00:00:48.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:57.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:35.000I'm a fighter for Western values and liberties.
00:01:37.000I'm a dogged defender of science, reason, and common sense.
00:01:40.000I must say, though, that I'm unsure that the West can recover from its multi-front civilizational suicide.
00:01:45.000Yes, I've talked about these issues for decades and wrote a book about it in the past, but the past few weeks have crystallized the extent to which the problem has become intractable.
00:01:54.000It will be a long and ultimately bloody demise, and the West will be the first society in recorded history to fully self-implode due to its parasitic ideological rapture.
00:02:04.000It is a gargantuan Greek tragedy that will shape the future of humanity.
00:02:10.000Your grandchildren will pay a very high price for your progressive arrogance, rooted in the pursuit of unicornia, I think I said that right, that only exists in the recesses of deeply flawed parasitized.
00:02:22.000You have to pronounce that one for me.
00:02:30.000Well, you know, I was just talking to your producer offline.
00:02:35.000If your physician comes to you and says, hey, you have an aggressive cancer, and here are some intervention strategies that hopefully can eradicate the cancer.
00:02:44.000And you say, no, no, no, doctor, I don't want to eradicate the cancer.
00:03:03.000Now, what I'm saying here facetiously is that not only you have a complete breakdown in the ability of Western leaders to think critically, hence the parasitic mind, but they, because of that parasitized mind, they then end up doubling down on a lot of the craziness.
00:03:20.000So there is no way by which you could implement a policy to reverse the trends.
00:03:34.000So in the parasitic mind, I basically argue that there is a bunch of idea pathogens that serve like brainworms that alter your ability to think rationally, slowly leading you into the abyss of infinite lunacy.
00:03:49.000So what are some of those ideological mind pathogens?
00:03:53.000So of course, postmodernism, I've talked with you about this previously in the show.
00:03:58.000Postmodernism says that there are no objective truths, and therefore, men can be women, left could be right, peace could be war, Hamas could be the freedom fighters, whereas Israel are the Nazi genocidal regime.
00:04:17.000Cultural relativism is another idea pathogen that basically disarms people from being able to take clear positions about things that should be obvious to a three-day-old pigeon.
00:04:29.000Is it okay to cut off the clitorises of five-year-old girls?
00:04:35.000Is that a superior society to one that doesn't allow that?
00:04:39.000Well, according to our super smart Western academics, well, who are you to judge the mores of another culture?
00:04:46.000And therefore, that disarms you from making moral judgments and therefore fighting against grotesque violations of morality, radical feminism, biophobia, the inability to accept biological reality.
00:05:00.000So, all of these idea pathogens have created this perfect multi-pronged mechanism by which people can no longer think, and therefore we end up in exactly the situation that we're in today.
00:05:14.000So, what is interesting, and you mentioned this in your metaphor at the beginning, people refuse to acknowledge we even have a problem, and that's that's what I think is most disturbing.
00:05:25.000It'd be one thing if we debated what the solution would be, but you have one side that acts as if the revolution has never had more spirit, and the other side that's actually properly diagnosing that our civilization is collapsing from within.
00:05:50.000So, let's let's put it in concrete language.
00:05:53.000For about 30 years now, I've been warning the West about exactly what we're seeing.
00:05:57.000And I'm not saying this to be gleeful so that I can be patted out of boy, you were right, but it's because I'm so frustrated at the fact that we are finding ourselves where we are when we could have avoided all this.
00:06:09.000If you let into your country hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who do not share any of the foundational values on which the host society is built, what do you think is going to happen?
00:06:25.000But there are many non-partisan, in many cases, woke global surveys that, when they do surveys in countries where perpetual peace reigns, such as Pakistan and Yemen, and Lebanon, and Syria, and Algeria, and Libya, and Egypt, you find about 95 to 99% Jew hatred.
00:06:48.000So, let me explain this for people who may not know what that means.
00:06:52.000So, if I sample a thousand people in Egypt, between 950 to 990 of the sampled people will express great disdain and hatred towards Jews.
00:07:04.000So, now, if you let in 100,000 of those people, is that going to result in greater safety for Jews in the host country or lesser safety?
00:07:14.000So, it doesn't take a fancy professor such as myself to be able to connect the dots, right?
00:07:22.000The reason why we refuse is because it appears gauche to most Westerners to make such a statement.
00:07:28.000That makes you sound as though you're a bigot and a racist.
00:07:32.000But listen, I have more Muslim friends than most people will ever meet.
00:07:36.000And I perfectly recognize that there are mean Jews and nice Jews.
00:07:40.000There are mean Muslims and nice Muslims.
00:07:42.000But we're talking here about foundational values.
00:07:46.000Does a culture that says throw gays off rooftops is that a culture that is superior to one that celebrates all year long, you know, queer identity?
00:07:57.000You know, it doesn't take much to put the dots together.
00:08:00.000So, let's just kind of isolate that example.
00:08:03.000It's largely, though, you call it suicidal, which it is.
00:08:07.000And I'm trying to understand the psychology of it and maybe, you know, help us out here, Doctor.
00:08:11.000Because if you just take a sampling of 100 secular Jews in America, 80 to 90 percent of them would want more immigration, even from people who hate them.
00:08:25.000So, I'll be I'll explain it by drawing an analogy.
00:08:28.000So, in Quebec, the biggest foundational existential threat to Quebecers is that their language is going to die, right?
00:08:37.000So, they view the prism of everything in life through the mean English people are going to sweep us aside with their English, and therefore we have to find any way to resist.
00:08:48.000And so, here's what the Quebec government did many years ago: they said, Here's a great idea.
00:08:53.000Why don't we let in hundreds of thousands of people who are perfectly antithetical to our values in Quebec, but at least they speak French?
00:09:03.000So, when they come to behead you, at least they say bonjour before they behead you, and therefore, don't worry about it, it will all work out.
00:09:12.000So, it's the exact same principle with the super smarmy liberal Jews that you're speaking of.
00:09:18.000They have an identity that says we are infinitely tolerant, but you know why they're infinitely tolerant because they grew up in the upper east side of New York City where they didn't know that these things happened.
00:09:29.000They didn't grow up where mean Middle Eastern Professor Gad Sad grew up.
00:09:34.000But I grew up in the Middle East, and I know that what they started with me in 1975 in the Middle East will eventually find its way to the Upper East side.
00:09:44.000Yeah, we have a good amount of time to unpack this.
00:09:48.000So, some people say that it's just mass delusion or that it's ideal, like ideology that can then basically trump, no pun intended, reality.
00:10:01.000That's my current working hypothesis: I underestimated how powerful ideology can be to basically overrule material reality.
00:10:15.000And as you know, and I think you might have maybe quoted me.
00:10:17.000I heard you on Megan Kelly talking about it.
00:10:21.000One of the things that I argued makes all of these idea pathogens similar to each other is that they free us from the pesky shackles of reality.
00:10:45.000The problem becomes when radical feminism says, in the pursuit of that laudable goal, let's argue that men and women are indistinguishable from each other.
00:10:54.000Well, I could chew gum and walk at the same time.
00:10:57.000I could be all four important social goals without raping and murdering truth.
00:11:02.000Regrettably, most progressives are unable to do those two things at the same time.
00:11:06.000That then requires almost a spirit to want to redefine what is already existing, not to understand the natural world, but to remake it in some image, whether it be an egalitarian image or a totalitarian one.
00:11:20.000But, doctor, plug your book here for a second.
00:11:23.000So, the one that I've been mostly talking about now is the parasitic mind: how infectious ideas are killing common sense.
00:11:29.000And the most recent one, released two weeks ago, two months ago, is the sad truth about happiness: eight secrets for leading the good life.
00:11:46.000So, Dr. Saad, what do you say to the people that say the West's best days are ahead?
00:11:50.000They've never been able to destroy the West before.
00:11:53.000And all of this is just a temporary challenge.
00:11:56.000I would say that that optimism is well-founded as long as we recognize the problem and are willing to implement the solutions to solve the problem.
00:12:06.000It may take 50 years, it may take 100, it may take 500, but the West will self-implode.
00:12:11.000And I mean, just looking at, you know, all the way back to Nietzsche, who said God is dead and said your foundational values basically are gone, lamenting the death of God, that seems to be prophetic because if you were to ask somebody on the side of the street in New York City, what are the foundational values of the West?
00:12:30.000You're going to get many different answers, right?
00:12:32.000Some people would say, well, the foundational values of the West is LGBTQ plus stuff.
00:12:51.000Fidelity Charitable released its latest giving report.
00:12:54.000According to the report, its account holders in 2022 recommended $11 billion to nonprofits in the mixed Planned Parenthood.
00:13:02.000In fact, according to the report, Planned Parenthood was just the sixth most popular nonprofit among Fidelity charitable account holders last year.
00:13:51.000Historically, individual freedoms, individual dignity, personal responsibility, presumption of innocence, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of inquiry.
00:14:03.000Those are the deontological foundational values that allow a society to flourish.
00:14:09.000Once you start rejecting individualism to pursue collectivism, you end up with trouble.
00:14:15.000I come from such a culture that was perfectly organized along tribal lines.
00:14:20.000Everything in Lebanon is viewed through the prism of which religion you belong to.
00:14:24.000And so it's not a good experiment to run.
00:15:30.000So, Dr. Said, some people would say, more traditional conservatives, they would agree with you as the end point, but they would argue that the West's own values are temporarily enjoyable, but they're not sustainable and the values will be used against them.
00:15:45.000For example, freedom of speech is used against itself, or let's just say the neutral public square.
00:15:53.000And that's where we get drag queens or that's where we get grotesque LGBT type stuff.
00:15:58.000What do you have to say to the criticism?
00:15:59.000I'm sure you've received it by some people that would say the West is actually a victim of its own once values being turned against itself, tolerance turning into mass migration.
00:16:12.000And that's why Karl Popper's infamous or famous paradox of tolerance is a quote that I have in the parasitic mind, where basically I'm paraphrasing what he said.
00:16:22.000He said, look, yes, of course, open free societies should tolerate all sorts of stuff, but cannot tolerate the intolerable.
00:16:30.000In other words, imagine an experiment where those who don't believe in freedom of speech were able to overpower you.
00:17:50.000I'm in love with all that's love and I'm loving love.
00:17:54.000Basically, and who's open to having conversations with everyone?
00:17:57.000When I critiqued his faux positivity stuff, the first thing he did was to block me.
00:18:02.000I would have thought that someone who's so in love with love would have said, hey, why don't you come on my show and let's discuss whether my positions are incorrect or not.
00:18:10.000But apparently he's now blocking anybody who follows me.
00:18:15.000I've never met him personally, but I'm someone who is easily, as the kids say, triggered by, forgive me, I hope I can use that word, pure bull.
00:19:11.000I'm attacking your ideas, your positions.
00:19:14.000We might go to dinner together and we might actually find that we really like each other.
00:19:19.000But in the arena of the public swear, if you put out ideas, other people will consume them and either agree with them and disagree with them.
00:19:28.000And I happen to greatly disagree with the, as the British people say, the shite that this guy espouses.
00:19:34.000So you would summarize his position of why can't we just get along type thing while we're in the midst of a mortal combat for the West?
00:19:44.000Where 1400 people had their eyes gouged out, children decapitated, or we may disagree as to the extent of the decapitation, as some of the queers for Palestine people have explained to me over, you know, over messages.
00:19:59.000But, you know, women were raped, and this guy comes along and says, you know, he pulls back his lesson from kindergarten and he says, hey, guys, come on, caring is sharing.
00:20:12.000If only the militia in Lebanon, when we escaped because we were about to get decapitated, if only those militia had been exposed to the profundity of Lex Friedman, we could have still been living in Kumbaya in Lebanon.
00:20:26.000So if you see me speaking now with kind of a spicy tone, it's because it's this kind of garbage thinking that gets us into its ideas don't just exist in this beautiful platonic ideal world.
00:20:39.000So when this idiot goes around spewing this stuff, it has consequences and therefore I go after him.
00:20:46.000Understandably, I will say that there is a fair amount in the intellectual community online, this unwillingness to accept that, you know, there's a Hobbesian wrinkle to nature and it's really nasty and brutish and dare I say short.
00:21:11.000I find his show interesting at times, but it doesn't surprise me that he or people like him are saying that when we're just weeks removed from some of the most heinous violence.
00:21:22.000And also just the reality, there's also this like fake egalitarianism or equivalent that he makes like, oh, well, both sides.
00:21:32.000So look, it's, you know, I'm also, I'm a professor of marketing, so I understand one or two things about persuasion strategies.
00:21:38.000So Lex thinks that the optimal way to increase his market share, and maybe he's right, because he certainly has a larger platform than most people who are in that space.
00:21:49.000He believes that by never taking a position that might alienate someone, this is how he can straddle the fence and be a fence sitter.
00:22:15.000And Winston Churchill didn't say love is love.
00:22:18.000And even bad actors in history also took positions.
00:22:23.000So the world is shaped by anything but fence sitters.
00:22:27.000But Lex, and I'm presuming here, I'm not in his mind.
00:22:31.000I think he thinks that the right positional strategy for him to take in order to maximize his audience is to never say something that might alienate someone.
00:22:41.000And therefore, by always equivocating, by always appearing tempered, then I could be friends with everyone.
00:22:48.000Look, by disposition, I'm a very, very warm, affectionate, happy person.
00:22:53.000But I also, for better or worse, I also come to the world with a honey badger attitude.
00:22:58.000In other words, I will never violate my sense of authenticity for some pragmatic purpose.
00:23:05.000I will never speak from this side of my mouth and this side of my mouth because I want more followers.
00:23:10.000And frankly, that's the reason why people gravitate to my message, because you can trust that I'm going to tell you how I see it.
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00:24:41.000Then I must ask, how do we get the West to wake up and how do we fight this conflict or this war?
00:24:46.000Because you said something that someone might think is a contradiction.
00:24:50.000You said, on one hand, you want to live in a free society that allows Holocaust deniers or whatever the ability to speak, but you also said we shouldn't tolerate that which destroys you.
00:24:58.000How do we use prudence to identify which is which and how do we respond to the left eating itself?
00:25:05.000So even for a deontological principle like freedom of speech, freedom of speech is, I mean, technically speaking, is not an absolute, absolutist principle, right?
00:25:15.000There is an asterisk that says, well, yes, freedom of speech, but you can't libel and defame someone.
00:25:21.000Yes, freedom of speech, but you can't use that when you, you know, the proverbial, you know, cry fire in a theater.
00:25:27.000Yes, freedom of speech, but you can't say, hey, let's go at the corner of 7th and 18th.
00:25:34.000And when the Jews are coming out of the synagogue, let's beat them up and kill them, right?
00:25:38.000So even for something as absolutist as freedom of speech, it comes with a certain asterisk.
00:25:43.000So the same applies for your grand question.
00:25:46.000Yes, the way that we adjudicate ideas in a free society is through vigorous debate, but you can't tolerate an ideology that says, hey, once I get in sufficient numbers and I have enough powers, I will absolutely eradicate every single foundational tenet on which you're built.
00:26:06.000So we can be, so it's not inconsistent.
00:26:09.000It's not, so for any deontological statement, there's always a few asterisks that explain the boundary conditions.
00:26:38.000The most important of which, I think, the one that sticks in people's minds is when I say activate your inner honey badger.
00:26:44.000And the reason, you know, we've used the word honey badger in this chat a lot, but let me just explain it for some of your viewers and listeners.
00:26:50.000The honey badger has been officially ranked as the fiercest animal in the animal kingdom.
00:26:56.000I mean, there are a lot of, you know, laudable competitors that would want to get that mantle.
00:27:01.000Well, the reason why it is so fierce is because it's absolutely dogged in how it defends itself.
00:27:07.000It is the size of a small dog, and yet lions will stay away from it because it is so fierce and ferocious.
00:27:14.000So what does it mean when I say activate your inner honey badger?
00:27:17.000I'm not talking about a call to violence.
00:27:19.000I'm saying that if there are foundational principles that you think are worth saving, then be a honey badger and defend them, right?
00:27:28.000There is nothing wrong in you saying, I don't want twerking drag queens to teach my six-year-old about queer, whatever, sex, right?
00:27:39.000There is a time and place for anything.
00:27:41.000So have confidence in your convictions.
00:27:43.000But here's the beauty of a lot of these idea pathogens.
00:27:46.000They've convinced most people that any blowback to any of their positions makes you a transphobe, a sexist, a misogynist, a toxic masculinity guy, an Islamophobe.
00:27:58.000And people are more afraid to be labeled that than to die, right?
00:28:04.000But the reality, though, is here's some optimistic words.
00:28:06.000The reality is the silent majority hates this stuff.
00:28:10.000But unfortunately, much of the silent majority have lost their testicular fortitude and they haven't been able to find their spines yet.
00:28:18.000Once they find their testicles and they find their spine, that's when we will win the war.
00:28:23.000Until then, we will continue to go towards the abyss of infinite lunacy.
00:28:27.000And I think what you're getting at, Dr. Said, is, and you said this previously, one of the kind of belief limitations I have when talking to free society advocates is they say, but I think of myself as a tolerant person and therefore I don't know how to be intolerant to the other side.
00:28:46.000And I think you've articulated it perfectly, which is if you are, if you do not stand against the thing that wants to murder you and wants to kill you, then you will cease to exist and there will be no ideals of which you can rest your laurels on, right?
00:29:02.000I was just going to say, I mean, I recently have been really going after as a manifestation of lunacy and parasitic thinking, the queers for Palestine.
00:29:11.000And so I drew an analogy and I called it the geese for foie gras, right?
00:29:15.000I mean, think about how parasitized your mind must be to be queers for Palestine.
00:29:21.000If your foundational identity is to be a queer person, which is, hey, great, more power to you.
00:29:27.000Do you prefer to live in queer-friendly Tel Aviv or do you prefer to live in a place where they've got this really gravity-based conversion program where they take you to the top of the buildings and they introduce you to this beautiful liberating concept called gravity?
00:29:45.000So imagine how misdirected you must be if your foundational identity is your queerness and you're for queers for Palestine, which specifically abhors your identity.
00:30:18.000Well, you and I have one thing in common.
00:30:20.000I didn't escape anything except being from the communist state of Illinois, but I spent a lot of time on college campuses and I do also see what's coming.
00:30:26.000I see the rank and file and I try to warn people and it doesn't always, I'm not always believed, right?
00:30:33.000I'm like, hey, you realize five years ago, Dr. Said, I told a group of wealthy donors in Palm Beach that men can give birth will be a predominant viewpoint in the American government within a decade.
00:31:18.000So, so, so, so, but that, but more power to you, because what you are exhibiting there is what's called extrapolating to the boundary condition, right?
00:31:27.000If you basically say that, hey, your, your, your genitalia does not define your biological sex, then you easily can jump epistemologically to, of course, men can bear children, and of course, men can menstruate.
00:31:40.000So, kudos to you for being a sharp thinker.
00:31:42.000I really want to talk about your book, Dr. Saad.
00:31:44.000You've been so generous with your time, but I just have one final point on this that I want to is: I mentioned this earlier.
00:32:54.000Then, when he was going to serve a very minimal prison sentence and then be deported, the Norwegian man who was sodomized felt incredibly guilty and felt wrong that this guy was now going to be deported to Somalia where he would have a rough life.
00:33:12.000So, when your most basic foundational instincts of survival and your emotional system to seek revenge, to seek vindication, to right what's wrong is completely erased, we stand no chance.
00:33:47.000I now believe that a almost religious vision of utopia or ideology can trump reality.
00:33:54.000So, I have a Jewish woman who wrote to me.
00:33:57.000I talk about this in the parasitic mind.
00:33:58.000She wrote to me asking me, What is the view of Jews in Islam?
00:34:03.000So, I sent her a clip where an imam was saying, Oh, God, why are you mean to us?
00:34:07.000Why didn't you give us the chance to kill the Jews rather than give that glory to Hitler?
00:34:12.000She wrote back to me and said, You see, God, by sharing that clip, you're no different from those extremists.
00:34:18.000So, me telling a Jewish woman, answering her question, suggested that I was no different than the Islamic guy lamenting why he didn't have the pleasure of exterminating all Jews.
00:34:43.000As you know, following this week's horrible events, Israel is at war.
00:34:47.000The people of Israel are under attack from brutal terrorists, targeting innocent civilians, including women and children.
00:34:52.000There's over a thousand casualties, as well as kidnapping and infiltration of southern Israeli towns.
00:34:56.000Israel is now retaliating and could escalate with a ground offensive against Hamas militants.
00:35:01.000The situation is critical, which is why I'm partnering with our friends at the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews to rush emergency relief to the hardest hit areas.
00:35:08.000Call the special phone number 800-492-5454 to make an emergency donation.
00:35:16.000Your emergency gift will help the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews save lives and provide critical essentials needed right now.
00:35:23.000During this dark time, the need in war-torn areas will be tremendous.
00:35:26.000The fellowship has an extensive network of staff, partner organizations, and more.
00:35:30.000Immediately respond with life-saving security and support measures.
00:35:32.000We ask all people to pray for safety and protection.
00:35:35.000Call 800-235-887 as we rush urgent need right now to help Israel through the International Fellowship of Christian Jews.
00:35:44.000Dr. Saad, by the way, consider this an invite to come speak at America Fest.
00:36:27.000Number two, whenever I would post something on social media that was prescriptive in nature, where I'm giving people advice, that would be some of the stuff that I noticed would get most impact.
00:36:37.000People would write to me and say, Oh my God, when you told me to get off the couch, that changed my life.
00:37:12.000Choose the person that you wake up to in the morning and that you return to at the end of the night to that bed.
00:37:18.000Make sure that that choice is a good one.
00:37:20.000I would not be nearly the person that I am today if I didn't know that I had a very happy soulace at home, beautiful children, a fantastic supporting wife.
00:37:31.000I wouldn't be able to tackle the things that I do in life if I didn't have that.
00:37:35.000So, if anything else, there are certain ways by which we can try to maximize the likelihood of finding the right spouse.
00:38:52.000So, probably the greatest guest I've ever had on my show, that's saying a lot because I've had many incredible guests, is a gentleman that no one's heard of.
00:39:01.000He spent 29 years in prison for a crime that he was eventually exonerated of.
00:39:06.000And so, I was talking to him on the show, and I said, David, you must be Buddha.
00:39:10.000How is it that you are able to be filled with grace?
00:39:14.000You don't have any sense of vengefulness.
00:39:16.000You're a much better man than I am, David, because I would want to burn the world down because of the injustice that was done to me.
00:39:22.000So, here is his answer, which is filled with gratitude.
00:39:24.000He said, Well, you know, my sister has been stricken with cerebral palsy and she's been bedridden for many years, and yet she finds the ability to smile every day.
00:39:34.000So if she can smile, then really what I went through is not that bad.
00:39:38.000So even the guy who had 29 years stolen from him was able to have the mindset of gratitude.
00:39:45.000So of course, gratitude is terribly important in leading a good life.