahawk missiles, maybe you throw around some special forces, but you don't have to commit to any wars.

00:15:37.000 I think that's the way to go.

00:15:39.000 That was the Reagan doctrine, of course no major wars, and yet.

00:15:43.000 We were still the most powerful country in the world, and I think those things were probably connected.

00:15:49.000 The opioid epidemic that's something that has to be addressed with federal money, and then obviously immigration.

00:15:55.000 So, nothing that's being spent right now is really outrageous.

00:15:58.000 And none of the spending increases are the reason why the deficit is a trillion dollars this year.

00:16:04.000 You know, you have an $80 billion increase in defense, you have $17 billion for opioid, you have $18 billion for the wall.

00:16:13.000 This adds up to a little bit over $100 billion when you add up all the new spending.

00:16:17.000 And it's a trillion dollar deficit.

00:16:19.000 So, obviously, the problem here is not the additional spending.

00:16:22.000 This is not Trump wanting new things that causes the problem.

00:16:26.000 I'll say it again.

00:16:27.000 I said it before.

00:16:28.000 I said it during the first government shutdown.

00:16:30.000 The problem is systemic.

00:16:33.000 The problem with our deficit is systemic not only to the budgetary process, but also to trade, to monetary policy, and to fiscal policy.

00:16:42.000 And until we get all these things in order, until we get entitlement spending under control, until we get our monetary program under control, we exercise some monetary restraint with our currency, until we get a trade policy that favors.

00:16:57.000 American job growth and American economic growth, it's kind of, you know, who are we kidding?

00:17:03.000 We're going to make an $80 billion cut to defense, and that's somehow going to solve a trillion dollar shortage in money?

00:17:11.000 I don't think so.

00:17:12.000 So that's why I'm not too concerned about it.

00:17:14.000 The deficit concerns me, the debt concerns me, but we have to understand who's accountable here.

00:17:19.000 It is the Congress, it is the entitlement programs, it is the Federal Reserve.

00:17:24.000 It's not Donald Trump for wanting, you know, an additional $80 billion.

00:17:29.000 For defense.

00:17:29.000 So that's my take on the budget.

00:17:31.000 We'll see how that goes.

00:17:32.000 We'll see what he gets, what he doesn't get.

00:17:35.000 Like I said before, this is the starting point for the budgetary process for this next fiscal year.

00:17:40.000 You know, it should have started actually a long time ago, but, you know, I guess we're just starting on it now.

00:17:46.000 And we'll see what happens.

00:17:47.000 I think this is a good starting point because these are all things that we need money for.

00:17:52.000 You know, and if we get everything, that'll be good.

00:17:54.000 And the cuts will have to come later once we get more revenue from the job growth and the economic growth.

00:17:59.000 If you're optimistic like the Republicans are and like I am about the future of the country economically, in terms of if we have robust 3% GDP growth for the next 10 years because we're not being choked by regulations and taxes and corporate taxes and so on, you will get the necessary amount of revenue to offset the new spending.

00:18:21.000 And that's the way that we correct for the budget.

00:18:24.000 You can't have it just be cuts.

00:18:26.000 You also have to grow the pot, you have to grow the revenue.

00:18:28.000 And so we'll see these things kind of.

00:18:31.000 Increase as we go along through the presidency, and we'll see how the budgetary process goes.

00:18:35.000 But that's the boring stuff.

00:18:37.000 That's the boring stuff.

00:18:38.000 We'll see what happens about it. 1.00

00:18:39.000 The fun stuff is what's in the Middle East.

00:18:42.000 To move right along into, and what we all want to talk about since the weekend, it's this country. 1.00

00:18:48.000 It's this country in the Middle East who's been causing problems for decades and decades and decades. 0.97

00:18:54.000 They have an illicit and illegal nuclear program, they are a pariah state, they are fomenting and supporting. 1.00

00:19:02.000 Insurrections across the region in different countries. 0.99

00:19:05.000 They are a radical ethno religious cult.

00:19:09.000 They are headed by a radical religious zealot.

00:19:12.000 And of course, we're not talking about Iran.

00:19:14.000 We're not talking about Saudi Arabia.

00:19:16.000 We're talking about Israel.

00:19:18.000 And I have here a whiteboard presentation.

00:19:22.000 Well, I'll save the whiteboard presentation for a moment.

00:19:25.000 We have to summarize, and that was a little tease there.

00:19:28.000 It's a little foreplay, a little tease.

00:19:30.000 We're just kind of giving you a little.

00:19:32.000 Is the whiteboard coming out?

00:19:34.000 Is it not?

00:19:34.000 Maybe you can guess what it's going to be.

00:19:37.000 But just to summarize what happened over the weekend, this was outrageous.

00:19:40.000 You know, nobody could have expected this kind of a thing.

00:19:44.000 But so on Sunday, an Iranian drone was reported by Israel.

00:19:49.000 Only Israel reports this.

00:19:50.000 An Iranian drone left from Syria and went into Israeli airspace, which is a violation of international law if it's true.

00:20:00.000 So, an Iranian drone leaves Syria, enters Israeli airspace, and is shot down.

00:20:05.000 Israel retaliates by bombing more than a dozen sites in Syria, more than a dozen, the biggest airstrikes since the 1982 Lebanon War.

00:20:16.000 So, a massive retaliation.

00:20:19.000 Iran sends one drone.

00:20:21.000 Allegedly into Israeli airspace. 0.59

00:20:23.000 They shoot that down and then they bomb the site that the drone came from and more than a dozen other sites.

00:20:29.000 Biggest airstrikes in 30 years.

00:20:32.000 On the way back to Israel, one of Israel's jets is shot down by Syria's anti aircraft forces.

00:20:38.000 So an anti aircraft missile shoots down an Israeli fighter.

00:20:42.000 The pilots ejected, so they were okay, but they did blow up a plane.

00:20:46.000 In response to that, Israel goes in and they strike four more targets.

00:20:51.000 And they were going to go back in.

00:20:53.000 And conduct more air raids until Vladimir Putin called up Netanyahu on the phone and said, Hey, we don't like that so much.

00:21:01.000 You better stop or there's going to be big trouble because, of course, Russia is currently in Syria shoring up the Assad regime.

00:21:08.000 Iran is in Syria shoring up the Assad regime.

00:21:12.000 China is in Syria shoring up the Assad regime.

00:21:15.000 So this is a very delicate situation in this country.

00:21:19.000 And Israel seems to not really care.

00:21:22.000 Israel's like, Yeah, let's just throw matches. 0.91

00:21:24.000 There's a big. 1.00

00:21:24.000 Let's just. 1.00

00:21:26.000 There's just a big pile of gasoline and oil and lighter fluid, and we're just going to flick matches at it.

00:21:32.000 You know, airstrikes and more airstrikes and more airstrikes, and we'll shoot things down and so on and so on.

00:21:39.000 So Vladimir Putin calls up Netanyahu and says, You got to stop or this is not going to end well.

00:21:44.000 And Israel says, Okay, we've had our fun.

00:21:48.000 We blew up enough stuff and we're okay.

00:21:50.000 We're going to go home.

00:21:51.000 In response to that, Syria and Iran said, Look, we never even sent that Iranian drone in Israeli airspace to begin with.

00:21:57.000 They say, That the Iranian drone was supposed to spy on ISIS, which is right on the border with Israel.

00:22:05.000 Very weird how that works.

00:22:07.000 One of the last enclaves of ISIS is directly on the border with Israel.

00:22:12.000 Isn't that weird how that works out that a drone goes out to spy on ISIS and whoops, they accidentally interfere with the Israelis?

00:22:20.000 I don't know, kind of puzzling.

00:22:21.000 But the Syrians and the Iranians say it never went into Israeli airspace. 0.62

00:22:25.000 It was a lie by Israel.

00:22:26.000 And we don't really know. 0.82

00:22:28.000 It's very likely that the Iranian drone.

00:22:30.000 Could have gone into Israeli airspace because, again, ISIS and Israel are very close.

00:22:35.000 But there isn't a motive.

00:22:36.000 And even Israeli media is having trouble coming up with a reason for why an Iranian drone, why a single Iranian drone would violate Israeli airspace.

00:22:47.000 So, you know, if you go on Haaretz, if you go on the Israel Times, the Jerusalem Post, they write that, you know, well, we believe that the Iranian drone was shot down over Israeli airspace.

00:22:58.000 It's hard to figure out why. 0.50

00:23:00.000 You know, was Iran just testing us?

00:23:02.000 Were they testing our airspace?

00:23:04.000 In my opinion, doesn't it seem a little bit more likely that maybe the drone was spying on ISIS?

00:23:09.000 Who knows?

00:23:10.000 I don't think it really matters in the end because what has happened has happened. 1.00

00:23:14.000 But that's what the Iranians and the Syrians claim. 0.84

00:23:16.000 They're already using it as a propaganda victory because they say now that Russia has basically threatened Israel, or not threatened, but Russia and Iran have basically communicated to Israel that any more activity in Syria, airstrikes or otherwise, would be a dramatic escalation. 0.83

00:23:35.000 And so Iran and Syria are now taunting Israel and basically saying, you can't do any airstrikes in Syria.

00:23:41.000 Aren't you a joke? 0.94

00:23:42.000 Aren't you kind of goofy? 0.91

00:23:44.000 And of course, Israel can at the risk of severely escalating the conflict, potentially with Russia, but definitely with Iran, in a way that they might not want to. 0.90

00:23:54.000 Of course, the reason that they risk it is because they don't want to have an Iranian military presence on Israel's border. 0.91

00:24:00.000 And this is where the map comes in. 0.97

00:24:02.000 This is where the map comes in.

00:24:03.000 I'm going to turn up my gain here.

00:24:05.000 And here we have a map of the Middle East.

00:24:09.000 And let me move the mug over here as well.

00:24:12.000 Let me check my levels here so I can make sure that the mic is still.

00:24:15.000 Okay, it looks like we're still getting good volume here.

00:24:19.000 So, this is your map of the Middle East here.

00:24:22.000 This is Syria. 0.89

00:24:23.000 This is with all the colors. 0.92

00:24:24.000 This is Syria. 0.93

00:24:25.000 This is Israel. 0.87

00:24:27.000 This is Turkey. 0.95

00:24:28.000 This is Iran. 0.86

00:24:30.000 And so, the reason that Israel is willing to risk a confrontation with Iran, the reason that Israel is flicking matches into this highly volatile situation is because Iran is all the way over here. 0.74

00:24:45.000 Iran is the last remaining power in the region which has not been completely destroyed. 0.63

00:24:51.000 By the United States or has not been pacified by United States money or through diplomacy.

00:24:57.000 You know, for example, Jordan has an alliance with Israel.

00:25:01.000 They have very good diplomatic relations.

00:25:03.000 Egypt, which is right here, has good relations with Israel.

00:25:06.000 The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a tacit and clandestine relationship with Israel.

00:25:12.000 Turkey is okay with Israel.

00:25:14.000 They've been a little bit more contentious lately, but they're kind of also in somewhat of a relationship with Israel.

00:25:20.000 Every other country, like Lebanon, has been destroyed, Syria has been destroyed.

00:25:24.000 Iraq has been destroyed.

00:25:26.000 Libya, which is over here, has been destroyed. 0.92

00:25:28.000 Somalia, which is over here, has been destroyed.

00:25:31.000 Kind of curious how that is. 0.70

00:25:32.000 But every country in the region that has not been destroyed, that has not been pacified, the only remaining one that has not been destroyed or pacified is Iran.

00:25:43.000 And so the reason Israel's willing to go out there and do these airstrikes and risk rousing the ire of Russia and the United States is because Iran is now putting military bases in Syria. 0.56

00:25:55.000 Iran wasn't so much of a problem when they're all the way over here. 0.66

00:25:58.000 The only problem they would present is if they had a nuclear capability. 0.90

00:26:01.000 If they had an ICBM, or if they even had a medium ballistic range missile, a medium range ballistic missile, that would present a problem, but they don't have a nuclear arsenal.

00:26:11.000 Conventionally, they would not be a threat. 0.54

00:26:13.000 But now that Syria has fallen apart, now that Iraq has fallen apart, Iran has spread its influence through Iraq, through Syria, and now they directly border Israel.

00:26:23.000 And so that's why this provocation by Iran, the drone flying into Israeli airspace, was.

00:26:29.000 Worth such a dramatic retaliation.

00:26:31.000 Now, on the topic of Syria, this is only the latest, I guess, incident in the region.

00:26:38.000 Of course, what is also ongoing while you have Israel and Iran fighting out a proxy conflict in Syria, at the same time you have Turkey and the Kurds fighting out a proxy conflict in Syria.

00:26:51.000 For several weeks now, Turkey has been conducting a campaign in Afrin.

00:26:56.000 This little enclave right here, this orange enclave, this is the YPG. 0.74

00:27:02.000 The YPG is the military arm, and try and follow this.

00:27:07.000 I know this is a little bit difficult, but the PKK is a military arm of the PKK.

00:27:14.000 The PKK is the Kurdish Workers' Party.

00:27:18.000 The Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without a state besides Europeans and white people.

00:27:24.000 And so the Kurds, they exist in northern Syria, in Iraq, in Iran, in southern Turkey, and the PKK or the YPG, they're kind of interchangeable.

00:27:33.000 They have been a terrorist group in Turkey for 30 years.

00:27:36.000 And the reason being is because the Kurds have wanted sovereignty.

00:27:40.000 They want a nation of their own, or they want some degree of political autonomy in countries like Syria and Iraq and Turkey.

00:27:47.000 And so, Turkey does not want, in the aftermath of the Syrian Civil War, after ISIS ripped this country apart, after the rebels ripped this country apart, the Kurds have gained a substantial amount of land, as you can see, on the border between Syria and Turkey.

00:28:02.000 They're here, they're here, and they now control 60% of the border between Turkey and Syria. 0.86

00:28:08.000 Turkey doesn't want. 0.96

00:28:10.000 The Kurds to control that much land because they've been terrorizing Turkey for 30 years. 0.99

00:28:15.000 There have been bus bombings in Istanbul, bus bombings in Ankara, suitcase bombings. 0.96

00:28:20.000 I mean, you saw, I think, significantly a lot of terrorist attacks in 2016 and 2017 by the Kurds in Turkey.

00:28:27.000 And so now that ISIS has died off, now that the United States presence is winding down, now that the Russian presence is winding down, Turkey finds that the Kurds control a significant amount of their border with Syria. 0.67

00:28:38.000 So Turkey said, we're going to go into this enclave right here.

00:28:43.000 This orange enclave in Afrin, that's the city in the middle of it, and they say, We're going to go in there and we are going to take it over.

00:28:51.000 And so they've been fighting this campaign for about a couple of weeks now.

00:28:54.000 And the problem is they're running into some severe resistance now.

00:28:58.000 Russia told Turkey, basically, there's a no fly zone in northern Syria.

00:29:03.000 We don't want you bombing our guys.

00:29:04.000 We don't want you bombing any pro regime forces, so you can't fly your planes here.

00:29:08.000 So Turkey is having a very difficult time fighting in Afrin.

00:29:13.000 They're coming up against terrain that is muddy.

00:29:15.000 That is mountainous. 0.98

00:29:17.000 The Kurds have dug a comprehensive, a very complex tunnel system in the mountains that makes it very difficult to fight them.

00:29:23.000 They've raised an army pretty quickly of thousands of villagers of Kurds who don't want to be taken over by Turkey. 0.73

00:29:30.000 And so Turkey's having a tough time.

00:29:32.000 Their plan is to liberate Afrin and they're going to give the land over to the Syrian rebels.

00:29:37.000 And then they're going to work their way across the purple. 0.71

00:29:39.000 The purple is just your regular Syrian rebels, they're allied with Turkey. 0.86

00:29:45.000 They're going to work their way through the purple. 0.88

00:29:47.000 And then they're going to attack a city back in the orange, back among the Kurds, called Manbij. 0.97

00:29:52.000 And the United States conducts patrols there. 0.52

00:29:54.000 You have the United States troops there.

00:29:56.000 And so, Turkey, they thought it was going to be a real breeze. 0.99

00:29:58.000 They were going to come in here, they were going to liberate Afrin, they were going to make their way over, liberate Manbij, and then they were going to keep going east, and they were just going to mess everything up and liberate all this land from the Kurds. 0.94

00:30:10.000 Now, the reason that I bring this up, the reason that I bring up Turkey, the reason that I bring up Israel all together is to illustrate something that's pretty fundamental, not just about the Middle East. 0.99

00:30:19.000 And not just about Syria, but about the world order. 0.51

00:30:23.000 What you see happening in Syria is the destruction of something called the Westphalian state system, which is an international relations term.

00:30:32.000 We'll get into that in a moment.

00:30:34.000 But what we see right now in Syria is a country where the government in Damascus, the sovereign government that is supposed to be controlling all the affairs within this territory, the Assad regime, which is supposed to handle your public services and defend the country, they now have been invaded, not only by great powers, you now have a presence of 8,000 Russians in Syria, 4,000 Americans in Syria, 5,000 Chinese in Syria.

00:31:01.000 On top of that, you have 1,000 ISIS fighters, and they're from all over the place.

00:31:06.000 You have people from Europe, you have people from Asia, you have people from the Middle East.

00:31:09.000 They've got 20,000 Iraqis, 20,000 Afghans, 10,000 Lebanese, 7,000 Pakis, Palestinians, and others, 16,000 Iranians.

00:31:22.000 And you look at a country that is divided up, and this is very simplified too.

00:31:26.000 I only drew out the three.

00:31:28.000 Some of these groups, the red is the Assad regime, the orange is the Kurds, the purple is the rebels.

00:31:34.000 I only drew a few groups to illustrate what was happening with Turkey, but this country is split among all kinds of interests.

00:31:40.000 You have all these thousands and thousands of foreign actors operating in Syria from the region, non state actors, great power actors from across different oceans.

00:31:52.000 And what we are seeing in Syria is the collapse of something very fundamental to the way that the international state system was supposed to operate.

00:32:00.000 Since 1648, since the Peace of Westphalia, Which ended the Thirty Years' War, we defined the world order as constituted by nation states. 0.73

00:32:13.000 And this is something we take for granted.

00:32:15.000 We talk about the United Nations, we talk about wars as classically conceived, interstate conflicts, you know, of one army with a flag going up against another army with a flag.

00:32:26.000 And I don't think we really need this so much.

00:32:28.000 We may bring it back.

00:32:29.000 Wars as traditionally conceived in other things.

00:32:32.000 The pretext, this is all under the system of the Westphalian state system.

00:32:40.000 What was laid out in 1648 by this peace conference was that you have nation states.

00:32:46.000 This was the fundamental building block of the world.

00:32:49.000 That if you have a monarchy or if you have a republic, whatever the government was, whatever the state was, that coincided with a nation.

00:32:57.000 And a nation is a people that speaks the same language, that descends from the same race or ethnicity, they have a national belonging.

00:33:05.000 For example, the French nation state, France as a nation state, has the government in Paris.

00:33:14.000 Right now, it's, I think, the Fifth Republic.

00:33:16.000 So the regime, the state, is the Fifth Republic in Paris, and the nation is the French.

00:33:23.000 And so if you go to Marseille, or you go to Paris, or you go in the north, or in the east, or the west, in France, you have a nation, you have the French people governed by the Parisian state, governed by this Fifth Republic, and they preside over the affairs.

00:33:38.000 The nation state is.

00:33:39.000 Was the fundamental building block of the world.

00:33:42.000 And so, what that meant alongside that was that each nation state had territorial integrity in the sense that every state in Europe under this new settlement, under the Westphalian settlement, could control and conduct its own affairs. 0.56

00:33:57.000 So, France, you know, maybe they wanted to kill off a bunch of people.

00:34:01.000 Maybe they wanted to shut down the press. 0.85

00:34:03.000 Maybe they were Protestant or maybe they were Catholic.

00:34:06.000 Well, that was their jurisdiction to do so. 0.72

00:34:09.000 And no other country could come in and say, well, we don't like that or.

00:34:13.000 We have a problem with that.

00:34:15.000 The Westphalian system ended any attempt by one power to exert a supranational control over any other country.

00:34:22.000 So, gone were the days of the Holy Roman Empire trying to say, well, you have to bow to our whims, or any other state or any other empire royal family saying that otherwise.

00:34:33.000 You would just have these units.

00:34:36.000 France controls what the French do, and Spain controls what the Spanish do, and the English control what the English do, and so on and so forth. 0.50

00:34:44.000 And this has been how the world has operated ever since 1648.

00:34:48.000 So, what is that?

00:34:51.000 350 years that this has been the system.

00:34:54.000 And as you can tell, as we can kind of contrast, I think you can kind of start to see where the contrast comes in. 0.61

00:35:00.000 This is in diametric opposite to what is happening all around the world, but particularly in Syria. 0.56

00:35:05.000 This is only the most egregious example of a world where that order is rapidly coming apart, where no longer do you have nation states at all. 0.80

00:35:15.000 You know, now you look at the United States and what's the nation?

00:35:18.000 We have a state, but we have no nation.

00:35:20.000 What would be described as the nation? 0.99

00:35:22.000 What will be described as the nation in 50 years when the country has no majority racial group?

00:35:27.000 When the country doesn't have a single language?

00:35:30.000 When the country doesn't have a religion?

00:35:32.000 When maybe half the country doesn't even salute the same flag.

00:35:35.000 Maybe half the country believes that the southwest of the United States should go back to Mexico, right?

00:35:41.000 Should go back to Mexico with stolen land in the Mexican Cession. 1.00

00:35:44.000 That's what a lot of these Hispanics believe in the southwest. 1.00

00:35:47.000 Or in Paris, or in France, or in Sweden, or in Great Britain, in Germany, where it's rapidly being overtaken by Muslims. 0.98

00:35:54.000 Where's the nation there if half the country is Muslim and half the country is ultra conservative, ultra traditionalist, Middle Eastern in character, and the other half is British or French or whatever? 1.00

00:36:05.000 So, the nation state is rapidly coming apart. 0.57

00:36:08.000 And you see this not only in Europe, but you see this moreover in Africa, in the Middle East, where they didn't really have a tradition of the nation state.

00:36:16.000 You understand that, particularly in the Middle East, which was governed by the Ottoman Empire until the 1920s, they did not have nation states the way that Europe did.

00:36:26.000 Europe had nation states since 1648.

00:36:30.000 The Ottoman Empire only dissolved in the 1920s. 0.56

00:36:34.000 And between, you know, the 15th century and the 1920s, This was governed by this massive empire, this massive caliphate from Turkey all the way down through Arabia, all the way up through Azerbaijan.

00:36:47.000 And there were not really these individuated nation states.

00:36:49.000 And that's why I think we see this coming apart.

00:36:51.000 And especially now in this modern period when you have all these different allegiances, you have these sectarian conflicts, ethnic conflicts, religious conflicts, regional.

00:37:01.000 You have these great powers intervening.

00:37:03.000 You see that this world order that the world has been based on, every war, every treaty, Every supranational institution, the UN, the General Assembly, NATO, it's all coming apart.

00:37:15.000 It's all being ripped apart.

00:37:17.000 And there's no better example of that than in Syria, when you see that not only do you have the government, which is vying for control in Damascus, but you also have rebel groups in Syria.

00:37:27.000 And you also have regional fighters there.

00:37:29.000 You have people in countries that are bordering Syria, like Iraq and Iran and Lebanon, but you also have people from Afghanistan.

00:37:37.000 You also have mercenaries from all over the world.

00:37:40.000 You have Russia in there.

00:37:41.000 You have the United States operating in there with the rebels.

00:37:45.000 And even the Chinese, even as far as the Chinese, you have weapons pouring in and on and on and on.

00:37:51.000 And this makes us really rethink everything that we know about the world because we see a country here where the territorial integrity is not being respected. 0.59

00:37:58.000 And this is one example, probably the best example, but this was also true in Iraq.

00:38:02.000 This was also true in Libya.

00:38:04.000 This was true in Egypt.

00:38:06.000 This was true in Iran.

00:38:07.000 Just a few weeks ago, when there were protests, and you have the United States saying, We support the protesters of Iran, it's none of your business.

00:38:15.000 Iran has territorial integrity.

00:38:17.000 Well, no longer. 0.83

00:38:18.000 No longer say the globalists who run the world.

00:38:21.000 Now, everybody's business is everybody's business.

00:38:24.000 What's going on in Yemen is Washington, D.C.'s business.

00:38:28.000 What's going on in Syria is Moscow's business, Beijing's business.

00:38:33.000 And before we move forward, we have to create new rules.

00:38:37.000 You know, maybe the Westphalian system is outdated.

00:38:39.000 And granted, it is.

00:38:41.000 It was based on very ancient technology, it was based on very ancient modes of communication.

00:38:47.000 Of organization.

00:38:48.000 It was before globalization, and globalization in a real sense, when you really had these mass migrations of people, when you really had the mixings of religion and language and so on.

00:38:59.000 Before we move any further into this new world, into this new world order, we have to figure out what the rules are. 0.55

00:39:06.000 Because you see the potential, the horrible potential for tragedy in Syria right now in the absence of rules. 0.93

00:39:14.000 Because, you know, before we would say, well, Syria is going to do what Syria is going to do.

00:39:19.000 If there is some kind of an uprising, well, you know, let them sort it out.

00:39:23.000 Iraq is going to do something?

00:39:25.000 Well, you know, let Iraq figure it out.

00:39:26.000 Well, if we're all going to go in and play ball, if Russia's going to go in, if the U.S. is going to go in there and we're going to vie for control and the CIA's going to be in there and everyone's going to be in there, well, what are the rules then? 0.63

00:39:38.000 You see the potential for conflict when you have Russia and the United States in the same country.

00:39:44.000 We see this with Turkey, where Turkey may come face to face with American troops fighting the Kurds, where Israel's bombing Iran in Syria.

00:39:53.000 And while they're bombing Iran in Syria, they might bomb Russians.

00:39:56.000 On Iranian bases in Syria. 0.61

00:39:59.000 They may bomb Chinese on Russian bases in Syria. 0.76

00:40:03.000 I mean, who knows?

00:40:04.000 And so that's why we need to lay out a new framework.

00:40:06.000 We have to revise the institutions.

00:40:09.000 We have to come up with new rules, new traditions, new procedures, new modes of conduct.

00:40:16.000 Because the way that this is functioning, where there's just no rules, where it's just anarchy, where anything goes and there's no precedent, it can lead to nothing but chaos.

00:40:26.000 It can lead to nothing but tragedy. 0.76

00:40:27.000 And so You know, we can talk about Syria.

00:40:30.000 We can talk about, well, there's these factions, and well, this person bombed this person, and there's a lot of potential for conflict here.

00:40:37.000 But, I mean, more broadly, if we don't figure out these rules, you will see this again and again and again. 0.85

00:40:42.000 Maybe we get lucky and we sort out Syria.

00:40:45.000 Maybe we get lucky and Assad stays for a little while, and we achieve some kind of settlement with Russia, and they ease into a new regime, and Iran is expelled, and hopefully, maybe we sort it all out. 0.87

00:40:57.000 But what happens when it's Yemen? 0.84

00:40:59.000 What happens when it's Afghanistan?

00:41:00.000 What happens when it's Another country that we don't even know about yet. 0.97

00:41:04.000 What happens when it's another state that's ready to fail?

00:41:07.000 That's the next hotspot, that's the next crisis.

00:41:09.000 We have to figure out the rules.

00:41:11.000 We have to figure out the standards, the procedures, because otherwise this will repeat and repeat until it ends tragically.

00:41:18.000 And you understand that the worst thing that can happen is not Israel bombing a couple of Iranian sites in Syria, it's the United States and Russia firing at each other in a country where we don't even know whose side we're on anymore.

00:41:31.000 And then it turns into a much bigger exchange.

00:41:34.000 That's Syria.

00:41:35.000 That's the whiteboard here. 0.84

00:41:36.000 It's pretty mind blowing.

00:41:38.000 And I hope you like the colors here.

00:41:40.000 I colored in the oceans and the seas as well.

00:41:42.000 Or the seas, really.

00:41:43.000 Mediterranean Sea, Persian Gulf, Caspian Sea.

00:41:47.000 That should be colored in, too.

00:41:49.000 That's the Arabian Sea. 0.73

00:41:51.000 But isn't it wild that you have Syria and you have people all the way from up here in Russia and all the way from here in Turkey and all the way from here in Iran and here in Iraq. 0.70

00:42:00.000 And they're all coming to play here. 0.98

00:42:03.000 They're all coming to the devil's play place to have it out.

00:42:06.000 What a bad situation.

00:42:08.000 What a mess.

00:42:09.000 What a mess.

00:42:10.000 It can't go on like this.

00:42:11.000 It won't go on like this.

00:42:14.000 Either we figure it out and we come up with new rules, or we're all going to die, folks.

00:42:19.000 We're all going to die.

00:42:20.000 What happens when Turkey fires on the United States and NATO falls apart and Israel goes to war in Syria against Iran and Russia comes at them and then we have to come to the defense of Israel? 0.64

00:42:31.000 It's a war of all against all.

00:42:34.000 And that's why I'm starting to get a little bit worried because I'm reading in the gospel, Jesus Christ talks about this like, Three times he says, Well, the end of the world will be when all the nations of the world are at war with each other.

00:42:46.000 And he also talks about earthquakes.

00:42:48.000 The war stuff doesn't scare me so much because we've had world wars before.

00:42:51.000 We had two of them.

00:42:53.000 We had actually a few before that.

00:42:54.000 We had the Seven Years' War, we had the War of Austrian Succession, both of which were fought on a global scale.

00:43:02.000 So there were world wars before.

00:43:04.000 People have been at war forever.

00:43:05.000 But then there's the earthquakes.

00:43:07.000 How many earthquakes have there been this year?

00:43:09.000 It's like every day there's an earthquake in Mexico, there's an earthquake in Iran, there's an earthquake in California, there's an earthquake in Japan, there's one in North Korea.

00:43:18.000 Spooky stuff.

00:43:19.000 Who knows?

00:43:20.000 Who knows what could happen?

00:43:21.000 Got to make the new rules or else he's coming back.

00:43:23.000 But no, the last part's a little bit in jest, but we got to figure it out.

00:43:27.000 So that's Syria, that's Israel, that's Turkey. 0.73

00:43:31.000 It's a mess, but hopefully the deal maker can figure it all out.

00:43:34.000 We got to get to your super chats.

00:43:36.000 It looks like we only got about 10 minutes here left, but that's all right.

00:43:40.000 It means there's a lot of content, it means there's a lot going on.

00:43:43.000 So let's check your super chats.

00:43:44.000 We'll see.

00:43:45.000 What are the unwashed masses saying today?

00:43:48.000 Whenever I check the, I'm always wondering to myself, I kid, the live chat is the unwashed masses.

00:43:53.000 The super chat is the petite.

00:43:55.000 Bourgeoisie, right?

00:43:57.000 The live chat is the unwashed masses. 0.78

00:44:00.000 The live chat, ugh. 1.00

00:44:02.000 You know, I'm always running, what's the peasant class thinking? 0.99

00:44:05.000 But the super chats, the premium members, this is your petite bourgeoisie. 0.90

00:44:11.000 These are your high caliber, these are people that eat Ferrero Rocher, right?

00:44:15.000 Is that that chocolate?

00:44:17.000 Those are the people that are eating the high class stuff, right?

00:44:20.000 Alciabadi says, go to Lect 16 famous Greeks.

00:44:26.000 On YouTube, to say my name right, please.

00:44:28.000 It's a great academic lecture, too.

00:44:30.000 Kudos on another good show.

00:44:31.000 Well, thank you.

00:44:32.000 I'll have to check that out so I can pronounce it right next time.

00:44:36.000 Dominic Libertor, you got to spend money to make money.

00:44:39.000 That's right.

00:44:39.000 It's true.

00:44:40.000 And especially with the infrastructure, especially with the infrastructure and also with defense.

00:44:44.000 I mean, these are things that in the long term protect our investments.

00:44:48.000 So it's worth it.

00:44:50.000 Empress Finest, Empress Finest, who's baking the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, they're going to have to send some over this way pretty soon as tribute.

00:44:59.000 I'll have to an exact. 0.66

00:45:01.000 I'll have to exact the tribute a tithe of baked goods. 0.94

00:45:05.000 Empress Finest says, Do we really need almost $1 trillion in military spending?

00:45:10.000 Well, that's kind of rounding up by a lot.

00:45:12.000 It's $680 billion.

00:45:14.000 You're rounding up by 320.

00:45:17.000 You're rounding up by 50%.

00:45:19.000 That's a lot.

00:45:20.000 That's like saying, You're spending $20.

00:45:22.000 Why are you spending $50?

00:45:24.000 It's a little wild.

00:45:26.000 But I understand the premise. 0.97

00:45:29.000 Also, we can't have unhyphenated Americans.

00:45:32.000 Until people can agree with what American even means.

00:45:35.000 Well, the answer about the military spending is yes.

00:45:38.000 Yes, we do need $600 billion in military spending.

00:45:42.000 That's the only thing the government should be spending money on.

00:45:45.000 The problem is not the military spending.

00:45:47.000 Do the math.

00:45:49.000 $4.4 trillion in federal spending, $600 billion, or let's round up to $700.

00:45:57.000 $700 billion in military spending.

00:46:00.000 Subtract one from the other, and what do you get?

00:46:03.000 $3.7 trillion in spending that isn't military.

00:46:07.000 What's the problem there?

00:46:09.000 What's causing the wild debts and the wild deficits?

00:46:12.000 What's the piece that keeps growing exponentially?

00:46:15.000 The mandatory spending, the entitlement spending.

00:46:18.000 The problem is not the military.

00:46:20.000 The fact of the matter is, we're spending trillions and trillions on things the government constitutionally shouldn't even be spending money on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.

00:46:29.000 These are the problem components.

00:46:32.000 You know, we could on Two and a half trillion dollars.

00:46:35.000 We could have infrastructure, we could have a wall, we could have all kinds of stuff.

00:46:42.000 We could have a trillion dollars in defense and NASA, and you would have a really great country if you cut out all the entitlements.

00:46:50.000 We could be running massive surpluses and be funding everything we're funding right now and a little bit more if we cut out all the entitlements.

00:46:58.000 But the problem is the fact that the government is taking from Peter and they're giving to Paul.

00:47:04.000 And the problem is.

00:47:05.000 Nobody's going to want to be Peter.

00:47:06.000 They all want to be Paul.

00:47:07.000 They all want to be in on the take.

00:47:08.000 They don't want to give so much.

00:47:10.000 And that's the problem.

00:47:11.000 And I went through this last week where Social Security was supposed to be you put money into a trust, you get the money back, and you understand why that works then.

00:47:21.000 You put money into the trust, it accrues interest, and then there's more of it.

00:47:25.000 And then you retire, and you should be living in retirement a lot less than you'd be contributing while you're working.

00:47:30.000 So there's enough money then to be given in and then taken out.

00:47:33.000 Well, now what happens is the beneficiaries are taking money from the workers.

00:47:39.000 So what I'm paying in right now, that money is going right to the retirees.

00:47:42.000 And that's a big problem.

00:47:43.000 That's Called a Ponzi scheme.

00:47:45.000 That's a pyramid scheme because it requires more and more people on the bottom to keep paying and keep supporting it.

00:47:52.000 And one generation, they're just going to get screwed.

00:47:55.000 One generation is going to be paying and paying and they won't see any benefits.

00:47:58.000 So that's kind of a detour.

00:48:00.000 That's aside from the point that Social Security is insolvent, Medicare, Medicaid, they will all eventually become insolvent.

00:48:08.000 And these are systematic problems in the budget because this is mandatory spending and systematic problems in the program.

00:48:14.000 So defense is not the issue.

00:48:17.000 We can afford to spend a lot of money on defense.

00:48:19.000 That's a legitimate function of the state.

00:48:22.000 That's a legitimate function of the government, a constitutional function of the government, a constitutional item that the House is authorized to appropriate money for.

00:48:31.000 The same cannot be said about Social Security.

00:48:34.000 The same cannot be said about Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, unemployment insurance, and all the rest.

00:48:40.000 So, constitutional, forget about it, but that's why. 1.00

00:48:44.000 And on the hyphenated Americans, true. 0.93

00:48:46.000 I mean, as long as you have these different identities, you have to modify them. 0.99

00:48:50.000 You know, African American. 0.97

00:48:52.000 They're African. 0.99

00:48:52.000 They've chosen, when they show up to the State of the Union in their African garb and they want to do the black power and they want to protest the flag, well, I'm sorry, that's not American. 0.99

00:49:02.000 That's African. 0.95

00:49:03.000 You know, maybe you want to call it African American. 0.77

00:49:05.000 So I agree on that. 0.95

00:49:06.000 Big agree on that.

00:49:07.000 Have to agree on what American is.

00:49:10.000 John Shepard Smith, you can't just paper it over with the wording.

00:49:13.000 John Shepard Smith, so are the authors, AP and Reuters, of the pro North Korean articles that kicked off yesterday's absurd MSM fawning undercover DPRK agents?

00:49:24.000 Or perhaps SHICOM intelligence assets.

00:49:27.000 Check out other news articles from them.

00:49:30.000 I'm not totally sure.

00:49:30.000 I don't know.

00:49:32.000 I haven't been watching that so closely.

00:49:35.000 This is just kind of the habit of the mainstream media.

00:49:37.000 They have been doing this for a long time with North Korea, but also for all kinds of other people.

00:49:42.000 You know, I mean, they were doing this for Russia years ago.

00:49:45.000 I remember when I was a conservative in 2014, I remember I was on the speech team in high school, and I would be up there railing about how Barack Obama was too soft.

00:49:56.000 On Russia, how the media was keeping it a secret that Russia actually invaded Ukraine in the Donbass, in Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, but covertly, even though they denied it.

00:50:09.000 And the mainstream media covered that up.

00:50:11.000 So the mainstream media just pays lip service to whatever the deep state, the establishment wants to be said.

00:50:16.000 So I don't know if it's particular to North Korea.

00:50:19.000 I don't know if it's particular to like double agents or sleeper cells.

00:50:23.000 I just think they just kind of towed the party line essentially. 0.95

00:50:28.000 Frederick White, Jewish Jets got that mosquito zapper treatment this weekend. 1.00

00:50:32.000 Good job, Syria. 1.00

00:50:33.000 Oof, yeah, well, it's true.

00:50:36.000 Ratapunks, Nick, please look into having Kyle Hunt from Renegade Broadcasting.

00:50:40.000 He's bad optics.

00:50:41.000 Looked into it.

00:50:42.000 Bad optics.

00:50:43.000 Also, have you seen any vids from No White Guilt?

00:50:46.000 Concise and to the point.

00:50:47.000 Never seen it.

00:50:49.000 You'd like him.

00:50:49.000 Good optics.

00:50:51.000 Lastly, when are you coming up to the Dells area, man?

00:50:53.000 Well, I don't really have a reason to go to the Dells.

00:50:56.000 I went to the Dells as a kid, but.

00:50:58.000 I don't just go around like, oh, I'm going to go to the Dells.

00:51:01.000 I don't have any plans to visit the Dells anytime soon, but if I'm ever up there, I'll let you know.

00:51:07.000 But yeah, I'm told that Kyle Hunt is bad optics.

00:51:09.000 So, remember, we have to be optical on the show.

00:51:14.000 But he does get the plug.

00:51:15.000 GuerrillaRadio.tv.

00:51:17.000 Are you down to debate Sticks on the Call Me Al Logan Paul Power Hour Chadcast in a winner take all scenario?

00:51:25.000 Technology superior to Worski?

00:51:27.000 I would do it.

00:51:28.000 I would debate Sticks anytime, anyplace.

00:51:32.000 You know, he's a Satanist.

00:51:34.000 I'm a Catholic.

00:51:35.000 So, any chance I could get to drive out the evil one, the deceiver, you know, I'm game to do it.

00:51:41.000 Wherever it is.

00:51:42.000 And hey, the good thing about the Call Meow program is you get the winner take all, which is very nice.

00:51:48.000 Clappy Clapsalot says, Nice tie.

00:51:50.000 This is an older one.

00:51:50.000 Thank you.

00:51:51.000 This is an older tie.

00:51:53.000 It's much thicker.

00:51:54.000 You know, usually I do the thinner ties.

00:51:57.000 This is a thick.

00:51:59.000 This is a big Chad guy right here.

00:52:02.000 Thick.

00:52:03.000 Might be a good time to have future Congressman Nealon on again in light of current events.

00:52:07.000 Yeah, well, you know, it's tough.

00:52:09.000 I don't really have a way to communicate with him anymore because he's not on Twitter.

00:52:13.000 So.

00:52:14.000 But I'd like to have him on again.

00:52:15.000 We'll talk to him.

00:52:16.000 And somebody has posted a link from Poll.

00:52:19.000 Let me pull this up.

00:52:20.000 Got to whip the keyboard out here.

00:52:22.000 And then we got to get going.

00:52:25.000 Let's whip this out.

00:52:26.000 It looks like you.

00:52:27.000 What are you linking here?

00:52:28.000 I hope it's not going to cause any trouble here for my computer.

00:52:33.000 Bing bong.

00:52:35.000 Whoops.

00:52:37.000 All right.

00:52:37.000 Let's see.

00:52:38.000 What do we got?

00:52:40.000 Oh, I see.

00:52:41.000 The portrait of Michelle.

00:52:42.000 Thank you for that.

00:52:43.000 Thank you for that.

00:52:44.000 You know, did you know that Michelle Obama's a man? 0.68

00:52:47.000 And she's transgender and Barack Obama's gay?

00:52:50.000 I didn't know that, but I do now. 0.97

00:52:53.000 Brett McVeigh is intrastate warfare a neo Westphalian hallmark.

00:53:00.000 No, intrastate warfare has been going on forever.

00:53:03.000 Intra, meaning within, and state, obviously, within the state warfare.

00:53:07.000 That's been going on forever.

00:53:08.000 You know, you can look at the Crimean War as a good example, where a concert of powers goes up against a country. 0.55

00:53:14.000 I get maybe that's a bad example, but there's the Greek.

00:53:18.000 Revolution in the 19th century is an example of this. 0.78

00:53:21.000 I mean, this happens.

00:53:23.000 This happened from time to time, even at the height of the Westphalian order in the 19th century, when you saw from the end of Napoleon until the First World War, this was probably best characterized as a time of the balance of power of the Westphalian system.

00:53:36.000 And even then, you had the revolutions of 1848, you had an earlier spate of revolutions in the 1820s, 1824, I believe.

00:53:46.000 So this has always been a feature.

00:53:48.000 And even in the establishment of the German state, there was warfare between Prussia and Austria and between Prussia and France. 0.86

00:53:55.000 So it's always been there.

00:53:57.000 But it's just a matter of systemic versus incidental.

00:54:01.000 Intrastate warfare during Westphalian times was more of an incident.

00:54:04.000 This was against the normative established order. 0.99

00:54:07.000 This is looking increasingly like the norm.

00:54:09.000 That's the breakdown in Westphalian order, where it's looking like every conflict is like this. 0.89

00:54:14.000 It's like this in Iraq, it's like this in Syria.

00:54:17.000 Libya has fallen apart as a result of the NATO intervention.

00:54:21.000 And so this is becoming the norm. 0.91

00:54:23.000 And so that's the difference.

00:54:25.000 You had interstate warfare.

00:54:26.000 You've always had that.

00:54:27.000 But now it's like that's just, that's all you have.

00:54:30.000 When's the last interstate conflict?

00:54:33.000 I think, what was the last major one?

00:54:35.000 It was really the last major interstate conflict was probably the United States versus Iraq.

00:54:42.000 And even that was pretty asymmetrical.

00:54:45.000 So I guess that'd be your latest example of major conflicts.

00:54:50.000 Brett McVeigh, and I just got that one, says Styx isn't a Satanist, he said.

00:54:55.000 What do you think?

00:54:56.000 The guy's name is Sticks and Hammer666.

00:54:58.000 Maybe he's just an occultist.

00:54:59.000 Maybe he's just a pagan. 0.63

00:55:01.000 Maybe he's just a Satanist LARPer.

00:55:02.000 Maybe it's kind of a gimmick.

00:55:04.000 I don't know.

00:55:04.000 Well, pagans, Satanists, it's all the same, right?

00:55:08.000 You know, same shoes, different stocks.

00:55:09.000 But I'll debate them anyway.

00:55:11.000 But that's going to do it for us tonight here on the show.

00:55:13.000 Remember, if you liked what you saw, if you liked that, the whiteboard, the hard hitting analysis, remember to subscribe, give it a big thumbs up, leave a comment, give me a compliment, or criticize me.

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00:56:41.000 I'm Nicholas J. Fuentes.

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00:56:56.000 Have a great rest of your evening.

00:57:00.000 Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo.

00:57:07.000 It's going to be only America first.

00:57:09.000 America first. 0.88

00:57:12.000 The American people.

00:57:16.000 Will come first once again.

America First - Nicholas J. Fuentes - February 12, 2018

The End of Westphalia | America First Ep. 106

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